Anne was twenty-five
years old. She was a slim, shapely girl with light brown hair, blue
eyes, and a pretty face. She sat in the glow of the overhead lights
with her face too close to the monitor. She was straining to see the
small fonts. Max walked into the room.
“Ah, slaving over a
hot computer I see.”
She giggled. “We
women are always slaving over a hot something.” She paused before
adding “regardless of race.”
She got him, and she
had cleverly used race rather than gender to do it.
“Oops! I guess
that’s the problems with cliches. They’re mental shortcuts that
roll off the tongue before we think about the connotations stemming
from their origins.”
She laughed. “Now
that we’ve stomped all over your joke, what can I do for you?”
“Do you want me to
wait a few minutes for you to complete the entry you’re making?”
“That depends on what
you want.”
Did he imagine it or
did she flutter her eyes at him. He did not want to jump to any
conclusions.
“I’m looking for
the documents Ship produced in response to our first set of requests
for documents in the Ship-Worthy case.”
“Give me just a
moment,” she said.
She quickly finished
making the entry she had been working on. She hunched over to put
her face closer to the screen. She then brought up the database
created for the Ship-Worthy case. She straightened up as she typed.
She leaned forward again and squinted as she checked her query for
errors before pressing the enter key. A list of the documents popped
up on the screen. She leaned back in her chair and lightly messaged
her forehead.
“I’m getting a head
ache,” she said.
“The story of my
life.”
She sighed. “Yeah,
it’s tough. Women always have head aches and men are always
deprived, poor things!”
She clicked on the
print button and smiled to let him know her rejoinder did not mean
she was offended by his humor. She was sending him mixed signals.
He seemed to be engaged in a battle of wits and a flirtation. Was
she saying maybe, but on her terms?
“Eye glasses designed
for the distance and glare of the screen would probably prevent the
head aches.”
“Gee, I’ll bet you
say that to all the girls.”
Max laughed.
“Benevolent self interest!”
“I guess you don’t
believe in the old saw about men never making passes at girls who
wear glasses.”
“No. The only
drawback to computer glasses is that they might make you stand close
to someone to see who is talking to you.”
“I could always take
the glasses off to talk, unless you want me to stand close to you.”
“I sure wouldn’t
object.”
She stood up and
lightly bumped into him on her way to the printer. The expression on
her face when she glanced over her shoulder at him told him the bump
was not an accident. She picked up the print out and handed it to
him.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
He phone rang, and she
answered it. He waved goodbye as walked out of the room.
It is amazing what a
little banter or flirting can do. Max had seen Anne before. He knew
she was the attractive lady who helped maintain the document
repository, but that was all he thought about her. Now that he had
interacted with her, he was really looking forward to seeing her
again.
The next time he went
to the repository Jim went with him. Max was disappointed to see
that Anne was not at her desk. There was a photograph laying face up
next to her keyboard. It was of her and two of her friends at the
beach. Her friends were wearing bikinis. Anne was wearing the type
of one-piece bathing suit competitive swimmers wear.
“Wow!” Max said.
“What?”
“Look at the photo.”
“I see what you mean.
They’re hot! Is that Anne in the one-piece suit?”
“It sure is.”
“I wonder what she’s
hiding.”
“As revealing as that
suit is it can’t be much.”
“It’s probably a
tattoo or a scar.”
“Why do you say
that?”
“Well, that suit
wouldn’t hide any figure flaws, but since her friends are wearing
bikinis you know she’s hiding something.”
The conversation ended
there because Anne entered the room. Max set the photo back on the
desk.
“Hi, fellas. Were
you looking at the picture?”
Max grinned. “It’s
irresistible.”
“I’ll take that as
a complement.”
“Please do.”
“A friend of mine
sent it to me yesterday. It was taken last summer when I still had
time for a social life.”
“I take it you’ve
been putting in a lot of overtime.”
“They really need to
hire one more person. What can I do for you?”
“We need the
documents Casper produced in response to Worthy’s first set of
requests for documents.”
Anne’s search turned
up a large number of documents. Max and Jim spent four hours
reviewing and marking the ones they wanted copied.
“It’s going to take
us an hour to copy all of those,” Anne said. “I can take the
copies to your office if you want.”
