The first thing he does after leaving her is releases the breath that got caught in his lungs after her answer. His throat had swelled painfully after swallowing the rest of the words at the end of “Okay”. It reminded him of the time in 2nd grade, when he had taken a bite of Shelly Withers peanut butter sandwich. Shelly Withers had had curly hair, and he only wanted to take a bite, because he liked the look of her saliva glistening on the white potato bread.

The second thing he does after the elevator doors open, and his fingers lead him out of Dunder Mifflin, is to blink so the tears can hit the pavement and not the carpet. He can imagine his glistening face caught on the security cameras. You can never be too careful. Dwight might make copies and use the extra traffic cones he bought to mark the spot.

The third thing he does after leaning his pounding head back on the wall is flipping viciously around and scraping the skin off his knuckles, with one damaging blow from his right hand. His bone becomes part of the scratchy texture, and he grunts like a vomitous burp.

He scrolls down the wall letting his open palm collect the white chalky stuff. He gets on his hunches and lets the vertigo swing him around, so he lands heavily with his back against the wall. He looks at his hand. He holds it up to the orange light and it’s shaking. He thinks about how each one of her fingers came to rest on the three last knuckles, when they had clasped hands. His knuckles are bleeding now, and they make little rivers of blood that’s stop short right above his wrist. 

He flexes his fingers then laughs. The shake of his hand follows up his arm and bicep till his whole body is shaking. Till his maniacal whispering chuckles nocks him of his feet, his long legs coming out in front of him, and he lands hard. The shock shoots up his tailbone all the way up to his spine. “ Stupid. Stupid”. It’s like hiccups, falsetto breathy proclamation into his shaking fist. He should go. She’s bound to come out any minute now and the fear of seeing her, of her seeing him this way propels him to his feat. He almost runs to his car. 

He rests his head on the steering wheel a moment while igniting the engine. She kissed me back. He says it again in his mind to remind himself. To remember so he doesn’t make up excuses later. So he doesn’t drive himself mad thinking he imagined it.

He sits back and puts both hands on the wheel. His shoulders come up and down like some clownish dance. He can’t remember the last time he cried like this. He drives the car out of the parking lot. Maybe when his dog Waldo died when he was 11. His older brother Benny punched him in the shoulder and said “Wheeeeeerrrreeee’ssss Waldo!?!” Until his father pulled them apart and beat them both for fighting.

He grits his teeth and clenches the steering wheel. The muscles in his jaw flex and he wills the water from his eyes. The way the lights glittered had begun to bother him. He concentrates on the road.

By the time he gets home he’s mastered the art of not thinking, not feeling anything else but the stinging pound of his right hand. In the kitchen he lets cold water run over his knuckles, and plucks away dangling skin whenever his mind drifts to the smell of her perfume – lavender -- and something else.

Marks not home and he worries about not having someone to distract him, but then again he’s glad he doesn’t have to explain his fist, let alone the droop in his face to anyone. He grabs a beer from the fridge stalls and then grabs two more and makes it over to the couch. He flicks on the television and leaves it on the immediate station. The new Batman movie is playing and he tries to remember the chick’s name. He knows it cause Kelly prattled on about her and that Cruise guy. God he was bad with names. Holmes… Katie. Right. Katie, as in Katie the bag girl he had dated to make Pam jealous. As in Katie the cheerleader he dumped on the Booze Cruise right after he knew it was pointless.

He turns off the TV and stretches the broken skin as he grabs the second beer. He chugs it and smacks his lips sucking momentarily on his bottom lip. He can still taste her, cheap wine, Doritos. He stares blankly ahead of him willing the lavender smell to go away. He fingers his collar and the front of his sweater where her palms had trailed down. He thinks maybe if he gets out of these clothes.

The shower is scalding hot. The electricity had been acting screwy again and the lights flickered making him feel ridiculously dizzy. Like his whole world is turning on its side. He grabs the last bottle rebelliously and chugs, feeling the cold condensation under his fingertips. His hand comes out of the shower curtain and blindly places the bottle on the sink, the sound it makes when it falls in is a dull clang; he doesn’t hear it. His world has decided to turn on its head imitating a break-dancer. He sits on the lip of the tub waiting for the show to be over.

He suddenly realizes the lavender isn’t in his clothes. It’s on his skin. He touches his naked collar and strokes down. It’s seared into his chest, the feel of her small hands trailing downward, and downward, across his chest and over his belly…and what if they had continued.

