Mr and Mrs Smith (complete)

© Bad Hobbit 2013-2022

Author's note:

This story was mostly written around 2013, the year in which it finishes, chronologically. However, I struggled with the ending, set it aside and forgot about it. In 2022 I rediscovered it, dusted it off and created an ending that I'm reasonably happy with.

My aim was to write a 'story with sex in it' rather than a 'sex story' - I haven't written anything quite like that since 'There Is Another Way' - so I hope you don't find it too serious. It's over 90 pages, broken into 10 chapters. I tried breaking it into parts, but the first few chapters don't have my usual amount of sex in them, so I decided to post this as one story. I hope you can persevere with it.

It may help to bring the story to life if you imagine the Boss talking rather like the actor Sean Bean, but perhaps with a slightly deeper voice, and built a bit like Daniel Craig. I hope you like him.

Chapter 1. The Interview

I suppose it should have been obvious. I married Kevin Smith in 1986 and changed my name from Julie Palmer to - well, to Julie Smith. It's still the most common surname, so somehow it was bound to happen.

You see, I left school with a couple of 'A' levels, but no real ambition, so I didn't go to Uni like some of my classmates. Instead, I did the obvious thing; I became a secretary. I studied at the local Technical College, learned typing and shorthand, and went to work, first for a bank, then a large manufacturing business. I guess I was brighter than most, because by the time I was 24 I was running the typing pool, and by 26 I was Admin Manager.

Kevin's a lovely bloke, and was delighted by the way I managed to 'get on' with my career. He was, I suppose, my 'childhood sweetheart', in that we went out at school, then sort of drifted apart, and then met again when I was 21. We married a year later. He's kind, very considerate, never raises his voice, and he's tall, slim, with longish dark hair and big, gentle brown eyes, and he was good looking by the standards of the 90s. He went into teaching in a pretty tough comprehensive and had made it to the dizzy heights of Head of Department by the time we'd been married six years.

We'd both wanted children, but that had always eluded us. We tried and tried and tried for years. We'd gone through IVF - still in its early stages in those days - and followed all sorts of regimes, and nothing worked. So each of us focused on our careers.

In 1993 I saw an advert for a PA to a director in a growing manufacturing outfit - Jarrett and Co. The money was good, and it seemed to have some status. I applied and was selected for interview. I must admit that, on the day, I wore a tight-fitting lycra dress. My boobs are quite big, my legs aren't bad, and I was pretty fit in those days (thanks to Jane Fonda!) so I thought that maybe my figure might help sway the decision in my favour.

When I went in for my interview, there were just two people - a woman from HR and this tall, very intense-looking man.

"This is Mr Smith, our Operations Director. If you're successful, you'll be his PA", the woman said. "Now Miss..." She looked down at my CV, in front of her on the desk. "Er, Mrs Smith... oh, how strange! OK, Mrs Smith, please explain to us why you think you're the best candidate for the job."

I've no idea what I said. I waffled, I 'sold' myself, like Kevin had told me to. We'd rehearsed a load of questions, and Kevin kept saying "you're too modest, Julie. You need to blow your own trumpet more, really big-up your ability and experience. You're good, and you should make sure everyone knows it."

It felt a little bit dishonest. I mean, I don't like boasting, and that's what it sounded like to me. All through the interview, Mr Smith asked most of the questions. He had a deep Yorkshire accent and never smiled. Sometimes his questions were quite blunt, as if he felt I was trying to pull the wool over his eyes. And talking of eyes, his were dark, penetrating, and never seemed to leave me. It was unnerving.

The word 'charisma' or 'presence' is used to describe people who make an immediate impression and dominate the proceedings. Mr Smith had that in spades. I kept looking at him, and I saw someone who was both physically and mentally strong, who knew what he wanted and was used to getting it, and who didn't suffer fools gladly. And because he was clearly very intelligent, 'fools' meant most of the human race. He was a big man, and by that, I don't mean fat - far from it. He was very tall - a good six inches taller than Kevin, and he's over six feet - with broad shoulders and a deep chest. His features were strong and ruggedly handsome. His thick dark, curly hair was cut fairly short and was greying a little at the temples, which gave him even more of an air of authority.

