Dan's Story

She was complaining that we were charging way too much, 2% for doing nothing was a lot of money and we should give her a discount. My boss didn't want the hassle and so he sent me out to see her.

Rather than the angry shouty woman I'd been led to expect she opened the door as if to an old friend, invited me in and sat me down in the living room with a cup of coffee and a couple of chocolate hobnobs. Dark chocolate, the biscuit of heroes. She sat opposite and leaned towards me, making it quite obvious she wasn't wearing a bra.

"This commission rate seems a lot of money, what do you do for that then?" she asked, absently playing with her top button.

I gave her the standard speech about market expertise, local knowledge, marketing and presentation of the property and working for her best interests at all times, she didn't look convinced and, seemingly distracted, she popped her button, almost causing her considerably well filled blouse to spill the creamy white contents into the open..

"I think you could do something a lot better for me." She whispered, deliberately undoing the next button and moving off her chair.

I was starting to panic at this stage, I didn't know if I was dreaming, hallucinating or had woken up in a porn film. Was I about to get trapped in a hidden camera trick?

She was kneeling at my feet, pushing my legs apart and sidling in towards my crotch.

"Mrs Carruthers, what are you doing?" I squeaked, genuinely scared, but also incredibly turned on.

She looked up at me, her lips were red, very, very red. I felt her hand on my fly, her other hand rubbing my cock through my suit trousers.

"I'm negotiating for a better rate."

My fly was open, she had me out, semi erect in her hand. With a wink she opened her mouth and slipped the head in, closed her bright red lips around the shaft and sucked hard, sinking down to the base. I could feel her tongue doing great things to me inside her mouth as she moved up and down the length of my now swollen penis.

She took it out and looked up at me again, "Twenty Five Thousand Pounds seems an awful lot of money. What can you do for me?" then she went back to sucking on me, pulling her blouse fully open and exposing her breasts while she did so.

My mind was whirling. Our commission was 2% which was Two thousand five hundred pounds, not twenty-five grand. Was she that bad at maths? Did I say anything? Oh God that felt good. She was an enthusiastic sucker of my meat, that was for sure. I admired the view for a while longer, reaching down and holding those beautiful tits, the warm sun streaming in through the window basked her in a bright golden glow. I was very close.

"Mrs Carruthers, I'm going to erm.." she stopped, took my cock out of her mouth and addressed the business matter in hand.

"What's the best you can offer? If you want me to finish it'd better be damn good."

Taking a punt, I gasped "Staff rates, Two thousand five hundred. "

She seemed delighted at that and bent back to her task with what seemed like genuine pleasure, taking my load deep in her throat and swallowing it all down with a smile before sitting back on her haunches and admiring her own chest.

"D'you like them? Mr Carruthers paid a lot to make them look this good, always seems a waste he's the only one to get to see them."

I agreed, but I was suddenly very keen to get out of there, promising to get a revised contract over to her in the post

I was back in the office in record time and revised the contract myself, taking out any reference to percentages and only referring to a fixed sum of £2,500.00

I thought it was all over until a week or two later when my boss called me into his office and demanded to know why Mr Carruthers was questioning what had gone on between his wife and the reptile that had come out to see her. I was feeling so low that I just told the truth, which set the boss back in his seat.

Fortunately for me, Mrs Carruthers hadn't given any details, so my secret was kept between me and my boss, but I did find myself shipped out to a small branch forty miles away as a punishment.

In some ways it was the best thing that could have happened. I had to leave the flat and bought my first house in the sticks near my new offices outside Stroud where I could live in anonymous self-loathing. My experience of relationships and casual encounters was such that I kept myself virtually celibate for about five years, just got my head down and worked on building up the business.

Not going out and having a reasonably well-paid job I found myself with money to spare and started buying other houses on a buy to let basis. After a few years I had six houses and flats around the area, aiming to add two properties a year for the next five years.

I'd not had a steady girlfriend since Sharon and I split up close on six years previously, I'd been on a few second dates but I still had such a poor opinion of myself that if I liked them I wouldn't trust myself not to be a shit in the future and ghosted them, or if I didn't like them I'd try to get them into bed then ghost them, consequently I hadn't slept with anyone I liked in years.

