"Mr. Dickens, your 4:30 interview has arrived."
John Dickens looked at the clock on his desk. 4:30 exactly. Perfect. He pressed the intercom button.
"Thank you, Mrs. Harris. Would you please show her in?"
Dickens rose and walked to his office door to greet them.
It opened to reveal Mrs. Harris and a very short, slender young lady dressed in a loose-fitting, short black cocktail dress. In the right circumstances, the simple dress might have seemed acceptable attire in the staid office, outfitted with upholstered leather furniture and dark wood. But the patent leather red stiletto heels would never work.
Dickens smiled at the young lady, then at Mrs. Harris, and back to the young lady.
"Thank you, Mrs. Harris. Considering the late hour, you may go home. I'll show our visitor out when the time comes."
"As you wish, Sir."
Good old Mrs. Harris. Sixteen years of late-afternoon interviews and she'd never once offered to stay or inquired about the young ladies afterward, though they almost never returned, and none ever came to work for the firm.
"Miss Jamie McEvin," Dickens said as though announcing her arrival at a party. He gestured for her to enter the room and closed the door behind her. "You're very punctual. I like that. It conveys respect. May I call you Jamie?"
"Yes, that would be nice." She smiled. It was going well so far.
"Splendid. You may call me Mr. Dickens," he said. "Or Sir."
Her smile was more uncertain now. She liked his voice. Slightly deeper and huskier than it had sounded on the phone the night before when he called her for the interview. An unusually late hour it had been for a business call, but Jamie had been warned this firm was full of eccentrics. You can get away with that when you're the largest, most successful firm of your kind in the state.
"Please have a seat." Dickens gestured toward a large sofa, and as she moved toward it, his hand went to the perfect spot in her lower back, high enough so it didn't appear he was trying to touch her ass, and low enough to make her think he wanted to. She liked the tiny bit of pressure she felt from his fingers and the effortless way he guided her. Her breath quickened a bit, and when she sat, she crossed her legs. Dickens eased into the overstuffed chair facing her. His eyes lingered on her legs.
"Your resume says you are fluent in French. How long have you been practicing?"
"My father lives in France," Jamie said, thinking that the verb he'd used was an odd choice. "I visit him often. And, of course, I took four years at the university."
"The university," Dickens said, nodding knowingly. "Yes, your friend from the university, Jenny, has given you a wonderful recommendation."
Jenny had been Jamie's roommate through three years at the school. They'd had a lot of fun and kept a lot of each others' secrets, many of them involving faculty members -- married, of course -- even a dean.
Now Jennie was a housewife and a mother, with three children and a position in this firm. She'd put in a good work for Jamie when the time came and had given her a heads-up about the interview.
"Do whatever they ask," she'd said. "The pay here is phenomenal. They may ask you to do some things you don't understand at first. Just go along. You'll figure it out eventually. I just know you're going to fit in."
"I see you have some experience with Russian and Greek, as well," Dickens was saying. His eyes were still on her legs. Long, muscular. Jamie shifted on the couch and smoothed her skirt.
"Not very much. Just from my travels."
"A little exposure is better than none at all," Dickens said, looking directly into her face. "I'm mainly interested in French, but members of the Board come from a variety of backgrounds."
He gestured for her to stand, though he remained seated.
"I appreciate your wearing the outfit I requested. It's perfect. Silk?'
"Yes," Jamie said weakly. She felt her face beginning to flush and didn't understand why.
"Please turn around," Dickens said, "slowly."
She did as she was told, her feet unconsciously falling into the positions she had learned in the few weeks she'd taken modeling lessons in middle school. "It's just a show," she was thinking. "He wants a show." And she relaxed a bit, confident she could give him what he wanted.
"It drapes across you nicely," he said. He liked her legs and the way the dress showed off her tiny breasts without accentuating them. Without a bra, the fabric rubbed them slightly as she moved, just enough to stimulate the circulation and make the nipples grow a bit.
"Come," he said, rising suddenly. "Let's find out exactly how well you've followed my instructions.
