You and Me Against the World

"Do you ever listen to them?"

"Only on special occasions. Most of them have been burnt to CD so that I don't damage the albums by playing them too much. I think that there is a better sound quality from vinyl played on a good turntable through good speakers."

"And you have all of that of course?"

"Of course."

"Do you mind if I play something?"

"No, help yourself." What else could I say? I wasn't going to tell my boss to get her sticky fingers off my good albums. Soon the house was filled by the sounds of Arthur Feidler and the Boston Pops playing 'Rhapsody in Blue'. "What made you choose that?" I asked as I walked into the living room with a tray on which were two cups of coffee, milk, sugar and a plate with a couple of slices of cake.

"Memories." Her eyes were closed and there was a smile on her face as she swayed to the music.

"Good ones obviously."

"The best." She was quiet for several minutes. "Now I'm going to have to add tonight to those best memories." The record had finished, and the coffee approaching cold, before she had finished formatting the blank file in her personal memory bank ready to add tonight, and what I assumed was about to happen, to it. The arm lifted off the record and the turntable switched itself off, bringing her back to the present time.

"I'll nuke this coffee and bring it back to a drinkable temperature, shall I?"

"Forget the coffee, show me your plans."

I led her to my office that was dominated by a large drafting table. I took a document tube from a shelf, extracted the plans and spread them on the table, turning the shielded light on in the process.

"I'm surprised that you have a drafting table, I thought that you did everything on a computer."

"I do my rough sketches on this before I commit anything to the computer, I find it hard to visualise anything on a screen. Once I see the rough sketch on paper I then set about inputting it onto my computer. When I'm finished and happy with the result, I load the files onto a memory card and take it to one of my Architect friends, and he runs them off on his plan printer, and I end up with something like this."

"This is very impressive. I see what you mean about a modern take on a traditional design. Very energy efficient I think."

"Yes. The veranda all around keeps the sun off the outer walls in the summer and allows the sun on them in winter. Those moveable louvres along the top, under the gutters, are tilted down in the summer keeping the sun from the lower half of the wall. There are ventilators that expel any warm air that penetrates through the block work outer wall before it can penetrate the inner walls. In the winter the sun is allowed onto the outer wall and the warm air rises in the cavity and is then directed into the rooms. It is an ambient heating system on a large scale. This will cut down on the energy usage and costs quite significantly."

She looked closely at the plans and the detail drawings, making comments and asking questions as she went. Eventually she stood up and looked at me. "This is very impressive, why is it that you never studied Architecture?"

"If you look closely at these plans you'll realise that, apart from a few innovations of my own, this is made up from a collection of other people's ideas. I began studying Architecture but found the pressure of coming up with new ideas all the time was very stressful. The other side of the coin, working on a production line, I found too boring. With Quantity Surveying, at least doing it my way, allows me to be involved in the whole process from design to completion."

"You are an amazing man, do you know that? Nothing like those young guys at work think at all. To them you're an old man who has outlived his usefulness and is holding out for a redundancy package. To me you are a man who has taken a huge kick to the guts and is struggling to come to terms with his situation. Let me tell you this Richard, you have more living to do before you're ready to pull up stumps, (retire, a cricketing term meaning to end the game) and I predict that you will live it to the full."

"And how am I expected to do that?"

"Firstly by letting me help you to realise what living life to the full is all about." She kissed me, long, hard, and passionately.

"Wait, stop." I said as soon as my lips were free to move. "I don't think that this is such a good idea, after all you are my boss, have you stopped to think what the rest of the staff would think?"

"Who gives a shit what they think. I have been having thoughts, lustful thoughts, about you for some time just waiting for the opportunity to do something about it."

"But what about our age difference?" I was scared and fishing for an excuse to stop this before it got out of hand.

"Again, who gives a shit, I certainly don't. You are not that much older than me, the age gap between me and my former husband was even greater." That's another excuse gone.

