Here’s how it goes. They hire a new guy at work (software company, you write the help files, he designs screens) and he’s walking around for about two months and you think nothing of it. Then the head screen designer from the big mid-western parent company comes to town and he sets up a meeting with you and the new guy to go over screen design. In this meeting you see that the new guy is not only sharp but very responsive to your department’s needs and you start thinking, is he responding to my department’s needs or is this foreplay?

And the meeting goes right up to lunch time and the two screen designers start talking about places to go eat and you’re sure now that the new guy would like to have you come along to lunch but even you think that’s a little fast, so you wish them well and wave them away, pleased that the new guy isn’t an idiot and wondering what’ll happen next.

Next thing you know you find yourself sending him an e-mail suggesting a meeting to go over mutually-beneficial issues that have come up due to the screen design meeting of the week before and the new guy, being ever so responsive and wanting to do a good job, responds immediately that he feels a meeting would be just right and asks:

“When can you get your whole department together to meet?”

And you reply that given the nature of the business and the fact that your whole department is working on a deadline, it would probably be best if you and the new guy met alone.

Whereupon, the new guy responds (all in e-mail mind you) that actually you had been reading his mind and that sounds just about perfect and then he asks you where and when and you exchange a flurry of e-mails about where to meet within the confines of the office that would afford some amount of privacy but not be too obviously threatening to anyone’s safety or sense of decorum and you finally agree to meet out on the patio, off of the kitchen, the next day, at 10 a.m.

In anticipation of this one-on-one meeting you fondly recall with what rapidity the new guy responds to your e-mail and given the state of your own home life (i.e., marriage going down the tubes, husband a block of ice and all that bike riding making you a literal sexual firecracker) you can’t help but wonder how responsive the new guy would be in a bar with your hand on his leg. Would he be up for the challenge? And, does comparing speed in answering e-mail equate to speed or duration of lovemaking? Clearly this new guy has gotten under your skin and through no fault of your own you begin to anticipate a sexual encounter subconsciously while merely fantasizing about a non-sexual, but perhaps romantic encounter, preferably in a bar, while you hook up online help files and listen to ragged, off-kilter head-banger music on your computer’s CD player.

What happens next is, of course, the 10a.m. meeting during which, consciously, you are now aware that the new guy has a minor thing for you. This part isn’t fantasy. You’ve been here before. You’re overtly cuter than the new guy and wear short skirts and black leather boots to work occasionally and the new guy wears plaid cotton shirts and Dockers. No contest. And when the two of you sit down at the cement patio table in the morning shade of the office building, the kitchen behind you, the apartment complex off in front of you and the new guy is shaking a little bit and has brought a folder of items to go over which he keeps closed in front of you on the table, you know your assessment has been correct.

Two hours later other co-workers wander onto the patio and your time with the new guy is obviously in danger of being interrupted. You realize the meeting has not gone per agenda, as a matter of fact, you have not discussed anything to do with work at all. But, you have realized the following: the new guy has very nice eyes and he rarely stops looking at you even when other co-workers appear on the patio; the new guy clearly shaves his neck and you can tell from the little V of an opening at his throat that he must have the hairiest chest you’ve almost seen in years; the new guy has an intensity when he talks to you that sometimes leads to you not being able to get a word in edgewise (and although you appreciate the enthusiasm, you realize this could grow into a problem -- you like to talk too).

So you retreat from the patio back to your office which you share with another writer who’s going through a divorce himself (from another cute, petite, strong-willed woman who seemed like a good idea at the time but now wants to go to Europe on her own for six months) and has always reminded you of Michael J. Fox in that small guy, kind of cute but irritating kind of way. And since your officemate knows you so well you’re incredibly uncomfortable having the new guy sit at the extra chair by your desk because you’re sure your voice has gone up or down an octave and the officemate will immediately realize you’re interested in the new guy and give you shit about it as soon as he leaves, so you start wishing the new guy would leave and you realize it’s 1p.m. and neither of you have had lunch so you just flat out ask the new guy if he needs to go have lunch even though he has now, finally, opened up his folder of items to go over and is pointing at number 3 as you suggest this.

So what happens next is the new guy says he doesn’t need lunch, but you admit you do and just ask the new guy if he’d like to go to lunch together and he hesitates but says OK and he drives and when you get into his car he has to move all the head-banger CDs off the passenger side of the seat, oddly telling you at the same time that he doesn’t have many passengers in his car and at this point you are more than convinced that he is interested in you and you are so glad you dyed your hair this past weekend because you’re wondering how young the new guy really is and you wonder if the new guy knew how old you were, would he still be fumbling with his rib sandwich like he was sorry he ordered something so messy because it could only serve to point out what a doofus he is in the bedroom and that’s the last thing he wants you to think.

So, here’s how it goes. You’re extremely flattered that the new guy finds you attractive enough to go out to lunch with even if it was you who invited him (he did end up driving and since you always eat lunch at your desk and never have cash, he had to end up paying as well), even if you only invited him because he obviously wasn’t going to go away at all and you were hungry and you were sure your officemate would sense the flirtation happening right there because you’re sure after all these years of being married that you have no flirtation skills at all, let alone the ability to hide the fact you’re flirting from the one person, your officemate, who probably knows you best of all at this point, because, as earlier stated, your marriage is going down the tubes.