He pressed a button on his desk and the wall behind them drew back, revealing another room, with a long marble table. There were five chairs on each side of the table, and one at the head. With his hand in that perfect spot in the small of her back, he guided her toward the end of the table without the chair. The touch of his fingers had the same effect on her as it had the first time, only stronger.
He wasn't particularly tall, but he had a commanding presence when he walked. And when he walked beside her, his hand on her back, she felt protected, yet under his control -- safe, but at his mercy. She couldn't help feeling aroused.
Under the end of the table was a dark box, made of the same marble as the table, it appeared. He pointed to it.
"Pull that out from under the table," he told her, "and open it up."
She moved to do so, bending from the waist. He was standing directly behind her as she bent over, making her feel vulnerable. She couldn't see him, but she imagined that his view was like what she'd seen at a zoo once, when a female ape bent over in front of a make, raising her ass high in the air and backing toward him, "presenting" herself.
The dress Jamie was wearing was short, and she wasn't sure how far it would ride up with her bending over. The box was heavy. She dragged it out slowly, thinking maybe she should squat down, but then thinking she'd look undignified in that position.
A flush came to her face again as she tugged at the heavy box, not from the exertion, but from knowing Mr. Dickens was enjoying his view.
When she got the box out and pulled at the top, the end near the table came up, and she realized the box was a set of steps held together by a hinge and folded back on itself. To drop the steps into place, she had to back up, and when she did, still bent from the waist, her hands almost on the floor, her hips high, she felt her bottom press into Dickens.
"Excuse me. I'm sorry," she said, pulling away.
Dickens smiled at her. "You've no need to be."
He looked down at the steps.
"Push the steps in so the top one is slightly under the table. That way you won't slip into the crack," he smiled. "I think that's what the Brits mean when they say, Mind the gap."
Jamie was a bit confused, both by what was happening and her response to it. She was definitely getting aroused, and he was clearly causing it, though he wasn't doing anything overtly sexual. She did as directed, and when she stood back up, Dickens took her hand.
Standing beside the table, he gently led her up the steps.
"Our Board of Directors finds many uses for this marvelous table. This is my favorite one. Now stand up straight."
The marble surface was slippery under her leather shoes. Jamie felt a bit off-balance. She hadn't noticed Mr. Dickens pick up a yard stick, but suddenly there was one in his hand. Though this was a conference room, the light was subdued. Some of the corners were nearly dark.
"I want to find out just how closely you followed my instructions," he said, placing the yardstick by her shoes. "Stand up straight and face the end of the table where the chairman sits."
Jamie did as she'd been told, throwing her shoulders back and holding her head up. Looking at the empty chair, she wondered what the view would be with the chairman in it, looking back at her. He'd have a good view of her legs, she thought. But quickly that thought passed and she looked down to see what Mr. Dickens was doing.
He was measuring the height of her heel, the yardstick pressed against her shoe and running up her leg. The yardstick presses the flimsy dress against her leg.
"It's five inches, just like you said," she blurted out.
"I see that," he answered, looking directly into her face with a look that seemed almost stern, almost displeased, though he continued to speak very pleasantly. "Again you have pleased me. But I must insist that from now on you only speak to me when I ask you a question or direct you to speak. This is an interview, not a cocktail party."
His choice of words seemed odd again, almost pointed, because the dress he'd asked her to wear would have been perfectly acceptable at a cocktail party . . . and so would the shoes.
Dickens pulled the yardstick out a bit so the black skirt fell away from her leg. He held the stick close to the free-hanging dress, but not touching it, and looked closely at the mark next to the bottom hem.
Jamie tensed. She wanted to explain that she knew the dress was longer than he'd requested, but only an inch or two, and she only bought it this afternoon because she didn't have one exactly like he'd asked for, and she wanted it to be exactly what he asked for, but they didn't have time to alter it, so she just threw it on and came in.
But even as all these thoughts were racing through her head, Mr. Dickens spoke softly as though to ease her welling panic.
