Chapter 1: Decree Absolute
"Well, Mr Lawson, I must say that I have been very happy with the way that you have dealt with things." Andrea Braddock smiled as she passed me a cup of tea. "It's all gone through much quicker than I imagined it would."
Andrea Braddock had been a real lifeline for my career. I'd had a terrible first six months at Havering, Wallace and Fulbright. A stupid mistake in a conveyancing assignment in my first week, and an even worse one dealing with a will just a month after that, had nearly had me out of the door. How was I supposed to know that Wallace Winston Waits and Winston Wallace Waits weren't the same person? Vivienne Fulbright had left me in no doubt that she wasn't happy. It was the first time I had worked for a woman boss. It had been looking like it wasn't an experience that would last very long.
So, when Andrea Braddock turned up asking the firm to deal with her divorce and Vivienne Fulbright gave me the case I had the distinct impression that I had better get it right or I would be out.
With how things were in the job market, and how much I owed on my credit card, I couldn't afford that.
"It's always much easier, Mrs Braddock, when the divorce is not contested," I replied with the confidence that comes from a successful outcome. "Your ex-husband was a great deal more co-operative than in most of the cases that I have been involved in. He seems to have been quite happy to accept your proposed settlement with only the slightest of modifications. It's really been a form filling exercise from our perspective."
"But it is all finalised now?"
"Oh yes, the decree absolute was issued this morning and the final settlement was transferred as well. That includes the lump sum, the first of the irrevocable, monthly, allowance payments and, of course, the deeds of this house and the London flat and the vehicle registration documents for both the Ferrari and the Range Rover."
"Very thorough, Mr Lawson. You have been very thorough in all of this." I was happy to have Andrea Braddock's praise. She had a wide circle of influential friends and her approval could mean a lot to the business.
Mrs Braddock was one of those women that are always immaculately turned out, perfectly made up, dressed in the sort of clothes that scream, "I have money, I have taste, I don't need brands." I'm no expert in fashion but I could tell that the suit she was wearing had been beautifully tailored and the dagger heeled, calf length, boots she had on were a triumph of the shoe maker's art. Her blonde hair, back-combed and lacquered into rigidity, framed a rather square face with a determined jaw, a wide mouth and green eyes rimmed with dark eyeliner and mascara'd lashes. She was certainly an attractive women, in her mid-forties, maybe twenty years older than me, I thought. Oh yes, and that other thing I was thinking? I could tell that it was never going to happen.
Instead, I tried to keep my thoughts on the matter in hand and not the sight of Mrs Braddock's shapely thighs disappearing under the hem of her skirt. "Thank you, Mrs Braddock, I do try to be as thorough as possible. But, as I say, it's easier when things are uncontested. Your ex-husband must have been a wealthy man to have let all this go without a fight."
"No, not really," Andrea Braddock replied with a quiet, self-satisfied smile that gave her an almost feline look. "I doubt if he's been left with a penny."
It was a startling remark. When I had left Mr Braddock he had been only too eager to sign the forms that brought his marriage to an end. "Oh. I had rather formed the view that he felt he was getting off lightly."
"I am sure that he thought that he was. He may have even been right."
"I'm sorry, Mrs Braddock." I was puzzled. "I know it's none of my business but I'm not sure I can reconcile those two statements."
"No, of course. Silly of me." She smiled and then looked straight at me. "And you are right. It is absolutely none of your business."
I coughed, embarrassed by her directness. "I'm sorry Mrs Braddock," I said apologetically. "I didn't mean to..."
"No, of course you didn't. No matter. Now, I need to move on. That is what everyone tells me. After a divorce, you should move on, that's what they say, isn't it? Do you know Ellen Hanson's book 'The Inner Drive'? It's like a Bible for me."
I nodded. I hadn't read it but it was probably the most famous self-help book of the year. Ellen Hanson's mantra of "Reach In To Reach Up" had been spouted from every chat show as famous guests related how the terrible frustrations of being a movie star or whatever could be overcome with a simple, positive attitude to life. I rather felt that if you were paid millions, maybe life wasn't too bad but I was obviously wrong. Hanson's ideas had been taken up by every celebrity that had faced the least challenge to their lives. Her book managed to make the trivial difficulties of the life of a film star seem like they were relevant to normal people. And it offered an apparently infallible to solution to everyday woes. It wasn't any surprise that Mrs Braddock would have turned to it.