I filled in the void in my life in other ways, I took up running with a local group and built up to ten miles a few times a week, I started running to work so I had a shower fitted in the toilets and fitted a set of lockers so I could keep clothes at work.

Business at the small office I was sent to grew and I grew with it, ending up as branch manager. As Branch manager I was responsible for the whole thing and was dreading the palaver of recruiting a new administrator, advertising, interviewing, shortlisting and all the crap that goes with it, and had been putting it off as much as I could. I was about at the point where I couldn't put it off any longer when I received a call from one of the other agents in town, a former employee of theirs had moved back into the area and was looking for work, they couldn't offer anything and could we.

I got on quite well with most of my competitors, it's worth being friendly, besides which I'd bought two of my rental properties from this one, so they knew I was worth keeping on board. I got them to send her right over.

Jennifer Harris was blonde, slightly overweight and twenty-eight years old, so three years younger than me, but seemingly in a better place because she was pushing a pram with a.....girl I think, asleep inside. Which probably explained the overweight thing, having a baby probably made getting to the Gym quite tricky.

She apologised about the baby, explaining she'd called in to her old job to see if there was anything happening as she'd just moved back to the area and hadn't expected to find herself in an interview, so she hadn't got a CV or anything.

I told her not to worry about the Baby, or the CV. It was an admin role in an estate agents, not chairman of IBM we were interviewing for, if Peter at Rahman Countywide said she was worth talking to that was all the CV she needed and invited her to tell her story.

Far from being in a better place than me she was just getting out of a much worse place, her partner, the baby's father, had been a Captain in The Rifles, our local infantry unit, right up until the moment he was caught in an IED explosion outside Bagram in Helmand Province on the second week of his deployment. He was killed before he even knew he was going to be a father. She kept a deadpan face as she told me, I guess she must have been numbed to it to an extent, I wasn't and was almost in tears as she told me. Of course, it may have been an interview ploy because I offered her the job there and then.

When she asked about a creche I improvised wildly and told her we had an agreement with the tiny-tots nursery outside town and I'd set up her membership the next day.

That was an interesting conversation.

"What do you mean you don't have spaces? This place is huge."

Who knew there were limits to the number of children of each age a creche can look after for each trained childcare specialist, space was not in this case the limiting factor. Not me, and Tiny-tots were at the limit.

In the end I offered to sponsor another specialist, there was a discretionary local budget, and I was sure it would cover this sort of thing. It didn't, it was for things like fetes and roundabout sponsorship, not paying someone's wages, so Palmer properties Ltd sponsors tiny-tots nursery to the tune of fifteen hundred pounds a month. At least my accountant was able to offset it against my tax bill.

We all bounced along quite nicely for almost a year, Jennifer proved to be a very able administrator, keeping the office efficient and generally up to date on all our documentation. She did try to get things going socially, with a few evenings at the pub, a Christmas meal for the first time ever and she tried very hard to get me to sign off a summer barbecue. I was reluctant to do all these things because I was still convinced I was a total arsehole who would probably ruin everyone's evening, I didn't want to get close to anyone because I would only disappoint them. I signed it off but decided I'd make a token appearance and head off as soon as I'd seen everyone.

And so, it went on, I kept everyone at arm's length, we got on, but I didn't want to socialise. My only friend was Gary by then, everyone else was an acquaintance or a clubmate or a colleague. My sister lost contact with Wendy so any news of Coco, or Nicola as he was known by then, disappeared. I heard she was married to some IT guy who played Rugby but beyond that, no idea. Sharon and Doctor bloody perfect moved to Africa for two years to work with a charity, I never knew what happened after that. But I still beat myself up, the tattoo on my shoulder a permanent reminder of my mendacity.

It was my birthday, a year after Jennifer had joined us. She was the office baker, any excuse and she would bring in a Victoria sponge, and my birthday was one such excuse. She made a cake in the shape of a running shoe, seeing as that was all anyone knew about me at work, the five of them sang happy birthday and Mike, the junior negotiator produced a bottle of champagne, well, Cava, and we all had a toast. At the end of the day, I was closing up and Jennifer was still there, awkwardly she tried to say something, but was struggling.

