Matriarch
Chapter Four
Jolie
Jolie Bennett flipped the pages of the magazine restlessly, barely taking note of the blue-eyed, blonde-haired, flat-bellied, bullet-breasted Brittany Spears clones that seemed to adorn nearly every other page, extolling the virtues of this blusher, or that feminine hygiene product, or the latest technique for achieving the orgasm of the millennium. She finally tossed the magazine aside with an impatient sigh, and looked up for the tenth time at the oblong slice of crystalline quartz on the wall behind Erica Galloway’s desk. The hands were positioned where the two and the four would have been, had the very expensive-looking clock had numbers on its face.
Ten after four...where the fuck IS she?
Jolie stood abruptly, tugging her short, faded-denim skirt down over her thighs. She turned toward the door, and was just stepping toward it as it flew open, and Erica Galloway breezed into the room.
“God, I’m sorry to keep you waiting like this, Jolie...it’s just pandemonium around here today, sweetie...”
The woman crossed the expanse of pearl-gray carpet in three business-like strides, her long, devastatingly shapely legs working beneath a skirt nearly as abbreviated as Jolie’s own. Jolie stared enviously at Erica Galloway’s gams, wishing for the dozenth time that the leg-gene Jinn had given her a little more of what Erica had. She’d gladly swap some of the bountiful dose of tit chromosome that she had been endowed with for it; though she had to admit that it got the guys’ attention...and the girls sometimes, too.
Erica Galloway dropped the armload of manila folders on her desk with a mock-moan, and settled herself in her chair, immediately diving in, shuffling and arranging the blizzard of papers and folders on her desk. Jolie sat quietly, waiting patiently as Erica attempted to bring some sort of order to the chaos spread out before her.
Erica Galloway looked to be in her late twenties, but had the sort of complexion that would keep her looking that age well into her forties, if she took proper care of it, which she obviously did. Her short, reddish-brown hair was carefully clipped to give it that casually haphazard, just-ran-my-hands-through-it-out-of-the-shower look—you know, the one that cost sixty-five dollars to achieve. That one.
She was dressed very simply, in a plain oxford cloth shirt of pale saffron, open at the throat, and the burgundy mini and matching Bruno Magli’s with three-inch heels. Her hands were well cared for as well, her short nails painted with a coat of clear polish. The epitome of the modern female executive—cool, intelligent, aggressive, ambitious, on her way up the corporate ladder, with a bullet.
Except for that beauty spot.
Jolie’s eyes were drawn inexorably to it, as they always were with Erica. Nearly a quarter of an inch in diameter, it was impossible NOT to be drawn to it. Jolie had never quite been able to satisfy herself as to whether it was natural, or an affectation. It was perfectly round, and seemed to change color from time to time, almost as if she color-coordinated it with her mood, or her outfit. But that could have been caused by a trick of the light, or she might color it in some fashion. Whatever, it served what she was certain was its owner’s purposes perfectly—to draw attention to her mouth.
Erica Galloway’s mouth was the crown jewel of her face—of her entire persona, one could almost say. Full-lipped and astonishingly sensuous, the upper just so slightly larger than the lower, that Michelle Pfeiffer look that made men long for it to be wrapped around their members, and women want it to...well, just want it. She used a very pale, understated color on her lips, which only seemed to make them even more noticeable, more desirable. If that were possible.
Jolie wanted to kiss it, as she always did within ninety seconds of seeing Erica. She tugged nervously at her skirt again, to give her hands something to do other than snatch the woman’s glasses from her face and crush that mouth under her own.
“So, how’s everything going with Jolie? You’re a college grad now, I hear ...congratulations! Heard anything about that Pell grant yet? And are you still planning on going to Cambridge this fall?” Erica looked up over the half-frame reading glasses perched precariously on the button of her nose, smiling blandly, impersonally.
Jolie shrugged ambiguously. “Ok, thanks...Yeah, looks like I got a grant sewed up for the first year anyway, if I want it. Dunno if I’m gonna take it or not, though. I really wanted that Rhodes...Know who they gave it to?”
Erica shook her head, smiling politely.
“Some guy from Georgia Tech...his GRE was nearly fifty points lower than mine. Assholes...oh well, he’ll probably end up being President of the United States twenty years from now. He’s a basketball player...think if I’d been cheerleader they might have chosen me instead, Erica?” Jolie fluttered her pale eyelashes daffily, then snorted in disgust.
“Anyway, I’m thinking of going walkabout for a semester. I’ve been going to school ever since I can remember...I can’t remember ever doing anything else. I might take some time, do something different, make a little scratch, blow out my tubes for a while, y’know?”
