Harry had completely forgotten that he had an appointment with his immediate superior on Thursday. Every quarter all staff had to have a review of their performance and Thursday was the day.
Harry's immediate boss was called Samara. She was an Asian girl, about thirty, and was obviously destined for high office if the speed of her promotions was anything to go by. She had been married since she was sixteen, an arranged marriage in India. It was rumoured that her parents had made a basic error in that Samara's husband was a bit short in the intelligence department. She more than made up for it though.
Harry was reminded of his meeting as soon as he looked at his diary in the morning. He wasn't too bothered. He liked Samara and they seemed to hit it off. She had been born in England and her accent, if any, was local. Harry knocked on the door of the interview room reserved for them promptly at ten o'clock. It was the same room that he had interviewed Sue and her husband in yesterday! His cock twitched and he opened the door as he heard a 'come in' from the other side.
"Good morning Harry," smiled Samara. "You are very punctual, as usual; I brought the coffee in as I knew you wouldn't be late."
"Thanks Samara, I really need that," smiled Harry wanly, his exhaustion still affecting his powers this morning.
"Yes, I have heard that your social life has taken a bit of an upturn lately," smiled Samara mysteriously. "Anyway, this won't take long. We see each other often enough to have no real secrets from each other, at work anyway! Let's have coffee and chat"
The business part of the meeting took about five minutes. It ended with a laugh when he told Samara his next ambition, to have her job as soon as she got her next promotion.
"I hope that will be at another branch, Harry. There's not enough room for two brilliant people here, is there? Did you wonder what I meant about your social life?"
"Yes," queried Harry, "I have been wondering what you know that I don't."
"Quite simple really" she laughed. "My friend and next door neighbour is called Joan and she works with your new friend Kate. So I've heard all about you and Kate and you and Jan because Kate told Joan and she told me because she knew that we must work together."
"God, it's still a small world, isn't it," groaned Harry. "I hope Kate hasn't told her any details."
"No, not really." Unusually, Samara giggled and looked down, "er, only about the size of, er, things." She looked up shyly and Harry could have sworn that she was blushing under her tanned skin. So was Harry but then his cock twitched.
He smiled sheepishly.
"Harry, will you please have lunch with me today? I need to talk to someone and I don't think I could talk about this to a girl, especially as I supervise all the others in our age group. Please say you will come."
"OK, if you think I can help you with whatever it is."
"Oh, I don't know if you can. It's having someone to confide in that I need. We'll have to go early today so that the others get all their interviews done. Half past eleven suit you?"
"Fine," said Harry, standing. "Don't worry, Samara, there must be a way to help you, when I know what the problem is." He touched her shoulder and, on impulse, kissed her cheek.
Samara looked him in the eye. "That's helped already Harry. When we're out of the bank you can call me Sammy. See you at half past eleven in the car park in Park Street. OK?"
"I'll look forward to it," said Harry. "I'll be there, on the dot."
The rest of the morning passed uneventfully and it seemed like no time at all before Harry and Sammy met at her car. She smiled, opened the doors and they were soon driving out of town in her almost new medium sized saloon. They went to the 'Green Man'.
In a few minutes they were sitting opposite one another in the bar, a half of bitter for Harry and a vodka breezer for Sammy. They had left their orders at the bar and now smiled at one another across the table.
"I can't believe that I've plucked up the courage to ask you to lunch with me," began Sammy. "That's why I've got a breezer. It's to give me a bit of courage."
Harry gazed across the table at Sammy. Her black hair tumbled down around her dusky face to a point just above her shoulders. Her slightly troubled face, with her beauty enhanced, looked back at him. Harry took in the dark brown eyes with neatly trimmed brows, the straight perfect nose and the beautiful full lips. She was still wearing her charcoal business suit, making her complexion seem darker than it really was. Only now did he realise how gorgeous Sammy really was.
Harry put his right hand on top of Sammy's left. "Don't be nervous Sammy. We are just two friends having lunch together. Try to tell me all about it in your own time. I'll just listen. I'll just be your sounding board and I'll try to be practical at the end of your explanation."
Just then their food arrived and they prepared to eat.
"Now Sammy, just tell me."
"OK, I'll try. I've got to try and get my brain to sort events into the right time scale." She paused and then began. "Obviously you know that my ethnic background is Indian. My parents came to England as small children with their respective parents. They all came from the same small village near Mumbai. I was, of course, born here but my grandparents had a great deal of influence over my parents and they agreed that, as I approached sixteen years of age, an arranged marriage for me would be the thing to do. Although I was born here and had always been to a multi-racial school I was in agreement with this. My parents unfortunately then made two mistakes. Firstly, they allowed my grandparents to decide that my husband would come from their old village in India and secondly, they didn't carry out enough investigations to find out what the recommended suitor was like. So at the tender age of sixteen I was married to an uneducated stranger twelve years older than me. Sachin is a good man but even now he is a stranger here in England. He still can't speak very good English and so has difficulty in keeping a job. He is now jealous of my success at work and is out drinking with his friends more and more often. I can't have children and so he blames me for that too. Another development is that recently he has hit me when he has come home half drunk. Now if I get my next promotion and we have to move then I am afraid of what he might do. He won't leave all his friends here just to come with me, a wife who is getting too big for her boots and showing him up."
Samara paused, took a sip of her drink and looked up at Harry. "So you see, Harry my dear friend, I am in a quandary. I can call you a dear friend, can't I?"
