Jim woke up at three a.m., his pulse pounding. He was in bed. With someone’s arm draped over him. What was going on? He was in a hostel room; not his. The arm and the body covering his were warm, which he assumed was what had woken him up. That or the bedclothes, which he had apparently kicked onto the floor and off of himself and the person…

Wait.

The person was Pam.

The last three days, and especially the last night, came crashing back into his mind. It was all he could do to stop himself from whooping and waking up Pam. Instead he smiled at the ceiling, wrapped his arm around her shoulders, and stared at the ceiling for a little while until sleep pulled him back under.

**

Pam woke up at seven a.m., her arms wrapped koala-like around Jim. Koalas! That was another thing to see in Australia.

Where she was.

This was not a dream. She had had this dream—the last night before flying to Australia, she’d found herself wrapped up around a pillow imagining it was Jim—but this was Jim. Actual Jim. Jim whom she’d finally had sex with last night.

Finally? Well, from one perspective, at least. That perspective, which was definitely growing on her, emphasized years of longing looks, a lot of fantasies that she’d pushed aside at the time as just the result of frustration with Roy, or spending too long at work with no one else to talk to, or confusing hormones. It talked to her about the realizations she’d made over the past month about how everything Jim had ever done with her had had that strong undercurrent of interest that she’d pushed aside “because she was engaged,” and that the interest had definitely been going in both directions. As had the desire, which she now felt tugging back at her from pretty much everywhere where she was touching Jim. Which was, well, pretty much everywhere.

From another perspective, which was abashedly on the retreat, it was definitely not finally. They’d been dating for what, a couple of days? But then again, even this perspective had to admit, they’d agreed they were long past the first, or the second, or even the third date. So this wasn’t finally, but it also wasn’t too fast. It was pretty much…normal. Expected. Excellent.

It definitely had been excellent.

And even more definitely not normal, if by normal one meant her history of experience with Roy. Not that she was thinking about Roy right now. She was definitively thinking about Jim Halpert, who was splayed underneath her like the bedspread itself.

And if even the guilty part of her brain that spoke with her mother’s disappointed voice was accepting that this was the time to sleep with Jim—this had entirely certainly been the right time to sleep with Jim.

And right now would be an even better time.

It had been an excellent evening.

It was a nice morning, too.