A Block at the Net

Notes from the author: Hello again everyone. For this story, I will return to a contemporary setting; I hope you enjoy this office romance and wish you both a pleasant and exciting read.

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1. The Cancelled Game

"Louis, que paso?" Upon hearing that lament, Louis-Charles Leclerc swiveled on his chair, away from his Excel spreadsheet and now facing the brooding Yasmina Bonilla, standing tall in his office doorway. She did not elaborate and she did not need to.

"I'm sorry, Yasmina, the Clerk's Office booked the gymnasium all week for the upcoming zoning referendum. So no volley-ball for us... and we all gain 10 pounds in time for our next game."

Yasmina stayed in the doorway. That in itself was unusual. She was the most recent addition to the Planning and Sustainability Department and an extremely shy one. Louis always marveled that, despite her being noticeably taller than he was - he figured she was in fact about 6 ft. tall - he NEVER saw any part of her over the screen delineating her office cubicle. Nor did he ever hear a single one of her decibels contributing to the humdrum of the Geomatics team where she worked. Even though Louis never saw her with any other expression than a heartfelt smile, they seldom did more than meet and greet or cross paths. Except, of course, when they played together in their office volley-ball league.

"You always say that when a game is cancelled, Louis... and you shouldn't. Even I can see that you have lost weight since my arriving here... you should be proud of your effort!"

But Louis could not take himself seriously even if the fate of the universe depended on it. He replied "proud of chewing the cud like a cow..." and put a handful of Shreddies cereals in his mouth to press his point. As part of his early forties shakeup plan, he had forsaken his beloved Smarties and Reese's cups for whole wheat cereals as office munchies.

To his dismay, she stayed there to watch him chew! That unprecedented attention from this statuesque beauty caused Louis to bite his inside lip and curse inwardly. She was wearing tight jeans, the kind that are professionally ripped to expose parts of the legs and knees, flat moccasins with no socks and a loose red t-shirt... and even in that apparel he thought she should be walking fashion runways instead of drawing digital maps and creating geodatabases. When he finished chewing, he carried on

"...at least, the beach volley-ball meet is still on for tomorrow evening and it looks like the weather will be perfect. Now, are you sure you want to play with me? There is still time to switch around, you know..."

"No, no! It will be perfect, Louis, and it will be fun!"

"You are right at that, Yasmina... but I was wondering about maybe pairing you with a player more on par with your talent level..." That was sincere, as Yasmina had wowed everybody since her very first game in their cramped City Hall gymnasium "...and I will remind you that I am still waiting for those pictures... I just might start Googling instead!" Upon learning that Yasmina had actually written "volley-ball" somewhere in her resume, Louis kept jokingly insinuating for all to hear that Yasmina was a former player of the Argentina National Selection and playfully demanded to see pictures and mementos on a regular basis.

"You wish! And stop looking for someone who does not exist... I am glad to play with you!" Louis did not know Yasmina well enough to decipher her tones and, as he was unsure if that last argument was vanity for her or a compliment to him, he changed the subject.

"Have you ever played beach volley-ball, Yasmina? For my part, I only play once a year at the HR meet."

"I used to play sometimes... but I have to watch my back... so I will trust you to dive for the balls!"

"You're injured? Then you shouldn't play..."

"Not injured, Louis... but I have had corrective surgeries done... it's like my centre of gravity is changing... anyway, that's why I don't jump and I hold myself back when I play." Louis sneered at that admission, thinking to himself they really did not share the same definition for "not jumping" or "holding oneself back" while recalling her past indoor performances.

"OK then... see you tomorrow!" This time, her continuous smile dimmed and she almost ran away back to her cubicle.

Louis was puzzled by her behavior, as if she had just said something she shouldn't have, but he shrugged it to her shyness and returned to his hopeless Origin/Destination model. Truth was, he did look forward to playing with her and he had to motivate himself real hard to get back to a work he really couldn't care less about.

2. The Beach Party

Louis was chiding himself for being almost late to an event he helped organize. He was running alongside the college grounds where the City rented the volley-ball courts and barely made it for the group picture that was always taken at the beginning of the annual beach volley-ball HR meet. He only met Yasmina, for the first time that day, while warming up before their first game. "There you are! Puchica you had me worried! What happened?"

