Retire Hurt

I work in real estate, and quite often I need to go to clients’ houses to assess their value. After my new secretary Loora had been working in the office about four days, I got an opportunity to go to assess an empty house in the suburbs, and I invited her to come along. There was really no reason for her to go; she was just supposed to be my secretary, after all. But I thought maybe if I could get her out of office surroundings, she might loosen up, and stop calling me ‘sir’, and I could find out a little bit more about her life. As I said last time, I had a crush on Loora, which I did not quite care to admit, but which still influenced a lot of things I did around her.

Things did not go as planned. To begin with, Loora did not take the opportunity to dress any differently than she would normally. She came to the house looking like this.

I walked in to the empty room and said hello, and asked her if she was all right, and she said: ‘Yes, sir. But it is very cold in here.’

She was right. It was March, and still freezing. The bar heater by the window was the warmest place to be, by far. I moved over and stood next to her. My eye was immediately drawn to her left hand, and I noticed there was no ring, like she normally wore.

‘What do you think of the place?’ I asked, trying to make eye contact, and not to stare too hard at her ring finger.

‘It’s too good to sell right now,’ she said. ‘The last few Victorian terraces along this street sold for 350,000 pounds. I don’t think they will get that in this market.’

As she says this she moves herself onto the heater to keep warm, and I found it impossible not to stare at her ring finger, although it is hidden behind her leg. I keep hoping the musky smell of her will wash over me like it has done in the office, but someone has sprayed the place with cheap air freshener just before the inspection and all I can smell is ‘Pine Breeze’ or whatever stupid name they all it. Certainly it is nothing like the smell of Loora.

‘Sir?,’ she says. ‘Are you all right?’

I realize I have been staring at her hopelessly for half a minute and clutch for an excuse. ‘Ah, you’re right, it is very cold in here,’ I say, effecting a shiver.

‘Do you want some space by the heater?’ she says, and sits down next to it, and like a fool I squat down next to her, and just then I do catch her smell, and this time, I am pretty sure it is of salt, and spice, and is coming from the places in her body where hair wants to grow, and which she cannot cover.

‘So, ah, Loora,’ I said. ‘What would you do with the place.’

‘Rent, definitely,’ she says. ‘You could get  500 pounds a month here. I’d be having that as income, and trying to buy in somewhere a bit closer to town.’

I try to remind myself that she is only twenty-five, but at this point she seems to know as much about the market as I do. Not that it matters, because she turns to face me so she can continue the conversation, and sits down with her legs towards me. I catch sight of her left hand, and there is definitely no ring on that finger.

‘Sir?’ she says again. ‘Are you sure you are all right? You look a bit red.’

‘Ah…’ I do not know what to say, and then another wave of her incredible musk comes over me, the strongest I have known it, and I am forced to go to the bathroom, claiming a stomach upset, and let her deal with the client (which she does very well, needless to say).

Retire hurt, is the cricket term. I have had to retire hurt.

But sooner or later I am going to find out about that ring.

Wish She’d Say Something

This is my new secretary, Loora. Actually she is the only secretary I have ever had, she got appointed when I was made regional partner and they moved me out to Nottingham. She is twenty-five and has no experience but seems capable and efficient so far. She certainly looks that part, and she had her work totally under control within about two hours of starting.

The first time I saw her I was struck by those eyes, but didn’t notice the smell of her until later that morning when she’d gotten everything sorted, and she came over to my desk with some coffee. The smell from her body wafted over me – musky and dry and reminding me of leaves and forest floor, but it was also faint and elusive and it disappeared after the first scent of it.

Then she went back to work and got the computer filing system sorted out.

That afternoon she came over again to show me how the new system worked, and leaned over my desk so I was surrounded by the scent of her, this time more like pine needles and dust and sun on the grass. I had to ask her about it.

‘That’s a nice perfume you are wearing,’ I said.

‘I’m not wearing perfume,’ she says, deadpan, still with those big eyes on me.

‘Oh. Deodorant?’

‘I am wearing some, but it is supposed to be odorless,’ she says, a faint smile on her face. ‘I’m allergic to perfumes.’

‘Oh. Well, um…’

What the hell do I say now? “You smell amazing?” That would be totally sleazy. It’s only her first day for Christ’s sake.

And, I am nearly ten years older and divorced with kids, and looking the way she does she probably already has a boyfriend. In fact she could probably have eight of them if she felt like it, one for each weekday and two on Sundays.

She helps me out of my verbal impasse. ‘I’ll just go and finish this, sir,’ she says, and walks off, leaving me with that smell; licorice, wine, dry tea, salt? I just want to keep smelling it so I can get a fix on exactly what it is.

Later that afternoon I find  reason to call her in again and we sit down together in the armchairs. I tell myself I am doing this because it is less formal than being on the other side of a desk, but I know full well it’s actually so I can get closer to her.

‘So, Miss Pennington. May I call you Loora?’

‘Yes,’ she says, deadpan again, no hint that she is either pleased or irritated with this advance.

‘I don’t mean to be rude, but I’d like to ask what interests you in this job. I mean, you don’t have any qualifications in this area – although you obviously do not seem to need them – but I notice you got excellent marks at school, enough to get into law or medicine in fact, and that you are also widely travelled and have worked as both a paralegal and a research librarian. So it seems strange that you would want a clerical job like this.’

‘Thanks, but it’s fine, sir,’ she says.

That’s all. I’ve said more than eighty words, she has replied with five, and one of them was ‘sir.’

‘Well, that’s good,’I stammered on. ‘I mean, I’m very happy to have you here and you appear to be very competent, but I don’t want you to get bored, Loora.’

‘No sir,’ she says, and I can smell her again and this time it is like leaves after rain, mixed with something more musky from further down her body. She looks at me, with that half smile that seems to say something and nothing, and I just wish she’d say something, say whether she felt anything, say what she really wanted, why she was here.

And then I see the ring on her fourth finger.

Damn.

That was when I realised that I was falling in lust, if not slightly in love, with my new secretary.

Damn.

Alison