Hot Mail

Monday, May 18, 1998

I found the slip of paper that began it all sticking out of a stack of bills I was processing. I'd just come back from lunch and was booting up my desktop when I noticed it - a beige color amid the standard white, a ripped line standing out among straight edges. I pulled it away from everything. The writing was in pen, carefully-drawn blocky letters that seemed like they were meant to disguise someone's handwriting.

"Hotmail username, alexatwork_98. Password, 2cute2ignore.

Check at home, not here."

It was signed, simply, Secret Admirer.

Alex was my name.

I stared at it for a minute, processing. Then, just as quickly as I'd found it, I slipped it into my pocket. Around here, a note like that could be a problem.

I worked in the midsized headquarters of a local chain store. It was far from a job I wanted forever, but it was a paycheck and it kept me fed and in my apartment. I didn't particularly want to lose it over something like that, and I knew that was possible. Company policy was clear and it was strictly enforced: no personal relationships in the office. Ever, at all. I'd known people who were fired for it, and I couldn't really afford to join them.

No one totally knew why the policy existed. There were stories, of course: one was that the CEO's wife had caught him cheating with an employee, and this policy was his attempt to make things right. Another was about an affair gone wrong that ended in tragedy. I'd heard a couple more, to the point where I doubted there was really a good story there at all - just management being prudes, most likely. But even if the stories weren't real, the policy was, and they took it seriously. Hell, my friend Matt had a one night stand with a woman from legal named Rachel last summer and was gone within a month; no one even knew how management found out.

The result, more often than not, was that despite having a pretty solid core of younger people, few of us ever hung out after work, even for a happy hour down the street. It all seemed too risky.

As I started in on my data entry, I kept coming back to the paper. Alexatwork_98 was clearly me. But what did 2cute2ignore mean? Was that a description of me? I didn't want to flatter myself but I sure as hell wasn't bad looking. Or was it a reference to whoever left it? My first thought was that if it was real, it was probably not from anyone I'd want it to be from. Like... ugh, Leslie in accounting who smelled weird and always called me honey.

But what if? There were several cute women in the office, from my age - early 20s - and older. I supposed it could also have been one of the men, of whom there were more, but out of personal preference I started to catalogue attractive women in the office, starting with those my age, who I interacted with.

There were a few that off the bat seemed intriguing if unlikely. Lisa was closest to my desk. She was mid-20s, cute, with long blonde hair and a great body. We were friendly, and worked together a lot given we shared a similar job. She had a serious boyfriend who she was quite happy with, as far as I knew. Plus she wasn't in the office today. None of that ruled it out, but it made her less likely. There was Andrea - not really my type, but her curvy figure undoubtedly got her a lot of attention, and she was friendly and probably a lot of fun outside the office. Margaret was upstairs, pretty religious, a little older, lived at home. Single as far as I knew, and even pretty in her way, but certainly didn't seem the type. Rebecca was in her early thirties, good-looking, and divorced; we did get along really well, but that was probably a long shot. All of them were more or less long shots. No, there were really only two that seemed like real possibilities.

The first was Emma. Her desk was on the other side of the large cubicle space, near the wall of windows. Physically exactly my type: small and devastatingly cute, with light skin and light freckles, shoulder-length light brown hair, and a long elegant neck. She was slender, with a runner's body, and full but not overly large breasts, though she dressed conservatively enough that I had to estimate some things. She'd started at the company only about a month after me, and used to be a regular on my bus, though she got on before me so I didn't know where she lived exactly. We'd talked pretty regularly, become friendly. She also had a sharp, sardonic sense of humor I found really attractive. I'd started to look forward to the rides with her, and she acted like she did too. I was falling for her hard. If it hadn't been for company policy, I'd have asked her out, but... it did exist. I still had those bus rides, though. Then, one morning early last fall, I commented on how much I liked her perfume, and after that it seemed to change: I stopped seeing her in the mornings, and when I saw her at work she was businesslike and nothing more. For a while I tried to think about ways to apologize, or even what to apologize for, but couldn't come up with anything, so I stopped trying. Given all that, Emma didn't make a ton of sense to me, but she made more than anyone else on the list.

