Punishing a Cheater

Friday was always my favorite day at the office, for many reasons. Obviously, the end of a long work week, the anticipation of a pair of days off, the reduced workload... all were very good reasons to like Friday. My favorite, however, was that for us it was 'Casual Friday'. We could wear jeans and T-Shirts, rather than the standard company logo polo shirt and slacks. Or dresses past the knees for the ladies. Now, I didn't really care what I wore. It was a call center, we had zero customer facing interactions, so management was pretty lenient with enforcement of the dress code as it was. No, the reason I liked Casual Friday was not for my comfort, it was because my teammate Kathy would wear jeans.

Kathy was much younger than I. We'd celebrated her 27th Birthday as a team just a few months prior, while I had just told the 'official' Party Planning Committee of the office what kind of cake I wanted when they had my 46th Birthday gathering next month. She was also easily the most attractive woman in the whole office. Long raven hair, straight as an arrow framed a perfectly formed face with impossibly high cheekbones. Bright, piercing blue eyes shone like lighthouses on a beach of golden tan. She was a tiny woman, but not unhealthily so. Every curve that a woman should have was still as soft and round as any I'd seen. Her lean, long legs looked like they went on for miles, even though logically, I knew she was only around 5"1', but looking at her legs you'd think she was 7 feet tall. Though I had never seen them bare, she had come to a company outing in a very tight tank top and no bra, so I had a good impression of what her small, but nicely shaped and perky breasts would look like. However, of all the various parts of Kathy that I admired, the piece that made me weak every time was her ass. Especially when she wore jeans.

Add to this that she had a habit of not sitting properly in her chair to take calls, but rather she would turn it around, and kneel on the chair, bending over the back of it to type call notes when necessary. This meant that I spent a good half my shifts on Fridays taking calls completely on auto pilot, with my eyes glued to the show being performed a few desks over.

As if being drop dead gorgeous wasn't enough. She also had the absolute gall to be smart, funny, kind, and just generally a goddamn delight to be around. Even the women who would normally be jealous of her couldn't bring themselves to not like her. Then there were the guys like myself, who normally would be so intimidated by her looks that they would rather shove a hand in the paper shredder than dare talk to her. She went out of her way to include everyone in conversations, and be friendly - but not flirty - with everyone. She was literally the life of the party at all work meetings.

This Friday morning was different for some reason. My shift started an hour before Kathy's, so I always had the pleasure of seeing her come in, and walk past me to her desk. If I was on a call, she'd smile and give a wave as she passed, if I wasn't she'd stop briefly to say 'good morning' and even occasionally chat for a minute. Today though, she'd come through the door with a dark cloud following her every move. Despite half her face being hidden behind large dark sunglasses, I could tell she wasn't wearing makeup. Not that she needed it, but she usually wore some to work. Her hair was neatly brushed, but lacked the normal slick shine and straightness it usually held. Wearing an oversized T-Shirt that went down almost to her knees before the soft blue of the denim I'd been looking forward to all week was visible. She rushed past me and the rest of the team to her desk, sat down in her chair and turned on her computer. Sitting perfectly still, and having not removed the sunglasses yet she sat and waited for her shift start time to hit before she moved again. Finally taking off her sunglasses and donning her headset.

That's when I was able to see the reason for the glasses. Her normally bright eyes had no shine, no sparkle, and were very red and puffy. It was quite obvious that she'd spent a long time crying before coming in today. I didn't see any bruises, or signs of a physical reason for the tears, so I assumed something must have happened. Perhaps a death in the family, or some other tragedy had befallen. With this thought in mind, at my first break, I went over to her desk.

"Hey, Kathy... are you alright?" I asked while keeping a respectful distance just out of my arm's reach.

Without turning her head to look in my direction, eyes locked on her screen even though no account information was pulled up, she replied quickly, but quietly. "I'm fine."

Knowing it's usually best not to push too hard in these situations, I didn't press the matter, instead simply saying "Okay, but just so you know, if you need to talk, I'll be here."

Silence for just a few beats, then still without turning from the screen, "Thanks, I appreciate it." sincere sounding, although without much depth.

