At one point or another, we’ve all had that co-worker who just stuck with us. Not necessarily up front, not even consciously. But they linger—I’m sure of it. I’m not talking about summer jobs or part-time, high school flings, or even casual fucks—those happened because you were young and unattached. They linger, too, sure, but in a different way.

I’ve had a few, later in life. Only one since I got married.

I remember the first time we talked. Or rather, the first time she talked to me. I’m shy—introverted—and this was my first day. After the meet-and-greets and the obligatory rounds of the office, I was given a desk, a computer, and a door to shut. Not even a cubicle—a proper office, with a door.

I’d later realize the door had no real purpose. It didn’t stop people from barging in, whether it was closed for privacy, a phone call, or just because I didn’t want to deal with anyone.

But she knocked.

That first day—and every day after, whenever we worked together.

We didn’t even really work together; we just worked for the same company, different departments. I was a system administrator—not by education, but by experience—and I was damned good at it.

It doesn’t really matter what she did, what her title was. I won’t tell you her name or give anything about her, apart from her story.

So yes—she knocked on my door that first day. I don’t even think it was closed; she might’ve just knocked on the doorframe. I remember turning toward her. I might have said "Hi," or something equally awkward. My greetings with strangers usually sound like questions. Yeah, I’m that guy.

She greeted me back, offered her name—the one I won’t tell you—and said, “You must be Morten. I’ve heard so many good things about you.”

Yeah, I realize I’m telling this wrong. I should’ve started with how I got the job; it might help the next few exchanges make more sense.

As with most things in life—especially work—it started with knowing someone.

The person who had the job before me was a former co-worker. When she decided to move on, she recommended me for the position.

She was my exact opposite: outgoing, forward, good with people—but crap at the job. So, I wasn’t really replacing a person; I was replacing a myth. She’d been loved and would be missed, but for me, it was the way in.

And the reason the girl who knocked on my door had already heard good things about me.

Two things struck me before anything else did:

Her voice was deeper than I expected—richer, velvet-smooth.

And she opened our relationship with a compliment.

I lingered on that for a while—her voice, her words—still keeping up with the conversation but letting more of her slip in. She was beautiful, yes, but that wasn’t what drew me in. It was her eyes. Her voice. The way she treated me like we’d been friends forever.

She was dark-skinned; I guessed at African ancestry, though that wasn’t the kind of question you asked on your first day. And that was the thing about her: I never needed to ask. Talking to her was easy.

Some days, she’d knock on my door, close it behind her, and we’d whisper curses about our co-workers, about the job. Other days, the conversations drifted further—to family, to children. I had two. She had none. Eventually, we talked about the everyday things, the small details you don’t usually bother sharing with anyone.

I’d been right about the continent; she was born to Somali parents but was, by all measures, pure Norwegian. She was caught between two cultures that, sadly, crashed more often than they met. I learned more from her than I ever expected, and in those early days, I had to confront the stereotypes buried in my head—almost daily.

I honestly talk to only a handful of people in my life; outside of family, maybe two. She became one of them—the second.

Our daily talks became the highlight of my day, and when she wasn’t in, the office felt bleak, stripped of something vital.

You’re probably waiting for the change, the shift, the heat rising between us. But this was never that kind of story.

I’m happily married, and we have a deep, mutual respect. Still, I was infatuated with her. For all our familiarities, we were never anything but friends.

I only stayed in that job for a little less than a year. I wasn’t happy there, and when an opening came up at my old workplace, I took it. My only honest regret was saying goodbye to her. But she left around the same time I did, so in a way, it worked out.

But like I said, she lingered. We phoned a few times, sent a few texts, but because of life—or maybe because of time—that faded too.

Still, I found myself thinking of her now and then. Missing the soft knock on the door, the deep, velvet voice you wanted to hear whisper dirty secrets because somehow, it was suited for it.