Anyone else, that is, except Jen. She was new - started last month, as the assistant to one of the managers I had to interact with. Also a blonde, though more of a dirty blonde. Stunningly hot, with penetrating blue eyes and almost a set sultry look on her face. She had long legs that she showed off with skirts every now and then, with a small but cute ass, thin waist, and full breasts, none of which she worked all that hard to hide - she wore business dress, but managed to wear it in a way that made it clear what kind of body she had. She had a picture on her desk of her and some friends in bikinis at the beach that proved it, if her simple appearance wasn't enough. Beyond the looks, she was one of those people that could talk to anyone any time, a skill I didn't possess - I wasn't shy or anything, but had an introverted side that made me less likely to seek out conversation. That wasn't Jen. In only a month, she'd probably learned more about me than anyone else in the office. She laughed at my jokes, even the bad ones, and sometimes went out of her way to walk by my desk and say hello. I'd suspected for a couple weeks that she had a crush on me; she was a knockout, yes, but I wasn't particularly hard on the eyes either. Was she my personality type? No. She wasn't someone I could see myself in a long relationship with. But... I could see other things, and given the way she and I interacted, she was easily the top prospect.

After that... just a long row of nos, either because they were even more severely unlikely or because no secret liaison with any of them seemed even remotely enticing.

So now I had this piece of paper in my pocket that I didn't know what do do with. Hell, I didn't even know what it was. A prank? A trap? An actual overture?

I realized my mind had been wandering too far afield, leading to a couple of stupid entry errors, so I did my best to put it out of my head and get back to work. I mostly succeeded, and made it through my pile just before 5.

--------------

Only once I was on the bus headed home, with no one from the office on board, did I take that paper back out of my pocket and look at it again. I kept it in hand until I got home. My roommate Tom wasn't home yet, and so the phone line was free. I started up the computer in my room and got online, the familiar tones of my DSL dialup sounding. Opening Netscape, I went to hotmail and entered the username, then the password, and clicked Log In.

For a moment, I wondered if it would fail - a weird prank after all. But it didn't: it opened up to an inbox, with a singular unread message from "secret_admirer_x0x0". "Thinking about you" was the subject line. It had been sent early this morning.

With a brief anticipatory hesitation, I clicked on the message.

"Alex,

You know me, and I can't stop thinking about you. At first, I ignored it, knowing that where we work, nothing could happen. I couldn't risk it.

But I can't stop thinking about you. Your eyes, your smile, your chest in that cute blue polo. Your hands. I think about you touching me with those hands. Sometimes I can't concentrate on work, thinking about it.

Sometimes I lie awake in bed, thinking about it. Imagining it. Fantasizing about it.

I can't have you, but I came up with this to channel it, and maybe find a way to connect despite the challenges.

Maybe you never saw the slip of paper I left you. Maybe you ignored it, or laughed at it, and it's in the trash. Maybe someone else found it, and they're reading this right now.

But maybe you're reading this, wondering who I am, running down a list of women you work with. Maybe you've thought of me. Maybe you hope it's me.

I can't tell you who I am, or give you any real clues. At least not yet.

I'll send one email, and only one, every day until Friday. If you don't write back, I'll stop. If you do write back... well then we'll see where it goes from there. I hope you write back.

Until then,

Our Little Secret"

I sat back, and read it again. There was nothing graphic or even really all that suggestive, but it got me hard anyway. I tried to imagine various women in my office writing it. It was real - I knew exactly the polo it talked about, and my ex always used to tell me how well it fit my toned chest. I wore it to work sometimes, maybe once every couple of weeks. Maybe I'd wear it tomorrow.

Tom came in while I was still reading it over. I'd known him for seven years, since we started college together, so this wasn't something I was going to hide. I called him in and showed it to him, relaying the whole story.

"This is crazy, man." He kept reading. "You know it's probably some slob in their 50s."

"Yeah, maybe. Probably." I said, trying not to think exactly that.

"Definitely." He said, then read again. "Still... it's kind of hot."

"Also true."