"What if I can't perform in bed? It has been a while and I don't want to embarrass myself when the time comes."

"Sex isn't everything. You're forgetting that I have done without for almost as long as you. What if I can't perform to your satisfaction? It's a two way street and we have to meet without hurting each other. If you're scared of the repercussions, why don't we just sleep together, no sex."

"No touching involved?" I was still trying to get out of this.

"I draw the line at no touching, I want to feel your body next to mine. Agreed?"

"Okay, agreed."

"Hooray! What are we waiting for?" She had me by the hand, leading me to where she knew my bedroom to be. "One more thing, don't be too disappointed by my boobs, they aren't my best features."

"Then you are not to be too disappointed with my equipment either, I'd never make it as a porn star, a magnifying glass and a pair of tweezers is what I need to find it, I shave my pubes and the hair that bleeds is it." I was prattling to hide how scared I was feeling right now.

"We shall see what we shall see." She had stripped off and stood in front of me.

"You have had a few problems I see."

"Yes, I had to have a partial mastectomy to get rid of a lump, it's not a pretty sight."

"I don't know, okay there's a scar, sure, but it doesn't detract from you the person. I know that it's a cliché, but beauty is only skin deep, no-one is perfect, we all have imperfections and we have to understand that we have to live in the body that we're given. Those women who look at a Photo-shopped image and go under the knife in an attempt to achieve the same image usually end up looking worse. I could spend a lot of money having hair implants, or getting my penis enlarged, for what? Hair can be a pain in the arse, you have to wash it all the time and pay through the nose for some Hairdresser to trim it, I just give myself a number 2 every couple of months and Bob's your uncle. As for the other, I have found it to be adequate to the occasion. As long as both of us get some sort of physical benefit from the loving I can't see that there should be a problem." Did I actually say 'us'?

"You said us." She had noticed. "Does that mean that you want to try it out on me?"

"Yes, but not tonight, I think that it's a little too soon for that."

"I hope you don't mind, I sleep in the nude."

"You don't believe in making it hard for a bloke, do you? I suppose you want me to reciprocate, is that it?"

"Of course, now stop farting around and let's get to bed and get some sleep." She climbed into my bed and pulled the sheets up as far as they could go. I slid in beside her and was immediately hugged by her.

"No fair." I mumbled as she went to work on me, stroking him and hoping for a response. I wasn't sure that he would rise to the occasion but he surprised me.

"I think that he's more than adequate."

I had to admit that he hadn't felt anything like this for years. What is a man to do? I kissed her and my hands fondled her breasts. A hand reached up and held one of mine hard against a breast. "What's the matter, do you want me to stop?"

"Do that and you're dead meat. I just want to savour the moment for a while before I allow you to shove your more than adequate cock into my dying of starvation pussy."

"Dying of starvation eh?" A hand had reached her pussy. "It's certainly not dehydrated."

"You'd noticed, had you?"

"A bit hard not to." I had two fingers inside her and gave them a couple of shoves into her that brought a sob from her.

"I can't wait any longer for you." Her legs were wide apart and she was urging me onto her. He slid, with little resistance, deep into her moist pussy. "Oh my god that feels so good, it was worth the wait."

Of necessity, we made slow love, satisfyingly slow love, until he opened the floodgates and several year's accumulation of passion and come flooded into her writhing body.

"Fuck that was just what a girl like me needed right now. Thank you." She went quiet and I could hear her breathing slowing to a normal level.

"That's nice, now can we go to sleep?" I got no reply, she was already asleep.

I was awake. I had been woken in the nicest possible way, my now erect cock was surrounded by a warm moist covering and I felt this small vibration going right the way along its full length. It took a while, and it wasn't until my faculties had kicked into gear that I realised that she was humming a tune on him. I couldn't hear what it was but the sensation was something else again. I reached down to raise her head from him when he beat me to it and unloaded a load of come into her mouth. "It's about time you woke up, I've been playing with him for hours." She smiled at me and pushed some of my come between her teeth before sucking the whole lot back into her mouth and swallowing it.

