Ceci flattened the back of her hand upon her carpet, to enable me to climb up into her palm. Kneeling, I hugged her thumb as she swiftly lifted me to her desk, where I disembarked and straightened my shirt and tie and caught my breath after my hasty five-minute sprint down the hallway. She reclined in her office chair, which doesn’t really recline, so she was forced to scoot her butt far forward and slump.

She wrapped her arms around her chest, pushing her breasts up until her shirt formed a nearly perfectly flat platform beneath her chin. To this day I cannot discern whether this is a crass tease or some genuine, nonchalant cluelessness on her part. “How’s your afternoon going?” she murmured through a comical double-chin. Her eyes went preemptively half-lidded.