There were two desks in the office cubicle. He sat at one, his desk against the wall, with a whiteboard in front of him and the dull blue head-height partition on his left. He had his back to door and had to rotate on his chair to see who had entered the floor.
She had turned her desk around so that she sat facing the door. This meant he had a complete profile view of her seated if he turned his head. She faced one way, he faced the other.
"You should turn your desk around too," she'd said, "so we can have our own little fort!"
She'd giggled when she'd said this. He'd laughed with her and managed to stop himself from rotating his desk as soon as she'd said it. They were the only two in the ad-hoc, end-of-floor cubicle, partway between the exit to the stairwell and some lower manager's office. They were exposed, but secluded.
#
Alicia and Jason had worked at the same workplace together for over ten years. Alicia was originally paired with him as he was the more experienced -- though barely older -- employee when she'd started. They shared that first office space for two years, seemingly forgotten about by management. He'd spent two years near her, smelled her perfume, become far too drunk on Friday afternoons with her after work and lost himself too many times in her exotic eastern eyes before going home.
"You're my bitch," she'd laughed after the first few months - he'd become a little aroused when she'd said it, "you're my desk-husband. We're practically fuckin' married."
He loved her wide, smiling, inappropriately filthy mouth.
He'd become bolder with her by then and said, "If I'm your office-bitch-work-husband, then you must be my -- what -- office-slut-work-wife?"
She stared at him...
"Crap," he'd thought, "I've gone too far."
...and then she'd laughed out loud and put her hand over her mouth. Other heads bobbed up over the low partitions like meerkats but they'd soon disappeared. Nothing to see -- just two co-workers swearing at each other.
"Fuck you, cunt!" She'd said, a wide innocent smile on her lips and a punch for his arm.
Their flirtations continued, as did their too long Friday afternoon drinking sessions -- and sometimes Monday lunchtime sessions, too. A couple of hours here and there where inevitably they'd end up sitting together without office furnishings between them, a little drunk, her with her ex-gymnast thigh next to his, almost burning a hole through his clothes, and him trying to remember (or forget?) his wife. Nothing ever came of it, apart from Jason having a vivid vision if his wife refused his advances later at home -- also the same vision if his wife occasionally relented, too: a vision of Alicia with her long, straight, black hair; in that bikini, like in the photo she once showed him of her on holidays, with her small breasts and curvy hips and flat stomach - he imagined sliding her bikini top over her head and upstretched arms and seeing her perfectly formed little tits fall out - small pink nipples - imagined hooking his index fingers over the bikini-brief at her hips, one on each side, imagined the supple but firm feel of her skin and flesh, of sliding the bottoms down, letting them fall to her ankles. In his mind, she had a soft tuft of bush between her legs, wisps of black hair perfectly complimenting her flawless oriental skin, but with those maddening European curves.
#
The inevitable office moves came -- sideways, diagonal shifts, restructures, moves to different areas, they saw less of each other, and inevitably, they had to grow up too -- the workplace became a little more professional, with a lot less drinking and, well, they became older: he went to her wedding and her blinding housewarming party; she gave him long consoling hugs - during which she'd let him rest his hand on her butt every now and again - when his marriage finally collapsed and he was left with the kids when his wife ran off with her boss.
She'd chosen him to look after her accounts when she went on maternity leave, so he moved into her old desk -- then, when she'd returned, they simply found another desk and some partitions, fitted them together, and they'd been that way ever since.
"Well, looks like you're
my
office bitch again," she'd said, "cunt."
"I guess I am, slut," he'd replied.
#
The fact that the first word out of Alicia's mouth might be "fuck", and the last word might be "cunt", possibly with "bitch" and "slut" in between made her even hotter, according to Jason.
She was married now and Jason was not -- but throughout the years they'd always, somehow, just, managed to stay on the safe side of the work-relationship line.
