This is a true story from the 1980's. My name is George and i had just finished college and returned to my home town with my beautiful Hong Kong Chinese wife Suzie. She had been studying over here at the same college where we met and within two years we were married. I had got a job with a small, local electronics company and she was a lab technician, again with a local company. We had bought a modest house and were just starting off in life. I was pleased that we had both secured employment as the UK was in recession and jobs were scarce.
The electronics company where i worked was run by two brothers and their brother-in-law. Dick was the managing director, Philip the sales director and Antony, the brother-in-law, was the finance director. They had inherited the successful business from their father who had retired.
The two brothers were not diligent in their work. The firm had been handed to them on a plate far too easily. They enjoyed the high life, both were married, but had a steady stream of affairs. They behaved badly with most of the female employees, always touching them up and making rude suggestions. Dick was always bragging about the size of his manhood and what a brilliant lover he was. I had not been there long and already two office girls had left the company in floods of tears after encounters with them.
Anthony was different, he was a lot sharper, and, as far as i had seen, always behaved properly with his staff. He did let slip to me once though that he went to photo sessions with page three girls. You could, for quite a large fee, go and take topless pictures of these pinups and that he had quite a large collection. All in all i had grown to quite dislike them.
Some time later we were invited to Dicks large house out of town for a works Christmas party. Most of the staff were there with their partners and the drinks flowed. Suzie had gone into the kitchen to get some food from the buffet. Philip had spotted her and followed. He approached her and started to say that he had,
"Always wanted to shag a chinese girl" and "could he have a Christmas kiss?" He put his hand on the wall above her head but she ducked down under to escape. As she walked away he said, "Don't be so miserable, its only a Christmas kiss." She came and found me in the lounge and told me briefly what had happened. I said,
"That is what they are like, just be aware and try not to get in that sort of situation with them." We left soon after.
I had been there a year and there was a chance to do some overtime and so i was given a factory key and the alarm codes so i could stay later some evenings. I was grateful for the extra money.
Suzie had a lot of family back in Hong Kong and every few weeks she would phone them and keep in touch. Back in the 80's International calls were expensive and so one Sunday i suggested we nip down to the factory and phone from there. All of the directors lived out of town. The phones were used heavily in the week and so no-one would notice a little bit more on the bill.
"Are you sure?" she said.
"Yes it will be fine," i replied. We live close to my place of work and so we walked down. I let us in, switched off the alarm and locked the door behind us. We went up to the offices and Suzie had a nice long chat with her mother. All went well and so it became a routine, every third Sunday, we would go down and she would chat away with her family. We went down one Sunday, it was a hot day and we were just in shorts and t-shirts. We climbed the stairs up to the offices as usual and Suzie was on the phone when we heard a noise. The office door then opened and in walked the three directors. Suzie immediately hung up and we sat there frozen with fear.
"Argh," said Anthony, "we thought we might find you two here. You see business now get fully itemised phone bills." (a new thing in the 80's). "I bet you didn't know that George?"
"No," i stuttered.
"So i was going through our bill when i noticed an expensive overseas call to Hong Kong. When i checked further i found that this had been happening every third Sunday. So i had a chat with my fellow directors. We thought who had access to the factory and who would want to phone Hong Kong? So we decided to come down to investigate and we appear to have caught you red handed." We both turned white and said nothing. What could we say? Antony went on, "Well George, i think this is a sackable offence and we should phone the police and report a theft. Suzie, i know Rob who runs the accounts at your firm and i would be obliged to inform him that he is employing a thief. What have you got to say?"
"Well Anthony," i mumble, "we have done wrong and we are sorry. Can we pay for the calls?"
I think it has gone beyond that now," he replied. There was a long silence. "We are, however, prepared to be generous and offer you a way out of this mess."
"Yes," i said eagerly
"Well, we are quite happy with your work generally and so if you were to pay back the money you have stolen."
"Yes," i said again.
"We would take back your factory key as you can't be trusted."
"OK," i replied eagerly.
"There is one more thing. Dick and Philip have a soft spot for Suzie."