Erica Galloway made a little commiserative moue with that criminal mouth of hers, then smiled warmly again at the girl. “You know, if you’re serious, we want you right here, right now, Jolie...Bea has a standing order in with me, if you so much as hint at wanting to come to work with us that I’m to put you on immediately, before you can change your mind.”
Jolie smiled. “Thanks Erica, I appreciate it...how’re the perks here, by the way?”
Erica smiled enigmatically, then removed her reading glasses, and placed them carefully to one side.
“That friend of yours looks rather interesting,” she said quietly.
“Van? Yeah, isn’t she hot? I met her in a comparative lit class my junior year...she was auditing, and I was friggin’ swamped that term, and I’d fallen waaaay far behind and well...so, I slipped in to lecture late one day and just ducked into the seat next to hers...she always sat at the very back, y’know, like she’d done that front row, hand-in-the-instructor’s-face-all-day, lookit my tits thing already...anyway, I was way far behind, like I said, on the edge, and I mean the ragged edge of snagging my first ‘B’ ever in my entire life, and she noticed, and offered to help catch me up, give me her notes and things. And her notes...my God, they were like finished things, you know? Like stuff ready for publication, and these were just NOTES for chrissake, in a lousy twentieth century lit class. That she’s auditing! So, one thing led to another, and we started hanging together a bit, going to lectures, and the odd movie and lunch now and again...” Jolie trailed off, a bit abashed by her effusiveness in re her friend.
“Sounds like a very interesting woman,” Erica Galloway mused thoughtfully. “Not many thirty-year olds go back to university for the sheer pulse-pounding excitement of it these days, do they? She’s married, isn’t she, Jolie?”
“Yeah, and has two little kids...adorable little buggers, too. Just like their mom. I swear though, I can’t imagine what made her give up her writing to be a housewife, for pete’s sake...she’s a genius IQ, a Mensa candidate for sure, I can tell...but she just laughs when I ask her about it, and jokes about how she can manage to balance her checkbook and write out a grocery list when she’s on top of her game.
“Did I mention that she’s left-handed, too?” Jolie smiled innocently.
Erica laughed now, and rose from her chair, coming around the desk and taking a position just behind Jolie, resting her hand lightly on the girl’s shoulder.
“You like her a lot, don’t you, Jolie darling?”
Jolie smiled smugly to herself as the woman’s fingers traced a delicate line over her collar bone, then slipped beneath her t-shirt, finding the ripe swell of her tender breast, dragging her nails slowly down over the left one—the sensitive one, Jolie always called it. She dragged her nails maddeningly over the side of her breast, slipping a finger into the slightly damp warmth in the fold of her armpit, then pinched her pec between her thumb and the finger, hard enough to make Jolie wince a little. Then the fingers wandered apparently aimlessly over the plump curve, and up toward the summit of her tit, stopping at her unencumbered nipple, and flicking at it teasingly with a nail.
Jolie settled a little more comfortably into the chair, twisting her hips into the soft leather, feeling that slow, syrupy warmth starting to flow sluggishly just beneath her skin; she marveled again at how such a cool-looking little item as Erica Galloway could get her motor racing so easily, so quickly. But then, it didn’t really seem to take so very much to spin her propeller these days—she half-imagined that it had something to do with the conclusion of her collegiate career, that sort of at-loose-ends feeling that she had. And of course Van; there was always Van to consider, tugging at the corners of her consciousness when she turned out the light at night, just before sleep ambushed her, dragging her away to her increasingly randy dreams. Her breath caught just a little as Erica squeezed her nipple suggestively, then twisted it gently, familiarly, drawing a little rush of blood into it; then trapping it there with another, firmer pinch, twisting the now-swollen bud again—the ‘can’t miss’ wake up call for Jolie Bennett. She felt that old familiar stab lace through her body, from just beneath her nipple down to her clit, with a short side trip to her heart. She sighed again, more audibly, as she felt her cotton panties moistening.
I really should remember to throw a spare in my bag when I come here, she thought to herself, a suggestive smile slowly spreading across her rapidly flushing face.
“Do you like her as much as me?” Erica lowered that lethal mouth to Jolie’s, brushing it lightly with those lips. Jolie gave a little sigh, closing her eyes. The last thing that she saw was that almost obscene, nearly luminescent beauty mark, hovering just above her...
“You provocative little bitch...” Erica Galloway breathed, just before capturing Jolie’s lips with her own.
Then there was a stinging stab in Jolie’s right thigh, and the lights went out.