Years pass quickly once you’re past forty; before I knew it, seven years had slipped away. I’d catch her name in an article and see it pop up in my email when I wrote to someone with a similar name. And sometimes, she’d show up in my dreams.

But the truth was, our last real conversation had been almost four years ago.

A global pandemic changed how I work. When everyone else returned to their offices, I refused. Now I spend three days a week working from home, and two days sitting in the office, doing nothing, because the rest of the world insists on meeting ‘in person’—wasting my hours drinking bad coffee and being force-fed fishing stories.

I’m not good with people. Mostly because people annoy me.

The open office is a concept developed by people who wanted to micromanage office space.

How many people can we fit per dollar?

It was never about maximizing output—it was about high-praised theories from people who knew nothing about people and everything about shuffling numbers around on a spreadsheet.

I’m still damned good at my job. But when my phone rang, and her name lit up the screen, I forgot to be professional.
I didn’t have to be. I was working from home.

My chest fluttered, and I smiled. When I answered, it wasn’t a “Hello” that sounded like a question.

“Hey!” I said—along with the name I won’t tell you.

And just like that, the tone of my voice changed what she was about to say.

“Hey, Morten!” she greeted, and in my head, I could see her smile, clear as day.

And God—that voice.

It wrapped around me like a warmth I hadn’t felt since the last time we spoke.

And just like that, our conversation continued from somewhere seven years ago: her in the chair by the door to my office, and me smiling, being nothing but honest.

We talked like that for ten minutes, maybe longer, before she shifted to why she had made the call.

She was thinking about further education, about changing fields, and the first name that popped into her head was mine. She hadn’t called because she missed me. She called for advice.

Advising people you don’t care about is easy. You don’t have to live with the aftermath of giving the wrong advice.

But with her? I had to think.

“You’re asking the wrong guy,” I reminded her. “I don’t have the formal education. I just do what I do because I adapt easily.”

“No,” she said, still all velvet. “You’re smart. I need your advice.”

But it wasn’t the advice. It wasn’t the compliments.

It was what came after, when I asked the one question we had never asked before.

“So,” I said, “how are things with you?”

It turned into a monologue, and I’ll try to do it justice.

“Well,” she started, “I had to distance myself from being the family carer. It was fine growing up, but now that I’m well past adulthood, that had to change.”

She briefly paused to check if we were still comfortable sharing.

“I just had to create space for myself, for my own life, and for them to grow into what they need to become.”

I managed to squeeze in a compliment.

“But even in that,” she continued, “I still have to teach them how to be independent, manage, and take responsibility. To be family even if—”

She faltered slightly, and I could hear in her voice that it was a recent revelation.

“—even if that, family, is something I may not have for myself.”

That utterly broke my heart. She told me how nearing forty made her life crash at thirty-nine. I let her know my crash came at thirty.

“You deserve to have that,” I said, because I meant it.

“Thank you,” she said—all voice.

“No,” I admitted, and had to go to that place where I always feel awkward. “That year we worked together? What I’ve taken with me is you. I—”

This is one of the few instances where English falls short compared to Norwegian.

“Jeg ble glad i deg,” I said.

"Jeg er glad i deg" translates into something that floats somewhere between "I'm fond of you" and "I love you." It’s richer than anything the English language can offer.

I heard the tension fall from her voice, somewhere between genuine happiness and being uncomfortably flattered.

“Oh, thank you!” she said. “I really needed to hear that today.”

And she repaid my honesty with her own. She felt the same way.

“I’ve got to go,” she said suddenly, “but that coffee we talked about?”

She reminded me of a four-year-old promise.

“Yes,” I said.

“No, not like those other times. A commitment. I text you, and we have coffee, okay?”

“I’d like that. Very much,” I admitted.

“What days work best for you?”

“Tuesdays or Wednesdays. I’ll be most likely to be in the city.”

“I’ll text you,” she said.

But I didn’t let her end it there.

“It was good hearing your voice again.”

There was a pause—and then a breath.

“Yes. Same. I’ll text you.”

