Sleeping with My Boss Ch. 01

My office at E V Benson's was between Elizabeth's at the rear of the property and the reception at the front and sadly it had no outside window. A glass partition separated my office from Elizabeth's. It had internal blinds that could be closed to give privacy if one or other of us had a meeting, otherwise the blinds were left open and I could glance surreptitiously at Elizabeth as she worked at her desk, or talked on the phone, seeing her face in profile.

It was a sea change for me, working for Elizabeth. I was given more responsibility on day one than I'd had in six tears with Soloman, Davis and Deacon. And as a result I became highly motivated and hard-working, staying on in the office long after Hazel the receptionist had gone home. I felt fearful of letting Elizabeth down, although she continued to maintain a distance between us.

I never indulged in idle chit-chat with her; if I went into her office it was for a good reason. She rarely entered mine and when she did it was always work-related.

What little I learned about her came from Hazel. One afternoon, a few weeks after I'd started, I was in the reception. Elizabeth was out with a client.

'Where does that other door go to, Hazel?' I asked. Nobody had shown me around when I started and once, when I'd tried to open it, I'd found it was locked.

'To Elizabeth's flat,' replied Hazel, with some surprise. 'Didn't you know she lived upstairs?'

'No,' I said, embarrassed. 'That's her front door is it?'

'Yes,' said Hazel, laughing. She and I got on well. She was a friendly, comfortable lady, a tiny bit on the plump side but with a pretty face and a snub nose. She always dressed like Elizabeth, in a suit and blouse, and she wore quite a lot of makeup and painted her nails bright red. My early estimate of her age was about right, she had told me she was forty-seven and had two grown up children, one in New Zealand and the other in the US. 'Why would they want to leave this charming town?' I asked her once.

'I've never seen her use it,' I said, referring to the door. 'Or her husband,' I added, rather unsubtly.

Hazel gave me a look. 'Elizabeth's divorced.'

'I didn't know,' I said, defensively. 'She never talks to me about anything but work.'

'She will,' said Hazel, opening a file and starting to type, 'when she thinks the time's right.'

The "right time" came when I'd been working in Market Sutton for almost three months. It had gone very well, excepting a few hiccups. The clients had accepted, then welcomed me and I had brought in quite a lot of business on my own account. I was aware that my performance was good but the only indication of this from Elizabeth was an absence of disapproval. She said 'OK' a lot but hardly ever, 'Well done'.

Then one Friday afternoon in early August, when I was eating my lunch at my desk, Elizabeth tapped at my door and came in.

'Have you written up the draft contracts for the Murchison's at Hill Top Farm, Robin?'

I indicated a fat packet in my out tray. 'All ready to go.'

Elizabeth sat down in the chair opposite me; she seemed to be distracted.

'You've done a good job there, Robin. There were times when I thought we'd never get it over the line.'

'It's not signed yet,' I reminded her.

'It will be,' she said, confidently. 'Thanks to you.' This was praise indeed. She paused. 'You probably think I've been a bit remote since you started here.' I put my sandwich down and gave her my full attention. 'Ungrateful even. I know how hard you've worked and I've been really pleased with what you've done but I've held back a bit in case it didn't work out.'

I raised one eyebrow, something I'd practised in front of the mirror when I was a kid.

'You probably think I'm a bit precious about this business, but it's everything to me: my father's legacy and my life.' Suddenly, and for the first time, I was aware of vulnerability. Aware that my boss had human frailties the same as the rest of us. 'I needed to be absolutely certain I'd got the right person. Hence the protracted recruitment process, and the extended probationary period.'

'I wasn't aware I was on probation,' I remarked.

'Well, not officially but... Anyway, you're not now.'

It was great to hear Elizabeth start to open up to me, but I felt a tiny bit miffed that it appeared she'd only just convinced herself that I was OK.

'I'm sorry,' she went on, 'I'm not putting this very well, particularly for a solicitor! Look Robin, would you like to go out to dinner this evening? My treat. To celebrate the end of your probation and for me to apologise for making a hash of telling you, or not telling you, more to the point.'

Suddenly I was on full alert. Dinner with Elizabeth! I had planned to go to my local pub where I'd recently joined the darts team, but an evening out with my boss trumped that easily.

