Fives Times Jan and Hunter Totally Did It
Title: Fives Time Jan and Hunter Totally Did It
Fandom: The Office
Characters/Pairings: Jan/Hunter
Rating: R
Spoilers: Up to 4x09 - Dinner Party
Description: Pretty self-explanatory, no?
one. - West Virginia, May 1999
She finally allowed him his own glass of Jack and coke, not because she felt sorry for him, but because she was getting a headache from listening to his gasping sobs. If he had a drink, he would at least have to stop his wailing long enough to sip it.
"Why not?" she asked dryly. "My sister dipped her kids' pacifiers in gin, and they turned out…" She paused. "Well, I'm sure you'll be fine."
"We were soulmates," Hunter said insistently. He was curled up on the floor by her feet, halfway to a fetal position. "How could she do this to me?" Now she felt sorry for him. It was just too pathetic.
She made him a drink, heavy on the Jack, light on the coke. She wasn't trying to get him drunk, just tipsy enough so that he won't protest too much when she finally orders him home. She shouldn't have allowed him to come over in the first place, but it was Saturday night, her mother was out on the town (go figure, she flies down from New York for a visit and her own mother was too busy to see her), and he was looking so damn sad, sitting alone in his car, parked in the driveway and listening to "Nothing Compares 2 U" on repeat.
"I will never love again," Hunter sniffled. "Gloria was the one."
"You're sixteen," Jan replied. "There will be many, many ones for you." Especially with those chocolate puppy dog eyes and lean biceps. He's sixteen! some rational part of her exclaimed, while another reasoned, there's nothing wrong with looking.
As they drank, she was finally able to steer the conversation away from his teenage angst. They talked about nothing in particular. Hunter finished his drink and asked for another. By the time he finished that one, he was emboldened to make himself a third, and then to take a seat next to her on the couch.
"I think that's enough," she now said. "It's getting late. Your parents must be getting worried."
"My parents aren't home. They're gone for the weekend."
"Nonetheless. Maybe it's time we wrapped it up."
Hunter began tearing up again.
"That's exactly what Gloria said to me at the football game." His voice cracked as he spoke. "Then she started making out with Bobby Stachowski!"
Jan sighed and patted him on the back while he cried.
"Hunter," she said, but he couldn't hear her over the sound of his own stifled sobs. "Hunter," she tried again. "Hunter, please." She took his hand, and that finally got his attention.
"Look, Hunter, you want to know the truth? This sensitive bleeding-heart Romeo stuff is great - it really is. And a lot of girls love it. But it sounds like that's not the kind of thing that Gloria likes. Girls like Gloria are young and silly. They think they want some tough, macho man like the Marlboro Man on steroids," Jan said, speaking from a little too much experience.
"So you're saying that when they get older, they'll want sensitive guys like me?"
"Well…" Jan thought about it. "No. Not always. Some girls never grow out of it." Honesty was always the best policy, right? She expected him to start crying again, but he didn't. Instead, he sat up straight, and now there was a look in his eyes that she didn't quite identify.
"How about you?" He spoke in a tone that she'd never heard from him before.
"What about me?"
"Did you ever grow out of it?"
"I-" Now how did one answer that? "We're not talking about me, Hunter. We were talking about you and your relationship problems. So why don't you tell me-"
And that's when he kissed her. She could taste the whiskey on his tongue. His hand found its way to her neck. His fingers gently massaged the back of her neck as he pulled her closer to him. As she kissed him back, it occurred to her that he wasn’t nervous at all.
When she pulled back to look at him, she saw that he wasn't apprehensive or scared like she would have expected. Instead, there was a near-smile - a slight quirk at the corner of his lips that suggested confidence. Seduction, even. And she begun to wonder about him, about how much of tonight had been planned, about if there had ever been a Gloria at all.
"Okay?" he asked.
She thought about it. She thought about how wrong and inappropriate it all was. How he was sixteen and she thirty-two and married. Then she thought about his biceps. Then about her and Art being on their second separation. Then about Art's twenty-five year old secretary with the double-D's and low-cut shirts. Finally, back to Hunter’s biceps.
So she said, "Okay."
