Part 3: Can't Fight This Feeling: Jason's perspective
When I told myself John Roberts was going to be trouble for me, I had no idea how right I'd be. I found out fairly early on after he started working in my office that my assumption about his marital status because of the absence of a ring was wrong. And - a couple months after he started in the office - before I had a chance to really talk myself into the idea that maybe it was a marriage of convenience and I still had a chance at getting into his pants - John proudly announced that his and his wife's first child was on the way.
Okay, so I had no shot with him. But that didn't stop me from flirting. And flirt, I did. I tried to be subtle. John and I became friendly early on in his tenure in the office because there was only a five or six year age difference between us. And one of the ways that I tried to subtly flirt with him was to tease and joke around with him. It was actually nice to be friendly with a guy who in essence - even though he wasn't my direct supervisor - was my boss.
It's funny how you can quickly flip from seeing someone as a purely sexual object to genuinely liking who they are as a person. That's how quickly my view of John changed. In some ways, I would've rather not have gotten to know him better. That way, I could keep on fantasizing about getting in his pants without feeling conflicted about it. By now, John and I were friendly. I could sense that he trusted me a little bit more than many of my co-workers and he seemed at ease around me and able to laugh and joke around with me. I felt the slight bond between us too and I appreciated it on a personal level. But the truth of the matter was that, every time I saw him in the office or he stopped by my desk to talk to me about a project I'd worked on, all I could think about was stripping him naked and covering every inch of his body with his tongue - wife and family be damned.
Of course, afterward I'd feel guilty for having those thoughts. John and I were starting to establish a work friendship and I sincerely admired him (not just his body). I didn't want to do anything to ruin that. Despite being a genuinely good guy, John did have his faults...one of them being that almost everything tended to make him anxious. I had visions of him learning that I'm gay, thinking back on our interactions, realizing that I was hot for him, and the dynamic between us being changed forever. I didn't want that. Aside from the tension it might create, I worked in an office composed mostly of women. I liked having a friend in one of the few guys in the office. I didn't want to lose that.
I tried my best to rein in my flirting because I always think that I'm being a little too obvious when I flirt with - or even lust after - a guy. But it didn't always work. Without even trying to, I naturally flirted with him. The funny thing is, sometimes I could swear that John was flirting back. I tried to write it off as him just being really friendly with me. But how could I explain that one time? We were at a seminar put on by our office and at one point, while there was a lull at the registration table I was working, John came up to me with a coffee cup with no lid on it in his hand and remarked, "Jason, I'm going topless!" laughing afterward before he walked away, leaving me standing there, trying my best not to pass out from picturing his bare chest.
Still yet, I was stuck between a rock and a hard place, I couldn't find out if he was really flirting with me without running the risk of being slapped with an accusation of sexual harassment. So, I just continued on as I had been...lusting after him and then feeling guilty about it. Meanwhile, John's family continued to grow. One child became three children. Yes, this was the universe's way of slapping me upside the head and telling me to snap out of it. But when you're that hot and horny for someone you see on a daily basis, it isn't that easy to snap out of it.
Pretty soon, though, the dynamic between John and I changed...first, in a not so positive way. But even that eventually gave way to something happening that I wouldn't have predicted in a million years.
Part 4. Playing Games: John's perspective
Things were going pretty good for me. I'd just started a new job with the HR department of Glenmont school system and my girlfriend of more than four years and I had just married a couple weeks before. Things were great! Okay, so maybe I had a little underlying resentment toward my wife, Laura, over how "big" her personality was in our marriage. But I was in love with her. And shortly before starting my new job, we'd gotten the best post-wedding gift ever. When we started dating, we both knew we wanted to have a family. And pretty soon after we got back from our honeymoon, Laura told me she'd taken a home pregnancy test and it was positive. After confirming it with a doctor's appointment, we were both over the moon. Just married, me with a new job, and now we were starting our family. Life couldn't have been better!
Once Laura made it through her first trimester - that superstitious time when you're not supposed to announce a pregnancy in case something tragic happened to the baby - I made the big announcement at work. Despite being new to the office, everyone seemed really happy for me, which I appreciated. Ours was a small office - less than 30 employees - and often, everyone seemed like a family. It was nice to feel like an official part of "the family" just two to three months after starting the job.
While everyone reacted warmly to my baby news, I still felt a little bit like an outsider. When I worked for The Times, I hadn't had the type of responsibilities that working for Glenmont was going to entail. There were times that I felt like I was in the deep end of the pool, not able to swim, and not wearing floaties around my arms. After several months on the job, most of my co-workers decided I should know what I was doing by now. The truth was: I didn't. And going to Janine, the head of the whole office and my direct supervisor, wasn't an option. Janine intimidated me. And not only that, but I didn't want her to regret hiring me.
Luckily, there were a couple people in the office who had reached out to me with a friendly smile. Sharon, who was a counselor in the office, actually came down to my office every day just to say hi and check in. Armed with a warm smile and an "everybody is my friend" attitude, Sharon and I became fast friends and I felt the most comfortable with her. Another friendly face in the office was Jason McKinley. When we met on my first day in the office, I got a weird vibe from him. Not weird like: "I want to wear your skin as an overcoat," but a harmless vibe that I couldn't quite put my finger on. Jason rarely came down to my office like Sharon did. But he was always open to chit-chatting with me. We'd talk about sports on occasion or other things. I started to feel comfortable around the guy, even though I still had a weird feeling about him that I couldn't quite put my finger on.
