Joannie and me worked together a few years ago, and for the first couple of years we had no interaction for anything other than professional matters. Though she sat quite near me, her desk was opposite mine, and sometimes we'd exchange awkward glances with one another, there was nothing connecting us at all. But in a way I always felt fascinated by her, though I could never explain just why. She walked with a curious gait, not quite a limp, but there was definitely something about the way she moved around. I'd always felt curious about that, always felt there was a story there. One day I was off work for a couple of weeks on holiday, and in the meantime there had been some reshuffling around the layout of the office. When I got back to work, I noticed that her usual desk wasn't there anymore, and I didn't see her at all that day. I was too wary of myself to actually ask anyone whether she'd left or not, so I just sat sullen the whole day, doing my usual work only half-heartedaly. But she was there the next day, though, and now she sat exactly right next to me. Unusually for me, I smiled when I saw her, and having noticed it, she returned the smile, albeit just briefly. I sat down on my desk, and immediately I noticed how she smelled - I have no words to describe it, other than the best summer day I ever had as a kid, with the sun bright and warm, and strawberries, and an endless joy in my heart. As I turned on my computer to start working, the scent of her began to overwhelm me, and it was all I could do to keep focused on work. A couple of days after that, she turned to me and asked me something about work, to which I couldn't seem to find an answer, because the only I wanted to say was how great she smelled, and that's exactly what I did. And she looked at me, and said thanks, and I apologised profusely, and she said it's ok and told me to reach out my hand. I did so, and she fumbled around in her handbag, until she found what she was looking for, and produced an intricately wrought phial, a clear blue liquid swirling inside it. She took a dab from it, and ran her perfumed finger across my wrist. So that'll you remember me, she says. And that's how it all began.
I ask her out a few days after that initial moment, and to my surprise she says yes. And I say to my surprise, because after that moment with the perfume, it was as if nothing had actually happened, but it was just as she said : so that you'll remember me, and god damn me, did I do anything but think of her? Did I bollocks. But I wasn't seeing an opening there, and it had to be another work-related thing that got us talking, whereupon I proceeded to ask her out. And she asks why I hadn't done it before, and curse me for a fool and twice so for a coward, the words seemed far too heavy and impossible for me to articulate before. But she says yes, and we go out for a meal. I try to impress her by taking her to a fancy thing, and I can tell at once it's not her deal, and it isn't mine either, so why did I try so hard? We eat dinner mostly in silence, I'm thinking she's thinking she made a mistake, I'm thinking I made a mistake bringing her here. Mentally, I'm flogging myself, whipping my flesh raw, what stupidity on my part. But next time, she says, can we just go for pizza? And I didn't even consider the possibility of a next time, but she continues, or just a burger, even. Next time, I question, doubting why she'd even want that. Yeah, she says, next time's on me, and why, why, why, does she want a next time, but I don't ask her why, I nod and we walk in silence.
It takes some three dates before we kiss, though we both confess we'd been wanting to do it since that time at the office with the perfume. She kisses hungrily, like she wants to devour me, whereas I am somewhat more delicate, and she tells me to lose myself in her. I've been feeling strangely inhibited, and she assures me it's ok to let go of my inhibitions. But I don't know why, I feel like something's not quite right. She takes me by the hand, and we both get in a cab, and she asks me where I live. Your house is nearer, she says, and I reply I'm not quite sure how my wife would take it if I took her home, and there is a pregnant pause, and then I say it's just a joke - and it was - and my house it is. We get to my place quick enough, but then I remember just how messy it is right now, there's clothes on the floor, a few days of washing up that has not been done, and jesus, I'm already apologising, and she tells me not to worry about it. We go in, and she tries not to notice how messy everything is, and leans back against the door, inviting me to her arms. We kiss under the mistletoe that's been left hanging for years now, and my hands study her, search her, explore her, and just as I'm approaching down below, she suddenly stops me from reaching that golden lair, and thinking I'd done something completely untowards, guess what - I started to apologise again. But she shakes her head, says it's not that, it's not what I think, but there's something I should know. I'm kind of dreading where this is going, she's taking me past her upper right leg, and then past her thigh, and she lets my hand rest there. I see now, and the way she walks now made even more sense. She tells me she's an amputee, and ok, that's decidedly new. A few years before she started working in the office, she'd had a bad car accident, she'd been hopped up on painkillers, and managed to wrap her car around her tree. A miracle she says, she came back with only minus a leg. Oh, and some nuts and bolts for measure too. Christ, I say, and she asks me if I want to see it. And I don't know, that's got to be pretty fucking weird, but I say yes, and she strips down to her under wear and she has one of those crazy robot legs athletes use, something straight out of Star Wars, and we go and sit down on the couch. I think I'm in love, and after we're sat she removes her prosthetic leg, and she tells me how sometimes she can feel the ghost of her leg, and I say I see, I say I understand, but fuck me, I don't, and there's a real part of me that's fearing how this is going to work out. Her eyes are luring me, lulling me into a sense of security, and I am going inside her, but the stump against my flesh is just so weird, so different, so new, I recoil, and she thinks I hate her, and she starts to cry, and I say no. Let me get used to it, and I ask her to extend her leg to me, just as if she was reaching out with her foot, and I look at it, I touch it, caress it, kiss it. I ask her if she minds, she nods with her head, saying she doesn't. It's wearing off, that initial reluctance, and as we lay there while I get to know what fills the void of what's missing, she tells me story of the accident and its aftermath in detail. Still, it takes me a few times after that night to get fully used to it. Then it just stops mattering. If it didn't stop her from doing everything she liked, why would it stop me?
But me and Joanna were never officially anything. I'd asked her a few times, and she said she didn't need for us to be anything other than what we already were, and I asked what that was, and she always replied we were something good. And so we went along like that for a few months, until one day I noticed she'd stopped coming to work, and we only ever talked when we were at work, I never had her number or actually got to know where she lived. I tried asking around if anyone knew how to reach her, but she'd never had made any friends there, and no one seemed to care either way. I tried - to no avail - to coax it from a guy I knew in HR, to see if there was a number I could reach her, and he said the best he could do was call her and see if she's ok. Some time later he says that yeah, she handed in her resignation. I saw her yesterday, from across the road. We both looked at each other, momentarily locking eyes, instantly recognising one another, and then we pretended like we didn't know each other.
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