Later that night, Hunter called his best friend and said, "Dude, I totally did it with Mrs. Gould tonight."
He never talked about Gloria again.
+ + + + + + +
two. - West Virginia, September 1999
"You haven't been home in a year," Mrs. Levinson said to her daughter. "And now you're suddenly out here every other weekend."
Mrs. Levinson stood in the doorway of the guest room where her daughter slept, still in her black dress and high heels. Mrs. Levinson had a very busy social calendar. On this particular Saturday night, Jan was already in bed when she came home. She was reading and wearing a faded black t-shirt Mrs. Levinson had never seen before. It had a funny sort of logo, the word "Journey" emblazoned in fire-like gold.
"I'm sorry, mother," Jan said icily. She didn't take her eyes off her book. "I didn't realize that my presence here was such a bother."
"Don't be silly," her mother replied, but Jan noticed how she didn't actually deny the accusation. "How was your evening?"
"Fine," Jan said shortly.
"You know, dear, I would have stayed in, but I've been promising Mr. Feingold to have dinner with him for months. I would have been able to reschedule if you had let me known that you were coming."
"It's fine, mother."
"Mr. Feingold is quite a character. You'd like him. He's very accomplished. He's an excellent dancer too. And that man's libido-"
"Mother, please!"
"All right, all right," Mrs. Levinson took her cue to retreat. As she closed the door behind her, Jan could hear her mutter underneath her breath, "What a prude."
"You're totally not a prude," Jan's closet said.
"God forbid I don't want to discuss Mr. Feingold's libido with my mother," she grumbled.
"Perfectly understandable," her closet agreed amiably.
"What are you still doing in there?" The impatience was evident in her voice. The closet door creaked open, and Hunter stepped out, wearing nothing but a sheepish expression and a knee-length fur coat. "What is that?"
"I don't know. Mink?"
"I think it's actually rabbit. Why are you wearing it?"
"You took my shirt. I got cold in there."
"I can see that," Jan replied as her eyes drifted south.
"Hey," he protested mildly. He went to her, crawling on top as he shed the coat. "I'll warm up." She kissed him back. But when he sought to lift the edge of the covers to climb in, she pressed her hand against his shoulder, gently pushing him back.
"You should go," she said reluctantly.
He grinned, and his hand crept up underneath her shirt.
"Prude," he said.
And she just had to prove him wrong.
+ + + + + + +
three. - New York, November 2005
She had a business lunch downtown with a new client. She saw him the second she walked in the door. They'd locked eyes across the room. He froze, and nearly dropped the tray of appetizers he carted. She didn't react at all. She barely acknowledged him throughout the lunch, but left him a 25% tip.
She came back the next week, sat alone in the corner, and asked for him specifically. He lingered at her table, catching up on old times. When the manager came over and coughed, she gave him a couple hundred dollars to go away and to have Hunter seated at the table. It probably wasn't a good idea, but she was in a weird place at the time. The ink on her divorce papers were barely dry, and last week, she'd shared an awkward kiss with an employee in a Chilli's parking lot. Jan was doing a lot of strange things days. Catching up with an old acquaintance seemed like the least bizarre of them.
These were the things she found out: Hunter had graduated college with an English major and a psychology minor, so of course he couldn't find a job above busing tables or answering phones. He lived in a two-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn with four other guys, and played with his band on the weekends. He was single. He made sure to mention that.
She told him about her job. She told him about her divorce. Then, out of nowhere and perhaps by accident, about Michael, what little there was to tell.
"…and he kind of tasted like Awesome Blossom." She wondered if she was going too far, but he only smiled politely.
"Sounds… delicious."
"It was a little gross."
"But you kissed him again."
"It was gross, but it was good. I can't explain it."
"Then you went home with him."
"He came to my hotel. We just talked. He held me when I cried. I held him when he cried. Then we fell asleep." She felt compelled to add, "I was pretty drunk."
"Were you?" Hunter asked, more amused than accusing.
"This is weird," she said.
"I warned you not to get the artichoke dip. I told you, Ramon does this thing-"
"You did warn me, I don't want to know what Ramon did, and that's not what I was talking about," Jan said rapidly. "It’s weird that I’m telling you all this.”
