Company Policy

"Really, it'll only take me a little bit." I assured her for the third time. "I can be out of here in an hour or two. If I can't get a bus or taxi, it's only five miles to my place and I've walked it before."

"It'll be dangerous. Call me so I know you made it home."

I assured her I would call her and bid her good luck on her five block trek to the train station. As soon as she left I took a few seconds to gather my thoughts. So, Claire was single. I assumed she was seeing someone because I heard her talking on the phone , and because of the way she had been dressing lately. Not that someone needs a significant other to dress up nice, but I figured that was the reason.

I took the next half hour to finish the slides and then went to print everything we needed. The damn copy and printing machine was giving me trouble again; so, I had to shimmy to the side of it, duck under a shelf and open up the back of the machine to get to the jam.

"Stupid paper. Stupid old ass giant printer. Stupid broken rollers. Just print the damn thing so I can go home." Needless to say, I wasn't exactly having fun.

I had just grabbed the last bits of paper out from a particular roller when I heard my name. It took me off guard and I turned sharply, cutting my arm on a piece of the printer still jutting out. I swore and tried to stand up straight, only to run my head up into the shelf above me. I fell to the ground and tried to blink the stars away. I heard a gasp, but I was still groggy and in too much pain to care. That damn shelf hurt.

I looked over and saw Claire kicking off her snow boots. For the life of me I couldn't understand why she would be taking off her shoes at a time like this. As confused as I was about her boots, when she grabbed at her tights and yanked them down, I was absolutely floored. Either I had hit my head so hard I was now hallucinating wonderful things, or, I was still in the land of reality and my brain wasn't processing things right. I tried to voice my confusion, but before I could say anything, Claire had knelt beside me ,balled her tights up and pressed them against my arm. The snow must be pretty high, because a part of them was cold and wet, even though she had changed out of her heels into snow boots. I looked over at Claire and saw that her face was bright red; and, as coherency flickered back to life through the pain, I found I could form words again with my mouth.

Unfortunately, coherency was slow to draw speed; so, the first think I managed to spit out wasn't anything profound. "What?"

"Are you ok? Are you ok?" She sounded hysterical.

"I'm... what are you doing here?" Two thought processes couldn't really run at the same time in my head yet. I wanted to tell her I was fine; but, I still couldn't grasp why she was back.

"Can you see ok? Is your vision blurred? How does your arm feel?"

"I'm fine. Why are you here?" I was finally getting back my full cognitive functions.

"I had to come. The trains have stopped. Are you ok? How do you feel? How is your arm?"

I used my free arm to grab onto her hands that were pressed so hard against my arm that I was forced to lean away from her. "Calm down. I'm fine." I was still in quite a bit of pain, but it was starting to wane, and I could think clearly again. She took a few deep breaths but kept staring into my eyes like I might close them and die at any moment. I shifted my weight so I could sit up straight and rubbed my head. I didn't feel anything wet up there; so, I just banged it up pretty good. I could probably look forward to a headache soon. I looked down at my arm; it was still covered up with her tights.

"It doesn't hurt that bad, let me see." I said as I tried to push her hands away.

"No! Wait." She clenched her eyes shut and turned her head away. "Is it ok?"

I squinted at her, trying to figure out what the hell was wrong, and gave up trying to decipher it. Perhaps I wasn't functioning at one hundred percent yet after all. I pulled the tights away and took a look. It was just a light cut, albeit a long one; And, there was a minimal amount of blood smeared around it. I don't think it was even really bleeding anymore.

"It's fine." I said. "You know, it's not even that bad, you could have just gone and got some paper towels or something instead of ruining your tights."

"Yeah, well." She muttered with her eyes still clenched shut. "I don't like seeing other people's blood. It freaks me out. I kind of panic."

"I hadn't noticed." I quipped. "It's really just my head that hurts. Let me go clean this up."

"Did you cover it back up?" She asked timidly.

"Yeah, yeah. It's hidden."

She let out a sigh of relief and opened her eyes.

"Let me go clean up. I'll be right back. In the meantime, see if you can get this printer to give me the last few pages I need."

