Call Centre Confessions Ch. 01

Before I get to the story you want to hear, let me tell you the story about how I came to be in an Italian restaurant on the Quayside with fifteen women, some of them half my age.

I left the RAF aged 38, after twenty years, with an alphabet soup of qualification in telecoms, electronics and communications. Most of my colleagues went into defence related jobs, or took contracts in places like Saudi Arabia. I got myself a job as operations and technology manager in a call centre belonging to a bank. Call centres aren't simple places. If you're routing telephone calls around seven locations in the UK and two in India you're not doing it with a couple of handsets and a list of names and addresses.

One of the reasons why I chose the call centre industry was because I wanted the company of normal people. I'd had twenty years of living on camps and bases, socializing in the NAAFI and the mess. More cynical friends reckon I'm biased because my wife left me for a colleague six months before I took the money and left. Maybe I am, but I'm happy.

More perceptive friends point out that I've swapped one closed group of friends for another. There are fourteen teams in our call centre, each having between 16 and twenty people in them. Team managers get praised by their bosses for building team spirit and involving team members in fun and social events. In turn team managers figure inviting the ops manager is a sure fire way of keeping themselves in my good books.

Why bother? Because I decide what calls go to which team. In theory I could make sure that one team gets all the callers who've been waiting for two minutes or more; selling additional products and services to people who're angry and frustrated at spending time in a call queue isn't easy. I don't do that, but it doesn't do any harm to let managers believe I might.

Socializing with the teams is fun. The demographics of call centre work are made for a fun night out. Men are outnumbered by women in all the teams; it's not a choice on the part of management, just a fact of this kind of work. Lads get frustrated, and can't understand why patience is such an important quality. So they move on to other jobs, selling fridges in Curry's or double-glazing, while women persevere and make the best of the job.

Team managers have an effect on their team. They decide if the team will socialize out of a sense of fun, or out of a sense of duty. They decide if their team will smile all day, or persevere like sherpas trudging up a mountain. I think some of them realise they have an impact on the mood of their team, and enjoy the experience.

The team I'm out with tonight is run by Andrea, an ambitious, clever woman who has remodelled her team in her own image. I like Andrea's image. She's cleverer than she needs to be to do her job, and sexier than anyone has any right to be at work every day. Our centre has a strict dress code, pressing the idea that every member of staff should dress as if they were expecting to meet customers in a high street branch. I don't mind that; I turn up to work in a summer uniform of button down shirts and chinos with co-ordinated ties, and a winter uniform of suits. I can get away with flat fronts on my trousers and tailored single-breasted suits; I may not have a six-pack but I haven't put weight on since I was eighteen. I'm conservative in my dress style at work, but I'm smart, and I take pride in looking good, and looking well groomed.

Andrea always looks good, but she doesn't dress conservatively. She manages to mix and match styles, with the best of designer high street wear and smart business dress, but all done with a sexiness that challenges you and almost asks you if you're sure that she's trying to be sexy. She's only five foot one, although she always wears heels to make the most of her height. If she isn't wearing tights or stockings (and I've often wondered which) then her legs are tanned and smooth, toe nails immaculately painted and a ring gleaming on the second toe of one foot or the other. If I start to sound like I've been studying her then let's just say that I appreciate attractive women.

Team nights out are different of course. You don't have to wear business dress. You dress for the venues you're going to. In this case it was a meet for a drink in Chase, an Italian meal, then clubbing in Baja, a massive club with a reputation for being the place to meet a willing partner. If I add to these call centre chronicles then you'll probably hear more about Baja.

So I'm stood at the bar in Chase with a bottle of Becks, waiting for the team to arrive. I'm not exactly dressed to kill; just a pair of soft charcoal coloured trousers, and a collarless flannel shirt that I bought in Ireland last year. Add in some loafers and a splash of Hugo Boss aftershave and you might be able to get the picture.

Andrea's team are dressed for their usual Friday night on the Toon; strappy tops and tight skirts predominate with wonderbras much in evidence as well. Then Andrea arrives. She's wearing a suede mini skirt and a fringed, taupe asymmetric top that rests on the edge of her suntanned shoulders leaving no cover for bra straps if any were present.

