Tea, Coffee, and Me Ch. 03

And, what could only be an insider's knowledge, of the smartphone-filmed footage donations of a countless colluding collection of AFP-sympathist watchdog whistleblowing informants, and the equally potentially valuable video offerings forwarded by the panoply of other, unofficial busybody contributors.

Added to all of that, Amanda knew all about the Job Centre Cup. The kudos-according, prize-winning inter-Job Centre trophy enthusiastically contested by the UK's North, West, East, and Southern 20-team leagues.

I could only conclude, that the in-the-know Amanda was being kept so well up to speed with such matters, by regular AFP policy updates and frequent informative bulletins from her company's sympathetic Job Centre contact, Miss Tonya Tomkins.

Amanda's chuckling penetrated my musings, and I lifted my gaze from the somehow mesmerising sight of her wiggling and scrunching olive-complexioned clear-varnished bare toes, to look up at her knowingly smiling face.

"David Manners, you are the as yet pure, raw material of the unresistant malleability and accommodating bendability that Zoe and I will be able to manipulate and mould.

"Zoe remains to be convinced; although it is obvious to me: You are going to adapt easily to being our at-work fringe benefit."

At hearing Amanda's words, a tingly shiver of understanding; of realisation, ran right through me.

The realisation, of the truth of it.

It was as if Amanda had shaken loose sufficient clingy cobwebs to expose to the bright light of day something that had been in hibernation.

As if, crystalising now, was not only understanding and realisation - but recognition, acknowledgement, and acceptance.

That I had been 'triggered'.

Amanda consulted her wristwatch and, as though startled at the quick passing of time, she exclaimed, "Now go - it's eleven twenty-eight! Report to Miss Honeywell's office. She's expecting you."

"Yes, Miss Amanda," I said respectfully, finally finding my tongue.

Finally finding the tongue, that Amanda had just put me on notice that she and Zoe would very soon be making good use.

The tongue, that, from now on, as their at-work fringe benefit, Amanda and Zoe would be making their as-and-when available demands on its soles-of-the-feet services.

The tongue, that, manipulating the nerve centres and tickling the "sweet spots" of the soles of their hardworking feet, would not just soothe, and would not only benefit holistically - but would sensually please and splendidly delight Amanda and Zoe.

The tongue, that, attending Amanda and Zoe as frequently as allowed by the constraints of my primary male-worker role duties and my other, reciprocally-related commitments, would acquit them better; would serve them more satisfyingly than could the expert learned fingers and the sensitive, knowing thumbs of the most gifted reflexologist.

Because it was the tongue, of a 'Compatible'.

The tongue of a Compatible, whose 'latent compatibility' had been 'triggered'.

Triggered, by giving it the required "little push in the right direction".

Triggered, yesterday, by none other than my employer Mrs Hilary Harper's sympathetic Job Centre contact.

My eighteen-year-old school-leaver's Career Classification Assessor and now Probational Case Worker, to whose Desk I must report on a fortnightly basis for at least a year for my Male Worker's Conduct Review interviews.

For who - at listening to Amanda's minutely detailed and vividly related account, I'd not only realised, and not only understood - but recognised, acknowledged, admitted, and accepted - the undeniable truth of it:

I had exhibited many of the tell-tale signs and evidenced numerous giveaway clues of the kind that, at an AFP-sponsored seminar, she and her Job Centre Interviewer colleagues had been briefed to look out for, coached to recognise, and drilled to act upon by specialist instructors from the Department of Compatibility.

Tell-tale signs of furtive eyes and giveaway clues of downward glances, which were of such unguarded, undisguised, glaring obviousness and unmissable openness that in her modesty she admitted she could not have failed to spot as, as recorded in full-colour HD by the Job Centre's strategically sited CCTV cameras, I had 'revealed myself' to her.

And thus for who, in affording her the opportunity to arouse my dormant predilection, I had enabled her to claim her first recorded success, to receive her first official commendation, and to chalk up three precious points for Brighton Job Centre - by providing her first personal experience of the Compatibility phenomena:

The AFP-style adopted but severely adapted concave bob sporting Job Centre Interviewer and ardent Authoritarian Female Party apparatchik - Miss Tonya Tomkins.

***

By my own, watch, I saw that I wasn't a moment too soon.