"So, Dan, erm, I was wondering.. if erm,"

Being the ever-loving arse that I was I didn't make it easy for her. "What are you trying to say Jen? Come on, I want to lock up."

"Iwonderifyou'diketogettogetherforadrinkormaybeameallaterthiseveningmymumsgotJackyfortheeveningandImfree." And breathe.

I processed what she'd said.

"I don't think so. It wouldn't be appropriate."

She really looked upset. Inside my demons were telling me I was doing her a favour and she'd thank me for turning her down of she knew what I was really like.

"It's just my mother gives me a hard time about not socialising, she thinks I should as it's nearly three years since Jack, you know. And it is your birthday."

I did know, and she sold it to me as keeping her mum off her back, so I said yes to a drink.

We walked to the Dragon for a glass of wine for her and a pint of IPA for me, which turned into a second and a chili con carne for me and ham egg and chips for her. I walked her home afterwards and realised she was in one I'd had my eye on, a lovely four bedroomed place in the quiet end of town.

I asked what the house was like,

"It's ok. The kitchen's a bit run down, and the shower could do with replacing. When Jack died the insurance cleared the mortgage so at least that worry was taken away. We were renovating it slowly but it's all functional. Mum and Dad want me to move back in with them," she pointed up the road, "but I quite like my independence, as far as there is any with a toddler."

I nodded, declined the invitation for coffee or a nightcap, and took myself home.

Jennifer came in to work with a massive smile that morning, something inside me felt a bit better. Somehow she persuaded me that a drink and a meal once or twice a month was all it needed to keep her mum off her back. It was all very platonic and innocent as far as I was concerned so my inner demons were pretty much kept at bay. We'd go to one of the pubs or small restaurants in town, we'd chat, I'd walk her home, I'd decline the invitation for coffee or a nightcap, I'd go home.

In the third month of this happening, I was sitting in the back office, finishing off a set of monthly figures for HQ, when Jennifer walked in and asked if we were still on for the Wheatsheaf. I could tell something was on her mind again, so I saved my PowerPoint, closed down the laptop, sat back and waited.

She hummed a bit then dived in.

"Are we going anywhere with this, I mean, it's been three months. That's six times we've been out together, and I don't get the impression you're interested in anything more than a drinking buddy, I've opened up about my dead husband, my daughter, my hopes and fears and you've told me about running and that's it."

I tried blustering, company policy for colleagues not to date, (which is rubbish, I made that one up), the inappropriate nature of me being her boss and dating her. She told me that she would be sure to report any pressure on me at work to the local HR coordinator, which was her.

Eventually she snapped at me, "Look, if you just don't like me then at least tell me so I can stop making a fool of myself. I like you; I think it could go further than 'like' if we give it a chance but for some reason you won't let me close to you. What is it? Is it because I've got a child? Is it because I'm a paid-up member of the dead spouse club? What?"

She was holding back tears at this point, which just pushed me into a worse place. I tried to answer but my own voice let me down and cracked.

"No, it's not you. You're great. I don't deserve you; I'd just do something vile to you and ruin your life."

She laughed through her tears. "You don't think my life has already done vile things to me? You think there's anything you can do that's worse than losing my husband before I could even tell him we were going to have a baby? No. Didn't think so, now are we going for a drink and see what happens or what?"

I had red rimmed eyes and an ache in my throat, I told her the last thing I wanted was to go to a pub with other people around, but would she like to come home, and we could cook something at my place.

She perked up a bit and said that would be a nice idea, adding "I'll keep the HR coordinator on speed dial in case you try anything."

We cooked up Penne Arabiata and demolished two bottles of Chilean Malbec, I gave her the full story about leading Coco on to get close to Sharon and managed to keep from crying through it, too much. Jennifer came over to where I was sitting on the sofa, sat next to me and held me tight.

