"You left school at sixteen, no A levels, no chance of a degree," said the girl, "yet here you are running your own company, successful, three-hundred-plus employees, plans to expand. There has to be a secret." She switched on the mini-recorder, pushed it across the desk and sat back.
If she meant it as some kind of challenge, I didn't rise to it. I had been interviewed often enough to know I could provide answers on automatic pilot. That allowed my mind to wonder about a resemblance between the girl reporter and Beverley. Same auburn hair framing an oval face, greenish eyes, generous mouth. But jeans, tee-shirt, denim jacket put an end to the comparison when I remembered Beverley walking in to be interviewed for a job as my PA. Understated dark business suit, skirt only an inch two short, showing off legs that would have had any man wondering - what if? Compact bottom. Full breasts.
None of that was the reason why Beverley got the job but the hint of sexual allure made my decision easier. This was at a time when women slept around. I'd had a few himself, some better than others. But I discovered that Beverley was different.
"Of course I'll have dinner with you," she said, smiling. "But buying dinner isn't a way of buying your way into my knickers."
Not taking no for answer was an attribute I had found invaluable in the early stages of building my business, but Beverley remained adamant. After a few weeks I gave up trying. More fish in the sea ...
Then one Friday evening as Beverley was about to leave for the weekend she paused in the office doorway. "By the way," she said, "I think you ought to know I've changed my mind."
Absently, my thoughts elsewhere, trying to make sense of financial projections for the next quarter, I said, "Changed your mind about what?"
"About going to bed with you."
"Oh."
"Is that all?"
"Are you serious."
"Yes. I've been thinking about it, aware that you still watch me around the office."
It was true. I'd been aware that, bending over a filing cabinet she was more or less ladylike depending on whether anyone else was around. Her arse, round, tempting, provocative even, always made me hard. I said, "And now you don't mind?"
"No."
"Where do we go from here then?"
Beverley looked outside, then closed the door. "Everyone else has gone."
This time there was no mistaking the invitation. What followed wasn't subtle and it didn't take long but it seemed to work for both of us. I had her across my desk, her knickers a silk pool on the floor, my trousers, I fear, bunched ludicrously round my ankles. When i came, spurting deep inside her, she gave a deep, husky moan.
For a while, neither of us spoke. Then she said, "I guess it was the way it was going to be. But I didn't finish." She raised a hand as I started to apologise. "No - not your fault. I wanted to save something. For later. You are going to take me out to dinner, aren't you?"
We slept in my bed that night. She offered everything, refused nothing. What was undeniably lust then turned quickly to love. Three months later we were married and I've not regretted the decision for a single day since.
All these memories swirled through my mind while I tried to keep track of the questions and answers being lodged inside the little silver recorder in front of me on the desk. The same desk where - but dammit, I was forced back to reality when I suddenly realised the interview was over. The reporter was switching off the recorder, dropping it into the shapeless bag that she hung on one shoulder.
Making conversation, hoping I hadn't made too much of a fool of myself, mentally fucking Beverley while reeling off semi-automatic answers, I asked her where the interview would appear. She reminded me that it was for a supplement on education her paper would run at the week end. Of course. Education. That was why she had made so much of my leaving school at sixteen, never getting a degree.
Education. Alone in the office, I closed my eyes and thought that as far as sex was concerned, Beverley had been - continued to be - my university. But that started my mind on another unexpected journey. Back twenty-five years to what I thought corresponded in every sense to a basic education.
**********************************
My parents thought I was misguided when I stubbornly opted to leave school at sixteen. I began to share that view after several false starts - either the job didn't suit me or I didn't suit the job - but then I surprisingly landed a management traineeship with a nationwide chain of department stores. What I learnt there opened my eyes to the future and taught me important lessons for when I finally branched out on my own. But that's not relevant to this story.
Shortly after my twenty-first birthday, I was sent for six months to gain hands-on experience at one of the firm's outlets. Expenses were minimal. There was no question of hotel accommodation. I found myself lodgings with the Davis's, Reg and Connie. They were a modest forty-something couple who used the income from lodgers to fund their annual holiday on the Costa Brava. Reg was an insurance collector, Connie was a dinner lady at a local school. Ordinary people you might have expected to find in any suburban semi-detached anywhere in the country. They treated me well, offering more hospitality than I was probably entitled to expect.
My hobbies at that time were mainly cricket and masturbation. And one rainy weekend the unavailability of the former led to slightly guilty indulgence in the latter. I was having a lie-in. Fuelled by a girlie magazine, my hand went to work. Once fully engaged, I closed my eyes to allow my imagination to provide more explicit images than the printed pages offered. My surprise can be imagined when the bedclothes were gently turned back and my hand was joined by another.
"Oh dear," said Connie Davis, "you must be in a bad way." It was Sunday morning and she had brought me a cup of tea. In my embarrassment, I almost knocked it over while trying to cover myself.
