Meabh, Queen of Connaught-and Evan

Meabh, Queen of Connaught--and Evan

EVAN

Meabh had me hooked from the first time I saw her, in spite of an awkward beginning; she had to tell me how to say her name! It's Celtic--Irish in that spelling. In the States, we'd spell (and pronounce it) "Maeve," but I didn't have the foggiest idea at the time.

Her parents emigrated from County Mayo when she was two so she didn't have a trace of an accent. When they named her for the most powerful woman in ancient Connaught, they did it with the comfort that everyone in Ireland knew how to say Meabh. Not so much the case after they moved to Chicago, but they were too stubborn about her heritage to change the spelling.

She was used to it, of course. She'd dealt with it for decades! Later, after she forgave me, I watched as she gracefully led people through this small glimpse of Irish culture. But she made no effort gently to lead me, not then. I'd been a grumpy ass all morning, fretting over my presentation. She'd been close enough to notice. To top off a spate of grousing, I'd complained about her name on the roster!

"What in the world kind of name was M-e-a-b-h!" I'd huffed, to no one in particular.

She let me struggle with the roster before shaking her head, arching a scornful eyebrow and saying: "Think Maeve. Rhymes with wave." Then I finally noticed her nametag. Oops.

Her red ponytail flipped as she turned and walked to the far side of the conference room.

"Smooth move, ex-lax," I silently chided myself.

Well, at least she didn't flip me off.

I took a breath and pushed away the things that were making me so churlish. I'd be working with her, along with everyone else in the room, and I was getting off on the wrong foot.

I found myself beginning to unconsciously size up women as potential dates again, too. Not that I thought it would ever happen, not successfully anyway, so I worked to suppress that instinct. It had been 2 years since cancer claimed my wife. My libido had vacillated between sub-zero and off the charts for most of that span. Recently, it was beginning to recover its old consistency--always on! Intimate self-knowledge, my secret, sometimes took a back seat to horniness but I hadn't made a fool of myself. Yet. I had re-established an intimate relationship with my right hand. Sigh.

You'd think I'd have figured it out by now.

After 4+ decades of dealing with it, I should have found some way of being at peace with my "problem." It was OK while I was married, at least while I was married to my 2nd wife. We found ways to deal. But she'd been gone almost two years and my old anxieties were in full bloom. Meabh kicked the gut-wrenching angst into overdrive.

So back to Meabh--she definitely rang my chimes! I was kicking myself.

She was my age, I guessed, and didn't wear a ring. She was fit, rather plain in appearance save for her red hair and spattering of freckles. Not much makeup and her hair was in an informal pony tail. She wasn't dressed to present power and dominance, but she had presence, you know? She had substance. There seemed to be depth to her.

That was a lot to unpack from a few seconds of chilly conversation, I know, but that impression felt rock solid. She didn't overreact to my faux pas, but she didn't knuckle under to it either. I knew she was bright and good at her job or she wouldn't have been there that day. I had just an inkling she might be the kind of woman who, in the work world, could be a manager without getting mean or arrogant about it. Maybe in a private way she could be what I needed too. I worked to pry my eyes away from her ass as she walked away. It was a very nice ass.

"STOP it, you fucking idiot," I chided myself again. "You don't get to chase pussy--what if you catch it!"

MEABH

The day had all sorts of bad omens at the start. My kids were home alone while I drove over a hundred miles away to a business conference. I'd tried to beg off, but attendance was mandatory--big merger, lots of changes. The twins were high school sophomores, and good kids--most of the time. They were perfectly able to get themselves off to school, fix dinner, and handle emergencies. There were good friends--neighbors--on each side of the house. They were on call for emergencies, but I wanted to stay in touch, closely!! An un-parented house could invite experiments in being more grown up than they were.

My evening call sounded like things were OK. This morning, there was no answer. Nothing on the land line or either kid's cell. With my mom sense tingling, I phoned the neighbor only to learn their dad picked them up late last night after all.

I took so long getting through to him I was going to be late to the conference. Bastard. He'd refused to take them this week! So now he reverses course and doesn't bother to tell me?!? Just the kind of crap he loved to pull.

