Copyright © 2010 by licapeba. All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced anywhere in any form without written permission from the author.
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"After we're done here, you can walk on my back," she said.
She said it with a husky, breathy tremor in her voice that signaled her excitement. I would have bet a lot that this would never happen. The suddenness of it surprised me, and quickly excited me too.
Michelle was my part-time bookkeeper, had been for over ten years. I ran a consulting business from my large home. I did well charging a few clients a lot of money, so mine was a simple business from a bookkeeping perspective. I had Michelle in a couple of times per year for a few days to tidy up the company's records and prepare reports for our accountant or the government.
For the first few years, the days working together weren't easy. She was stiff, and humorless, and barely sociable. She was not unattractive, but somehow not the sort of woman that fuels fantasies. She was single, probably in her 40s but never married as far as I knew, about 5' 6", with an angular smooth-skinned face surrounded by thin blonde hair that dropped straight to her square jaw line, accentuating it. Her green eyes never seemed to sparkle much, though I saw them flash with anger a couple of times when I didn't seem concerned enough about her fretting about little details.
She had a mature figure, not undisciplined but not svelte. Her bum was slightly full, her breasts ample. She invariably wore conservative dark pants and plain blouses that advertised nothing but good sense. It didn't help that she wore far too much inexpensive perfume which not only filled my home while she was there, but lingered after she was gone. Though she and I were often alone together, the idea of any romantic interplay between us never even fleetingly entered my mind.
However Michelle was thorough and reliable, and our accountant praised her work, so I kept asking her back, year after year.
Eventually, the tension between us eased. She saw that I was an honest guy after all, not someone trying to cheat the government or cause trouble for her. She had a dog, so did I. She loved coffee, so did I. She stopped using too much perfume, and wore more-relaxed and more-attractive clothing. Over the years she seemed to become more comfortable with herself as well as with me. We began to share our interests and experiences in moments of chat between questions about my accounts. I joked with her, even teased her a bit sometimes, and she would giggle. She had shot a few zingers at me lately too, showing a sense of humor I had not seen in her. It became comfortable. But it was still just work, no hint of anything more.
On this occasion, we had frequent moments together all day while she was working on our accounting system to ready the books for year-end. Her back was bothering her, so often when she had come into my office through the day with her questions she had put her hands on the edge of my desk and leaned there, moving her back and shoulders around slightly as we talked. I didn't take much notice, even when she got pretty close to me, but at one point I joked, "You know Michelle, if you want me to walk on your back for you, you won't feel much pain afterwards." I weigh 275 pounds, and she laughed at that.
Later in the day she asked about a series of notices from the government demanding payment of a small fine for filing a tax return late. I explained that we had not filed late, so I had ignored the notices until the government figured out its error and rolled back the charges. I had ignored government notices?! In Michelle's view of the world, that was a very daring thing to do. She looked shocked.
"Ohhh Michelle," I said, "I could teach you so much!"
She flashed me a look I didn't understand, and then giggled again. In retrospect, that's likely where I had unintentionally flipped a switch, and in Michelle's mind a line was crossed.
Only about fifteen minutes later, she was back in my office again, with a sheaf of papers in her hand. I was standing at my bookcases looking for something. She came very close as she asked her latest question. I began answering it, and suddenly she interrupted me, in mid-sentence.
"After we're done here, you can walk on my back."
She looked into my eyes very intently for a moment, then looked away, and then turned back to me, and then away again. She was obviously fearful of my reaction, and probably afraid of being rejected, but she was also obviously very, very excited at what she had just said and done... I could see her chest heaving.
I recovered from my surprise, and smiled to reassure her.
"Michelle, I'd love to help," I said, as I touched her face and turned her to look at me again, pausing to let her calm a little. "I'd say you need relief right away... we can look after the books tomorrow. C'mon over here."
I took the papers from her hand and led her to my desk, where I dropped the papers and took her wrists, gently nudging her into the position she had been in several times that day, leaning onto my desk, bent over, palms flat on its surface near the edge.
"Stay there, just like that," I said. "I'll be right with you."
We were alone in the offices. I turned off the overhead lights, and moved to the windows to close the blinds. As I turned back to her, hands obediently on the desk, watching me, the golden late-afternoon light filtered through the blinds and lit her face in warmly-shadowed relief. It suddenly struck me that she looked quite pretty - wide-eyed, vulnerable, maybe even a little anxious, but also obviously excited.
"Relax, Michelle, you're in good hands. I'm a doctor."
She laughed; she knew that I wasn't a doctor.
"Well I'm in a bad way here doctor, I hope that you can help me."
I moved behind her and laid my hands on her back, just letting them rest there, being careful not to move in too close to her, to advance too quickly. Her back was undulating as she breathed deeply and quickly, seeming to try to calm herself.