At 11:30 as required I knocked politely on the door upon which the gleaming brass nameplate announced was the office of the manageress of the Brighton City-Break Hotel and Spa: Miss Helen Honeywell.

I waited, assuming that presently I would be called to come in.

Only to be surprised when seconds later the door was opened wide, and standing there looking down on me was an attractive woman in her mid-twenties who wore her luxuriant tresses of wavy black hair cascading over the fronts of her shoulders: Miss Honeywell, I saw by her name tag.

Before I could recover from my surprise and announce myself, she questioned, "You'll be male citizen David - Neville's replacement? Mrs Harper's new footboy?"

"Yes, Miss Honeywell," I said respectfully.

I saw nothing to gain in splitting hairs and quibbling about her misrepresentation of my job title - and perhaps 'male-worker role refreshments-break luxury little-something-extra provider' was a bit of a mouthful and did call for some form of apt abbreviation.

Miss Honeywell ran appraising eyes over me, looking me up and down. "Hmmm ... I can very well imagine that your short but stocky physique acquits you ideally in the performance of your principal, facial-footrest duties for your employer Mrs Harper's refreshments-breaking female clientele?"

"Well, this is only my first day, Miss Honeywell. But yes, at least so far that would appear to be the case. Some comments to that effect were made this morning, by the SPOILT! Boutique manageresses at their coffee break. In particular, I heard the Head of Conference, Miss Connaught-Cavendish, telling Mrs Harper how pleased she and her manageress colleagues were with me. And Miss Amanda, who along with Miss Zoe is a junior partner of Mrs Harper, has since then kindly endorsed Miss Connaught-Cavendish's sentiments."

"Well, if that is the case, you must be a definite improvement on your absconded predecessor, the defiant and highly disagreeable Neville, who I understand will soon be on his way to be taught a few much-needed manners by the Jailhouse Blue female prison officers of Greystone Prison. And a most suitable comeuppance, in my opinion. Still, as the saying goes: The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Come in, then, male citizen David, and close the door behind you."

I closed the door and, my eyes cast respectfully downward accordant to standard protocol, I watched the tips of Miss Honeywell's high-heeled black leather office pumps disappear into the carpet's deep pile at her every step as I followed her into her spacious and well-appointed managerial office.

To her four companions within, seated at the nearest end of a rectangular twelve-place conference table, two on either side, Miss Honeywell explained the reason for the short interruption to proceedings: "It's all right, ladies - it's only my footrest."

From what Amanda had told me, I took the other four women to be members of Miss Honeywell's Heads of Department; their hotel uniforms corroborated this.

I wondered where their other senior colleagues were; but then perhaps there were no items on the agenda that warranted their attendance today.

Any further introduction unnecessary, Miss Honeywell now pointed to the floor, drawing my attention to a purple object she'd positioned under the nearest end of the conference table.

Behind a smoked-glass coffee table over in a more luxuriously furnished area of Miss Honeywell's office suite, I saw two identical ones, placed at either end of a plush tan leather three-seat settee.

"Lie down on your back, with your legs facing back this way, away from the table. Keep your arms along your sides and your legs together. Rest your head on the throw cushion I've placed under the near end of the table, male citizen David," instructed Miss Honeywell.

"Thank you, Miss Honeywell," I said gratefully, thinking she must have thoughtfully gone to the settee to get it for me upon hearing my expected knock at her door at 11:30 sharp.

"It's not for your comfort; it's for mine. It's to tilt your head at an angle more conducive to comfort - my comfort."

"Of course, Miss Honeywell."

The four lady Heads of Department laughed and chuckled. And, when they peered under the conference table to watch as obediently I complied with Miss Honeywell's instructions precisely, they clapped their hands and stamped their sensible-shod feet on the carpeted floor in a sedentary dance of amused delight.

Miss Honeywell then picked up the gold framed, pale-green padded conference chair that for the moment she'd moved back, out of the way, and repositioned it in place: over me so that my torso lay confined between the stackable seat's tightly restrictive legs; the front legs, cinching my shoulders. Seeing that things were now just as she wanted them, she sat down.

Lying supine with my head on the purple throw cushion and finding myself staring up at the near end of the conference table's un-finished underside, I was now out of sight to the hotel manageress Miss Helen Honeywell and the four other senior position women and no longer a distraction to their Departmental deliberations of the day.

