HR Training

I turned fifty-three on a Tuesday in March, and I spent most of that morning in my office at work staring at the wall and thinking about the fact that I had never had sex. Not once. Not in college, not in my thirties, not ever. Fifty-three years on this planet and nobody had ever seen me without my clothes on except a few doctors and one very confused gynecologist who kept asking if I was sure I didn't want to discuss options.

My name is Rita, and for most of my life I worked in human resources, which is a funny profession for a woman who avoids human intimacy the way other people avoid wasps. I know every rule about workplace conduct, every clause about hostile environments, every form you have to file when two coworkers get too friendly in the copy room. I have spent twenty-nine years managing other people's romances and disasters while keeping my own life as neat and empty as a freshly cleaned filing cabinet.

It wasn't a tragedy, exactly. Nobody hurt me. There was one guy, Ramon, back when I was twenty-four, a salesman two desks down who used to bring me coffee and make me laugh until I snorted, and we flirted for maybe four months and then he transferred to the Spokane office and it ended there. I let it happen. I was relieved, honestly, and then I was relieved for so many years in a row that it became a lifestyle.

But this birthday sat different. Fifty was fine, I threw myself a party. Fifty-one and fifty-two I barely noticed. Fifty-three settled on me with a heavy, damp weight, and I sat there at my desk thinking, well, Rita, if you die in your sleep tonight, your obituary will say you enjoyed gardening and you will have been lying, because you don't even enjoy gardening that much, and you have never once felt another person's hands on you.

So I did the most HR thing imaginable. I made a plan. And because my plan required a person, and the only person I trusted was Russell, I walked down to the IT department that afternoon and asked him if he had a minute.

Russell has been our IT director for six years, a big calm man of forty-eight who fixes everything without making you feel stupid about it. He's been single as long as I've known him, and we've had lunch maybe two hundred times, and I have never once felt him looking at me like a project.

"I need to ask you something strange," I said, standing in his doorway like I was delivering bad news about the insurance enrollment.

He swiveled his chair around. "Okay. Now I'm nervous!"

"I want you to know this is not a come-on and there's no pressure and you can say no and nothing at work will change, I need to say that first."

"Rita." He took his glasses off. "You're scaring me. Just ask."

So I asked him. I asked him if he would come to my condo sometime and, well, teach me. Sleep with me. I said I wasn't looking for romance or a relationship or anything ongoing, that I just wanted to know what it was like before it was too late to bother, and I heard my own voice do that flat professional thing it does, like I was reading a policy, and halfway through I wanted to sink through the carpet.

Russell was quiet for a second, and then he said, "Can I think about it until Friday?"

"Of course. Forget I said anything, actually, I'll just..."

"Friday," he said. "Lunch. I'll give you an answer."

He said yes on Friday. He said it quietly, over our usual corner table, and he said, "I've thought about it and I'd be honored, and also we should talk about what you actually want, because I don't want to guess at that."

So here we are, Tuesday evening, my condo in a suburb outside Portland, and I have cleaned nothing because I decided that pretending my life is tidier than it is would be a bad foundation for this. There are books everywhere and framed prints leaning against walls waiting for hooks I never bought, and the kitchen smells like the stir-fry I made because takeout felt too much like a date and cooking felt like something a person does.

The doorbell rang at seven, and I stood in my hallway for a moment with my hand on the deadbolt, breathing like I was about to give a deposition.

"Hi," Russell said when I opened it. He was holding a paper bag and a bottle of wine, and he looked, I noticed, nervous in a way I had never seen him. "I brought noodles, in case the stir-fry was a figure of speech."

"It's real. Come in before I lose my nerve."

He laughed at that, an easy sound, and came in and looked around at the books and the prints and said, "This is exactly how I pictured it," which was such a strange and perfect thing to say that I relaxed about ten percent on the spot.

We ate at my little table, and somewhere between the noodles and the wine I got out a legal pad, because of course I did, and he laughed so hard he had to put his fork down.

