Here's a story about true events, or maybe just about plausible events. It revolves around somewhere I used to work, or still might work, or could have worked in the past. The names have obviously been changed, but the woman in the story is very real, and still out there somewhere, and still in my thoughts from time to time.
Here is a story that starts with a chance encounter gone wrong... or very right, depending on how you see things. Slow burner, relative to my other stuff, so be aware this one isn't jumping into a sex scene for a couple chapters.
Also, I'm never sure how to tag these. If you have suggestions, please comment them at the end. Tags are one of the main ways I find stories to read, so I want to do a good job of tagging for others to find my stories.
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It was the height of the COVID pandemic, and I had been working in the office at a big department store for quite some time. You know the type: neat aisles, and racks full of products. Helpful people everywhere, looking to assist you in buying as much as possible. If you've worked at a place like that, you may know there's a warehouse area stashed in the end of the building. Nothing big, but big enough that people managed to get into trouble back there sometimes. Usually things like napping, or smoking, or otherwise hiding from work. They had cracked down recently and started limiting who could go there on duty. Aside from the one girl they had working fulltime in the warehouse, almost nobody ever went back there for long.
Katie was her name, and she had kind of a Plain Jane image. Cute face, average height and build, brown hair and eyes. Nothing stood out about her, but she was pretty and had a decent body. Certainly there was nothing wrong with her. Her biggest problem wasn't even a problem with her at all; upper management always wanted to save money by understaffing, and really her job should have been done by two people. As a result, Katie always seemed to be running behind and was always stressed about it.
I felt bad for her, but she was doing her best, and that was better than I could say for a lot of people at the company. She also did her best to stay upbeat, which contributed to my appreciation for her. You could see that life was wearing on her though. She would pace around frazzled sometimes. Sometimes she would be snappy with her coworkers. Sometimes, after disappearing for a bit, she would show up again looking like she had just been crying. Sometimes I wanted to give her a hug and tell her things would be okay.
I didn't have the confidence though. Since childhood I've always been on the skinny side and insecure about it. As an adult, my sedentary office lifestyle hadn't done me any favors. For a new year's resolution one year, I had determined I would get in better shape, and so I was leaving most days to go on a run after work. A few months of that had me feeling and looking good, and with some weight training on the side, my body was starting to look downright athletic!
The women at work had noticed. I'd heard rumors that one or two would make crass comments sometimes in private, but there was really nobody at work I felt like pursuing. I just took it as a compliment and didn't pay them any mind. It was a big confidence booster though, and as I started to get more confident about my looks, I started behaving with more confidence around women. I'd have considered flirting with Katie, but she was not available.
That was Katie's second big problem: her longtime boyfriend Walter. He did custodial work in the store and was kind of a deadbeat. Not everybody felt as fondly about Katie as I did, but anybody familiar with the couple could tell you that she was the better half of that relationship. The two of them had had a kid together a few years back, and rumor had it she was saddled with most of the parenting duties at home. I didn't find it too surprising, seeing the difference between their levels of diligence at work. Nobody knew why they had been together for ten years without tying the knot, but in my opinion if she wasn't going to dump him she was at least doing herself a favor by not marrying him.
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Things began to shift when the building's changing area was shut down for renovation that autumn. I had started seeing Katie more in recent weeks because I was going to the warehouse to change. I know it was a misuse of the warehouse to change there, but the bathrooms were disgusting (see: Walt's terrible work ethic) and there was exactly zero chance I was about to risk stepping on the bathroom floor without my shoes on.
Each day I would clock out after work and grab my workout clothes on the way to the warehouse. There were rows of pallets stacked up in racks, with narrow gaps near the walls so somebody could squeeze through looking for products. I'd found a little spot in the corner where a row of pallets wasn't pushed all the way back, so there was just enough room to stand and change. Each day I went back there I would be sure to catch Katie and ask how her day was going, or at least to give her a wave and a smile. Or... what passes for a smile when everybody's masked up thanks to the pandemic.
Katie never really asked why I kept coming back to the warehouse. She was often busy anyway, but I think she appreciated somebody caring about how her day was going. Eventually she would seem to always be near the warehouse desk when I'd come in, as if she was looking forward to our brief exchanges as much as I was. I had no clue what she really thought of me, but I was definitely developing a crush. She was very sweet, and if I'm completely honest, I had felt unappreciated at work for quite some time too.
We would have our little exchange each day, and I think we would both come away feeling nice that somebody cared, until a few weeks later when the holiday season was looming. Poor Katie became a lot busier then, and so I wouldn't always see her. If I didn't, I would just go back and change, and hope to bump into her on the way out.
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Then, one day as I was changing she walked in on me.
"Walked in" probably isn't a fair description. There was no wall or barrier between me and the world, just some rows of pallets that stood taller than a person. There was no door keeping anybody out, just a tight gap between the merchandise and the wall.
On that particular day, I had just kicked off my shoes and stripped my pants when she appeared around the corner, probably looking for where some item was stored on the racks. Her eyes opened wide as they dropped to my mostly bare legs, then shot back up to my face. We both froze.
"I'm sorry!" she said, maybe a bit too loudly, as she turned red-faced toward the wall.
"Did you find it, Katie?" somebody shouted from somewhere else in the warehouse.