"I have never been woken like this before, it's usually my alarm clock. I'm not complaining mind you, I could even get to like it."

"Don't get your hopes too high, this was a once off, unless of course the mood takes us down that path. I used to do that for my husband on special occasions, but then he asked me to stop. That coincided with him not wanting to love me anymore."

"But I thought, didn't you tell me, that yours was a happy marriage?"

"The bits that I chose to remember were happy. But then the big 'C' intervened and after my operation he went right off me, he told me that I was no longer a complete woman. Can you imagine how much that hurt me?"

"Probably about as much as being told by my wife that she had found someone better than me, and that she wanted to marry him."

"We're a sorry excuse for a couple, aren't we?" She kissed me before getting out of bed. "We are going to have to scramble if we're going to get to work on time. Don't forget we have to pick up my car."

"Do we have to? Can't we leave it there until this afternoon, and that will save us a bit of time." She was just about to agree when I beat her to the punch. "On the other hand, I think that it's about time that you meet a couple of Hallston's better clients?"

"What are you suggesting?"

"I'll make an appointment for us to meet with Geoff Bridewell of Bridewell and Associates and, if possible some of his builders. We can discuss our long term relationship with them."

"That's something that I was meaning to ask you, I couldn't find a formal contract between Hallston's and any of the Architects that you deal with."

"That's because there is none. Back in the day when this all began, we had a highly motivated young Quantity Surveyor who decided to branch out on his own. He went through the company files and contacted all of the clients, trying to grab them for himself. Henry and I went to my little group of clients and discussed the situation with them and decided that we'd enter into a handshake agreement with them so that there would be no formal record of our arrangements, that way any future employee would not be able to try and steal them from us. It's worked pretty well for the past fifteen years."

I dropped Judith off some fifty metres from work so that we weren't seen arriving together.

I cranked up my computer and went through the waiting emails before checking any phone messages. Answering these took up half an hour, and then I got on the phone to Geoff at Bridewell and Associates. "Geoff, Richard, yes that Richard. The reason for this call is that I think that it's high time that you guys met my boss Judith Cameron."

"Is there anything wrong?"

"No, nothing wrong, she's just curious about the fact that we have been working together on projects for years and the company knows little about our arrangements, just that you and the other guys shovel enough work my way to keep me off the streets and out of the poor house and provide Hallston's with a comfortable profit. Don't worry that she's a woman with an Office Management background rather than Architectural, she knows her job and does it extremely well."

"Is there more to this than you're telling me?"

I ignored the question. "When can we meet?"

"How about lunch at the Nosh Pit, at say 12:30?"

"Great, we'll see you then." The Nosh Pit eh? It was a new Restaurant that had been getting rave reviews in the trade papers for its innovative cuisine, based around organically produced fresh local produce. Its prices weren't cheap, sort of mid-range, set to keep out the riff-raff as well as those people who only dine at places whose prices are so high that only the rich who want to be noticed dine there.

I pushed the intercom button and got Judith. "Hi lover, I enjoyed last night very much."

"So you told me a thousand times this morning. Are you free for lunch?"

"Yes, where are you taking me?"

"We are dining with Geoff Bridewell, and possibly a couple of others, at the Nosh Pit."

"Sounds great, you'll have to take me remember, we have to pick up my car."

"I think that we should let the staff know that this is a business lunch and not, you know, something more personal."

"You're right, we don't want to gross them out too soon now, do we?"

When we arrived we found Geoff seated at a table with three other men. "Hi, Richard, good to see you again, I must say that you are looking much better than the last time we met. This lady must have something to do with this."

"Hi Geoff, I'd like you to meet my boss Judith Cameron, Judith this is Geoff Bridewell, and these other gentlemen are Robert Farquhar from Jones and Farquhar, and Milton Robertson from the company of the same name."

