This is a true story. A couple of the names have been changed slightly but its completely true. And I guess that's why I've wrote this as I'm still slightly confused as to how I never realised about myself till mid thirties and how things changed so much so fast. I would be keen to know if other woman have went through anything similar in there lives I think.
I suppose I should really start with why I'm even here. If someone would have told me a year ago that this would be the place I would be arriving in my life I would have thought they were stark raving mad. Ok here goes story of the most amazing, scary, terrifying, nervous, exciting, confusing, exhilarating 12 months of my life.
The logical place to start is with myself. I'm Louise. 12 months ago I was a 36 year old woman who, and I'm being honest here, was as happy as I thought most women could be. I had been married to a lovely guy for 12 years and we have 2 fantastic kids, a son 8 and a daughter 10.
We live in west central Scotland on the outskirts of Glasgow. We both work hard and a few years ago we bought a chain of 5 hair and make up salons. We have spent the last 5 years making them a success, which has obviously been hard with the pandemic. Over the years we have brought in lots of staff and they have been such a success that I don't really have to be there that often and the shops basically run themselves. That has allowed me to spend more time with the kids and have the flexibility to not require childminding etc etc.
With regards to me, I suppose I would admit that I'm not a stunner but I've always been pretty happy with my appearance and never been that short of attention or admirers. I'm a little short ass at 5'1, pretty slim (although could always lose a pound or 2), size 10/12, 34b and brown straight hair to my shoulders that is pretty thin and makes it hard to do anything with really.
I met my husband when I was 19. Gary is a good looking guy and never short of a joke. He just kinda wafts though life and gets on with everyone. He works really hard and we got to a point in our life where we had a lovely home, great business and a holiday house in Marbella that we would hop over to 2/3 times a year (until the pandemic hit).
Our families get on great but they are both extremely conservative and marriage and kids was kind of a prerequisite of life. I did what everyone expected of me, Wife/mother, and just got on with life, that for all I knew of myself I was enjoying.........
And then along came Natalie!
If its at all possible to imagine the biggest thunderbolt from the blue then that was Natalie.
We had been advertising for a trainee for one of the shops for a few weeks and my Husband had been interviewing people and it had been going on for a while and then one night as we were getting ready for bed he told me that he had picked one. A girl called Natalie and she would be starting the following day. I didn't really give it much thought, got into bed and started looking through my Instagram.
The following day my plans were fairly simple. I was going to take the kids to school, do some errands in town (bank etc), meet a friend of mine for a coffee at 11am, and then I was planning to pop into the shop that the new trainee had started and introduce myself.
The morning had went fine, everything I had planned to do had went fine and I left my friend as we left costa coffee and headed to the shop. When I walked inside I had almost forgot why I was popping in and I got chatting to Sam, the girl that basically runs the day to day stuff in that shop. We chatted for about 10/15 mins about loads of stuff and I was almost about to turn around and leave when Sam reminded me to say hi to the new member of staff. I turned around and I couldn't believe what was in front of me.
Here was this 21 year old blonde goddess. All legs, boobs and blonde wavy hair half way down her back. Short skirt, knee high boots and a cleavage you could ski down. She was so pretty it actually hurt and her smile and colour of her skin were just breathtaking. I instantly hated her!!
I know that might sound mad but I just became the green eyed monster. Looking back I'm not sure if my jealousy was me being envious of the way she looked, did I wish I looked like her??? I'm not sure. Was I jealous because I might have thought my husband had only gave her the job because of what she looked like, again I'm just not sure. But one things for sure I hated her!!
She just oozed confidence. She knew exactly how gorgeous she was and she knew the effect she had on people. We spoke very briefly, probably only 30 seconds in total. I seriously couldn't get any words out. I was her boss but I felt like a little school girl. I was so nervous speaking to her that I almost ran out of the door.
Yeah I pretty much ran out of the door, got in the car and was seething. The main emotion at that point was anger. I was basically thinking in my mind that my husband had been a huge pervert!
How could he employ her, it was obviously because of what she looked like wasn't it!
So I text him "WTF, we needed someone from jobseekers not the playboy fucking mansion"
I could see that he had read the message but he wasn't typing back. I gave it a couple of mins and still nothing so I drove off and picked the kids up from school and then basically paced around the house until Gary got home. Looking back I can see that I was handling it all wrong. I mean we have 20 girls working for us in the shops and most of them are really pretty and a couple are drop dead gorgeous but Natalie was just on another level. It is impossible to describe how beautiful this girl actually is, and I knew she was as well, but my anger was clouding everything.
When Gary got in we argued for a good hour. With me doing everything short of actually accusing him of having an affair with Natalie. I must have came across as a loon ball. Obviously Natalie had struck a nerve with me and at that time I thought it was a jealousy nerve. After a while things calmed down and tried to leave it. I never went near the shop for a couple of days but eventually I needed to go in and on the way the feelings started to bubble up again and I was terrified walking back into the shop knowing that she was there.
I walked in and Natalie was on the desk answering the phone. OMG she is just hand chewingly gorgeous. Imagine a more beautiful and more perfect version of Kate Upton and your not even half way there. She was dressed a bit more conservatively that day. She had on a plain white shirt, chest wasn't on show (was I disappointed??) but a short skirt on again with those gorgeous pins stretching out under it and cute red/black shoes with a little heel.
I tried to maintain my composure and we started chatting. I apologised for not giving her much time the first time I met her. She was so lovely and easy to chat to that I was actually so shocked. I had imagined her to be a bitch because she looked like she did. I started thinking that I needed to pull myself together, that it wasn't her fault she was so pretty. And then I decided that she was a bitch for being so dam nice and making me like her! ha ha.
So from that day we actually started to get on well and my hatred toward her went away. What didn't go away was the nerves I was feeling when I was in her presence. I felt so nervous. Why was I feeling this way. I was her boss and 15 years older than her. I was comfortable money wise, pretty successful in work and home life, but here I was feeling completely inadequate next to her. I had these butterflies in my stomach every time I was with her. I just tried to put it down to being in awe of someone so beautiful.
This went on for about 2 weeks. I got to be feeling a bit more comfortable in her presence but I found myself thinking about her constantly. I could see the effect she had on all the people around her, male and female. I wondered if she made the other girls feel like I did. I remember wondering to myself if I actually fancied her but I kept slapping that thought out of my head and telling myself I'm being stupid and its just cause she so pretty.
I had started spending more and more time in that specific shop. I kept telling myself that it was because that shop really needed my help more than the others, but in reality I just wanted to be in Natalie's presence as often as I could. And again I was lying to myself by justifying in the way that if I'm here with her then my husband isn't, if that makes any sense.
Again that day Nat was dressed in a plain white shirt and skirt and just looked effortlessly glam. About mid afternoon me and another of the girls were chatting and I was complaining about my hair, about not being able to do anything with it. Nat had been listening on the side and instantly bounced in and asked if she could have a go at my hair. She was so enthusiastic and eager that I didn't have the heart to say no to her So at the back of 6 all the customers had left and the girls had cleaned up and when the last girl left I locked up and sat in one of the chairs while Nat went and got her stuff from the back room.
Instantly the nervous feelings started again, and they only got worse when Nat came back into the main room and it was obvious she had undone some buttons because her cleavage was back and it was almost falling out. Even though I was telling myself not to I couldn't stop looking at it and she caught me looking and let out this hellishly sexy giggle and I went scarlet. I was facing a mirror and I could see how flushed my face had went. You could have fried eggs on my face it was that hot.