E-Mail Valentine

Heather quietly opened my office door, put her finger to her lips and shut the door behind her cautiously. She was wearing her long trench coat and carrying her handbag.

She rushed across to my desk.

"Log off! Now!" she hissed at me.

I didn't know why but I did as she ordered.

"Get your things. Turn your answer phone on. Now!"

She seemed agitated but Heather is my girlfriend. She had never been this peremptory. I obeyed.

"Come on. We are going down the fire stairs."

My office is at the end of a corridor, by the fire stairs and furthest from the lift. Heather peered out of the door, beckoned to me, and we slipped through the fire door to the stairs.

Once we were two floors down she told me why.

"Steve. You are stupid. You know all about computers yet you do something any idiot could avoid."

"What have I done?"

"You sent me an e-mail valentine."

"Yes."

"You spent a long time making it, didn't you?"

"Yes, Heather."

"You didn't take long enough. Did you check the address? I know you didn't."

"Oh."

"Oh, indeed!"

"Who did I send it to? I meant it for you."

"I know." She put her finger to her lips again.

We had reached the ground floor. Heather opened the exit door carefully. She looked out then pulled me through the door, towards the back of the building and the car park. She kept to the side of the hedge away from the office building even though we were walking on muddy earth.

We came to her car. My car was being serviced and Heather had brought me to work. I went to the front passenger door.

"No, Steve. In the back. Flat down."

I crawled across the seat. Heather took her coat off and flung it over me.

She started the car and drove out of the car park at speed, crashing over the speed bumps, and knocking the breath out of me. I stayed put even when she started driving fast.

"OK, Steve. You can sit up now."

I pushed her coat off me and sat up. We were on the local motorway doing nearly ninety miles an hour.

"What is all this about, Heather?"

"It is about saving your job, your career and us. You sent my valentine to everyone in the company. It is obviously from you to me. You even included a facsimile signature. The verses inside refer to me. And my anatomy. In detail. Don't they?"

I thought about the care I had put into that Valentine message. Ouch! I had been explicit about the parts I liked and why.

"Uh... Yes."

"Uh... Yes? You know damn well they do. You only sent it..." She looked at the dashboard clock. "...eighteen minutes ago. To two hundred people who are still choking on their coffee about it."

"Sorry."

"Sorry? You are sorry? Sorry doesn't begin to cover it. I am saving your arse because you didn't think before clicking 'send'."

"How?"

I was really worried now. How could I live this down? If that email wasn't erotic it came very close and now..."

I broke out into a cold sweat as I thought of some of the people who would see that email. It wasn't even an attachment. I'd cut and pasted into the body of the message.

"I am making certain that you couldn't have sent that message because you weren't there."

"I don't follow that. How could I not be there?"

"When was the last time anyone saw you at the office?"

"You. Just after lunch when I got out of the lift on my floor."

"No one else?"

"No."

"Then we might save your arse yet. You have been at a meeting with Jones Bros. since two o'clock. We will leave there at..."

She looked at the clock again.

"... four thirty. So you can't have sent the message at four o'clock because we were thirty miles away. You wouldn't send an email Valentine to your girlfriend when you are in a conference with a customer. No one would."

"But I didn't have a meeting with Jones Bros." I protested.

"Yes you did. Andy Jones will confirm you did. We are meeting him at the Bull and Bush in two minutes. The conference was at his house. You two went on to the Bull and Bush for a drink. From there you will ring your friend James on your mobile. He will have his speakerphone switched on. Andy and I will be talking in the background. James will tell you about the email Valentine. You will be surprised and annoyed. You will tell me. I will shout at James. Andy will laugh at our embarrassment and come on the phone to confirm that you have been with him and that I have come to collect you."

I sat still on the back seat, stunned. Heather had worked fast.

"What can I say, Heather?" I asked.

"Thank you would be nice."

"Thank you Heather."

"And you won't do it again?"

"I won't do it again."

"And the next Valentine will be a real card in an envelope that you will put into my hand."

"Yes, Heather, if that's what you want."

"I do. I don't want the whole company knowing what you think of my breasts."

"Sorry?"

"I liked what you said but..."

"You prefer it in private?"

"Behind closed doors, in bed, face to face and when no one else will ever know."

"Yes Heather."

We pulled up outside the Bull and Bush. Everything went as Heather had scripted it. I owed her. I owed Andy Jones. I owed James.

I repaid Heather that night in her bed. I kissed and stroked all the parts I had immortalised in verse. By the time I had finished we were very aroused and had a wonderful night.

I repaid the others later. When I married Heather, Andy Jones gave her away because her father was on a long contract in Australia. James was my Best Man.

PS. The company's computer security manager told me off. I must have left my computer logged on while in sleep mode. Someone must have entered my office and used my terminal while I was at a conference. Who did it they never discovered. Whoever it was had been very complimentary about Heather's body. Perhaps they had a vivid imagination? She enjoyed the attention until the next office scandal took over.