First my anger was burning, then my thigh. In my angry rush I knocked over my coffee and splashed my slacks. Had to change, made me even later and much madder. I yanked on yesterday's travel slacks, pulled my hair into a ponytail and hit the door running.

I managed to sneak into the back of the room, credentials hastily shoved toward me by the registrar, grabbed up the handouts, and settled in just before the CEO's rah-rah session started. The registrar was my Admin Assistant from home, and she liked me, thank God. She'd already signed me in on time.

After the CEO told us what swell folks we all were and how the future was limitless, bright and wonderful, there was a session I was actually interested in. The speaker was my counterpart at the other company. My Admin had scoped him out--an old college classmate in his firm. He'd been widowed for a couple of years--that always piqued my interest. He was supposed to be bright, good at his job, and even a decent human.

You couldn't have proved it by me. As I was picking up the handouts, I saw him scowling and snapping at people. Then he made fun of my name. Jerk!

EVAN

I wanted to know her. Not "biblically," I convinced myself, but certainly to be friendly. I hoped she would let me patch up the bad start. I just had to be careful about letting my libido drag my imagination over toward romance.

My presentation went well! I began with an apology for being in a foul mood earlier, and hinted at a string of calamities that began my morning. I talked for a half-hour, sprinkling in brief bits of humor, and enjoyed seeing nods around the room as I made key points. I fielded questions for another half-hour before we took a scheduled break. The really good questions, the ones that showed both understanding and insight, came from Meabh. Her first one had an edge to it. The follow-ups, thank God, softened. Finally, the Q&A session timed out and I moved with the crowd toward the refreshment table.

"I owe you an apology as well," a woman's voice announced from behind me as I was fixing a cup of tea. "I had a challenging morning and a worse evening. No one knows how to pronounce my name from its written form."

I turned, relieved.

"I was embarrassed of my mood," I acknowledged, "and I was glad to be corrected. It's Irish or maybe Celtic, I realize now? Like Queen Meabh?"

"Hah! OK, then. You know Queen Meabh? You're officially forgiven! And I enjoyed your presentation."

[Confession--I only knew about Meabh after she pronounced it for me because I read the Sunday comics! There was a character "Maeve" in the Prince Valiant strip! It's worth a quick browse, if anyone wants a side excursion! ]

It turned out that our work was closely aligned! She had questions for me, I had questions for her, and we both benefited from each other's depth and experience.

Even better, she was "safe!"

She was unattached, but she had kids in high school and lived over a hundred miles away. Continuing to work collegially wouldn't risk getting us involved romantically. Most of our continued work would be by teleconference, email and shared online documents.

Today's in-person gathering was a rarity! It was only funded because our companies had merged and wanted start off with some good old "face time" amongst us. We, all of us attending I mean, were survivors. We'd lost friends and co-workers who had been made redundant after the merger, but we were the core of the new work group. Things seemed to be on track!

MEABH

Truthfully, this wasn't the first time my name had been butchered. Far from it. It's not as bad as being a boy named Sue, I guess, but "Meabh?" I hated it growing up--both the spelling and the fact nobody else in the whole town was named Meabh or even Maeve.

It quickly sorted out who were to become my friends, and who would remain my enemies. Those who quickly became my friends just accepted it and we played. Those who teased eventually found themselves looking out through blackened eyes over bloody noses.

My Irish parents were proud of my name, and of me, and wouldn't let me change the spelling when we immigrated to the States. Now, dammit, I'm proud of it too. It usually doesn't bother me to help someone, or to see them scowl at it on paper, but this guy, Evan, just rubbed me the wrong way. Besides, my reservoir of patience was all used up on my asshole ex-dipshit husband. I wasn't as rude as Evan had been, but I wasn't gracious either.

Maybe that's what he needed--he opened his presentation with an apology for anyone he'd offended earlier in the day. He pleaded a rotten morning. I guessed I could sympathize.

He was actually pretty impressive with his talk, and then with the following Q&A. It was clear we had a lot of overlap in our work assignments. I figured I'd better make nice, and approached him afterward. That went better. By the end of our break, I liked him quite a bit.

