My Vietnamese Secretary

I got in to Hanoi on Monday morning, having taken an overnighter from Delhi to Bangkok and then up to Hanoi. It was August 2013, the rainy season with the morning temperature at 26 degrees celsius. It had been a sleepless night with moments of somnambulant drift; visions of the last couple of days with my Indian maid, Sunita. It had been a difficult parting; the passion had been fiery, the sex carnal to an extreme, the bonds that held us together had been frighteningly tight. We spent 48 hours bidding au revoir, much of it naked and in each others arms.

But now, a new day was on hand. Immigration and Customs clearance at Noi Bai International took less than 30 minutes, baggage another 10, and I was en route to the Sofitel Metropole Hotel by 11:30 on this Monday morning. An office driver had held up a name plate identifying me just outside the customs clearance area and I was swiftly guided to a black sedan; possibly a BMW but I forget now. Traffic was swift most of the way till we got enmeshed in a sea of motorcycles on reaching the city. Nevertheless, I was in my suite by 1:00 in the afternoon. Not because of any jet lag (there was none), but because the last two days had offered very little time to sleep, I slipped off my shoes and crashed on to the bed. And slept.

At 6:00 pm the phone rang on the bed-side table. "Mr. Hjjer! Good evening, this is Diep. How are you, sir?" All in one quaintly accented flow. It took almost half a minute for the fog to clear from my brain, and my mind to adjust to this new reality. "Hello? Hello? Mr. Hjjer? Hello, this is Diep. From the office."

"Yes, Hello Diep; this is I".

"Hello, Sir. We can meet now? I am in the lobby of your hotel and there are many papers I need to show you." Things were clearly moving very fast, and my brain and body were struggling to catch up. "Can you give me 20 minutes, please Diep? I will meet you in the lobby." She said something about blue shirt and black skirt which I assumed was how I was to identify her. Hurriedly putting the phone in its cradle, I took a quick shower and didn't bother to change into a new set of clothes. In any case, I hadn't yet unpacked. So I slipped into my jeans and pulled on the same Polo shirt I had worn during the journey. I didn't have time to shave either.

I took the elevator down two floors and looked around the lobby for a blue shirt and black skirt and someone whose face might match the name Diep (pronounced Ziep). There were lots of black skirts, and a number of blue, white, beige, amber, brown and other coloured shirts. These were beautiful looking women I thought fleetingly... I walked up to the reception to ask whether someone here in the lobby had come looking for me. "Good evening, Mr. Hjjer. I hope you had a comfortable journey to Hanoi. Did you get some rest after arriving? My name is Huong and I am General Director of The Sofitel Metropole. I am extremely sorry that I was not here to greet you on your arrival."

He hadn't even stopped for a breath. "Yes, thank you. I'm well rested. Its a pleasure to meet you Mr. Huong. I was wondering if a lady by the name of ..."

"Ms. Diep. Yes. She is from your office and she is here waiting for you. I told her to sit in the garden lounge and promised to bring you to her the moment you were down. Please allow me ..." And so saying, he led me through a maze of little corridors to the garden lounge and walked me to a corner table where I did indeed see a lady in blue shirt and black skirt.

I thanked the GM and turned my attention to the lady. She couldn't have been more than 25 or 26 years old. Very smooth skin, a broad face, dark hair tied back on the top and cascading to her shoulders from the sides, neatly trimmed eyebrows, brown eyes with long lashes, and gorgeously full lips painted a dull red. She stood up as Mr. Huong turned to leave, stuck her hand out and said "Good evening, Mr. Hjjer. How are you after your flight?"

I was surprised she paused in anticipation of an answer. I took her hand and shook it, saying "Thank you, Diep. I'm still a little tired but I did manage to get some rest."

We sat down on the comfortable sofa chairs and talked for the next two hours. Diep gave me a thorough rundown on what had been happening at the office, especially since the incumbent manager, Janez, had submitted his resignation to me a week ago. She wasn't Janez's secretary or even an assistant in his office; she was actually a research assistant in one of the sections that covered both Vietnam and Cambodia out of the Hanoi office. I had met her very briefly once during one of my visits and had requested the section head to release her as my liaison during this trip. I only remembered her being bright and energetic, but hadn't been able to recall her face or any of her physical attributes. Till this moment.

