There's a girl where we work, that everyone calls the Iron Bitch because she's got a hard as nails personality and doesn't put up with shit from anyone. The thing that they don't know, is that underneath that hard shell is a very soft and very hot woman. She's warm, she's loving, and she's extremely unselfish and uninhibited during sex. And all it took to find that soft center was to be there to help pick up the pieces when that hard shell cracked.
True, there had to have been some amount of attraction in both directions for anything to have happened. And while I can't speak for her side of that, I have to admit that there was some on mine. I mean, even if she was a first class bitch, she was still good looking and had a nice body. She was also intelligent and witty, and there were rare moments when she was in a good mood and acted like a normal person. Plus, now that I stop to think about it, there must have been some attraction or something on her side, because she was nicer to me than to anybody else. So, there were times, those few times that she actually smiled, that I felt a little something towards her. But, since she was still a bitch most of the time, I was not as attracted to her as I was to other pretty girls I knew.
That is, until the last week of the fiscal year when the Finance Department found a mistake they'd made earlier in the year that totally screwed up the materials budget. As head of the Purchasing Department, Tami, the Iron Bitch, had to recalculate all material costs for the year, with less than a week to do it in. And, as head of the IT Department, it was my job to provide her all the computer support she needed. And since this was a critical issue and she needed large amounts of immediate support, I had to move my computer terminal into her office and work hand in hand with her the entire time. Not that anyone expected us to fix the whole mess in such a short time, we were just supposed to minimize the damage to the company. But, we made a good team, and by skipping lunch and working lots of overtime, we surprised ourselves and everyone by getting to the last one on day 4 of the 6 days we had.
Working in close proximity for those long hours had accomplished something else too. That was to give me an idea as to why she was such a bitch most of the time. That's because the people we had to deal with weren't really qualified for the jobs they held. Its one of the problems of having a unionized work force, that promotions are based on seniority, not competence. Her and I are management, which doesn't have a union, and we have to produce results. But the people at the shop supervisor level were for the most part slow, lazy and in some cases downright stupid. So, she had to be hard nosed and threatening on a daily basis and that showed in her overall personality. But in those 4 days, she let her guard down with me, and there were times that I almost felt something between us.
Then real disaster struck, because in doing a thorough review of the accounting mistake, Finance found something that negated half the work we'd just done. Some other accountant, no longer with the company, had found the first mistake 6 months before. And, without telling anyone in management, had built in a correction factor to fix it. So, half of the documents that we had just fixed in record time, would have to be redone again with just the weekend to do it in. With all the long hours we had put in, and with victory in hand, to have the rug pulled out from under us just proved too much for Tami to take. But, instead of screaming and yelling, and using every dirty word in the book, like she usually did, Tami did something I never expected. As I mentioned at the beginning, that hard shell she wore didn't just crack, it shattered, and the Iron Bitch broke into tears.
Had anyone else still been on the upper floor where we worked, I might not have done what I did. But, since we were already working overtime, and the accountants were on the lower floor working too, we were alone up there. And I did what any man would do when a beautiful woman starts crying in front of him. I put my arms around her, and rubbed her back to comfort her, while she cried on my shoulder. If I had stopped there, I doubt anything else would have happened. She would just have cried herself out, we'd both have felt awkward when we separated, and then things would have eventually gotten back to normal. I didn't though, and I'm still not sure why, because although my sex life isn't everything I dreamed it could be, I'm more or less a happily married man. So, even I was shocked when as I was telling her everything would be ok, I leaned down and kissed the top of her head. And, I was even more shocked with myself when she turned her face up for a real kiss, and I didn't hesitate to give it to her.
Was I that attracted to her and hadn't known it until now? Was my sex life really that bad that I would take whatever additional sex I could get? Or was this just the way all workplace romances got started, by something just happening like had happened that night. I don't have a clue as to why, I just know that the kiss that should have ended as quickly as it started, didn't. And what should have been an embarrassing moment for both of us, wasn't. The kiss instead lasted a good 5 minutes, and only ended by us saying that we should get back to work. Even worse though, whatever we had started didn't end with that single kiss. During the next two hours that we worked, one or both of us was constantly touching the other in some way. I might have my arm around her as we were both looking at something on her screen. Or she might be rubbing my leg with one hand while using her mouse with the other. And, there were more than a few quick kisses that we shared while waiting for the computer to process some piece of data.
That's not to say I didn't feel guilty, or question myself about what the hell I was doing. I just didn't question it at the time, and it wasn't until I got home that I started feeling guilty. While I was with her though, all I felt was the same things I felt when I got a new girlfriend as a teenager. As I said though, I did feel the guilt after I got home, and it hit me hard. The only saving grace was that we hadn't done anything more than just kiss. But I knew that had we gotten that far, I wouldn't have hesitated to make love to her any more than I hesitated to kiss her. So, since we hadn't gone any further than kissing, we could at least stop this before that did happen, and I was determined to do just that.
Tami had the same opinion I did, when we got to the office on Saturday, that what had happened the night before was a mistake. It should never have happened in the first place, and it couldn't be allowed to happen again. We were both married, both relatively happy with our marriages, and continuing what we'd started could only end badly. So, we should just blame it on the fact that we were both stressed out, and forget it ever happened. Falser words were never spoken, because neither one of us could get any work done with all the trying to forget. And every accidental touch when we had to work on some part together, was cause for embarrassment and guilt. That's also not counting the number of times one of us would get caught staring at the other instead of working.