It was noon, lunch break at the University, and I noted that there was the usual cast of students and office workers sitting in the warm Spring sun as I took my accustomed shortcut to my office. Idly glancing at a woman who was sitting with her skirt drawn up a bit, sunning her long legs, I smiled to myself for the umpteenth time, thinking how lucky I was to have obtained the office I had.

At first glance, it was no prize. On the ground floor, along with three other offices, it was accessed from a single central office, the so-called reception room. None of the office spaces was large, for the University had been growing at a completely unanticipated rate and over the years, the large offices had been partitioned into ever smaller units. Some, like mine, were almost laughable. My space, the one I'd connived and manipulated to get, was easily three times longer than it was wide. In comparison, the inside hallway may have been only sightly wider. It was so narrow that while sitting at my desk, there was inadequate room to walk behind me. Still, I loved it. Later I found out that my manipulation hadn't even been tested; no one else wanted it!

You see, it had a major benefit - an outside door that opened onto a tree-studded, sunken courtyard that in midday was flooded with sun and oh yes, lots of good looking students. At least the women were, I thought to myself. More, the courtyard was open to the parking areas, the central research laboratories, the Outpatient Clinic areas as well as the main hospital. With an outside door, I almost never had to take the tortuous subterranean halls to our "reception" area; I always walked through the outside courtyard. Mostly it was the convenience and the illusion of great space at one end of my office, but on sunny days like this, there was a bonus - the sun-worshiping women who congregated there. Yes, that was a major bonus.

That morning, trailing along slowly, my hands sunk in my pockets, head down, I might have looked like an absent-minded young professor. The young professor part was right, but my head was down because I was looking at the various sets of legs that were on display.

"Mornin', Dr. Burbank."

I'd been speculating on the geometry of my angle of vision, looking at the long thighs of a woman sitting on one of the square, concrete planters outside my office door. If I were just a few inches lower, or if she lifted her legs just a smidgen...

I glanced up and saw Judy, my "administrative assistant" smiling at me. Actually she wasn't *my*assistant; I shared her with three other guys, but they were gone a lot so it *seemed*like she was mine. Judy had once divulged to me her take on the title, 'administrative assistant.' "Hell, we're all secretaries - as least that's how I think of myself - but if that call us 'admins' they don't have to pay us overtime or buy us flowers on Secretaries' Day." I remembered that and bought flowers.

Judy tilted her head at me and gave me that knowing smile. She'd caught me ogling her legs (again). "Nice day, huh, doc?"

She often called me "doc" when we were together. She wasn't trying to be familiar or disrespectful. It never occurred to her, I'm sure, for she was married to a well-known, full-professor - on the academic, social ladder, placed well above me. I was what was euphemistically referred to as "junior faculty," a new Assistant Professor, promising perhaps, but not yet proven. Proven as in tenured where one's Curriculum Vitae was weighed.

I liked Judy. I liked her looks and her spirit and mostly, I liked her wit and intelligence. As many young academicians, I unconsciously judged peoples' intelligence, usually from some lofty high ground, and I'd found her's to be keen and sometimes superior to my own. I hadn't admitted that to her. I didn't need to. She was like me and already knew it.

"Cat got your tongue?" she asked.

"Uh... guess I was wool gathering," I replied, trying not to look down at her legs. The fact of the matter was this: I was infatuated with Judy. She didn't seem to know this and I'd never made a move on her. She was a respected woman in a high-profile marriage to a politically-prominent Professor of History. There was talk that he was on a fast track to a university presidency. More importantly, I didn't hustle married women, period. Oh, the thought crossed my mind. All the time actually. But it hadn't been too great a temptation. At least not as long as I kept working the insane hours I did.

"You have some messages," she added, swinging her legs aside as she stood up. I saw a flash of white. Her panties? I tried not to look. And failed.

She gave me "the look," that knowing smile that said she knew exactly what was happening. Only we didn't talk about it. Not directly, anyway.

"None of them are important," she continued, "but they want you to head a committee - a resident selection committee." She wrinkled her nose.

Judy spoke of "they" as if it were Us and Them. 'They,' of course, were the entrenched power structure who were artful at delegating scut work, like the resident selection committee.

"Shit! I hate the ponderous, self-important process of committees. They're so cumbersome and so inefficient. I have an idea. Tell 'em I'll do it only if they'll let me pick the rest of the committee."