"No worries." I said, sounding awkward to myself. I added hurriedly "Oh, hey, some of us were thinking about ordering lunch from that new place down the street, you want in?" I regretted the words the second they left my lips. Why would someone who clearly wanted to be left alone want to order food with a group? Why did I say 'some of us' when I hadn't talked to anyone else about lunch plans yet?

Kathy surprised me however by finally turning from her screen to look at me. Her eyes glazed with tears barely held in check. "You know what? Yeah. I didn't get dinner or breakfast, I'm going to be starving by lunchtime. Shoot me the menu, would you?" She smiled, and though it didn't quite reach her red swollen eyes, I still took it as genuine.

Returning to my desk, I pulled up the menu, and emailed it to Kathy. I also sent a separate email to the rest of our teammates who took lunch around the same time and asked if anyone would like to get in on a group order. Thankfully, I received orders, and Venmo payments from several of the team, including Kathy.

Working from break time to lunch seemed to take forever. I didn't realize how much the missing of the simple entertainment of lusting after a coworkers denim clad ass really drags the day to a crawl. However eventually the time did pass and as I prepared to leave my desk, Kathy stepped over to me quickly from hers.

"Mind if I walk with you?" Sounding more like a plea than a question, adding "You might need help carrying it all back."

"Of course! I welcome the company." I said honestly and with a smile I had hoped was welcoming without being creepy.

She jogged back to her desk, grabbed her purse and those sunglasses and caught back up to me. The walk to the restaurant was less than 10 minutes, and we spent the first half of it not talking. Only the sound of our footsteps and the rare car passing by on our seldom used road broke the silence. I wanted to ask again what was wrong, but I still knew better than to pry, so I kept my mouth shut and just kept walking. Kathy finally broke the wordlessness with "Paul had an affair, and I caught him last night." Her face was still pointed straight ahead and she didn't break stride.

I on the other hand stopped dead in my tracks. "Holy shit!" I exclaimed "What the absolute fuck?"

She stopped walking and turned back toward me, as I shook off the shock and hurried to catch up to her. Paul was her husband, I'd met him twice. Both times at company parties outside work hours when we were allowed to bring our spouses or significant others. The first time, I'd been with my wife. The second happened about a month after our divorce had been finalized. He'd seemed like a nice enough guy. Nothing special in the looks or body department, but not ugly or out of shape either. It's hard to judge a person's actual personality from just a couple brief encounters, but he hadn't set off any red flags either. Really the only impression I had gotten was that he was a lucky son of a bitch to have snagged a woman like Kathy, and I was a bit jealous of him on that front.

"Listen," She started "If you're uncomfortable talking about this, because of what happened to you... I'll understand."

Now I understood why out of all the people in the group she'd singled me out to drop this revelation on. She'd remembered the reason for my divorce, my wife had been unfaithful. Despite trying to forgive and forget, the anger and resentment just never did actually go away. Always rearing its ugly head during arguments about other things. Finally, after way too long, we'd realized that I was never going to let it go completely, and with our only child grown and out of the house, we had no other reason to maintain the charade any longer. What I didn't know was when I'd told anyone at work enough about that situation for her to know.

"It's not a problem for me to talk about, I just didn't know that you knew about that."

"Ah, yeah you might not remember much about that night." She laughed and I could tell that it was the first time she had in a while. It was a beautiful sound. "Do you remember the New Year's Eve party last year?"

My head spun, "I... uh... bits and pieces. What I really remember was the next day. I will NEVER mix booze and weed again, this old man can NOT handle a crossfade."

"You were pretty out of it." She said, chuckling again. "We talked for like an hour about your ex, then..." She paused to look at me again. "You tried to kiss me."

My stomach sunk to the concrete and I felt all the blood leaving my head in an instant. "I did not. Please say you're joking, I did not do that."

"Don't worry." She laughed again. "You were very gentlemanly about the whole thing. We'd been talking about complex emotions for a long time. We were close, you leaned in, I stopped you, you apologized for reading the signals wrong and it was done."

"Jesus." I muttered.

