Phyllis didn’t do much as walk into my office as storm into it, kind of like a Texas tornado ripping its way across the landscape, destroying everything and everyone in its path without exception or mercy.

I could feel the little sparks of electricity in the air before she even came through the door, much in the way you can sense a lightning strike seconds before it hits when you’re standing vulnerable in a wide-open field. The little hairs on the back of my neck started to tingle. A chill crept its way up my spine. I had to fight the urge to crawl under my desk and tuck my head between my legs until the coming storm passed.

Rather than duck and cover, i.e. hide under my desk and pretend not to be in, I decided to face Phyllis head-on because I knew the longer she had to fester, the worse the destruction would be. I rubbed a hand over the back of my neck to drive the chill away and swiveled my desk chair to face the closed door that I knew would fly open any moment. I folded my arms over my chest and braced myself for what had become almost a Monday morning ritual. I’d do something – or do someone – over the course of the weekend and Phyllis would see it as her duty as the “responsible partner” to burst in and read me the riot act.

It was always the same routine.

When the fuck are you going to grow up, Sam?

Why can’t you keep your cock in your pants, Sam?

Do you have to fuck every woman you meet, Sam?

Can’t you stop sleeping with your clients, Sam?

Can’t you stop sleeping with the junior partners and associates, Sam?

You’re an embarrassment to yourself and to the firm, Sam!

Sam, Sam, Sam…

Blah, blah, blah, blah…

Christ, it was as if I was back living with my mother at the age of forty-fucking-five. Except my mom would never use the word “cock”, at least not in front of me.

I couldn’t help but cringe when I heard Phyllis outside my office door, mumbling and grumbling, cursing my name to Janice, my poor secretary, who knew better than to do anything other than let Phyllis rant and get out of her way. I had no idea what I’d done, but clearly, Phyllis was fit to be tied.

Phyllis Goode had been my law partner for fifteen years and my regular fuck buddy since our junior year at Harvard Law over twenty years ago. She was a beautiful girl when I met her; a tall, thin, twenty-two-year-old with bright blue eyes and flaming red hair, perfect tits that didn’t need a bra, and a pussy that could literally milk my cock. I swear, it was like she had a thousand little fingers inside that tight box of hers, working their way up and down the length of my cock with such wonderful precision that she could literally control my orgasm, allowing me to cum only when she was ready for me to. I’d never felt anything like it and was immediately addicted to fucking her. What she could do with her vagina was simply fucking amazing, no pun intended.

Phyllis also had an appetite for sex that was equal to my own. And she loved to experiment. She had these long fucking legs that she would wrap around my waist and then dig her heels into my ass to prod me on while I fucked her, like a jockey nudging a stallion across the finish line. She could bend and twist in the most delicious ways to give me better access to her pussy and ass: bent over, bent over backward, bent sideways, on top, on bottom... I think we even came up with a few positions that weren’t in the Kama Sutra. My favorite position was her standing in front of me bent double at the waist so she could look up between her legs and fondle my balls as I hammered my cock into her. Like I said, the girl was fucking amazing.

We met in a little dive bar off-campus where the law students hung out after class. I was smitten by the gorgeous redhead who drank and talked like a sailor. Everyone was. She was like a red sun that we all revolved around. For some reason, she turned her attention toward me. She told me later it was because I reminded her of a beefier George Clooney. I didn’t see it then or now, but I would never argue that comparison.

We chatted pleasantly over a few beers, then I excused myself to go the restroom and she followed, pushing her way in after me and locking the door. We fucked after knowing each other less than an hour and have been fucking ever since. Phyllis was not looking for a boyfriend or a husband, just someone to satisfy her sexual desires whenever she got horny, which was pretty much every night.

Her sole focus was on graduating Harvard Law at the top of her class and landing a high-paying gig at a big firm downtown, not on committing time to a man. Men are a distraction, she said. Men expect things. Men want to tie you up with strings and make demands on your time and invade your space. Not this man, I assured her. She often said we were the perfect couple because the only thing we expected from one another was amazing sex. And when the sex stopped being amazing, we’d stop fucking. We’d still be friends, just friends without the benefits.

I think we had sex just about every day until we graduated Harvard Law School the next year, then continued seeing each other time permitting when we both got on with different firms in the city.