"It was a pretty shitty thing you did, but we've all been fixated on someone. Your brain doesn't work properly. From what you said both Nicola and Sharon are happy, I bet if you could ask them they'd say their lives were fine."

It helped a bit, even just talking about things I'd kept suppressed for six years helped. Someone else telling me I had been awful but to try and let it go helped and kissing Jennifer helped a lot.

We didn't go any further than kissing on the sofa like a couple of randy teenagers that night but we both seemed quite happy to take it slowly. The two bottles of Malbec meant neither of us could drive so I called her a taxi and picked her up from her place in the morning.

The next evening, I was trying to finish the presentation I'd abandoned the day before, everyone else had gone home when my office door opened, and Jennifer walked in. She pushed my chair back, closed the laptop, set it aside and sat on my desk facing me.

"About last night, I'm ready for more. I want someone in my life, and I think it could be you. I think you want someone in your life and I'd like it to be me, but we won't know for sure unless we try, now is there another skeleton in your past that I need to know about, and before you answer, I was cautioned for shoplifting when I was twelve and went out with Jonny Hardaker when I was fourteen just to annoy my friend Becky who fancied him."

I hesitated, trying to think of the right thing to say but instead found myself with a woman on my lap and a tongue in my mouth. After a few minutes passionate kissing she pushed back onto the desk and reached down to my belt, undoing it and the trousers beneath. I lifted my hips and kicked off my shoes, she pushed my trousers and pants down, I stood and stepped out of them. Unsure of what to do next I leaned in and kissed her, reaching up to stroke her breasts through the fabric of her dress. Her hand batted mine away as he undid the buttons down the front, as it fell open I reached in and found she was naked underneath.

She gave a little chirp of delight as I found her nipples, or it may have been my cold hands, her warm hands gripped my penis, swiftly working it to a solid erection.

Our first lovemaking was swift and hurried, she whispered "Do me here, on your desk. Do me now", and shucked off her dress, standing in front of me in just her short, heeled sandals.

I was to find she didn't like harsh language whilst making love, it was all "do me," and "willy," and "Pussy," not "Fuck me, Cock or Cunt." To be honest I was more than happy to go along with that, and I did her there and then on the desk.

I pushed into her tidily trimmed pussy as we gazed deep into each other's eyes, she was leaning up on her elbows with her knees hanging down off the edge of the desktop. The angle meant I couldn't kiss her, but I could take in the sight of her face, smiling happily up at me, her body shaking in synch with my thrusting. The situation, the lack of recent female company and the joy of doing it with someone I actually liked for the first time in nearly six years meant this was a very quick first time, but it was great for us both, nonetheless.

I came to a shuddering climax, apologising for being so quick but she barked out a quick "Shut up. Stay there." and rubbed hard on her clit, suddenly jerking her back in orgasm, almost squeezing my softening penis out.

We laughed together, me hunched over her, trying to keep my now flaccid member in her, and trying to reach her for a kiss. The effort was too much so she sat up, leaking a bit on my desk pad.

"Come on, get dressed and I'll buy you dinner," she told me as she disappeared into the loo, returning a minute or two later, still naked to recover her dress, while she rebuttoned it she recounted her plans for the rest of the evening.

"After dinner I expect to go back to yours or mine and try again, maybe for longer next time. Bring an overnight bag so we can try again before work."

Realising there's a lot to be said for a decisive woman, I went home and picked up an overnight bag. Eventually the overnight bag became a permanent thing, I got used to my weekends and evenings being taken over by Jennifer and her daughter. When Jacky started asking where I was on the few occasions I wasn't with them we decided the sensible thing to do would be for me to move in with them, so my flat joined my rental portfolio and I moved my few possessions into Jennifer's place.

For Jacky's fifth birthday we told her she was getting a baby brother, for her sixth we told her she could be Jennifer's chief bridesmaid. For her seventh I said yes I would grow a beard for her pirate party.

Jennifer and I had been married nearly twelve years, the beard stayed, Jennifer still worked as our administrator, I'd been bumped up to area manager but by coincidence was covering for the new manager that replaced me who was on holiday, when the shop door opened with a jingle from the bell.