Chapter 2
"Good morning, Mr. Kebble."
"Morning, Miss Smith. Please sit down; there are one or two letters I want to get off as quickly as possible."
John waited as she organized herself, trying not to show the distaste he felt for her. He complained bitterly to his friends about her, especially those who had pretty secretaries. This one had an overgrown mole on her chin that wobbled momentarily as she spoke. It also had a long curling dull brown hair growing in it that he had never had the courage to tell her to cut off. He shuddered as she looked expectantly at him, her freshly sharpened pencil poised over her shorthand book. Why couldn't Connie come and play at being secretary? She'd be better to look at than this one.
"The first one is a personal one, so don't get it lost among the others, please." Miss Smith, who prided herself on being the most efficient, the most able secretary in Bowzens-she, lose a letter? Really! He could almost hear her ticking, and started dictating before she had time to say anything.
"Dear Clem. Many thanks for your kind invitation. Connie and I would be delighted to come. We could arrive about seven in the evening on Thursday by car, but if the day and time aren't right, you'll have time to alter it before then. As Connie says, it expands, and it is, I should imagine, rather bigger than when you last wanted to see it. She was a larger watering can now and tends it carefully. Are you quite sure your offer still stands?-Yours, etc., John."
That will give Miss Smith something to worry over, he thought gleefully-a larger watering can, now!
"There are a few letters from Apex here, Mr. Kebble. They should be answered immediately." He reached for the thick bundle in the in-tray, sighing as he did so. Still it wasn't very long until Thursday, and he'd be able to stay away until Monday morning.
"Correct that, Miss Smith; it should be fourteen, not thirteen."
Away from this miserable place, away from it altogether/The address on that letter, the one you've just done, is, before I forget, 'Kings Leap, Hooton, Sussex,' and the name is Grinton-Mr. A. Grinton."
Her hair fell forward and a few strands of it got caught in the frame of her glasses as she tried to brush it away. He felt suddenly sorry for her as she tried helplessly to disentangle it, her watery gray eyes filling with tears of irritation. He stood up to help, but with a savage jerk she had torn the strands loose, and had quickly replaced her glasses. Her composure restored, she was waiting as if nothing had happened, her pencil poised again.
"Dear sir. Reference your letter ... " he heard his voice drone on the usual rumble of traffic and the soft noise of her pencil on the thick pad the only sounds in the room. Out of the corner of his eye he looked at the modern building opposite. It had so much glass in it that he could see everything that went on. There was a tall typist in the second window a little above him, who sometimes waved to him. She wasn't there now, but yesterday she bent over, her back toward him, to pick up something. Her full skirt had risen way up above her stocking tops and he'd felt an almost painful erection ... Damn Smith for being in the same room at the time! "This consignment should reach you ... " He reached for another letter.
Clem, now that was a funny bod! He'd been at the same party where he and Connie had first met. Rolling in money, but no women. Not bad looking, a bit small, but not ugly. Wonder why? Hadn't said much-just stared at Connie the whole night-except when she pushed me into the bathroom and he couldn't see. Friends for years and I never knew he liked big busts. She must have driven him crazy! While everyone was raving, he'd just sat in the corner, looking at her, and pulling his pudding. Would like to buy me a new car providing I let him sleep with her. Come and stay, he said. Money no object. Why not? New car for a night with her-perfect bargain! This stinking job's driving me slowly crazy, anyway. Beautiful house he had; old but full of modern gadgets. Wonder why he didn't bring his wife to the party? June loves all that. Showed me her favorite dildo once. Hell, it was big!
"Is that all, Mr Kebble? Is that all, Mr. Kebble?" "Yes, Miss Smith, yes. I'm sorry, I was wondering whether I ought to reply to Blum and Co., now or later."
"Have they written? I didn't know they had."
He began fumbling through the letters too conscious of the irony in her voice to look at her. "I thought they had. No, I think that'll be all, Miss Smith. Thank you."
Always having a sly dig, aren't you? you old bitch, he muttered as she closed the door.