And then she was gone, and I couldn’t return to my work. Her voice filled all the nooks and crannies in my head, and I thought about a coffee place and her. And me.

When my wife came home, I told her about the phone call, and she was as surprised as I was at her calling me.

“She said I was smart,” I smiled.

“You are, honey,” my wife answered.

To kids, twins reaching their teenage years, the boy with multiple diagnoses, the girl too much like her father in his teens, had taken a toll on our marriage. We weren’t hostile, just tired, but there was still love.

No passion. Just love, but sometimes that’s all you need. The last few years had been more about surviving and holding on to each other than weekend getaways and romance. But we accepted it.

The phone call drifted into memory, then forgetfulness, wiped by family duties, work, and the small spaces in between. I didn’t forget about it; I just misplaced it for a while.

This is why I wasn’t startled when the text came; I could place it and smile again. It was a Wednesday, so I was at work. I smiled when her name lit up the screen, and when I read it.

It’s Wednesday.

My co-worker across the desk looked up at me and asked about the smile.

“An old friend,” I said. “With old memories.”

So it is. You thinking today? I texted back.

I checked my calendar and thought of an excuse. I don’t lie to my wife very often, and I wasn’t sure this warranted one either. I could tell her I was meeting a friend for coffee. I tapped my fingers on my desk, and my co-worker hushed me with a friendly smile. She was about to say something when my phone buzzed again.

Yes. Are you free? Or another day? I thought… after work, maybe?

I told her, no, it was fine. When and where?

“You coming for lunch, Morten?” my co-worker asked.

I told her no. Maybe. Later. Go ahead.

I didn’t have lunch that day, and I stood at the corner by the theatre and the railway station and looked at the wooden door in front of me. Why did I hesitate? Because I hadn’t felt like this in seven years, and I’d changed my afternoon plan for no better reason than to hear her voice.

Maybe I should have turned around, walked the fifty yards or so to the station, found my next train home, and forget about her, like I still pretend to do, and come up with a lie about how something came up, and let her fade.

But you have never heard her voice. If you had, you would have entered as well and sat by the small table in the back. Away from the windows, nestled in half-dark and five minutes early.

“Anything for you, sir?” the barista offered, with a smile that must have melted many hearts.

I thanked her and told her I thought I was waiting for someone.

“A little advice?” she asked. “Don’t wait too long.”

I waited longer. I let her be ten minutes late and stared at my phone. Maybe she knew better than me; maybe she was smarter than me. At the very least, she was better with people than I was. Maybe she didn’t fret about the small stuff like I did, which could be why I never noticed her enter.

Not until her voice woke me from my panic-ridden excuses.

“Hey, stranger,” she said, and I was glad I hadn’t ordered coffee.

I jumped clumsily and almost knocked the table over.

God—she was beautiful.

“Sorry,” I muttered, wondering what now.

“What? No hug?” she teased, her voice and words coiling around me like spellcraft.

We hadn’t hugged often, but seven years ago, we’d left one neither of us wanted to let go of. She smelled of clean hair, a faint perfume, and the sweat of an ended workday, and I didn’t want to let go.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “I’ve missed your hugs.”

The barista smiled again, took our orders, and told us to wait at the table.

I sat. She sat. We sat.

“So?” she said. “What’s new?”

I told her about the kids, marital struggles, and life eating at the soul slowly, like the tongue of a cat licking away the layers so gently you didn’t notice anything—until all you felt was the sting. Then I realized I wasn’t boozing to a hooker or bitching to a friend. She didn’t need the story of my life.

“How about you?” I asked, because I was afraid I’d burnt the conversation down.

“So painstakingly like yours,” she laughed, “but more lonely. I envy your pain, Morten.”

Did I tell you about her laugh already? She doesn’t laugh the way other women do. It sits deep in her gut, and each laugh is a warm breath on a cold night.

“I didn’t go to college in the States and deny the orgies so I could become forty and share a coffee with my favorite co-worker,” she continued, “but look at me now, Morten.”