#
It was a bright and sunny day. It was hot. It was summer. It was morning. It was another day that the office air-conditioning couldn't keep up. Cold in winter. Hot in summer -- the building maintenance guys had everything set
exactly
wrong.
Jason heard the door open and the sound of soft footsteps on the carpet tiles. He didn't need to look -- he knew who it was from the rhythm and sound of each step.
"Hi, Jason," she said as she walked past his desk.
"Hi, Alicia," he replied.
He looked - and then he wished he'd looked as soon as he'd heard the door open. Alicia was wearing her short summer dress, dark purple and white florals and thin material. He wasn't sure if it was classed as a mini - the length brought it to halfway down her thigh, but with legs as toned and tanned as hers it didn't matter -- any sight of those thighs was a blessing. The material was light, breezy and moved in ways that material shouldn't move at work.
She sat down and slipped off her shoes, then set about readying her workspace: unpacked her handbag and lunch and logged onto her computer. He grabbed one more look at the rest of her outfit as she sat posture-perfect. The square neckline was not obscenely low and her breasts were perfectly captured in the gossamer material. It was obvious she wore a sports bra but she'd (as always) left the house dressed impeccably -- not hint of her underwear was visible. The short sleeves of the dress meant the hours she'd spent working out were now on show: surprisingly muscular, toned arms that weren't brutal and bulging, but like the rest of her body (at least what he'd seen) tantalisingly shaped. She sometimes reminded him of a Hawaiian dancer from some old Elvis movie -- not text-book virginal, not muscle-bound champion, but hot, tanned, and exotic.
He snapped back to his screen as she wheeled her chair over to him, then turned around to face her.
"Hey," she said, "I'm going to the gym for a couple of hours at lunch -- will you cover for me?"
She was seated facing him, barely a metre away, fanning the hem of her dress in the heat. He made a point of looking at her face as she spoke, but his peripheral vision getting a workout. She was casually lifting and flapping the dress, showing off most of her upper thighs as she spoke.
"Yeah, of course," he said.
Alicia started speaking about the usual minutiae of life -- Jason was good at listening to her, and he always let her speak for as long as she wished. He enjoyed the sound of her voice, and though sometimes he didn't keep up with all she was saying, he enjoyed being the person she spoke to about more personal issues -- about the small things, the silly things, the slightly sad things.
Alicia moved forward on her seat and swayed her legs side to side to increase airflow as she spoke - her bare feet up on their toes, her knees moving in lazy arcs wide apart and back together. She was too hot, this was true - but fanning the flames wasn't going to help. Jason kept his eyes on her mouth, the lowest he could drop his gaze without staring directly at her legs, but he could see enough: the mahogany tan of her thighs, the slightly lighter shade of smooth skin in between; the almost imperceptible pinpricks of sweat sparkling in the fluorescent light.
He made a mental note to pay the building maintenance team a visit and thank them for the superlative job they'd done so far. The air conditioning was perfect as far as he was concerned.
With each flap of her dress and swing of her legs he wished - he begged, he prayed -- that a stray beam of light would reflect at some impossible angle from her panties so that a glimpse of what she had hidden would enter his eyes and sear his brain. He imagined they were white - cotton and cool, simple and functional.
They were good friends, and had been for many years. He would never jeopardise that by making a ham-fisted move -- but that didn't mean he couldn't appreciate her beauty, or wish to see everything she had to show.
Jason had enjoyed everything she'd showed him up until that moment.
But then her legs stopped moving mid-swing.
She'd stopped talking.
Shit.
"Jason!"
He'd forgotten what he was doing, lost between her legs - he'd dropped his gaze and had been staring at her legs for God knows how long as he'd tried to look up her dress. He looked straight back up at her face, embarrassed. He felt himself go red.
She wasn't smiling. There was no playful punch on the arm to laugh it off. A strange, nasty, angry look, her eyes little more than long-lashed slits that burrowed into his, her mouth pursed into a raspberry, her legs still frozen mid-swing.