Feeling happier now that he'd written to Clem, he began humming as he walked over to the window: "He used his rather wrinkled scrotum as a purse!" Not too loud. Don't want her bursting in again: Anything else, Mr. Kebble? Yes, Miss Smith. On examination of my scrotum today, I found that it had wrinkles in it. Could you remove them? Don't worry, it's detachable. You don't mind if I wear it? No, I insist! Please take it away and iron it and jump on it, or anything. Oh, Miss Smith! I didn't know you were like that. Please, Miss Smith. My left testicle is rather fragile today. Gently. You sing the chorus. Of course you know it. The "rather wrinkled scrotum" one. Go on! Of course you know it!
He rolled a penny and a bob, Down the length of his nob. A tanner for the meter went as well, But a florin was a problem, And threepence even worse, So he put 'em in his scrotum And rang it like a bell. Chorus, now Miss Smith. Really bellow it! I'm going wild in my old age, he thought detachedly. Too much of what you might call, if you really thought of it, like, a little bit of the other! Hey no! I wish that typist would forget her drawers one day and minutely examine her left big toe. Must phone Connie and tell her I've written to Clem.
Picking the phone up, he asked for the number and waited for the dial tone. Wonder what she's doing? Probably finishing painting that picture. She isn't very good but she does try! "Oh, Connie. Yes, good morning. I've written to Clem to tell him we'll be over on Thursday evening. You what? You can't lie in bed all day, it's nearly lunch-time. You're playing with what? Oh, the vibro. Yes, of course I can hear it. No, I don't want to listen, there's something here that's keeping me amused. A typist. She's tall, with long black hair and the most magnificent thighs I've seen for ages. No don't come, she'll be gone by the time you get here. Didn't you have enough last night, without winding yourself up with that machine. Be careful. I'm speaking from the office and we're quite likely to be overheard. Yes, I bought the whole world's supply of tea today and built a colossal warehouse covering all of Hyde Park to keep it in. What did you say, have I got problems? No, I don't want to listen to the vibro. Did you hear what I said? We're going to Clem's on Thursday. I've decided we can have a new car after all. No, of course he won't mind me coming, June's still there, I think. He doesn't get married every day. Look I can't stay any longer, my testicles are freezing. They're exposed! No, it's just that I'm having the wrinkles removed from my scrotum for Thursday. Oh, nothing! See you tonight. 'Bye-bye."
Usually he hadn't any spare time once he sat down at his desk, but today there was hardly anything to do. He pulled his drawer open and took out the photograph of Connie that he didn't let anybody see. It was one of her he took when they'd been interested in photography. He'd posed her against a plain background and made her turn her head and shoulders away from the camera to the left. He lowered the paper covering it and looked at it closely. It never failed to excite him, and he noticed his hands shake as he held it. She was wearing a tight sweater, diminutive black pants, stockings and suspenders, high heels and that was all.
She could have been wearing less, of course, but nude, and posed against a plain background, she seemed to lose the special charm that she had when she was only half dressed. Her feet wide apart in her high-heeled shoes with her broad thighs bulging slightly over the stockings, and the taut suspenders, "for you-tight!" She became the rather shameless type of pin-up girl that she had always secretly wanted to be. Her waist enclosed with a belt which they had both drawn together as tightly as possible, was tiny compared to her vast breasts seen in profile. When he took it she had filled her lungs with air and had thrust them forward as far as they would go. She couldn't believe herself, that they were so big when the photograph was developed. They stood out like a pair of ripe cantaloupe melons. Only the figure forty-one and a half careful inches gave some idea of their size to anybody who hadn't been her. She had special bras made now that she had more money-half cups that light supported the white globes, but left the nipples free. The long hair that she had brushed until it shone framed a face that was both sensual and appealing, and the full lips opened to show the perfect teeth behind them, had a hint of a smile.
When he had first photographed her, she had gone about it with an air of delicate and withdrawn cooperation, but later she suggested poses as avidly as he was to take them. The camera itself had almost become an erotic symbol and even now she occasionally liked to be photographed. He'd thought of making a film with her but the idea had been abandoned when he'd brought some books from a weekend forage in Paris. Putting the photograph back in his drawer he grinned to himself, remembering that episode as one of the high spots in his relationship with her. She'd read them all, twelve of them, within four days, the vibro working overtime when he'd given up trying to cope with the erotic frenzy that they threw her into. In them she found the reassurance that other people were as sensual as she.
