Reconnecting 11

Told from both a male and female viewpoint. The male perspective is from me, the female from my Scandinavian friend, Paula, who's idea this story was. Enjoy and, of course, vote, and feedback always greatly appreciated.

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"Damn it, Bill -- just admit it. You've been a corporate whore for the last ten years! You know what you're selling does

nothing,

it's just pablum to make the customer feel good,

and

you charge a small fortune for it."

It was an argument we had at every conference; as far as I was concerned, Bill had turned into a corporate whore -- taking money and telling customers he was doing something, but the only thing of 'value' that he was doing was fleecing their bankbooks. It did not matter that we had studied the same courses at the same university; when we graduated, he had immediately gone into the business world while I'd continued on to a yet higher education.

"Bullshit! We're selling what the industry standard is, it's what

everybody

has been doing for years."

"Oh, come off it, look at the

science!

You know damn good and well that the science has moved on, and the majority of the customers are depending on

you

to certify that what they're doing is the right thing. You are not telling them the truth. You are just shirking your responsibility and pointing fingers at "what everybody has always done" as an excuse to take them to the bank. Admit it; you are nothing but a snake oil salesman, getting them to give you money for absolutely nothing. Just how much of

your

bonus last year was based on selling something absolutely worthless to the unknowing? People depending on

you

to tell them the truth, to tell them they're golden, that they've done everything possible to make sure it will work forever, while the only thing gold is the money going into your pocket?"

I stopped and held the door for my friend to the restaurant next door to our hotel, and he stepped in before me. The argument was just a continuation of one that we'd had before, one that I knew I wasn't going to win, but one that I hoped we'd not have for too many more years or conferences. That our company had a "better mouse trap," and had repeatedly proven we had a better mouse trap, wasn't the question. The "industry standards" excuse allowed his company to continue to sell a mouse trap that did not work. Their premise was that when the standards were made 50 or 70 years before, "it was the only thing available," so it was perfectly fine to repeat the same half-a-century old lies. Perhaps they were misconceptions when they were written, but once they were exposed as worthless, then they became a lie. That didn't hold water with me. Times had changed, technology had changed, and his company continued to unethically fleece customers, in my opinion. Of course, we would be glad to license what we did to Bill and his company; license what we knew and

had proven

to them, but instead they thought we should tell them and the world about our intellectual property

for free

so that everyone could compete with us. Quite a quandary. Because we wouldn't tell, they could not do what we could. Because they couldn't do what we could, they thought the status quo should remain.

"Don't give me that, Steve. All you have to do is...." My mind drifted off and I didn't hear his repetitive arguments as my eyes had stumbled across a familiar shape in the restaurant. Seated by herself, her back to the door, it had been a fleeting recognition. The shape of her head and neck, the haircut, all so similar to my memory, but I couldn't be certain it was her. But, even after 20 years, I could not stop the momentary increase in my heart rate.

My mind jumped back nearly two decades to the last time I had seen her. All that was visible now was the back of her head, a bit of her neck, and the top of her shoulders. My eyes moved again to Bill's back, making sure I didn't bump into him while he followed the waitress as she led us to a table. Turning around I glanced back at the woman in the booth by herself and, this time, my heart leapt into my throat.

I had not been positively sure when I'd first seen her, but had immediately wondered "what if?" I don't know why she had immediately come to mind, with so little of her visible, what was it that had made me instantly know it was her? Now, as my eyes found the cute nose, the high cheekbones, the mesmerizing smile, the red lips that had been part of my fantasy of her so long ago, my eyes went wide with recognition.

She hadn't looked up, hadn't seen me to recognize me. Would she? When her eyes finally arose to see me, would her reactions be as mine had been? "Bill!" I said, reaching out and touching his elbow, "go ahead and get started, but uhm... I see an old friend that I haven't seen in probably 20 years. I'm going to go say hello, so if I don't come back, just go ahead and order without me."