To be perfectly honest, he turned me on. I wondered as we talked whether he might like to spend the night with me--it had been a very long time. I put my horniness aside, though. Screwing a new co-worker on the first meeting just isn't a bit smart. Screwing any coworker at all was stupid, for that matter. Besides, there was my "issue." I'd get together with my vibrator later, but I made a mental note to find out more about him though back channels.

EVAN

In the following months we worked very well together electronically! Our work, our cooperation, was made all the better by occasional excursions into our private lives while we waited for something to load, or a result to come in. I learned she was divorced for about the same length of time I'd been widowed.

I learned her ex typically behaved with the same sort of churlishness I'd exhibited before our first meeting. (Ouch.) She was lonely. Work and motherhood substituted for any sort of social life. She made self-deprecating comments about her appearance, which I tried to counter as best I could without gushing. Honestly, I wanted to gush--had to bite my tongue to keep from it--but I couldn't push us toward a relationship. I knew from sad experience what would come of it.

It didn't stop me from occasionally jacking off to supercharged fantasies of her though. In my fantasies, she had a red bush to match her red locks, and freckles cascading onto her tits to match the ones on her face. She gave great blow jobs--at least in my fantasies!

So you can imagine my surprise (shock?) when, a year and a half after that conference, she knocked on my office door and leaned in to announce: "Hi Evan, Surprise! I've been transferred! I'll be working here now!"

I was thrilled--and mortified! We'd been talking nearly every day. It was always at least somewhat work-related, but we'd shared a lot about our day-to-day lives, our frustrations (well, not those frustrations, at least not explicitly) and generally had encouraging things to say to each other. If something significant happened to either of us, we were each other's first call to tell of it. It was a relationship all right, I realized, and I'd been leaning on it.

Suddenly, our friendship wasn't so safe anymore. It wouldn't be "virtual" now. Here she was at my door, and I had to fight an urge to jump up and hug her. Wrong professionally, wrong personally.

"That's...that's...that's...fabulous!" I stammered. "What a surprise! Have you known long?"

I regretted that as soon as it passed my lips. My inflection made it sound accusatory.

"For a week," she admitted, still leaning on my door frame. "I wanted to surprise you. I haven't moved of course--I'm in a hotel for a bit while my house goes on the market. And the twins are already here for freshman orientation, so it just seemed like the right thing to do."

"At State?" I asked, hoping to divert the conversation to a "non us" topic.

"State for Ian, Polytech for Susannah," she responded, "remember?"

Crap. Of course I remembered. We were both overjoyed when Susannah got admitted to Polytech, and even more so when she got the scholarship. The college selection process was a frequent topic for us. My own step-offspring were already out the other end of college, but it was fresh enough to share the frustrations and the joys. So we had both rejoiced for Susannah! We both rejoiced when Ian with his more casual approach to academics squeaked into State too.

"Oh, duh. It's just the surprise. Of course it makes sense and good for you! Did you get Tom's spot? I hadn't heard it was filled."

Tom just retired from a position parallel to mine in the next department. I confess I was actually hoping she might be coming to take my VP's spot--rumors of his departure had been flying--and it would bar us from dating. Dating within the string of direct line authority was cause for getting fired.

"I hope I'm not speaking out of school, but yes--I'm taking over Tom's unit," she answered, "is something wrong? I hope I haven't stepped in a mess. You don't seem as excited as I thought you might be. I should have told you before I popped in. Or probably before I got talked into taking it."

"No, uh--NO! Absolutely not!" I put on my brightest smile and tried to cover. "Nothing's wrong at all, and I'm just thrilled for you. Congratulations!"

I oversold it. She noticed.

"Well," she said, straightening to take her leave, "I've got to pop up to 7^th floor now and get properly oriented. I know it's kind of last minute, but are you free this evening? Dinner maybe?" She looked puzzled, or maybe disappointed. "Unless you'd rather not."

"Uh--" I stalled for time. No ducking it. She knew damned well I didn't have any social life.

"Sure. Dinner sounds great," I stammered.

Then recovering: "How about someplace nice enough to make it a celebration--my treat and we'll make it your welcome party!"

I hoped I was covering my insecurity with graciousness.

