I was working in the library, checking in a book about Lou Gehrig, thinking about how I would never read a book about Lou Gehrig, when a man leaned over, nearly touching my ear with his lips. 

“Did you know that a pig's orgasm lasts for 30 minutes?”  I jerked up quickly, almost hitting my head on the man’s chin.  He was about 40 years old, dark green eyes and stood looking at me with a half-cocked grin. 

“Oh yeah?  And how long does a horse’s last?”  I asked the man.  He laughs.  I know I should be offended, I should leave or call somebody but he is funny and peculiarly brave and I can’t walk away from that.   

“I’m Joe.  You’re new here?” 

“Yes, I’m new.”  He studies me for a second and then just walks away.  I stand there, watching him walk away, not sure what all that was about and why it ended so quickly.  He is tall, but not too tall, with the soft slouch of a bookish man.  He reminds me of a brooding tree, really.  I would have forgotten him except later that day I receive an email from him.  “Meet me upstairs, row three, by the Middle English poetry.”  I quickly get up, smooth my skirt down and head up the stairs.  He is there, pretending to look at books.  He picks up a volume of poetry and begins reading.  He has seen me, I can tell, and a grin spreads over his face.  Unsure of what do, I decide to walk over to him and as I get closer he puts the book down and faces me directly. 

“I know where there’s an unoccupied room.  Are you interested?” 

“Of course I am.”  We head to a small room in the back, the repository room.  He has keys and unbolts the door.  I see a ring on his hand, but I had already known he was married.  People like us, always searching for lovers that we never want to commit to, can spot each other easily.  As easily as we can spot the people that would wantonly burn adulterers at the stake.  He grabs my hand and leads me to the back, down the long bookshelves where old alumni newspapers and photos of people wearing graduation gowns and caps were collecting dust.  We stop at the end of the row and Joe puts his hand up my skirt. 

I saw him regularly after that, about three times a week.  It was often the same routine, but in various rooms and buildings.  The book binding room is small concrete room with a hard, egg white table.  We were in there one night, both of us with our clothes off and we hear the doorknob jiggle and then keys being pulled out.  We both scrambled to put out clothes back on and by the time the woman figured out the lock and opened the door, we were sitting at the table with a couple of books in our laps.  “What are you two doing in here?” She asks and Joe looks at her as though she were stupid.  “We are binding books is what we’re doing.”  She briskly turned around and left and we both laughed until tears ran down our face. 

I wondered if I loved Joe, but really, I knew I didn’t.  He was good to pass the time with and good for ebbing my furious, daily, anxiety, but most of my feelings were confined to the rooms we spent our time in.  I knew people were looking at us and that the old women in the break room had lengthy discussions regarding our nefarious looks at each other.  Everyone knew but nobody knew for sure until the Christmas dinner.  It was a company potluck and Joe and I sat together with a few higher ups right across from us.  I had a big spoonful of pasta salad on my spoon and Joe took his fork and knocked the pasta off my spoon.  He laughed at this, but I was stunned and irritated.  Our boss looks over at us and while Joe continues laughing and spoons pudding into his mouth.   She watches me carefully and her lip twitches. 

Joe quickly ate his dinner and just before leaving pinches my thigh under the table. I know this means that he wants me to come to his office in a few minutes.  After he leaves, I eat dainty spoonfuls of company contrived vanilla pudding and tried to make small talk with the other co-workers around me but no one, at this point, was much interested in making conversation with me.  I am used to this, actually.  Always the office tramp, the spurned outcast.  Forever the lover, never the loved. 

I leave as soon as I figure no one is thinking about us anymore.  I go to Joe’s office, knock on his door, and he opens it wearing no pants.  I walk in and quickly shut the door.  “Joe what are you doing?  There are people everywhere?”  But he takes me in his arms and it isn’t long before we are laying on his grainy, threadbare and abrasive office couch that I despise. 

We are naked again and much less alert that usual.  We weren’t ready for any interruptions when it happened.  We hear someone jiggle the doorknob and then hear them go for their keys.  We scramble to get our clothes on but whoever it is, is too fast.  I am shirtless and dart under Joe’s desk.  Joe stands up, his pants were on, but not his shirt, and faces the two old ladies standing open-mouthed at his door.  “What do you two think you’re doing charging into my office like that?” The two old ladies mumble something about a scheduled delivery and they are very sorry and they both back out, one pulling the door closed behind her.   

“Come on out.”  He says to me.  I come out from under the desk, knowing that one of the old ladies at the door was the boss’s executive secretary.  We are done for.    

“She will know it’s me!”  I say.  I am exceeding anxious.   

“No, she’ll think it’s my wife.  She has dark hair like you.”  I later learned that his wife was more than 100 lbs heavier than me with short hair, but I let myself believe him.  I had no other choice. 

Surprisingly, the most that came out of being discovered were office rumors copious contemptuous glares and deliberate whispers.  I stopped seeing Joe for a couple of weeks and we avoided each other in the hallways.  He would walk past me and all I would get from him were looks from the corner of his eyes.  I also started seeing a new girl come around.  She wore tight red dresses, heels and loose buns.  She would go to Joe’s office, shut the door and bumble around about some important budget issues they needed to discuss to anyone passing by.   She often tried to make eye contact with me, but I made sure I was always sifting through papers when I passed her. 

Finn is the computer technician for the library and mostly works in the basement of the building but comes up a few times a day to check for problems and update software.  He is tall, auburn hair and handsome.  The girls at the desk all gawk at him.  I overhear one say “He’s dreamy.”  Yes, dreamy. 

He is much younger than I am and lacks the charm of the older, practiced man.  When we talk it is awkward and abbreviated.  He searches for clever things to say and always falls short.   I watch him a lot, watch him carry computer monitors up to the third floor and boxes of books to the cataloging room.  His untucked shirt billows when he walks and as a nervous habit, he tucks his hair behind his ears when he thinks someone is looking at him.  Usually he never looks around, keeps his eyes straight ahead.  I imagine it’s because people are always looking at him and to do anything but look ahead might risk uncomfortable eye contact.  We talk very little but suddenly I find myself searching for his scent when we are in the same room together or he passes me in the hallway.