"What? Who's that?" Bill said, turning and following my gaze to the table on the far side. The woman was not paying any attention to anyone else in the restaurant, instead looking down and reading something in front of her. "Her? Oh yeah, she's uhmmm... Damn, I can't think of her name. I think she's speaking tomorrow. How do you know her?"

"Tina. She was a guest lecturer at the University, back when I was still teaching. We shared an office." I touched his arm dismissively, "I'm going to go say hello, so don't wait for me."

"Yeah, Tina -- that's it. Damn, she's a hottie! I don't blame you. Will we see you for breakfast?" He laughed at his jibe.

"Yeah, pretty sure of that, she's married," I laughed and turned away. Starting across the restaurant, moving towards her, memories of that one semester flooded into my mind.

~

The attraction had been mutual, of that I was sure. It is hard not to be attracted to someone you're working with day in and day out, especially when you're sharing an office space, and spending more time with her than with your spouse.

I have a tendency to downplay how attractive a woman is when I first meet her. Is she attractive? Yes, but I've never met her before. How does she compare to those beauties that I do know? Gradually I admit she's gorgeous, but I'm probably thinking that just because she's not mine. Yes, she's got a hot body, but when you've got a hot body at home that loves you and shares herself with you -- you want to ignore the attraction. Yes, she has a pretty face, nice tits, nice ass -- but those thoughts are always dismissed initially. And then, over time, you realize that she really is quite pretty, quite attractive, quite sexy, and even though you're attached to someone else, you know you're strongly attracted to her.

And, when the visiting lecturer was as pretty and sexy as Tina was, and is, I had been tempted to more than make a pass at her.

We were both married, but it had not stopped the electricity from flowing between us. We had two desks, back to back, in a cramped room barely big enough for one, but it included a small couch for students to sit while they talked with us. So many times I had dreamed of closing the office door and taking her to that couch and making her a lover instead of a colleague.

Otherwise boring staff meetings were so much more pleasant when she was seated by my side. Seminars, staff meetings, planning meetings, all the things that bring co-workers together in academia had brought us into the same room, and I always looked to try and sit next to her. It didn't always work out, but most of the time, we sat together.

I wasn't sure if it was just a one-way attraction until one day when I'd arrived first. When she arrived a few minutes later she had also chosen to sit next to me. There were plenty of other seats available, and although perhaps it was just that she knew me and very few others, I sensed the attraction was mutual. I could still remember the familiar smell of her hair. I could still feel the occasional touch of her leg to mine in meetings, or the touch of her arm to mine walking down the halls, but we had both been discrete and loyal to our spouses.

"Excuse me... Tina?" I said, stepping up to the edge of her table, speaking even before her eyes left what she was reading to look up at me. Initially her body language, as I started talking, said that she wasn't interested. It was body language that said

Yes, I'll be courteous, but no, I'm not interested.

And then her eyes rose, the shock of recognition flowing across her face. "Steve!" She said, her face breaking into an accepting smile, the stand-offish body language instantly disappearing. Sliding out of her seat and jumping up, I found myself surrounded by her arms, her body hugging mine, my arms hugging her, the feel of her body bringing more memories to mind.

She had indeed planned on eating alone, but that changed instantly. When I said I was also there alone, just not mentioning the dinner with my "other" old friend that I was no longer interested in, she readily asked me to join her.

We truly were old friends. Old friends that had flirted on being more than "just friends" so long ago and now we spent several hours learning about what 20 years had done to each of us. That she had a daughter, just about to turn 18, and a son who had just turned 16, wasn't a surprise, just an unknown. But, finding that her husband, Christopher, had died of a heart attack a little over four years before was very much of a surprise. I had met Chris about a month before the end of Tina's guest semester. He had visited for a week and, being an avid golfer, I had taken him out late one afternoon. We talked during the game, as golfers will, about our common ground - Tina. How smart she was, how lucky he was, about how much I had enjoyed sharing an office with Tina, although I never did share what strong physical and mental attraction I felt for his wife.

