Please Don't Touch The Mouse Like That, Sir

Have you ever inadvertently touched someone�s penis after they accidentally told you they love you? Tell me it�s not just me.

I work with Mickey Mouse, okay, not THE Mickey, but someone who reminds me a great deal of Mickey, the Mickey from Fantasia, the Sorcerer�s Apprentice? He�s childlike and friendly. You kind of want to pinch his cheeks, but you know he�s nothing but trouble and the next thing you know broomsticks are marching into your life and flooding it with buckets of grief.

So Mickey tends to make me a little nervous, as most actuaries do. He�s a nice enough guy, but still. I found myself in his office late one afternoon discussing some work or something, when suddenly the discussion started to turn more and more personal. He�d obviously overheard things that confused him, but he didn�t want to come right out and ask anything too abruptly. �Why do you never talk about your wife, yet I know you�re married because you have a wedding ring on your left hand and you live way out in the country in a big house when everyone else your age in the office lives in Manhattan?� is what he really wanted to ask but he started to ease into it a little. He started with the slightly more subtle questions, but right from the start I could sense the broomsticks approaching.

With each question my panic started growing, because while I know where all these questions eventually lead, and I�ve seen them lead there dozens of times now, I still have no idea how to handle it. I would love to have, �I�m a fag, alright!� tattooed on my forehead for the perceptively challenged, but as it is, I have to deal with this over and over in uncomfortable work situations where people give me about 3 months and finally just break down and say, �Alright, what�s the deal with you?�

About 20 minutes into the line of questioning, I was finally desperate enough to just end the conversation and get on with my life on the other side of that office door, so I ever so eloquently said, �well� I, ummm� It�s not that� well, you know, uh� I�m not married, exactly, but not by choice� eh, I am in a committed relationship, with, um, uh, a� guy.�

I get deer in headlights as the words swirl around between those gigantic mouse ears.

�I�m gay.�

During this stammering, my face is glowing brighter and brighter red � remember this is evil Mickey I�m talking to, and while Disney may support Gay Days at Disney World, I still don�t think Mickey wants to be locked in an office discussing sex life with one of us. As soon as I let out the secret word, I breathed a sigh of relief, and the redness drained from my face, and then it climbed directly onto his. �Oh� my� well� that�s something� Uh, it was nice talking to you, but I have a lot of work to finish up here, so, ah� you know��

Unfortunately, at work when you make an ass out of yourself, you can�t just avoid the person�s calls forever like after a bad date, you�re forced to keep working together day after day - it�s torture, but luckily we never spoke of it again, much to my liking. Then, yesterday, we found ourselves alone in his office, sitting in the same chairs, door closed, having an eerily similar conversation to the one that lead up to �um, uh, a� guy�. We�re talking about work and I mentioned how I did something exactly the way he wanted it done, and he�s so happy with my work that he blurts out, �I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!!� And then it hits him, �um, uh, a� guy�.

We both got incredibly nervous and embarrassed and wanted to run screaming from the room as if someone had just unleashed a virus on his desk that we might still escape. Although we were working quite closely together on a number of things that day, we managed to avoid each other for the most part. Then, he had to tell me some information that was not yet public about a work situation, so instead of calling me into the dreaded office of shame and embarrassment, he walks up to me as I�m standing at the printer in the hallway, and he gets close enough behind me to talk softly and not be overheard. Problem is, he�s too quiet, and I don�t know he�s there, until I pivot and swing my arm down to my side, preparing to reach in the cabinet below the printer to get more paper. Before my hand could get to the paper, it brushed up against the crotch of his pants, and there I was in the middle of the office touching his penis.

When I realized what I had just done, I looked up into his face with this look of horror on my face, my mouth distorted into a silent scream. I pulled my hand into my chest like I�d just burned it on the stove. He spoke first, but I have no idea what he said, as my head was already too occupied with the thoughts, �This guy just told me he loved me, and then I touched his penis, oh dear god, what I�m going to tell my boyfriend.