Max smiled. “Thank
you. I would appreciate that.”
The repository was only
a few miles from the law firm. Max and Jim picked up some burgers to
take back to the firm with them. They ate them in the attorney’s
lounge. They were leaving the lounge when Anne and a young man from
the repository wheeled the boxes of documents in on hand dollies.
Jim approached Anne.
“Let me take those,” he said.
He led the young man to
a conference room while Max signed the form for receipt of the
documents.
“It’s really kind
of you to personally deliver these.”
“Think nothing of it.
It gets me out of the office for a while.”
“I know what you
mean. I look forward to going to the repository for the same reason.
Knowing you’re there makes it even better.”
She smiled. “How do
you feel about tattoos?”
So it was a tattoo her
bathing suit had been hiding.
“I wouldn’t reject
a woman just because she has one.”
Jim and the young man
were now approaching and the flirtation was put on hold.
“It looks like it’s
time to go,” she said.
“Pity.”
“Yes, but I’m sure
we’ll meet again.”
“I’m counting on
it.”
She laughed as she took
the hand truck from Jim. Max watched her enter the elevator.
“Don’t tell me you
didn’t ask her out.”
“I will just as soon
as I can get a night off.”
Max worked late every
night that week, and he could not find a plausible reason to go back
to the repository. On Monday he was talking to his secretary when he
felt someone behind him. He turned to see who it was.
“Anne! What are you
doing here?”
“I delivered some
documents to Jim.”
“Are you still
putting in the long hours?”
“You have no idea.
It’s been so long since I’ve had sex that I’m afraid I won’t
remember how it’s done.”
“That makes two of
us. Why don’t we discuss it over dinner tonight?”
“Let’s make it my
place.”
Max asked his secretary
for a piece of paper. She rolled her eyes as she handed the paper to
Anne. Anne started writing her home address and directions to there
from the firm.
“What time are you
leaving here?” she asked.
“Five o’clock, no
matter what happens.”
“I’ll be there.”
She handed Max the
directions, kissed him on the cheek, and walked away. He turned to
his secretary.
“Good secretaries
tell not tales.”
“Good bosses don’t
seduce women in front of their secretaries.”
“Well, she started
it.”
“Too bad I can’t
send you to your room without your supper.”
Max laughed.
He was walking up to
Anne’s front door when she pulled into her driveway. She got out
of her car and removed the containers of Chinese food she had bought
on her way home.
“May I take those for
you?”
She handed him the
containers and opened the door.
“Follow me.”
She led him to her
kitchen table. She did not have a dining room. He put the
containers on the table as she set out two plates.
“Would you like some
white wine to go with it?”
“That would be
wonderful.”
He opened the
containers of food while she poured the wine. She waited until they
were both eating before she broached the subject.
“About the tattoo:
It’s the name of the boy I was going with when I was a sophomore in
college. He was a senior who swept me off my feet. He took me to
Mexico for the spring break, and I was drunk on my ass when I got the
tattoo. After we broke up, some friends of mine decided to cheer me
up by getting me drunk again. That’s when I added a little
something to the tattoo.”
“I guess it’s too
painful and expensive to get them removed.”
“And it can leave a
nasty scar.”
She excused herself
when they finished eating. She appeared in the doorway of the
kitchen a few minutes later. She was naked and absolutely gorgeous.
Her stance and the look on her face indicated a reticence that
contradicted the nudity.
“You’re going to
see the tattoo eventually, so let’s get it out of the way now.”
She turned her back on
him. “Ray” was tattooed on the small of her back. Beneath that
was “is an” and beneath that was an arrow pointing down to her
butt crack.
Max laughed. “I’m
guessing it wasn’t an amicable separation.”
“I caught the son of
a bitch cheating on me.”
“Ouch! And now
you’re stuck with his name on your back. Well, no matter how drunk
we might get, I promise I’ll talk you out of tattooing my name on
your abdomen.”
The thought about what
an arrow descending from her abdomen would point to made her laugh.
“Don’t worry,”
she said, “I’ve learned my lesson about drinking and tattoos.”
“That’s my girl!”
“Not yet. You’re
going to have to take me now or lose me.”
She did not have to say
it twice.
First published in macsbackporch.foxtail-farms.com on Jul. 27, 2010
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