under the bleachers

“Roy, wait.”

He pauses, but only for a second, his eyes darkened with lust and shadows. The light shifts above them as the crowd stands to cheer. Pam wonders what team just scored.

“C’mon, Pammy. Live a little.”

She lets him return to her neck, her eyelids fluttering closed when he nips the spot just there.

Roy’s hand travels up her skirt, lifting the pleated fabric that usually comes just below the knee up to her thigh. She sighs but bites her lip.

“What if we get caught?” she whispers fearfully, but he just laughs, at her immaturity, or maybe at his.

“We won’t.”

And she doesn’t question it. Just like she doesn’t wonder whether this has anything to do with the cheerleader that flashed her red underwear five minutes ago. Pam hasn’t learned that lesson yet.

in the rain

Pam doesn’t usually like to drink alone, makes her feel too much like a cheap cliché that teachers warn about in school. But she’d just moved the last tattered cardboard box out of their apartment, just Roy’s now, she guesses, and she was facing her first night sleeping alone for the first time in, well, ever. So she figured she wouldn’t end up on the six o’clock news by having one teeny drink.

She’s relieved, but a little troubled in a camaraderie sort of way to see Toby staring dejectedly into his glass, so she slides into the stool next to him, flashing her best ‘I’m not broken’ smile in his direction. He perks up substantially and she briefly wonders what exactly he’s expecting from her. She doesn’t have any answers either.

His hand lands on her thigh an hour and three drinks later, but it doesn’t move and he keeps staring at it there like it’s the eighth wonder of the world and immediately she knows this means more to him than it does to her.

Which seems to be her motto these days.

They stumble out into the rain at one in the morning and she wishes she could still be a giggly drunk without lying to herself, so she’s slurring her words and attempting to make it un-awkward (which is strange because, isn’t that one of the functions of alcohol?). She’s cold and wet and it’s sobering her up more than she’d like. When he touches her waist lightly it’s like he’s afraid she might melt. Pam turns to face him, hoping he knows this is a one time thing, and can see in his perpetually sad eyes that he does.

When she comes against the brick siding, Toby’s fingers curled inside her underwear and her hair damp from the rain, she wonders exactly how many people at work are in love with her. It makes her feel slightly proud, but mostly just sick, so she kisses him on the cheek chastely and lets him drive her home, even though he’s drunker than she is, and thinks that the rain is kind of like them.

Cold and lonely.

She curls up under her comforter and hopes she’ll get sick so she won’t have to go in on Monday.

by the Christmas tree

Pam likes eggnog, she decides, especially when it burns as it’s gulped down her throat and her cheeks are pleasantly flushed.

Over the karaoke Karen tells her the color goes well with her red sweater and she slips a few shades deeper.

It’s the alcohol, she tells herself.

Especially when she can’t contain her grin as she hears Karen and Jim fighting in the elevator over what exactly he had to tell Pam that couldn’t wait until after the holidays. As the small box continues to descend with Pam stationed behind her desk, the sound grows fainter, almost like classical music.

Definitely drunk.

Pam chooses to stay behind a few more minutes to unplug all the twinkling lights, because even though she would never tell anyone, she likes it when the office is abandoned and dark and quiet. Like looking at an everyday object with tinted lenses.

Her shoes clop against the carpet as she leans into the kitchen and switches off the light over the sink. She pauses behind one of the vacant chairs after pushing it towards the table, the soft sound of the legs dragging against the linoleum a flashlight’s worth of movement in the steady calm, her eyes trained on the two opposite seats.

They’d used to sit there, him and her, laughing and joking and it was simple. The grins of past years reverberate off the walls and she shakes her head because this wasn’t something she would let herself fall back on again.

She pivots at the doorway, her eyes already searching out her purse and the final light switch that set the whole twinkle light circuit. Strangely being all alone never made her feel lonely until this moment, and she didn’t want to start associating this feeling with her comfort zone. That she couldn’t take. But when she reaches reception, a flurry of movement at the door nearly gives her a heart attack.

“Hey, P-pam.” Karen stutters with an inebriated smirk and Pam attests the fumbling with her name to alcohol instead of indifference. “I was hoping you would still be here.”

Pam frowns, not quite latching on to what she was getting at. Most likely the other woman needed sleep and some Tylenol, which made her wonder why exactly Jim had left her here to drive home drunk. That didn’t seem like him.