'I'd love to, Elizabeth. Have you got somewhere in mind?'

'The Nag's Head in Downham Parva. They do great food and it's only ten minutes by car. I'll drive,' she added.

I presented myself at her front door at seven o'clock that evening and after a minute or two she appeared dressed in a charcoal-grey cocktail dress that gave me my best view yet of her figure. Long and slim-hipped, with a neat bosom and shapely legs in black hose. She smelt good, too, a light perfume that filled the reception. And, big surprise, she was wearing her hair down. A dark brown shoulder-length mass, shining with health and with no evidence of grey.

The effect of her hair being down was to soften her face and, with her carefully applied foundation, red lipstick and dark eye makeup, the effect was sheer elegance and mature sophistication and I felt proud to be dining with such a lady.

'You look great!' I told her, honestly.

'Thank you.'

The evening at the Nag's Head was not an overwhelming success. Elizabeth had booked late and Friday evening was popular so we had an inferior table in the middle of the dining area with waiters and waitresses and other diners barging past to get to the bar or the toilets. On top of that the noise level was too great for normal conversation and we had to raise our voices to make ourselves heard. But the food was good, as Elizabeth had said.

'Sorry,' she said as we drove home. 'It's a lot noisier than it used to be.

'Look,' she went on, 'do you want a drink at my place? We didn't get to have a proper chat in the pub and I could do with a glass or two of wine and it's only just after nine.'

'That would be lovely,' I told her, feeling that cold shiver in my guts again.

Elizabeth's flat above her practice was everything I had imagined of this lady: tastefully decorated and furnished with expensive-looking pictures on the walls and knick-knacks on occasional tables. The main rooms still retained the original marble fireplaces and high, corniced ceilings. She led me past a book-lined study to her main sitting room, at the rear of the house and directly above her office, and I took a seat on a comfortable leather sofa.

'Red or white?' she asked, heading for the kitchen, which overlooked the High Street.

I asked for red and she came back a few minutes later with a bottle of Pinot Noir and took two glasses out of a glass-fronted cabinet which took up most of one wall. She poured and we clinked glasses and she sat down in what was presumably her favourite chair and crossed her lovely legs with a rustle of nylon and I looked away, feeling my face grow warm and my cock thicken. Don't be a twat, Robin, I told myself. She's twice your age and she's your boss.

'OK, where were we?' Elizabeth smiled across at me.

'You were about to tell me what a stellar performance I'd put in since starting and that my salary would be increasing commensurately starting from next Monday.'

And she laughed. I actually made Elizabeth Benson laugh. And it wasn't a tinkly, musical laugh, it was big and gusty and showed all her teeth as she put her head back.

We talked work for a bit then. Well, for more like an hour and a half. And in that time we drank the bottle of Pinot and she fetched another and we drank two-thirds of that. Time seemed to slow with the falling level in the bottles and I felt immensely comfortable and increasingly close to my employer, sitting opposite me and matching me glass for glass and showing definite signs of mild intoxication, like using exaggerated hand gestures to make a point and laughing too loudly and too often.

Needless to say the booze was having a similar effect on me, or I'd never have asked my next question.

'Why did you choose me for the job, Elizabeth?' I asked. 'If you don't mind me asking. I mean on the face of it I hadn't got much experience in the sort of work that we do here, and I'm only thirty.'

Elizabeth took a big sip of her wine then stood up and topped up our glasses with the last of the bottle before dropping rather inelegantly back into her chair. She thought for a few moments, looking first out of the window into the darkened garden then at me.

'Do you know how many responses I got to my advert?' she asked. I shook my head. 'Two hundred and fifty. That's a lot of reading time. I was tempted to do like the old joke.'

'What's that,' I asked.

'Throw half the CVs away without looking at them on the basis that I don't want to employ an unlucky person.' She snorted and I laughed.

It took me almost a week to whittle it down to forty. I thought that was a doable number for a first interview. I hadn't thought it through. Allow two hours per slot including preparation and that's more than two weeks! Crazy! I picked your CV out, as far as I can remember, because you'd got six years' experience in a top London office so I thought you should be pretty resilient. Anyway,' she took another sip, 'I was more careful with the second sift and I only chose ten. I picked you because you spoke frankly and accurately and you didn't try to flannel me when I asked you things you didn't know. I got a feeling that I could trust you, and I generally follow my instincts.'

