Corporate Bodies Pt. 01: Dishonesty

Unsurprisingly, it turned out she had really good taste in designer clothes too. The result was simply stunning. Already strikingly attractive, the new outfits she chose complemented her slim, athletic figure even more perfectly. When we were out at the theatre or at a party, she turned the heads of most men and attracted the envy of many of their wives too.

I felt even more proud to be seen out with her, and inevitably, she attracted even more attention from the senior managers whose influence my career so badly needed.

Amanda seemed to enjoy most of the attention she received, but was never fully aware of the effect that she had on those around her, male or female. As a result, she remained modest and never indulged in anything more than harmless flirting despite having many opportunities presented to her.

On that subject, despite the flirting, I had never really worried about my wife's fidelity. Perhaps it was an arrogant belief in my own extraordinary desirability, perhaps it was because of our highly active and exciting sex life at home, but Amanda had never given me cause for concern. As a result, I basked confidently in the admiring glances she received from other men, and enjoyed the envious looks they gave me, believing that it simply added to my own status within both the company and the community.

Admittedly, there had been occasions when she had been forced to repel the advances of men who had misread the situation and been a little too enthusiastic in their admiration, wanting to carry the relationship beyond simply a social one.

Most often on these occasions, she would simply turn those penetrating, deep blue eyes on her would-be seducer and watch him wither away, much to my amusement. On other occasions, she let them down more gently, but still made it clear that she was a one-men girl who did not stray in her marriage.

This worked well for most of my male colleagues, but unfortunately for us both, one of her most persistent admirers was the firm's founder and Senior Partner.

At least twenty years older than me, and decidedly old school in attitude, Andrew Sanderson believed in the City of London adage 'my word is my bond'. He had a simply awesome reputation throughout the industry both for achieving results and of course, for keeping his side of any agreement, whatever the consequences.

'Andy keeps his promises!' was a phrase I had heard on a weekly if not daily basis throughout my training.

Like me, Andrew Sanderson had been a high-flyer in his youth and, along with his older brother Michael, had been personally responsible for the meteoric rise in success and influence of the company they had joined when it was merely a mid-sized accountancy firm.

Indeed, the two brothers had become so synonymous with the business that its ultimate change of name to theirs had seemed only right. The two had run the business as partners with offices side-by-side for many years until Michael had been involved in a terrible road traffic accident a decade before.

Though he had survived, it was rumoured that his car had caught fire leaving Michael so badly disfigured that he had never been seen in the company's City of London offices again. Though in theory he retained a desk next to his younger brother's, in reality, he worked from behind the high walls of his impressive period home in a pleasant village an hour's fast drive from the City.

Michael remained an invisible but highly influential member of the small and secret Board of Directors that now met only at his home, but on a day-to-day basis the business was to all intents, being run solely by the younger brother Andrew.

Tall, fit, imposing, impressive and of indeterminable age, at first, I had found Andrew Sanderson rather intimidating. But his management style was reassuring as well as demanding; he knew every employee on first name terms and through this attention to detail, managed to bring the best out of his colleagues.

As a result, he rapidly became a hero of mine. I suspect he saw me as resembling himself when he was my age, because to my delight and my colleagues' envy, he seemed to take me under his wing as a kind of protégé.

This did my career no harm at all.

Always warm and friendly in a disarmingly informal way, he insisted both Amanda and I called him Andy, though I was much more comfortable using the more formal Andrew when at work.

Whatever his mysterious age might be, he was still remarkably good looking, very rich, fit, childless though three times divorced, and had quite a reputation amongst the staff as a ladies' man. He was rumoured to have a substantial endowment in his pants too and was known to have left a trail of conquests behind him.

A woman as attractive as Amanda couldn't possibly escape his notice, and he very soon began to pay her rather more attention that we were quite comfortable with. Several times at company events, after feeding my wife a few large drinks, he had casually tried to add her name to the impressive list already on his bedpost.

