Chapter 7: Shopping For Underwear

The next step on his plan to seduce her was to buy her personal clothing, rather than the work items she had accepted without any real argument. Taking the spare overall into a respectable women’s clothes shop, one run by a local, not part of a chain, he inquired about simple underwear, knickers, brassières, slips, and so forth to fit a lady the size to wear that overall.

This got him some very odd looks, but when he mentioned the budget he wanted to spend there was immediate attention and much advice forthcoming. It didn’t harm his case when it was apparent to the shop owner that he was altogether too large to fit any of his purchases, so he wasn’t a cross-dresser as she had first thought, nor buying for a mistress as his wishes were described as, “Simple every-day wear, nothing fancy.”

Late in December he gave them to her wrapped in Christmas paper.

“I haven’t got you anything,” she said apologetically but he waved her objection away, “Don’t you want me to come in over the holiday?” she added, “or are you going away?”

“No. I’ll be here as usual, or even more as the office is closing from Christmas Eve until the Monday after New Year. I suppose you are away?”

“No, I can’t burden my parents. They are really beginning to resent my attitude, as they think it’s my fault I haven’t conceived and my mother was determinedly on Rodney’s side,” she confided as a tear rolled down her face.

“If you could put up with my cooking, we could eat together here on Christmas Day,” he suggested, then putting a little more steel in his voice he added as more of an order than a suggestion, “or I could book us a Christmas lunch somewhere?”

“Either of those would be lovely,” she replied, “I’ll leave it up to you.”

That’s the attitude I want, he thought, acquiescent. I’ll be taking that underwear off her body by the end of January or I’m a Dutchman.

Christmas Day came and David had managed to find a fairly small goose which he had stuffed and roasted with all the vegetable trimmings. For sweet there was a traditional plum pudding with white sauce, also cooked by him. The wine was a very tasty red which she did not recognise, called Barolo, which David explained was one of his favourites and which, as he put it, “could stand up to the red cabbage”.

“Do the Lisboa serve it then?” she asked, made bold by three glasses.

“Of course not,” he answered, “The Lisboa is a Portuguese restaurant and this is a wine from northern Italy. I was lucky to get this, ottanta due is the very best at prices I can afford.”

“I thought it was called Barolo?” she was confused.

“Yes, ottanta due is the year. 1982. A truly superb year.”

“You mean it’s fifteen years old?” she was incredulous, “We never had anything that old. Me and Rodney I mean.”

“Changing the subject, was my present acceptable? You can always change them if they don’t fit.”

“I wondered why you gave me intimate underwear?” she said, suddenly cautious, “And how you guessed the sizes?”

“Oh don’t worry, I don’t want you to model them. I just thought it was the sort of thing you might need, but not yet be able to afford. As to size, the shop staff guessed from one of your overalls what you would need.”

“What can I do to say thank you?” she asked cautiously.

“You may not know but one of my hobbies is photography, so far railway trains mostly. You could do some photographic modelling for me?” Seeing her worried look he hastened to add, “I’d like to try some portraiture, head and shoulders only,” adding silently, At first, “but get your hair done at my expense. And of course I’ll pay you for modelling. Cash in hand, not through your wages, and double the housekeeper rate.”