"And you won't pick anyone else, right?"

I nodded with a little smile. "Much faster and far more efficient that way."

She made a fist and pulled it back to her body. "I'll draft the letter."

We walked into my office and she paused to pick a dead leaf from one of my pants by the window. "You're the only doc with plants. Know that?"

"That's because I'm the only doc with an outside office and has someone like you to keep 'em alive," I retorted, stating the obvious. Before Judy I subscribed to Darwinian selection - if they made it they made it. Life's tough.

As she reached behind the potted plant to pick a few more questionable leaves, her blouse was drawn tightly across her back, outlining a bra strap. I wasn't sure - sometimes I wondered if she wore one at all. She was small breasted (I thought) with sometimes very prominent nipples (I knew) and in the unconscious way some men have, I was very aware of her body and what she was wearing.

I glanced at my watch in the unconscious way time-conscious people do; I still had a half hour before my lecture. "Did you finish my notes?" I asked.

"Yes," and she nodded to a manilla folder on the center of my desk. Then she flashed me a sly smile. "I made a few corrections."

I groaned. "Yeah, a few. Will I even recognize 'em? As my notes, that is?"

"Oh sure. You're a quick study."

"Do you correct Bob's papers?" I asked, suspecting she did. Bob was her impressive - stuffed-shirt impressive - husband. My opinions weren't confined to just the medical school.

She dropped the leaves in the waste basket and replied without looking at me, "I used to, but he's become so... so stuffy. (I *knew*it!). We fight over dumb things, really little things. It's like he's got to be right all the time. And it's getting worse. Every time he receives an award or something, he becomes so... so stuffy."

I made a noncommittal "Hmmm" sound. I had my own opinions about Professor Renaissance, but I kept them where they belonged, in my head.

One leaf had fluttered and missed the wastebasket. Judy bent at the hips to pick it up and of course, my eyes went to her ass where the tightly-drawn skirt revealed a clear panty line. As she stood, she swung around toward me, again catching my eyes looking at her.

"Lecher," she said with a serious face, and then smiled as she walked through to her desk, just out of sight around the corner.

We had an easy, friendly relationship, Judy and me. With my colleagues she was polite, formal and friendly but in a distant way. They were so concerned with their own little worlds they hadn't a clue. My colleagues - we never talked, at least not about anything outside of the tight, small world of academic medicine. And let me tell you, that's a *small*world. If they had any social interaction, I wasn't a part of it. Thank goodness.

Picking up the new lecture notes, I pulled the swivel chair over to the outside door and, with my feet planted on either side of the door jamb, I leaned back to check the form. I wasn't worried; they'd be better I knew. I just wanted to be sure I wouldn't get lost in a new format if I needed to look at them at all.

Paging through the notes, I gave them little more than a cursory study. I was still thinking about my 'secretary'. Judy didn't complain or tell tales out of school, but I knew that things weren't going well for her and Bob. Last week he'd stopped by, mostly, it seemed, to harangue her about something or another. He didn't know I was right around the corner and assumed the place was empty. He quickly became so abusive I was embarrassed - for him, and for Judy. When he left, she said out loud, obviously to me, "So, what'd you think of that little scolding?"

"Sorry," I called out, "I couldn't help but hear."

"Yeah, and the people down the hall as well."

With some chagrin, I recalled the bitter disputes that characterized the failing relationship I'd had with my wife not many months before she left. That'd been several years ago. Not long after, she'd moved in with a physics post-doc who now, I understood, was on a greased track to tenure.

I was in no position to assume any moral high-ground. Relationships are studded with "growth opportunities" I was told. When I'd mentioned this to Judy once, she laughed out loud. "Is *that*what you call them?"

My courtyard entrance enabled me to slip in and out routinely without the department secretary knowing I'd been there. When she told someone that she'd look for me, she really meant it. Saved lots of hassles. As often, it seemed, those quiet-foot approaches also kept me hidden from Judy. Or perhaps she knew but chose to ignore it. Or maybe she was just open. Anyway, I'd overheard several of her conversations with someone named Marie, obviously a friend and confidant. Judy was consistently and embarrassingly self-revealing in those girl-girl phone chats.

I knew, for instance, that while she and Bob had once had a "vibrant sex life," it was now reduced to "an occasional mercy fuck." The bitterness of her tone suggested that it was she who was at mercy. Last week I'd overheard her say, "I don't leave home without it. Why, my vibrator, of course."