"...heuuu..." was all Louis could muster, as his brain was in shock from the sight of her in a jet black two-piece bikini, a sun visor, her long black hair plaited in a single braid and, if it was possible to conceive, a more radiant smile than usual. Her natural skin tan seemed in perfect contrast between the late afternoon sunlight and the beige sand of the courts.

When he finished resetting his nervous system, he confessed in shame "... wall-to-wall meetings and the transit buses were late today, caught in the downtown rush hour traffic. I am truly sorry if you thought I was ditching you. Now, I have to say you look truly spectacular... sorry if I dress more pragmatically." He was indeed, clad in a very loose black swimming trunk, a baseball cap and an oversized plain sky blue polo shirt with its collar upturned.

"Pragmatically for what?" She was giggling... and yet Louis felt - or hoped - she was still sizing him up.

"For having my annual mega-sunburn and ingesting sand through every conceivable orifice..."

"Demasiado details! All right mister, let's play ball!" And she patted him on the butt. She really did. His heart skipped a beat, probably two. But, seeing she was now focused on her serve, he set that jolt aside and got ready for his block at the net.

Well, play ball they did: her with all her talent and aplomb, him with all his heart. At 5 ft. 9 in. and 194 lbs., Louis never was, and never will be, athlete material; but he had a good instinct for the game and, as he knew these courts well and trusted the quality of their sand, he was fearless in his dives... there were many, and some of those were epic ones. He had also a knack for pushing Yasmina to outdo herself with banter, without making it feel like pressure. They laughed together at almost every point, both in victory and defeat. As promised, those two hours were pure fun in the sun.

It was after the meet that Louis followed Yasmina in a journey through what he considered the dark side. As usual, while taking the group picture, the organizers had asked who would be interested in an aftergame outing. Louis expected, as usual, that nobody in the Planning team would attend, most of them being parents of young children or otherwise uninterested in socializing.

However, Yasmina raised her hand, giggling and obviously excited at the prospect of a night out. She was looking at Louis expectantly, her eyes and smile doing all the talking, and Louis' hand rose by itself. The subject came up again after their games, while Louis was doing his best to dust himself. "Are you sure you want to go out with the gang, Yasmina? Won't your husband mind?"

"Naaa... it's his night with the kids... and it will do us a world of good! I've heard that The Shaker is a really cool place!"

Louis kept to himself that the only feedback he ever heard about "The Shaker" was the recurrent number of police cars required to intervene every night. "All right then... I figure I can be your designated driver and surrogate dance partner for one evening."

Yayyy! Thank you, Louis!"

---

Without going so far as calling it a generation gap, Louis figured that the fact Yasmina was in her early 30s, opposite to his 41 years of age, accounted for their different perspectives of the nightclub of choice. As the group arrived in the early evening, the outing was all about eating delicious tartars and exchanging volley-ball war stories between friends and colleagues. But as the night crowd started overtaking the establishment, Louis saw youngsters in overly priced designer clothes popping pills without having a headache, drinking to excess either alcohol or caffeine drinks and setting themselves up either for a one-night stand or a vomiting session in the parking lot, all the while paying a small fortune in the process. For her part, Yasmina, nursing the second of what looked like a mojito in a Mason jar, looked like she was thriving vicariously on the general buzz of the dance floor and the real acoustic buzz from the volume of the music.

"Wow! I can see you really like this place!" Louis almost shouted to her, as they were seated on one of the last inside tables for patrons, which the staff was in the process of removing to clear room for dancing.

"Sure I do!!! This is greaaat! Look around! Rich or poor, homo or hetero, singles or couples, everybody just wants to have a good time! To live life! Nobody judges, nobody cares!" As she made her plea, she indeed discreetly pointed to several specimen of the clientele, all unconcerned, to make her point. "And now, I want to dance! Come on!!!"