After a while, work and life started getting in the way of our fun. We still talked every day, but the sex became less and less frequent; and less and less eventful. She got involved with other men and I worked my way through the hot girls at the law firm where I worked. For those few years, we talked more than we fucked, and that’s when our true friendship really took hold. It’s amazing what you can learn about someone when you’re not focused on ramming your cock into them.

Phyllis was not only sexy, but super smart, passionate, dedicated, determined, tireless, analytical, creative, funny, and competitive as hell in the courtroom. She could also be moody, dark, angry, unreasonable, cunning, and ruthless when she didn’t get her way. I thought she would make the perfect law partner.

When we decided to become partners with my best friend and college roommate Barry Bangham, the sex stopped altogether. The attraction was still there, but the time wasn’t. We were working twenty hours a day, six days a week. I slept on the couch in my tiny office most nights. Phyllis was also involved with some banker on Wall Street named Harrison something or other, and was doing her best to be monogamous. We saw each other during the day if our schedules crossed, but other than that, she did her thing and I did mine.

Over the last fifteen years Phyllis had married and divorced three husbands: the aforementioned banker, a struggling artist ten years her junior, and a circuit court judge ten years her senior. I knew none of the marriages would last. Phyllis wasn’t the marrying type, even though she kept giving it a shot. I always knew when her marriage was in trouble because she would become flirty again at the office. And the moment the marriage was over she’d show up at my door wearing nothing but an overcoat and high heels and we’d pick up right where we left off.

I never got married. Never even came close. It’s not that I had a fear of commitment or anything like that. I guess you could say it was the old “haven’t met the right girl” bullshit. It would probably be more accurate to say that I haven’t met the right girl who could hold my attention longer than a few weeks. I’m pretty much a fuck ‘em and leave ‘em kind of guy; although I do try to fuck ‘em and leave ‘em happy.

Barry always said that my problem was that I compared every woman I met to Phyllis. For better or worse, she had become the bar by which all other women would be judged. He was probably right to a certain degree, though his suggestion that I just marry Phyllis and get it over with was way off the mark. I knew that if Phyllis and I ever tried to get serious it would be a complete disaster. We were too much alike in some ways and too far apart in others. We were meant to be great friends with benefits, but nothing more.

As I waited for Phyllis to burst through my office door, I tried to remember the last time she and I even had sex. We’d been going at it now for twenty years and to say the need had worn off would have been an understatement. We had fucked so much that our sex had become routine. We went through the motions without much feeling. It was more about release than passion.

You wanna fuck?

Sure.

Okay, bend over.

Let me know when you’re ready.

Don’t forget to tickle my balls.

Okay, let me grab a towel.

You wanna get coffee?

It wasn’t that she wasn’t still attractive. To the contrary, even though Phyllis was in her forties now, she was still a strikingly beautiful woman. A head turner of the highest magnitude. When she walked by, men strained their neck to ogle her. She had won criminal cases not because the jury thought her client was innocent, but because they were mesmerized by her smile and her eyes. Men wanted to please her. Women wanted to be her. She wore these tight pencil skirts and high heels that made walking behind her a sheer delight.

Her hair was still flaming red, though I was sure it was with the assistance of bottled products rather than nature at this point. She was still thin and fit, tits still firm, ass still high and tight. Time had not affected her appearance, but it had changed her personality considerably. She was somehow harder now, much more prone to anger and much less fun to be around. Her sense of humor was sporadic at best and attempts to joke with her only resulted in eye rolls and huffs.

Every now and then the old Phyllis would magically and unexpectedly appear; the Phyllis I loved and would hack off my arm for. It was almost like she had a split personality that came to the surface when her hard, outer shell formed a crack. I cherished those moments because they reminded me of the girl I met in that dive bar all those years ago. When the old Phyllis appeared, I did my best to capture the moment because I knew it would be fleeting.

Maybe she had grown so serious because she was a woman working in a good old boy’s world. She was a brilliant attorney, ruthless in the courtroom with a record of wins that would have made any male attorney jealous. Or maybe it was because her two partners drove her crazy most of the time. She said being in practice with me and Barry was like being trapped in a car with a couple of unruly two-year-olds during a never-ending trip.

I took that to mean that it was fun when the journey started, but now… not so much.