"It's okay." Hunter shrugged indifferently. "I minored in psychology."
"Are you offering to be my therapist?" she teased. "Because I already have one. He charges me $250 an hour to tell me that I'm pissed off at my mother."
"I would tell you that for free."
"Maybe I'll fire him and hire you then."
"So are you going to see this Michael again?"
"No, absolutely not," she said quickly - too quickly. The denial was too vehement, and they both knew it. "Well, yes. Yes, but not in that way. We work together. He's my employee, I'm his boss… it just wouldn't be appropriate."
"That's never stopped you before." He no longer seemed amused. The mood had suddenly shifted without her permission. Like that night with Michael in the parking lot. One minute, things were casual and jovial, and in another, everything was different. It threw her.
"Well." She managed a tight-lipped smile. "I have to use the restroom. If you'll just excuse me…"
She beat a hasty retreat. In the bathroom, she set her purse on the sink, and stared at her reflection in the mirror. All she needed was a minute to regain her composure. That's all. Just a minute. It'd be fine. Another minute, and she'd control-
The door opened. Hunter stepped in, closed the door, and locked it.
"You shouldn't be in here," was the last thing she said before he made a rush for her. He pushed her up against the counter, his hungry mouth against hers. The faucet jammed into the small of her back, and she uttered a muffled cry. Mistaking it for protest, he pulled back.
"You have self-destructive impulses." His breath was hot and wet against her ear. "I think you should give in to them."
He encircled his arms around her waist. She felt his body tremble against hers, his erection pressing firmly into her. He kissed her, and she was lost - lost, in fumbling gropes and maddening kisses. She didn't even notice that he had successfully hiked up her skirt, looped his thumbs in the waistbands of her panties, and had slowly slid them further and further down.
"Okay?" he now asked.
"Okay," she affirmed.
And so she let him fuck her in the women's bathroom of an upscale New York bistro.
+ + + + + + +
four. - New York, May 2007
She took pity on him and gave him a job. He was two bounced checks away from becoming a personal escort. He'd already checked out Chippendale's, but they told him that he was too stringy. So he swallowed his dignity and went to work at Dunder-Mifflin.
He figured that there would be at least be perks of the after-hours drunken office sex variety, but that was not to be. It seemed that when Jan evaluated her relationship with Hunter, a twenty-three year-old boy who takes the subway and says "rad" and "totally" on a daily basis, her relationship with Michael Scott suddenly seemed dignified. She went to Jamaica, and when she came back, she avoided being in the same room alone with him even though he was her assistant. She still looked. He did look very good in a suit. But she kept their relationship professional, and after three failed passes at her, he did too. He didn't even comment on the picture of her and Michael in Jamaica.
But when Hunter started dating and his girlfriend started bringing him lunch at the office, Jan made him listen in on her conversations with Michael under the pretense of being a dutiful assistant. It was cruel. She couldn't help herself. Such was the unraveling of Jan Levinson.
Michael broke up with her. That hurt, being dumped by Michael Scott of all people. It was like volunteering to play with the slow kids in the gym class and still getting picked last for dodgeball. When she got back to New York, she went to the office, not being able to bear the thought of sitting alone in her apartment. Hunter was still there, tidying up her office. He stopped when he saw her. Neither said anything. There was simply a mutual recognition at first sight.
They locked her office door and fucked on her desk, half-clothed, exercising their repressed anger through the dull scratches of fingernail on skin and the rough thrusting of hips.
Afterwards, he asked her, "What about Mr. Scott?"
"What about your girlfriend?"
"I guess it's a little too late to be asking those questions."
"You're probably right." She was buttoning up her blouse and trying not to look at him.
"I'd leave her," Hunter said impulsively. "I'd totally leave her."
"Good for you," she replied.
"I mean, she listens to Chingy. I can't get serious with anyone who listens to Chingy."
"You listen to Journey."
"Totally not the same thing. Journey's rad."
She winced. He didn't notice, and continued on obliviously, "I wrote you a song."
"You what?"
"I wrote you a song. I put it in that top drawer. I was going to let you find it, but that was before we had this magical night." And the really sad part was that there wasn't a trace of irony in his voice. Jan opened the top drawer of her desk, and sure enough, there was his CD.
