Technically, Ryan wasn’t a co-worker. We just worked for the same company in the same building on the same floor. All of the women in the office talked about him and how good looking he was and I obviously agreed, though I never thought that flashing a smile here and there or having quick coquettish conversations would lead to anything. Eventually, though, he asked me to lunch and we got along so famously that I agreed to meet for a quick glass of wine after work and before you knew it those lunches and after-work drinks became a regular thing. It wasn’t anything serious and it went on for weeks. At the time I thought they were just harmless flirty get-togethers before going home to our spouses.

But I began to fantasize about Ryan all the time. It's not that I was in love with him or wanted to leave my husband and marry him. Andrew and I had been happily married for six years, after all, and I had never once contemplated straying. No, it wasn't lust. I rather think I was addicted to the illicit thrill of flirting with someone not my spouse. It was so much fun playing at being naughty right under our unsuspecting coworkers' noses that I couldn't stop even when it started to become more than a game. Work was suddenly interesting. I rushed to get there early in the morning and the weekends seemed to drag by. I lay awake thinking of new ways to torment Ryan and was surprised at how dirty and devious my mind could be.

Like the time I slinked up to him doe-eyed and sensuous in the break room while he was getting coffee, leaned in as if for a kiss, then brusquely said "excuse me" and walked right on past with a brush of my boob leaving him flat-footed and flustered. Or the time in the crowded elevator when I managed to stand directly in front of him, "accidentally" dropped my binder, and, bending to pick it up, made sure that the bulge in his Dockers pressed into the cleavage of my backside. I swear I felt it twitch.

One day we happened to meet in the foyer to the restrooms when with a conspiratorial leer and wink he slipped me a folded piece of paper. I locked myself in a cubicle and read while my stream hissed noisily into the commode:

Good girls get kissed. Bad girls get spanked. And you are very good at being bad.

Oh, gosh! How did he guess my secret fantasy? My husband was nice and considerate and thoughtful, but just once I’d like someone to take charge of me, to be rough with me, to bend me squirming over his lap and spank my bare bottom until it sang. Just thinking about it caused a little jolt in my groin.

I sat for a moment reading and rereading, then leaned back on the toilet, spread my lips, and deliberately stroked my moistening hoo-ha until it thrilled. I came with a gasp then dug a pen from my purse and wrote:

Maybe you should spank me, because when I read your note I did something very, very bad. And I never learn without proper punishment.

I got the feeling that he timed his exit to coincide with my own. We exchanged smirks before I thrust the note back into his hand and returned to my desk, excited in a new kind of way.

Later that afternoon I was looking up some old invoices in Records Retention. The security guards had partitioned a large closet off the storeroom into a small changing area complete with lockers and a tiny green-tiled shower. A naughty impulse swept common sense aside and I hiked the skirts of my dark grey sweater dress above my bare thong-pantied bum, backed up to the full-length mirror and snapped a quick picture with my iPhone. I texted the picture to Ryan with the caption,

Hide and seek! 
Do you like my butt? 
If you find me in ten minutes 
I'll make you strut.

Okay, Emily Dickinson I'm not. But seconds later my phone chimed and I read his response out loud:

Bree, you're a bad, bad girl,
I'll have that bum.
Ready or not, 
here I come!

I laughed merrily to myself as I imagined Ryan frantically searching.

I returned undiscovered to my desk twelve minutes later and innocently resumed work. It was the naughtiest thing I'd done so far in my priggish life, and the wickedness of it all was delicious. I was early to the pub but Ryan was there already, watching for me.

“Okay, Bree, where were you?” he demanded, without so much as a hello. “Was it somewhere in the basement? I looked everywhere I could think.” I cackled evilly and his face turned cold. “So you think being bad is funny? Do you think you can tease me like that and escape unpunished? Watch yourself, little girl. Payback is coming.”

Sure enough, next day I was punching buttons on the copier when out of the blue something cracked a stinging swat on my posterior. I shrieked in indignation and whirled to find Ryan grinning vindictively and wielding a flexible metal ruler.

"Restroom. RIght now. Wait for my text." He turned without waiting for a response and left me rubbing my humiliated bottom with both hands.

Thirty seconds later I was locked in a cubicle, intrigued. My phone alerted an incoming text.

Hand over your panties, naughty girl. And don't keep me waiting.

What a day to be wearing an above-the-knee flounce skirt and four-inch heels – a wardrobe malfunction waiting to happen if ever I saw one. Did I dare? Something thrilled inside and impulsively I slipped off my undies before I could change my mind. Only then did I remember that the black thong I'd grabbed from my lingerie drawer as I dressed that morning sported a cute cartoon kitty with hearts for eyes and the caption:

Eat Meowt

I stared in consternation at the kitty then lifted the crotch to my nose and caught a distinct whiff of my blossoming arousal. Would it turn Ryan on to know I was excited? Would suggestive panties scented with my most intimate fragrance torment him for the rest of the afternoon? Was I really so wanton? Was I actually such a tease?

I never did get those panties back.