"See ya at the party tonight", I said to my supervisor on the last day of work. It was early evening, and I and my team had just wrapped up a presentation detailing the findings and recommendations for our project. Everyone in the team was a university student, and we had been recruited for this project via a placement service. It was a good gig - nice pay, a chance to get out into the countryside and an opportunity to network with future employers. We'd worked throughout the length of summer - mostly out of the small research offices in a small rural town, making site visits in and out of the countryside and the state.
None of us in the team knew each other before we came together for the project, but we managed to get along for the most part and do a decent job of it. The last ten days or so were a bit strenuous with typing up reports and last-minute brainstorming sessions. I was looking forward to letting loose tonight with a couple of drinks and some decent country fare at the end-of-project celebration which our project managers were throwing us.
I hit the shower at our appointed temporary quarters, threw on a polo shirt and khakis, rubbed some fragrant essential oil blend into my beard, slid into my sneakers and headed out to the bar. I'm always that guy who turns up early to parties, and alternates between sitting in a corner with a drink and making awkward small talk with people who slowly trickle in. Today was no different. It was made additionally awkward by the weirdness that goes with interacting in a non-professional environment with people you've only known in a more-or-less professional setting. I tried to mitigate it by going straight for a large shot of vodka, followed by a local favourite beer - a concoction of the microbrewery nearby (of course...). A whiskey on ice accompanied me for the rest of the evening.
Naturally, I was buzzing within the first hour. Conversations seemingly went on for longer, and flowed smoothly. We were seated at a long table out in the garden, and we watched the sun go down, late as it does in the summertime. I watched the moon come up from behind the bar's roof, but my gaze fell lower as I got interrupted by Amelia's arrival through the pub door leading into the garden.
Amelia is an international student like me, hailing from Hong Kong. She's of Chinese descent, and is taking engineering and management courses at the uni. Over the past months, we built up a rapport over work and shared interests. She's way smarter and better put-together than I am. I leaned on her for help and had long discussions at various times during the project. She's calm and focussed, a foil to my sometimes anxious and absent-minded behaviour. I respect her as a colleague, and she was the only one I knew I would maintain contact with in the future. Amelia is about the same height as me - 5'8", brunette with shoulder-length hair and an athletic body from years of working out and training in martial arts. Tonight, looking at her flared skirt paired with a sleeveless button-down v-neck, showing off her flawless skin, I realised for the first time that she could be a jaw-dropper.
Indeed, some jaws did drop - not just at our table but at the surrounding ones as well. I guess around these parts people don't usually get to see gorgeous Asian women hanging out in country pubs. Some guys made a beeline for her almost immediately, chatting her up. Even our supervisor seemed slightly taken aback at Amelia's transformation from her conservative, professional hair-in-a-bun look to the one she was flaunting tonight. Sure, we'd all knocked back a few drinks together a couple of times after long workdays - mostly at this very pub - but we'd all been unwinding rather than partying, still wearing our sweaty office wear.
Now that there was no more work, the social atmosphere was light and carefree like the evening summer breeze, and Amelia seemed to have dressed accordingly. I was buzzed, and I just sat at the table, participating in conversation, stealing glances her way every now and then. If I don't pay attention, it's easy for me to tip over the edge into an alcohol-fuelled oblivion, and even though I was craving the booze I didn't want to embarrass myself tonight. Not in front of Amelia, especially when she was dressed like that.
About three hours into the evening most of our teammates left the table to go play drunken darts or a game of pool inside the pub. Shaking off the last of the guys trying to hit on her, she came over to where I was still seated. Plopping down rather hard, she smiled a slightly buzzed smile at me. I beamed my best intoxicated smile right back.
"Hey!" she said, her face flushed.
"Hey," I replied. "How's your evening going?"
"Really fast. I think I'll just sit down over here for a bit and wait for it to slow down."
"Sure."
Amelia and I started talking about day's presentation, then moved on to talking about the end of summer and the beginning of our next and final semester. We had had classes together in the previous semesters, but realised that we wouldn't be sharing classes anymore.