By the time the interview was over, I felt like I'd been interrogated by the Spanish Inquisition. My knees were jelly as I left the room, and I told Kevin that evening that they obviously didn't want me. He seemed a little disappointed, though he said that was for me rather than for him, and he was proud of me anyway.

To my surprise, the following morning I received a call, just as I was leaving for work.

"Is that Mrs Julie Smith?" the voice asked. I recognised it immediately as the HR woman from the previous day.

"Yes, that's me," I replied.

"This is Pauline Dixon from Jarrett and Co. We met yesterday?" She seemed to feel that I may have forgotten.

"Yes, I remember," I said.

"Well, we've considered, and we'd like to offer you the position. There will, of course, be a probationary period - six months - during which we'd like to offer you a salary of..." She named a figure that was two thousand less than that advertised.

"I'm sorry, but that's not what I understood the package to be, and it's only slightly more than I'm currently earning," I replied.

"Of course, the full salary will be applied after the probationary period. And I'm sure you'll pass with flying colours."

I felt angry. They would be effectively keeping my earnings nearly the same for six months, with a chance that I'd have to leave if they took a dislike to me. If Kevin had been there, he would have probably talked me into it, but I felt that after the grilling I'd received the day before, I was being used.

"I'm sorry, but that's not acceptable. You advertised the role at a salary and you didn't mention a probationary period. If you pay me the full salary from day one, I'd accept, but not at the rate you're offering. I'd hope that, from your interview process yesterday, you realise I'm worth it. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm late for work."

After I'd put the phone down, I thought "you idiot, Julie. You've just turned down a much better job than you have now for the sake of - well, four hundred and fifty quid after tax." But somehow, I just felt that they shouldn't be allowed to do that to me. It seemed that their Mr Smith was trying to bully me and that I had to make a stand. If they were going to start by pushing me around, I didn't need the job anyway.

At lunchtime, my desk phone rang.

"Mrs Julie Smith? I hear our offer wasn't good enough for you." I immediately recognised the deep, Yorkshire accent.

"No, Mr Smith, I'm afraid it wasn't. You know I'm worth the salary you were offering originally, and I'm not happy accepting less."

To my surprise, he laughed. "You're very sure of yourself, Mrs Smith."

I didn't feel it, but I knew that I had to brazen it out. "Mr Smith, you seem to be a man who makes his mind up quickly. I don't think you need to take six months to decide if I'm good enough."

He laughed again. It was a sound I liked; he wasn't laughing at me, mocking me. It was almost a conspiratorial laugh, amused but pleased that I was standing up for myself.

"Come over to my office at six this evening and we'll see if we can improve the offer. Would that be convenient for you?"

"That will be fine, Mr Smith. I'll see you at six."

*****

When I put the phone down, I had a feeling of triumph - followed by a slight trepidation. What had I let myself in for?

Mr Smith's office was somewhat larger than the room I'd been in for my interview, but it was functional rather than ostentatious. There was a smaller outer room which would obviously be mine if I took the job, acting as gatekeeper to my new boss. It was pleasant, with a big window and a good-quality desk - better than I had in the windowless open-plan area where I currently worked. I was shown straight in to see him, and this time he got up and shook my hand. I was immediately struck by just how tall he was - nearly a foot taller than me, and I'm not very petite - and with a real physical

presence

. And then he smiled, and suddenly he didn't seem quite so intimidating.

"Mrs Smith - can I call you Julie?"

"Yes, of course."

"Thanks for coming in. Please sit down. Would you like a coffee?"

"I'm fine thanks."

"Good. Well, let's get straight to the point. I asked Pauline to offer you the reduced salary to see how you'd react. You passed the first test."

"Test?" I was taken aback.