"You made an agenda," he said.

"I made an agenda. Sue me. Item one, ground rules."

"Okay, counsel. Go ahead."

So I read them out, feeling like an idiot and doing it anyway. No romance, no strings, this was a one-time arrangement, nobody at work ever hears about it, this stays completely separate from work, no favors and no reviews and nothing on anyone's evaluation, ever, and either of us can stop anything at any moment for any reason and the other one doesn't argue.

"Can I add something?" he said, and I nodded. "Same rules for me. I can stop too. And one more. We talk. If something feels good you say so, if something doesn't, you say so. I'm not a mind reader and I don't want to guess."

"That's reasonable."

"Also, item two on your pad says 'protection' and I want you to know I already thought of that, there's a box in my bag, because I assumed a woman who makes agendas would appreciate a man who comes prepared."

"Well," I said, and I could feel my face go hot. "Item two, solved."

We cleared the dishes together, which felt oddly domestic and which I decided not to read into, and then we were standing in my living room with nothing left on the agenda except the entire point of the evening, and the silence got very loud.

"So," he said. "We don't have to rush. We could just start with sitting down. Talking."

"We've talked for six years, Russell."

"Fair." He sat on the end of my couch and patted the cushion next to him, and I sat, closer than I needed to, and my heart was doing something I refused to narrate even to myself. "Give me your hand."

I gave it to him. He held it in both of his, and his hands were warm and a little rough at the pads of his fingers, and he just held it, turned it over, ran his thumb across my knuckles, and I watched our hands like they belonged to other people.

"Okay?" he asked.

"It's warm," I said, which sounded insane, but it was the truest thing I had. "I didn't expect it to be so warm. People hold hands in movies and it never looks like much."

"It's not much," he said. "It's the door."

He turned toward me then and asked, very plainly, "Can I kiss you, Rita?"

"Yes," I said, before my brain could file anything. "Please."

And he kissed me, slow, one hand still holding mine and the other coming up light against my jaw, and I had expected something like a handshake, a fact to log, first kiss, complete, and instead the whole room went soft at the edges and I made a small sound against his mouth that I had never made in my life, and he pulled back an inch and smiled.

"Still warm?" he asked.

"Warm," I managed. "Very. Don't stop on my account."

He got us both glasses of water, which was such a Russell thing to do, and then he stood and offered me his hand and said, "Bedroom?"

"Bedroom," I said, and led him down the hall like I was showing him where the bathroom was at a dinner party.

My bedroom is the tidiest room in the condo because nobody ever sees it, and I had changed the sheets that morning with hands that shook a little, and now here was a big calm man standing at the foot of my bed looking at me like I was the one who got to decide everything, which, it turned out, I was.

"How do you want to do this?" he asked. "We can sit, we can lie down, we can stop and make an agenda for the bed specifically."

"Sit first," I said, and we sat on the edge of the bed, side by side, like two people waiting for a bus, and I laughed because it was absurd and he laughed too and then it was easier.

"Can I take your sweater off?" he said. "Or you can. Whatever you want."

"You do it," I said. "I want to know what it's like when someone else does it."

So he turned to face me and took the hem in his fingers, slow, and lifted it, and I raised my arms as if at a doctor's office and then immediately regretted the comparison in my own head, and the sweater came off over my head and my hair came out of its clip and fell down and he said, "Oh, good," just that, oh good, like I'd brought a dessert.

"I'm fifty-three, Russell."

"I know how old you are. I've known you six years." He set the sweater on the chair with care, which I noticed, Russell notices things, it's why I asked him. "Can I undo the bra? My hands are better at it than yours will be, probably, no offense to fifty-three."

"None taken. Go ahead."

He reached around me and there was a small fumbling and then it was loose and I held it against me for one second out of pure habit and then made myself let it drop, and his face did something quiet, and he said, "Can I touch you? Just my hands, just to start."

"Yes."