‘ You have no idea…’ his head is swimming, he closes his eyes and breaths in her sent. ‘How long I’ve wanted to do that’. Her eyes never leave his as she says the words that punch the air out from his lungs. ‘Me too.’ His hips gravitate towards her like an afterthought. They sway there for a moment and she takes a little breath ‘I think we’re just drunk’ ‘No I’m not drunk. Are you drunk?’ He knows he slurs on drunk, and that maybe she’s right and he is drunk. But that’s not the point. It’s not the point because it doesn’t matter if he was on crack. She would still be the only one for him.

He panics for a moment but a slow no escapes her mouth like a revelation. And he’s kissing her, hard. This time when she says his name it will be a gasp, and not some trigger to an A bomb in his soul.

The sound of the water falls away, the feel of the plastic shower curtain scrunched up under his ass falls away. He grips himself.

His long arms that come around to tickle her ribs release slightly as he takes steps towards her. They nudge her up at the edge of his desk. Her hands play with the hem of his sweater, dangerously close to his belt. His fingers press into her sides right below her bust lifting her up onto counter. If this wasn’t a dream he would hear his monitor sliding back knocking down Dwight’s bobble heads. But it is, it’s a happy place, happy thoughts.

Pam. Her breath comes in quick little surprises, when he allows her to breath. He steps into her, the fabric of her dress rides up and stretches over her thighs. His large palms scale up her back feeling the slick fabric like rain, he stops when his pointer and thumb find the zipper. His left hand peals away the fabric from her body like a candy wrapper as he trails silent kisses down her neck and breastbone. A mewl escapes her mouth when he twirls his tongue around her nipple. It reminds him of the Booze Cruise and the sound she made before she said, “I don't know” and he said “well”.

He unhooks her bra and comes back to her still open lips. Her hands come down off his shoulders and get tangled in his belt. He presses into her wrist as she gets the leather unstuck from its mettle prison. A hand snakes down and he gasps when she grabs him, almost too hard. He presses into her; his fingers shoot up under her skirt scratching her underwear down. He places a thumb at her base and she does just what he expected her to do. ‘Jim!’ he feels it rather then hears it at the crown of his head. The thumb snakes down and connects with his pointer, creating an all seeing eye. He pushes it up into her and widens. It’s a trick he learned from Angie the nurse who lived next door when he was 16, for a moment Pam’s face is more angular, her lips more thick, when she cries his name again. He places a hand on her back pulling her closer. Rocking against each other.

He slips his fingers out, they’re wet, everything’s wet. She’s squeezing him too hard, he grabs her wrist and pulls but it only hurts more.

He looks up into her face and her lips are gone. He tries to kiss them back but she only grips him harder. From somewhere behind him he hears her giggling, “you can’t have me, you can’t have me” it’s high pitched and nothing like her. The words spill into each other like they were stuck in a cave. A cave filled with water. He’s holding on to her thin arms. They’re soggy and the light from the computer makes them glow blue green. “This is all you’ll get, this is all you’ll get” He grips her harder and she grips him harder back. “Pam stop.” He says through his teeth. He’s begging her, begging her eyes which water falls from like holes in a bucket. “Pam stop it” He can still feel the giggles in his head. They make him feel dizzy and the computer light flickers. “Pam!”

His eyes open and it all comes out. Her name bounces off tile, vomit hits his feet and swirls down the tub making the water orange. A wet substance clings to his hand and makes it sticky. He lets go of himself and places his hand, the one that’s been rubbed raw by cement on the other side of the tub, before he falls. He throws up again his back arching and his stomach retracting like he’d been hit with a knee in the gut. He sob/laughs/grunts/burps all at once and stands shakily on his feet, his hand sliding up the wall for support. He stares through the water for a moment letting it dribble down his head. He’s empty now and it’s almost a relief. The giggle fades and his ears open up to the water being sucked down the drain. He turns off the hot knob off and lets the freezing water sober him up a bit. Stepping out he grabs a towel, ignores the bottle in the sink and exits the bathroom.

He doesn’t turn on the light when he enters his room. He doesn’t want to see where her desk might be if he was sitting at his. He doesn’t want to see where she sat on his bed. Doesn’t even want to see where he left his yearbook after cutting out his picture, to give to her for a “bonus” Christmas gift.

All he does is climb into bed, barely dry and stares at the glowing red digital clock. He stares at the clock until he doesn’t any more.