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He turned to look at who had spoken and stared at me for a few seconds. He seemed lost in thought. His blonde hair was short and slightly wavy with blue eyes that were bright and piercing, they went right through me. A narrow straight nose with high cheekbones, made his face appear distinguished and ageless. I could not stop myself from holding his gaze, an unnatural reaction for me. Dragging my eyes back to the stalled photocopier, I peered at the error message displayed. Bemused at my suggestion he let me come forward and I busied myself with sorting out the ridiculous machine. I bent over to open the lower paper compartment and was grateful I was wearing one of my longer pencil skirts. The green light came on and I stepped back with delight.
“There it’s ready to go.” I felt quite smug at my achievement and rocked on my toes.
“Thanks,” he said pursing his lips fleetingly.
He took his photocopy and original off the machine and once again he looked me up and down, as if I was parading on the catwalk.
“You’re welcome,” I grinned.
He was the handsomest man on legs. I did not know the company kept such good-looking males on their staff. I could not take my eyes off him, even his age was difficult to estimate. I sensed my skin flushing pink and I was mortified by the speed at which my dormant sex drive had been put back into gear.
The lift behind him opened and he turned to watch another suited bigwig step out. I was out of the picture as he strolled over to talk to the waiting man. As I walked back to the door of my communal office I almost bumped into Penny as she came bounding out.
“Gemma, you’re here. Did you get your ticket?” she blurted out loudly. Then seeing the men by the lift, blushed brightly and looke
d away quickly.
“No. They’re all gone,” I replied, but I did not think Penny was interested in what I was saying. “It’s frustrating I’ve always wanted to hear Poulenc’s Stabat Mater in a big venue and now I won’t...” My voice trailed off as I watched the increasingly alarmed face of Penny staring back at me.
Penny grabbed my elbow and pulled me back towards the office door.
“Just come will you,” said Penny with agitation and she looked incredibly uncomfortable as she jerked her head back towards the doorway.
I glanced at the two men. The man who came out of the lift was busy talking away. My photocopy man was staring intently at me from across the open space. It was my turn to feel like blushing. Whatever he was thinking was not clear from his expression. I could not think why I was drawing his attention so much. I glanced down at my clothes, perhaps I had spilt coffee or laddered my hold up stockings. I felt seriously self-conscious and vulnerable.
In our office, I turned to speak to Penny but she had scuttled off and I was none the wiser about what had made her go into a spin. I sighed and returned to my small desk. Its dimensions were typical of the office. My desk was set against a wall with a small shelf above and a pedestal filing cabinet tucked underneath. I had no privacy and the noise from the rest of the office drifted around the room. In my previous job, I had my own cubicle, not grand but I was not overlooked by anyone.
For the rest of the day I was distracted by unpleasant memories, which would have been better served by being eradicated. Regrettably, they were written indelibly in my mind. I wondered if anything would succeed in distracting me from them. I had put my hope in a new job. The plan did not always work and I doodled on a sheet of paper. A teardrop descending down a cheek and within it I trapped my disconsolate face. How I wished I could cry properly and find those tears released from their holding place.
The day after my photocopier rescue, I was in a meeting with Andy and two of his colleagues working on another project. We were sitting around a large table in one of those communal, bland meeting rooms. The air-conditioning was fierce and directly above my head. A chill descended my neck and back. I was aware my stiffened nipples were showing through my flimsy cotton top. I would not wear it again for work. My tits were definitely not for show. I was determined to present an unsullied appearance to my masculine colleagues.
The coldness kept my mind sharp and focused. The discussion was keeping to the agenda, something I keenly sought in business meetings. I managed to answer all their queries using the documents I had brought along with me or by accessing information from my laptop; its screen projected on the white board opposite us. Not a difficult project review as I was in my comfort zone and the methodologies I described were used on a daily basis in my previous job. From out of the blue, I heard the door behind me open. Andy immediately got up, fumbling with his tie.
“Mr Lucas, I wasn’t expecting you for this meeting,” he looked seriously disconcerted.
Mr Jason Lucas, Managing Director and proprietor of J.D. Lucas Ltd, had entered the room. I froze in my seat and listened to Andy as he lost all momentum in his speech.
Why was Mr Lucas hijacking the meeting? I had heard plenty about him since I had started working for the company. A tough son-of-a-bitch who did not suffer fools, he ran a tight ship and would lash an incompetent idiot with his tongue. He especially did not like time wasters according to Andy. I turned and looked over my shoulder, I gaped visibly, my photocopy man. Now I knew why Penny had scarpered back into the office so quickly. I quickly glanced down, hiding away my red cheeks and the presence of my embarrassing flushed skin.
Jason Lucas looked like a man who dropped into meetings to torment the participants. He seated himself at the head of the long table, crossing his legs and swinging back in the chair. Then he began to drum his fingers in quick succession on the table top. It made a playful drilling noise. If its purpose was to draw our attention towards his presence, the technique worked. The tapping was mesmerising and I had to look up at him. Those blue eyes, thin hard lips and strong jaw bone. Each time I dwelt on him, I could not stop thinking about sex - crazy thoughts that should not be there. Part of my forgotten persona had been dragged back from a prison cell, where she had lingered locked away and neglected.
If he remembered me from my photocopier rescue, he appeared uninterested in my presence and the lack of recognition reinforced my lowliness in the proceedings - a mere intern and insignificant.
He wanted an appraisal of the project and its status. “Well, fill me in quick,” he said with impatience. “I’ve only got five minutes.”
I watched with my toes curling as my boss blustered his way through the salient points of our discussion. When the work I had done was mentioned, Mr Lucas turned in his seat and directed his eyes at me. Were they always so intense? I took a deep breath and held my ridiculous thoughts in check.
“Show me,” he snapped his fingers and I passed him the documents. “You did this with the new software kit?” he asked me. Trapped by his blue eyes my pulse rate rose dramatically.
Breathe, goddamit!
“Yes, sir. I used it all the time in my last post to do these calculations,” I replied with a clear voice.
“These look good,” he hesitated and took his mobile from his pocket. The ringtone must have been on vibrate. “Yes, Carla, I’m coming now.” He stood up and held on to the documents.
“I’ll keep these,” and then he was gone out of the door, not even a thank you.
A whirlwind first encounter, but I did not bother with over-analysing the psychology of my encounter with the Jason Lucas, Managing Director, Chief Executive, whatever! The man was way out of my league and I concentrated on the rest of my day, shelving my dredged up sexual yearnings back to their rightful home: forgotten. At four o’clock, my desk phone rang.