Tina was now a widow, and once again single; my own marriage had dissolved 8 years before, so I also was single. Although my wife and I seemed so compatible when we had gotten married, she grew one way, I grew another, and after 15 years we separated. It had been an amicable union, and an equally amicable divorce. With no kids, all it took was an equitable separation of physical assets, and we had remained friends -- perhaps better friends now than when we were married. I had not been a monk over the last 8 years, but there had been very few that I'd connected with strongly; none that I'd ever had a desire for as much as Tina.

I hadn't realized how long we'd been there until I happened to glance up and see there was one other couple just leaving the restaurant and, even by European standards, when I glanced at my watch, I realized it was quite late. I had ordered us a bottle of wine; even after all this time remembering she preferred a Riesling or Moscato to something red. Normally too sweet for more than a small glass for me, over the several hours we sat and caught up, it had disappeared. "It looks like we're closing the place down," I commented, glancing back to her. "Say, I noticed the Chokolate Shoppe off the lobby next door -- have you still got a sweet tooth for chocolate?"

"You remember too well, don't you?"

"You, I could never forget."

The chocolates really were excellent, "to die for" is how she described them, and small enough that even I liked them although I don't have much of a sweet tooth. Half an hour later, not wanting to let her go, I asked, "Would you like to join me at the bar for an after-dinner drink?"

She hesitated just slightly before turning me down. "I better not. I've got a presentation tomorrow and I need to get some sleep and get ready. The wine is already more than I should have had."

"Of course," I answered, a pang of disappointment coursing through my brain. Although I had not seen this woman in seemingly forever, the attraction was still there, and now, having just found out she was not committed to anyone, had driven my mind to the ultimate solution. Was it possible that we could finally hook up and share what we'd so strongly desired before? She had hesitated, just slightly, before saying no to the offer of a drink, so could I assume that she'd been tempted?

"I'll be looking for your presentation in the morning," I said to her as the elevator stopped at her floor.

"Thank you," she said, turning and starting to step out of the elevator. She hesitated and I stuck my arm in the doors to keep them open. "It's really good to see you again," she said, turning and putting her arms around me once more. She rose onto her tiptoes and gave me a quick peck on the cheek before I could turn my lips to hers. She released me and stepped away, seemingly almost running away. Just like every time when I'd had the chance, I couldn't help but admire her bottom as she walked away, her jeans still tightly hugging her ass, just as they had so many years before. The closing doors of the elevator removed her from my sight, but not from my memories.

~

My mind was dwelling on, and remembering, so much from that semester as I began getting ready for bed.

It had been such a small office. With the couch off to the end, and her having the back desk, she almost had to turn sideways to shinny between the couch and the desk to get to her seat. The coat pole stood in the corner between my seat and the door, and when she came in, I'd move back to allow her to hang up her coat, giving me an "excuse" to ogle her bottom. I thought I had been quite discrete, right up until the day she turned around rapidly, and I hadn't been able to look away fast enough. "Like my bottom?" she'd teased, although I didn't quite realize it was a tease to start with. The "Oh Shit" thoughts of a sexual harassment accusation went through my mind, wondering even as they did whether it was sexual harassment to just enjoy

looking

at a woman. "You seem to spend a lot of time looking at it," she had giggled and teased as she'd turned away. She could have faced the desk, but she had turned the other way, her ass sliding over the edge of the desk so if I looked at her, I

had

to see her bottom. "It's OK, Steve, you've got a pretty cute butt, too." Until then, I had refrained from saying anything 'too' overtly flirtatious, but from then on when it was just the two of us there was often a subtle, and occasionally not so subtle, flirtation in our banter. When anyone else was around, the innuendos and flirtatious banter totally disappeared and we were just two colleagues sharing an office but, when we were alone, double entendres went both ways.

The beginning of my admiration for her, and for her body, had started earlier in the semester. She'd arrived from Norway, near the middle of the summer, two weeks before the start of the school year, and just in time for the annual Staff beach party. There were those who were the old tenured professors that seemed to mostly be there for the drinking, and then there were us, the younger ones, barely out of college ourselves, who were there to play, and flirt and show off.