Amanda had been forced to be very firm in her refusals, especially on one occasion during a company party in a smart hotel, when he had suggested the two of them went upstairs to a room he had booked specifically for the purpose.

At first I was both angry and horrified; after all he could control my future career progression, but Amanda assured me she had gently but firmly rebuffed his attempts at seduction and anyway, his insistence on addressing her as 'Mandy' no matter how many times she corrected him, had made her dislike him intensely, however good his looks and influential his position.

For many months, life went on and went on well. Our kids grew older and started at an expensive private school that Amanda and I believed would be best for them, but which cost a fortune. What with expensive foreign holidays for all four of us too, our finances were very strained, but with care we could just about manage it all.

Then our dream house came on the market.

Barely half an hour's drive from the kids' school, it stood on a road known locally as Millionaires' Row and was simply perfect. Originally built in the 1920s and standing in its own acre of ground -- huge by UK standards. It had just the right mixture of ultra-modern facilities and original architectural features; Amanda and I had admired it ever since we had moved into the area.

With its five bedrooms and impressive front entrance, it would put us firmly in the top echelon of local society and would have been the fulfilment of all our social dreams - if we could have afforded it. But no matter how many times Amanda and I pored over our finances, we couldn't make the numbers add up to anything like a realistic offer.

Night after night we talked through option after option, but without success.

Then one day, to our horror we saw the sign 'Under Offer' go up outside the house.

Amanda was beside herself in disappointment. She tried hard not to let it show but I knew her too well. Though disappointed myself, the idea that a man of my talent and ability could not deliver his wife the one thing she desired most was unthinkable.

It was time for desperate measures so, when I came home from work the following evening, I broke the good news as Amanda was getting dinner for us and the kids on the table.

"I talked to Andy today," I began uncertainly.

"Oh yes?" she asked, distracted by the food and the kids squabbling. "Andy who?"

"Andy at work?" I retorted sarcastically. "Senior Partner Andrew? My Boss? Your would-be boyfriend?"

"Sorry," she grinned sheepishly. "Go on!"

"Yes, well ... I... um... I told him I deserved a pay rise."

"What?" This news stopped her dead in her tracks.

"Yes. I told him I had been approached by a competitor offering a bigger salary." I was gaining momentum now. "I said I would prefer to stay at Sandersons, but couldn't ignore the package they were offering."

"What did he say to that?" she asked, frozen. "It's not true, is it?"

I blushed.

"No, but he doesn't know that. Anyway, he called me into his office as I was leaving tonight and told me they've decided they don't want to lose me. They're going to give me a substantial increase from next month."

"How much is it?"

I told her an amount.

"Wow!" she said, as astonished as I had expected.

"You know what this means?" I said eagerly before she could ask any more questions. "It means we can put in an offer on the house first thing in the morning!"

Amanda yelped for joy then ran to me and threw herself in my arms. Dinner was a delight, even the kids behaved and when we went up to bed, the celebration sex made me exhausted and sore for two full days.

Chapter Three

Three months later, the fabulous house was ours and our dreams had come true. Well, Amanda's dream had come true. She was teaching part time again and had even started preparing for her PhD.

For me though, the nightmares had just begun. Or so I thought; little did I know what nightmares really were!

What I had not told my wife that fateful night, was that I had not asked my Boss for a pay rise and Andy had not given me one. I had simply 'borrowed' a little money -- little by corporate standards -- from the company.

In my role as Accounts Department Manager, I had access to most of the company's bank accounts, and after all that training, I knew my way around the books better than anyone. It was easy for me to set up the odd non-existent employee and the occasional ghostly contractor to improve my income considerably.

Well, it was easy in practical terms, rather less easy on the conscience.

I told myself it was just a temporary loan. I persuaded myself that I was well overdue a promotion to Junior Partner and the salary that entailed. I assured myself that my partnership was sure to happen during the next twelve months anyway, and when it did, I would be able to begin paying back the money.

All l had done was take a little advance on my new salary and bonus.

