Michael Chabon

“It’s some form I’m supposed to fill out,” I said.

“Oh? I’ve never heard of it. Do you know who you spoke to? No? Maybe you’d better go back to Administration and ask.”

“Um. I was afraid—I was hoping—do you think you could go back and ask for me? Ha ha. See, there’s someone who works in the back offices that I’d rather not run into.”

His eyes lit up and he wiggled his eyebrows. With very dramatic deliberation, he reached behind him for a stool and sat down. He picked up a pencil and tapped it against his temple.

“Be brave,” he said.

It was perfect. I stopped dead at the entrance to the elevator corridor, and there she was, behind her bars, dressed to kill, pearls, blue sundress. Her locks were lighter than ever, nearly strawberry blond, pulled up and wrapped into a palm tree of hair that rose from her head and spilled its bright ends outward in a silly, fetching spray. She raised her face, which was suntanned and barely painted, the stalk of hair swayed, and whatever expression I expected to see— rage, embarrassment, unrecognition—was absent. She grinned. It was all I could do then, in the flash of her old, unlooked-for smile, to keep myself from running to press my face against the grille, into the window that I loved so much. But I kept a grip on myself and slowly came, self-conscious, suddenly stiff-legged, and holding out my hands, as though to catch a spinning beach ball. As I passed the elevators, their Up arrows lit and chimed, one, two. The doors slid open with the sound of murmured approval, and the corridor behind me filled with a little audience.

“Phlox,” I said, fifteen inches away from her lips. “Oh, Phlox.”

“Do you love me?” she said, still seated, radiant with patience and anticipation, and obviously feeling that she held the strings. Her light, unconcerned tone of voice might as easily have said, May I help you?

I didn’t stop to think, and said that I did.

“Wait,” she said. She stood, turned from me, and walked out of the office, swinging her hips, and she came around to the other side of the window, where our hands went out, our fingers tangled, and I put my mouth to hers. After we’d kissed for a minute, with all her well-informed co-workers watching us through the magic grille, she drew back and looked at me, without a trace of hurt or anger on her face. There was only half-suppressed mirth, the rapid blinking of disbelief. She cocked her head to one side.

“I’m so sorry,” I said.

“Hush,” she said, and giggled. “Come on.”

She took my hand and pulled me down the hall, into the stairwell, her white pumps tocking against the tiled floor. For a second I shut my eyes just to listen to the promising clatter, to think once again, Ah, there’s a woman coming; here comes a woman. Under the staircase we kissed, pushing our hips together. We began to get the same wild notion then; she grabbed at my hand with both of her hands, walking backward, and pulled me up the stairs, to the third floor of the library, where there were, all around the outer walls, tiny dark rooms, with tiny desks, that the library rented to graduate students.

“They’re locked, aren’t they?”

“Not this one,” she said, tugging me toward a door, which opened with a twist of her flushed hand.

“How do you know about this?” I slipped in behind her, whispering, and she closed the door.

“Hush,” she said. “Everyone knows about this. Sit down, we’ll have to be quick. Here.”

She leaned forward to unzip my pants, like a child unwrapping a doll. They fell and puddled around my ankles. I sat.

“Oh,” said Phlox, touched, when she saw my erection. “It’s so lovely.”

“It is?”

“It’s so handsome and polite.” She hitched up her dress; no panties.

“Were you prepared for this?” I said, this suspicion dawning on me, honestly, for the first time.

“I’ve been prepared for this for a week now,” she said, taking my fingers. “Just feel how prepared I am.”

Down upon me she settled herself, wiggling, making the necessary adjustments, and there, once again, were the aptness, the welcome give of giving skin, the warmth, the human and fragrant slipperiness, and I sighed as though I ached in every muscle and were sinking into a hot bath. In sixty seconds it was all over, and it had all begun again.

But it was different.