(This is the first of several chapters describing a fantasy of mine. The fundamentals are true, the names are changed, but the trip never took place. Enjoy!)
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I had been mentoring Colleen professionally for approximately eighteen months when we got sent on a business trip together to Europe for several days. She had already traveled a couple of times on business, for which I taught her all the normal tricks of dealing with travel and travel accounting. So, I anticipated very little mentoring to be done in regards to travel, although I would be coaching her on her presentation techniques with a foreign audience. Boy was I wrong!
First a little about Colleen. She was in her late 30's and was most definitely the girl next door type. Cute, but not drop dead gorgeous. Curvy in all the right places, and maybe ten pounds heavier than she desired. Her clothes were always the size to fit her desired figure, not her real figure. Which meant that the clothes were just a bit tight without being inappropriate for the office. Her face was round with subtle cheek bone lines, and accented by a small mole just above the left end of her well defined mouth. Her eyes were a charcoal grey that blazed with excitement when she laughed, which fortunately she did quite often. She always had her hair tightly gathered on her head. For me, she was delightful eye candy every time we had the opportunity to interact. Which we did often as I mentored her.
In fact our mentoring experience had made us a bit of celebrities in our company as the company did a training film on mentoring using us as examples of a how to do it well. We enjoyed working together on a set for a week as they shot the series, and boy did I enjoy watching her as she was treated like a bit of a star, which, small town girl that she was, she just ate up.
Oh, yeah me. I am in my late fifties with over 30 years with the company, and am well recognized within my industry as tops in my field. Having been widowed several years earlier, I had poured myself into my job. And hobby. I worked hard at the company, wrote porn on the side, and had no social life other than the occasional sensual massage now and then. I worked out regularly and walked my dogs on our 2.5 mile trek every night that I was at home. I was in pretty good shape physically, if not socially.
Back to the mentoring. In all the time we had interacted, the only thing I knew about her personal life was that she was married with an 18 year old daughter. Sexy daughter, if the picture on Colleen's desk was close to truthful. All of our dialogues had been business focused, with only occasional small talk about anything personal. And, boy was that about to change.
Our trip included one night and one day in London, and then five nights and days in Amsterdam. We rode BA business class on the night flight to Heathrow, and for the most part didn't talk much as we were several rows apart. So, throughout the flight and our afternoon in London, our dialogue was perfectly normal, focused on business and travel logistics. After our afternoon meetings were finished, we agreed to meet for dinner.
By the time our entrees had arrived, we had finished the discussions that were necessary following our business day. To keep the conversation flowing, I casually asked about how her family dealt with her travel. And that was certainly the wrong button to push. Or the right one, depending on perspective. As soon as I asked about her family, she burst into tears. One moment she was bubbly and vivacious and engaged in dialogue; the next moment she seemed to be in utter despair. I reacted and attempted to recover.
"Oh my god, what's wrong? Did I say something?"
She regained a bit of her composure and looked at me. "I'm so sorry; I didn't want to break down like that. It is so unprofessional."
"Forget professional, Colleen," I responded, calmly. "Just tell me what's wrong." She just looked me in the eye, but her face had pain all over it. "That is, if you feel like sharing."
Tears continued to well up in her eyes, but she had pretty much regained her composure. She took a deep breath and then started, "It's either a very short story or a very long one."
"We have a long trip ahead of us. I'm listening. Take your time."
After another deep breath, she continued, "Well, I'm going to tell you the short version first, and then let you decide whether or not you want to hear the long version." I nodded in agreement, and continued to eat my entrée.
"Paul, that's my husband, left me over a year ago for another lover. And not a woman. He moved in with his boyfriend of several years, telling me he was coming out of the closet. Our divorce was final 72 days ago. Then, last week, the guy I had been dating for the past few months ditched me, telling me he was going back to the wife I didn't even know he had. And this happened just a week after I found out that Sarah, my daughter, has been enjoying sex for a couple of years and I had still thought she was a virgin." The tears restarted.
"Wow! That makes for an ugly couple of weeks. I'm ready to listen to whatever part of the long version you want to share. Why would you think I wouldn't want to listen?"
"Well you're my mentor, not my counselor or psychiatrist. And I was trained never to bring home problems into the office."
I understood her last point, having met her father when he was a VP. Talk about Mr. No Personality at the office with no apparent personal life.
I tried to comfort her. "Well, I'd like to think I'm your friend. And, we're not in the office. We are three thousand miles from home in a nice restaurant with some good wine. It looks to me like you might need a friend right now, and I'm the best thing you got. I'm as good as it gets."
The tears started again, but this time she had a small smile on her face. "Thanks, that means so much to me. I trust you more than you'll ever know. And I'd love to consider you my friend. But I am so humiliated, and embarrassed. I thought I could handle it all, and obviously I've failed."
"Hey, given what has been hurled at you, I'd say you're handling it really quite well. I had absolutely no clue how much turmoil you have been dealing with in your private life. Just let me know what I can do to help. In the meantime, I'll try to be good listener whenever you want one."
She spent the next hour telling me the story of her adult life, ever since she became pregnant in her senior year of high school. She worked and mothered while Sarah's father went to school and got a job. Everything went smoothly. After Paul got a good job and Sarah was in school, Colleen got her college degree and got on with my company a few years earlier. They went to church every Sunday, had a nice house, and had started saving for Sarah's college and their retirement. Colleen had pretty much concluded that the problems started when she joined my organization and started making more money than Paul, who was in a dead end job.
