"Just come to the party," she said. "It'll be fun, and plus we'll get to hang out."
Marcy's eyes were bright as she spoke. Her always-present smile was, of course, present. But it was never an insincere smile. At least, it never seemed that way to me. We'd been flirting at work for months, and not a day went by without her stopping at my cubicle. This time, she'd come bearing an invite.
I stared at the flimsy orange card stock, attempting to read the spooky black font. "Jesus," I muttered, "who put these together?"
Marcy shrugged, and ran a hand through her shoulder length black hair. "No clue," she answered. "Usually Carrie does it, but her printer's not worked right in weeks."
I shook my head. "Just can't get it figured out," I said.
"Nope." She leaned over my desk, her cleavage pointing directly at my face. "Come on," she whispered, "what are you afraid of? It's just a dumb Halloween party."
I sat back, locking eyes with her. Her expression relaxed, and she very subtly licked her red lips. "I know you want to come," she said.
I stared at her for a moment, contemplating my next words. I gave her the once-over, from her black heels and stockings, up to her short black skirt, black suit coat, and low-cut bright red blouse. Her breasts were big, and every time she put them near my mouth, I imagined sucking on them.
We'd kissed a couple of times before. But those kisses happened at a bar, and we never really spoke about it afterward. It was hard to know if she was serious about pursuing anything more. Truth be told, so was I. Work and romance did not mix, at least in my experience. Why would it be different now? Maybe we were only meant to be coworkers, and our flirting was just that: flirting.
Her smile returned, her eyes squinting as she spoke. "I look good, right? I'll look great at the party."
"The party," I echoed. "You mean the Halloween orgy party."
She stood upright, theatrically placing her hands to the sides of her face. "Whaat? I don't know what you mean!"
I smiled. "Right, right. Sure. It's only the most talked about thing in the office this time of year. A costume party, where you don't need to worry about consequences, because no one knows who you are. Make a connection and find an empty bedroom. Or join the pile. Right?"
She frowned, and pointed to the poorly printed card in my hand. "That's on the invitation?" She laughed. "You don't have to do any of that, if you don't want to. We're all adults, and it's up to you. Trust me, plenty of people come through, dance for an hour, then leave. Not everyone's into freaky stuff."
"Freaky stuff?"
She rolled her eyes dramatically. "Fine," she sighed, "not everyone's into Halloween orgy party stuff."
I laughed at her response, then stopped. Her face fell a bit, as if she knew what I was going to ask next.
"Am I into it," she said, "is that what you're thinking? Well, maybe not now, but I was last year."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. With a girl. I have no idea who it was."
I raised an eyebrow at that. "Really?"
"Okay, fine. It was Lucy."
My mouth fell open. "Lucy? The redhead in Accounting? Man, she was--"
"A hottie? Yeah, she was. But the whole thing got weird, thanks to her. We only kissed a little, and then, she took off her mask, admitting she'd been crushing on me. She said a lot of other stuff too, and I got really uncomfortable."
"Damn. So what did you do?"
"I left. I mean, I took the blame for it. I told her I wasn't ready for a relationship, and that I was in a bad place emotionally, which I was. But she totally ignored me the next day and stopped talking to me altogether at that point."
I thought about that. "Wait, are you the reason she quit?"
Marcy waved me off. "I heard she took a better paying job at an agency out of town." She stared down at the floor, as if she was thinking about it too. "But, I did feel bad about the whole thing. I never meant to hurt her feelings. She was always nice to me. I just didn't know it was more than that."
I looked at the invitation again, and then tossed it onto my desk. "Okay," I said. "I'll go."