Jeff stared at the pile of architectural plans on his desk blankly while twirling his pen across his fingers. A quick glance at the clock showed that it had only been ninety minutes since the work day had begun, much to his dismay. This scene was somewhat typical of a Monday morning, but on this particular late-winter day he was even more restless and jaded than usual.
He had been employed at the same architectural design firm for fifteen years and had worked his way up to one of the senior designers during his tenure. By all accounts he was successful in his work and had grown to be one of the pillars of the design team and was relied on heavily. He could also boast a modest house out in the country in which he took no small measure of pride. Professionally, he had many things going for him. This morning what was on his mind was not his work or his house, but his deteriorating marital relationship.
Jeff's family moved around the country quite often when he was young until it was nearly time for him to go to university. Many of those early formative years of his life were marked by a certain amount of instability as a result. He was conventionally attractive being tall, dark haired, and with soft brown eyes, but was never in one place long enough to develop any meaningful relationships. Truth be told he only had one real girlfriend by the age of eighteen before his father took a posting at a different company and remained local to the central part of the country.
After finally having some stability of location, Jeff enrolled in a local university and started his studies. It was there that he met his wife, Janice. True to form, as a young man with depth of heart but no real experience in relationships, he fell for Janice and fell hard. By the time he earned his degree, he had already proposed, to which she accepted, and they began their married life directly after graduation. The pair shared some good years early on, but the luster began to fade as the years dragged on. In all the time that his family had spent flitting about the country, Jeff found himself a young adult who was still learning things about himself years after he tied the knot with Janice.
As he looked back on everything now, at nearly forty years of age, his own life seemed terribly cliche. It was a classic case of "got married too early before either partner knew themselves or each other properly". Many times he considered pursuing divorce, but his pride and not wanting to admit defeat always stood in the way. In any case, he surmised that his forties may be a bit old to be starting over in the way of love.
Speaking of love, that was one of the areas that chiefly frustrated Jeff to no end. In all the years of roaming the country, he spent a lot of time by himself reading and developed a strong sense of imagination. In retrospect, he thought that perhaps his expectations of a marriage relationship were idealised and that connecting with someone in the way he craved was just not feasible. That same imagination fueled his sexuality and gave him a curious mind that was always conjuring up new ideas and pushing the boundaries of his own inner depravity. That imagination, whether it be in a practical or sexual sense, was something that he and his wife did not share. Early in the marriage he attempted to talk to Janice about some of the kinks that interested him, but was promptly shut down. She, in contrast, seemed content with very predictable and bland experiences with extended periods of chasteness between them. This frustrated Jeff to no end, which he conveyed to her many times but ultimately to no avail.
Janice seemed content to play the role of country housewife, which would have shocked Jeff had he known when they were dating. But the longer they were married, the more she focussed on her own hobbies. Jeff certainly didn't hold her hobbies against her, or even the fact that she was unwilling to indulge in his imaginations with him. He firmly believed that one shouldn't be pushed into something they weren't comfortable exploring, especially when it came to things if a sexual nature. It was in this way that his desires for depth and vulnerability were at odds with his marriage. The two had grown into roommates with their own interests and only seemed to cross paths when Janice fancied it.
Over the years, the lack of spark and interest had taken its toll on his psyche. He yearned for something stimulating and deep. It was a fire in his soul that he never could quite put out even when he tried to do just that for the sake of his marriage. It was in the throes of such reflection that he found himself this particular morning. He mustered as much emotional energy as he could to combat the crushing discontentment that plagued him and set his mind to the task at hand. After an hour he reassembled the drawings, now containing his markups, and rolled them into a single, four-foot roll, and picked them up to deliver them to the working team.
His mind was still wrestling with his unmet desires as he navigated into the corridor that connected the design office with the rest of the building. It was when he made the turn into the corridor that he first saw her. In a building full of engineers, she stood out like an oasis in the midst of a barren desert. He didn't recognise her, but she strode toward him in the corridor while looking at a stack of papers in her hand.
Jeff was not one to be so drawn to anyone at first sight, but he could not help but drink her in with his eyes. She couldn't have been older than twenty, and stood over a foot shorter than his six and-a-half foot frame. Her dark brunette hair cascaded down her neck just past the shoulders. She wore a dark coloured top that was adorned with a light pink floral pattern that was cinched about her waist by a belt and gave way to a dark and flowing skirt beneath it. He was instantly entranced by her curves as she walked toward him. His eyes scanned down past her knees and noted the dark stockings that wrapped around her calves.
Even if Jeff hadn't been previously focussed on his high levels of sexual frustration, he could not have denied that this girl seemed purpose-built to arrest his attention. He was keenly aware that he had a "type" and his subconscious mind was at work furiously checking off the boxes.
As they drew closer to each other, Jeff was suddenly aware of how much space that he and the long tube of rolled up paper occupied in the narrow corridor. The girl's attention was still fixed on the papers she carried and he knew it was up to him to step aside and make room. Whether by his level of distraction, or some subconscious ploy, as he turned his shoulders the rolled up drawings jutted into her path and knocked the papers out of her hand. She let out a yelp of surprise as the stack scattered on the floor. Jeff, now red in the face, knelt down to help her gather the mess.
"Terribly sorry about that!" he offered while reaching to pick up the stray sheets. As she knelt down to do the same, he couldn't help but see the smooth and perfect slopes of her cleavage and once again was hopelessly distracted.
"Oh, no! It was my fault for not looking where I was going," she replied before looking up.
They both had scattered sheets of paper in hand when she finally looked up and their eyes met. If Jeff had been distracted before, he was veritably hypnotised when he saw her eyes for the first time. They gleamed a mixture of brown, green, and grey. All at once, the tingling feeling of electricity radiated up his fingers and arms and warmed him from the inside. Her pupils widened when she saw him... or had he imagined that? There was no way to be sure, but one thing that was certain was the palpable pause between the two as they took each other in.
Jeff reached over to hand her the papers he collected but couldn't take his eyes off hers. When she reached out for them her hand brushed his, which set off more intense jolts of electricity through his body.
"Thank you!" she said with a smile.
That smile...and that voice... there was something so comforting yet so arousing about it.
When she spoke to him, Jeff all of a sudden felt like he was a teenager again, just moved into town, and unable to speak in the presence of a new crush. He had not felt the need to feign confidence in so long and he was caught completely off guard by meeting her in such a manner.
"That's alright," he began, struggling over his words as they both rose to standing. He towered over her and she looked up at him in a way that stoked the imagination that had been repressed for so long.
"I don't think I've seen you around before?" he continued. "I'm Jeff, over in the designers' office."
Her sweet, yet seductive eyes continued to look up at him while she responded.
"Hello, Jeff! I'm Katy! And yeah this is actually my first day here! I'm starting in the admin office."
"In that case, welcome to the firm!"
Katy smiled at him again, still with her eyes fixed on his and nearly lost her papers a second time.
"Nice to meet you, Jeff! Maybe I'll see you around the office?" She said with the slightest tinge of hopefulness.
