Short story -- no title yet

Marvin loved Melissa. He lived for the electric moment each morning when she breezed into the office, ten minutes late as always, her golden hair tousled and the scent of fresh cigarette smoke and perfume swirling in her wake.

Smoking and tardiness seemed to be her only vices. She refused to join the office gossipers, the back-stabbers or the cynics. She stayed bright and cheery no matter the pressures or the stresses of the day – and she loved nothing more, it seemed, than to bring in a birthday cake or to massage the tension knots out of some colleague’s neck.

Marvin hadn’t had the courage to ask Melissa out. Today, he vowed, today would be the day. He walked over to her cubicle but she wasn’t there. Maybe on a smoke break. Damn, she always looked so pretty cradling her long Misty Lights and softly exhaling.

“She’s in the break room,” Vickie said, gesturing that direction.

It figured. He could see her standing on her tiptoes on the break room table, trying to post up a banner for Will’s birthday. Will had no friends in the office – just did his work without comment and went home – but Melissa would honor his birthday anyway.

Marvin stepped into the break room, wondering if this would be a good time. But Linda was in there, too, helping to steady Melissa on the somewhat wobbly table.

“Hey, Marv,” Linda said. Melissa, with her lips cradling several thumbtacks and her focus on her task, didn’t say anything. Today she wore an angelic white sweater and light pink slacks with white pumps upon her feet. It was a perfect combination, he thought.

The women were both looking up at the slightly crooked banner now, trying to gauge how to adjust it.

Then it happened. Marvin braced his hand against the table, preparing himself mentally for his request -- and Melissa stepped backwards.

He felt a sharp pain shoot through his pinky finger as the narrow heel of her shoe landed squarely upon his tender flesh and bore down with all 110 pounds or so of her weight. Marvin was not weak. He could lift 110 pounds easily but of course not with one finger. And he had no idea that 110 pounds could concentrate so powerfully on said finger.

He stifled the sound that wanted to burst from his lips, for he realized that if he startled her or tried to yank free, she might misstep from the table.

In a strange sort of way, he realized, he was one with her at this moment, in tactile unity with every inch of that beautiful body that he so desired – taking silent punishment from the combination of her strong legs, her sweet, soft bottom, her flat belly with its occasionally glimpsed navel ring, her breasts and her shoulders, her face and her golden hair.

“How does it look, Marv?” Melissa suddenly asked, having freed her lips from the last of the thumbtacks and unaware that a trembling finger, not some table detritus, was trapped beneath her heel.

“You look beautiful,” he gasped, stupefied by agony.

She burst out laughing.

“I meant the banner, the banner looks great,” he stammered, his face bright red both with embarrassment and pain. “Would — ”

“ -- Yes, I’ll go to the Green Day concert with you, Marv,” she said. “Give me your hand and help me down from the table.”

How ironic.

Still unaware of the possible ruination of the requested digit, Melissa stepped to the right, mercifully and finally freeing it in time for him to extend his hand to help her down.

“How did you …” he asked.

“I saw the tickets on your desk today,” she said. “Linda and Vickie are married. Were you planning to ask Will?”
Marvin fairly floated back to his desk, finger throbbing with the most delicious pain in the world.