"Please to meet you gentlemen, Richard has told me a lot about you, and I've been dying to meet you for some time. He just hasn't seen fit for this to happen." She extended her hand to each of them. We sat. Geoff signalled the waiter to bring the menus to us.

"You men and Richard have worked together for some time I gather?"

"Yes, since not long after he started with Hallston's. He impressed us all with his knowledge of his job and the interest that he had in how we had worked closely with our chosen Builders for some time. We each gave him an assignment, just to check him out, and found that he was quicker and more accurate with his estimations. Then when he asked us if he could go on site and see how the Builders operated, we let him. He explained to us that he could get a more accurate estimation of the labour component of the estimations if he could see how they worked. This prove to be the case and we, as a group, decided that it would be he, an only he, who would get our work. Henry had no problem with that arrangement and a long term business relationship was born. It has since then develop into a more personal relationship, he has helped us from time to time with suggestions on how to improve our designs, and to the Builders on speeding up the building process without compromising on quality."

"And you helped him out when he needed it I understand."

"Yes, we could do no less for a friend."

The food ordered, we settled into polite conversation as the three of them sounded Judith out to try to find where she sat and what her ideas were.

It was after dessert and over coffee that she spelt it out for us. "I have been looking over the Hallston's performance of late, and I'm not happy with what I see." That got there attention, and mine. Where was this going? "The company is performing adequately, but there are inherent problems in the management structure. To put it bluntly, there is too much dead wood, both at Board level and among the staff. At times of building boom there is an increased demand for the services of Quantity Surveyors. To meet these demands the industry can do one of two things, employ more staff, or work smarter with what we have. The former method has its own problems, what we are seeing is a dynamic progression of young, inexperienced staff, all scrambling for better paid positions and using companies such as Hallston's to achieve that. I firmly believe that the second method is the better of the two, because it provides stability within the company and with its clients. They are not confronted with a new person each time they need a job done." She got a nodded agreement from the others.

"What are you proposing?"

"As I've come to know and better appreciate Richard, two things stand out. His working relationship with you three and with the Builders is as near to perfect as I can envisage. The second is that it will take a twenty megaton rocket up his arse to get him to help me to achieve greater efficiencies within this arrangement. He gets paid a base salary that is actually less than that offered to new graduates, simply because he is comfortable with what he's getting and doesn't appreciate that he is worth more than they are. I don't know, and I don't want to know, if you guys slip him a little sweetener from time to time, I suspect not because that's not how he works, but he should be getting more. Geoff, you're aware of his new house design, I've seen it and I'm impressed, not the least of which are the new and radical energy saving features that he has built into it. The bottom line is that he will probably never, even with the assistance that you have volunteered, be able to afford it."

I was feeling embarrassed at what she was saying, while at the same time honoured that she should be doing this for me.

"What I'm going to propose to you three is not going to cost you one cent more than you are presently paying." That got their attention. "What I am proposing is to, with your assistance, assemble the twenty megaton rocket and convince this coward that he can do better for himself."

"And how are we supposed to do that? We all know what a stubborn fool he can be at times."

"My aim is to convince him that he and I can set up our own business and cut out the middleman. Richard's salary is around half of what you pay Hallston's. That money will be better in his pockets, not their's."

"Agreed." Geoff said.

"The work that he does for you three is not quite enough for him to make a comfortable living, close but no cigar. Now, if he had his own business and you still paid what you are paying now, there'll be enough for him to live comfortably. If we could find one or two more Architects, prepared to give us their work, then we would be able to live very comfortably. It would have to be someone that agrees with your methods. Do you know of any such firms?" That's really putting them on the spot, do they want to have someone join them?

"Thank God for this woman Richard." Milton said. "We've been wondering when you'd see the light. Hallston's do absolutely nothing for the money that we pay them, apart from sending the invoice. You do all the work, and with the systems and procedures that you have implemented, you do it very efficiently and accurately."

"Extremely efficiently don't you mean?" I asked.