"I figured you didn't remember. To be honest, I was flattered far more than I was bothered." She kicked a stray pebble off the sidewalk. "In fact, my biggest regret right now is that I didn't let you."

"No, no... you made the right call that night. I guarantee you that. I'm really very sorry that I put you in that position." Trying to steer the conversation back towards her problems, I added. "This could be more than a quick lunchtime conversation. Do you have any plans tonight?"

"Nope. In fact I was really dreading going home after work."

"Why don't we grab a drink then, someplace quiet, where we can talk?" I added hastily, "I promise, I won't try to kiss you."

She laughed again and resumed our walk toward lunch. "That sounds great. Thank you."

The rest of the workday drug on and on. However my shift did eventually end so I walked over to Kathy's desk and asked "Are we still on for tonight?"

She started to answer, but a call came in right then. Holding up a finger to me she went through her standard greeting, then turned to me and gave an exaggerated series of nods to let me know the answer was still yes. As she turned back to her screen, I picked up one of her colorful sticky note pads and a pen, scrawling 'I'll be in the breakroom.' on the top page and setting the pad back down next to her mouse pad. She glanced at the pad and gave me a quick thumbs up while talking to her client.

About an hour later, Kathy poked her head into the breakroom and called out to me, "You ready?"

I lifted my head from my phone to tell her yes, and stopped short as I saw her. Her eyes, while still a little red, were much clearer and the brightness of the blue had started to shine again. She had a real smile on her face, this time reaching her eyes.

"Well?" She questioned again after a few seconds of my stunned staring.

"Oh, uh... yeah, yeah. Let's go!" As we walked together toward the parking garage I added, "So, I've been thinking, we're probably going to want to have a few, yeah?"

"I'd very much like to get shitfaced, if that's what you're asking."

"And... you're still not a hundred percent sure that you want to go home tonight?" I had rehearsed how I wanted to present this in my head, but it wasn't coming out the way I wanted. I was struggling to make sure everything I offered was as a friend only, not an attempt to get her into bed.

The smile faded a bit, "That's true too... ugh, I don't want to have to pay for a hotel just because HE is an asshole."

"That's fair." I decided to just lay out my idea at that point. "So how about this; we drive our cars over to my place, catch a rideshare to wherever we want to go. When we're done for the night, we catch a rideshare back, if you're good to drive and want to go home, great. If not, you can crash at my place. Don't worry, you can have the bed, I'll take the couch."

She made a shape with her mouth and nodded her head slightly in a way that told me she was thinking it over, but had no intention of accepting my proposal. "Or... we save all that travel time and cost, and just drink and talk at your place? Plus," she waved at her outfit "I'm not really dressed to go out."

That caught me by surprise. "Oh, yeah... okay, that works too."

"Are you still at the house on Lockett?"

Again surprised, "Yeah, same place." I know she'd been over to my place once when I'd held a game night with some of our coworkers, but I was still shocked that she'd remembered exactly where it was.

"I'm going to stop at the store and grab my favorite wine, you need anything specific?" She asked.

"No, I have plenty at home." I was thankful that I was going to get there before her, I wanted a chance to pick up just a bit. I am a fairly tidy person, but I am also a single man living alone. A quick wipe-down of a few surfaces wouldn't be out of the question.

"See you in a few!" She split off to head toward her Jeep, and I continued on to my car.

I spent the short drive home wondering what exactly was going to happen tonight. My offer to talk was genuine, I had no intention of trying anything with her. However, the knowledge that when drunk and high I had tried to kiss her weighed heavy. As much as I desired her physically, I considered her a friend, and did not want to ruin that for one night of fun. I resolved to watch my drinking, and make sure I didn't allow myself to lose control. I was there to be her friend, nothing more.

Reaching my place, I parked in the far side of the driveway leaving room for her to take the spot closer to the door. Walking into the house and taking a glance around to see what needed to be tidied. I wondered if she'd take long enough at the store for me to take care of myself so I would have less pent up sexual frustration when she got there. Deciding that might actually make it worse, I chose instead to just use the time to clean anything she might see and put a clean set of sheets on my bed, just in case she did end up crashing. I had chosen to spend my time wisely, because just as I was finishing up, I felt the short vibration of a text notification. There was a message from Kathy which read 'Leaving store omw 3min'. I messaged back a quick reply, 'Door's open, come on in.'

