The next couple of months whizzed by. Alice and I spent every minute we could together, the shop was busier than it had ever been, Marie continued to play her flirty little games with me, the six women continued to visit my shop daily and I hadn't received any more photos or anything. Life was about as perfect as it could get. But I had a problem, with everything going on I hadn't prepared, or bought anything, for Alice's birthday and it was only five days away.
Sitting behind the counter in the shop as customers milled about I started to wrack my brains as to what I could get Alice for her birthday, and as I had spent money on her like it was going out of fashion I was running out of ideas. It would have been easy for me to get her more lingerie, clothes or ornaments but that wouldn't have been very original. Then it struck me, there were two things that I could buy that would outshine everything I had ever bought for her, and I called Marie over.
"I'm going to be away until Friday." I told her. "Do you think you'll be able to manage on your own?"
"Of Course Andy I would love to try." She answered. "If I get too stuck I can always ring your mobile."
"That's true." I said. "Okay here are the keys, you know all about cashing up and banking anyway and there are three orders due in this week."
"I hope everything is okay Andy?" She said sounding slightly worried at my need for time away.
"It won't be if I don't take these days off." I said winking at her. "I'll see you on Friday and explain everything."
"Okay hope everything works out."
With that I grabbed my coat and left the shop and headed straight back to mine, phoning Alice on the way and telling her that I was working from home and to come there after work, not the shop.
As soon as I got into home I booted up the computer and loaded in a site I had browsed once before, out of curiosity. The site I had requested loaded and after typing in a few search details, exactly what I was looking for appeared on the screen, and a few phone calls later I had bought the first part of Alice's present.
I quickly went and changed my clothes and headed back in to the town, to seek out the second part and, after only looking in four shops found what I wanted. That just left the party that I needed to organize and friends to invite, so I dashed home.
I phoned a few pubs, that I knew had massive function rooms, until I found one that could do a party at such short notice. After telling them how many would be coming, how much per head I wanted to spend, I next phoned a friend of mine, who was a DJ and he said he would be happy to do the party and even gave me a special rate.
Eventually I was sure that almost everything for the Saturday night was organized, the last thing I had to do was why I needed to be off work until Friday, but just as I started to load up yet more internet pages Alice walked in to the front room.
"Hi Babe is everything okay?" She asked. "It's not like you to take time off work, not without me anyway."
"Everything is better than I could ever have imagined possible." I answered her. "And now you're here today just got even better."
I quickly closed down the pages I had just loaded as Alice walked over to me, dragged me from my chair and passionately kissed me.
"I needed that after the day I have had." She said when she finally pulled her lips from mine. "Sometimes I don't know why I continue to teach some of them kids."
When she said that I knew that her party couldn't come quickly enough, I had already decided to ask her to stop teaching and come to work at the shop. Well strictly I hadn't decided it was Marie who thought it would be cool, her words not mine, when I told her all about Alice and how happy she had made me. She still flirted with me but she tried to keep herself a little more restrained, only occasionally going a little further than she should.
Isabelle was a bit harder to convince about what an asset Alice would be, but she too began to like the sound of her, only then did I actually get Alice to come to the shop and meet the girls properly. That turned out to be a bit of a mistake, but in a good way, the three of them got on so well I was virtually ignored for the rest of the day until I closed.
"So what do you fancy doing tonight then Alice?" I asked her, my arms still around her waist.
"What about a nice takeaway, a bottle of wine and a movie." She answered.
"That sounds like a great idea babe." I said.
"But before you order I need a good soak in the bath." Alice said.