The Boob Flash

The year was 1988 or thereabouts.  I was working at an agency in downtown Boston.  In a tall, skyscraper type building, located at 101 Arch Street to be exact.

One day, the windows were being washed.  By a very hot guy.  Needless to say that all of the young women in the office, about 5 or 6 of us, had congregated in the hallway outside of the office of the windows he was cleaning. 

We thought he would not be able to see us if we stood in the hallway (we didn’t want him to think us rude or make him feel uncomfortable), though we could see him clearly.  Very clearly.  Did I mention he was hot?

As he completed that office’s windows, he slid himself over to the next office’s windows.  We shuffled ourselves like we were a single entity down the hallway to the next office where we continued our grazing, er, gazing.

This was the scene upon which Karin, beautiful, Nordic , graphic designer Karin, arrived.  She of the palest of pale skin, bluest of blue eye, and perfectly straight , sleek, shiny, long blond, blondest of blond, hair.

Karin was very nice.  But I never knew what quite to think when she would tell some of her stories. 

For instance, one day, when JFK, Jr. was on the cover of People Magazine’s, Sexiest Man Alive issue, and some of us (probably the same group ogling the window washer) were looking at the magazine together (did we never do any work?!), she said,

“Oh, that’s great that John won.  He and I dated for quite awhile.  See how thick and curly his hair is? I used to love running my fingers through his hair. Especially when we were having sex.” 

And she would say it like it was just another moment in an ordinary life.  Akin to, “Oh, I just stopped at Dunkin’, anybody want a donut?” 

I mean, what do you even say to something like that? (the JFK, Jr comment not the Dunkin’ comment, to be clear). Nothing actually. Nobody said anything and we all assumed she was just making it up.

Same with all the other guys she said she dated.  Guys such as Michael Hutchence from INXS,  and Mick Jagger  (pretty sure I don’t have to qualify that name with, ‘from The Rolling Stones’), are two others that I can recall.

One day, sensing our disbelief, she shared her little leatherbound phone book with us (pre cell phone days obvz).  And there were all the guys she had mentioned with their names and phone numbers. 

I mean, she could have made that up, but would anyone really go to those lengths for a fabrication?  She was beautiful enough to catch their attention that was for sure. 

I wondered if maybe she was a groupie of some sort and just randomly slept with these guys vs being in any kind of a real relationship with any of them.  Especially because a lot of them were rock stars. The movie Almost Famous had not yet been made, but it would have come to mind if it had.

Anyway, Karin saw us and asked what we were doing.  Wordlessly and without taking our eyes off the window, we simply raised our collective hand and pointed.

Karin poked her head through and in a nano second assessed his beauteousness and without a moment’s hesitation broke through our shy pod, and confidently strode to the window. 

We were aghast.  “What is she doing?” we wondered.  “She is going to blow our cover.”   But of course she had none of those concerns.  No. Not at all. 

Karin stood there for a minute and smiled at him.  Then she lifted her shirt , and pressed her naked, left boob up against the glass of the window, right at his eye level. 

In unison, our jaws dropped.  Window washer guy stopped mid-squeegee, taking it all in, probably disbelieving his good fortune and wondering why none of the other window-washers told him about this particular perk of the job.

She then grabbed a pen and a piece of paper and wrote “Meet me in the lobby” and held that up to the window for him to read.

She smiled at him again and turned smartly on her heel, strode through our shy pod with a tilt of her head, as if to say, “This is how it’s done ladies.”

And she would be right because he shimmied down that building faster than if it was on fire.  If I had to guess, something was likely on fire.  Him.

We were, all of us, quite shocked and dumbfounded.  We kind of shifted a bit on our feet.  The nucleus of the pod started to break apart and we silently, individually, drifted back to our desks.

But at the same time, I think more than a few of us were also more than a little impressed. 

 As someone who went to Catholic school for 12 years, and whose idea of doing anything risqué or bold amounted to maybe wearing a skirt that hit mid-thigh, or wearing a red lipstick instead of pink, this was opening my eyes to a whole other realm of being. 

And not just in terms of meeting men (I was newly and happily married after all). 

What I mean to say, it showed me what it meant to be empowered.  To not live your life so narrowly, to challenge some societal conventions and norms, mostly ones that put women in a box that said this is how a “proper” woman behaves and how she does not behave.  Karin was living life on her terms and apparently, from the surface anyway, enjoying every minute of it.

She returned to our floor shortly.  Her leatherbound phone book had a new name and number in it, and she had a date Friday night.

Me? I had a new way to think about life.  One with a little more daring. Maybe not boob exposing level of daring, (ok, definitely not boob exposing level; 12 years of a Catholic education die hard) but knowing what you want and not being afraid to ask or go for it level.

Amazing what a little flash of boob can accomplish.