The Interview (short romance story) Read online

  She was relaxed after that, happy with the way things had gone. She drank the bottle of wine, settled into the sofa and daydreamed about her man in shining armor. When the thoughts of him stirred a desire deep within her, when she remembered how her body had shook, how much he had pleasured her, she began to play with herself. She came for the second time that day because of him. She couldn’t wait for the next week to roll around.

  2

  She was nervous about starting work, not as nervous as she had been with the interview, but a nervousness borne out of a giddy excitement; a tinging, trembling feeling that ran through her blood and prickled goose pimples on her flesh. She had spent the entire weekend thinking about him. She had tried, in vain, to find him online, hoping what little she knew about him -- where he worked, what he looked like -- would be enough to find a social media profile. She failed to find anything.

  She wore her best suit, spent time on her makeup and hair, practiced her most flirtatious smile in the mirror and then set off for the office. She arrived just as a number of others were arriving. She climbed slowly out of her car, eyeing them up as they clustered together -- laughing and joking -- and entered the building. There were only a few of them and he wasn’t with them.

  There were more inside the building, loitering around reception. She studied each of them in turn, one was already watching her behind as eyes passed over him and he took her interest to mean that she liked him. He gave her a dirty smile and a wink, she tried to ignore him.

  The elevator was working again and as she shifted inside, she entered into brief and awkward conversations with a few of the other workers on their way to the same floor. She was glad when the doors finally opened and everyone scattered to their separate desks, their own segments of the office. Some of them wandered away to the kitchen, Shirley followed them, walking slowly down the aisle, glancing around, trying to take everything and everyone in. She couldn’t see him in the office, and when she bustled through to the busy kitchen to pour herself a cup of coffee and avoid the early morning small talk, she couldn’t find him there either.

  She was dejected, her excitement and giddiness faded. She searched for him all day, shooting sly glances around the office as she worked, studying it in more detail on her many trips to the toilet or the kitchen, which she took in the hope she would bump into him. She couldn’t see him anywhere.

  “Are there many people off sick today?”

  One of the women in the office, a young girl in her early twenties with hair that sprayed all over her head and thin pouty lips that were caked with thick red lipstick, had started talking to her; nonsense small talk that Shirley absorbed until she found a gap in the conversation to slip in her nonchalant question.

  “I don’t think so,” the girl answered calmly. “Why?”

  Shirley shrugged, looked at the steaming coffee cup in her hand, tried to play casual. “Just wondering. It doesn’t seem that full, that’s all.”

  “This is about as full as it gets here,” the girl said. She looked away, seemed to think something over, “I think everyone’s here,” she said with a nod. “Might be missing one or two though.”

  Shirley nodded. They were missing at least one, and he was the most important one. How the girl with the big hair and pointed lips couldn’t see that, how she hadn’t noticed that the office was short of its most prized possession, amazed Shirley.

  She tried not to interact much with the other workers for the rest of the day. She watched the clock, waited until the dreary day ended and then happily went home.

  The next day she rose with the same eager anticipation as the last. She drove to work with a smile on her face, a smile that remained constant as she parked the car, passed reception and worked her way to the office; a smile that faded when she realized that her man had failed to show yet again. She suffered the same result the next day and the next, until she was forced to endure an entire week without him. She was annoyed by the weekend, annoyed at him and annoyed at herself. She had taken the job because of him and as he hadn’t had the decency to show, she had been forced to endure it without him.

  She had a good feeling he would be there next week. She dreamt about jumping on him, taking him in the kitchen again, maybe moving to a storeroom so they could have more privacy, so they didn’t need to rush. He could take his time with her and she could let him. She was excited and horny at the thought of it, but when she got to work, that excitement dribbled away.

  She searched for him everywhere, failed to find him again. She sat at her desk, ready to start another miserable work day, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. It seemed pointless.

