The Graphic Details (2 page)

“Right in front of Miss Donahue over there.
Kathy, raise your hand for me please.”

She was indeed pointing to empty spot right
in front of me. I clumsily raised my hand.

“Lucky bitch,” Christy whispered into my ear
as I shooed her away.

Charles sat himself right in front of the
computer that was facing away from my station and he turned on his
computer. I returned to my problem.

After what seemed like a few minutes, I felt
a pair of eye staring at me from behind the computer in front of
me, so I stared right back him and I immediately lost myself in the
deep blue sea of Mr. Montague’s beautiful eyes. Seriously, they
were the most striking eyes I had ever seen on a man; his eye
lashes were even long and pretty.

“Hey… Katherine, right?” he asked.

“Um, yes, that’s me. I’m sorry. I haven’t
properly introduced myself. I’m, well, you know my first name
already. The last name’s Donahue,” I said as I awkwardly stuck my
hand out for him to shake.

“Yeah, Sarah also just mentioned that, so, I
guess I kinda knew your whole name before I even met you.” He
laughed as he grasped my hand, and I felt something I haven’t felt
since…. Well, I guess I had never felt this way before. I suddenly
perked up. I rubbed my thighs together and felt some moisture down
in my neither regions. Oh god, did I just pee myself? Did this
guy’s touch just cause me to lose control of my bladder? When I
came back to my senses, I realized what it actually was. The mere
touch of Charles’s hand had made me unexpectedly and uncontrollably
wet. I felt a drop in my panties that no man has ever made me feel,
not even back when I was with Phil. I can’t even remember the last
time Phil and I had sexual intercourse, if we had intercourse at
all. I can’t find the memory of what his penis looked like anywhere
in my mind. Anyway, I tried my hardest to ignore the feeling I was
having at that moment.
I have to be professional, I have to be
professional
, I kept telling myself in my head.

“Nice to meet you Katherine Donahue. I’m
Charles Montague,” he said, with a sparkle in the waves that were
his pupils. “I know Sarah just said my name, but I wanted to say it
to you myself. You know, a proper introduction.”

This fucker knew his manners and that got me
even more hot and bothered.
I have to be professional…

“I guess I knew your name before meeting you
as well,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, that’s right. So that’s one thing we
have in common. Let’s see how many more have,” Charles said.

Was this bastard flirting with me? I was kind
of lost on what flirting was like, since men hardly did it with me.
But from the little experience I’ve had with it, and from what I
saw in TV and movies, it certainly felt like he was. But I had to
put that out of my mind.

“So, Sarah said I should ask you what to do.
She said that you were one of the best designers she had and that I
could count on you to show me everything I would need to know. Is
that true?”

I looked over to Sarah in disbelief as she
sat there at her desk, and she looked back and gave me the thumbs
up.

“Um, I’m not so sure I’m the best here, but
I’m more than qualified to show you how we do things around here.
Will you excuse me? I have to go and ask Sarah exactly what she
wants me to teach you,”

“Be my guest. I’ll just practice my Photoshop
techniques. We have internet here right?” he asked.

I nodded as I quickly strode over to Sarah’s
desk. I was skeptical of her intentions of saddling Charles with
me.

“Sarah, what the hell?” I asked as I reached
her desk.

“What? Aren’t you happy you get to sit face
to face with the new office piece of incredible ass?

“What are you up to Sarah?”

“Nothing. I just thought you’d like some
company. Besides, I know your
situation
.”

“Well, if you really knew my
situation
, you’d know that I’m perfectly happy in it.”

“Come now, no one would really be happen in
your situation,” she said, and I scowled at her with huge amounts
of contempt.

“And today of all days. I look horrible. My
hair is a mess. And these glasses.”

“It’s no different from any other day,” she
said, and I contemplated slapping my boss.

“I don’t know why you’re so worried. If I
weren’t married, I’d definitely be doing things that would get me a
sexual harassment lawsuit. But you, you’re nice and single. Take
advantage of that,” said Sarah.

“I don’t want to take advantage. I’m
seriously happy where I am right now. And besides, he’s too…
pretty,” I said to her, as I turned my head towards him. He looked
at me and smiled. I felt an extra drop of moisture.