While we talked - actually, she did most of the talking - I found myself on occasion having drifted away mentally. I continued to absorb the oriental beauty of her face, my eyes went back time and again to her lips as they moved with her speech. Her teeth gleamed a shiny white and she was easy with a ready smile. She laughed at the occasional joke I made, the lilting sound of her delectable laughter seemed to block all other sounds from my aural radar.

Her blue collared shirt was well tailored and fitted; one button open to show her neck descend below the collars to her chest, but modestly hid any hint of cleavage. Her breasts were not large but they seemed to be shaped perfectly; the very faint white of her brassiere showed now and then through the blue of her shirt. Nothing obvious. But the tailored shirt tapered distinctly from her shoulders and breasts to her narrow waist, where it tucked in to her black skirt.

The skirt was worn high and fitted her snugly over her abdomen and hips, and then loosened slightly so that her legs weren't constrained by a pencil style. The skirt was short but not a mini; maybe three inches above the knee. This was apparently standard apparel judging from the working women that were scattered across the various seating areas in the lounge and the lobby. Professional working class girls.

I had to be very careful not to get caught ogling, although I suspect she must have known like all women seemed to know. However hard I tried, my eyes would be drawn back to her legs and thighs as the skirt rode up a few more inches to reveal at least six or seven inches of skin on her thighs. Below the knees, held together of course, her legs tapered to rather delicate ankles before her feet slipped in to shiny black leather shoes with about two inch heels. Her calves looked like they were firmly muscled, shapely and strong.

The evening wore on; as did the next few days and weeks. Before I knew it, September was almost drawing to a close. Work had been absolutely frenetic; I'd made a number of trips to our Asian offices, one to my headquarters in France with a brief weekend stopover in New Delhi on the way back. Those 48 hours with Sunita, my Indian maid, had been dream-like but that's another story.

The office in Hanoi occupied two floors of a high rise building in the newer part of town, almost adjacent to the JW Marriott hotel. Up on the 14th, I had a corner office and two assistants just outside, with the rest being an open floor plan. Diep was now my chief of staff and ran things in an extremely organised manner; she was efficient, hard working, and completely trustworthy. We'd signed two contracts in the last six weeks and the mood in our Vietnam offices was very upbeat; bonuses were going to be good for all.

Diep and I spent at least an hour each day during which I signed documents, gave decisions, arbitrated conflicts, received a general briefing, and planned schedules for the next few days. She was in charge of all administrative matters but sought my opinion whenever she needed. Our relationship had progressed to a strange level that I found difficult to define. She was of course way more than an assistant. Since much of the written paperwork was in Vietnamese, she had to read everything in order to brief me and had in this short span of time developed a considerable amount of technical knowledge.

I loved the way she dressed most days. By now, I realised she had about 10 or 12 dresses she wore to office and I noticed that she wore them almost sequentially so that nothing was repeated for at least a fortnight. There were plain and patterned shirts with and without collars, there were short and mid length skirts, there were one piece dresses - a couple of them just looked like one long shirt with nothing else, and once every week she wore a pant suit. Occasionally, she would dress down with a t-shirt and skirt.

There would be occasions when we sat on leather chairs, part of the 5-piece sofa set, at right angles with a table in front of us for all the documents she had to explain to me before I decided whether to approve them or not. Concentration was becoming increasingly difficult as I found myself catching glimpses of her legs, her knees and half her thighs as the hem of her skirt pulled back towards her crotch. Normally she would keep a stack of papers on her lap and give them to me one after the other, and I found myself thinking of ways to get her to keep the pile of documents on the glass table top instead.

I imagined my palm caressing the smoothness of her thighs, running my palm over her knee and then stroking the taut skin of her thighs as far up as possible. I pictured my hand clasping the firmness of her quadriceps, pushing it between the two thighs and moving her skirt upwards till I could almost physically feel the fabric of her panties. Diep was beginning to play havoc with my mind. This was so surprising to me since it wasn't exactly the first time I worked with women, but the intoxication was nonetheless exhilarating. Even if I was behaving like a teenage virgin.