That story about the girl who whipped herself to bring on an orgasm, that was one that had almost driven her crazy. She lay on the couch in the drawing room the whole afternoon with her skirt up around her waist fingering herself through two hundred pages. There were lurid descriptions of how Lucia, the heroine, was bound in leather in beaten, smothered in rubber in beaten, sewn in satin and beaten, in fact beaten in every possible way, in every possible clothing, on every possible place. There was even one minute little bit where Lucia was forced to micturate in front of a whole girls' school, that provoked an instant orgasm. He retained a mental picture of her, as when she found this bit, the hand busy between her thighs, suddenly increased its movements she went rigid, and she threw her head back, eyes closed as the orgasm overtook her. She had re-read that bit four times in the afternoon, and four times the same thing had happened. In the end he had grown bored with that solitary performance, and had gone to a film only to return to find her exhausted, playing with the vibro, complaining that she hadn't come. He knew then, that there were no limits to her sensuality, and later events had proved it. For him, sex was a spas- modic feeling that occurred irregularly, but for her it was a continual necessity, and nothing else mattered.
He stood up as a sudden twinge across his loins reminded him of last night's excesses and walked toward the window. The same miserable bloody grind for all of us, he thought, as he watched the busy offices opposite. A thousand people in all these buildings, all desperately scratching for a living. All terrified of not paying the rent, all anxious. Still, all in all, things hadn't been too bad now that Connie was living with him It wasn't so lonely now that he knew she was there, even if she didn't do much. The empty months and years when he'd spent dull nights with odd women who bored him were gone now. That, if nothing else, was better, and now that Clem was on the scene, things in general were looking up. There's no use pretending, he thought, this could be a very profitable relationship. Clem's desire for Connie was so great that he had offered him anything he liked if she'd spend a week with him. Mustn't let her stay too long or she'll decide she ought to move in with him. Clem had enough money to buy him fifty cars without it worrying him, and by that time if it did become as desperate as that, he'd make damned sure he had to good slice of them before he let her go. He rapidly calculated how much this present job was worth, including the car and bonuses. Stretching it a bit, about fourteen hundred, and tax had to be taken off that before he could really count it his own. The temptation to throw it up, to be finished with everything connected with the whole stinking affair that was the Bowzen Tea Co., had often come to him, but somehow he had always managed to resist it. The whole trouble with commerce is that it's commerce, he thought dully. It's so insidious, you sink into it hoping that you'll get out one day; get out and do something on your own, knowing that the only time you will is when you retire. He forgot his self-pity when the typist opposite stood up in her little office and began combing her hair. She stood long enough in front of the mirror to give him time to examine her more closely. She was much prettier than he expected and had a figure that was quite exciting. Putting her comb in her bag, she pulled her sweater down over her hips showing well-shaped breasts and picked a bit of fluff off her sleeve. He kept hoping, in fact he'd been hoping for quite some time now, that she would fix her underskirt, anything that might show her legs. The idea of her doing it deliberately, of showing her thighs, excited him immensely.
Even if she didn't mean to, he could imagine that she was.
Curious how exciting women's thighs can be, he thought. When they're in bathing costumes they're no more than pieces of flesh, but put stockings on them and suspenders, cover them with a tight skirt, they suddenly become the most alluring things on earth. He caught his breath as she appeared to bend down. No. In any case, it wouldn't have been any use, she was facing him, and any exposure would be behind.
Why aren't there more women exhibitionists? More? I haven't seen one in twenty-six years. Imagine if that girl could only come, if she showed her breasts or her cunt! Not only would I be a happy man, but I'd be a worn out one as well.
Resignedly he walked back to his desk, conscious of the depression he was beginning to feel, but too uninterested to do anything about it. The telephone rang. He picked it up. "Mr. Kebble, there's a gentleman here from the Spring Market Tea Company ... "