"The Hunted," she read off the cover.
"That's my band."
"I can see that. You're on the cover."
"My name's Hunter."
"Yes, I know."
"No, I mean that's why my band's called The Hunted. Because my name-"
"Yes, I know." She was suddenly getting a headache. "Hunter, Hunted. I get it. Very clever." He was quiet for a moment, and she couldn't be sure whether or not she had offended him. And if she did, would that really be a bad thing?
"Aren't you going to listen to it?"
"Maybe later." She began collecting her things. "I should be getting home."
"To Michael?"
"He's in Scranton." The tone of her voice should have been enough to tell him that she didn't want to discuss this any further. Unfortunately for Jan, she had a knack for picking out oblivious guys.
"Is he coming up?"
"No."
"Are you going to call him?"
"No, I don't think so."
"Are you going to see him?"
"Look, he broke up with me, okay? I got dumped. I was dumped by Michael Scott!" God, that was degrading to say. Degrading yet liberating.
"Oh," he said. "So now what?" She had been almost ready to leave. Her things were gathered. All she had to do was go to the door, unlock it, and step out. But she just sank back down in her seat.
"I don't know." She looked and felt completely defeated. "Michael's... Michael's all wrong for me. He's crass, he's boorish, he's... stupid. But still, I just... I don't know. I seek out men who are wrong for me in every single way, and then I wonder why it doesn't work out." Then she looked up and saw the expression on Hunter's face. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't be telling you this."
"I'm right for you," Hunter said, sounding only slightly wounded. And there it was again: chocolate puppy eyes, soft and vulnerable. God, he was going to guilt her to death with that look. Death by chocolate puppy eyes.
"I'm sorry," was all she could say.
+ + + + + + +
five. - Scranton, April 2008
She called him after Michael left.
"Hello?" His voice on the phone. In her mind's eye, she could see him as clear as the day she left New York City, escorted out of the building by security. That was a humiliating day. Since then, they'd only been in contact twice through brief phone calls. The first time for him to check up on her; the second time for her to check up on him after Ryan fired him. Both times, he had asked to see her. She said no.
Suddenly, she couldn't speak.
"Jan?" he asked. "Are you okay?"
She hung up. It wasn't fair. She turned to him like a wrecked ship seeking refuge every time her life spun out of control. It made her grounded, saner. But it wasn't fair to him. So she sat alone in the living room and tried to glue the Dundie back together, wishing that she could glue her life back together.
But three hours later, at two a.m., he was at her door.
"Dude, there are four Michael Scotts listed in Scranton, Pennsylvania," was the first thing he said. "Those three other Michael Scotts were really freaked out when I rang their doorbell."
"You shouldn't have come."
"You called me and hung up without saying anything. Then you wouldn't pick up when I called back. What was I supposed to do?"
"Not drive two-and-a-half hours to Scranton, Pennsylvania in the middle of the night?"
"I had to make sure that you were all right," Hunter said. "I thought maybe he'd hurt you."
"Michael?"
Hunter shrugged sheepishly.
"You never know. You know who else people thought was harmless? Hitler."
She stared at him blankly.
"There are so many things to respond to, I don't even know where to begin."
"Letting me come in would be a great first step," Hunter suggested. "He's not here, is he?"
"No," she answered, but didn't move aside. Michael was gone. It was all over, and she knew it. But it still felt wrong.
"I need to use the bathroom," Hunter said, sensing her hesitancy. "If you don't let me in, I'll have to piss in the bushes and kill your flowers."
In the end, she let him in, not because of the bushes or the roses, but because he'd made her smile. Michael used to do that.
They sat on the couch, ate the rest of the osso bucco, drank the rest of the wine, and talked. He looked at her eyes, not her chest, and barely commented on it save for a cheeky, "Well, you look a little different." At a quarter to four in the morning, they started making out.
Subsequently, they moved upstairs, and she allowed him to make love to her on the bed that used to be her and Michael's (but mostly hers), guilt-ridden but thrilled by feelings she had not experienced in a long time.
Afterwards, he was spooned against her, grazing his fingers against her bare shoulders, and he asked, "Okay?"
