For a week, Nate made an effort to ignore, or at least sideline, all of his sexual associations with Maddie. The last thing he needed was a constant distraction to his everyday workload, especially one that kept his libido on high alert. Besides, it's not like he wanted to burden Maddie with the constant thought that he wanted to come onto her at any opportunity he had. No. All he needed was to clear his head of his desires. Of course, that was all easier said than done.
For the first week or so, though, it wasn't all that bad. Maddie was still spending most of her days getting into the swing of everything. She was completing her various administrative training tasks and reviewing numerous other articles from both the writer that came before her, and some of the other columnists at the office. After all, this was her first real job out of college, and she wanted to make a good first impression, and Nate certainly didn't want to mess that up for her. The biggest problem for Nate during that first week, however, was that Maddie still managed to grab his attention each day she reported for work. As it turned out, the sensual style of her outfit from her first day wasn't exactly an isolated incident.
Each day Maddie came to work wearing something that had Nate's head spinning. Never was it anything blatantly sexual or risky, but it was always something that made it difficult for him to peel his eyes off of her. In rather obsessive fashion, he even started recording the components of her outfits in a personal document on his laptop; something he was careful to keep minimized or closed on his computer whenever others were around; he didn't want to think about how awkward it would be to have to explain that to someone. Regardless, it became a new morning ritual for him for the last week, as he recorded each of her outfits, trying to decipher why he found them all so sexy.
First, on Monday, her first day, it was the pink blouse and leather pants; there was no mystery about why he found that hot. Tuesday was a long, plaid skirt and black top with a cropped leather jacket; something that had him wondering if maybe Paul did say something to her about her outfit. That, of course, was proven wrong by Wednesday's outfit: A rather regal looking, blue satin dress. It was quite attractive, and although short, certainly not scandalously so. What really kept Nate going about it though was the knee-high velvet boots she wore with it. Although not much of a boot guy, he couldn't deny that they looked hot. Thursday's outfit was a lot more casual with some tight jeans and a white shirt that had some cute cutouts down her back. Friday was definitely a looker. A knee length black leather skirt and a black, mesh top over a tank top had her looking quite punk-rock for the office. He was over the moon that she opted for leather again. It wasn't until the last two days, however, that he began once again entertaining the idea that she might have a bit of a fetish going on.
After spending the weekend dreaming about her yet again, wondering - no - picturing how life would be if they were dating, like he always wanted in high school, he stepped back into reality, only for fantasy to slap him in the face again that next Monday at work. The black jeans weren't much to write about in his little record of her outfits, but the leather blouse she had on certainly was. At least, it looked like leather. It had the same vaguely reflective shimmer of leather, but it wasn't nearly as stiff looking as a jacket, or the pants she wore. It clung to her body rather tightly, though, easily accentuating her c-cup breasts. A couple times throughout the day he even thought he noticed a nipple poking out against the fabric; or maybe it was his subconscious trying to convince him that she was going without a bra for the day. And that was just Monday.
It was Tuesday of their second week working together, and Maddie once again had all the heads in the office turning when she walked by. Nate barely looked at her before his fingers froze on his keyboard, filling his screen with lines and lines of 'L's as he stared into the sexy, reflective surface of Maddie's bright red vinyl pants. He didn't even notice the mundane nature of her black and white striped shirt, and the sound of her black heels on the carpeted floor were nearly drowned out by the squeaking and shuffling of shiny, plasticky pants. Once she sat down at her desk behind the cubicle, Nate finally snapped out of his trance, deleting all the lines of nothing he entered in his document for two minutes while practically drooling over Maddie's outfit of the day.
In a bit of a surprising turn for him, Nate was beginning to seriously toy with the idea of confronting her about her outfits. The whole week had him wanting to talk about it with her; see if she would admit to having a thing for all those shiny clothes she wore. Maybe he would even admit that he liked it too. Of course, that would be a hell of a conversation to try to have, especially in the workplace. No. It was better to just leave it be. Why make things awkward between everybody? It wouldn't do anyone any good.
When lunch time came around, however, a completely new idea came to Nate's mind. He put his work on pause, save for replying to a couple personal and work related emails, and stood up from his seat, giving his legs and arms a good stretch after spending most of the morning hunched over a computer. On his way to the door, he stopped at Maddie's desk, making sure to sneak in a good stare at her outfit before she turned around to acknowledge him.
"Hey, Nate, what's up?" She asked.
"Not much. How's your day going?"
"It's going okay. Finally working on my first article."
"That's good, must be nice to be done with all that training crap," Nate replied. "What sort of 'niche interest' are you writing about this month?"
"Model railroading," she answered with a surprising amount of intrigue, "I have a interview set up with a local club, and they're gonna give me a tour of their site."
"Nice. That's definitely niche interest, alright."
"It's actually kind of interesting," Maddie explained. "Even if the actual railroad part doesn't sound all that interesting, the time and work that gets put into the dioramas is really quite amazing. There really is a lot of genuine artistic talent required for that kind of stuff."
"Fair enough," Nate replied.
"I take it you're headed out to lunch?" Maddie said.
"Yeah. Actually, I wanted to see if you wanted to come along. I figure we could catch up on life since high school," he suggested, "only if you want to, though. I'm sure you have a lot of work to do."
"I'll tag along if you're offering," Maddie replied instantly, "I'll never say no to food. Just give me a second to finish up some stuff."
"Okay." Nate couldn't help but smile. He was rather surprised that Maddie took his offer, and he was certainly happy about it. He never actually had any alone time with her during high school, so the fact that he was finally getting to have lunch together with the girl from school that he was still crushing hard on was almost a dream come true in and of itself.
After a few minutes of deliberating where to go in the car, they eventually settled on a notoriously greasy burger joint on Main Street. They walked into the tiny hole in the wall and were greeted by the smell of meat on the grill beef and fresh onions. Maddie took a seat at one of the tall, bar style tables, and Nate sat along the adjacent side. Once the waiter came around to take their order, they began chatting about life.
"So how's life been for you over the years?" Maddie asked.
"Kinda boring, to be honest," Nate replied, "I took a year off before going to college. Pretty much wasted my life away in the process, but once I actually started college, I got that turned around pretty quick."
"Is that when you decided you wanted to be an editor?"