'Why choose four candidates for the final phase?' I asked. 'Why not two?'

'I would have done if I could, but the top four candidates were virtually inseparable. Each had strengths and weaknesses but balancing that out, there was nothing to choose between you. Luckily, after the day's work experience, the clients were quite consistent in their preference for two of the four, and I agreed.'

'And then there were two,' I said, taking a gulp of the strong, red wine.

'And then there were two,' she agreed.

'The other one wasn't a big lad with red hair, was he?' I asked, remembering beefy from the Norwich conference centre.

'No! Whatever made you think that?'

'Nothing.'

'Do you want some more wine?'

'Are you having some?' I asked her.

'I think I will,' she said, slowly, getting up.

She came back with the third bottle and refilled our glasses. 'We don't have to drink the whole bottle.

'OK, where was I? Yes, the final decision.' Elizabeth took another mouthful of wine and held it in her mouth before swallowing, then she put her glass down and clasped her hands in her lap. 'It was really difficult to choose between you professionally or in just about any other way. In the end I had to do it in a way that I'm not particularly proud of.' She looked at her hands.

'And...' I prompted her when she'd been silent for about a minute.

She sighed. 'I don't know why I'm telling you this. Pissed, I expect. Or feeling guilty.' She raised her head and looked at me defiantly. 'I picked you because you were better looking than the other guy. When there was nothing else to choose between, I thought I'd rather have you to look at through the glass partition than... than someone else. There, I've said it. I'm not proud,' she added.

Well I hadn't been expecting that. Looking back on that evening I suppose I had wanted to hear that I had pipped the other contender because of subtle signs of potential greatness or some such thing. Not that I'd got the job because the other guy was a moose. It wasn't even funny. I couldn't stop thinking about this mystery man who I would never meet, but who's ugliness had won me a plum job. How must that guy feel? What had Elizabeth said to him?

I stood up, feeling sick. 'I should be going.'

Elizabeth stood too, tears welling in her eyes. She came over to me and put her hand on my arm. 'Don't go, Robin! Please don't go!'

'It's... horrible, Elizabeth. Thinking of this guy! He's ugly and because of that he gets discriminated against, like in some fairy tale, except he'll never turn into a prince. Couldn't you just have flipped a coin?'

'I didn't say he was ugly!' Her deep blue eyes were brimming. 'He wasn't ugly he was perfectly normal looking.' She took a deep breath. 'I've made a hash of telling you, again, haven't I? Look, he was perfectly OK. He was married with children.'

'So you wanted a single guy?'

'No! Not necessarily. And I didn't mind if you were male or female or anything in between. I chose you in the end, in the final analysis,' this last word came out as 'analyshish', because you were the best candidate, Simple as that. And because I fancied you,' she finished with a gasp.

Suddenly we were both turned to stone. The silence was deafening and the sudden stillness felt thick and painful. I looked at Elizabeth and she looked back at me, a hint of defiance in her expression. She was still wearing her heels and her face was on a level with mine and I saw the lines on her face, clearer this close up and in the unforgiving artificial lighting in the sitting room. Her lips were parted and her mascara was a mess where tears had rolled down her cheeks. And, bizarrely, I thought I had never seen such a desirable lady.

I reached for her as if in a dream, and as if in a dream she came into my outstretched arms and our mouths came together in a frantic, hungry kiss that was so intense it was almost too much to bear. But then we slowed and the kissing became erotic, very erotic and we opened our mouths and used our tongues and I felt the saltiness of her tears and the wetness of her face, my arms around her waist, hers around my neck.

At one point I broke off to smile at her but she said, 'Don't stop kissing me, Robin,' so I kissed her again and a little while later we sat down on the sofa and continued kissing and it was sweet and massively arousing that I was here with Elizabeth Benson, my employer and the most elegant and untouchable lady I'd ever met and we were kissing like teenagers on her sofa and she was responding to me, her tongue slipping into my mouth, her breath hot on my face, her hands on my shoulders and neck.

Some long while later I gently disengaged and she pouted but I had to use the toilet. I forgot to ask her where it was but after some stumbling around and going upstairs to the next floor, I found a shiny modern bathroom with black tiles, a big corner bath and a separate shower. I peed for about two minutes, feeling exquisite relief.

