The question was never whether or not I thought she was gorgeous. She was, that was clear enough. From the delivery boys who would hang around a little too long as she signed for a package to the beeline that male clients would make for her when they walked in the door, it didn't seem to me that anyone in New York would have argued about her looks. So when our coworkers would tease me about flirting with her, I never had any trouble letting them know that of course I was flirting with her, how could I not? She would toss that thick black hair and arch an eyebrow in my direction and I was toast. But when they insisted that we would inevitably hook up, I would always just laugh. Amanda, another of our coworkers was especially insistent, and even told me that there was an office pool when I first started, where everyone took bets on how long it would take us to hook up. But Anna wasn't my type, and I wasn't hers. Our flirting was just the natural result in putting a male and a female 24 year old in a small office 5 days a week and expecting them to be able to think straight all the time.
I, for one, always had a little trouble thinking straight around her. She was tall, nearly as tall as me in heels, and graceful; apparently she was a dancer in high school, and it wasn't hard to see why. Just walking around the office she almost seemed like she was on point, pirouetting from the kitchen to the copy room. She was always totally professional—quite a counterpoint to my constant disarray—but she always managed to sneak something a little sexy into her very dressed down work clothes. Maybe a red French lace bra peeking out of her black blouse, or sheer stockings with a seam down the back. I don't think she even meant those little bits of sexy, but they would taunt me as I tried to pry my eyes off of her.
The problem with Anna was that she was uptight. To paraphrase Ferris Bueller, if you stuck a lump of coal up her ass, in a week you'd have a diamond. Her lips would purse disapprovingly when the group's conversations would take a raunchy turn, the best you could ever get out of her was a nervous little giggle and a sly look like she'd done something dirty, when all she had really done was laugh at a joke. We would always make fun of her because she rarely seemed to eat anything other than mixed green salads, sitting straight up in her chair, taking each bite daintily with her fork, wiping her full lips with her napkin as if she were sitting at an etiquette dinner lorded over by Emily Post. She never went out and drank with us, she always pulled some excuse like needing to go to the gym, so while I had plenty of chances to get naughty with the other girls in the office (which, admittedly, happened once or twice) the opportunity never arose with Anna.
Between the gym and the salads and some phenomenal genes, she had one of the best bodies I had ever seen. Like I said she was tall and limber, but her back swayed down gracefully into smoothly curvy hips and a tight round ass that pouted out of her skirts constantly. Her legs were smooth and tan, probably no bigger around than my arms, balancing perfectly on tall heels. Her breasts were small but shapely, that dark hair flowing down around them when she had her blouse unbuttoned enough to see a smooth valley of cleavage, which got even sexier when she shrugged her shoulders up to laugh. Her mom was Portuguese and you could see the Mediterranean in her black hair and dark eyes, with wide red lips that curled up just a little when she talked.
Suffice it to say there were some rough afternoons for me, my cock straining in my pants as I watched her climb a ladder to rearrange the stationary closet or bend over my computer when I asked for help with a spreadsheet. IT never bothered me too much though, I knew she was off limits. She had a serious long distance boyfriend in LA and I knew she was never the kind of girl to cheat, even if I had wanted to try and push it. Besides, I had plenty of girl problems of my own, and I was happy to enjoy the eye candy at work, which provided me with a little masturbation material once I got home. It wasn't a bad arrangement.
Everything changed when she announced to the office that she was planning on leaving the company and going to law school in the fall. Honestly it didn't change for the better, she was almost never around, and always stressed about her upcoming LSATs. She almost never came over to my desk to flirt anymore, and even her looks were suffering, she always looked tired and washed out. It came to a head when we found her crying in her boss's office one day, while her boss was out to lunch. It was just too much, she said, the test, the applications, the stress. And one of the girls got out of her later that she had broken up with her boyfriend on top of everything else. I hardly saw her until she had taken her test, the week after she was finally back in the office regularly and seemed herself again.
We went out to lunch that Friday, seven or eight of us from the office, half in celebration of Anna finishing her test, and half just for the hell of it. We went to a Mexican place around the corner in Soho, and ordered a few pitchers of margaritas to take the edge off the week. Most of the bosses were gone for the day and we liked to wind down with a little booze. To our surprise, even Anna asked for a glass and we toasted her ability to make it through the LSAT. After another pitcher or two of margaritas and endless tacos, we headed back out into the city heat, all a little grouchy that we were going to have to waste a few more hours at work before we could resume drinking.
On the way back, Anna walked with me, leaning into me just a little.
"I'm going to miss you guys," she said.
"We'll miss you too," I said, feeling a little awkward since we hadn't really talked in weeks. "What am I going to do? Flirt with Amanda?"
She giggled a little, by then the office had made a point to call us out on our flirting as much as possible.
"That's no good," she said, "I guess you'll just have to make sure the replacement is cuter than me."
I couldn't think of a way to tell her I wasn't sure that was possible without sounding smarmy, so I kept my mouth shut. She stumbled just a little on a curb, unusual for her perfect balance.
"Oooo, shit! I must have had a little too much to drink. I'm a little out of practice, I don't think I've had a single sip of alcohol since I started studying for the test 3 months ago."
She steadied herself on my arm, and smoothed down her skirt. It was unusually colorful for her, pastel green, and a little shorter and wavier than most of the things she wore. Her shirt was her signature white blouse, unbuttoned just enough to see the bow on a black lace bra as she bent forward. I caught myself looking down and felt a familiar rise in my pants as we got back to our office building.
The afternoon was an eternity, we sat at our desks sweating because the building hadn't turned on our ac yet, and I could feel the alcohol in my brain slouching from a pleasant buzz to a little midafternoon hangover. I went to get a glass of fresh water and noticed Anna wasn't at her desk. I motioned to it and Amanda, who sat next to her said
"OH, I think she's reading in Carol's office."
Carol was the head of our company, and her office was legendary, a spacious corner office with windows facing uptown and east across to Brooklyn. She had a simple desk and a Persian carpet and a huge red couch, which was perfect for lounging in when she was out of town, and all of us competed to get in there first. The door was shut but there was a small pane of glass that gave a view inside, which I peeked in as I passed. There, crumpled on the couch, was Anna. I had never seen her so vulnerable looking, her hair fanning out around her as her hips twisted themselves to fit all the way on the couch, her blue skirt riding up almost enough for me to catch a glimpse of her panties. She must have felt my eyes on her, because she woke up with a start and saw me, motioning for me to come in.
"You alive in here?"
She looked bashful. "Sorry, I must have fallen asleep. Not the effect tequila has on most people, I know."
