I made a really big mistake and I’d like to blame Elise, which isn’t very adult of me.

I got to Jo’s early afternoon yesterday, with my laptop and a load of books, and we worked straight for about five hours. We still had some to do, because we have to try to think of all kinds of different angles because we don’t have access to Deborah’s accounts yet, as they’re all on her secure system. So all we can do is use what’s publicly available and try to come up with questions that need answering from the private files. But we got to the point where Jo thinks I’ve got enough to go in there, and that will be by myself, on Wednesday! I’m both nervous and excited.

Anyway, Jo ordered a takeaway, and we finished up about nine-thirty, and she said if ever she needed a couple of glasses of wine then today was the day. Then she apologised for taking away the Saturday evening of a “young person”, when I should be out partying. I said I’d had plenty of partying last night and would rather have a quiet evening. She said I could just go home if I wanted to but I said today had actually been quite good fun, which sounds weird but we were working together, and now we get to have a bit of a chat. Jo actually agreed, although she said she’d rather not spend every Saturday afternoon working. I can get behind that.

She asked me about last night and I couldn’t work out what to tell her. I did say I was with this girl called Elise and we went to a gay bar. She said she’d not been for a long time but they could be a bit outrageous. I said that there was this completely naked woman there (that’ll be me!) and she was mouth open and said “that would just be so sexy in my mind but I just couldn’t imagine what it’s like in real life”, and I said “it was even sexier in real life. And she was dancing with everyone, and then she got this other girl naked too,” and Jo was listening attentively, and then without thinking, and because I’d been on the wine, I added “Being naked in front of a load of people is a lot of fun.”

Luckily she didn’t assume that I was talking about myself last night but she said “Wait. You can’t just end like that. When on earth have you been naked in front of a load of people?”

I was giggling now and I had to be careful, but I said it was kind of what turned me on to women the first time, because I was having dinner with a boyfriend at the time and a lesbian couple and between the three of them they somehow convinced me to strip off. I didn’t tell her it was Ha for obvious reasons… But I said since then it had happened a few more times. (A few! Ha! Like hundreds.) and it was always a bit of playful fun, but then I was pretty much seduced by a woman and well, I shrugged and covered it all with “you know”, and then there was no looking back.

Jo said she definitely didn’t know, because she’d never been seduced, naked or otherwise. I said she should try it because I thought she was still really attractive and she said “I noticed you said ‘still'” and I realised I could have worded it better.

Anyway, I said that she should just give up on me, take it from me, and let herself be seduced by a naked lesbian. She said that sounded like the kind of thing that was literally never going to happen to her and she was resigned to her spinsterhood. I said I was actually pretty comfortable naked a lot more now, and she said I was lucky and she said I was very lucky.

Anyway, all those old feelings towards Jo came back, and I thought that maybe it was my job to convert her, and maybe she’d be happier if she just opened her eyes a bit. And Elise had made me promise that if I felt something towards someone I should do something about it. So I said I’d go and get us a wine top up, so I went to the kitchen, and I took a deep breath, and I took off my jeans and t-shirt and put them on a chair, and I picked up the wine bottle and did the most seductive walk I could back to the front room where Jo was sat on the sofa.

I could tell that I’d misread the whole situation from the expression on her face, and she didn’t know what to say. And I didn’t know what to say, because I as naked in front of my boss. But despite the fact that I’m naked in front of people all the time it was Jo that composed herself first. She said it was very sweet and I was really pretty but our working relationship meant no matter what blah blah, and I came up with the most unconvincing reason ever and said that, oh no, I hadn’t meant it like that, but I had tried to tell her that I was really comfortable naked and it was a way of life and I just sort of thought since the conversation was going so well and this was just how I liked to unwind that she wouldn’t mind. And because it would be more embarrassing to think that I was going to try to seduce her, she actually went along with it, and she said oh, right, sorry for misunderstanding, and didn’t she feel a fool for thinking I was trying to seduce her.

So I sat naked across the room on the sofa, curled my legs up and tried to hide behind my glass of wine, and we passed another uncomfortable half an hour before I went back to the kitchen, put my clothes on and left.

I’m such an idiot and I should really not take advice like Elise’s so literally! I hope Jo doesn’t hate me for it.