The last time I saw William before he fired me, we were alone at the magazine’s office in New York on a Sunday, as the publisher, Nayana, expected all the copy to be edited by Monday. We worked through the morning, but by the afternoon our privacy had unfettered us.

Curiously, the office had a large collection of battery-powered massagers in addition to the usual supply of cosmetic samples. Already having rendered my modesty all but defunct in after-hours telephone conversations, William now persuaded me to try one of those devices in my chair. We sat opposite each other at his narrow desk and I gripped his sweater cuffs. I wondered why he didn’t kiss me, but was too shy to assert myself. I also felt that the intimacy we had enjoyed, which he had cajoled me into, could somehow be rationalised as something other than colleagues getting inappropriately close — maybe two friends indulging themselves innocently and separately.

He could watch me tossing my hair, flagrante in his swivel chair, but to kiss me would be a step too far. As I neared climax, I buried my face in his hands and felt him press his lips to my hair. He told me later that he’d been trying to memorise my smell.

We shared a taxi at the end of the day; he’d get off at his home on 44th and I’d continue uptown, but we got stuck in traffic while still in the Village. Minutes elapsed without us moving at all, and William sought out things in the street to stare at while I wondered if it was strange to be carrying my panties folded in my wallet. He took my hand and kissed the palm. I badly wanted to stroke his bowed head, and gathered my courage to reach my other hand out to him. He looked up as if surprised at my brazenness and I ordered him to kiss me, which he did without hesitation. At one point he took my chin in his hand, and, slowly turning my face from side to side, remarked upon my bone structure. I felt for a moment like a finely sculpted piece of bric-a-brac.

Streetlights began to streak across the cab’s ceiling; we no longer had our happy traffic jam to hide in. I kissed him again and tried to guide his hand, stalled between the layers of my sweaters, down, but his fingers had barely grazed the part in question as the cab slowed to the corner of 44th and 10th, and his cell phone rang, and he stopped my mouth with his hand to stifle my cursing. I could hear Nayana’s voice as William listened to her, his forehead in the crook of my neck. He replied: “I’m right downstairs, honey; I’m coming up.”

I used my thumb to wipe traces of lipstick from his mouth and he stumbled out of the cab and on to the street. As the cab drove away, I watched him out of the back window, slumped against the wall of his building, his scarf dangling at his feet and his head in his hand.

Do you have an affair to remember? E-mail your 400-word story to loveaffair@thetimes.co.uk

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