Commissioning Editor, London: 5

Eventually, I decided to go out for that drink with Dorothy. She hasn’t cried in the office since that one incident a week back, but she had been quiet, sullent and withdrawn. I had been working a little late yesterday and she was there too. I walked over to her desk and waited for her to look up from the proposal she was reading.

            "Hm?" she said, as she turned to face me by swivelling on her chair. It was cute movement, all balletic toes and graceful arcs.

            "We should go from that drink – today maybe. Tonight, I mean."

            "Um, maybe. I’m quite tired," she said.

            I realised I could see down her top from where I was standing and that her six month old half a size too small blouse was creating some excellent cleavage, open at the second button after a long day. I absent-mindedly left my gaze there for a second too long.

            "Are you looking down my top?" she asked.

            "No-" I said, looking away swiftly and moving over to the window. "I definitely was not." I couldn’t help smirking a little. "It’s a nice evening out there."

            "How does six-thirty at the Old Crown sound?"

            "Why there?"

            "It’s out of the way."

            "Of?"

            "People."

            "I though this was a moral support kind of drink?"

            "I’m kind of busy reading this proposal, _____."

            "I’ll let you finish." I carried on standing where I was, looking out of the window, watching the people stream out of offices and funnel into lines, on their way to the Tube stations or to bus stops, making their way home with a renewed vigour, the promise of a dinner in front of Eastenders or the opportunity to put a wash on. There was the correspondence to sift through. The bills in the fucking C5 Windowed with your surname in caps lock. I watched it, and I tried to stop myself, but in the end, I relented.

            "Yes, that sounds fine. I’ll come by your desk in a while."

            I couldn’t really understand what was going on. Dorothy was by her nature a quiet, demure girl. There was the obvious emotion instability of the break up but in my experience that pushed girls like her towards Blossom Hill and boxes of chocolate, or men called Chris who proved eminently unsuitable. (They could have just asked me before hand and saved themselves the hassle). I thought of the futility of expending any more thought on the matter and went back to my desk. The screen saver was up, a Windows logo bouncing around the screen. Even its randomised vigour seemed fake. I let out a sigh. Dorothy called across the office to me.

            "Okay, I get the message. I’ll shut down and we can go."

            She had never said anything like that before. She clicked away at a few windows and then eventually gave up as her computer stalled. She bashed the off button and I could see there was a grimace of pain at having to do something that she was so unaccustomed to. I firmly started to believe that she’d lost her mind until we got into the lift and she started talking to me about what she had planned to watch on television that week. A white fuzz of interference descended and apart from looking at and picturing her ass as she crossed the street just ahead of me, I couldn’t tell you anything about the trip to the pub. I could tell you very little about getting to the bar and jostling for space, elbow down and eye contact made, and broken, made and leading, until I got served and just gave up choosing and bought a bottle of mid-range fairly dry house white, probably a Pinot Grigio and two glasses still warm from the dishwasher. I couldn’t tell you very much about the seats we chose although I can tell you that I know that I chose them strategically and I deliberately placed her looking at me and the window so that she wouldn’t have an opportunity to be distracted and that I’d be able to see if the pub was getting busier or quieter and decide on my next move and I can’t tell you much about what we spoke about although I can tell you my eyes kept dropping down to her cleavage again and I started to laugh at her jokes when I hadn’t bothered before and perhaps it was because she putting in a little bit of effort. I can’t tell you much about how we got to the end of the first bottle although I know that I didn’t have to force the pace and that I went up with her 20 note to get another and I realised the money smelled of her perfume and the second was sweeter and more oaky and maybe that was the perfume and it was quite hazy as we got mid way through that and she relented and told me how sad she was and how hard it had been and I was trying to be sympathetic but I realised that I wasn’t by nature and that I was being untrue to it or maybe I was discovering something and I did feel for her in a certain way and didn’t want her to be sad and then she broke ranks again and said she was tired of wine and pubs and the smell of beer and could we go on and I decided I could chance it and invited her to come with to a members club where I knew I could sign us both in under someone else’s name it wasn’t really that ridiculous i was drunk i could tell at the time and perhaps a bit more bold than i should have been maybe that’s where the drink takes u she got back to me at the bar when i got our turn in and said she’d have a mule and could i not drink a cosmo as it was a bit fey and i laughed and got a bramble and she said she didn’t mind the taste of those and it was innuendo and i knew it and and i was shocked and i realised again so many realisations she’d put on lip gloss and i asked about it and she said it was cherry and i asked how does it taste and she kissed me – it wasn’t like i expected the cherry lip gloss and electric sparks and sueded playing something in the background and oh it turns you o-o-on;

            I woke up today, here, in my room, and she’s still asleep on my arm and I really don’t know what to do.