He was a little bothered about the girl. Oh, she had all the qualifications he needed in a
P.A. and the interview had shown that her IT and administrative skills were more than he
could have hoped for - undeniably, Sara Kennedy was the best of a good bunch of
applicants, with the added bonus of fluent French and German. But he was a little bothered
on two counts - first, she had no actual experience and second, well, second was the fact
that he would very definitely have to keep her away from Miriam’s eyes. Miriam - Mil - was
one of those wives whose ideal P.A. for her husband would be sixty, mannish, ugly and fat
but with a loving family etc., etc. And preferably with ironclad, religion-based morality.
So the bother about Ms Sara Kennedy was that she was none of those things. Rather, she was
twenty-six, all female, good to look at and slender. He revised that description mentally
over the morning’s first coffee: twenty-six, stunning figure though perhaps a tad boyish,
the boyishness made up for by the way her breasts thrust-out her immaculate business suit
rather more than he found comfortable. Ugly she was not, striking she was; a mass of
chestnut hair, the pale complexion that goes with redheads and profuse freckles that
showered her face and gave every indication of continuing over her shoulders and
where-else. Martin Chetry, drinking his cold coffee in the quiet office, allowed himself a
moment’s mental imagery of taking Ms Kennedy to bed and her squeals of delight at finding
him the world’s greatest, most imaginative and untiring lover ...
He had daydreams like that about many women but they were only daydreams: at night, when
Mil was asleep - Mil was always asleep - he fantasised differently and very privately. Cup
in hand, he experimented mentally with what he called his private fantasy scenarios and Ms
Sara Kennedy but it wouldn’t do; redheads were almost always an assertive, emotional lot,
not given to Submission. ‘Absolute Submission’ as he liked to call the core of his private
fantasies. Martin returned his mind to the present and to flicking pages to find
Aaronson’s mobile number; Teddy Aaronson owed close on eleven thou and Martin’s one-man
(and a PA) business needed it. Today was Friday and he’d claim that he was passing Teddy’s
place at four, on the way home - ‘I’ll collect the cheque on the way, Teddy.’ Friday.
Saturday Sunday and then Monday and Ms Sara Kennedy. Now that was really something to look
forward to.
The rest of Friday dragged, although Aaronson did promise him a cheque and the usual
pre-weekend round of debt-collecting calls was more successful- in promises - than usual.
Saturday dragged of course, accompanying Mil to the weekly hit at Sainsbury’s and washing
and polishing the car most of the afternoon. ‘Why you don’t take the car down to the
carwash I shall never know’ was her regular querulous complaint from the kitchen window
and ‘needs to be done properly’ his excuse. In reality it was an excuse for being out of
the house for a couple of hours, sometimes three. Saturday evening, that particular
Saturday evening, there was neither Greg nor Nobby to march down to the King George with
so it was the telly. He sat on the sofa, Mil in ‘her’ chair and Mil choosing the
programmes. ‘Let’s see what films are on’. Mil saw what films were on, Mil chose the film.
‘The Sound of Music’ was having its umpteen-thousandth repeat but she knew better than
even to suggest that, much as she adored the thing. Mil settled for ‘Strictly Ballroom’.
Martin opened a beer and tried to find something he’d not already read in the Saturday
newspaper-supplements: opened more beer as the evening progressed so that by the time she
announced ‘bedtime’ he was sleepy, unsteady and sexless.
To her credit, Mil always insisted that Sunday was his ‘day off from working so
hard for her’ and on Sunday mornings he shut himself in the conservatory with the Sunday
papers first, then, laptop on the coffee-table, reviewed the week’s work and the month’s
finances. Sunday afternoons he escaped to watch the local soccer team down at the
recreation ground - in the summer it was the ‘King George Eleven’ on the so-called
‘village green’. This particular Sunday, in October, it was soccer, a good game that
lifted his spirits to the extent that shortly after Mil had announced ‘bedtime’ in her
childish way and he’d complied, he fucked her enjoyably.
Monday was of course nothing like he’d imagined - fantasised: Sara K was demure,
nicely shy, nicely nervous in her first morning in her first real job, but efficient,
common-sensible and scarily adept at once with the contorted file-structure his ineptness
had imposed on the office PC.
“Would you like me to - er- rationalise this?” she asked, having spent all of forty
seconds finding the folder he wanted, half the time it normally took him. ‘Rationalising’
the whole thing into what she called a ‘tree’ took about fifteen minutes and the result
was, to Martin, embarrassingly simple to use. Despite her total unfamiliarity with the
work and with him, the two of them managed to get through more work in that one day than
he normally did in two and by Friday he was revelling in the fact that his new P.A. was
already proving a treasure and extremely good-for-the-eye too. So much so that by the
second Friday, after a really nice little coup that netted the business - him - early
thirty K, he was wild enough to let private fantasy creep into the end of the day. He’d
allowed her to relax her self-imposed ‘smart business suit’ uniform and at four-fifteen
she was kneeling on the floor sorting old papers, her boyish backside stretching what must
have been a very expensive pair of deep green ‘designer’ jeans.
“I doubt if I can get this all sorted and filed today - sorry. I’d stay if I could
but ...”
He made a joke of saying “Now, now, Ms Kennedy, can’t leave a job half finished. I
shall have to chain you to your desk ...”
The ‘joke’ elicited a response, accompanied by a most peculiar look, to the extent
that he thought he’d really offended. Put his foot in it.
“As long as it’s not for too long.” She should have giggled at that point, but she just
looked at him.
“How long?”
For the life of him he couldn’t think of a way to lead the exchange down the paths
of private fantasy: he wanted to but was, even more than usual, unsure how far he might
go, how far it could be carried as a ‘joke’ before the inevitable let-down. “… er, oh,
until you’ve finished, of course ...”
Face bent to the papers on the floor, she said clearly “that might take hours”.
Astonished, he thought it might be an opening, he hoped it might be an opening but
he had no idea what to do with it.
“Ought to chain you to your desk all the time …” Now he knew he’d done the usual
thing and stepped out of the joking-banter into bad taste. So the fantasy that had been
growing in his mind, interfering with reality, just collapsed.
She stayed until almost five, then vanished into the little bathroom behind her
desk, emerging five or so minutes later to pause in the open doorway.
“About three and a half metres, I guess ...” she said, moving to pick up her bag,
turning to the office door. Standing there and about to wish her a ‘good weekend’ Martin
looked at her in puzzlement.
“‘About three and a half metres’ of what?”
“Chain. If you’re going to chain me to my desk, I have to be able to go to the loo
... goodnight, Sir.”
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