"Now, ladies ... where were we?" said the manageress of the Brighton City-Break Hotel and Spa as, immediately upon sitting down again in her conference seat she hovered both feet above my face and, toeing free her high-heeled black leather office pumps, she allowed them to fall via my upturned face to the richly carpeted floor.

"I was asking if there was any further news yet about my request; about the possibility of bringing in a few more male workers on Placement," one of the Heads of Department reminded Miss Honeywell. "Bedmakers and bathroom cleaners, to work as two-man teams under the supervision of my chambermaids."

The hotel's Housekeeper, I realised.

She sounded as though she had forgotten my very existence; as though already it had completely gone from her mind that I was lying there under the conference table - a facial footrest for the presiding hotel manageress while she chaired their daily get-together Heads of Department meeting.

"Ah, yes, Mrs Simmonds, your Housekeeping request," said Miss Honeywell as she set about getting the soles of her dark-nyloned feet all nice and comfortable upon my purple throw cushion propped, upturned, conveniently tilted face.

"Vis-a-vis your request, I have this morning received a reply from the Community Service Liaison Officer, Miss Delia Dilmot, who on our behalf is liaising with Brighton Job Centre.

"And it's good news, Mrs Simmonds. Miss Dilmot has been assured of the roping in of the required number of Placemented male workers by the middle of next week, even if it means procuring them on secondment from the Domestic Work Detail. You can inform your girls," said Miss Honeywell as, pressing down the toes of one foot over my mouth and encapturing my nostrils in the dark nylon covered toes of her other foot, seemingly absent-mindedly she obliged me to inhale her under- and in-between-the-toes scent.

"Well, that is excellent news - and not a moment too soon," said Mrs Simmonds the Housekeeper. "I know my hard-working girls will be glad to hear it! Guiding and controlling them, like beasts of burden, the Placemented males take all of the work out of their work. Better still, the experienced two-man teams of the Domestic Work Detail can pretty much be left to get on with it unsupervised; they are surprisingly proficient, and they know that their work standards will afterwards be checked closely by my girls."

With ensuing agenda input from the hotel's Fitness Centre manageress, Miss Reeve, and from the hotel's Coffee Shop manageress, Mrs Alexander, the rescheduled Heads of Department meeting continued in this issues-of-the-day vein.

Until, while pushing my face from side to side with the ball of one foot and playing the pads of her dark-nyloned toes of her other foot over my lips in seeming absentminded pastime playfulness, Miss Honeywell said, "Well, that's all of the issues on today's agenda covered. So, is there anything else to address, ladies, before I wind up today's meeting?"

"There's the matter of some cutlery to be ordered for the Seascape Restaurant. Thanks to too many light-fingered diners, I'm getting short on dessert spoons again," said the other of the four lady Heads of Department, who I assumed now was the restaurant manageress.

"I'll phone our suppliers today. It's a perennial problem, isn't it, Mrs Waverly? Some of our patrons' unfortunate penchant for pinching our silver-service spoons and other motif-engraved cutlery?"

"Sometimes, Miss Honeywell, believing themselves safely unobserved and their acquisitory antics unnoticed, my waitresses and I will spot the culprits in the act. Most often, it is lady diner perpetrators we perceive, purloining the pricey pieces and popping them into their purses."

"And sadly, Mrs Waverly, as manageress of the hotel I can tell you they are not the only items of value to go missing on a regular basis.

"An astonishing percentage of our guests relieve us of an astounding amount of various other of our signature-embossed and embroidered hotel items. To them, just little logoed-keepsakes, fond souvenirs of their stay with us. But, to us, a never-ending logistical headache and a bothersome book-balancing battle.

"It is unfortunate and unfair indeed, ladies, that from economic necessity the vast majority of our honest and upstanding patrons are paying the price of the dishonesty and the petty pilfery of the tiny minority of their fellow guests via the compensatory mark-ups factored into our room-rates and meal tariffs."

From my supine position under the conference table, I listened to the four Heads of Departments' tut-tutting at the unbecoming behaviour of some of their light-fingered staying guests and their murmurs of disapprobation at the resident/non-resident, table-reserving/walk-in restaurant-diner cutlery pocketers.

"So, is there anything else, ladies? No ...? Well, I suppose that wraps up today's meeting, then," said Miss Honeywell as vigorously she massaged the warm dark nyloned soles of her feet, enjoying the meeting-culminating pleasures of a finishing-up facial foot-rub.