But that's it; the fringed top, the suede skirt and her shoes. Since I got to know Andy I've wondered if I am turning into a foot fetishist. She has a wide range of shoes; she may be the only woman ever to strut round a call centre in a pair of Manolo Blahnik sandals. I've grown to know every inch of her toes because there has to be snow on the ground before she'll don footwear that conceals her toes.

Tonight there's an addition; a thin chain round her left ankle, made out of what looks like white gold. It seems just a touch wrong, almost out of place, since it's resting on the leather ankle band of her shoes, but it's another feature, another contribution to the idea that she thinks there's something special about her extremities.

In my mind she's clearly decided to go for the full foot fetish effect tonight; a thin leather sole with spiky, thin heels held to her foot by the anklet and a band across the arch of her foot, the two bands connected by a length of chain. But there's the challenge; is she dressed this way to say something about sex and what she wants, or because it's a style she likes?

So we're chatting and laughing, greeting team members as they come in, recycling work anecdotes as if we've never heard them before and asking after each other's families and partners as if we're interested. I'm trying not to lust after Andy too obviously, but it isn't easy. I've been told in the past that I can be transparent in social situations.

After another bottle of Becks for me and two or three drinks each for the team we're on our way round the corner to the restaurant. Andy is walking between myself and Denise, a good-humoured woman in her early thirties, a bottle blonde who's all bosom and bravado. Andy links her left arm through Denise's and her right arm through mine, and I try to ignore the urge to slip my arm round her back. I could use the fact that it would be more comfortable as an excuse; she's so much shorter than me I'm leaning to my left to make sure our elbows crook round each other easily.

It happened. Andy snaked her arm round my back. Denise had turned away to say hello to a guy she knew, or maybe wanted to know, so Andy slipped her arm free and snuggled in closer to me, as if she'd suddenly felt the cold. I reciprocated, and tried to hide the frisson of surprise as my fingers came to rest on the bare flesh between her top and her skirt. Was the squeeze she gave me approval of my touch?

Before we could discuss it, or I could think too much about it, we were at the restaurant. Andy skipped up the steps, and took charge of the seating arrangements. That was how I ended up sitting opposite her at the head of the table, with the rest of the team arranged along either side. It's a bit of a cliché that you can sit and talk to someone in a noisy room as if there's no one else there, but that's how I felt. Andy was managing the conversation, joining in with jokes further down the table or laughing and capping someone else's story before turning her attention back to me.

There's something very intimate about being asked questions about yourself by someone you desire. When the person doing the questioning rests their foot on top of yours you start to realise that they have an agenda too. The first time she rested her foot on mine I tried to ignore it. When, between the garlic bread and the starter her foot moved I realised that the position was deliberate. There was a fleeting moment of eye contact, and a smile, and a moment of flushed excitement for me.

It doesn't work that way of course; not when there are fourteen of you at the table, and twelve of them mustn't know what's going on. You can't even flirt and joke about there being less room in your trousers than at the start of the evening for fear that someone will overhear. So you smile and tell stories about being in the service, or things that happened when you were younger, and Andy was still in school. But she's picking up the theme, joking about people who know what they're doing and who have plenty of experience.

The team are rushing through their food; there are pubs to visit and people to see. She tells them to go ahead to the Akenside; we'll sort the bill out and have a coffee. We're alone in moments, and the eye contact is much more frank. The waiters clearing the table don't matter; we don't have to work with them on Monday.

"This isn't an accident is it?" I ask, and she smiles back.

"It's not, but it's not a foregone conclusion. He may not want to with me, and I may want to have sex with you, but I still have to go home." I pause for a moment, parse the statement. He is her husband; I am the man she would like to have sex with. The headwaiter brings the bill, and she throws her credit card on top of it.

"He doesn't want to sleep with you? Is he mad?" She winces.

"I wish. He isn't very good at taking charge, or making demands, or taking hints..."

I file away each remark, and think about it as the waiter returns with the credit card slip. When he's finished, and gone, I smile at her.

