By Stephanie Sellars

In 1971, my mom was one of two secretaries working for 13 men at Citibank on Park Avenue. Peter noticed the pretty, innocently charming 19-year-old blonde answering the phones, but he was too shy to ask her out. One day he gave her a memo to type with the question “Would you have lunch with me?” at the bottom of the page. My mom typed the memo and gave him the finished letter. He said to her, “You know, you need to retype this, because the question at the bottom was meant for you.” She blushed, answered the question, and Mr. Sellars took his secretary out to lunch.

Although my parents’ courtship was romantic and polite (no hanky-panky behind the file cabinets), the tale is a classic example of how the work environment simmers with sexual tension. It is the steamy stuff of fantasy and scandal: bosses and secretaries, executives and assistants, presidents and interns.

In the ’70s employee dating was generally frowned upon, but my parents didn’t have a problem with discretion. Professionalism was a priority so they never even kissed inside the office (so they say). Their coworkers knew they were dating, respected the fact and refrained from gossip. Can you imagine a dozen corporate men not indulging in a single sex joke? It was only after my parents got engaged that their relationship presented a conflict; the boss said one of them had to transfer to a different branch, so my mom made the move. Now that more women are in the workforce, more people are meeting prospective dates through their jobs. According to a 2005 office romance survey, 58 percent of employees had an office romance and half of them actually had sex at work.

Although my office experience is limited to a couple of short-lived temp jobs, I’ve often fantasized about bringing a CEO to his knees as I lean back in his ergonomic chair. Of course, work affairs do occur outside the corporate arena. The summer I was 19, I worked as a waitress at a pan-Asian restaurant in New Jersey. I flirted profusely with the immigrant staff, and soon developed a crush on Tony, the adorable 21-year-old Indonesian sushi chef. My life did not depend on this job and as long as I didn’t neglect my work, I felt free to indulge every creative flirtatious whim that lightened the drudgery of table service. During slow hours, I handed him naughty orders that said “500 Tony Maki” and we would make out behind the restaurant in the parking lot among buckets of kimchi. Tony and I never had sex, but I ended up falling in love with one of the waiters, who later confessed (as we were lying in bed) that he had dated the bisexual hostess who also had a crush on me—which she confessed to him while they were in bed.

A workplace is, in a lot of ways, like high school for adults. You are thrown into this pool of people who have at least one thing in common: they all have to report to the same place every day. Unless you work for yourself and/or are completely in love with your job, you are going to encounter boredom at some point, and it is during these boring moments when you might imagine what kind of underwear your boss wears or envision the mail clerk sorting through your lingerie. According to The Hookup Handbook by Andrea Lavinthal and Jessica Rozler, one of the identifying features of a workplace hookup is an adrenaline rush. “Who needs to base jump or skydive when you’re having an illicit office affair? The thrill of almost getting caught eases the excruciating boredom associated with creating expense reports.”

When I worked at a Manhattan music store, one of my responsibilities was to fill out repair tags for the inarticulate, roguish rapper dudes whose sampling machines had died. This process was laborious, especially if the customers smelled like they hadn’t washed their nether regions in a week. But when I started sleeping with the head of the repair department, the repair tag took on new meaning. I filled one out for him, and in the problem area wrote, “knobs broken and buttons malfunctioned…urgent.” He repaired me often. Suddenly I loved this job. I couldn’t wait to deliver broken machines to the repair area so I could brush up against him as I passed. When the other employees tittered about our coincidentally timed absences (I went out for a smoothie two minutes after he left for a smoke break), I felt compelled to fuel their suspicions. What a thrill it was to surreptitiously grab his crotch in dusty corners in between stacks of samplers and a vintage Wurlitzer!

Fortunately, I’ve never had a work fling turn sour, nor a job that meant a lot to me. Even if they had, it wouldn’t have mattered because the employers didn’t seem to care if I was canoodling a co-worker, as long as I got the job done. If a corporate affair ends badly, somebody could get fired, face a sexual harassment lawsuit or worse—the torture of knowing your ex is a few cubicles away. Despite the risks, sexual chemistry in the workplace can make any crappy job bearable, if not fun. I love working at home, but there’s no flirtation to distract me. Perhaps it’s time to hire a secretary.