Sylvia - that was her name. I don't remember her last name, but it wasn't hers anyway - it was her ex-husband's or soon-to-be-ex-husband's.
I didn't really know much more than that about her, because all I ever heard her say in her halting, deliciously-accented English was, "chHello, Zhay-mie. chHow are ju?" Her friends from the warehouse would tell me, "Sylvia says 'Hello', Jamie!" and "Sylvia thinks you're cute, Jamie!", but they just giggled and told me to ask her when I pressed them for more information. They giggled the same way each time I showed up in the warehouse to fix something and she bounced over to hug me 'hello' in a sort of lingering way that pressed her pert breasts up against my chest. Sometimes the hug ended with a glossy-lipped kiss on the soft part of my neck beneath my ear. I liked those days.
She was a little older than me, but still really cute in a slender, petite way that didn't usually appeal to me in other girls. She always looked great - she wore shirts and jeans that hugged her curves, darkened her lashes to make her speckled brown eyes pop from her toffee-colored face, brushed something over her lips that made them plump and glisteny - even while most of the other girls in the warehouse didn't bother with more than a hair-clip and pull-over sweater. It was enough to make me double-check each morning that my teeth were brushed, my polo wasn't wrinkled, and that I hadn't forgotten the bodyspray. I didn't realize until much later that she she was always primping when I was around, that she was always just putting the lip gloss away because her lookout friend by the stairs had told her I was coming.
The sad thing was that I was too embarrassed to use my four years of high school Spanish to tell her directly how cute she looked cute, how I liked her jeans or her her hair, so our conversations always started bursting with promise, but ended quickly and awkwardly. Still, her part of the warehouse seemed to have an awful lot of things that needed fixing, and I always made it a point to be the one to answer the call.
I couldn't help but grin when I saw her at the office party - I hadn't really expected her there. The warehouse staff had their own party before Christmas, and between the language barrier and the way some departments condescended to the warehouse staff because they were hourly, I guess they felt unwelcome. But there she was in the center of a half-dozen of her friends, all clustered near the punch table when I walked in. Her face lit up and she waved, so I grinned at her and waved back. I headed over toward the punch table as though to scoop myself a cup, but really I hoped to have to brave her teasing friends and maybe even the askance glance of a co-worker if she caught me in a hug.
I wasn't disappointed - her arms spread wide and wrapped around my chest, I caught her around the shoulders and squeezed - and while we lingered some kind of flowery perfume wafted from her hair. Her lips found my neck and I tingled inside, then turned red as her friends tittered while she smudged away a burgundy lipstick. Still, it was worth it. I felt melty inside, and goofy. I bit my tongue so I wouldn't say anything too stupid.
"chHi, Zhay-mie."
I loved the way her mouth formed my name.
"Ju look 'an-some tonight." She beamed with satisfaction once she'd finished the words.
"No, Sylvia - you look cute! Very hot! Your dress... your hair!" I blushed at my own words, but I wasn't just stammering politeness. I'd never seen her so made up before, with deep red lips and her eyelids painted smokey and dark. Her eyes gleamed and seemed to lock mine to her. Her hair - usually pulled back into a lively ponytail - now fell in shining black curls over her shoulders. She wore a green blouse with the buttons open low enough just to show a promise of cleavage, black maryjanes and thigh-highs, and short little pleated skirt that was possibly even more appealing than her skin-tight jeans.
One of her friends translated what I said and she pushed playfully at my shoulder. I can't really remember what happened next, but our conversation must have drifted because an hour and a half later I was standing on the other side of the cafeteria talking to my boss and glancing around for the occasional glimpse of her friends across the room. But it wasn't them I wanted to see again; I wanted to fill my eyes with Sylvia! I wanted to try to talk to her again. Anything to be near her - to feel the electricity of her presence. But I couldn't find her at all, and I started to feel a little sorry for myself that I hadn't had a better opportunity; no, really I was mad at myself for not making an opportunity - it was my fault for being such a heel when clearly she kind of liked me, too. I excused myself for the bathroom - it was the best place to be alone and tell myself just how many types of an idiot I was.
She was waiting in the half-dark of the hallway outside the cafeteria, leaning against the painted cinderblock wall and whispering with one of her friends.
"Zhay-mie!"
The unexpected sight of her, the sound of her voice, set my blood pumping and made me a little weak-kneed and goofy. So much for resolve.
Her friend disappeared while she clopped across the cement floor, stopping close enough that I thought she was going to hug me again. Instead she put her small hand - her fingers were too delicate for warehouse work, I thought - on my chest. "I need for ju to chhelp me. In the Shipping Office. Five minutos, o-kay?" And then she was gone - slipped down the dark stairwell that went to the warehouse.
I went to the bathroom. My heart was pounding, my palms sweating. I didn't have any reason to be nervous - except for the fact that the hottest woman who had ever said my name had just invited me back into a dark corner of the warehouse for something that probably started with mistletoe and ended in one of a hundred different fantasies - or in one of a hundred ways I could embarrass myself. I stared at myself in the mirror over the sink and forced my face to relax. I needed to stay cool. I splashed water on my cheeks and scrubbed them dry, but I still looked like a nervous dork.
The warehouse was dark, and I knew my way around just well enough to avoid tripping on the pallets littering the walkways. The lights in the shipping office were completely out; even cupping my hands over my eyes I couldn't see a thing through the windows, so I pulled the door open and stepped through.
A soft, small hand found mine and pulled me completely inside. The door shut and the hand crooked behind my neck and a pair of lips closed over mine and, oh! the luscious warm heaven of a first kiss swelled within me. I kissed her back, first touching her arm, then slipping my hand behind her back until we were both out of breath and gasping. Then she caught my cheeks between her hands and we were kissing again; her lips opened and the little tip of a hot tongue flicked out and teased my lips and teeth.
She laughed - it sounded half-relieved and half-exultant. "I am glad! Glad that ju come!"
"Yo tambien!" rolled from my tongue in an embarrassingly goofy fashion, and I leaned back in, eager for another taste of the lips I was already addicted to.
But she was pulling me further into the room, away from the windows and door. My eyes had adjusted to the dark just enough that I kept from stumbling before she pushed me down into the thread-bare couch in the front of the office - some patchy re-upholstered leftover from an ex-employee's moving sale. It was my favorite furniture in the world at that moment. She had settled into my lap, straddling my thighs so she could wrap her arms around my shoulders and kiss me again. She was deliciously aggressive with her mouth, sucking my lower lip between her own, nipping at my chin and jaw, nibbling on my outer ear. I could feel her lipstick all over my lips and cheeks - in my mind each smudge of her lips on my skin was a glowing badge of lust fulfilled. Her scent - the perfume of her heavy black hair - the gentle, powdery smell of her makeup - and something more musky, more animalistic - filled my nose. I breathed deeply - I wanted to fill my lungs, too. My lips found her neck as she nibbled my ear, and I discovered the soft skin beneath her jawline to be intoxicatingly supple.
My kisses descended down her slender neck and she moaned, rolling back her head and arching her shoulders to bare her collarbone to me.
"Ai, Zjay-mie!" Her hands found mine on her hips and firmly relocated them up to her chest, cupping them over her apple-sized breasts while she hurriedly disentangled more buttons and pulled wide the neck of her shirt. Smooth, creamy-tan skin flowed down from her neck and poured into the black lacy frills at the top of her bra. Even through the cotton of her shirt I felt her nipples stiffening before she wrapped her arms around my neck and pulled my head down to her chest, to the nipples that now strained to free themselves from the sheer black confines of the bra...
"Shh!" Her breath caught and she froze, head perked to listen.