"Shame," I said. "I thought I could lean on you for help in group assignments."
"Like I'm leaning on you right now?"
She had put her head on my shoulder sometime during the preceding conversation. I figured she was tired and needed a break from being hit on by 3 guys at once.
"Kinda like that."
Amelia's hair fell over her face in long, straight locks. She brushed it away and started talking about her short trip back home before classes began. She picked up someone's drink off the table and gulped it down. They probably wouldn't remember it anyway, she said. Over the next half hour she downed two more shots of whatever people were drinking before they left the table, and grew more animated. I liked observing the effect the drinks were having on the two of us - it mellowed me down from my usual neurotic state, whereas it took her out of her usual focussed composure. I got up to take a leak and brought over a pint of beer each on my return.
By the end of the hour Amelia was blabbering about her friends back home, and I was peacefully zoned out. Then she got up to use the facilities herself, and stumbled trying to get her heeled feet out from between the table and the bench - giving me a glorious flash of the tops of her stockings before steadying herself on my shoulder. As she walked away, I couldn't help but stare at her ass and trying to imagine what she had been holding out on from everyone in the past months - under her smart office clothes, that is.
When she got back, Amelia had two pint-bottles in her hand. I flat out refused to have any more. She teased me about it and drank them herself, blabbering away again on some random topic. She was leaning against me for support again, but heavier this time. I had an arm around her shoulder to steady her, as she was gently swaying back and forth. I looked down at the table, almost zoning out again, until I noticed that a couple of buttons on her top were undone, allowing me an almost unobstructed view of her ample cleavage. I realised she wasn't wearing a bra. That, combined with the image of her dark stockings contrasting with the skin on her thighs got me feeling quite tight in my boxers. The booze wasn't helping.
I thought back to the times Amelia and I had been by ourselves over the past summer. We'd grab a bite during breaks, talk about shared experiences as international students, discuss the project and college coursework, share music, etc. But I couldn't remember the last time there were any flirtatious interactions between us. There were no late night convos (we'd usually be too tired from the workday for that), no post-gym selfies, no instances where we were alone and the conversation halted to silences pregnant with sexual tension. I guess I never really saw her beyond anything but a colleague; at best, someone to shoot the shit with. I'd come out of a recent long-distance relationship, and was in no mood to entertain romantic feelings or fantasies.
But now here I was, with this gorgeous woman on my arm who seemed to have had a Hollywood-esque transformation over the course of one evening, the sides of her breasts brushing up against my chest as she swayed softly. The last time I had gotten drunk and aroused with this level of intimacy with someone, I had ended up taking her to a hotel room and screwing her brains out. And that was two years ago.
A dry spell this long kinda got me nervous tonight, as it had done many times earlier. I made an excuse about it being late and about time to be getting back to our rooms, and stood up. She grabbed my arm and pulled herself up as well.
"I'm coming with you".
Amelia and I excused ourselves from the party, or what was left of it, and started the walk back to our place. The sky was clear, and we walked by the moonlight along a deserted country road. We didn't talk much on the way. There was a slight chill in the air. I figured, from the way she had quietened down, that the walk was sobering her up. Tomorrow morning, I thought, she'll wake up with a headache, and I'll wake up with blue balls.
We got to our accommodation and climbed the stairs up to our floor, me keeping behind Amelia to get discrete glimpses of her toned legs as the hem of her skirt bounced up and down - a last voyeuristic act. Images to be filed away in a dark corner of the mind to be used at a later date. The door to my room was the one immediately next to the stairs, while hers was further down the corridor. She was still a little unsteady, and her heels weren't helping, so I elected to walk her down to her room. Halfway around the corridor, she stumbled sideways, and cushioned her fall by grabbing my shoulder and shoving my back up against the wall with her weight. Her head came to rest on my shoulder. My hand had swung up to and was now cupping the underside of her breast. The side of her hip pressed into my erection I had been trying to hide. She giggled.
