She leaned back in her chair and, with a sigh, stretched her arms above her head. It had been yet another tedious day and she felt hot, irritated and generally miserable. As she brought her arms down, she swung round to survey the big, open-plan office. As usual, she was the last to leave and the realisation suddenly made her want to cry. Out of the window, she could see smartly dressed men with briefcases and power-dressed women striding purposefully towards the underground station, undoubtedly rushing home to be with their partners, families and dogs, or whatever normal people did on a Friday night.
She reached over for the mouse and was about to shut down her PC when she realised there was a little envelope flashing in the corner of the screen indicating new mail. She clicked on it and was instantly assailed by yet another curt email from her boss demanding that she "drop by" on her way out. The concept of her 'dropping by' was ridiculous given that her boss's office was a virtual penthouse suite on the top floor of the building, whilst hers was a hot and stuffy cattle-shed of a room on the second floor. She sighed again and debated as to whether she should simply ignore the email and just go home. Unfortunately, however, she was desperate for promotion and, in addition, she owned possibly the most ostentatious car of all the company's employees, and which was quite obviously still parked next to her boss's in the car park so he would know that she was still here.
She stabbed at the mouse viciously with her finger, turned off the computer, grabbed her bag with the other hand and strode out towards the lifts. Obviously, just to irritate her further, the lifts appeared not to be working and, despite repeated rattling of the buttons and uttering a plethora of choice expletives, failed to respond positively to her cajoling and remained motionless. She turned wearily and started the long trudge up the eight flights of stairs.
As she climbed higher, it became apparent that the air conditioning in the building was not really powerful enough to counteract the heat of the summer's evening and she could feel beads of sweat running down the front of her chest and pooling in the cleft between her large breasts. By the time she had reached the top floor, she was out of breath and could feel a warm dampness gathering between her legs. At the top of the stairs she paused, her feet were throbbing and her kitten-heeled shoes feeling increasingly uncomfortable, so she slipped them off and continued along the corridor, her stockinged feet cushioned by the deep pile of the expensive carpet.
Her boss's door was ajar, and as she peered through the gap she could see him leaning back in his large easy chair, removing his tie and unbuttoning the collar of his shirt. As she entered the room, he swung round and greeted her with a mischievous grin. She was somewhat taken aback by his casual appearance; usually he was impeccably dressed in a three piece suit, highly polished shoes and expensive ties and commanded a great deal of awe and respect from his employees. However, tonight his blonde hair was ruffled, his glasses gone, his shoes kicked off and his pale blue shirt open at the collar to reveal a tuft of blonde hair at the top of his chest. She was alarmed to find that the sight of him had involuntarily increased the rate of her breathing and she could feel her heart thumping in her chest.
"You wanted to see me?" she finally stammered.
"Yes, I wanted to thank you for all your hard work on the Atkins case and wondered if you'd like to join me for a drink..." He gestured towards his desk where a half-full bottle of beer nestled amongst a number of empty bottles and piles of documents and files. "That is, if you haven't got anything else planned for this evening...?"
"Erm...no, nothing else planned."
"Excellent. Beer or...er...beer? Shit, I don't actually have anything else - will beer do?"
"Beer will be fine," she heard herself say although in her head she was reminding herself loudly that beer made her extremely pissed, extremely quickly with, often, calamitous results.