"I'm right behind you! And remember what you said about not judging!" While performing what for him passed as dancing, Louis recalled one of his lectures on acoustics, telling his audience that between the 90 dB mark and the pain threshold, the vibrations of the eardrum stimulate physically the brain; he was laughing at himself, now a living demonstration of that fact, shaking and pirouetting his body to the rhythm of some thundering hip-hop and reggae soundtrack he would normally despise! And he kept at it for more than an hour, even going so far as bumping and slamming Yasmina, to her great delight.

Louis had a lot of anxiety to purge and he did so with abandon. He also learned two things during this sweaty exercise; one, Yasmina was a dancer a pure fluid motion and of a talent that made him want to just sit down and drown his eyes in the sight of her; two, she was strong and massive, as she barely moved on even the strongest of their body slams, to the point that an amused Louis would check for bruises before going to sleep, which he hoped would be soon. He was saved by his own bladder and eventually had to excuse himself to the bathroom.

"It's nice you got him out to have some fun, Yasmina... you take care of him, all right?"

"Oh! Hi Nathalie! Sure I will... but why do you say it like that?"

"Because I've known him for more than 10 years and the little I know of his personal life amounts to one broken promise after the other; because his professional life is turning out the same way and I miss his old happy self; because he is a romantic and he obviously has a crush on you."

"He does? How do you know?"

"Before the Department reorganization, we worked in the same team and were close. Louis has been divorced for a long time, Yasmina. When his daughter was young, she was his focal point of existence but, now that she has moved back to Montreal, he's all alone. He's had crushes over women of the Department throughout the years... and I'm pretty sure he told all of them; so ask him, he is as transparent as he is honest. But he is also extremely old-fashioned, so you need not worry - he will never act on his feelings by fear of being a home wrecker. Anyway..."

Hey, Nathalie! Good to see you have to energy to survive this place!!! But you should really let this beautiful muchacha dance! And how the hell can you two carry a conversation in that ruckus?!?" To this day, Louis-Charles cannot scientifically explain that feminine ability.

"Shut up and dance, then, pretty boy!" And she punched him on the elbow and they danced as a threesome for a couple of minutes, until Nathalie excused herself for some much needed beauty sleep. Yasmina and Louis danced together some more, resuming their bumping and grinding, and after having her Mason jar refilled with a bright colored concoction - Louis hoped it was a tequila sunrise and not something stronger - Yasmina motioned him to follow her outside. Once they found a spot not too close to the crowd of smokers, they sat on a table in the terrace and enjoyed the night sky.

"Thank you, Louis... I have had so much fun tonight... and it had been so long!"

"It was my pleasure to accompany and watch you, Madame. Your husband doesn't take you out to dance?"

"My hus... huh, no... he hates it; and he is often sore, from his construction work..."

"Haaa... well that's a shame... I mean, I know you're a real talented part of the GEO team and you will probably lead it one day but, believe me, after what I have seen today, I can tell you would have done just as great as a bikini model or a professional dancer." Yasmina blushed in the darkness. Whereas Louis had to change back into his office summer clothing before entering the club, Yasmina had just put on a light robe over her bikini and she looked stunning.

"Louis, are you sure you only consumed Diet Pepsi this evening?"

"Absolutely! Which brings us to the subject of the drive home. Where do you live?"

"I'm not drunk! I can return home!"

"Famous last words! You, Madame, will not drive unless you find me a breath analyzer that confirms you are under the legal limit... and I wish you good luck with that!"

"But it's ridiculous! I live in Cantley! You can't just drive me home! How will you return to your place?"

"You will call me a cab once you are home. I will wait outside, out of sight... no need to make your husband jealous for no reason. Does that sound like a plan?"

"Wow... huh, well, yes, actually... all right Louis, you win... let me go the ladies' room and I will hand over my keys."

Louis got acquainted with her SUV and started the journey North to Cantley. As the core of the Ottawa-Gatineau region was pivotal in the fur trade business, later the lumber industry, its heart has always been the Ottawa River. The corollary of that 300-year History is that most of the inland suburbs of those two cities are starkly rural, with isolated residences on large properties. Cantley was no exception, but Louis was familiar with the undulating narrow mountain road he was driving on, as it also led to his favorite golf course. Still, it was dark and he kept his focus on his driving, until Yasmina startled him with a slurred question. "Louisss, do you have a crushhh on me?"