"Are you gonna write back?" He asked. I hadn't even really thought about that, amazingly.

"I have no idea... do you think I should? I probably won't."

"Hey, nothing wrong with playing along with a fantasy, as long as you don't think too hard about who's on the other end."

"I guess. I'm not writing back yet though, let's see what comes in tomorrow."

And with that, I disconnected and tried to put it out of my head for the night.

Tuesday, May 19, 1998

I wore the blue polo. I debated not doing it, but it had the elegance of referring to the email without actually acknowledging it - I could easily have worn it by chance, after all.

I saw Jen on the way in. For her part, she looked cute as always, and gave me a big smile when she saw me.

"Hey there!" she greeted me as I walked over. I thought I saw her glance at the shirt, but that didn't exactly prove anything: people looked at other people's clothes sometimes. "How was your evening? Anything exciting?"

I paused a beat, wondering if this was an invitation to say something about the email, but given the level of secrecy involved it seemed unlikely.

"No, pretty quiet night. You?"

"Same. I try to never do anything on Monday, I need recovery time." she laughed a bit.

"Not me, Monday's usually my wild party night. Yesterday was an outlier."

"Such an exciting life you lead..." she said, smiling and re-crossing her legs. She wore a skirt that gave me a look at her lovely calves and some thigh, but I didn't linger on it long.

"Well, I hope your Tuesday is more action packed," I said, starting to move on. "I know my paperwork will be." She watched me go a moment before turning back to her own desk.

Lisa hadn't been at work yesterday, so I stopped at her cubicle on the way to mine. "Hey stranger - didn't see you yesterday. How was your weekend?" She gave me a big smile and held up her hand. There on her finger was a diamond ring, sparkling in the office fluorescents. My eyes widened.

"I'm engaged!" she stated the obvious. I congratulated her, and got the whole story: they'd gone away for the anniversary of their first date, and he'd produced the ring after dinner. She took the day off yesterday to celebrate. After a bit more discussion of it, I finally headed over to my desk to start the day, mentally crossing Lisa off the list.

I started really thinking about The List after dealing with a few items that had been left on my desk overnight. On a pad, I started writing out some initials.

I wrote a list ordered by likelihood. JK, for Jen, was first, by a decent margin. I almost put an asterisk. Next was EW, for Emma. I left a space after the two of them, as the rest seemed more unlikely: LA for Lisa, who I immediately crossed out; then AT for Andrea, RR for Rebecca. I added then crossed off MT for Margaret; nothing about this fit anything I knew of her.

I was left, then, with a list of four names. I'd already seen and interacted with Jen today, and resolved to try to interact with each of the women on the list as often as possible for the rest of the week, to see if I could make any connections, or get inadvertent clues in the messages that had been promised me nightly. With that settled, I folded up the list and slid it into the far back of a file cabinet.

--------------

Andrea's desk was near the bathroom, so I stopped there mid-morning on my way, and chatted with her a bit. Nothing notable there, except she told me she was going to a show tomorrow night she was excited for, a band I wasn't too into, but wasn't surprised she was.

It had been raining that morning, so at around lunchtime I plotted a course through the office toward the windows that would take me past Emma's desk. She was there, leaning over the fax with a frustrated look on her face.

"Everything okay?" She looked up at me with a start, then a weird look crossed her face and she looked away.

"Oh, Alex. Hi. You surprised me - no, this machine keeps jamming and it's driving me crazy." She had it open and was pulling bits of ripped paper from an incoming message out. I could see a bit down her shirt as she worked.

I looked away just in time as she looked up. "Do you need something?" She asked, a little abruptly.

"No, just seeing if I could help."

"No. Thanks. I think I've got it. This thing and I have a longstanding war."

"Who has the upper hand?" She glanced up at me, her face unreadable.

"Right now, it does, but I refuse to surrender," she deadpanned.

"Well, good luck - I was just going to check if it's still raining."

I moved a bit further toward the windows and confirmed a light rain, then turned, and saw Emma finally closing the machine up. Still bent over it, I got a good look at her ass in the gray pants she was wearing, and took a longer than necessary look as I moved past.

"See you later, Emma."