So you come back from lunch and send the new guy an e-mail thanking him for lunch and telling him you promise to bring in the money to pay him back. You also suggest that there is all sorts of office gossip that he may not be privy to that you’ll have to tell the new guy, one day, maybe over a drink or two.

Well, the new guy picks up on this suggestion right away. He suggests you pay him back by buying the first pitcher of beer and how about tomorrow night? Although you are extremely flattered that the new guy wants to get drunk with you the very next day, you put him off (with good reason, you have plans) and suggest the day following the next day. He agrees.

What happens next is a day of e-mails where the new guy dives right in asking about your home life, your history, your marriage, all those things you’ve been trying not to think of and certainly not to explain to anyone (mostly yourself) as there is no explanation for why you are still in the marriage you are in except that you are lazy and afraid of being alone and of a certain age where every available man is going to be younger than you and you’re just not sure younger is better in all instances, though you would never sleep with a guy who was older than you.

Turns out the new guy does an excellent job in opening you up and elicits all sorts of personal details about you and your history. Unfortunately for you, you are a little naive and have forgotten the first rule of this game which is never reveal all right up front. You ask yourself, why not? Why not unburden yourself of all the shit that has been your life up to that point? Why not take full advantage of the new guy’s ear? When was the last time anybody (let alone a guy) showed any amount of interest in you or your history?

So you tell him everything. You tell him your husband has a medical condition that was finally diagnosed a year ago but before that you two hadn’t had sex for two years, so this makes it three. You tell him most of the history of your first marriage which is fantastical even to you. You get into such an unburdening mode that you can’t really stop yourself and spend the entire day writing e-mail to the new guy, explaining, answering his questions. The new guy is very sympathetic in e-mail. He’s the perfect correspondent and it’s much more fun to talk about yourself in e-mail than to construct online help or edit software manuals.

So what happens next is that the day comes when you are to meet the new guy for a drink after work. You send him an e-mail telling him that the last time you had too much to drink was probably about two years ago and it wasn’t beer, it was vodka tonics with a lime and he says that sounds pretty good and have you ever tried a Colorado Bulldog and of course you haven’t so he explains what that is and you realize this is a guy who goes to bars and knows drinks and somewhere in the back of your head, but much too far back to pay much attention to, a little red flag goes up that says, this is a guy who hangs out in bars and drinks and you dismiss that because your husband never does that but you must assume most other men do. So you file it away in the drawer of “drawbacks” and end up following him over to a local bar he’d only been to once before.

So what happens next is that after one drink (and by the way, you’ve both taken seats right up at the bar which is filled with old men watching dog races on a bank of TVs at the opposite end of the room) you’re sitting very close to the new guy and he’s telling you more about himself, things like this: he is a man of conscience, he goes by the book, he follows the rules, but, he is also a man of contradictions. And whatever he’s saying you find you cannot take your eyes off his goatee and mustache which have begun to mesmerize you and of course he notices this and you’ve suddenly stopped talking and this is about three vodka tonics into the evening and he’s been a gentleman with his hands and his insinuations but you find yourself sitting there on barstools, gambling swirling around you and you are kissing the new guy like you’re Julie and he’s Link and it’s the last episode of the Mod Squad and you just always knew they felt this way and you are mostly surprised that his goatee is so soft and all thinking has stopped and you only have this one thought, that you want to continue kissing the new guy until hell freezes over and then, that barstools are damned unfortunate places to be when the kissing starts, so you stop and ask the new guy:

“Can we go somewhere and kiss?”

And he thinks this is a pretty good idea and he pays the bar tab (because you forgot to bring money again, you’re not a bad person, just not used to going out and needing cash) and walk out to his car in the parking lot under the bright lights and the dark beyond and kiss the new guy some more, backed up against his car and you get your hands up under his shirt to get him as close as possible and then you hear men milling around you in the parking lot, sad about their bets and they start calling out to you:

“Ah, go get a room!”

And for a moment you stop and you let the men get into their cars and drive away and the new guy is pulling your short skirt down in back, back over the tops of your thigh hi’s which you didn’t hardly even notice were showing and could really care less about right then but you do know it’s late and you know that you have to go to work tomorrow and see the new guy again, so you pull away and say:

“Good night, then.”

But he doesn’t let go of your hand and roughly pulls you back into his chest and starts kissing you all over again and the last thing you want to do is stop right then, so you tell him so. You say:

“Fuck me.”

You say it a lot in his ear and into his neck and you’re hoping he hears you and you’re hoping he just lifts you up onto the hood of the car right then, but instead he turns you around to face your own car across the lot, pushes your hair out of your face and puts his hands on your shoulders and says:

“It’s late.”

And you don’t look back at him but you feel immediately much too drunk to walk to your car, let alone drive home, but there you are, walking across the parking lot. There you are, keys in your hand, in the door, door open, sitting in the front seat, door closed. There you are, key in the ignition. This takes awhile. You get it going, then look up. The new guy is gone and you’re thinking, the new guy should never have let you get into your car and drive home and you’re pretty darn sure you’re going to be sick before you ever get home and your body is reeling from what it’s been through in the last few hours and halfway home you’re crying so much you can’t see the road in front of you, so you pull over two blocks from your house and turn off the headlights and put your head down on the steering wheel and you think: better put on lipstick before you get home, and you think: better brush your hair, and you think: a little makeup and maybe some gum before you crawl back into your husband’s bed. And you think, why did that new guy stop kissing you? And when was the last time you were kissed like that? And you think, Jesus Christ, what happens next?