The smooth profile of her breasts, perfectly shaped and contoured within the white t-shirt she wore today. I kept the temperature in my room a mite cooler than the outside office and the women would often come in draping a stole over their torso. But if Diep forgot to do that, I would search for the protrusion of her nipples against her top. And if I couldn't see them, I would imagine them. This was absolutely crazy and I have no explanation for why this was happening; it wasn't as simple as I wasn't getting any sex. Although in truth, I wasn't; aside from the weekend layover in Delhi when my maid and I went at it like there was no tomorrow. Which in fact there wasn't.

Today, I'm sitting on my single seater sofa piece and looking at emails on my iPad. I say something, asking for clarification to Diep who's also in my office room. She come and stands beside me and peers at the screen, reading the Vietnamese part of the bilingual document. She's wearing a one piece black dress that fits her like a glove, and it comes down all the way to her knees. Standing on my right, she's bending slightly so she can read. I look briefly to the side, more with peripheral vision than direct line of sight, and take in the perfect curve of her rump. I can even see the faint panty line under the dress.

"Don't stand there, Diep" I say. "Why, Sir?" she immediately responds. She's inquisitive, that way, and always very direct. I should have kept my mouth shut but I hear myself respond "Because I get tempted to touch you, your body I mean".

I can see and feel her straightening up and looking down towards me from above. "Why do you stop?" I'm not sure I had heard correctly but I don't say anything for a while.

But then I decide to play this through. It is in fact getting very difficult for me nowadays to get through a workday in office with her around me most of the time. "For many reasons", I say, "but mainly because I don't want you to be upset or angry".

"Sir, I will not be upset or angry. I want very much you touch me. I want to touch you also but I scared". She's beginning to stutter and her English loses some of its grammatical perfection. "I sometimes hope you will do something but now almost two months and you do nothing so I think you maybe not interested in me. That's OK. No problem. I think maybe only I want but you not."

I hear a sniffle so I look up at her face and she's not looking down at me. She has turned around and is facing the outside, staring through the big glass wall that has a great view. But I see tears trickling down her cheek and her eyes are glistening. Still ensconced on my couch, I remain seated but reach out for her hand and feel her fingers wrap themselves around mine. We stay like that for more than a minute, the tension slowly draining from both of us. A bond has been formed; the atmosphere in the room changes. It suddenly seems that there's more light streaming in through the glass walls of this corner office.

And suddenly it's over. She turns back and explains the document I was asking about. Then, leaving me to my work, she walks across the room, opens the door, and exits to her work area. I look up and this time freely look at her arse in the tightly fitting polyester black dress, and the panty line beneath it. There's no tension, no sense of guilt.

The day goes on. Three hours later, 7:30 in the evening, Diep comes into my room. "Sir, do you need anything else or can I leave a little early today?" She was usually the first one in and the last one to leave office; nobody seemed to know what time she came in the morning, or when she left in the evening. I look up from my papers to her face and its quizzically blank. I just stared at her, not knowing what exactly to say or do. "Umm, yeah, sure. Of course! Uhhh, how late do you normally sit?"

"Till I finish the work. I don't like leaving anything for the next day".

"OK, of course you can leave. Ummm" I am stuttering, and I suddenly realise why. I don't want her to leave. Is it showing on my face? Does she know what's going through my mind? And then, without any warning, Diep walks up to my chair - the leather padded swivel chair at my desk, not the couch - and stands beside me. I swivel to the right and face her, looking up into her eyes as she stands about 5'4" tall. She reaches out with her hands and cups my face, her palms soft and cool and dry against my cheeks. I don't want this to stop.

So I reach out my arms and wrap them around her lower back and draw her towards me an inch or so. I'm not sure if she moves forward or whether my chair wheels towards her. But I'm very close to her body now, my face almost against the fabric of her dress, somewhere near her breasts and above her abdomen. I lean into her and tighten my grip around her, drawing us against each other. I don't stop to wonder what might happen next.