He smiled again. "Mrs Smith, if you choose to work for me - and I sincerely hope you will - you'll find me demanding, difficult, inflexible and unreasonable. That's what I'm like, and I know it. I push people hard, but mostly they respond by being better than they ever thought they could be. My previous PA, Ellen, has just left me after nearly seven years for a fantastic job that pays around three times what she earned when she first joined me. I could have paid her even more, and I would have been happy to, but she'd outgrown the role and we both knew she was destined for bigger and better things. You see, Julie, I'm a bastard a lot of the time, and I find it easy to take advantage of people. I need them to know when to push back, to keep me honest. But only when I've gone too far. I expect people to give me their best all of the time. People have called me a hard man but fair, and that's a reputation I'm happy with. If you'd accepted the lower offer, I would have known you'd give in too easily. I don't like yes men - or women - and I need to be challenged. Not too much, you understand - I can't stand whingers either. But I want people to be strong, to respect me but not fear me. I think you're that sort of woman, Julie."

I was confused. I wasn't sure he was being serious - though his face showed no sign of guile. I was struck by the honesty in his expression. His eyes held me with an almost physical grip, his gaze frank and very direct, like he was reading my thoughts. He was clearly someone used to command, but it was clear he wasn't the sort of man to become full of his own importance. I found myself warming to him.

"Thank you for your confidence in me, Mr Smith. But what about the probation period? Isn't there a chance that if I'm too challenging you might think I'm just an argumentative little cow and give me the boot?" Somehow, I knew I needed to be completely open with this man; that if I beat about the bush and softened my words, he'd think less of me.

He smiled again. "Julie, I think the chances of that are very low indeed. The probationary period is company policy, and even I can't change that to suit myself. But how about this as a deal? If I'm not happy with you after six months, we just move you into an admin job on the same salary somewhere else in the business. But if - as I strongly believe will be the case - you and I have become a team in six months from now, I'll stick another five grand on your salary. Would that appeal?"

"Thank you, Mr Smith. That would definitely appeal."

"Don't think you're getting off lightly. You'll earn every penny of that salary. You and I will have some stand-up rows from time to time. If we don't, you won't be doing your job properly. I need someone with spirit, someone who's already good but can be excellent. In the interview, I could see that you thought you were bullshitting me about how good you were, and all the while I could tell that, in reality, you were under-selling yourself. I know people, Julie. I'm good at that. I push them hard and I respect them if they're good and they respond well, but I despise those who seem to think others should worship them because they have a fancy job title. I work harder than any man in this place, and if you take on this job you'll work almost as hard as me. I can do almost every job that anyone does here - I've spent a lot of time on the shop floor - so I know what can be done and I know when someone's trying to pull my plonker. I call a spade a bloody shovel and I can't stand pomposity or woolly thinking. Recognise that, don't be cowed by me, do your best and we'll get along fine."

*****

When I told Kevin about the job that evening, he was unsure.

"The man sounds like a bully, and very full of himself" he opined.

"It might sound like that, but actually, I felt that he was just very honest and straightforward. I know he'll want his pound of flesh, but the money's much better than I could have hoped for, and I think the challenge would be good for me."

"OK love, but I just hope I won't be seeing you coming home in tears every night, that's all."

The first day was pretty tough. I arrived at eight, and Mr Smith was already at his desk.

"Good morning, Julie. Welcome to Jarrett's."

"Thank you, Mr Smith. By the way, what should I call you?"

"You call me Mr Smith, Sir - or Boss. That's what most people call me - when they're being polite."

"Oh. You see I'm used to calling my boss by his first name."

"Are you?" He left the question hanging, as if to say 'well, that's a habit you're going to have to get out of.'

When I didn't reply - and I guessed he wasn't expecting me to - he said "I'll show you where the coffee machine is. I take mine black. Then we'll go through how I like my days organised, and what I expect to be done, when. OK?"

He spent over an hour briefing me. I took copious notes, as I guessed that he wasn't the kind of man who would want to explain something twice. He listed those allowed direct access to his office - essentially the other directors and the works manager - the people who needed to make an appointment, which calls could be put through and which ones I should take as messages to be returned later, how to organise his meetings, what his weekly and monthly schedules looked like.

Then he called in Pauline from HR. I got the impression she didn't like me much, but I tried to ignore her. I felt sure that if she caused trouble, my Boss would deal with it. Pauline took me through all of the basics - standard working hours, lunch breaks, booking and taking leave - and then had Neil from IT teach me how to use the main systems. I was already familiar with the Microsoft suite they used, but he showed me the electronic filing system, templates for meeting minutes and letters, as well as the finance system, how to record my time and book travel for the Boss, and loads of other stuff that made my head spin.