As for me, I felt life was more a case of reach in to hang on desperately to my current job. I didn't need a self-help book to tell me that.
"I must reach in to reach up. Look to my inner strengths. Build on my emotional core." Mrs Braddock recited. "I should move on. I intend to and I believe that you can help me."
"Well, of course," I said, muttering the usual platitudes of my profession, "I'm happy to be of service in any way that I can."
"Good," said Andrea. "You can certainly help me with my most immediate problem."
As far as problems go, I thought, it must be a small one. With the amount of money she had from the divorce settlement, not to mention the property that came with it. I'd have been happy to have her problems. Still, I was determined to be helpful. After all it could mean more business for the firm. "Which is?" I asked.
"Sex," she replied. I coughed in surprise. "The absence of Mr Braddock has left rather a gap in that area. He wasn't much use in our marriage but that was the one contribution to things that he was able to carry out. He was, I believe the colloquial expression is, hung like a horse and I certainly got used to the benefits of that. I will confess that I am already feeling the lack of his attentions and I need to find some substitute. You are here and available. My needs are urgent. You will do."
Mrs Braddock was certainly an attractive woman, perhaps twenty years older than me, in her mid-forties. She had taken care of her looks and her figure and while she might not have the athletic look favoured by many women my own age she carried herself in a way that made you think she knew exactly what she was doing with her body and the effect it was having. I have to confess that the idea of exploring her mature charms fuelled a few fantasies for me, some of a decidedly pornographic nature. However that was hardly the point. I wasn't used to being confronted in such a way, and certainly not by the firm's clients. "I don't think I can do that Mrs Braddock," I said.
"Don't be ridiculous, of course you can. I assume it all works down there," she looked directly at my crotch.
"I meant, Mrs Braddock, that it's not the sort of thing I could agree to do."
"You don't need to. I've already spoken to Ms Fulbright. She said you would be happy to do whatever I asked." The mention of my boss, one of the senior partners in the firm, was enough to get my attention. "Perhaps you'd like her to explain to you how your firm views a failure to keep one of their most profitable clients happy. I'm sure that she will be happy to tell you. I will quite understand if you wanted to call her." She picked up the telephone receiver and held it out towards me.
I didn't think that Ms Fulbright would have considered this as a possibility when she agreed I would "do anything". Still, I thought again, I wasn't anxious to do anything to upset Ms Fulbright, especially after her rather scathing review of the work I had done on my last assignment. And, after all, sex with Mrs Braddock wasn't going to be too terrible an experience. And not too much earlier, I had been fantasising about just that. "No," I said, "I don't need to do that."
"Good," Mrs Braddock said, getting to her feet, "in that case I suggest we start. If you'd like to go through to the bedroom, you can get undressed. We don't want you to get your suit creased, do we? Oh, and take a shower won't you?"
Which was how I found myself, damp from a shower and naked apart from a towel, in the middle of Mrs Braddock's bedroom.
Chapter 2: Sex With Mrs Braddock
I'd grabbed the towel from the shower and wrapped it around my waist as I left the bathroom. Mrs Braddock was waiting, standing with her arms folded, as I emerged. "You don't need that," she said, pointing to the towel. "Take it off."
"Look, Mrs Braddock," I said, trying to regain the initiative, "I'd really be happier if I kept it on."
"Your happiness is of no interest to me," she said, abruptly. "Take it off. Right now."
I felt I should really try to regain the initiative. I wasn't used to being bullied like this.
"I've had enough," I said. "Phone Ms Fulbright for all I care. I'm leaving."
"Of course," Mrs Braddock said. "You're perfectly free to leave."
I looked around but I couldn't see my clothes. I'd left them on a chair in the corner of the bedroom but they weren't there. "Err, my clothes," I said, pointing to the chair.
"I've no idea," Mrs Braddock replied disingenuously, "but feel free to leave. I'll send them on when they turn up. You'd better leave me your home address though. I don't suppose you'll be going into the office for much longer."
The impossibility of leaving naked and the reminder of the likely outcome of a phone call to Ms Fulbright was sufficient to overcome my defiance. "All right," I said, "you win."
"Yes," she said, with a smirk. "I usually do." I unfastened the towel and let it drop to the floor. "Well I don't know what all the fuss was about. That's hardly anything to get excited about. It's certainly not enough to excite me. See what you can do about it, can't you?"