"Ok." She agreed. I went to my office and grabbed my button down shirt before I went to the bathroom to clean up. My head felt much better, but I was still going to have to nurse a small headache. I rinsed the little bit of blood on my arm, put my button up shirt on over my t-shirt and rolled my sleeves so the cut couldn't be seen before heading back to the printer. Claire had successfully battled the printer for the sheets I needed.

"So, why are you here again?" I asked.

"Well, I made it all the way to the station just to find out that they had stopped all outbound trains until the snow slows down some. They said the estimated delay was 3-5 hours. So, I called my house and left them a message that I was stuck at the office. I came here to help you. If I'm stuck down here, I might as well stay and finish."

"Oh, well, I'm all finished now."

"Oh." She paused, seemingly mulling something over. "Well what are you going to do now?"

"I guess I can stay here with you until the trains start up again, unless you want to try and catch a taxi to my place?"

Her eyes lit up for a second before she looked at the ground and muttered. "There are no taxis. I didn't see anyone else except for the people already camped out at the station.

"Well, we could walk to my place, but if it's as bad as you say it is out there, we're probably better off just staying put." I was slightly upset that I wasn't going to be bringing her back to my condo; but, I suppose being alone with her at the office wasn't all that bad either.

"Alright, well let's just get this all cleaned up, and then we can scour the office fridge for something to eat." She grabbed the papers off the printer and headed to my office, grabbing her boots along the way.

When we had everything set I slumped into my chair and stared out the window at blizzard. It didn't show any signs of stopping. I turned to find Claire sitting in the chair across my desk slipping on black, thick, heavy knee high socks. When she crossed one leg over the other I glimpsed further up her dress than she probably would have appreciated.

"What? A girl has to be prepared." She said when she saw me staring at her legs.

"Oh not that." I said quickly, and then quietly cursed myself.

"Then what are you staring at?"

"I..." Good job Brandon, you should have just gone with her carrying around socks. "I just... you have nice legs." Nice legs? What the hell Brandon? Now she's definitely going to think you're a pervert.

"Oh." She blushed. "Well thanks. I'll go, um... check the fridge." She carefully uncrossed her legs ,stood up and walked out of my office in her black knee high socks without putting her shoes back on.

I put my face in my hands and sighed. God, I could be stupid sometimes. I saved my work on my computer and shut it down for the night. I straighten up my desk the best I could in my attempt to stall and headed toward the kitchen.

When I got there, Claire had pulled out one of the tables from where they were all pushed together and put two chairs on either side. On the table was a vase of fake flowers that we usually kept in the entry way, and two old birthday candles lit on either side of it, sticking out of two apples.

There were paper plates set with plastic silverware and napkins from McDonalds. On the plates were some mini pizza bagels, half a hot pocket each, and some chips. I was still staring at the arrangement when Claire appeared in the doorway with two cans of Coke from the vending machine.

"It's not steak, lobster, and red wine, but it'll have to do for our makeshift Valentine's dinner." She said.

"You're a day early for that, you know." I chuckled.

She shrugged. "I guess you'll just have to make it up to me tomorrow.

"Are you asking me on a date?"

"No. I'm asking you to ask me on a date."

I couldn't help but laugh. "Now dating co-workers is definitely against company policy."

"Oh please. Everyone knows that Amy is screwing Kevin. I doubt anyone would care if two people in the office had a serious relationship."

"Well... what Kevin does in his spare time is none of my concern. Can't account for taste, but hey."

"Well? Are you going to join me or what?" She demanded.

"Hold on just a second." I ran back to the supply office and took a full bottle of wine out from a toner cartridge box. I saw Kevin hide it there after the retirement party last week. I came back to the kitchen and grabbed the plastic wine cups that we kept laying around for special occasions.

"Aha! We do have wine!" She exclaimed happily.

"I know a guy." I said with the best bold face lie expression I could pull off. Apparently she wasn't buying it because I seemed to have caused a fit of giggles.

"You're not half bad when you're not all wound up for work, you know?" She said seriously.

"Hey! I'm tons of fun, ask anyone." I protested.

"Compared to what?" She asked dryly. I took it as rhetorical, and sat down at our freezer feast.

"So..." I mused. "Come here often?"

"Monday through Friday."

"Yeah, I'm a regular here too." I sighed and filled the two wine glasses.

"A toast!" She held up her glass to me.

"A toast?"

"To us!"

"To us?"

"For finishing the proposals on time!"

