I am sitting watching basketball with a glass of lemonade; but I can't stop thinking about the man I've met. Nearly every moment belongs to him -- as I pick up the mail, walk the aisles of the grocery store, I am thinking of him. And tonight the Lakers are playing, I really ought to be following closely, but instead I am wondering what this man's lips might feel like on mine.
His name is Ken, and I work for him. That makes it doubly hard. When I have to sit opposite him in a meeting, when I should be thinking critically about the proposal in front of me, or making insightful comments on something someone has just said.... then I am wondering how his hands would feel on my body. I know his hands are smooth and strong, for he had taken mine in his, the day he hired me, and squeezed them gently.
Three weeks hence I sit in my living room, in the midst of a passionate and unlikely fantasy, while O'Neal shoots for three and the Forum goes wild.
I can't tell what it is that makes me feel this way, other than that it is him, him, he does this to me, all unwittingly. The sight of him, the smell of his cologne in the elevator, his hand lightly touching my shoulder as he praises me for work well done. He's not even my type. My girlfriends are quick to point this out to me, he's not the kind you usually go for, they say. Too old, for one thing. Married and your boss to boot!
My best friend Ellen shakes her head in disdain every time I mention him.
"You're being silly," she said when we talked over lunch yesterday. "He's twenty years older than you, for Pete's sake!"
"So?" I rejoin pointedly. "What difference does that make?"
"Well," she replied, lifting her eyebrows, "supposing he chose to ignore all the ethical and moral impediments..."
"Yes?"
"You'd give him a heart attack the first time you fucked him."
I glared at her. "He'd die happy," I snapped.
The Lakers lose, badly. I am complaining about this to my office-mate Jake in the elevator the next morning, my usual rant about the '89 team, now there was a team, if only Magic hadn't gotten sick. Jake argues that Kareem had to retire sooner or later, and what was Magic without Kareem? I am calling him a fucking idiot when Ken steps into the elevator car.
"That's our girl," he says with a wink and a rakish grin. "Brilliant accountant, quick on her feet, and not afraid to tell a man what she thinks."
Jake grins back. "Especially if you insult her beloved Lakers."
"Not doin' so well right now, eh?" Ken is a Knicks man, I've seen him wear his jacket to work.
I smile meaningfully up at him. "No, sir," I say quietly. He blinks, looks away. Then we are at my floor and I step off without looking back.
In the afternoon Ken calls me to his office, ostensibly to go over some figures that he has questions about. We have only just had a meeting to discuss those same figures two days before, so I have to wonder what is going on. I hold my breath as the elevator rises, then blow it out forcefully. I hear Ellen's voice in my head: "You're being silly."
I suppose I am. But it's worth it. I am certain that it's worth it.
He pulls my chair out for me and offers me a drink. I decline and open the ledger on my lap. He sits down beside me, instead of at his desk, pulling uncomfortably on his tie, and then asks me about several items in the pages. All of them have been covered in the meeting two days ago. I answer his questions precisely as I did then, not daring to look at him. I can feel my cheeks growing hot, my mouth getting dry, my panties becoming moist.
Ken asks another question, and casually puts his hand on my leg. His fingers are warm and his wedding band is cool through my stocking. I turn and look in his eyes; for a moment I see there a reflection of the desire in my own. Then he looks away, lifts his hand, and turns the page.
oeillade (French)(archaic) A glance of the eye, an amorous look [Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 3rd Edition (1923)]
this story was written for a fiction class
I once took, and it was my possibly too-subtle way of letting the prof know
that I had a major crush on him but wasn't asking him to do anything about
it. I'm pretty sure he got the hint, but I'll prolly never know. The word that
gave me the title was something
I saw in the afore-credited dictionary, I read what is above and said to myself,
oh, yeah, I know that look.