For the first time, she didn't know how to answer that.
Fandom: The Office
Characters/Pairings: Jan/Hunter
Rating: R
Spoilers: Up to 4x09 - Dinner Party
Description: Pretty self-explanatory, no?
one. - West Virginia, May 1999
She finally allowed him his own glass of Jack and coke, not because she felt sorry for him, but because she was getting a headache from listening to his gasping sobs. If he had a drink, he would at least have to stop his wailing long enough to sip it.
"Why not?" she asked dryly. "My sister dipped her kids' pacifiers in gin, and they turned out…" She paused. "Well, I'm sure you'll be fine."
"We were soulmates," Hunter said insistently. He was curled up on the floor by her feet, halfway to a fetal position. "How could she do this to me?" Now she felt sorry for him. It was just too pathetic.
She made him a drink, heavy on the Jack, light on the coke. She wasn't trying to get him drunk, just tipsy enough so that he won't protest too much when she finally orders him home. She shouldn't have allowed him to come over in the first place, but it was Saturday night, her mother was out on the town (go figure, she flies down from New York for a visit and her own mother was too busy to see her), and he was looking so damn sad, sitting alone in his car, parked in the driveway and listening to "Nothing Compares 2 U" on repeat.
"I will never love again," Hunter sniffled. "Gloria was the one."
"You're sixteen," Jan replied. "There will be many, many ones for you." Especially with those chocolate puppy dog eyes and lean biceps. He's sixteen! some rational part of her exclaimed, while another reasoned, there's nothing wrong with looking.
As they drank, she was finally able to steer the conversation away from his teenage angst. They talked about nothing in particular. Hunter finished his drink and asked for another. By the time he finished that one, he was emboldened to make himself a third, and then to take a seat next to her on the couch.
"I think that's enough," she now said. "It's getting late. Your parents must be getting worried."
"My parents aren't home. They're gone for the weekend."
"Nonetheless. Maybe it's time we wrapped it up."
Hunter began tearing up again.
"That's exactly what Gloria said to me at the football game." His voice cracked as he spoke. "Then she started making out with Bobby Stachowski!"
Jan sighed and patted him on the back while he cried.
"Hunter," she said, but he couldn't hear her over the sound of his own stifled sobs. "Hunter," she tried again. "Hunter, please." She took his hand, and that finally got his attention.
"Look, Hunter, you want to know the truth? This sensitive bleeding-heart Romeo stuff is great - it really is. And a lot of girls love it. But it sounds like that's not the kind of thing that Gloria likes. Girls like Gloria are young and silly. They think they want some tough, macho man like the Marlboro Man on steroids," Jan said, speaking from a little too much experience.
"So you're saying that when they get older, they'll want sensitive guys like me?"
"Well…" Jan thought about it. "No. Not always. Some girls never grow out of it." Honesty was always the best policy, right? She expected him to start crying again, but he didn't. Instead, he sat up straight, and now there was a look in his eyes that she didn't quite identify.
"How about you?" He spoke in a tone that she'd never heard from him before.
"What about me?"
"Did you ever grow out of it?"
"I-" Now how did one answer that? "We're not talking about me, Hunter. We were talking about you and your relationship problems. So why don't you tell me-"
And that's when he kissed her. She could taste the whiskey on his tongue. His hand found its way to her neck. His fingers gently massaged the back of her neck as he pulled her closer to him. As she kissed him back, it occurred to her that he wasn’t nervous at all.
When she pulled back to look at him, she saw that he wasn't apprehensive or scared like she would have expected. Instead, there was a near-smile - a slight quirk at the corner of his lips that suggested confidence. Seduction, even. And she begun to wonder about him, about how much of tonight had been planned, about if there had ever been a Gloria at all.
"Okay?" he asked.
She thought about it. She thought about how wrong and inappropriate it all was. How he was sixteen and she thirty-two and married. Then she thought about his biceps. Then about her and Art being on their second separation. Then about Art's twenty-five year old secretary with the double-D's and low-cut shirts. Finally, back to Hunter’s biceps.
So she said, "Okay."
Later that night, Hunter called his best friend and said, "Dude, I totally did it with Mrs. Gould tonight."