I hadn’t done anything but look at her, and with each word that escaped her beautiful lips, I was drawn deeper into her sorrow. It felt bottomless and undeservedly dark.

“I didn’t study sociology so I could become the thesis. I didn’t want to spend my time working in a system that continually fails while the government spends money on management and cuts things at the root. I feel rotten. Used. Chewed.”

She didn’t look chewed—just tired. But just around the edges.

Her eyes were still her own.

Did I ever tell you about her eyes? They’re bottomless with kindness, but at the same time, they flow with endless seduction, caught somewhere between empathy and need.

“And I hoped that my family would have grown once I returned. But they had stagnated so much that I became a mother to my parents. Do you know how much that hurts, Morten?”

It wasn’t a question for me to answer, and our barista interrupted with our drinks. I wished we were at a bar; maybe the girl with the smile could have conjured up something strong enough to give me the balls to be the man I should have been.

“You’re wishing I wasn’t a Muslim,” she giggled. “You’re dying for a beer right now, right?”

She was right—and wrong—at the same time. Yes, I’d have loved a beer just about then.
But to exchange that for her, and for that moment?

Never.

“I’m good,” I said.

She took my hands and smiled at me.

“Yes, Morten. You are.”

She cried a little. Just enough to wet her eyes and let a single tear streak her cheek. She pulled a tissue from her purse and dried her eyes.

“Sorry,” she coughed, and it still sounded like velvet.

“Don’t be,” I said, before it could slip away. “You’re beautiful.”

Her eyes darted to the tabletop, but only briefly.

“Thank you, Morten,” she said as her hands found mine again and her eyes locked on mine.

“Perhaps I wish I wasn’t Muslim as well—I think this would be easier with a beer.”

She leaned in too close—hot, irresistible to retreat from—like it was now or never, and all her life had come down to this one moment.

“I want to have your baby,” she whispered.

I choked on air. Only the thunder of my heartbeat let me know I wasn’t stuck in a freeze-frame, but everything else? Still. Dead still. The street outside the window, now dressed in dusk and light rain, was quiet; the girl at the counter seemed frozen in time with her phone.

And the eyes before me?

Lost in the deepest sadness and clinging to a whispered hope.

I formed letters into words in the sand in my mouth, but they refused to come out coherent.

“Donor,” I said at long last.

I knew I couldn’t have that conversation with my wife, but technically, it couldn’t be considered cheating, could it?

“No, Morten,” she whispered. “I can’t… there’s not enough time for that.”

I swallowed—still sand.

“What. You mean…”

“Like man and woman, Morten. Surely you’re familiar with the concept?”

I’m glad she laughed.

“I’m taking hormone shots, and… well, this is the window. This week. Can you do that, Morten?”

Have you ever heard a plea so fragile it was born on a single strand of spiderweb and served on the softest velvet?

Would you have refused?

Could you?

She took my hand, and we almost forgot to pay the barista. Her apartment was two blocks away, and we didn’t say a single word until her door shut behind us.

She could barely face her reflection in the wall-to-ceiling mirror in her hallway, but she could meet my eyes.

“You can’t be good, Morten,” she pleaded. “You have to promise.”

“I…”

“Promise,” she whispered as she undressed.

It felt strange walking out onto the streets. She hadn’t looked at me; she’d barely made a sound. I knew where the velvet came from, but I can’t say we felt good.

Thank you, she texted as the train left the platform.

We met the following day but skipped the coffee. She didn’t make me promise, and it felt better.

On the third day, her eyes stayed on mine, and my heart broke as she moaned in velvet.

Then the window closed, and she let me know.

I was caught between wanting to hear from her and hoping I didn’t. We met for coffee again four weeks later, and my wife was patient about my overtime.

That last night. It wasn’t supposed to happen, but I ended up staying overnight. It was all her fault because she kissed me, and I couldn’t say no to those lips.

Neither could you.

I haven’t heard from her since.