The four lady Heads of Department vacated their seats at the conference table and filed out of Miss Honeywell's office, closing the door behind them without making further comment or allusion to my presence.

Either they had forgotten all about me, lying there unobtrusively under their conference table, or I was an unnoteworthy irrelevance.

Miss Honeywell now lifted her gold-framed and pale-green padded stackable conference seat from over me and said, "While you're down there, get my shoes for me would you, David?"

Miss Honeywell's forgoing just now of her earlier rigid protocoled observance of the formal 'male citizen' address had not escaped my notice.

I could only assume that it was her satisfaction with my impeccable conduct and approbation of my passive demeanour that had earned from her this relaxing of strict female-citizen-Mistress/male-citizen-servant interactive protocol adherence.

She, but of course not we, were now on first-name terms.

As bid, I retrieved Miss Honeywell's high-heeled black leather office pumps from where, via my upturned, purple throw-cushion propped, conveniently tilted face they had come to rest under the conference table, several feet apart on her office's richly textured carpet.

"I'm afraid that was a bit of a squeeze for you, David, wasn't it? The legs on those stackable conference seats: they are, spaced rather narrowly. How are your shoulders and your arms feeling, after such rigid, restrictive confinement, albeit only for an hour or so?"

"They'll be okay, thank you, Miss Honeywell; my arms are a bit numb, and my hands are all pins-and-needly, but I'll soon be back to normal."

I then placed Miss Honeywell's shoes in front of her on the carpet at her dark-nyloned feet; and correctly, so that as I knelt before her and she rested her hand on my head for balance, she could conveniently insert her feet back into them as I took hold of and held down the heels for her.

"I must say, I'm inclined to concur and share the sentiments of the Head of Conference Miss Connaught-Cavendish and her SPOILT! Boutique manageress colleagues. Your service ethic is exemplary, and your general attitude throughout your attendance here in my office during my daily Heads of Department meeting is highly commendable. Most satisfactory, indeed."

"Thank you, Miss Honeywell."

"I am only sorry that today is your last at this hotel venue under the present catering contract; but, hopefully, you'll be back. So that, under the terms of my something-for-something reciprocal arrangement with your employer Mrs Hilary Harper, I might once again avail myself of your splendid service. Be assured that I shall be passing on these same laudatory comments to Mrs Harper."

"Thank you, Miss Honeywell."

"Well, off you go then, David."

"Yes, Miss Honeywell. And thank you."

***

In fact, by the evidence of my watch, with the 24-hour digital display showing the time at 13:02, this meant that it had been for an hour and a half, that I'd served as the Brighton City-Break Hotel and Spa manageress Miss Helen Honeywell's daily Heads of Department meeting under-the-conference-table facial footrest.

Funny, I thought, as now I headed back to the Pavilion Lounge ... it hadn't seemed half as long.

*

"Ah, David, you're back," said my employer Mrs Hilary Harper upon my return to the Pavilion Lounge.

"How did it go with Miss Honeywell? Was she happy with you?"

"I thought it went okay, Mrs Harper. It wasn't as if I had to do a lot; just, be there, for her, and be quiet. Miss Honeywell said she would speak to you about it later today."

"I am so pleased with you, David. You seem to be adapting so well!

"I am still getting over what Miss Connaught-Cavendish said about you: her lavish comments, her fulsome praise.

"And then, there are her promises of commercial endorsements. Not only, to her immediate circle of business colleagues, who will take what she says at face value. But referring enthusiastically and recommending persuasively our niche selling-point luxury little-something-extra refreshments-break service to her broader network of potentially interested associates.

"It's beginning to look as though Amanda's intuitive hunch about you was right: you are promising to be a real commercial asset to Harper's Conference Catering!"

I basked in the glow of my employer Mrs Hilary Harper's own, complimentary comments and effusive praise.

But, observing formal AFP protocol, I respectfully lowered my gaze to her red leather high-heeled pump shod feet ...

Perhaps, when at the end of work today at the expiration of our five-day contract with the Brighton City-Break Hotel and Spa we returned to her business premises in her catering van with all of our catering equipment, Mrs Harper too would avail herself of the soothing and reinvigorating pleasures of my male-worker role services.