"Yeah, bye Alex." she said, almost without looking up. I walked away. She hadn't done anything to rule herself out, but she wasn't acting like someone who had sent that email - she was acting like she had for the past several months: uninterested. I swallowed a little echo of that hurt I felt last fall, and moved on.

--------------

I left that afternoon having talked to four of the people on my list - I'd passed Rebecca on the way out, though it was barely more than a wave. The rain had stopped and the temperature was nice - cool, breezy, the way I liked it. I went for a run, and even pushed myself a mile beyond the usual, both because of the weather and to work out a little of the tension.

I checked the account first thing through the door, but to my dismay there was nothing new. I showered, ordered some food, changed into some shorts, and watched some of the Tigers game, but found myself getting up to log in and check mail pretty regularly. I'd almost given up when, around 9pm, something new came up.

"Fantasies" was the subject. The Tigers were losing badly in the 8th, so I turned the game off and went back to my room, closing the door behind me. Tom was out for the evening but I didn't know when he'd be back. I sat back down and opened the email.

"Alex,

I thought sending you the email yesterday would make it easier, but it hasn't. I lay in bed last night imagining you reading my message, and that go me so hot... but not as much as today.

You wore that shirt today, and when I saw you I almost screamed. Does that mean you read this? Was it a signal? Or a coincidence? I could hardly concentrate today, wondering, imagining.

When I got home, I couldn't stop myself, imagining your hands unbuttoning, unzipping, unclasping. I imagined your hands touching me. Your hands on my face, my neck, my chest. Your fingers on my thighs, moving higher and higher, until you touched me where I needed you, and kept going until...

I'm still recovering as I write this. Telling you about this, aboutmy fantasies of you, makes me nervous, but imagining you reading it is making me excited all over again. I hope you see this soon, right when it comes in. If you do, you'll be reading it while I'm imagining you again. Maybe it will turn you on, and maybe you'll fantasize about me as I fantasize about you.

With anticipation,

Our Little Secret"

She wasn't wrong - I had gotten rock hard reading the email, and started stroking myself through my shorts as I read it again. On the third read, I slid my hand down into them. With one more check that the door was closed, I got rid of the shorts and jerked off, cumming fast, with images of Jen and Emma fighting for space in my head.

Wednesday, May 20, 1998

I had a meeting first thing, to review our billing software. It was a few years old, and IT wanted us to look into something new. As one of the longest-tenured accounts payable assistants, I got the call to participate. Traffic hadn't been bad so the bus had gotten in a bit early, and I was the first in the conference room.

Rebecca came in second, sitting across from me at the table.

"Thanks for joining in on this, Alex - I made sure they invited you, you've been doing really good work."

"Thanks for that," I replied, filing that info away for my next performance review. Maybe a raise could be in the offing, or even a promotion...

Others arrived, and we started up only a few minutes later than scheduled. The first part of the meeting was to review the current system, and this is where my input was most needed. I walked people through what I saw as the strengths and, more importantly, the weaknesses of what we had, and a few others added to that from various perspectives. My mind started to drift a bit, back toward the email.

I looked across the table at Rebecca again. She was several years older than me, but hardly old. She was in good shape, and her good looks were enhanced by a great, warm, friendly personality - she was one of those people that could make everyone feel welcomed. I wasn't really attracted to her so much, though she was attractive; I was more appreciative of her. Still, if... well, if it turned out to be *real,* I kept remembering to add that part to my mental calculations, but anyway: if it turned out to be her, I'd still be intrigued.

IT had taken over the meeting now, and were presenting a new system they wanted us to consider. They went through the tech specs, which was boring, and then started in on a cost analysis. A chart showing different levels of service from our current system, in blue, and our old system, in green, made it clear this was a more economical choice as I glanced over it.

Rebecca interrupted. "Sorry, is the new system on the left or right of these pairs? I'm blue-green colorblind." The lead presenter apologized and oriented her, then kept going.

After the meeting, I went back to my desk, and when I was sure no one was around, slipped my list back out to cross off Rebecca's name. Secret loved my blue polo, but Rebecca didn't even know for sure it was blue.