I feel her fingers in the long curly locks at the back of my head, her finger tips grazing the nape of my neck. She's rubbing gently. I look up at her and ask "What can I do next?"

"Whatever you want to do, Sir" she replies.

"But you needed to go home early", I say. "I don't want to hold you back from anything important or urgent at home".

"I didn't say I wanted to go home, Sir. I said I wanted to leave early."

Damn, she was playing with my mind now. Not normally someone that backs out of something like this, I usually have well constructed repartee to throw around. But now I'm tongue tied. Obviously I want to go to bed with this lady. Woman. Girl? Why am I so confused. I have a hard-on, or at least something in that direction. I can feel the constriction in my trousers but I'm unable to take the next step. She's made it somewhat clear that the feelings, and perhaps desires, are mutual.

I'm not sure what I can do here in the office, so I just lean forward again and place my head on her body. Her chest rises and falls with every deep breath she takes; I feel the firmness of her breasts against my forehead. Her fingers are running through my hair and as her hands touch my neck, I feel a shiver ripple down my spine. Her hands are on my neck, gently caressing. I move my face in small movements, enjoying the sensation of her boobs pressing against me.

My own hands are rubbing the small of her back, moving up and down as I feel the hollow indent where it curves in. She presses herself against my head and I let my palms run lower, over the curvature of her rump. The faint outline of her panties brush past as I let my hands go lower. Passing over the taut thighs, I touch the back of her knees finally as the hem of her dress is that low today. My fingers gently stroke the region. She bends ever so slightly, and I'm not sure if she buckled involuntarily or whether she was getting turned on.

She's holding my head against her chest now and as I open one eye slightly, I can see the protrusion of a nipple causing a little knob on her dress. I lift my hands along the back of her thighs, under her dress this time. The smooth silkiness of her skin is very arousing and I'm again wondering how far I can go in the office like this. The lights outside my room are all switched off so I know that the staff have gone home for the night. But that also means the cleaners and security personnel of the building will soon be arriving.

My hands are on her panties now, palming her buttocks. I know I will probe through her underwear soon. And then her cell phone begins its near silent ring, but to my ears it sounds almost explosive. As I lower my hands and push back into my chair, she pulls away almost in alarm. Looking down at her phone, Diep says "I need to go now, Sir! I'm sorry. Good night, Sir!"

I look up as she steps away and puts the phone into her bag without answering it. A little mysterious, that. And extremely disappointing. I suppose I have a forlorn expression on my face. As she is about to exit past the door to my room, she turns around and quickly walks back to where I'm sitting. Bending down, she takes my face in her hands and kisses me on my mouth. Not a gentle peck, and not deep probing. But a warm kiss; I feel the sumptuousness of her generous lips play against mine, the tip of her tongue running deftly across. And a full five seconds later, she pulls away again and walks to the door without another word.

And just like that, she's gone for the night. I'm left with a fast disappearing hard-on in my pants and a brain that is spinning in my head. After a few minutes of being in a complete haze, I pack some papers in a folder and walk out of my office. Down 14 floors to the lobby, my driver's waiting for me in the portico, the BMW 5i purring so the inside is temperature controlled. Nice!

A 40 minute drive later, I'm home but still in a state of some shock. The view from my living room is soothing; the lights reflecting on the surface of a lake, waters astir because of a considerable breeze blowing across the surface. I switch on one table lamp and leave the room bathed in its golden glow. Where did she have to go tonight? Who was the phone call from? Where did she live? I realised I knew next to nothing about my assistant and decided that I needed to know more about her if she was willing to tell me. Was she married? Did she have children? Parents? Siblings? Where was she working earlier? I knew absolutely nothing, except that I trusted her completely, totally, and blindly. I loved her, kinda...

I hadn't realised that the next day was a weekend. Early Saturday morning, there was a heavy fog over the lake as I went out for a walk, my thoughts still deeply in yesterday's haze. It had been a somewhat disturbing night, waking up a number of times with wispy trails of unnerving dreams floating away in seconds. They were sexual erotic dreams with Diep in various stages of undress; in different dresses. I never really saw myself in those dreams; it was as if I was behind a camera filming all those scenes.