The elevator opens and I step into the office. My shoes squeak against the linoleum, too loose, and my hips move with each step in a rhythm I'm not choosing. The receptionist gives me her usual nod.
I beeline for my desk and drop into the chair harder than I meant to. The seam of my boxers presses into flesh that shouldn't be there - a hot line of contact that makes my teeth clench. I shift my weight forward onto my thighs, leaning into the desk as I log in. Emails stacked in the inbox: Aldermere renewal planning, draft deck attached. The usual. I click through them mechanically. Something wet seeps into the cotton between my legs. I ignore it.
"Dave," I call over the cubicle wall, "you got Aldermere's Q4 numbers handy?"
"Hold on." Papers shuffle behind the partition. I lean back in the chair - wrong move. The seat presses upward, fabric catching in a way that makes me jerk forward again. I reach under the desk, tugging at the boxer seam.
Dave appears at my elbow, laptop balanced on one palm. "Here." He tilts the screen toward me. "Click-thrus are up twelve percent YoY, but their CFO's pushing for-" His eyes drop to my hand still half-hidden under the desk, then back up.
I pull my hand back. "Twelve percent's solid. What's the pushback?"
"Market share." Dave taps the graph. "They're losing ground in the Southeast. Sarah's gonna want answers before the renewal."
I nod at the screen. The chair groans as I shift again. Dave frowns but doesn't say anything.
"Let's regroup at one," I say. "Pull Linda in - she ran the competitive analysis last quarter."
Dave snaps the laptop shut. "Already on her calendar." He hesitates. "You look like shit, by the way."
"Long night." Under the desk, my thighs stick together slightly.
Alone again, I try to focus on the spreadsheet. The office air conditioning kicks on, chilling the dampness between my legs to a steady clamminess. I grab my coffee mug just to have something to do with my hands.
A notification - Sarah from Aldermere, subject line "Q2 Planning." I click it open. Her signature line: Looking forward to continuing our partnership. Renewals aren't automatic, not even for ten-year clients. Not when you're sitting in a chair distracted by your own body doing things you can't account for.
I minimize the email and pull up last year's SOW. The numbers are good. The relationship is solid. The spreadsheet waits. I stare at it.
I hear a chair creak from across the aisle. Linda, the group account director, settling in. She glances over, raises an eyebrow. "You're here early."
"Aldermere prep."
She nods, already turning back to her screen. "Good. Make sure your head is in the game."
I adjust my weight, the chair squeaking under me. A dull pressure builds low in my abdomen - not the familiar centralized urgency I know, but something deeper, more insistent. I ignore it until I can't. I stand abruptly. My hip catches the desk edge - a hard knock that radiates down to my knee. I keep moving.
The men's room door swings shut behind me. Mark's already at the urinal, back to me, shoulders loose. I take the spot two down, fumbling with my zipper. The metal teeth resist. Mark glances over.
The zipper gives. I reach in automatically, and my fingers meet only damp fabric. Mark's stream hits the porcelain in a steady rhythm. I stand there, hand hovering uselessly.
I back toward the stalls. Mark says nothing.
The stall door latches behind me. I yank my pants down, sit, let go. The sound is wrong - a quiet trickle, closer than it should be - and I clamp down instinctively, listening for Mark on the other side of the partition. Then the pressure builds and I do the math: he already heard what he heard, and I'm not getting through the rest of the day like this. I exhale and let it go. It flows through unfamiliar channels before landing in the bowl - a few drops caught in the folds, warm and stubborn.
When it's done I tap two fingers against the outside, trying to shake the last of it loose. Something fires - warm, going somewhere it has no business going. I pull my hand back before I've understood what happened and sit there for a second with my eyes on the stall door. As I stand up and get my pants back on the dampness clings instantly to the fabric.
At the sink, Mark is drying his hands. He tosses the paper towel toward the bin. "Big meeting today?"
"Yeah. Aldermere renewal prep."