  She slammed her hands onto the surface of the desk, attracting the attention of nearby workers who looked up from their phones and keyboards. She ignored most of them, scowled at one unlucky man who tried to flirt with her. She went down to reception to greet the stubborn faced receptionist who was waiting for her with perpetual look of misery.

  “I was wondering if you could tell me something,” Shirley said, as politely as she could.

  The receptionist glared back.

  “I’m looking for someone, a man,” Shirley offered.

  “Aren’t we all?” the receptionist said blandly.

  Shirley frowned. “A particular man,” she explained.

  “You’re not alone.”

  “He’s muscly, handsome, tall--”

  “Ah, just the perfect man then,” she cut in dryly. “Right well--””

  Shirley slammed her fist onto the desk, surprising the receptionist and herself. They both stared at the desk, at her clenched fist. Shirley coughed, bringing her hand to her mouth. “I’m sorry,” she said hastily. “But this is important.” She faked a smile. “He was here when I had my interview,” she said, trying to soften her tone but unable to hide the distaste on her face.

  The receptionist shook her head, staring into Shirley's eyes apprehensively.

  “He was wearing a tight shirt,” Shirley tried. “He was in the kitchen…” she offered.

  The receptionist glared at her momentarily, Shirley tried her best to maintain her smile.

  “Max,” the receptionist said eventually, looking away from Shirley.

  “Max?” Shirley replied, her smile now genuine.

  The receptionist nodded and looked up again, a glimmer of sadism in her eyes. “Handsome Tall. Strong. Cheeky smile, nice eyes?”

  “Yes,” Shirley nodded, exaggeratedly. “That’s him. Is he sick, is he on holiday?”

  The receptionist shook her head, the glimmer still in her eyes. “He doesn’t work here.”

  Shirley felt her heart sink, felt the smile drip from her face. “What? But I saw--”

  “He’s the handyman,” she said, seemingly enjoying the disappointment on Shirley's face. “Came to fix the toaster or microwave or…” she shrugged apathetically. “Whatever. He’s freelance. We hire him when we need him.”

  She nodded, dropped her chin to her chest. The receptionist said something as she walked away, she sensed the sarcasm in her voice but didn’t absorb what was said. She slunk away, back to the elevator, back to the office floor. She bypassed her desk and the lines of nosey faces that glared at her and wondered why she was trudging with melancholically down the aisle.

  She sat on the table in the kitchen and sighed. There was no one else in there, the last time she had been in that position she had just finished having sex with the handyman -- orgasmic, amazing sex that had persuaded her to take the job. She looked at the table on which she had been lying, him on top of her, when she had been taken to a place she had never gone before, an ecstasy she had never experienced.

  She sighed heavily. Just the handyman, she thought to herself. There were others in the office, including the guy who had flirted with her on that fateful day. He had been flirting with her ever since but she had been preoccupied chasing someone she couldn’t find. He was young and attractive, but he was nothing compared to the handyman.

  Sh
e wasn’t the boss, didn’t have the authority to hire a handyman when she felt like it. She was an office drone, stuck with the boring and the tedious, stuck doing thing she hated for people she didn’t want to mix with. There as no point in her staying in the job anymore, not if she couldn’t see him--

  She paused her thought, a smile slowly creeping onto her face. She took a knife from the drawer, smiled at her reflection in the gleaming blade and then shoved it deep into the toaster, wriggling it around until she heard a few things click out of place. She used the knife to pry off the ‘start/stop’ button on the microwave before slicing through the cord leading to the kettle.

  She tossed it into the sink, stood back to admire her handiwork; a wide smile on her face. She nodded approvingly to herself. She wasn’t the boss, couldn't phone the handyman herself, but as long as she worked in this dull, tedious office, she could make sure he was never short of work.

  Thank you for reading

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  You may also be interested in these other titles by V T Turner, available on Amazon Kindle:

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  My Paid Angel

  Good, Bad, Girl

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  Voyeur

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