*

like a bird on the wire

like a drunk in a midnight choir

i have tried, in my way, to be free.

(-leonard cohen)


*


Bird on the Wire
a fanfic for The Office

by louisalorin


*


Art Show Tonight.

Pam makes lots of copies of that blue flyer. More than enough for everyone in the office. She hangs them in the kitchen, hands them out in the break room or by the copy machine, anywhere she can pull an employee aside for a few seconds and beseech them to come.

"It'll be fun," Jim overhears her tell Kevin mid-morning as he lingers in front of the vending machines, deciding on a snack. "Just the students from my class, but there's gonna be some really good stuff. I'm showing my watercolors," she adds modestly.

"Oh. Well, Stacy's out of town tonight. I have to watch Abby."

"Sure, of course." He turns to go. "Say hi to Abby for me, okay?"

"Okay, but I doubt she'll remember you."

"Right." Jim doesn't have to see Pam's face to know, by heart, the slight way the corners of her mouth have fallen.

So yeah. Everyone gets a flyer, Karen too. Jim watches the two of them chat with false brightness at the water cooler and then slides his eyes downward to stare at his hands, laying big and awkward on the desk.

His flyer, though, is delivered in a wholly different manner. Sometime after 2 pm he feels a light jab in his back, too fine a point to be anything other than paper.

Sure enough, he looks down at the floor to see a blue paper airplane. Folded with ladylike precision, bearing a sharpie-drawn smiley face on its left wing.

Jim picks it up, unfolds it. Art Show Tonight.

For a while there he wondered if she was even going to invite him. There is no reason for her not to: she is back with Roy, after all, and he's perfectly and utterly content in his choice of girlfriend – ecstatic is the best word for it, really – so there should be no lingering awkwardness.

Yet the minutes ticked by after she handed the first flyer to Oscar, and then the hours. So yeah, he started to wonder. Jim finds it much more difficult to gauge her moods nowadays – he doesn't have eyes in the back of his head, after all.

But now he is holding the flyer in his hand. Proof that she wants him there. And she tossed it at his back, in airplane form, for the whole office to see.

He rotates forty-five degrees in his desk chair. There she is, sitting at reception, smiling at her computer screen. Just waiting for him to turn around.

It fills him again sometimes, just like that. Whisper-soft.


*


But they had a good day, you know?

Fooling Dwight into thinking he might be a vampire? That definitely falls among Jim's more ambitious pranks. And sure, Karen is a bit of a novice, but in the end she pulled her weight.

"So what are we doing tonight?" asks the woman herself, eyebrows lifting in that pretty, confident way intended to remind him that they are an inseparable unit.

Behind him, he hears Pam shift in her chair, and thinks of watercolors.

"I don't know," he mutters. "I was maybe gonna play it by ear."

"Well," Karen says, perching on the edge of his desk. He sees her glance fleetingly toward reception, smile never faltering. "I just rented a whole stack of movies I have to get through before the weekend's over. We could order pizzas, pop popcorn?"

Jim nods, in a way he hopes isn't too terse. "Yeah, that's sounds good."

"Awesome. So you'll meet me at my place?"

"Definitely."

She squeezes his shoulder, then strolls away.

"Hey," Pam says softly from behind him, to someone who has just walked in. He doesn't need to turn around: it's her Roy Voice.

"Hey, babe. Can't wait for your show tonight."

"Yeah?" Jim can hear the shy smile in her voice.

"It starts at 5:30, right?"

"Yeah. 5:30."

The half-folded paper airplane still sits on Jim's desk; he picks it up and drops it in the recycle bin by his feet.

Actually? That simplifies things quite nicely.


*


Watercolors. That's what he thinks about as he raps with two knuckles on Karen's front door, three hours later.

It's not like he means to have watercolors on the brain. But as he walked the two blocks between his place and Karen's the whole world started to brighten and to blur, looking oddly like a painting, and someone has to actually paint the painting, right? Paintings don't just appear.

Jim pushes these thoughts away. Just in time, too, for Karen to swing the front door open and greet him with a little smile. Wearing jeans, which she always looks good in.

"You made it!"

"With popcorn, as promised."

Her smile grows. It's always the little things with Karen, he thinks to himself.

"Come on inside, I've got it all ready to go."

"So what exactly are we watching?" He steps in from the hallway and his eyes fall on the TV screen, which is displaying a familiar DVD menu. "Come on. 'The Incredibles'?"

"Shut up!" She hits him lightly on the shoulder. "I've never seen it before and I've been wanting to for like five years now."

"That shows amazing foresight, since it only came out three years ago."

"Well." Karen squints her eyes at him, cutely. "You're a big fat nerd for knowing that."

"'Big fat nerd'? How mature."

"I'll make this," she says, grabbing the popcorn out of his hand. "You sit down."