He never talked about Gloria again.
+ + + + + + +
two. - West Virginia, September 1999
"You haven't been home in a year," Mrs. Levinson said to her daughter. "And now you're suddenly out here every other weekend."
Mrs. Levinson stood in the doorway of the guest room where her daughter slept, still in her black dress and high heels. Mrs. Levinson had a very busy social calendar. On this particular Saturday night, Jan was already in bed when she came home. She was reading and wearing a faded black t-shirt Mrs. Levinson had never seen before. It had a funny sort of logo, the word "Journey" emblazoned in fire-like gold.
"I'm sorry, mother," Jan said icily. She didn't take her eyes off her book. "I didn't realize that my presence here was such a bother."
"Don't be silly," her mother replied, but Jan noticed how she didn't actually deny the accusation. "How was your evening?"
"Fine," Jan said shortly.
"You know, dear, I would have stayed in, but I've been promising Mr. Feingold to have dinner with him for months. I would have been able to reschedule if you had let me known that you were coming."
"It's fine, mother."
"Mr. Feingold is quite a character. You'd like him. He's very accomplished. He's an excellent dancer too. And that man's libido-"
"Mother, please!"
"All right, all right," Mrs. Levinson took her cue to retreat. As she closed the door behind her, Jan could hear her mutter underneath her breath, "What a prude."
"You're totally not a prude," Jan's closet said.
"God forbid I don't want to discuss Mr. Feingold's libido with my mother," she grumbled.
"Perfectly understandable," her closet agreed amiably.
"What are you still doing in there?" The impatience was evident in her voice. The closet door creaked open, and Hunter stepped out, wearing nothing but a sheepish expression and a knee-length fur coat. "What is that?"
"I don't know. Mink?"
"I think it's actually rabbit. Why are you wearing it?"
"You took my shirt. I got cold in there."
"I can see that," Jan replied as her eyes drifted south.
"Hey," he protested mildly. He went to her, crawling on top as he shed the coat. "I'll warm up." She kissed him back. But when he sought to lift the edge of the covers to climb in, she pressed her hand against his shoulder, gently pushing him back.
"You should go," she said reluctantly.
He grinned, and his hand crept up underneath her shirt.
"Prude," he said.
And she just had to prove him wrong.
+ + + + + + +
three. - New York, November 2005
She had a business lunch downtown with a new client. She saw him the second she walked in the door. They'd locked eyes across the room. He froze, and nearly dropped the tray of appetizers he carted. She didn't react at all. She barely acknowledged him throughout the lunch, but left him a 25% tip.
She came back the next week, sat alone in the corner, and asked for him specifically. He lingered at her table, catching up on old times. When the manager came over and coughed, she gave him a couple hundred dollars to go away and to have Hunter seated at the table. It probably wasn't a good idea, but she was in a weird place at the time. The ink on her divorce papers were barely dry, and last week, she'd shared an awkward kiss with an employee in a Chilli's parking lot. Jan was doing a lot of strange things days. Catching up with an old acquaintance seemed like the least bizarre of them.
These were the things she found out: Hunter had graduated college with an English major and a psychology minor, so of course he couldn't find a job above busing tables or answering phones. He lived in a two-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn with four other guys, and played with his band on the weekends. He was single. He made sure to mention that.
She told him about her job. She told him about her divorce. Then, out of nowhere and perhaps by accident, about Michael, what little there was to tell.
"…and he kind of tasted like Awesome Blossom." She wondered if she was going too far, but he only smiled politely.
"Sounds… delicious."
"It was a little gross."
"But you kissed him again."
"It was gross, but it was good. I can't explain it."
"Then you went home with him."
"He came to my hotel. We just talked. He held me when I cried. I held him when he cried. Then we fell asleep." She felt compelled to add, "I was pretty drunk."
"Were you?" Hunter asked, more amused than accusing.
"This is weird," she said.
"I warned you not to get the artichoke dip. I told you, Ramon does this thing-"
"You did warn me, I don't want to know what Ramon did, and that's not what I was talking about," Jan said rapidly. "It’s weird that I’m telling you all this.”
"It's okay." Hunter shrugged indifferently. "I minored in psychology."