“Too pretty? I like to imagine a face that
pretty in between my thighs.”

“Sarah!”

“Whatever. I’m just trying to hook a sista’
up,”

“Please don’t talk like that. It’s unnerving.
And it also might be a little racist.”

“Just go back to work, Kathy and enjoy the
predicament that you’re in. You can thank me later when you realize
what I’ve done for you,” she said as she winked at me and shooed me
away.

I gave her a final disapproving look as I
returned to my desk.

“So, what is it that she wants me to do?”
Charles asked me.

“Huh? Oh, um, just continue to work on your
techniques. What are you better on? Illustrator or Photoshop?

“I like to think I’m pretty good with both,
but I’m not one to toot my own horn. I could show you my stuff I’d
you’d like.”

“Yeah, sure. Send me a file or two,” I said
as I thought about tooting his horn. My professionalism was
beginning to wane.

“Well, I have some stuff open on my screen
right now. I guess I could just stick my hard drive into your slot,
since it’s facing me,” he said. I started to wonder if I should
take that as a serious and quite disgusting case of sexual
harassment before I looked over and realized what he meant; the
back of my computer was indeed facing him, and he had brought a
small portable hard drive that was sticking out of the back on his
computer.

“Oh, well, ok, yeah. Just do…”

“Or you could just stand up and walk around
to my side and take a look,” he said sarcastically.

I don’t usually respond kindly to sarcasm,
but I have to admit, his was subtle and therefore I found it a
little charming.

“Ok, I’ll just do that, smart ass,” I shot
back. He smiled.

I walked over to his side and what I saw on
his screen made me open my eyes wide in astonishment at it’s
simple, yet realistic presentation. It was of some girl eating a
cupcake and enjoying a cup of coffee while staring out of a window:
a painfully simple concept. But what was amazing was that what I
thought was a real girl sitting in a real restaurant was actually a
drawing, no, a digital painting. If I weren’t trained at spotting
design for all these years I would have definitely been fooled by
it.

“Charles, this is…. Amazing!” I said.

“Nah, it’s nothing really. Just some flimsy
flier I did for a friend’s new café.”

This guy was as humble as he was
gorgeous.

“Flimsy? I couldn’t do this if I tried my
hardest. And that font, what is that font?” I asked. It wasn’t as
plain as Helvetica and it wasn’t quite as self important and curvy
as Edwardian Script, but was something in between. And it had a
serif; I love serifs.

“Oh, that’s something of my own design.
Designing fonts is something of a hobby of mine. This was something
new that I was trying out. My friend liked it, but I don’t know if
I do yet. What do you think, Katherine?” he asked me, and as he
said my name, his breath, which, for whatever reason, smelled as
sweet as the morning rain, had entered my ear and made the hairs on
my neck stand up in excitement. With every passing minute it was
getting harder and harder to stay professional.

“I think it’s beautiful,” I said. Maybe this
guy would be able to help me out with my problem, I thought.

“Hey Charles, do you think you could take a
look at something?”

“Of course. What is it?”

“Time for you to stand up and walk over to my
side,” I said, and he chuckled. It was the cutest little chuckle
you could imagine.

I brought him over to my side to take a look
at what I was working on and he stood directly over my chair, and
placed his chin inches away from my shoulder. He smelled good.
Something about this guy was strangely comforting.

“Um, I’m working on something and I can’t
quite figure out… what? What’s wrong?” I asked, because at that
moment his eyes grew quite wide and his mouth was agape at what he
saw on my screen.

“My God, that is a beautiful photograph. How
did you do that?”

I looked at the picture on my screen. It was
just a picture of a woman sitting on the lip of a bathtub shaving
her legs.

“Do what? Stop messing with me. It’s just a
regular picture.”

“That is no regular picture. What filters did
you use?”

“Now you’re just being ridiculous.”

“I swear I’m not,” he said.

“I used one filter and perhaps I feathered
the edges a bit around this part, but the rest were just color
adjustments, erases of blemishes here and there. Nothing special.”
Was he serious? Did he really think more of this picture than what
it was worth thinking about?