Jim does so, with a smile.


*


Besides being beautiful and intelligent, Karen is by far the most sexually enthusiastic girlfriend Jim has ever had. Which explains why he came over tonight fully expecting not to actually watch the movie at all - certainly not after the first half hour or so.

They last a little longer than that tonight. Once forty five minutes have elapsed, however, Karen is shifting restlessly against his shoulder, her warm hand drifting down his thigh under the blanket. He chuckles softly.

"What?" she asks, wrinkling her nose in a smile.

"I thought you wanted to watch this."

"I do," she says. "I am watching."

He smiles. "Okay then."

She lays still against his shoulder, but her fingers continue to dance over the rough denim of his jeans. It's hard to ignore, especially when they sweep up particularly close to his crotch.

"Okay then," he says again, exhaling through his nose, making her smile this time.

He lets his legs fall open a bit. Slowly, teasingly, she begins undoing the button fly.

"I don't know if I--" he starts, then breaks off.

Karen looks at him curiously. "Don't know if you what?"

"C'mere," Jim mutters, in lieu of an answer. Abandoning the pretense of watching the movie altogether, he drags her up into his lap, and kisses her. More fiercely than usual.

Karen takes to this new position well. She straddles his lap snugly, slides her arms up over his shoulders, kisses him back with slow and measured arousal.

Jim feels itchy. With impatience, with distraction, with something else. He breaks off the kiss to scoot backward on the couch, freeing up more room for his hands to work at her lap. Karen bites her lip over a smile as he works her fly open, tugging the jeans partway down her thighs, fingers feeling big and awkward like before.

"Wow," she sighs, as he slips one hand inside her panties and slowly strokes the warm wetness hidden there. Usually he prefers a bit more preliminary action than this, but if Karen has noticed the difference - well, she isn't saying anything. Instead she gasps as he slides two fingers all the way inside her, a bit roughly, then curls them upward to stroke that magic spot.

As usual, Karen is quick to reach the edge. Her long hair falls forward, more and more of it as she breathes heavily, shifting in his lap. With her face hidden like that, he thinks, somewhere in the back of his mind, she could be anyone.

Over her shoulder, on the wall: a painting. A watercolor.

Jim speeds up his fingers, circling her swollen clit with a skill she seems to appreciate, judging by the noises she's making. He’s rock hard inside his jeans.

"God," Karen murmurs, her breath catching - and then she squeezes his hand in hers as her cunt pulses around his fingers. "Oh. My. God."

She collapses against his chest then, a spent heap. He cuts his eyes away from the painting behind her. "Hey. Let's move to the bedroom, okay?"

Karen nods dreamily, and takes his hand again.


*


Jim keeps his eyes shut for the most part as they move against each other on Karen's bed. It’s enough to feel the feminine softness against him, the texture of hair and skin - and the wet, giving warmth of her sex as he works himself inside her.

“Yeah,” Karen murmurs when he’s in as deep as he can go. He wants to shush her for some reason, but of course he can't.

It doesn’t take long for Jim. But then, he doesn’t intend for it to. Once Karen is arching her back beneath him and gripping his shoulders and trembling in release, he empties himself inside her, tucking his head in the crook of her neck and shutting his eyes even tighter than before.

He thinks he hears Karen whisper, “Love you.” But it’s under her breath, not meant for his ears.

Jim rolls to the side, head on the next pillow. Spent, but he still feels restless. The quiet settles around them.

“Want anything?” he asks her after a minute or so, hoisting himself up. “I’m gonna grab a glass of water.”

Karen smiles languidly, genuinely touched. “No, but thanks for asking."

Jim smiles back, pulling on his boxers. “It’s the little things with you, huh?”

She shrugs. “I take what I can get.”

And it sort of feels like a knife to his heart.

In the silence of the kitchen, Jim paces. Scratches the back of his neck. The movie, which they muted but didn’t turn off, flashes bright animated colors through the doorway.

He goes back to the bedroom, forgetting entirely about the glass of water.

Karen’s lying on her stomach, head on her arms, face turned toward him. Her back, elegantly tapered, narrows and disappears under the sheet.

“I just remembered, I promised Mark I would clean the kitchen tonight when I got home.”

“Ah,” she says neutrally, watching him hunt for his shirt.

“Yeah. He’s done it the last few times, so it’s only fair.”

And if she knows he’s lying, she doesn’t say anything.


*


The walk home is quick. But Jim doesn’t go inside to clean the kitchen; he jumps right in his car instead. Headed for the community college. Art Show Tonight.

Suddenly, inexplicably, he is certain that hardly anyone from the office showed up.

The school is shut and locked by the time he gets there. He parks anyway, steps out into the empty lot and leans against the side of his car. Tucks his chin to his chest, looks down at the ground.

The night is cold, and dark. Too dark to be a painting.


*


End.