"Good! I'm at the Hyatt on 117th. Come by about 7 then? I don't think I'm up for a meet and greet party just yet though, if that's what you had in mind. I'd just like a chance to talk through all this quietly. I'll rely on your judgment for an eatery!"

I watched her turn and walk away.

It was hard not to stare at her ass. So I stared. It was a very nice ass.

MEABH

We did indeed work together a lot, but always remotely. Our secretaries (OK, "Administrative Assistants") quickly learned to put us through without hassle or "pre-interviewing" when we called. Months rolled by and we came to know each other well, even intimately in some ways. I bent his ear about my ex, about my kids, about our office politics, about my pervy next-door neighbor--he knew almost everything about me, well, except for my body issues.

After high school, I took much more crap about my body than about my name. The name-teasing, thankfully, played itself out after school years. The body issues and my embarrassment over them--not so much.

There was even a song about girls like me. It didn't get played on the radio because it was a dirty limerick, but somebody's dad had an old Doug Clark and the Hot Nuts LP. One cassette of it got passed around, and that one spawned plenty of copies. Everyone who heard it for the first time just HAD to come and play it for me. (Yes, my girlfriends couldn't wait to tell everyone about what they saw in the showers. And yes, I'm old enough to know what a cassette is!)

There was a young lady from Nizes

Had tits of two different sizes

One was so small it was nothing at all

The other was large, and won prizes.

I haven't ever won any prizes, but the right one's a nice boob, I think--a well-rounded C-cup. The left is truly "nothing at all." I wear one prosthetic, and cinch them both down tight. I wear loose blouses buttoned all the way up. I've considered augmentation surgery, but it wasn't something that ever seemed possible. It's never covered by insurance and we sure weren't flush. Maybe after I get the kids through college.

Among the rotten things my ex likes to weaponize now is dating women with matching tits.

Bastard.

I hadn't shared that little tidbit (tit-bit? LOL) with Evan. I mean, why would I? So far as I knew, no one in my office knew.

So--I hadn't tried to date since the divorce. I fantasized a lot, and I went through C-cells so often the Energizer bunny just bought an oceanfront villa in Biarritz!

Back in the beginning, I decided not to make a move on Evan based in some small part on sound thinking. It wasn't smart to screw a co-worker, especially one I'd just met! But the larger reason was that I didn't want to show my chest! I didn't want to dread "the moment" when he first saw them, and I especially didn't want to deal with him trying to pretend it was OK. Not for a one-night stand. Guys always seemed to do that--pretend it didn't matter--but as my ex- painfully illustrated, you can only pretend so long before it catches up with you. I was pretty sure it would have become company-wide gossip if I'd let Evan play with them.

I had some real thinking to do when my boss encouraged me to take a position in Evan's office! Over the months, I'd fallen for him, even though we hadn't met in person since that first conference. I think my C-cell usage doubled afterward! I looked forward to our conversations. I'd seen him in teleconference calls and talked to him on the phone enough to feel like we were already a couple in everything except touch. Plus my heathen children were headed to college there, so the move made good sense on that score.

THE issue, what held me back from jumping at the promotion and move, was what to do about my friendship/relationship with Evan. I wanted to add a physical relationship to our remote one. I had the urge for us to be a couple. I was beyond ready to get laid.

I had no idea about his feelings on the subject. I knew his wife's death rocked him, but he seemed to be coming to grips with that. He said (and the company grapevine confirmed) that he hadn't been dating. I was sure he liked our phone relationship.

I worried about moving from something good and comfortable to something unknown and maybe fraught with pitfalls.

I got a bad feeling when I sprang the news on him. I saved it to tell him in person, relishing the surprise and looking forward to having him celebrate the news with me. I didn't even tell him I was coming to town for my orientation to the new workgroup. In retrospect, that was just stupid.

He looked like it was bad news. I could read it in his face, and my mind began racing. Was he only pretending to like me long-distance? Did he have a relationship started with someone else? Did he know something about the position I was taking that he'd have warned me about? Was he pissed or hurt that I didn't tell him ahead of time?

I had to twist his arm into going out with me that night.

EVAN

"So that's Meabh, huh boss?"