"You say you want me. I've wanted you for months. If it doesn't happen tonight, it will in the future. Let's party and enjoy knowing that we're fancied, eh?" She looks up, accuses me of flattery, then makes a little pout.

"Tonight would be better, waiting will be hell... I'm going to the loo..." She makes her way across the loo, and I'm lost in thought, the loo seems like a good idea as well; the gents and ladies are crammed around a corner at the back of the restaurant and I make my way there, conscious of half a hardon and a peaceful feeling.

The gents is clean, tidy, and empty. I can stand at the urinal and relieve my bladder, but the tension in my groin doesn't go away. As I come out after washing my hands the door of ladies opposite me opens and there she is, adjusting the waistband of her skirt.

I'm not impulsive, but I pluck a leaf off the plastic rubber plant (it's not that posh a restaurant) and hold it over her head.

"Pretend it's mistletoe..." The kiss is hard, passionate, deliberate, her tongue in my mouth, the scent of perfume she's reapplied to her throat fresh in my nose. I drop the plastic leaf, and put my hands to her waist, reaching under her top, feeling bare skin but no spare flesh. I push her back against the door, and my hands slip up under her top, and her breasts are here, the nipples erect already. She takes her mouth off mine.

"The Ladies is empty...". A moment later it's not. We're in there, and then in the cubicle, and I'm using my mouth on hers lips, then on her breasts, then on her mouth again. Her hand is on my erection, and she's trying to get my flies undone.

It's not foreplay, not really. I'm kissing her while she tries to get me into the open air because you have to do something, because you fall into patterns of behaviour, but I'm remembering her remarks. I'm nervous, not sure, but I'm light headed with desire.

"Suck me Andy." I say it quietly, as if I'm scared I'll be overheard, but also so she can pretend she didn't hear me if I've judged the situation wrongly.

I haven't; she falls to her knees, and takes as much of me in her mouth as she can manage. Her hand around the base of my cock looks tiny, but I know I'm harder than I have been for months.

"If you can't suck it all then lick it" I rasp, and she obeys, indicating compliance by a mewl of pleasure. I don't want to come in the air or on her face, not this time, and I take hold of her neck, gentle but firm.

"I'm going to fuck you; bend over." She makes to stand, but as she does it she slides her thong down her legs and steps out of with her left foot so it rests round her right ankle. I move her round, bend her over so that the toilet with its lid down is the resting place for her hands, her skirt around her waist. There's no pubic hair that I can see from behind, just the brown outer edge of her lips and a hint of pinkness below the crease of her arse and the rosebud entrance to her bottom.

I rub my cockhead over her lips; shoving my trousers down with many free hand, then push into her. Deep, hard, hot, the tightness of her rolling my foreskin back as it coats me with her juices. She's gasping, and so am I. I grab her hair and pull her head back ass I'm shoving into her, once twice, repeatedly, and she's making the mewling noises before silencing herself with her fingers jammed into her mouth.

I let go of her hair, shove her top up, grab her breasts in my hands and pull her back onto me. She's gasping and moaning, and I don't know if the voice telling me to pull on her nipples and stretch them is hers or mine or in my head, but I do it and she cries out, a jubilant precursor of an orgasm that clamps her pussy around me.

She slumps forward, raising her buttocks, and I have to let go of her breasts while I pound at her. Her lips are coated with juices and sweat now, and there a thin sheen of sweat on her back. I can smell myself and my desire, but all I want is her complete collapse. I pull out, coat my thumb in her wetness then thrust back into her before sliding my thumb into the muscular tightness of her bottom. I'm banging against her impatiently as she wriggles and groans, then I let go inside her, spurting against the neck of her cervix, pressing down on her as another orgasm escapes her....

We have to try and dress ourselves in the cubicle, using face wipes produced from her bag for the worst of the wetness on each of us, suppressing giggles as someone enters the Ladies and busies herself making a phone call about how boring her date is, then we make our escape, laughing aat the waiters as they wonder why we've been so long, and make our way back under the Tyne Bridge towards the Akenside, aware of how close we've been and desperate for another touch, another moment of intimacy.

She turns to me as we face up to the bouncers, and whispers in my ear

"Better than expected, and I'm soaked..."