Barbara stood there, her arms crossed around her full bosom, with one eyebrow cocked. Some call her the ice queen behind her back, others are more direct, throwing names like frigid bitch in secret. Me? I just call her lady boss or Ms Barbara. Honestly, I was too worried about job security to join in the idle water cooler gossip. But I had always wondered what a looker like Ms Barbara was still doing at the office. She was in her early thirties, this piece of privileged information privy only to me because I had connections with the human resource department. If she made the slightest of efforts, she would have probably been able to marry some professional or rich guy ages ago and not have to work anymore.

Yet the truth was that she was not married, and she worked the hell out of her job, and she was standing in the doorway observing me on a Friday night.

"Ms Barbara?" I ventured, wondering if she was daydreaming.

"You're wondering why I'm not married. Why even after so many years on the job I haven't found a husband and retired early, right?" She spoke at last! And she also read my thoughts exactly.

"No miss, I-"

"Don't. Lie. To. me." Barbara spoke tersely, looking me straight in the eye. I felt that familiar jolt of fear surged up my spine. She seemed so confident, so self-assured, how could a puny man like me ever compete? If you did not see or hear her in person, many a mere mortal might wrongly mistake her for a man instead.

She stepped forwardly slowly, my heartbeat rising with every inch of distance between us shortened. Until she stood right in my personal space, too close for comfort.

"Well..." She started, "Let me tell you why I'm not married." Her perfume smelled of flowers with a dominating rosy undertone. Intoxicating. Barbara was an entire head shorter than me, yet why was it me that felt so small in her presence?

"You see..." her voice reeked of business, and sex, especially sex.