Naomi Harris worked in the newest, tallest office tower in the city. Her offices were in the top ten floors of the huge building and going up and down in the elevator during the first week the building had been open left her feeling vaguely nauseous. The one hundred floors whipped by at an alarming rate and her stomach did flip flops as she was hurled either skyward or back toward the earth.
Naomi wasn't afraid of heights or claustrophobic, but she did feel a certain uneasiness given the newness of the building and the speed at which the elevators moved.
Naomi was a lawyer, and a good one. She had worked hard to get where she was, one of the top litigators in her company, and she wasn't going to let a little nervousness about these elevators get to her. Facing down a tough prosecutor was far worse.
Yet on the night she worked late in the new building for the first time she felt herself getting spooked as she sat hunched at her desk in the new office. The noises seemed somehow more sinister, more... personal.
Calling Craig, her husband, she told him about working late.
"I figure I should be done in an hour. I can't wait to get out of here."
"Is something wrong?"
"I don't know. I feel creeped out or some reason. "
"Is anyone else there?"
"Not on my floor. I'm sure someone is around, but not where I am."
"Is that what's bugging you?"
"Not as such."
"What is it?"
Naomi sighed. "I feel childish, but I don't want to ride the elevator alone."
"Ah." Craig said it in a tone that Naomi recognized as his patient indulgence of something he thought foolish. He wasn't a mean spirited person, and she rarely gave him reason to feel indulgent toward her, but she recognized it after ten years together. Craig would be hurt if she pointed it out to him, he really prided himself on being a modern man with all the appropriate sensitivities toward the plight of women, but down underneath he was still a man and he didn't get her all the time.
"It's nothing. I said I feel childish. I'm a big girl I can handle an elevator ride."
Just then her phone beeped indicating a low battery. "Whoops gotta go, my phone is dying. I'll see you in an hour. "
"Bye. I'll keep some supper warm."
"Thanks. I love you."
"I'll let my cooking say I love you back."
"Sounds great."
They said final goodbyes and hung up.
After an hour of work Naomi's feeling of anxiety had more or less abated, the ins and outs of dense legal documents had clogged her brain with other thoughts. She even forgot that her phone was dying and didn't charge it.
As she packed up her briefcase and made her way to the elevator she began to feel uneasy once more.
Waiting for the little metal box to ascend to her she began to feel an overwhelming sense of doom. She felt far more vulnerable about getting inside that steel box than ever before in her life. Was she developing claustrophobia with age? Could that happen?
Naomi was thirty five, fit and healthy. At no point in her life had she ever experienced any phobias or even prolonged health conditions, the very idea of having one felt impossible. And yet when the elevator finally arrived and opened for her she hesitated long enough that she had to thrust out a hand to stop the door from closing before she dared get on.
Stepping onto the elevator she felt her breath grow shallow and actual fear curl in her belly. What was going on? She pressed the button for her garage level and willed herself to calm down.
Ten floors later the elevator slowed and her tension mounted. Why was it stopping?
The door opened and a man stepped on and all her anxiety washed away. Just seeing another person made her so much more comfortable that she beamed up at him. Naomi was not short, at five foot seven she was taller than average, but this guy was somewhere over six feet, handsome and well built. She had never seen him before and, after her immense relief at his arrival, she felt a strange stirring of lust replace it.
Naomi had a healthy sexual appetite, one that Craig equaled so she had never seriously considered an affair, but this guy was rather sexy and somehow her fear had been replaced with desire for a man she had never met.
It all happened in a moment, the elevator had only just begun to descend once more when she felt her body respond to his presence. He smiled back at her wide grin and she felt a flutter in her stomach. She saw him appraise her the same way she was assessing him.
Naomi was very fit; she jogged and did Pilates and yoga most every day. She had been a volley-ball player in high school and college and prided herself on losing none of her energy and youthfulness as she grew more mature.
Her hair was naturally blonde, and had highlights from being out and about in the unusually hot summer they had been having. She wore it long and straight. Usually she wore shorter skirts to show off her lean legs, and today was no exception. Silk stockings were a must. Her face was tanned from a lot of golf and her big blue eyes made larger with mascara and eye shadow.
As the stranger looked her over quickly she felt confident that he liked what he saw. He appeared to be a bit younger, but she doubted he knew that. Enjoying the hint of sexual tension going on Naomi forgot all about her anxiety of the moment before.
Until the elevator began to make a grinding noise, lurched, and tilted alarmingly. Then it dropped a few feet and jerked to a halt.
Naomi was ashamed of her screams, but it was terrifying how the elevator tossed the two occupants around, bashing them into each other and throwing them both to the floor.
A horrifying creaking of stressed metal moaned throughout the enclosed space and the two of them lay still, afraid to move least they send the whole elevator plummeting to the bottom of the shaft, killing them both.
A seeming infinity of silence was finally broken, mere seconds later, when the man asked. "Are you hurt?"
He whispered, as if the elevator might hear that they were still alive and try to kill them again.
"I don't think so." Naomi whispered as well, matching his tone.
"I'm going to try and move and call for help, okay?"
Naomi nodded, terrified that they might begin to fall once more, but unwilling to just sit and do nothing.
The man eased into a sitting position along the opposite wall from her. Their legs were tangled and as he moved she pulled hers into herself, curling in a ball on the floor of the car. As he eased slowly toward the little door that held an emergency phone the elevator moved again swaying dramatically and the lights went out.
Naomi screamed once more, hating herself for doing so even as she did it. Then immediately after her scream a dim emergency light went on giving them a low light with which to see.
"Okay so no phone call right now."
"Jesus Christ." Naomi hissed, her fear filling every fibre of her being as they dangled inside a swaying elevator car seventy stories up.