"Oh, sure." We clanged our glasses together and I took a sip out of my glass. Claire, on the other hand, drained hers. I looked at her empty glass suspiciously as she held it out to me.

"Hey, I don't have to drive anywhere." She said defensively. I couldn't argue with that logic so I gulped down my glass and poured us another.

"I can be classy and hold to one glass of wine when you take me out on a real date." Claire giggled.

"I can't even remember the last time I was on a real date." I said, more to myself than Claire.

"It's been that long then?" She asked as she took another sip of wine.

"Too long. A couple of years probably."

"Wow, that is a long time."

"Tell me about it. I remember the good days in high school and college, back when I wasn't constantly working and busy. I'd have time to find a girl at a party, take her out a few times, give her a good time. Then there were those wild and crazy nights. Well, you know, typical young people stuff."

"I don't know actually."

"What do you mean? Didn't you go out and stuff in school?"

"Well I went on a few dates, but I never really partied or had any 'wild and crazy nights.'" She added her own finger quotations and rolled her eyes.

"What about your boyfriends? Were they all as tame as you?"

"My boyfriends were as tame as any other non-existent boyfriends."

"You've never dated anyone? I find that hard to believe."

"I've been on a few dates, but never anything official. It's hard to find a guy who is interested in more than just getting in my pants. Raging hormones be damned, I wasn't about to give it up to any of those assholes. I'd rather stay a virgin." She held out her empty glass to me as I choked on my last sip.

"You're a virgin!? You can't be serious." I hadn't considered that she had never been with someone before.

"I'm dead serious!"

"Everyone starts so... early these days though." I poured us some fresh wine.

"Not all of us." She sneered, then sighed. "Not for lack of trying."

"Don't rush, you'll find someone when the time comes." I assured her, mentally calculating how many dates it might take for that time to come.

"I know, I just get antsy sometimes. I want a real relationship that comes with all the perks." She accentuated the world 'all' suggestively.

"I hear you. Being celibate wasn't my first choice either." I joked.

"It's probably why you are so stressed out all the time. You just need a good lay!" She laughed, whether at her own joke or my surprised expression, I didn't know. I just didn't imagine she was capable of crude jokes.

"I'm not that high strung. Thank you very much." I crossed my arms in mock indignation.

"Brandon, please, you're like a rubber band ready to snap." Claire was clearly enjoying this opportunity to rib me; and, despite some of the truth behind her words I was having a genuinely good time. I felt a little warm and fuzzy as the wine worked its way through my system. I noticed Claire's cheeks looked a little flush, either from laughing or the wine. I suspected the latter.

"Well then little miss perfect. If you're getting as much action as I am, what's your secret to a stress free life?"

Claire ducked her head and looked around the room as she set down her wine glass, and then motioned with her fingers for me to lean forward. I went along with her act and leaned in, turning my ear toward her as she whispered. "They make toys for that kind of thing."

I pulled back with legitimate surprise on my face. This conversation had taken an interesting turn, and I feared for the state of the wine box.

"What, do you just go out and hook up with someone at a club or something?" She asked me pointedly.

"What? No. I told you I don't have much of a social life."

"Well then, what do you do about those... urges?" She gestured vaguely with her hands.

"The same way any other single guy does." I said defensively.

"Then why are you so surprised that I have a toy? Women have needs to you know."

"I... just didn't think about you that way. That's all."

"Is that why you were staring at my legs then?" Her eyes sparkled mischievously.

"No... uh... well... I just..." My mouth moved freely but I couldn't get any input from the cognitive parts of my brain.

"Look, Brandon, let's not pretend that we aren't attracted to one another. It's silly and downright frustrating. I know why you were looking; it's the same reason why I look at your ass when you walk down the hallway."

"You look at my ass?" I said incredulously.

"You don't look at mine?" She countered.

"I..." She gave me a no nonsense look that suggested she already knew the answer. "I do."

"That wasn't so hard, was it?"

"I don't typically find myself admitting to staring at a woman."

"And I don't typically find myself in the office flirting with my boss over a box of wine." She set her empty glass in front of me and winked.

"Oh, this definitely isn't flirting. That's against company policy. This is just... an employee bonding program."

"Oh is it now?" She said in mock surprise as she grabbed a small pizza bagel. "And do you treat all of your employees to such a grand meal?"

