It started early in the morning, but I'd been warned well in advance and come prepared. I had brought the ugliest tie I owned back to Cologne from Chicago just for the occasion. I had worn it to the client that morning, walking the mile and a half from my flat. It was Mardi Gras in Cologne, called Carnival.
Sylvia and Gloria, the two secretaries assigned to our consulting team, arrived promptly at 8 o'clock (they were always prompt). I had been there since my usual 6:30, having passed the six bakeries and nine porno shops that lined my route through the winding streets of the old city. The girls were in costume. Gloria wore a full skirt and petticoats over a white blouse and vest. Sylvia wore a green dress over bright red tights. She looked like a six-foot tall elf. The dress was very short, which meant that the legs attached to her tall frame went all the way to the floor. Sylvia usually wore very conservative, loose-fitting clothes that didn't reveal much about her body. This was different, and for the first time in the five months we'd been in Germany I could see how voluptuous she was. Her shoulder-length black hair had recently gained henna streaks, imparting a redness that came and went with the light. Her hazel eyes were huge. She wore makeup today, which highlighted her eyes and cheeks, and she wasn't wearing her glasses. She looked unusually pretty. She was 27. I was thirty two.
The girls had taken very good care of us while we worked with the client. Coffee arrived every morning and afternoon in a silver carafe. Cookies often accompanied the afternoon serving. They typed for us, ran errands, and made interview appointments. We were the first American consultants the company had used. We had learned from our client how excited the two young women were to be working with Americans. For our part, we decided to fully play the role of Americans. I brought in a jar of peanut butter one day and made the whole Strategic Planning department taste it on wonderful German brown bread. I had to do it because while they were all very nice men, they were, well, a bit stiff and formal. I brought several bottles of the best California wine I could find for our client for Christmas, which he deeply appreciated. And our team adopted a little cowboy swagger.
The girls often went out to dinner with the team, and helped with choosing places and translating menus. We learned to prefer the little neighborhood places to the fancier restaurants, even though the expenses would have paid the higher tab. They were cozier, and more forgiving of our high-spirits. We all loved Sylvia, who was a wonder woman at cutting red tape and finding ways to get things done. She was sweet, and nice, too. But I never really thought of her as sexy. That was about to change.
I had just returned from a week at home, where my wife had seen fit to spend every evening out, claiming that her job demanded it. My complaints about wanting to see her during the week I was home were ignored or spurned with claims that I didn't value her career, blah, blah, blah. Truth was, she was making less than her secretary as an assistant to a state government official. I spent a week basically alone, returning to Germany hurt and angry.
Sylvia came into the conference room where our team worked with a large pair of scissors. The rest of the team had arrived, and we were already busy mapping out the day's work.
"No work today, silly Americans!" said Sylvia with a huge smile. "Today is Carnival, and the whole city will be in the streets. Including us!" she said, looking at me during her last sentence.
Sylvia walked over to me, bent over, grabbed my tie, and cut it off with the scissors. "A trophy!" she said, holding it up to the group. Gloria clipped Hubert's and Rupert's ties, and Sylvia clipped our boss Dick's, who had flown over just for Carnival. We all had worn old ones, having been warned.
The girls then decorated us with face paint. I became a pirate under Sylvia's ministrations, she kneeling before me and applying a makeup black eye patch and red scar. Hubert and Rupert became elves, and Dick became, well, I'm not sure what. But he enjoyed having Sylvia color his face.
"Oooh," said the 21-year-old, extremely cute Gloria, "Scary pirate." Bachelors Rupert and Hubert lusted after the delightful-looking but temperamental Gloria. She had a great ass, but also knew it and was resistant to flirting and teasing, becoming angry and petulant.
"Now we will go out for breakfast," said Sylvia, "You need to eat fat."
"Why fat?" asked Hubert.
"Because Hubert, fat absorbs alcohol, and you will not get drunken so fast," replied Sylvia with a giggle. Her English wasn't perfect, but her mistakes were charming.
Out we went for sandwiches. Cheese and sliced salami on wonderful German bread and rolls. The streets were already full of revelers. Beer vendors dispensed cups on the street, and for a while we were the only ones without. But that didn't last. I hadn't had beer at 9 a.m. since college.
The day was spent walking the streets of Cologne, seeing the Mayor's ceremony, seeing and being in the parade. Fat Tuesday in Cologne was like nothing I'd seen in the States except on film from New Orleans. We ate at small bistros. I picked up Gloria and grimaced for the team camera: the pirate kidnaps the young wench. She's smiling and laughing. Boss Dick threw Sylvia over his shoulder, the photograph showing his cheek pressed against her red-tighted leg, skirt barely covering her butt. We had a day of many, many laughs. Sylvia rarely left my side, but I was oblivious to it until we hit the dance club after a light supper. There, she pressed against me in the crowd. I felt her hip against mine. At 6'6", I appreciated her 6' frame. I had had a lot of beer that day, although I didn't feel drunk. I did feel my hand slip around her waist, and rest on the flare of her hip. She snugged in closer. We danced the slow dances, her arms wrapped around my neck, mine around her waist.
At last, the others announced that it was time to call it a night. It was about 10:30, and we had partied for over 13 hours. I stood with Sylvia, my arm around her waist, as they told of their plans.
"I think we'll stay here for a little while longer," I said, not looking at Sylvia. Boss Dick looked at my arm quizzically, and said OK. The others left. It was just Sylvia and me among hundreds of dancing, drunken Germans.
"Dance with me," she said. We moved out onto the floor. Her arms went around my neck, mine around her waist. We danced slowly to fast music. I saw her looking deep into my eyes. She was beautiful. Many thoughts raced through my mind about fidelity. But I was angry and hurt by my treatment at home, and felt as if my marriage was at a dead end. I thought about our consulting project, where we had been putting in 100-hour weeks because our scope had expanded even more. I was the core of the project. I felt totally overwhelmed by it. In sum, I felt totally beyond hope in all areas of my life. And with that feeling, where all hope felt lost, freedom became another word for nothing left to lose. I leaned towards Sylvia and kissed her. It was what she was waiting for, as her tongue slipped instantly into my mouth. We pressed together and I could feel her large, soft breasts pressing against me. I pulled her even closer.
We spent the next half hour necking on the dance floor, remembering to move with the music, but our attention was fully on tasting each other's lips and tongues.
"Let's leave," she whispered in my ear, caressing it with her tongue while she was there, giving me goose bumps and shivers.
"I know," I said, "Let's go to the submarine races!"
"Submarine races?" she looked at me quizzically, "What are those?"
"I happen to know that they are having submarine races tonight on the Rhine," I said confidently. "We can see them from the team rental car in the parking lot."
"Oh," said Sylvia, not quite sure how to interpret everything I had just said.
We walked the streets arm-in-arm, pausing often for deep kisses, surrounded by late-night partygoers who themselves often stopped for romantic interludes. It was about a mile back to the office. The car was parked in the underground garage. The client's office building sat on the banks of the Rhine.