“Where’s Jim?” she questions, still unmoving in her stance by the front desk.

Karen waves her hand and lets out a ‘pft’ sound, wobbling forward a little. “Don’t need him. And wouldn’t you know it.” She laughs like she’d said the most uproarious thing in the world, “he doesn’t need me either.”

Pam grabs her arm to hold her upright as Karen stumbles forward, and she wonders where along the way she’d become more drunk than herself.

“A flask.” She giggles, reading Pam’s mind, “In my glove compartment. Guess I knew it would be a shitty holiday, eh?”

She sets her down on the couch by the front door, and Karen kind of pulls her down too. Only it’s on top of her at first, so she rolls over to the empty space with a tired huff and straightens her shirt from where it’d risen up to her navel. Karen seems to have noticed.

“I’m starting to get it.” Karen mutters, but nodding her head, reassuring herself.

It’s then that Pam realizes the only thing she’s said this whole time was to ask for Jim, so she opens her mouth to speak. Then Karen’s words hit her and she squints, trying to discern their meaning.

“Get what?”

She wonders if this will be another drunken tirade. She’d gotten used to them from Roy, but she’d never suspected the professional woman beside her as the type.

Karen leans forward and glances around the abandoned office as if searching for ease droppers, then whispers, “I don’t know if you’ve realized this yet, but Jim’s in love with you.” She smiles, her lips parting in a genuine way so that Pam knows this isn’t a trick. At Pam’s expression, she nods, “I guess you do then. I just wanted to warn you. ‘Cause, you know, no one warned me before all this.”

And Pam suddenly feels really bad for Karen, because, she was right. She wasn’t warned. Karen was (starting to be) her friend and Pam hadn’t even thought of how it was like they were playing a ping-pong match over her head.

“I’m sorry about that. Really, I-“

She stopped mid-apology as Karen’s lips found hers. She tasted gingerbread and candy canes and vodka, all swirled together as the other woman slipped her tongue between Pam’s lips. Karen pulled away and giggled, her hand brushing against her knee.

“Wow.” Pam smacks her lips and she isn’t quite sure how to feel. Then Karen’s thumb dips towards her center and she arches against the pressure, her body making up the decision for her.

“I wanna see what all the fuss is about.”

She’s still debating in her head whether she’s taking advantage of a drunk, sad woman as Karen strattles her hips, or being generous by giving her what she wants because of her guilt. Either way she’s glad Karen’s wearing the pants (literally) because she’s sure she couldn’t be this bold. Pam takes hold of the other woman’s shoulders and jerks away her attention, eying her carefully.

“Are you too drunk for this? Because I don’t want you to regret anything and I don’t want to take advan-“

Karen’s mouth clamps down on hers again, and just before slipping off her button up shirt, stares into Pam’s eyes steadily. Pam isn’t sure if she’s really as drunk as she seems or if this has anything to do with revenge, but she’s pretty certain that the other woman is conscious enough to know what she’s doing.

She dismounts Pam and lowers herself to her knees, spreading Pam’s legs slowly and the movement causes her skirt to slide further up her thighs. Pam leans her head back to the couch as Karen’s tongue finds her clit, and suddenly she isn’t sure if the bursts she’s seeing are on the back of her eyelids or the shimmering Christmas lights strung to the ceiling.

Pam and Karen don’t discuss it later, and Pam begins to wonder if Karen remembers at all. Then Pam starts to forget too. She was a little drunk and at least this time the excuse fits.

in the public library

Like many things with them, it starts out as a prank.

Dwight was rambling on that Friday afternoon in the dead slot between four and quitting time about the precise impracticalities of Jurassic Park. Small things about the bone structure and fear response were blurting out of him every two minutes as he thought of more, so of course Jim turned to Pam and Pam looked at Jim and the idea was hatched. Little did they know pulling a prank off smoothly about dinosaurs would require this amount of research.

They had gone over game plans that night at dinner, trying to determine exactly what would be the best form of retaliation for having to listen to him drone on for an hour, and the hot coffee Pam had spilled down her shirt when Dwight had jumped out at her from the break room, demonstrating the right way a velocaraptor would attack.