She arrived and came through the door carrying a canvas shopping bag heavy with five bottles of various red wines. As she pulled them out of the bag and set them on the bar style counter between my kitchen and dining room, I looked at with a raised eyebrow "You said shitfaced, not alcohol poisoned!"

She chuckled and looked at the row of bottles she'd neatly lined up. "I may have gone a little overboard, but they had a sale, and I figured I could always share."

Taking a look at the selection, I asked "Would you like me to open one up so it can start to breathe?"

"Ooh, fancy." She made a face and held up a hand as though she was holding a teacup with her pinky raised as far from the remaining fingers as she could.

"Oh shush, you." I joked while getting the corkscrew from a drawer. "Which one?"

"It really doesn't matter, after a few glasses, they'll all taste the same anyway."

I grabbed the neck of the bottle closest to me and proceeded to go through the process of opening it. Kathy came into the kitchen and pointed at the cabinets with a quizzical look. Figuring she was asking where to find glasses, I pointed with my chin at the correct one. She reached in and pulled out two of my large long stemmed wine glasses and brought them over. Taking the bottle from my hand as soon as I had the cork out and quickly dumped two very generous pours. When she set the bottle down, I could see that there was only about a third of the deep purple liquid remaining in the green glass.

Handing one glass to me, she gently clinked them together and said "This looks to be a good start." Then took a long pull from her glass.

With wide eyes I followed suit, taking a longer than normal sip of the sweet Merlot, but not as big a gulp as hers had been. "Mmm... not bad at all."

Kathy took another long pull and glanced around. Seeing the couch, she moved into the living room. I followed close behind, sitting on the far end from the end she had chosen.

Suddenly feeling the silence like a heavy blanket, I asked "Music?"

"Sure!" Raising her glass slightly.

I called out to my smart speaker device, telling it to play my Lo-Fi Beats playlist on shuffle, then as the music started far too loudly, I told it to reduce volume to three. To Kathy; "If there's something specific you want to hear, just tell it."

"This is fine." She said and finished the last of the wine in her glass. Then stood, just a hint unsteadily already, and headed back for a refill.

I glanced at my own glass, still more than half full, and prided myself that I was resisting the urge to keep up. She returned with a glass so full I knew she had emptied the bottle into it and sat back down, twisting her body to face me. I took this to be as much of an invitation as I was going to get. "So... what happened." I finally asked.

She exhaled sharply, cupping the wine glass in both hands, and spoke downwards practically into the wine. "Yesterday, after work, I went straight home. Usually on Thursdays I go to the Yoga studio, but I wasn't feeling up for it." She took another deep sip before continuing. "When I got home I noticed a car I didn't recognize parked on the street in front. I was going to write it off as someone visiting a neighbor, but there was open space everywhere else, so I got suspicious. I parked on the street instead of pulling into the garage, and kind of snuck up to the house." Another sip, and a very deep breath in through her nose and out her mouth allowing her cheeks to puff out a bit. "I went to a few windows and peeked in, I didn't see anything until I got to my own bedroom window." Her voice had started to shake, and she paused to take another drink.

I set my glass on the coffee table and moved closer to her on the couch. Not too close, but close enough to place my fingertips on the point of her knee in what I hoped was a comforting gesture. "It's okay, take your time."

Kathy looked at me with a sad smile, took one hand off her glass to place on mine, and said "Thank you." raising the now more than half empty glass to her lips again.

I reached out with my other hand to retrieve my own glass, and took a long pull myself.

She continued with her recounting of events. "So there I am, sneaking around my own house, peeking in windows like a creeper, just starting to tell myself I was being absolutely ridiculous and I look in my own damn room... and I see them." Her voice had changed from sad to angry. "Paul and some fuckin' bleach blond, fake tittied, fat assed bitch." She practically growled as she drained the last of the wine in her glass. "Just right there, fucking each other on MY goddamn bed!"

"Holy shit." I said and took an extra long pull on my wine.