"Of course, though the boxed wine is only for the firm's best employees."

"So I'm one of the best then, huh? So can I ask you for a raise?"

"Nope. Sorry, that's Kevin's job." I laughed.

"I think Amy would have better luck asking for a raise than I would." She pointed out coyly.

"You don't need to sleep your way to the top. You're a pretty girl, you're smart, you have a great personality, you work well with others, and you know how to get shit done. You'll do just fine in life."

Claire might have blushed; but, her cheeks were already rosy, so it was difficult to be sure. She looked at me funny for a few moments but then shook her head and chuckled. "Why Brandon, that almost sounded like a professional recommendation."

"I can put it on company letterhead if you wanna use it as a reference." I stood up and began to clear the table of all but the wine.

"You're funny." She didn't look at me, but rather at the table when she said it.

"Me? You think I'm funny?"

Claire tore her gaze away from the fascinating fold up table and looked at me with a goofy smile on her face. "Have you ever danced, Brandon?"

I couldn't help but laugh. "No. I most definitely do not dance." I dumped the plates and napkins into the garbage and went to the sink to wash my hands. I was startled to feel something touch my back and even more surprised to see it was Claire. I didn't even hear her get up. She rubbed her hand up and down my back as I rinsed the soap from my hands.

"You've never danced then? Not even a little bit?" She looked up at me. Her blue-grey eyes twinkled in the less than romantic florescent lighting.

"Does it look like I dance? How much have you had to drink?" I chuckled as I turned off the sink.

"I just figured that, with the way you keep dancing around the opportunities to make a move on me, you had to have started somewhere." She was still running her hand up and down my back, but was staring at the sink where I still held the handle.

I didn't know what to say so I just looked at her. She turned her gaze back over to me and her eyes met mine. I looked into them for a few seconds, but my eyes quickly dropped to her lips as her tongue darted across them. A light shade of red covered them and they glistened just slightly. I desperately wanted to lean in and take them between my own - to see what they tasted like. I was lost in the idea of spending hours kissing her, only pulling away long enough to breathe. Claire put her hand on my shoulder, and I snapped out of the day dream her lips had induced. She turned me slightly from the sink so that I was facing her and took a small step forward so that her body touched mine. She again looked up at me, this time expectantly.

My eyes darted from her eyes to lips several times in succession as my mind raced. Should I allow this? What was there to lose? What if she didn't like it? What if someone found out? I'm like six years older than her, is that weird? I'm her boss; that is definitely against company policy. I really want to kiss her though.

She interrupted my thoughts by leaning in toward me. Her eyes were staring right into mine and I couldn't break her stare as she inched her lips closer toward mine. I leaned in slightly, trying to decide if I should hold her eye contact or close my eyes when she brought her face to the side of mine. I felt her nose brush against my cheek in a small semi-circle in an almost a nuzzling gesture. She put a hand on my neck and I lowered my face as she wrapped her fingers around the back of head and pulled me down toward her. Then she put her lips on the side of my face lightly and brushed them back to my ear. I felt her hot breath against the side of my face as she whispered to me.

"It's entirely too quiet in here for you to be thinking so loud." Her lips brushed against my ear with each word. Suddenly music was playing my eyes shot toward the source. Claire had just put her phone on the counter next to the sink and it was playing a soft light tune. She took my hand in hers and let her other hand fall from my neck to my back. Then she stood and waited.

I wasn't lying when I said I don't dance. I really don't dance, except for that one time at that wedding when I had entirely too much to drink. This wasn't that kind of dancing though. The music playing now only required that you hold each other and move slowly in a circle with some swaying movement in your body. Even someone with two left feet could accomplish that. So I placed my other hand around her waist and moved to the music.

I stepped on her within the first minute. I swore under my breath and apologized, but she only giggled and moved closer into my body. She let go of my hand and put it on my shoulder, and rested her head on my chest, leaving me to place both hands around her back. We were essentially hugging while moving in a circle in a barely noticeable rocking sensation that may or may not have been to the rhythm of the soft music she had playing. There was a dim light coming from the little birthday candles she had stuck in the apples on the table that helped set the mood in its own odd way. If you closed your eyes, it almost seemed romantic, the way Valentine's Day should be.