He nods, already heading for the door. "Knock 'em dead."
I dry my hands slowly and watch his reflection go. Back at my desk the dampness cools against my skin. The spreadsheet waits, untouched. Sarah's email glows on the second monitor.
Linda appears at my elbow, close enough that I get her perfume over the office smell. "You're zoning." She drops a file on my desk. "Competitive analysis. Aldermere's losing share to private label in three key markets."
I flip it open. "They mentioned that."
"Did they mention their CFO's married to the CEO of Southeast Distributing?" She taps a footnote. "That's the bleed. Family discount."
I stare at the page. The cold patch between my legs has spread. "How'd you find that?"
"Public records." She leans in, lowering her voice. "And your fly's down."
My hand goes to my zipper. Still parted an inch. I yank it up. Linda straightens and walks away, heels on linoleum, no comment, nothing on her face.
I turn back to the spreadsheet. Adjust my weight. I reach for my coffee. The cup's empty.
The conference room smells like lemon cleaner and stale coffee. Linda claims the projector remote without asking. Her slides land in order - market share erosion, competitive spend analysis, the Southeast distributor footnote in red.
"Private labels took eight points in Atlanta alone," Linda says. "The distributor's married to Aldermere's CFO. That's the bleed."
I lean against the credenza. "Two-tiered approach. Low CPM broad awareness, performance media to convert." The words come out right. I'm aware of producing them rather than thinking them. Linda carries the room. I interject where I need to and pull back when I can. She doesn't look at me when she covers a gap - just moves to the next slide.
Afterward she lingers by the projector. "You weren't yourself."
"Late night."
She studies me long enough to make clear she isn't buying it. "Aldermere's CFO gets back from Maui tomorrow. Call Sarah before the jet lag wears off." She zips her bag. "And drink some water."
Back at my desk, Sarah's email still glows on the second monitor. I pick up the phone.
"Aldermere, Sarah speaking." Clipped. That practiced briskness she uses when she has three other calls waiting.
"Sarah. Mike here." I lean back in the chair, immediately regret it, jerk forward. My free hand grips the desk edge. "Got a minute to talk about planning?"
A pause - just long enough to be deliberate. "Board meeting's coming up. The timing's not great."
"I know the timing's tight." My fingers drum the desktop. I stop them. "Linda pulled together some competitive insights I thought you'd want to see."
Papers shuffle on her end. "Twelve percent growth's solid, Mike, but the Southeast numbers are bleeding. My CFO's asking hard questions."
A dull pressure builds low in my abdomen again. "Understood. That's why we're proposing a distributor audit alongside the media plan." I clear my throat. "The marriage connection changes the optics."
Sarah makes a flat noise. "You're suggesting my CFO's wife is compromising our distribution?"
Wrong tack. "Not at all. Just saying we should account for all variables in the share analysis." The chair creaks.
"You sound off," Sarah says.
Outside the cubicle, Linda walks past, doesn't look my way. "Let me send over the deck by end of next week. We regroup the Thursday after once you've had time to review."
A longer pause. Then: "Fine. But if this is another generic spend proposal, we're taking it to RFP."
"Understood." I end the call before she can hear me exhale. My palms are damp against the phone.
Mark appears at my cubicle entrance, gym bag over one shoulder. "Leg day. You in?"
"Rain check. Got to finish this deck."
His eyes track down to my hips for half a second, then back up. "You're moving weird. Favoring something?"
"Just tired."
"Ice whatever it is." He raps his knuckles against the cubicle wall and disappears down the aisle.
By six the cleaning crew is running vacuums two aisles over and most of the desks are dark. Every shift in the chair sends fresh discomfort upward.
My phone buzzes - Emily. Dinner? Or are you working late?
I type: Dinner. I'll pick up Thai.
I pack up the computer, my thighs sticking together as I stand.
The car door opens with its usual groan. I get in, settle, turn the key. The engine turns over and with it something else - sweet, faintly musky, underneath the usual smell of the car. I sniff the air.
