When I met her, I didn’t know that Elise cried herself to sleep each night, her face buried in her pillow and her solitary fingers rubbing hopelessly between her legs.

We worked in the same building. I met her in the employee’s small recreation room one Monday at noon hour. She was alone in the room, everyone else on our floor must have gone home for lunch or sat outside to enjoy the soft June sun.

I had come into the room because I didn’t feel like eating outside with the rest of my boisterous, seemingly carefree co-workers.

There were two tables, each with four chairs, a couch, coffee table and soft drink machine in the little room. Elise was sitting at one table, so I sat at the other and looked over at her.

She had a plate in front of her with four bowls around it. Right behind the plate was propped a hardcover novel with a picture of a lady in a flowing red dress. The lady was in the arms of a man who looked like a pirate with large well defined muscles and a patch over one eye. The title was "Desire’s Seduction".

Elise herself was rather short, and while I wouldn’t have called her overweight, she was rather full figured. She was wearing a green turtleneck shirt under a beige vest. I could see enough of her under the table to determine that she was also wearing a beige skirt with white nylons and practical looking brown shoes. Her light brown hair was put up in a bun at the back of her head and she had short bangs, that seemed to curl a bit on their own and that framed her chubby child-like face. She stared in deep concentration at the novel through thick framed glasses. The lenses magnified her eyes showing off their dark irises and long lashes at about three times their normal size.

Elise had a vulnerability and intensity that captured my imagination. I instantly fell in love with her, an emotion that I had not felt in a long time through my break-up, divorce and settlement. I might have been able to ignore the feelings of love if Elise had been eating a normal lunch. But she was not.

After every few pages, she would pause to put a cracker on her plate. Picking up her knife she would spread cream cheese from another bowl onto the cracker. She picked up her spoon next, and dipping it into the third bowl poured a little bit of seafood sauce onto the cream cheese and cracker. Lastly she would reach with her fingers into the fourth bowl and place a single shrimp on the cracker. Picking up her delicacy, she would eat it in three or four bites, her attention turned back to the pages.

Every time she took a bite, I could hear the crunch of the cracker followed by a juicy squishing noise as she took the shrimp in her mouth.

She was oblivious to me as I sat there watching her, my own lunch forgotten. My heart was racing, and I could feel my erection against the warm moisture of my underwear. Every time she bit into her lunch, I fantasized about the shrimp, licking it, imagining the salty taste fleshy taste in my mouth.

My breathing deepened. I wanted to go over and introduce myself to this stunning woman, to ask her out for an evening where we could both dine on shrimp cocktails and juicy seasoned steaks with baked potatoes buried under heaping mounds of butter and sour cream. But what if she was married, what if she had a lover to eat shrimp with?

My self doubts kept me rooted as the crunches and slurps began to echo in my ears and pound in my crotch. I felt feverish and dizzy with lust.

In a feverish wave, I called out "Do you know that you are making a lot of noise?"

Elise turned away from her book and looked straight at me. My mouth went dry and arousal turned to horror.

Her eyes widened like a deer caught in headlights. She mumbled an apology and hurriedly gathered up her things. I watched her leave the room and was unable to move although my brain was telling me to apologize, to go after her, to tell her my name at least.

I thought about Elise on my way home from work. I was walking through the downtown area and my image danced across the store windows. I paused to examine myself. I used to describe my hairline as receding, but apparently since I had last checked, that had changed to balding. My face was heavyset, with wrinkles starting around my eyes and mouth. My gray suit was nice, but it couldn’t hide my paunch hanging over my belt. In fact, with closer observation, it seemed to amplify it as my shirt buttons came down in a well-defined ramp.

The idea of joining a gym crossed my mind, although it was followed very shortly by my reasoning that by the time I actually looked like the pirate on the cover of ‘Desire’s Seduction’ Elise could be living with a fisherman in a little sea-side cabin with six kids.

By the time I was at work Tuesday morning, my thoughts were once again on Elise. Would she be back in the lunch room? What would she be wearing? I was hoping for a white blouse, just so her nipples, which I imagined to be hard, would show through, just slightly, as her chest heaved. I became obsessed with knowing if she was wearing a blouse. I walked through the departments near mine, but she wasn’t in any of them.

At noon, I jumped up and was off to the recreation room. Elise was there. Alas, there was no blouse. She was wearing a cardigan over a simple mauve dress. There weren’t even any nipples showing, the material was too thick.

My happiness at seeing Elise covered up any disappointment over her wardrobe. I sat down at the other table.

Once again, she was reading the same book, "Desire’s Seduction" with the same intensity. Although this time, she had a plate of bread and a small jar of honey. I watched spellbound as she dipped her knife into the liquid honey and let it run off the tip of the knife onto the bread in perfect golden drops. I could see the soft white bread taking in the rich moisture.

My erection suddenly jumped to attention as her mouth consumed the bread and her tongue licked the excess honey from her lips.

Enough was enough. I got up and walked over to her and asked frustratedly, "What are you trying to do, seduce me?"

She looked over at me. Her eyes big eyes blinking, her mouth slightly open. I could see the "What kind of idiot are you?" look pooling from the depth of her eyes. Suddenly the door to the lunch room looked inviting and I silently took my leave.

That afternoon, I mulled over strategy. While Elise didn’t even know my name, and thought that I was a complete fool, it was at least a start. I needed a conversation starter, a topic of interest too us both. The problem was that I didn’t know much about her, only that she was reading a book called "Desire’s Seduction".

The public library had the book. "Its for my wife" I lied to the librarian even though she didn’t ask. I spent the rest of the night in the exploits of the lovely Lady Desire, who stowed away on a ship, only to be captured by the Dark Pirate who turned out to be a lord who was actually out to rescue his kidnapped sister. My eyes were sore and aching as I finished the book. Before finally giving into sleep, I turned the book over and looked at the cover. I could imagine Elise, the sunshine glinting off her glasses, her hair long and windswept over her bright red flowing satin dress. I tried to see myself as the pirate. He looked too good in tights. I sighed and went to sleep.

I left the office early to hang around outside the lunch room. At ten minutes to noon, Elise walked down the hallway. She was carrying "Desire’s Seduction" under her arm.

"So" I said leaning in the doorframe, "I see that you are reading ‘Desire’s Seduction.’ I found the part about the pirate really being an English lord to be quite a surprise. What they won’t think of next in literature."

"Oh really," Elise said.

"Yes," I said encouraged, "And it was also quite an interesting touch that Desire was a virginal maiden bursting with barely restrained passion. I’m not surprised that they finally got together in the end."

Elise was silent for a moment before she asked, "Are you trying to seduce me?"

That was the last question that I had expected. I stood there. Finally, Elise’s head dropped and I could see disappointment in her face as she mumbled "I understand," and walked past me into the lunch room.

The disappointment on her face finally registered and I rushed over to her table and my words tumbled out, "Wait, wait. Yes, I am trying to seduce you. Please come to dinner with me. You are the most beautiful passionate woman that I have ever seen."

Elise’s eyes glowed with a warmth that made me feel like a pirate. I sat beside her and she shared her passion fruit slices with me.

Now Elise no longer sleeps alone. I sleep with her. If her head is buried in her pillow it is to muffle laughter and if her fingers crawl down between her legs, they are led with kisses.