She had flirted with him shamelessly for almost the entire five years she had worked in the office. Her a young lass raised in Europe, of hearty peasant stock and conservative dress, just out of college when she started, and he a married, grizzled father with way too much experience in the industry and an unrepressed love for women in general and for women who flirted with him in particular. But he took the company's half-hearted warnings about sexual harassment seriously, and generally ignored her. Once or twice he tested the waters, flirted back, and was always immediately rebuffed with a pained expression and days of flirtlessness.

So he learned to reconcile her behavior with her obvious sexual repression, to enjoy what she offered, her walking close, her almost touch, her infectious laugh, her lamentations about her inability to find a boyfriend, her constant excuses about being giddy from lack of sleep, her unexplained apologies for being "such a bad girl," the images of spanking her that always leapt into his mind when she said it, and the urges to kiss her when she put her face within inches of his while going over problems.

Until one day when he returned from vacation and found her gone, swept away by an industry-wide wave of layoffs, her cube containing only a few small items she had forgotten to collect. He sent her email, offering condolences, asking her if she wanted what was left in her cube.

She answered affirmatively, almost forcefully, inviting him to bring them to her apartment on his way home from work. He smiled, envisioning their reunion, freed from the restraints of company policy, relishing an opportunity to be alone with her, in her space, where she was comfortable and in control. He imagined himself telling her how much he missed her, how much she drove him crazy, how he had wanted to kiss her all those years. It was at that point that the image would go fuzzy, but he was sure it was followed by her kissing him, by her shirt disappearing, by her breasts, those breasts he had wanted to see for so long, pressed against his chest and thrust into his starving, eager mouth. It would be a fun, impassioned, light-hearted, one-time, no strings celebration and unleashing of five years of repression.

He left work as early as he dared, so that an extra hour away would not bring him home suspiciously late. There was a spring in his step as walked to the car. Driving to her apartment only half-consciously he kept glancing at her things in the passenger seat beside him, smiling a smile of anticipation, of knowing the future, of feeling free.

Her apartment complex was large and secure, with one of those weird systems where the phone doubles as a doorbell. It had been years since he'd lived in an apartment, or even socialized with people who lived in apartments, and he stood for a moment in the lobby paralyzed by uncertainty before figuring out the scrolling list of tenants on the touch screen next to the phone. But then her phone was ringing, and he was back on track, visualizing her answering, sounding happy, buzzing him in.

She answered breathlessly, sounding rushed. Just out of the shower, masturbating, making out with a suddenly-acquired boyfriend? Surely she had been expecting him, and the first two possibilities were intriguing. He announced himself, waited a second, listening to her heavy breathing. "I'll be right down" he heard her say. He stood frozen in her lobby, staring at the phone, which had clicked dead before he even had a chance to review his options. Realizing there were other people there who needed to use the phone, he stepped back, reorganizing his expectations, anticipating her arrival, as repressed as ever, repressed himself, buried his feelings, stood waiting, as stoicly and stiffly as he could master, staring through the reinforced glass at the elevator.

She emerged, walked toward him, wearing denim shorts, a white t-shirt and, he was sure, nothing else. Her breasts swayed as she walked, bounced as she opened the door, larger and freer and more mouth-wateringly enticing than he had ever imagined. She was smiling, she was glowing, she was happy to see him. He stared, enthralled, images of kissing her and anticipation of an elevator ride flooding his mind so that he was unable to concentrate on the actual mechanics of greeting.

"Hi" he stammered, holding out her things, "I have your stuff."

"Thanks" she said smiling, stepping closer, taking the things from his hand, both their hands clasping the same items, her face, again, inches from his, the ache to kiss her welling up. "You are really sweet to do this."

"It was nothing" was all he could manage. Not "I had to see you, I miss you I care for you, I wanted to kiss you" nor any of the other million thoughts that passed through his mind as other tenants streamed past, through the door, as she joined them, slipping away, back into the elevator to the apartment he would never see.

He stood there, frozen, in her lobby, buffeted by the winds of fate, feeling very, very old and very tired.