It was obvious that Neil wasn't comfortable around women, especially young and (if I say so myself) attractive women. He was inordinately proud of his IT expertise and tried to blind me with the technology. He seemed quite surprised when I already knew quite a lot about things like pivot tables and database query forms. But that didn't stop him trying to look down my blouse or appraising my legs and bum if he thought I wasn't looking.

"Well, Julie, it looks like you'll be up to speed in no time. I'm sure the Boss will be impressed."

"Does everyone just call him 'the Boss', then?"

"Well, everyone but the directors. And customers."

"And what do they call him?" I asked. I knew that his initial was H, but no more than that.

"Well, the rest of the Board just call him 'H'. The customers normally call him Mr Smith."

"So doesn't he have a Christian name?"

"Well," he glanced over his shoulder at the Boss's office door, then leaned in conspiratorially. "There's a rumour that his name is Humphrey, but he hates it so much that he won't let anyone call him by it. We all just refer to him as 'the Boss', or just 'Boss'. See, he doesn't try to be too friendly, or too officious. He's just - well, he's the Boss, everyone knows that and they respect him for it. And he respects them. He doesn't bully people - he doesn't have to. He asks people to do impossible things, and they just do them. That's why Jarrett's has done so well, and why they pay better than most, and why people stay and are loyal. He's a demanding sod - I mean, a demanding man, but the staff trust him. Jarrett's isn't a cushy job, but it's the best place I've ever worked."

When Neil had gone - not before sneaking several sly looks at my boobs - I organised my own desk and office and printed out the Boss's schedule for the day, the week and the month. I looked over some minutes of earlier meetings and was surprised that I understood most of what they seemed to be about. It was manufacturing language, all about bills of materials, tolerances, outages, machine tools, maintenance schedules, quotas, order books and the like. I'd spent several years typing up similar documents in my last job and had picked up - and at least partially understood - most of the terms. I worked out the main meeting schedules and correlated all of the outstanding actions that needed to be carried forward, and tried to memorise the important names and faces from a wall-chart with the organisational structure.

When the Boss called me in and asked me to circulate the agendas and actions for the two meetings he was chairing that afternoon, I could tell he was impressed to see that I'd already made a start on this and seemed to know who would attend. Anyway, he asked me to sit in on the meetings and take the minutes.

That was a little bit intimidating, as the first one was with the whole Board of Directors, but the Boss was supportive and the Directors all seemed very nice. As Neil had said, the others all referred to the Boss as 'H', which was a bit weird at first. David Jarrett, the Chief Exec, sat in - he was an older man, maybe early sixties, with thinning grey hair - but the Boss did most of the talking and anyone could see where the real power in the company lay. The tone of the meeting was friendly but business-like, and the Boss drove the agenda in a way that impressed me. Issues were discussed and decisions made with a firm efficiency, and at the end of the meeting, I felt that something had been achieved.

It was the same in the Production meeting that followed. The main difference was that everyone referred to the Boss as 'Boss', but I realised that he was otherwise the same with his direct reports as he was with his peers. Neil kept taking sly looks in my direction, and I felt I was a bit of a curiosity all round, the only woman in the meeting. Pauline Dixon had been in the Board meeting, although she still seemed a little frosty towards me. Perhaps she was less happy with my rejection of Jarrett's first offer than the Boss seemed to be. In the Production meeting, I could see that most of the men except Neil were over forty, and all of a no-nonsense, solve-the-problem-and-move-on frame of mind. The language was more technical - and a little cruder - than in the Board meeting, but I got the strong impression that at Jarrett's, meetings were where things were decided and progressed, rather than simply discussed and left hanging, as they had been at my previous employer's.

It took me until nearly 7 pm to get the minutes of both meetings typed up, and I had to phone Kevin to ask him to get the dinner ready. When I handed the completed minutes over to the Boss, he smiled and thanked me. "You did well today, Julie. I'm impressed. Thanks. I'll see you in the morning."