Slowly, And Then All At Once

I'd been an office drone at Reid Associates, a mid-sized law firm in a mid-sized London skyscraper, for a couple of years when Elly Morgan first appeared at my desk. She was fresh out of university and arrived, a bit wide-eyed, to mumble that she'd been told to shadow me. I replied that I wasn't sure what our line manager thought she'd be shadowing -- most of our job amounted to filing and emailing the most unimportant of clients. There was little to learn from a girl like me. We weren't even paralegals!

My objections were justified. Elly, who was short and a touch chubby with unprofessionally messy short brown hair, freckles around her nose, and a pretty Scottish accent, seemed perfectly bright and I didn't anticipate her being an issue around the office -- she figured out a lot of our IT systems on her own which was a relief. Sensing, however, that she was far too timid to last long in such a boisterous environment, I invited her to join the rest of us for the far-too-regular lunchtime drink in the city. And the board wondered why we so rarely hit our targets...

The drink, or "corporate piss-up" as some called it, usually went down at the Red Snail, a Tudor pub just up the road from Blackfriars Bridge. It was the sort of London establishment where a round of pints cost more than many people's mortgages -- so the normal sort. There were about thirty of us, from partners to droids, and all mixed like we weren't divided by fourteen floors of glass and prefabricated plastic. All except Elly -- amid tedious conversation with Brian or Daniel or one of the other jumped-up Tory pricks in Ted Baker suits who constituted the wildlife in this part of the world, I noticed her. She sat silently at the end of a crowded table staring, almost unblinking, at her half-pint of lemonade and the paper straw penetrating it. Excusing myself, I joined Elly -- perching unsteadily on the edge of the booth, I asked how she was doing.

"I'm fine," she mumbled in reply. I didn't believe her -- it was obvious that this wasn't her scene in any way, shape, or form -- but I didn't push the issue. Social awkwardness doesn't improve upon being called out.

Nonetheless, I kept a close eye on Elly throughout the next few days -- she turned up on time to the minute every morning that week and, as far as I could tell, didn't say a word to anyone if she absolutely didn't have to. Some people, I supposed, are just like that -- cute as she might have been, I pushed her from my mind and never again did we interact beyond the occasional "did you see that email?" or "could you action this for me?"

Then came the Stockholm trip.

Reid Associates had a big deal representing a Swedish renewable energy firm -- they wanted our services negotiating some contract with the European Union which you don't need to know about because you don't care and neither did I. But it was a big undertaking for a company like ours. Reid Associates gathered a few partners and assembled a small army of administrative staff to support them while they spent three works working out of Sweden. I was the lucky one put in charge of the group -- but I didn't get any say in who constituted it. If I had then Elly, who I thought too inexperienced, wouldn't have been coming -- but she'd impressed with her productivity and flawless output to the point where after just a few months she was already being fought over to work on additional cases. The lads liked a pretty girl who didn't talk back nor make mistakes.

So it was that we gathered at Heathrow and, after trooping along wet winter tarmac, were aboard a budget flight to Stockholm. The flight was two hours and, perhaps inevitably, Elly and I were seated together. She said very little, plugging her headphones in the moment the safety demonstration wrapped up, but before we'd even started taxiing her hand happened to brush mine -- I realised then that she was sweating profusely. It clicked that she was afraid of flying and, going by the grey look on her face, it was no light fear. She was in terror. I wanted to help her, somehow, but didn't have a clue how to without seeming overbearing -- so I just read my book and, every now and then throughout the flight, glanced at Elly as discreetly as I could to check she wasn't losing her mind.

Then, as we descended through black clouds, the plane started shaking -- badly. I didn't mind turbulence -- it was nothing compared to my flight two years earlier to Trinidad when, for some reason, we skirted the edge of Hurricane Riley -- but Elly clearly did. Her eyes were clenched shut, her fists squeezing so hard her knuckles turned white, and I thought I even heard whimpers escaping her tightly shuttered lips. Without even really thinking about it, I reached over and took hold of the nearer fist -- Elly looked at me with big brown eyes, just for a moment, as I assured her it'd all be okay and the lights flickered and a stewardess tripped on a spilled bag and Elly's fist relaxed to take my hand. She pretty much crushed it as we completed our descent but, then, the clouds cleared and there was the winter paradise of snowy Stockholm stretched out below like a great model city. We landed, taxied to the terminal, and, as the seatbelt signs switched off and people hurried to unload their bags from the overhead compartments, I nudged my neighbour.