It's me. My own smell, but different. Less sharp. I roll the window down and let in the garage's cold air. It doesn't help.
Emily meets me at the door and takes the bags from my hands. "You're walking like you're eighty," she says.
"Long day."
She looks at me a beat longer than usual, then carries the bags to the kitchen. We eat. The lemongrass and fish sauce sit wrong in my stomach and I push noodles around the plate without making much progress. Emily watches this for a while, her own fork down.
"You're not eating."
"Not hungry."
The waistband digs into my hips. I tug at it and Emily's eyes drop to my lap and come back up.
"You've been doing that all night." She pushes her plate to the side. "Mike. What's going on?"
I open my mouth and close it again.
She reaches across and her fingers brush my wrist. "Are you sick?"
"No."
She doesn't push. Just waits with that specific stillness she has - the one I've watched her use on other people, the silence she knows I'll eventually fill. I've never been on this end of it before.
I stand. "I need some air."
The porch is cool and quiet. I sit on the steps and after a minute Emily comes out with two coffees, hands me one, and sits beside me. We drink. The street is empty. Somewhere down the block a dog is barking at something.
On the third sip I say: "Something's different."
Emily is quiet for a long moment. Then, staring straight ahead: "I know."
I look at her.
Her profile is sharp in the light from the front window. "Your jeans this morning. The way you walked." A pause. "The way you smell."
Not the smell she's known for twelve years. Something else. She had it before I said a word.
We sit with it. The coffee cools in my hands. Then I set the mug down on the step. I stand up and push my jeans down to my thighs.
The light from the front window catches the curve of my hips, the different line of my thighs. The boxers hang wrong - flat where they shouldn't be, the shape beneath them not what it was yesterday. Emily's breath goes out slowly. She looks for a long moment, then looks up at me.
"Okay," she says. "Okay."
Upstairs the bathroom light is too bright. I close the door behind us. Emily leans against the sink with her arms crossed - not to close herself off but to hold herself together, and I know the difference after twelve years.
"Let me see," she says.
I don't move.
"Mike."
I look at the tile. Same tile it's always been. Same towels. Everything exactly where I left it this morning, none of it any help at all.
"Mike." Softer. "I've seen vaginas before."
"Not mine."
Emily doesn't fill the silence. Just waits.
I push down my jeans and my boxers together and look at the wall. Emily looks with the same careful attention she gives everything that matters - unhurried, without expression. Her eyes move over what's there and back and she takes her time.
"Okay," she says quietly. "Okay."
I pull everything back up.
She turns to the cabinet under the sink and comes up with the aloe vera. Holds it out.
I stare at it.
"You're chafed," she says. "Seams, probably. At minimum."
I don't take it. She uncaps it, squeezes a small amount onto her fingers, and looks at me.
"I can do it myself," I say.
"I know."
She waits anyway. I don't move. She reaches out slowly and the first contact makes me flinch - not from pain but from the strangeness of being touched there by anyone, even her, the skin raw and oversensitive, too much signal coming from a location I haven't learned yet. She pauses. I exhale. She continues - careful, impersonal - and the aloe is cool against inflamed skin and the relief is immediate enough that I close my eyes. Then her fingers graze somewhere sensitive and my hand comes down on her wrist.
She caps the tube and steps back. Looks at me. "You're such a man about this," she says. Not angry. Just tired of watching me manage something alone that I don't have to.
She puts the aloe back and turns the light off.
We stand there in the dark for a moment. Then Emily says: "I'm calling Jenny."
"No."
"She's seen everything, Mike - nothing surprises her."
"Not yet."
We lie in the dark. I can hear her breathing - awake, not asleep, the rhythm too controlled for sleep. Neither of us closes the distance between us. Neither of us moves away.
A long time passes.
Emily rolls onto her side, away from me. I watch the shape of her. Her shoulders rise on an inhale, hold, release. Her hand moves to her stomach and rests there, flat under the sheet.
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