also Monday, but in a different part of town

The sociology building was empty but for the janitorial staff, who traditionally took advantage of the low foot traffic in April to wax and buff the hall floors.

The winter semester was officially complete. Final lectures had been delivered. Students would be preparing for exams -- at least, the diligent ones would. The less diligent among them would be letting off steam at an endless junket of keg parties or one of those new "body-positive parties" that were popping up everywhere.

Simon -- who had, of course, been to one himself -- described them as a chance to see your peers in the nude without the awkward obligations of sex. Berenice found the concept of standing around in one's underwear and making small talk completely mystifying. Would there be wine? Did people dance? Was it like a rave but without the fun fur and whistles? She couldn't picture it at all.

Fortunately, she reminded herself, it was highly unlikely that she'd ever need to endure such a thing. Married women in their 40s do not get invited to body-positive parties -- as much because young people don't think of women in their 40s as even having bodies, much less bodies they'd want to be publically positive about. Which, when she considered it that way, was an annoying double standard. After all, Simon had been invited to one, and he was her age. She bet the whole party was crawling with middle-aged men, paunches hanging over under-elasticated Y-front briefs, socks pulled up over balding shins, holding bottles of Coors, and ogling the parade of young women who were only trying to celebrate their nubility in their tiny lace bralettes and matching thongs.

Then again, she highly doubted Simon would be the type to wear saggy old briefs. And he definitely didn't have a paunch. In fact, if there was any man in the world who needed to be at a body-positive party less, she couldn't think who.

Anyway, these were the thoughts that were distracting her as she made her way down the lonely hallway toward the staff kitchen, where she was planning to get a cup of tea to bring back to her office (where she was (still) hiding). Her mind was dialling up the resolution on a particularly interesting mental picture of exactly what kind of underpants a man like Simon actually *would* wear when the subject of her thoughts himself rounded the corner at the other end of the hall.

Instinctively, she jumped behind a janitor who was wielding his huge buffer around the floor. Surely, Simon couldn't have seen her, she thought. She tried to conform her shape to the janitor's, crouching a little so her head wouldn't be visible behind his bald one.

She kept pace with him for a few arcs of the buffer. If she could stick close to him until he approached an open door or the next turn in the hallway, she'd be home free.

"Hello Sam," she heard Simon say in his smooth person-of-the-people voice. "It would appear that you have a woman attached to your back."

Sam, the janitor -- whose actual name was Samir; who had come from Syria and intended to return one day if they ever stopped the war; who was, in fact, a trained oncologist in his own country but had been forced to take any job he could find, which turned out to be one that involved sweeping up candy wrappers; who endured a 45-minute commute each way on heaving public transit just to keep what was left of his family sheltered in the tiny apartment with a bug problem and rent he could barely afford on his wage -- Sam didn't have time for North American jocularity. He shook his head as if to dismiss Simon and just kept buffing.

Berenice had no choice but to unfurl from behind her human shield. Her face was red with embarrassment -- on two counts of humiliation now: first, for throwing herself at Simon that night; second, for hiding behind janitors.

She wasn't sure what to say for herself. She waggled her empty teacup and said cheerily, "Just on my way to make a cup of tea. Nice to see you, Simon," and tried to hurtle off toward the kitchen.

"Not so fast, Bee!" said Simon, catching her by the elbow with his (lovely, strong, warm!) hand. "I'll come along with you. Then, maybe you'll find it in yourself to explain to me why you would drink up all a man's wine, ruin his rug, sleep in his bed, then never speak to him again?"

She put her hand to her forehead in shame.

"You forgot 'throw up in his sink,'" she murmured.

"Well, sure, but that's nothing I haven't done myself. Plenty of times. Nothing to be ashamed of there. In fact, I insist you come over and do it again sometime. The more vomit in my sink, the better, honestly."

She couldn't help but laugh. He really did have a way of making her feel better.

"There now. Let's go make that tea." Simon moved his hand from her elbow to around her waist. Chummily? Like good friends? Or like people who had mistakenly slept together? She wasn't sure.

She broke away from his indecipherable touch once they reached the kitchen. He waited as she selected a tea bag and used the boiling water dispenser to fill her cup. When there was nothing left for her to busy herself with, she took a breath and turned to face him.

"I'd like to apologize for whatever I may have done that night. I'll be honest and tell you that I'm not sure what I did. What we did. That's what I'm most embarrassed about. But I'm also fairly sure something must have happened given the thoughts I keep having."

She directed much of this speech to her teacup, afraid to look at Simon's face, but as she finished, she looked up to see how he'd reacted. His face would tell her everything.

His face was perfectly neutral. Damn.

"What thoughts are you having?" he pressed gently.

"Oh, just..." she stammered. "Let's just say they're not co-workerly."

"Impure?" he asked with an encouraging smile.

"Not... not indecent or anything," she tried to recover. "But I feel suddenly very -- no, I feel -- just very..." She released her shoulders. "I'm not sure. Confused. I think whatever we did was a mistake, but my mind seems to insist on reliving it."

He gazed at her with (she felt) clinical interest.

"I see. And what is it that you suspect happened that night? Outside of messing up my rug and sink, of course."

"You said you didn't mind that!" she protested.

"Never mind. I'm interested in understanding what you fear -- and partly hope -- we did."

There was no use trying to suppress it. This was, after all, Simon's field of specialization. Sexual deviance. She couldn't hope for a more understanding ear.

"Fine," she began. "The last thing I remember is -- oh god -- asking you to spank me?" She delivers this like a question open to being corrected. "And then I'm pretty sure you carried me to the bedroom where, I presume, you must've done what I asked you. This is so embarrassing." she shuddered again behind her hand.

"Well, that's a fascinating account," he said lightly. "For my part, I remember that we'd been talking about your marriage. You were very vulnerable, sharing all kinds of nonsense about fate having it out for your husband, feeling powerless to avoid the wrecking ball that was about to slam into your marriage. You said you felt like collateral damage in a predestined shit hurricane if I recall. You were amusing and terribly sad at the same time."

She nodded because it rang true, although she didn't specifically remember putting it that way.

"Then, you went to the washroom, knocking the plant over on your way out. When you came back, you tripped and fell. I realized by that point you weren't sea-worthy, so I carried you to bed where you promptly passed out. Of course, I felt it was only gentlemanly to make sure you didn't choke on your vomit, so I lay down beside you. When I woke up, you were gone."

That all sounded very... fine, really. How ridiculous that she'd been avoiding him for weeks over what amounted to getting plastered and a little stumbly.

"Unless..." he continued as though he'd just remembered, "Do you mean the part where you asked me to spank you, and I said you'd have to ask me again when you were sober? Is that the bit you were keen to avoid remembering?"

She shrunk back into her shame, but his kind, friendly laughter eventually pulled her back to some semblance of herself.