I'd agreed that I would pick up Tina and take her with me since she didn't have a car and didn't know where the lake was. Later I found that everyone was planning on carpooling, so I met her at her apartment, and we walked the few blocks to the parking lot where we met everyone else.

Everyone noticed Tina, the new, young, professor that quite nicely filled out a bikini. It didn't matter that she had a demure bikini as far as bikini's go; she had the ass and body and legs to make almost

any

bikini look awesome. Many was the professor who ogled her that day, but it was me that she hung around with, not really knowing many others. We had gone swimming, thrown Frisbee's, drunk beer and wine coolers, gone swimming some more, had hamburgers -- but it was during the beach volleyball that we really seemed to hit it off. Our mutually competitive spirits spurred it on, even though we weren't always on the same team. Emboldened by the drinks that we had and our budding mutual attraction, we allowed our physical interaction to go beyond what it needed to. Diving for the same ball, falling in the sand, needlessly lying against or across the other. Pulling the other one up, an arm going around a waist or supposedly "innocently" brushing across her breasts. High fives, a pat on the butt, followed later by her giving me a similar pat on my butt. Laughing, flirtatious eye play across the net, pulling her against me, feeling her bikini clad breasts against my naked chest, once or twice my hand slipping onto her bottom, or hers onto mine without any push back from the other party.

In the evening, when it began to get dark and cool down, she had gone to the restroom and changed into the shorts and tee shirt that she'd worn over her bikini on the way there. It wasn't until the last of us got ready to leave that we realized that those who'd left early had taken fewer people and left us with 7 people in a car with only 5 available seats. One of the women straddled the center console in front while Tina and I crammed into the back of the car with two others. I got in first and Tina essentially crawled into my lap.

She had to face the door to get room for her legs, leaving her with her back to the middle of the car. I had my one arm on her back, holding her in place. My open hand rested against her shoulder blade and I realized, feeling her bare back, that she had nothing on underneath her shirt. Her bikini that she had worn under it on the way there had gone into her bag and I could tell she did not have a bra on. Sliding onto my lap, her tee shirt pulled tight against her chest, her nipples accenting the rounded curve of her breasts through the shirt.

She started by sitting upright, but it was too uncomfortable like that, and a few moments later she leaned back against me. Her arm was in the way; she raised it and draped it over the back of my neck and around my shoulder, her upper body pressing sideways into me. Her legs had been across mine as she slid into my lap, but when she shifted to get more comfortable her one leg slipped between mine with her butt on my thigh, my other arm resting on her leg. I don't know what was going through her head, but I know I was feeling the strong electricity sparking between us and it was clear that she wasn't doing anything to pull away; if anything, she seemed to be leaning more and more into me. I could feel the warmth and softness of her breast pressing against my chest, my lust for her exploding in my mind. My one arm was pinned behind her body and could go nowhere except against her back, but when I turned my body to slide into the corner of the door and the seat to give all of us in the back as much space as possible, I had to move my hand that had been resting on her knee. With the 6 others in the car, 4 of us in the back seat, there was nowhere else to move it to except to her stomach. With my other hand on her back and my eyes intrigued by the perky points of her nipples through the front, I found myself getting more and more aroused. That she had been in my thoughts all afternoon didn't matter, the intimate contact between us really got my imagination going, and it was all I could do to keep my hands from exploring more.

When my hand had been on her bare leg I could have easily slipped it up into the open leg of her shorts or let it ride up her thigh, over her shorts, onto the upper thigh where I'd be sure to touch if we were lovers. I had not made such a forward move, despite my arousal, a move that I was sure probably would have elicited some kind of negative response. But now my hand rested against her belly and I could feel the soft indentation of her belly button underneath, the firm flesh of an athlete elsewhere. My hand moved a bit, subtly stroking up and down over her belly. My hand cuddled the soft roundness, my pinky finger about where her panty line should be, except that I could feel nothing but smooth skin through the cloth. I knew my hand was probably lower on her belly than it should have been but she made no effort to move it or chastise me. My sexy coworker sitting in my lap, her unencumbered breasts just inches from my hand, had my cock swelling in my pant leg.