"Huh...sure I do, Yasmina... you are beautiful, athletic, smart as a whip and your smile always warms my heart when you tell me hello. I think you're a very special woman and, had we met in Argentina 15 years ago, I would have learned Spanish and courted you like there was no tomorrow. Don't worry about me now, though: I just want you to be happy, both at home and at work. But you can definitely count on my friendship if you want it, all right? ... Yasmina?" Louis only heard a soft snoring as her sole reply. Mindful of the dark road, he stopped on the shoulder before making sure she was alright.

He watched her dozed off... then heard a soft moan and saw something out of proportion: there was a bulge rising from her bikini bottom. Louis was stunned. He forwarded his hand but, in the end, could not dare himself to touch it. As soon as he was sure that she was alright and that he had regained control of his nerves, he resumed driving her home, his gaze intently fixed on the road but his ears completely focused on the moans rooted out in her dream. He wished it would be over by the time she was home, but it was not so.

He guessed, correctly, that she would wake up when he turned off the ignition. When he heard her gasp, he carried out his planned routine: he looked at her house, then turned and watched her straight in the eyes when handing out her keys. "There you go, Yasmina... you are home. Thank you again for convincing me to go out with you... I had a wonderful evening. I will wait for the cab beside the hedge over there, if that's okay with you."

Despite his benevolent smile and all his effort, Yasmina could only muster a terrified "huh huh..." grab her keys and dash home.

Another difference between Gatineau and his native Montreal, Louis knew, was that here the taxi permits were not overabundant. A good thing for the drivers, as they can earn a decent living, but for him right now it meant being patient without falling asleep. The wait did yield another surprise, however, as the first car pulling over was not his cab, but another SUV with a motherly figure at the wheel. When it left with a teenage passenger inside, Louis instantly thought: babysitter. Then the deluge of questions breached his own restraints and flooded his mind. Why a babysitter? How could I grind her and not feel that bulge? Were her surgeries for her breasts? How does her husband feel about this? And her family? Did she adopt her sons? Never had Louis been so relieved to see a cab... when he got aboard he could not resist a peek back at the house and he saw Yasmina at the window. She left before he could wave her goodbye.

3. The wake-up call

When he finally made it home, Louis knew that sleep would have to wait some more. He crawled miserably in his shower to wash off the remaining sand, some of which had chaffed his skin during his dancing performance. The water soothed him and, after drying himself, he called upon music for added comfort. He fell asleep with his IPod playing in loop What's Going On by 4 Non Blondes, which he felt pretty much summed up his inner turmoil.

Louis slept through his breakfast, slept during his bus trip and somehow sleepwalked to his office... to be met by an awaiting Yasmina, trembling and pale as a ghost. There was no smile for him this morning. As contrivances go, it would also figure that they are two of the few employees who start at 8h00 instead of 8h30. Louis was having a few silent choice words for Murphy and his law as he opened his office door. She engulfed herself inside as soon as possible, then locked the door and angled the inside window slats. Louis tried to remain unperturbed. "How are you, this morning, Yasmina?"

"Please cut the small-talk, Louis! You can see how terrified I am!"

"See yes... understand no..."

"Louis, did you see me yesterday? When you drove me home?"

So there it was. Louis searched for the best course of action... to realize he was too tired for elaborate diplomacy, so he fell back to his usual honesty. "Yes I did, Yasmina; I even pulled over, for a moment, to make sure you were alright."

"So now you know..."

"Yes, does it matter?"

"You're kidding, right? I don't even have my permanence yet! And I need this career, Louis! I..."

"This is what it's all about? You're worried about a disguised discriminating termination? Yasmina, for that to happen, first of all management would have to know, which implies you think I would tell. Second, it would take a homophobic jerk to make that kind of illegal move... Daniel may be a lot of things, but a bigot he is not." No matter how rational was his logic, Yasmina saw the hurt in his expression and tone.

"Louis, stop it please! Do you think I have the energy to manage YOUR feelings? You're the social hub of the place. EVERYONE comes in your office for advice or gossip! Can you at least grasp that I'm entitled be a little worried that my secret could slip? And how can you stand up for a Director who you are currently suing for psychological harassment?"