Short Story: Mhairi

Short Story: Mhairi

OK. I know. It shouldn’t have happened. I’m usually very good at keeping that ‘professional distance’ from work colleagues. Well you do have to keep a distance, don’t you? You know what I mean. I hate these people that are flirting all the time. Little jokes and compliments, little giggles testing and teasing. Tightrope walking. Maybe they don’t mind, if they don’t fall off, but that’s not beenme. I’m married. I love my wife. I’m not in the game. So you put on this front, don’t you. It’s like an invisible barrier that you keep always there. Yes, they’re people, yes you can laugh and joke, yes you can be sympathetic, share a piece of cake, buy a coffee, send a get well card, but it’s all ‘safe’. It’s a protection. Like a kind of emotional condom – well OK, not really, but there is something in that, you know, grotesque as it sounds. It’s like something in between, that neutralises the sexual feelings. So Mairi comes into the room and I’m aware of her out of the side of my eye. I’m aware she’s wearing that blue dress, with her rounded shape, curves everywhere there should be curves. She leans over the table to pick up a folder and her hair falls to one side, that way. She stands back up and looks over and I turn and catch her eye. She smiles at me and I shut it down. She puts her hand up and puts her hair back behind her left ear, that way women do. ‘I was looking for this report,’ she says. ‘Have you seen it? It’s about the Birmingham job.’ As she says this she’s walking over to me and she half turns away, up close, so we can both see as she opens the folder and starts to point, burbling about something I can’t make out cos I’m overpowered by the scent of her hair, the closeness of her. She’s taken over my senses. It’s as if she’s asking me a question, ‘well will you?’ I put my arms around her and pulled her in to me and held her close. She dropped the folder and put her arms over mine, pulling them tighter round her, pressing her body back into mine, snuggled together like we were already lovers. We stood like that for what seemed an age. It was like we had always meant to be like this. We said nothing but it felt like she was saying ‘why have you never done this before. I’ve been waiting so long.’ And it felt like I was saying, ‘I don’t ever want to let you go.’ We heard a step outside and separated. I picked up the folder and handed it to her as Johny Boy came in the door, but if he’d seen the look that passed between us, he’d know there was something going on there. But what is it? I can’t stop thinking about her. How will it end?