When they had both determined they had nowhere near the knowledge required for such an undertaking (and for that they were grateful) they had wandered over to the library around noon on Saturday morning, with composition notebooks and tiny pencil sharpeners and everything. Jim had stacked the books pertaining to the prehistoric creatures so high he couldn’t see over them and Pam had to give him instructions on where to turn and where to step over a librarian’s feet. They had eventually settled onto a round table in the back, beside a pair of high school girls researching when looked like the black plague and a girl and guy that seemed to be around sixteen who spent more time fluttering eyelashes than reciting Shakespeare.

“I feel silly. Or like I should have braces and a bad perm.”

Jim just raised his eyebrows and scrunched his mouth over to the side in a signature Jim face, causing her to giggle and eliciting a disapproving glare from the librarian.

“I hope she doesn’t have a ruler.” Jim mumbled, just loud enough for Pam to hear.

An hour later, as Jim is neck deep in a textbook on the cretaceous period, Pam glances over at the teenage girls beside them and catches them giggling over Jim. They quickly press their strawberry lips together and return their gazes to boils and disease, but they keep peeking over the pages to eye him. Jim, as usual, is completely oblivious, scribbling a note furiously onto a memo pad. Pam touches her toe to his thigh under the table, jerking his attention away.

“I think you have some admirers.” She whispers across the wooden table, and Jim glances toward her tilted head. The girls snicker harder at the attention, but have the grace to turn away. He only smiles and shakes his head. But Pam gives a half-hearted dirty look at them, and leans her body towards Jim in way that says mine.

When her gaze falls on the pile of books again her attention is shifted toward the brightly colored one slipped between The Principals of Paleontology and The Fossil Study Guide. Her fingers brush over the spine and she blushes only briefly before she swallows the heat, shifting the others and hefting it into her hands.

“Jim?”

“Hm?”

He doesn’t even glance up from the text in his hands and for a second she considers dropping it, but this is just too good.

“Why is there a copy of The Kama Sutra on our table?”

His gaze still doesn’t shift but a small smile is playing at the corners of his lips.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Pam scoffs and can’t stop herself from flipping it open. The laughs on both sides intensify as she does but her only acknowledgement is a knowing smirk. 

“You mean this doesn’t look familiar?”

She holds up an illustrated page wide. His eyes dart upwards and his jaw falls a little at the display before glancing around once at the teenagers and reaching out a hand to lower the picture under the table.

“Jesus, Beesly.” He mutters, but his grin is still in place. “That’s for, um” he coughs once into his hand, “…later.”

“Is it now?” Pam cocks her head to one side and raises an eyebrow towards her hairline, as her foot once again travels under the table. It lands warm on his upper thigh and Jim’s expression suddenly mirrors her own.

“Feeling adventurous suddenly?”

He’s making a reference to after dinner the night before, when she couldn’t stop glancing around nervously outside the car. She’d never been good at sex in public places. But whether it was the hormonal atmosphere or a buzz remaining from the night before, this library was suddenly very hot.

Pam only leans back in her seat and slides further down into the crook of her chair, forcing her foot up further into very interesting places. Jim folds his groan into another cough and glances at her sideways. He’s interested to see exactly how far she’ll take this little dare, but he doesn’t realize she had no intention of backing down.

“You know we’re not exactly here for… that.”

Pam clicks her tongue and surprises him again by standing suddenly and moving swiftly behind them. But her breath is suddenly sticky on his neck and her voice tickling his nerves.

“I don’t care. Follow me.”

But then she’s gone again, his skin missing the contact and he twists around in his chair just in time to catch her swaying hips round the corner of the historical fiction aisle. Pam lingers there, her fingers curling around the metal hinges of the stacks and her eyes daring him. He misses the look she throws toward the table to their right after she disappears from his viewpoint. See? it seems to drawl, mine.

Jim has decided he likes the fancy New Beesly even more than the old Pam, which he didn’t think was even possible.

He tells her that as her back hits the stall door of the women’s bathroom so hard that they both think it might crash down from the force, only he says loves instead of likes and precedes it with ‘so fucking much’. Her laugh devolves into a groan as he slides into her, her skirt somewhere around her stomach and his pants dangling by his ankles.

She shushes him and he shoots her a questioning look.

“This is a library after all. We should be quiet.” And she says it with such sincerity that he can’t help but chuckle, but the sound dissolves in his throat as she wraps her legs around his waist and pulls him closer.

That Monday when they convince Dwight that a team of paleontologists have excavated a new species of dinosaur from the woods of Scranton, it isn’t as authentic as it could have been if they’d bothered to continue researching. But you wouldn’t hear either of them complaining.