The company would be no worse off in the end, so it wasn't really wrong, was it?.

The more I said it to myself, the less like fraud or theft it sounded. But no matter how hard I tried, I could never quite convince myself completely, and from time to time needed just a little Scotch whisky to help ease that last niggling pang of conscience.

Meanwhile, things at work and home continued to get even better. My reputation within the business was soaring, thanks to my stumbling upon the solution to a systems glitch that had plagued the Accountancy and Finance Department for several years. An increase in salary followed this triumph, but of course was immediately absorbed in more spending.

At home, the new house was every bit as great as we had hoped, though inevitably after a few months we started to find fault. The driveway wasn't quite big enough for four cars; the conservatory was a little too narrow; there was no swimming pool; Amanda's walk-in wardrobe wasn't quite large enough for her rapidly increasing collection of designer clothes.

It's amazing how quickly one's standards change, and all these vital improvements demanded money. Of course, having once crossed the border into dishonesty, it was obvious to me where the extra money should come from, and having been successful once, my conscience offered little resistance the next time.

It took only a few weeks to create a couple more ghost employees and a new fictitious contractor. The resulting extra income meant that, even with my soon-expected Junior Partnership, it would now take several years to replace all the borrowed cash. But, I reasoned, I was with the firm for the long run and it would all still be okay in the end.

It would just take a little longer, that was all.

As my Junior Partnership grew closer and the business developed, our social engagements increased too, both within work and with our increasingly rich and glamorous circle of friends. We were frequently called on to look after important clients too. Amanda's stunning looks, obvious intelligence and sparkling personality made her a favourite with male and female guests alike, and we were soon spending at least one evening every week entertaining.

It was fortunate that Amanda's parents lived close by and could babysit at short notice.

Unfortunately, this socialising also gave my Boss Andrew even more opportunities to make real-but-supposedly-pretend assaults on my wife's fidelity. At this stage, it was annoying rather than worrying; after all, Amanda had only ever slept with me, our sex life remained very active and, although he was still very good looking, Andy wasn't her type.

Add to that his dubious reputation with women and his continued insistence on calling her Mandy, and it was clear that she wasn't going to succumb to his charms, though a surprising number of other Company wives seemed to have done so if the many rumours were true.

"I just wish he'd leave me alone," Amanda complained one evening when she had finally been able to remove his hand from her bottom during yet another important but tedious corporate event. "And he keeps calling me that name!"

"I know and I'm sorry," I told her. "If you could just put up with him until I get my Partnership..."

"Well, okay! But it had better come soon!" she had replied.

I wanted that Partnership badly too, but for very different reasons. The amount of money I had borrowed from the company had increased alarmingly in recent months. The house, and Amanda's expensive taste in clothes weren't helping at all, and if I was ever going to repay it, I needed that Partnership badly and quickly.

I have to say, my wife had looked particularly stunning that evening in a sparkling beaded black dress with shimmering stockings and black patent heels. Her blonde hair had been raised and sculpted high on her head; making her look more like a movie star on Oscar night than the wife of an Accountant. It wasn't at all surprising that Andrew had tried his luck again.

Fortunately, he had been quite relaxed about Amanda's continued resistance to his charm and didn't seem to have taken any real offence at being rebuffed yet again.

He had however, hinted that she might not always feel this way about him and that the change of heart might not be far away. Amanda had been puzzled by this, but before she could ask what he meant, he had moved on to talk to Yvonne, the short, dark-haired, overweight wife of a senior colleague.

Yvonne and her husband Mike had been good friends to Amanda and me throughout my career with Sandersons. We had been to each other's homes on many occasions, and our kids were friends both inside and outside school.

Mike had been a couple of years ahead of me on the Graduate Training Scheme. He had worked in a different sector of the business to me, but we had been able to provide low-key support for each other during the difficult first years in our new jobs. Our wives were firm friends too, often meeting for coffee -- less often in the gym; a place Amanda adored, but which pretty-but-plump Yvonne had never really enjoyed.

