The first time Jim saw Pam's robe was pretty soon after they started dating, when Pam came down with some kind of virus after the start of her summer art classes. Jim called from the stairwell on the first day she phoned in sick and said he'd swing by on his lunch break.
"Jim, no. Don't come, I don't want to get you sick. If you're sick and I'm sick, people will start speculating."
"Michael is already curious. He's convinced you have a disease called homonucletosis, which obviously is very serious and should never be confused with the more common mononucleosis. He asked me if I knew who you'd been kissing and if I thought you got it from a girl."
"Ha ha. You didn't...right?"
"I didn't say anything. What can I bring you?"
"Nothing. Well, no. I mean, if you insist on coming-"
"And I do."
"Then I guess a big thing of egg drop soup from that takeout place down the road? And maybe some NyQuil. And a box of tissues, please. I'll leave the door open for you."
When he stepped into her apartment at 12:25, he found her laying on the couch under what looked like about eighty blankets. Her hair was piled on top of her head and secured haphazardly with one of those giant clips that always reminded Jim of monster teeth. The collar of a bright pink robe peeked out from underneath the mound of blankets and came directly under Pam's chin so that she looked a little like a disembodied head surround by fuzzy neon. She was like a cocoon: a tiny, red nosed, open-mouthed breathing adorable cocoon.
She made him keep his distance, though, so he only caught the tiniest glimpse of the robe. He didn't make her move from her 'nest of sickness,' as she called it, so he didn't get to appreciate the length of it (down to her ankles) or the faded black smudge near the hem.
He noticed those things on the second occasion that he saw the robe, two weeks after the first. This time, she answered the door in it. He wasn't expecting to get a face full of Pam in a robe but he was only barely able to register what happened before she dashed away to the bathroom.
"I know, I know! I'm running late. I'm sorry."
"No problem. We can eat after the movie, if you want."
"I'm starving, though, aren't you?"
"Drive through?" He followed her down the small hallway and leaned in the doorway of the bathroom as she rubbed moisturizer onto her cheeks.
"What if I got my giant purse and we ordered to go so that we could sneak it into the theater?" She caught his eye in the mirror and winked. He arranged his expression into one of severe offence but couldn't hide his grin. The smile he got in return was his favorite: the one where he could see a little bit of her tongue poking against her teeth. His heart swelled and the words they still hadn't said (because of course he still loved her, he never stopped, he just wanted to wait until she's ready) threatened to jump out of his mouth so he shoved his hands in his pockets and said something different instead.
"I like your bathrobe."
"Thanks. Michael got it for me."
"Wait. What?"
"Yeah, that day we went to the mall? He bought us all something at Victoria's Secret." She was finished with her makeup so she did a little spin and even though the robe covered all but about an inch and a half of ankle, it still flared out enough for him to get a peek at her calves and the curve behind her knee. She had it tied tight enough that it accentuated the lovely shape of her hips and the curve of her...well.
His mouth very suddenly became very dry. He swallowed, or tried to swallow, the start of a lump in his throat. He'd seen them all come in with those unmistakable bags that day. Hers had been so much bigger than everyone else's. He'd driven himself crazy that night, trying to determine what was inside it and who was lucky enough to get to see it. He wanted to tell her that, make sure that she knew that it was always always her, even when it wasn't, but she got done in the bathroom and brushed past him to go get changed.
So he told her on the third time he saw the robe, the day after the second time. It also happened to be the day after she told him she loved him and he told her he loved her still, which coincidentally happened to be the day of their first time, and their second, and kind of their third (if you counted doing other stuff as a separate time, and Jim did)...which was technically that morning, but who really cared about technicalities?
He woke up in her bed. It was late morning, he could tell by the length of the sunlight drifting in from between the curtains (and also the alarm clock) and she was next to him, wrapped up in her pink robe. She must have been up for a little while, he figured, because her hair was damp and up in a monster teeth clip and she smelled like flowery soap and she had on her huge glasses that he not-so-secretly thought were adorable and was chewing on a fingernail as she stared at a paperback book with both a scantily clad man and woman on the front. It made his heart stop and his breath catch in his throat and all those romantic notions that he'd always thought were kind of bullshit but that he completely understood now.
He turned towards her and reached for the end of the robe's tie. It was soft; he liked how it felt as it slid between his fingers. She dogeared a page of her book and turned her head towards him with a soft smile on her face.
"Finally. You sleep too late."
"You wake up too early."
"I had no choice, you stole the covers! I had to go get my robe for warmth."