Back downstairs, I found Elizabeth asleep on the settee. She'd kicked off her high heels and was stretched out with her head on a cushion. My gentle shaking failed to rouse her so in the end I went back upstairs and found a duvet and put it over her. Then I turned the sitting room lights out and went downstairs and let myself out. I stumbled home and fell into bed, still dressed, and into a deep, alcohol-induced sleep.

Saturday was a write off. I felt like shit most of the day and Elizabeth didn't call. Nor did I call her, though the events of last night were all I could think about, running them through my head in a continuous loop, trying to exactly recall how it had felt to kiss her, to feel those exquisite lips against mine.

She called on Sunday morning.

'How are you?' I asked.

'Fine,' she replied. 'Well, OK, I suppose. Yesterday I felt awful. Thanks for putting that duvet over me after I passed out in such an unladylike fashion.'

'The least I could do. And I felt awful yesterday too. But we did drink nearly three bottles of Pinot Noir.'

'I know. It was silly but I think I needed to get drunk to tell you what I said.'

'About fancying me, you mean?'

'Yes. And don't tease me. I'm still your boss.' She paused. 'Look, Robin, are you doing anything this afternoon?'

'Nothing that can't be put off,' I said, suddenly feeling much better.

'Would you like to come over? I think we've still got things to discuss and... well I thought maybe we could have another kiss.'

I showered and brushed my teeth and checked that my socks and underpants were in a respectable condition then I walked into the centre of town and up the High Street to my place of work. I let myself in to the deserted reception with a key that I'd been given the day I started and knocked on Elizabeth's door. A minute later the door opened and there she was, dressed in a sleeveless summery floral dress, with a flared skirt, in a silky, light material.

I followed her up the stairs to her flat, looking at her bum and her bare legs, and we went into the sitting room, now flooded with an August afternoon sunlight and looking somehow different to the room I remembered from Friday's drunken antics.

'Thanks for coming over,' said Elizabeth. Her hair was down again and she had made her face up carefully. Her cheekbones appeared to be even higher and more prominent than usual and her lips more well-defined and perfect. My guts contracted with desire.

'I wasn't doing anything important,' I mumbled and we stood, a yard apart, looking at each other, the air thick with sexual static.

'Oh, God, just kiss me Robin!' She came to me and wrapped her arms around my neck and I took her waist in my hands and bent my head and she raised her face, her eyes closed, and our mouths met and I felt a rush of warmth through my entire being.

We kissed gently, to begin with. No tongues, just lightly pressing our lips together, working them against each other. Then she sucked my upper lip into her mouth and I seemed to dissolve inside. Our mouths opened and we kissed hungrily, tongues now in full play. I felt her fingers pressing into my shoulders and I reached around and put my hands on her buttocks and lifted her loins up, pressing her to me, letting her feel my erection, thick and hard.

To my intense delight, I felt her flex her hips and rub herself against me. It was deliciously wanton and I suddenly felt lightheaded. This was my boss, the serious and professional Elizabeth; the unreachable, unattainable, unreadable Elizabeth. Well she wasn't unreadable now, unless I was vastly mistaken.

We broke the kiss simultaneously, as though by some unspoken agreement, and looked into each other's eyes from about nine inches away. I don't know what mine were saying but Elizabeth's dark blue eyes were brimming with tears and blazing into me until I almost felt heat on my face.

'I want you,' she whispered.

'I want you,' I replied, my voice thick with emotion.

'Come with me.' Elizabeth led me out of the sitting room and up two flights of stairs. I found out later that the first flight led to the guest bedrooms and bathroom. The second flight, leading to the top floor of the regency house, led only to Elizabeth's suite: a big dressing room and bathroom and, in the huge bedroom, a king-sized bed and elegant, antique furniture.

We stood by the bed and kissed furiously and I ran my hands up and down her back and felt her strength and slenderness. I squeezed her bum cheeks and pressed her to me and she took my lower lip in her teeth and bit me gently, her hands on my face. I had never kissed like this before or been kissed like this. The passion, the intensity, the complete giving and accepting. My heart was thumping in my ribcage, the blood pounding through my veins, my breath short and gaspy.