"Hey, Elly?"

"Yeah?" she replied, quiet as a mouse.

"Can I have my hand back, now?" She looked down -- she was still clinging to me. Quick as a flash, as if I was poisonous, she withdrew and apologised profusely while I just laughed and stood up to get my case.

We took a train from the airport into the city centre and shivered through the Stockholm winter and sludgy ice to find our mid-range hotel -- the plan was to set up camp, go out for dinner together, then get to bed early for an equally early rise. Business waits for nobody and, I had to remind a couple of the guys, this wasn't a holiday. We queued patiently at the front desk as the overworked receptionist pointed everyone in turn to their rooms until it was just Elly and I left. And then...

"So that's Room 522 on the fifth floor," he said, typing away. "It's a double -- is that okay?"

"One bed?" asked Elly, sharply. I felt the air leave my body. For God's sake...

"That's right," he replied, with the blankest of stares. It looked like Elly wanted to protest -- but her shyness always reigned and so she said nothing. Though I didn't really mind, clearly she did, so I spoke up for her.

"We're not a couple, though."

"You're both female," he said. "What's the problem?"

"Are you serious right now? Surely you can move us to two singles? Or she can have the double and I'll have a single?" I realised, too late, that I had come with a platoon of lawyers and was trying to negotiate a deal myself.

"I'm sorry," the man replied, shrugging, "we're fully booked. You'd have to go to another hotel."

"Oh, come on..." I muttered, knowing I'd be paying for it. "You know Stockholm's expensive, right?"

"Yes, miss, yes I do." I felt a series of taps on my arm.

"Come on, Grace," mumbled Elly. "Please don't make a scene."

"I'm not making a scene, mate, I..." I looked back at the man behind the desk and, in an instant, knew there was no chance of anything changing. "Forget it." I took the keycard and we walked together to the elevator.

Once inside, as the elevator whirred and whisked us up to the fifth floor, I sighed again.

"It's like being in a fanfiction." Elly's lips tightened a bit -- suppressing a laugh? "Sharing a hotel bed? I'm half-expecting Harry Styles to show up."

"I hope not," muttered Elly as the doors opened. We spent some time navigating the pristine catacombs that were this hotel's corridors before finding Room 522. It was a tiny suite. Our idea of a double bed and the Swedish idea of a double bed were clearly not the same thing -- and there was certainly no room for one of us to sleep on the floor.

"Well," I sighed, "I guess we'll have to make it work. For three frigging weeks."

"I guess so," Elly replied, quietly. "Although..."

"What?" I was already in the bathroom examining the shower and the tiny soap dispenser. I hadn't yet noticed the worst part -- or best, depending on your predilections.

"Well..." Elly stood in the doorway with arms crossed over her thick coat, unable to meet my eye. "I don't wear pyjamas to bed."

"What, so..."

"I sleep in my underwear," she mumbled, her cheeks brightest pink, either from the cold or her own burning embarrassment. I shook my head in wonder.

"You did know it'd be cold in Sweden, right?"

"Yeah," replied Elly, nodding slowly. "I'm not smart."

"That's not what your quarterly review says," I sniggered.

"I'll buy some tomorrow. Just..." Elly's voice was barely a whisper. "Try not to... you know. Touch me. When we're in bed."

"Why would I touch you?"

"I don't know." I laughed.

"Yeah, we're definitely in a fanfiction." And then I noticed. "Oh, brilliant..."

"What?" asked Elly with trepidation.

"The bathroom wall." Elly peered in through the doorway. "It's frosted."

"Oh." It was barely that -- they might as well have put a window in.

"Ridiculous," I muttered. "Bloody pervert Swedes. Guess we'll keep the lights low when we shower."

"I guess," mumbled Elly.

We unpacked and then went back to the lobby to meet with the others -- Elly took a little convincing, being unsure she wanted to be around so many people, but she folded when I pointed out that she might seem even more of an outsider were she the only one not attending. So we and the rest went to a nearby Italian restaurant (yes, I know we were in Sweden, but what is Swedish food apart from meatballs and godawful fish?) and didn't say a single word to the others about the room arrangement or the frosted glass. Yet, the whole time, I found myself nurturing a strange excitement. Sat next to Elly, who stayed stubbornly silent all through the meal and even had to be prompted twice to order, the thought of the frosted glass, of the intimacy of a shared bed for three straight weeks, was becoming appealing almost beyond words. But I didn't know this girl. She might as well have been a stranger. Yet the image of her next to me, perhaps even pressed against me, undressed, gripped my mind.

