“Are you an author or professor or something?” she timidly asked. Credence had ridden on the elevator with him a dozen times and increasingly wondered about him. He seemed so dignified? What was this magnetism she felt for him? Maybe he was dangerous to her, could perhaps hurt her, take advantage of her or even kill her? Why did he never come to the potlucks? He was civil, even friendly to her but it had never gone beyond the usual pleasantries and a sentence or two.

His look of amusement caused her to feel like a child. “I’m or something.” He said.

He was aging but looked as if he could still be dangerous. She never saw him doing anything but leaving or arriving. From where had he come? Where was he going?

He had a fleshy, rugged face that caused her to wonder if he was a warrior or of a professor? What did he teach? Credence wondered how he would sound reciting Shakespeare, or explaining relativity, or Tax Law. Surely he was not a janitor? Would it matter if she found him with a floor polisher in his powerful looking hands?

His beard was shaggy and untrimmed and his salt and pepper hair made him look like some fierce Warrior! What would she do if he knocked down her door and took her in his arms? Her lurid fantasy caused her to quiver momentarily and then Credence guiltily tried to conceal the frission of sensation that swept through her. She knew it was futile because when it passed she had to take two steps back to regain her balance. How humiliating!

Completely scandalized, Credence fled toward her apartment as soon as the elevator door opened. She fumbled with the key, dropping it, clattering onto the stone floor twice before she got it in the lock and gained entry to her tiny dwelling. Her back against the closed door, Credence felt so silly! “How will I ever face him again?” She asked herself.

Credence was completely in the thrall of her discomfiture, when there came a knock to the door. It was so unexpected, that she screamed outrageously! She turned and almost fell on her own purse that she had dropped on the floor when she came in.

“Oh dear, what shall I do now?” She nervously asked herself. “What if it is him? Looking into the view port, she could see an eye looking in!” Oh, dear, it was him! Feeling completely resigned, Credence opened the door. “Here, you dropped your package in the elevator.” He said as he smiled at her. He handed her the discarded package and turning walked to his own door. He did not fumble with the key, and entered, closing the door behind him.

Later, after sitting at her vanity, she calmed. Her life seemed more normal now. Credence walked into the kitchen and seeing her package opened it. The toothpaste and soap were there. She almost did not notice the small card lying in the bottom of the sack. Credence set the sack back on the counter, and set about pouring herself three fingers of something stiff. She’d not look in the sack until she was sufficiently fortified.