I'm tall, well over six feet in the old measure, and pretty fit being a maintenance guy. Helen in accounts is almost as tall as me, and looks like an Amazon. She usually wears her straight brown hair in a pony tail down to her shoulder blades and being an office type, is mostly in slacks and blouse or long skirts as befits her role.
I guess she's about 30 years old, so 20 or so years younger than me. I don't know much about her, she's from our other branch and comes to my building for two or three days every month to tidy up the accounts or some such thing.
She sent me a message that her chair was 'malfunctioning'. I've never seen a malfunctioning chair so off I went.
Helen sat primly upright, knees together and back straight as I came in to the office. She smiled, and asked if I was there about the chair. I said I was.
"What's 'malfunctioning' about it Helen?"
She giggled. "I couldn't think of a better description. Well, every now and then it just collapses down so I'm sitting like a grasshopper. If I pump it back up with the handle thingy it's OK for some time then just lets go without warning again."
She got up and I sat in the chair to bounce up and down, but it stayed resolutely rigid defying my attempts.
"I'll get you another one anyway. Back in a minute."
I went to get a new chair from storage, and just before I rolled it into her office I heard a squeal and a thud. Looking around the frame of the door I saw Helen comically perched as if she were sitting on a child's chair, a few papers in her lap which had apparently fallen there during her rapid descent.
I could see she was unhurt and had a laugh at her predicament. She was smiling too and held out a hand for me to help her up, her tight skirt not helping as she tried to raise herself.
I hauled her upright and we laughed at what had happened. I took the offending item of furniture away and took the wrapping plastic off the new one.
She frowned at it. "Gee, all those levers and things. You think maybe one of them is an ejector button?"
"Maybe. No, it's easy to adjust. Sit down."
She sat. I demonstrated the various features and when I got to the seat tilt I must have pushed it too suddenly because she tilted forward with it and her head thumped onto my chest quite hard.
She put a hand up to her eye. I think the pencil in my chest pocket must have jabbed her.
"Shit. You OK?"
"Yeah. Missed the eyeball. Bit sore though."
Her pretty brown eyes were reddened and weeping as if sore and scratched. I quickly levelled the chair seat and sat her down then went to get water. She dabbed a tissue in it and wiped at her eyes.
"I can't see properly. Help me to the loo so I can wash up and take a look?"
"Sure." So I did. When we got there she immediately noticed some eye makeup staining on her white blouse. She swore and tried to wipe at it with the wet tissue and succeeded in getting the stain out but at the cost of a partly translucent blouse and sheer bra. Which I ogled in the mirror.