With the meal done and paid out of the goodness of Reid Associates' corporate hearts, we returned to the hotel -- I spent some time sitting on the bed and propped against the headboard reading. Elly sat next to me, trying and failing to be distant enough that our shoulders didn't touch without slipping off the bed, scrolling quietly through what must have been a hundred different social media sites. I found the nerves building. Nothing was going to happen between us -- how could it? For a start, I might be gay but Elly might not be, and even if she was I couldn't imagine anyone less willing to throw caution to the wind. And then, of course, there was the most important element -- we were at work. Was it really appropriate?

Eventually, I announced that I was tired and going to bed and that Elly should probably follow suit soon given our early start. She murmured something in agreement as I went to the bathroom to change -- I didn't want to make her uncomfortable by doing so in front of her. Save that for week two. Yet, as I stripped and dressed into white pyjama top and shorts, I was sure I noticed through the frosted glass that Elly, more than once, glanced towards me. My fertile imagination? Maybe. But there was a hope there, too, and I was surprised to find it lurking deep beneath the folds of my mind.

I climbed under the covers, bid Elly goodnight, and rolled to face away from her. She didn't reply. I had my eyes closed but was wide awake as she stayed sat beside me -- after a while, she shifted, getting more comfortable on the bed and daring to encroach on my space now she thought I was asleep.

"Are you awake?" Elly whispered. I didn't reply. She might never get into bed if she thought I was still up. Her breathing seemed heavy. Then, she muttered: "Fuck my life."

Confusion reigned throughout me -- but, gradually, there materialised a greater certainty of what she meant. Elly was furious about the situation -- she'd never reveal it, of course, but she was livid. I wondered how personal it was. We didn't know each other, not at all, so how personal could it possibly be? This would likely have been her mood no matter who she ended up next to.

Regardless, I could have sighed if it wouldn't have revealed my deception.

After a minute or two longer, I felt Elly's weight leave the bed and heard the rustle of her undressing. I'd come to assume that she'd end up sleeping in her street clothes before she'd really lay next to me in her underwear -- that she didn't was, to put it mildly, quite exciting. The blanket lifted up and off me, just a bit, as she climbed in, slowly as she possibly could, trying to avoid touching or waking me -- but with a bed this size that was a fool's errand. Despite her best efforts, I felt Elly's warm body against my back -- I sensed that she still wore a t-shirt, her small breasts brushing me, before she turned away and I felt the softness of her butt lightly pressed against mine.

"Goodnight, Grace," Elly whispered, before I heard a click and the room plunged into darkness. Sleep came but I tried to fight it, tried to savour the moment which would surely be the last, but it still took me slowly, and then all at once.

The alarm woke us both at six that morning -- in my bleary state, I half-forgot that we'd been sharing a bed, so I sat up and in doing so pulled the blanket halfway down Elly's body. I saw nothing given the darkness and, drowsily, she pulled it back up just as I switched on my bedside lamp.

"Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey," I muttered as I turned off the alarm.

"Morning," Elly mumbled back, blinking herself awake. I was already out of bed and wandering towards the bathroom, but I stopped at the (tiny, obviously) kettle on the (you'll never guess if it was small or not) desk opposite the bed.

"You want a coffee?"

"No, thanks," Elly squeaked, pushing herself to sit up, clinging to the duvet to keep it over her chest as if it might of its own volition jump off her and betray her modesty. Her shoulders, bare but for the black straps of her vest, were pale yet spotted with dark moles. "I'll get one at breakfast."

"Good shout," I said, nodding, before vanishing into the bathroom. Elly's voice followed me in:

"Do you want the light off while you..." I was pulling down my shorts, and my panties with them, as she asked -- through the glass, I was grateful to see she was averting her eyes.

"I don't wanna stub my toe," I replied, as I sat to pee. The toilet seat was so cold I nearly screamed. "But I'll turn it off when it's your turn."

"Thanks!"

"This toilet seat is so fucking cold," I complained. "I'm heating it up for you."

