Free Getting Gabriel by Cathy Quinn

sleepless, hot night. She’d even contemplated following Gabriel’s lead and munching on ice cubes just to keep cool. Eventually, sleep had claimed her, but she wasn’t sure which had been the worse – or rather, better – the dreams or the fantasies.
    Both made her blush.
    Instead of heading for her own cubicle, she ambled into Susan’s office and shut the door behind her. She needed civilized intelligent conversation. Something to take her mind off Gabriel. Maybe they could chat about clothes for a while. Or botany. Foreign policy. Even work.
    Anything to get her mind off Gabriel.
    "Hi." Susan wiggled fingers at her without looking away from the computer screen. "What’s up?"
    Alice leaned against the door and reviewed all the non-Gabriel related topics she had mapped out. She had plenty of them. Plenty of safe, neutral, impersonal topics.
    She chose one and opened her mouth to comment on the upcoming winter fashions.
    "I’m a pervert," she blurted out.
    Susan looked up, but didn’t seem all that shocked at this momentous revelation. Not so much as an eyebrow was raised. "Aren’t we all?"
    Alice clenched her fists, shoved them into her pockets and paced the floor. "You don’t understand. I am so bad." She took a deep breath. "I’m having wicked, lewd, depraved, debauched fantasies about a man."
    "Mmmmm. Those are nice, aren’t they?"
    Alice fell down into the chair opposite Susan’s desk and stared into air. "I’m thinking naked showers in the front yard. Sex in the back of a pickup."
    Susan’s eyebrows went up at that. "Interesting. Whose pickup are we talking about here?"
    "Camping up in the mountains. Against the cliffs, with view down over valleys and hills..."
    "German tourists hiking by..."
    "I’d borrow your dog. She’d keep guard and bark if anyone got close to getting close."
    "Take it from me, you don’t want that dog watching. She kills the mood quicker than football on television does."
    "Or maybe in the middle of the forest. Nature romance. Sunlight seeping down through the leaves, bathing everything in a green glow, birds chirping, the breeze rustling the leaves..."
    "Been there, done that. Got a swollen behind. Don’t forget the bug spray."
    Alice crashed back to reality. "Whoa. You’re my brother’s girlfriend. I think we just crossed over into the too much information lane."
    Susan just chuckled and leaned back in her chair. "So, what are you going to do about those torrid fantasies?"
    Alice answered with a glare.
    "Hmm," Susan mused. "Don’t give me that! You’re a 21s century woman. Please don’t tell me you’re going to wait primly in a corner, pining away if he doesn’t make the first move?"
    "It’s not that simple..."
    "I mean – we’d have to fire you."
    Alice blinked. "Huh?"
    Susan pointed at her with a pen. "Don’t you see? We can’t have a 19th century woman copy-editing articles for the 21st century woman. Who knows what kind of arcane attitude would creep in..."
    "Arcane? I am not arcane!" Alice muttered an un-arcane word. "I am a 21st century woman!"
    "Excellent. Go get him, then!"
    "He doesn’t want to be gotten!"
    "So what?"
    "That does make it difficult, don’t you agree?"
    Susan shrugged. "It’s part of the challenge. Why doesn’t he want to be gotten?"
    "To him I’m still a surrogate baby sister, the tree-climbing monkey he taught how to ride a bike."
    Susan cackled. "It’s Gabriel? Hah! I knew it!"
    Alice bit her lip and scowled. "You did not know anything."
    "Yes, I did. He’s totally hot – don’t tell your brother I said so – and you’ve idolized him forever, haven’t you?"
    "Fine. Whatever. The problem is -- how do I make him see me as a sex object when he insists on focusing on my six-year-old scraped knee?"
    "Hmm." Susan mused. "From Tomboy to Temptress: Ten Easy Tips." She scribbled something on a pad. "Not a bad idea for an article."
    "First tip, please?"
    Susan winked at her. "LCD."
    "Huh?"
    "Lowest common denominator."
    "Oh. Right.