"Are you offering to be my therapist?" she teased. "Because I already have one. He charges me $250 an hour to tell me that I'm pissed off at my mother."
"I would tell you that for free."
"Maybe I'll fire him and hire you then."
"So are you going to see this Michael again?"
"No, absolutely not," she said quickly - too quickly. The denial was too vehement, and they both knew it. "Well, yes. Yes, but not in that way. We work together. He's my employee, I'm his boss… it just wouldn't be appropriate."
"That's never stopped you before." He no longer seemed amused. The mood had suddenly shifted without her permission. Like that night with Michael in the parking lot. One minute, things were casual and jovial, and in another, everything was different. It threw her.
"Well." She managed a tight-lipped smile. "I have to use the restroom. If you'll just excuse me…"
She beat a hasty retreat. In the bathroom, she set her purse on the sink, and stared at her reflection in the mirror. All she needed was a minute to regain her composure. That's all. Just a minute. It'd be fine. Another minute, and she'd control-
The door opened. Hunter stepped in, closed the door, and locked it.
"You shouldn't be in here," was the last thing she said before he made a rush for her. He pushed her up against the counter, his hungry mouth against hers. The faucet jammed into the small of her back, and she uttered a muffled cry. Mistaking it for protest, he pulled back.
"You have self-destructive impulses." His breath was hot and wet against her ear. "I think you should give in to them."
He encircled his arms around her waist. She felt his body tremble against hers, his erection pressing firmly into her. He kissed her, and she was lost - lost, in fumbling gropes and maddening kisses. She didn't even notice that he had successfully hiked up her skirt, looped his thumbs in the waistbands of her panties, and had slowly slid them further and further down.
"Okay?" he now asked.
"Okay," she affirmed.
And so she let him fuck her in the women's bathroom of an upscale New York bistro.
+ + + + + + +
four. - New York, May 2007
She took pity on him and gave him a job. He was two bounced checks away from becoming a personal escort. He'd already checked out Chippendale's, but they told him that he was too stringy. So he swallowed his dignity and went to work at Dunder-Mifflin.
He figured that there would be at least be perks of the after-hours drunken office sex variety, but that was not to be. It seemed that when Jan evaluated her relationship with Hunter, a twenty-three year-old boy who takes the subway and says "rad" and "totally" on a daily basis, her relationship with Michael Scott suddenly seemed dignified. She went to Jamaica, and when she came back, she avoided being in the same room alone with him even though he was her assistant. She still looked. He did look very good in a suit. But she kept their relationship professional, and after three failed passes at her, he did too. He didn't even comment on the picture of her and Michael in Jamaica.
But when Hunter started dating and his girlfriend started bringing him lunch at the office, Jan made him listen in on her conversations with Michael under the pretense of being a dutiful assistant. It was cruel. She couldn't help herself. Such was the unraveling of Jan Levinson.
Michael broke up with her. That hurt, being dumped by Michael Scott of all people. It was like volunteering to play with the slow kids in the gym class and still getting picked last for dodgeball. When she got back to New York, she went to the office, not being able to bear the thought of sitting alone in her apartment. Hunter was still there, tidying up her office. He stopped when he saw her. Neither said anything. There was simply a mutual recognition at first sight.
They locked her office door and fucked on her desk, half-clothed, exercising their repressed anger through the dull scratches of fingernail on skin and the rough thrusting of hips.
Afterwards, he asked her, "What about Mr. Scott?"
"What about your girlfriend?"
"I guess it's a little too late to be asking those questions."
"You're probably right." She was buttoning up her blouse and trying not to look at him.
"I'd leave her," Hunter said impulsively. "I'd totally leave her."
"Good for you," she replied.
"I mean, she listens to Chingy. I can't get serious with anyone who listens to Chingy."
"You listen to Journey."
"Totally not the same thing. Journey's rad."
She winced. He didn't notice, and continued on obliviously, "I wrote you a song."
"You what?"
"I wrote you a song. I put it in that top drawer. I was going to let you find it, but that was before we had this magical night." And the really sad part was that there wasn't a trace of irony in his voice. Jan opened the top drawer of her desk, and sure enough, there was his CD.