He looked away from Pam for the first time since he'd woken up and sure enough, the sheets and comforter were bundled around him like a burrito. "Oh shit, sorry! Here, let me-" there was as much of a flurry of movement as the covers being trapped underneath him would allow, but he eventually flung half of them across her body. He reached over and made a show of tucking her in. "Better?"
"Yes," she said through a giggle. "Thanks. My hero."
He curled his hand underneath her side and pulled her towards him. She giggled again (music to his ears, as it had been since the day he met her) and he buried his face into the crook of her neck. The giggle turned into the tiniest of sighs when he brushed his lips across her pulse. He kept his lips there as he spoke. "I really do like this robe. It's soft."
"Yeah, it's nice. I was actually gonna cut it up for some hand towels."
"I'm sorry, what?"
"I didn't need sexy underwear, or whatever. But I did need hand towels, so I figured I could get this for free and cut it up. This fabric isn't really good for toweling, though. It didn't do a good job at wiping up grease from changing Meredith's tire."
"Eugh. You washed it before you put it on, right?" She bumped him with her hip in fake indignation and he smiled against her skin. While they were talking, his hand had found the loosely tied knot at her waist and started to tease it open. "I'll take that as a yes." The knot came untied and the fabric of her robe fell to each side, just enough to expose a long strip of Pam's abdomen (which was, to Jim's surprise and delight, naked). She sighed again, a little louder and deeper this time, as his fingertips danced across her bellybutton.
"Hmm. That feels nice, Jim."
"That day, when you all came back with bags from Victoria's Secret?"
"Uh-huh?" His entire hand slid underneath her robe and started skirting against her skin; flirting with the side of her breast and the dip of her waist. Her breathing had gotten a little heavy and he basked in the glow that came along with the knowledge that he did that. He felt like beating his chest and roaring and doing a bunch of hyper-masculine and animalistic things, but all the energy for that was redirected to the 'essence of his masculinity' (to borrow a term from one of Pam's romance novels) when she turned towards him and the robe slipped away and he saw that not only was her abdomen naked, the rest of her was, too.
"Jesus," he exhaled, his voice low and raspy and a little bit shaky. He pressed a palm flat against her back and pulled her body flush against his. The feeling of her skin touching his was like a lightning bolt or maybe a sledgehammer or something, whatever, it didn't matter, because she pushed against him and was suddenly on top of him, straddling him, and he was harder than he'd ever been in his life.
"What about that day, Jim?" Her voice was in his ear, tickling in the best way, and he bucked his hips towards her.
"I couldn't sleep that night," he admitted as he pushed against her and reached down to remove his boxer briefs. "I couldn't stop thinking about what was in your bag."
The sight of her above him was breathtaking: the fluffy pink robe falling off of her shoulders in a way that would have made the sex kitten-iest of pin up girls green with envy, curls against her neck, flushed cheeks (and neck and chest and everything else), and lowering herself onto him and taking him to the hilt. "Oh," she said, maybe partly in response to his confession but probably more in response to the feeling of him inside of her. She started moving, rolled against him so slowly that he would have said it was torture if it didn't feel so goddamn good.
"Yeah," he confessed, and reached out to touch her body wherever he could. "I drove myself crazy trying to picture what you bought. I wanted to know-" she leaned forward and against him, hard, and whatever he was going to say turned into a somewhat strangled moan. His hands settled at her hips and he tried to hold her still, otherwise this was going to all be over far too soon and wouldn't that be embarrassing.
She smirked down at him and rocked against him, not caring that he was already close. "I hope this lives up to your expectat-oh, God, Jim-" and it was her turn to moan because he'd wrapped his arms around her and started thrusting.
One of her hands braced against his chest and the other flew to between her legs. He felt her fingers against him as she worked to catch up with him because she must have known he was close, which was both amazing (because hot as fuck, come on) but also kind of bad because he was about to be totally useless--and then Pam was arching and falling towards him and what perfect timing because he couldn't keep a steady rhythm anymore and sweet Jesus it was all just so. good.
She slumped against him and he turned towards her to press his lips against whatever exposed area of skin he could reach. "Exceeds expectations," he said softly.
"Mm?"
"What was in your bag." He ran a hand up and down her back and she practically melted into him. "Your robe. Exceeds expectations."
"Yeah?" She lifted her head enough to look at him, enough to push one hand into his hair. The soft fabric was against his cheek and he leaned towards it, turned his head to kiss her wrist through it.
"Yeah."
