The Office Romance
Man, it feels good to be having sex with a coworker again.
I met a girl with chestnut hair and hands as warm as sunshine. She gave me her time one Friday past and deep into the night when enough of that time had past I tipped her head back and we exchanged throat demons in a primal dance that reminded me of middle school, all tongue and bravado. The way her delicate spine still pressed into my stomach when we awoke pumped spring air into my veins. I opened my windows, I yelled to the birds,
“Man, it feels good to be having sex with a coworker again!”
Lady, I have a lie I want to involve you in, because my heart needs an accomplice. I want to memorize the layout of our office, learn what corners are safe from the sweep of security cameras and disoriented businessmen, I want to find out which closets are big enough for two. Let’s hide pocketshots in my briefcase and get business drunk in the park, return late from lunch, your dressy satin blouse stained with grass and sweat.
Yeahhhhh Gladys look at us and whisper. Tell all the girls in accounting that’s something’s up and conjecture about the fun we’re having while you exchange pictures of your cats. Notice the way we linger our goodbyes and take the same elevator, door close door close door close. Tuck your worries into the filing cabinet I made for our little affair, file it under S forseeccreeeeets. When we lock up the doors business is just getting started, sharing a car though we leave at different times, whisking off to a place where we can dine in private.
And then lady, this is when things really heat up. Cause after I meet a few too many of your crazy friends and your dog shits on my bed, after the big fight we’re gonna have because the new Elder Scrolls game is coming out on your birthday — oh man, you better believe we are gonna break up. And that week when for no discernible reason they move us into the same cubicle, I want to look over the desk partition with bitter resentment as you tap out emails to probably all the new guys you’re fucking. I want to accidentally kick you under the table, argue about who’s stuff is on who’s part of the desk and avoid each other at meetings. I want to bring our department to a halt by ignoring every email you’re CC’d on, and I am NEVER going to forget that you still have one of my Wii controllers and we bought Mario Cart together! And when you bring your new boyfriend to our company Christmas party I am going to get drunk on red-cup Coors and try to sleep with the new intern but apparently I have a reputation now. Lady, we are going to RUIN this job. We’re going to make those front doors feel like a death sentence and divide the only group of cool people that want to get drinks after work. We are going to make awkward eye contact every twelve minutes for the rest of our lives.
. . . And when that happens, your eyes glowing soft blue with that glint of light from your monitor I am going to see reflected in them — every wine day at the park, the delicate hand-touching in the hallway, the view from when those dark Calypso eyes were much closer to mine, you all, white-cotton and flannel in my bed on the Spring morning when this all started.
Fuck it. It was all worth it.