I banged my chair and rattled an open drawer to remind her I was there. It appeared to make no difference. A few minutes later, she rolled her chair back, looked into my office and, red-faced, asked "Well, what do *you*do?"

I'd just been thinking about what I did. Was even thinking about going to the Men's room to do what I did. I sputtered, feeling the heat rise in my face.

"That's what I thought!" she said in a tone that suggested she'd been reading my mind. Her laughter removed any sting.

Over weeks and months, an easy familiarity had grown between us. Oh, nothing was said overtly, but our nonverbal communication was zinging. Just the day before she'd come into my office late in the afternoon, so late I knew most folks had gone home, and she sat on the corner of my desk. I had gotten rid of the one other chair that used to be there, trying to make a little more room. And to discourage over-long visits by students and residents. The cafeteria was my usual social and professional meeting place. It was always deafeningly noisy and offered the relative privacy of cacophony.

She dropped a document on my desk that was so marked with a red felt pen, it had a bloodied appearance.

"Oh, make a few changes?" I asked, picking up the paper. Judy didn't just make grammatical corrections, she often made huge formatting changes and deleted tons of good stuff, really nifty expressions. "Do you order red pens by the case?"

We'd clashed on this before. I thought I was a better-than-average writer. "You are," she agreed, "but that doesn't mean you can't profit from a few little changes."

Flipping through the bleeding pages, I asked, "A *few*?"

She turned slightly and leaned forwards, pointing to something on one of the pages. I never saw it, for one of her legs dropped to the floor and the other lifted slightly, and suddenly, almost at eye level, I was looking up her skirt. All the way! They *were*white, and with lace trim. Her voice had receded to an unheard murmur.

Then I became aware of the quiet. I knew that more in retrospect, for at that moment I wasn't aware of much aside from her. Thinking back, I could feel the sun's warmth at my back, bouncing off the courtyard tiles and I could hear the birds twittering in the trees and I could feel a strain in my Calvin Klein's.

Judy had reddish, short, curly hair and I wondered about the other. I could see a darker shadow.

"See enough?" she asked in a soft voice, breaking the silence.

Startled and red-faced, I looked up and sputtered, "Yes... I mean no... oh shit, I'm sorry."

Getting up, she added, "That's OK, Dr. Burbank. I understand." And she left.

Understand what? What's to understand? That she drives me crazy? That late at night, aroused and frustrated, her face... no, her legs come to mind? That she's unattainable?

Totally unnerved, I left to go on rounds. At least in that arena I could put together a few cogent thoughts. There, the house staff presented to me a fascinating case, a man with an impossibly complicated vascular history compounded by advanced coronary and carotid artery disease. Where to start? Should we even start? What's most critical? Before I knew it, a couple of hours had past and I'd forgotten about Judy. Or at least, Judy's legs.

The courtyard was in soft shadow in the early evening. Someone was playing music in the distance. Most of the lights were out; my door remained open and the lights on, a beacon for me. I slipped in and stepping out of my loafers, I sat down and put my feet on the desk and just stared at the wall. I've got to change that calendar, I thought. I mean, *two*years old! Geez, I'm too young to be absent minded, I argued, but still, what about that damn calendar?

Tap, tap, tap - I knew that sound - Judy's high heels on the uncarpeted hallway floor outside our offices. No one else walked with such purpose. The sound turned into our reception room and I heard something thud against the wall - her purse?

"Shit, shit, shit," she murmured as the springs of her office chair squeaked. Even the sound of her picking up the phone was loud in the tomb-like silence of our wing. She punched in some numbers, holding each one an unneeded extra second, adding emphasis to her apparent anger.

"Marie?" she asked, leaning back in her chair. I knew that squeaking sound as well. "Marie, I just need to vent for a few minutes. OK?"

I was uncertain. I didn't know if I should just lay low and allow her the opportunity to "vent" or if I should announce my presence. Still pondering that dilemma, the one-sided conversation continued. "Yeah, he stood me up *again*, the bastard!"

I knew that Bob had the tendency to rank almost anything as more important than a meeting with Judy. Once it'd been a grad student's flat tire. It was a 'she' grad student, an attractive one at that. Judy later recounted that Bob had asked reasonably, 'What else could I do?' AAA turned out not to be the reply he wanted. "Well, I know what *I'd*to with that damn tire iron!" she'd hissed into the phone before slamming it down. I guess she was pissed.