Just why Amanda and Yvonne should have become such close friends was something of a mystery. Unlike my wife, Yvonne was no intellectual, having left school at sixteen with few qualifications. Worse still, she was handicapped by an unfortunate baby-doll voice and strong regional accent which tended to prevent colleagues from taking her seriously.

Amanda often said that this was as much their loss as Yvonne's, and that it was a mistake to underestimate her good friend.

Yvonne was working as a clerical assistant in the Audit Department when Mike had met her and had been, if the photographs in their lounge were anything to go by, an absolutely stunning, full-figured brunette. Clearly very able, though lamentably under-confident, she had been rather star-struck by Mike, the rising Corporate Star who had wooed, wedded and bedded her in record time, if not in that order.

Over time, living the Good Life and having two children had taken its toll, and Yvonne's already curvy figure had become even curvier to the point where she was now decidedly chubby. But, although she was as far from Amanda's tall, slender figure and fiery personality as I could imagine, she remained bright, friendly and surprisingly attractive,

Andrew clearly still found Yvonne worth paying attention to if their current body language was anything to judge by. I watched the pair of them for a moment as I sipped my drink in silence.

"Can we go home now?"

Amanda's voice whispering in my ear brought me out of my reverie, her tone mirroring perfectly our daughter's 'are we nearly there yet?' that we heard on every car journey. She was a good mimic and I laughed out loud.

"Sorry," I grinned. "Well done diverting Andy. I see he's moved on to new ground." I nodded in the direction of Yvonne who appeared to be completely engrossed in whatever he was telling her. "It would be good if the two of you could get on better though. It would do my Partnership chances no harm."

"I'm trying my best," she protested. "It would be easier if he kept his hands to himself."

"I know," I agreed. "He's a bit 'hands-on' with all the wives." I nodded at the way he and Yvonne were talking happily. "They do get on well, don't they? That won't do Mike's prospects any harm."

Amanda gave me a furtive look, then glanced left and right as if to make sure she couldn't be overheard.

"I don't think you'd like Andy to get on with me quite as well as he does with Yvonne."

I started then stared at her. She opened her deep blue eyes very wide.

"You mean they're..." I asked amazed.

Amanda nodded slowly.

"Since when? I mean, how do you know? Did she tell you?" I demanded, genuinely shocked.

"Not in so many words," my wife confided. "But something has definitely changed. She talks about him more now. And differently." I must have looked doubtful because she added. "Trust me! We psychologists can tell these things!"

I stood in silence for a moment, watching Andy and Yvonne chatting animatedly. Their body language certainly suggested they were comfortable in each other's company, but surely she was just being friendly to her husband's Boss. Surely I was reading things that weren't there?

"How long has it been going on? Does Mike know?" I asked, remembering how often we had been to their house without any hint of trouble between the two of them.

"I'm not sure, but I'd guess it started before Christmas last year just before Mike got his promotion. I know Andy gave her a surprisingly good Christmas present."

I raised an eyebrow in silent question.

"Next time you're close, look at her neck. That's a gold necklace she's wearing. She always wears it to work do's and sometimes when she's out with Mike. Three stones on a gold chain; two clear ones separated by a larger, darker stone. Very tasteful and very expensive. She told me the Company owns three of them. They took them in lieu of payment from a Client that went bust. If they're real diamonds, they must be worth a fortune."

She continued talking, but I wasn't listening because at that moment, I noticed Andy lean forward and very quickly whisper something into Yvonne's ear. She paused, nodded and they separated. It looked casual, as if they were simply going to circulate around the other guests, but there was something furtive about Yvonne's movements that, given what I had just learned, caught my attention.

Moments later though, I lost track of her in the crowd but over Amanda's shoulder, I watched Andy working his way to the back of the room, then disappear down the corridor that led to the lifts. A few seconds later I scanned the room thoroughly, but Yvonne was nowhere to be seen.

Puzzled, Amanda and I returned to the throng to look after our important guests