“Don’t sell yourself short. At first glance
it may be just a simple picture of some woman, but whatever you
did, you made sure these colors worked together. And your use of
shade right here,” he pointed at the screen and as he did, his
finger just ever so slightly brushed past my cheek, and my heart
skipped a beat. My heart doesn’t skip beats. That only happens to
women in sappy romance comedies. I was off put and excited all at
once by this emotion.

“I don’t know what you need my help on, but
judging by this, it can’t be much,” he said. The compliments were
getting a little suspicious now. This douche must be fucking with
me, I thought. There was no way he was genuine. I was starting to
resent him. I ignored it.

“Ha ha. Funny. But can you please stop with
the insincere comments now? It’s a little tired,” and as I said
this, he grabbed my chin with his rough, yet smooth forefinger and
thumb and turned my head so that my eyes met his and he spoke
softly.

“Katherine, I know you don’t know me well,
but if there’s one thing that I would want you to know about me is
that when I compliment someone, I always, and I mean,
always
mean it,” he said. The tone of his voice was absolutely serious and
his words dripped with sincerity. I instantly felt horrible.

“I’m so sorry. I… I believe you now.”

“Please do. This is beautiful work you’ve
done. And sorry for touching your chin like that. That was
unprofessional,” he said. At that moment, there was something else
I wanted him to touch.

“No, no. I’m sorry for doubting you,” I said.
And after a slightly awkward pause, he said, “Well, what is it that
you need help with?”

“Oh. Yeah. Well, I’m having trouble finding
the right font for this, and since you seem to have a grasp on
fonts, I was wondering if you would help me find one that would
fit,” I said, and he looked around for an empty chair and he found
one and took a seat next to me. For the next several minutes, we
sat there looking for a suitable font. We tried serious fonts like
Snell Roundhand, Hoefler Text
and
Century
. We tried
some not so serious, like
Cooper Black
and
Gill Sans
.
Hell, we even tried
Comic Sans
and
Zapfino
. Truth be
told, I had tried all of these the night before, but I didn't want
to tell him. We had such fun laughing at the ridiculous, obviously
inappropriate fonts. After a few more attempts, he finally came up
with an idea.

“You know what, why don’t I just make you a
font… that is, if you trust me with that task,” Charles said.

“Of course I trust you. I’d love for you to
make something as pretty as the one you made for your friend, but I
couldn’t ask you to do that. That's too much trouble,” I
protested.

“Nah, no trouble at all. I love making fonts
and it would be good practice, “ he insisted.

“Well, only if you’re sure it won’t be any
trouble.”

“None whatsoever. When’s this due?”

“In two days.”

“Two days. Got it. I’ll work on this as soon
as I get home tonight. I already have some ideas for it,” he said.
He was much more enthusiastic about this project than I thought he
would be. He was so cute in his enthusiasm. But I felt bad once
more.

“You know, on second thought, it’s too much
to ask for. I can’t have you…”

“Katherine, I was one the who suggested it,
right? Right?”

He was right.

“Look, if you feel that bad about it, you can
pay me for my service with a drink. Tonight,” Charles said. I
wasn’t sure if he was asking me out on a date, or just offering
something as a joke to shut me up.

“What?”

“Tonight. Let’s hit up a bar. I just moved to
this part of town recently. You must know the area better than I
do,” he said, and I was sort of speechless. I looked around for
help. I looked at Sarah, who stared at me and gave me another
thumbs up. I’m not sure if it was because she had heard his
invitation or not, but if she hadn’t, her timing was perfect. I
looked towards Christy, and judging by the disapproving, jealous
scowl on her face as she looked at me, she had most definitely
heard him. She mouthed the words “You lucky bitch” very slowly to
me so that I was able to see every word clearly. It looked like I
had no one to help me but myself, so I made a hasty decision.

“Um… ok. Yeah, I know some places,”

“Then it’s settled. A drink in exchange for
my services,” he said as he stuck out his hand for a shake. His
grip was firm, yet gentle. I started to wonder if that was at all
indicative of his love making techniques.