"He took your loyalty and gave you none of his personal self in return," Ray said.
"About four months ago, we were leaving his office. He picked up my keys off the table by mistake. He held them out. Instead of taking them, I took his hand, folded his fingers around my keys and held his fist in both of my hands. Don't know where I got the nerve to do that. I looked up at him and told him my apartment key was there in his hand, and why didn't he keep it just in case. He said in case of what? I said well, maybe some night when you're lonely and feel like, you know, being with someone friendly, having someone who likes you, someone you can trust, someone safe."
"What did he do?"
"All he had to do was squeeze my hand or make a tiny smile. At that moment, I was his. I'd have stripped naked for him right there, but he wouldn't have noticed. All I wanted was a damn smile or at least a sugarcoated rejection. Couldn't he at least have said that he understood? You know what he did? He laughed. He laughed at me. He thought it was a joke. Just as though it was beyond belief that the two of us could be intimate. Preposterous, I suppose, that he could be sexually attracted to me. I was so embarrassed I wanted to crawl under the rug. I spent that night crying and pounding on my pillow, beating myself. Why did I do it? How could I have said that, how stupid he must think I am, what on earth was I thinking? How could I ever face him again? Then I became angry and pounded on the pillow again. Now it was him. I was pounding on him. I hated him."
"Understandable." He knew she had never told anyone, and she had to get it all out, although this was absolutely the wrong time.
"I was angry and afraid. Afraid I'd never be a part of his personal life. I'd never win him over. All those years, all those meetings and all those parties. See how handsome he is in that tuxedo. Look at that lucky girl on his arm. Their tongues would wag. Hundreds of rumors. Wish I had a dime for every person who was absolutely positively certain that we were having sex. Look, those two are leaving the party together again...ho, ho, ho. Sometimes I felt like standing up and yelling, 'Attention, everybody, I have an announcement to make. We're not a couple. We don't have sex. I'm just for show.' I'd lie in bed fantasizing he was touching me, but his fingers never did."