I thought about slipping out again. Yeah, that's what I'd do. I was good at that.

"I've been here almost two hours," she went on, "and the son-of-a-bitch just called and said he couldn't make it. My best black dress, heels so high I'm about to fall over, and no bra! That's right, honest. No underpants even! Damn!"

No underpants? I was frozen. In my mind's eye, I saw her perched on the corner of my desk. I could see her thighs, the soft skin, the deep shadows...

Jesus! Fifteen years of formal education after high school - hard, competitive work requiring intense concentration... and I was stopped dead in my tracks by... by the image of no underpants. Suddenly I was tense with expectation. Of what, for Christ's sake?

"I'm so damn mad at him, I feel like going out and getting drunk. What? Oh I *know*I can't drink without throwing up all over myself, but I still feel like it!"

I'd entertained a number of visions about Judy but throwing up wasn't one of them. Maybe we could share a drink, I thought. I smiled at that one. I'd never had *one*drink in my life - that's why I didn't drink anymore either.

"Oh, I don't know. Go home, I guess. What else can a middle-aged professor's wife do? Yeah, I know. I'm on the pity pot."

Middle aged? Judy was my age, maybe a few years older, and *that*wasn't middle aged!

"No, I don't know where *he*is either. Damn. Aren't there *any*men who show up anymore?"

I leaned back in my chair just a little bit more. And fell right over! Down I went with a crash, my head jammed against the wall, my legs dangling over the upended front of my swivel chair. I was dazed and just lay there, stockinged feet in the air, momentarily out of it. Or I was until Judy rushed into my office.

"Bill! What are *you*doing here?"

"Uh... resting?"

Pushing her fingers to her mouth, she asked, "Did you hear everything?"

"No," I lied; I hadn't heard Marie's side. "Well, not *everything*"

As if my odd, recumbent position has registered for the first time, she rushed over to help, reaching down to pull me up. In so doing, the low scooped neckline of her cocktail dress fell away. She had told Marie the truth. No bra.

She glanced down at herself and then shrugged, "Well, you heard me. I *said*I didn't have any underwear on." Her face was as red as mine felt.

Because the back of the chair was jammed, it wouldn't swivel and I flopped about, unable to completely extricate myself from my upside down position. I heaved and Judy tugged. Just as I was pulling over the top, her high heels betrayed her. She slipped and fell on her ass, legs in the air. Yes, it *was*the same color.

"Oh shit!" she muttered. "Can it get any worse?"

I'm strong and pulled her up easily. We came together, belly to belly. Her eyes were blue and she had freckles across her nose. Her lips were moist and parted. One lower incisor was a tiny bit out of line. I could smell her breath, her hair. We just looked at each other.

In a sudden move of unaccustomed intimacy, she placed the tips of her fingers on my cheek and said, "Thanks, Billy."

I grabbed her wrist and said, "I'm sorry, Judy... uh, sorry about your date."

She traced a line on my cheek again and with a slightly bitter smile said, "So am I," and turned away.

"Can I do anything?" I asked, following her into her area.

Picking up her purse where she'd thrown it against the wall, she shrugged her shoulders and said, "Like what?"

Christ, I didn't know what. "Uh, maybe you'd like to talk. I mean with a guy. I mean me." I always was quick.

She faced me, at first with a puzzled look on her face and then with a squinty skepticism. With her fists on her hips, she asked. "Dr. Burbank, are you trying to get into my pants?"

"I thought you weren't wearing any."

"A figure of speech."

It was late. She was pissed and I was confused. We'd been doing this unacknowledged dance for weeks. And I knew she didn't consider herself a victim of sexual discrimination. What the hell, I'd play it out a little.

"Judy, there's a world of difference between *wanting*to get in your pants - hell, I'm a warm-blooded guy - and *trying*to get in your pants. I'll cop to the former, but what's that go to do with anything?

"Everything."

"Huh?"

She sat down and crossed her legs. I managed not to leer. "Don't be so damn dense, doc," and then she smiled at her own D-triplet. "You heard my phone conversation."

I started to object and she held up her hand, silencing me. "Billy, I've been listening to your phone conversations - occasionally on purpose - and I know you can't help but hear mine. No one's fault, although it *is*embarrassing," she added with a little smile.

She looked at me. Staying silent seemed like the wisest course.