"The Hunted," she read off the cover.
"That's my band."
"I can see that. You're on the cover."
"My name's Hunter."
"Yes, I know."
"No, I mean that's why my band's called The Hunted. Because my name-"
"Yes, I know." She was suddenly getting a headache. "Hunter, Hunted. I get it. Very clever." He was quiet for a moment, and she couldn't be sure whether or not she had offended him. And if she did, would that really be a bad thing?
"Aren't you going to listen to it?"
"Maybe later." She began collecting her things. "I should be getting home."
"To Michael?"
"He's in Scranton." The tone of her voice should have been enough to tell him that she didn't want to discuss this any further. Unfortunately for Jan, she had a knack for picking out oblivious guys.
"Is he coming up?"
"No."
"Are you going to call him?"
"No, I don't think so."
"Are you going to see him?"
"Look, he broke up with me, okay? I got dumped. I was dumped by Michael Scott!" God, that was degrading to say. Degrading yet liberating.
"Oh," he said. "So now what?" She had been almost ready to leave. Her things were gathered. All she had to do was go to the door, unlock it, and step out. But she just sank back down in her seat.
"I don't know." She looked and felt completely defeated. "Michael's... Michael's all wrong for me. He's crass, he's boorish, he's... stupid. But still, I just... I don't know. I seek out men who are wrong for me in every single way, and then I wonder why it doesn't work out." Then she looked up and saw the expression on Hunter's face. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't be telling you this."
"I'm right for you," Hunter said, sounding only slightly wounded. And there it was again: chocolate puppy eyes, soft and vulnerable. God, he was going to guilt her to death with that look. Death by chocolate puppy eyes.
"I'm sorry," was all she could say.
+ + + + + + +
five. - Scranton, April 2008
She called him after Michael left.
"Hello?" His voice on the phone. In her mind's eye, she could see him as clear as the day she left New York City, escorted out of the building by security. That was a humiliating day. Since then, they'd only been in contact twice through brief phone calls. The first time for him to check up on her; the second time for her to check up on him after Ryan fired him. Both times, he had asked to see her. She said no.
Suddenly, she couldn't speak.
"Jan?" he asked. "Are you okay?"
She hung up. It wasn't fair. She turned to him like a wrecked ship seeking refuge every time her life spun out of control. It made her grounded, saner. But it wasn't fair to him. So she sat alone in the living room and tried to glue the Dundie back together, wishing that she could glue her life back together.
But three hours later, at two a.m., he was at her door.
"Dude, there are four Michael Scotts listed in Scranton, Pennsylvania," was the first thing he said. "Those three other Michael Scotts were really freaked out when I rang their doorbell."
"You shouldn't have come."
"You called me and hung up without saying anything. Then you wouldn't pick up when I called back. What was I supposed to do?"
"Not drive two-and-a-half hours to Scranton, Pennsylvania in the middle of the night?"
"I had to make sure that you were all right," Hunter said. "I thought maybe he'd hurt you."
"Michael?"
Hunter shrugged sheepishly.
"You never know. You know who else people thought was harmless? Hitler."
She stared at him blankly.
"There are so many things to respond to, I don't even know where to begin."
"Letting me come in would be a great first step," Hunter suggested. "He's not here, is he?"
"No," she answered, but didn't move aside. Michael was gone. It was all over, and she knew it. But it still felt wrong.
"I need to use the bathroom," Hunter said, sensing her hesitancy. "If you don't let me in, I'll have to piss in the bushes and kill your flowers."
In the end, she let him in, not because of the bushes or the roses, but because he'd made her smile. Michael used to do that.
They sat on the couch, ate the rest of the osso bucco, drank the rest of the wine, and talked. He looked at her eyes, not her chest, and barely commented on it save for a cheeky, "Well, you look a little different." At a quarter to four in the morning, they started making out.
Subsequently, they moved upstairs, and she allowed him to make love to her on the bed that used to be her and Michael's (but mostly hers), guilt-ridden but thrilled by feelings she had not experienced in a long time.
Afterwards, he was spooned against her, grazing his fingers against her bare shoulders, and he asked, "Okay?"
For the first time, she didn't know how to answer that.