"Okay!" I finished up, then stripped and showered -- every second I spent in there, I could see Elly's blurry figure in the bed and was pretty confident she didn't look once. But plenty can be seen in the corner of the eye. I found myself smiling at the thought as soapy suds ran down my body. Why? It wasn't normal to enjoy this as much as I was.

When I emerged wrapped in a scratchy scarlet towel, Elly almost leaped out of the bed and hurried past me, her arms crossed protectively over her chest as she passed. Though I wanted to look down and admire her pudgy bare thighs and how her panties made her butt look, I returned the favour and kept my eyes to myself.

"I'm not looking," I laughed to no reply, as the door closed quickly behind her. Reaching over, I turned off the lamp -- the room was, again, bathed in darkness, but the Sun was waking up too and reaching in through the windows. Elly couldn't hide forever -- not in a room this small -- though, obviously, being as decent of a person as I was, I'd try to make it as easy as it realistically could be.

Once Elly was out of the shower, she emerged in an identical towel and I flicked the light back on. She looked pretty with water dripping from her hair and her skin pink and fresh with steam dancing off it.

"Don't do that again," she said, quietly.

"Huh?" I asked. "Do what? What did I do?"

"Turn off the light. It's not fair on you. Just don't spy on me or whatever, I guess."

"I'm not gonna spy on you, Elly," I said with as kind a smile as I could manage. "But we're stuck in this rat hole for three weeks. We'll have to make it work somehow."

"Yeah..." She looked down at her bare feet -- her toenails were painted purple. "Yeah. I guess."

Elly sat on the foot of the bed, slowly drying off, while I went back to the bathroom to put on underwear -- it was always either white, black (as it was today), and very occasionally blue briefs and bra with me, never anything special -- before returning. Elly stared at the floor, her face suspiciously growing as red as her towel, as I passed and crouched down to dig some clothes from my case. She then leaped up and, with her own choice of clothes clutched in her impish hands, vanished into the bathroom -- I'd have to wait to use the hairdryer. This, I thought as I pulled on black trousers, a formal-ish white shirt, and grey business jacket, was going to be one hell of a song and dance.

When Elly emerged it was fully dressed -- though the moisture in the air wasn't conducive to our hair drying -- in something quite similar to me, except with a knee-length skirt and thick black tights.

"Won't you be cold with a skirt?" I asked. She looked down at it.

"Maybe, actually," she muttered. "You think I should change?"

"Only if you want to." She thought about it for a minute and decided to stay as she was. I passed her to go into the bathroom and use the hairdryer, helpfully stuck to the wall with a curly cable so we couldn't use it if the bathroom was occupied, and filled the room with its roar. Elly sat on the bed, scrolling through her phone, waiting for her turn. Odd, I thought, as I dried my hair -- I never waited until after I was dressed to do this. Nobody did. But both of us had this time? Maybe we were distracted.

Once I was done, I excused myself to go downstairs to breakfast.

The moment the door closed behind me and I found myself alone but for a rotund South Asian cleaner dragging a trolley loaded with cleaning supplies past me, I took a deep breath. I don't know if you could call it tension but something was crackling in there. Why did I want her to look at me? Last night, too, played on my mind. "Fuck my life" could have had a lot of meanings. Something wasn't just happening in my mind about her -- something was happening, too, in hers about me.

Breakfast was a buffet with all sorts of fairly familiar options and, after piling my plate high with pork sausages and scrambled eggs and weird star-shaped hash browns, I joined the others -- while making sure to have an extra coffee handy for Elly. Everyone chattered among themselves, sometimes about work but mostly not, and after a few minutes Elly emerged. Her skirt was gone -- now she wore black trousers, just like me. I smiled and waved her over, offering the coffee, and she thanked me. Still, nobody knew about our little mix-up -- we were almost exposed when someone asked Elly which room number she was but she just pretended not to remember. It was good lying for someone I'd have thought was far too awkward to even imagine such a social faux-pas.

"We're gonna have to keep that lie going for two weeks, now," I muttered when we had a moment alone.

"I knew that the moment I said it," she sighed, shaking her head.

The first day went off without a hitch, though the client had a strange attitude about him at times, particularly over whether or not British people understood sufficiently the difference between northern and southern Sweden. We didn't -- it mostly amounted to the northerners hating the southerners for being friendly with the Danes, but how the northerners didn't actually hate the Danes themselves.