It’s strange. I was just thinking about her the other day when I walked by a women’s clothing boutique over a windy New Year’s Day morning. A headless mannequin was wearing this stylish body-fitting pink top with that seductive cascading pattern of pink cloth going down the mannequin’s figure like a tightly woven series of raging ocean waves.
I would have recognized that pink top anywhere.
It was our secret for the last year. She would only wear it for me. And would always walk by every morning she came in to the office wearing it. Without fail, and with a couple of quick eyelash battings, she would seductively give me that look that said: “I’m wearing your top today.” I would smile every time, and it would literally make my day.
At that moment in front of the women’s boutique, I wondered how she had spent the holidays and about how I never really got to say goodbye just a few weeks before. Then, just a couple of days ago, to my great but delighted surprise, she called.
“Hi, handsome stranger. You disappeared on me. Did you run into a sexy woman who whisked you away or something? Is that why you didn’t come to say goodbye?”
She didn’t have to say who she was. I knew it was her. It was classic “L.L.”.
Let me explain.
“L.L. Cool MILF” was an underground nickname that a few of the guys at the office had come up with for her. “L.L.” was a senior executive and department head at the company I used to work for until recently. Although she was a no-nonsense businesswoman with a York University MBA and that much-coveted corner office, she was also a well-liked boss who always brought positive energy to the workplace. For many of us men in the office, though, she was a goddess.
The breakdown of her nickname is quite simple. It stands for “Lucy Lopez Cool MILF”. The “L.L. = Lucy Lopez” comes from the fact that she’s a gorgeous Asian woman (i.e. Lucy Liu) with the killer body and booty of Jennifer Lopez. Even with the fashionable tailored suits she always wore, her curves were evident. As for the MILF part, I won’t get into the specific details of the acronym (see the movie American Pie), but she got that part of her nickname because she is a sexy married woman in her mid-forties with three kids.
Because of the respect and authority that her position entailed, and also the fact that her husband would make frequent office visits to pick her up for lunch, all her male admirers in the office naturally kept a safe distance.
But something happened about a year and a half ago that changed all that for me.
As I heard her speak over my cell phone on that brisk January day, I imagined her exquisite full lips slightly curling as they always did when she was being somewhat naughty.
The infamous pink top
Now, back to that watershed moment about a year and a half ago. It was the first time I had ever seen her wear that pink top. It was a very tasteful yet revealing top that had a killer effect. I’m not even sure if anybody else had noticed it in particular since I hadn’t heard any comments about it from the guys that morning, but it certainly caught my eye. She had a dark navy body-hugging suit jacket on top of it but had left her jacket unbuttoned.
I remember exactly what she was doing at the time. She had her head down faxing a document, and I was walking down the hall towards her on my way to grab a coffee. I purposely slowed down my pace as I got close to her. My gaze must have gotten heavy because she looked up. Then, there were those few seconds that seemed to last an uncomfortable eternity, and my eyes were fixed on her chest as she looked at me. When I finally walked by her, I said “very nice top”.
At this point, I was already thinking about updating my resume and looking at other job opportunities.
Little did I know that this instant was just the beginning of a heated and somewhat dangerous flirtatious interaction that would last well over a year.
As my stomach was still rumbling from what had just come out of my mouth and where my eyes had been, she softly bit her gently curved lips, raised her chin sideways as she looked down towards me at the corner of her eye and said: “So you like my top eh?” She then lifted her hand from the fax machine towards her chest, covered her cleavage and said with a smile: “You’re a naughty boy.”
I just smiled back and picked up my pace again because I “really” needed my coffee now.
I had started the game, but I had no idea how hard she would eventually play. Just a few days later, I went to her office to get her signature on some papers as I often did. But this time, the tension was obvious. I stepped behind the desk next to her chair as I leaned over to go over some details on the document she had to sign. Once she was ready to sign, she had to reach into her drawer to get her official stamp. But I was still standing there next to her, obstructing her access to the drawer. I nearly hit the floor when she flicked her hair from the left side of her face, looked up at me with that same mischievous stare and said: “Could you please move, I don’t want to grab the wrong thing.”
If she were any other woman, “it would be on” after a comment like that. But she was my boss. On top of that, her husband’s picture and her daughter’s high school graduation portrait were sitting on her desk, staring at me.
Soon after that, every time we were alone in her office, “something” would happen. First, there was the stash of fruit candies and treats, which she said were great for my “manhood.” Then, there were the recurring personal questions about what was going on in my love life.
I looked forward to going to that corner office as often as I could. A few weeks later, she wore the pink top again. As soon as I walked into her office that morning, she placed her forearms flatly on her desk, pressed her arms close to her body, and then slightly moved forward as she told me: “Did you notice I’m wearing your favourite top again today?”
I would let her push further and further in the game while being the passive beneficiary of the flattering attention. I just wasn’t sure how she would react if it came from the other way around the same way it was coming at me.
Then I started to test the boundaries.
Fridays were casual day at the office. Everyone wore jeans. I always looked forward to Fridays to see my L.L. wear her usually tight-fitting jeans. One Friday, I was coming out of the photocopy room down the hall from her office and saw her walk by on the way back to her desk. As I came out of the photocopy room, I was walking behind her in the hallway. She wasn’t wearing a jacket, so the view from behind was unblemished. She wasn’t aware that I was behind her yet. After thinking about it for a few seconds, I uttered out loud: “hummm hummm hummm.”
We were almost at the end of the hallway and at her office door at that time. She had no doubt who it was behind her even before she turned around. She squirted her eyes at me and pressed her lips with an amusing look. She deliberately slowed down as I approached. Keeping the same walking pace, I ended up softly bumping right into her as she waved her hair toward my cheek. We stayed there for a few seconds at the door of her office. I was even so bold as to place my hand on her hips. Nothing was said, but we both knew that it would not be a good idea for me to go into her office today. While my hand was still on her hip, I slightly pinched her side, smiled and winked and went on to my daily business.
A few days later, her husband came into the office to pick her up for lunch like he usually did once in a while. By some odd coincidence, the three of us took the same elevator down to go to lunch. It was my most uncomfortable elevator ride ever. But her husband was very friendly and chatty with me as usual—totally unaware of the tension in the elevator.
Even after that episode, not much had changed. The flirtation kept going. In a way, it was now a lot more exciting because neither of us knew where the boundary really was anymore. I’m not sure either of us really wanted to find out.
Recently, I moved on to another job. She was actually shocked and saddened to hear it from someone else during a manager’s meeting. She said that she was not only my boss but also a friend and that she hoped we would keep in touch. I wasn’t sure how that would work, so I just politely said: “Sure.”
We never really got to say a proper goodbye because things got busy, and our paths did not cross the day I left.
When I got the unexpected call from her this week to meet for lunch next week, I realized that without the concrete barriers of work and our boss/employee relationship, we may now be entering into a very slippery slope.
She is a married woman, after all, with a great husband and beautiful kids. But I said yes to her lunch invitation.
I wonder if she'll wear our pink top next week for our lunch.
