Chapter 6: I Can Help

“I need to go,” Paige said.

“Go?”

She nodded. We were lying naked on the bed, me on my back and her spooned up by my side—the position we’d been in before she took my cock out and started sucking it. It had been about twenty minutes since I had come in her anus.

“Why?”

“I need to get home. Mum will be expecting me.”

“Call her. Tell you’re staying here tonight.”

She shook her head. “She’ll be upset.”

“Will she? I’ve never gotten that impression from what she says when I pick you up.”

“It’s all talk. You don’t know her.”

“How can I when you won’t let us meet.”

“For good reason. Just—I just need to go, okay. I’m not running out on you. I just need to get home.”

I nodded and lifted the arm that was resting on her hip and hugging her to me. She sat up, then leaned down to kiss me.

“That really was amazing just now. I hope we do it again. And again. And again. Lots of agains.”

I smiled. “Me too.”

She got up off the bed and started to get dressed. I watched. There’s something really, really sexy about watching a woman get dressed. She put her bra on first—something I always find fascinating because every woman I’ve ever seen do it did it slightly differently. Paige put it on backwards, wrapping it almost around her tummy and doing up the back clasp in front first before twisting it around and pulling it up so it sat correctly on her ribcage. Then she slotted her arms through the straps before hoisting her hefty breasts into the cups and adjusting the whole thing until she felt comfortable.

Her panties were next. She had her back to me and flashed me a great view of her still slightly-gaping and glistening pussy and her reddened arsehole still slick from the lube and with some of my cum leaking out. Then she stepped into her skirt and zipped it up before slipping on her blouse. She faced me and smirked as she watched me watching her doing up the buttons one by one.

Fully clothed once more, she held her arms out from her sides and did a little curtsy.

“I’ve never done a reverse striptease before,” she said. “Did you enjoy it?”

I nodded.

“Me too. And it’s got me all horny again. But I really have to go.” She climbed onto the bed and kissed me one time.

“Want to go to Central Pier tomorrow night?” I asked as she stood again.

“Oh, Paul, I’d love to, but...”

“But what?”

“It’s my Aunt Bev’s birthday. Mom and I always take her and my cousin Jenny out for the night. We’ve done it for years. I can’t miss it.”

“Oh. Okay. I guess I’ll see you Monday then.”

Paige smiled and nodded. She really did have a lovely smile. She turned to leave, and I watched her lovely arse wiggle as she walked to the door. Before she went through it, I called out, “Paige?”

She stopped, turned and replied, “Yeah?”

“You know it’s my last week at work next week, right?”

She nodded. “Yeah. It’s going to be strange when you’re gone. But you’ll be coming back every now and then, right?”

“Probably. But don’t you think we should ... You know, talk about it. About what we do after. Are we still going to see each other?”

“We will. Talk. And still see each other. I hope. If you want to. You do want to, don’t you?”

I smiled. “Yeah.”

“Good. See you Monday.”

I was whistling as I made coffee in the small break room just off our open-plan office on Monday morning when I felt hands on my hips and someone kissing me on the back of the neck.

I turned my head to see Paige smiling at me. “Make me one too?”

I smiled back. “Of course.”

“Good boy.” Her smile became a leer. “Damn, you have no idea how much I want to rip your clothes off right now. Think we could get away with you bending me over the counter?”

“No. I think we’d get caught and you’d be out of a job.”

“Probably. But it might just be worth it.” She stepped to my side, leaned against the counter and sighed. “Thank you, Paul. For Friday.”

“Trust me,” I said. “It was my pleasure.” I leaned forward to kiss her quickly. Someone cleared their throat in that way people do to get your attention. We looked towards the door to see one of the older secretaries looking sternly at us.

“P.D.A.?” she said. Then her stern look softened. “I remember what that was like. Now scat. Get out of here before someone reports you. You know the rules.”

We both smiled at her and while Paige picked up her mug, I picked up mine and Imogen’s and we hurried back to our desks. Imogen gave me a knowing look when I sat down. She took her mug from me and shook her head.

“Mark didn’t believe me, but it’s true, isn’t it?”

“What is?”

“You guys did it, didn’t you?”

“I have no idea what you mean,” I said with a smirk. Paige giggled from her desk opposite mine. Imogen shook her head.

Then all three of our computers beeped as they received an e-mail. It had to be an all-staff round-robin for all three machines to have got it at the same time. I looked at my screen. The alert showed it was from Will and the subject line read “General Staff Meeting.”

Intrigued, I clicked to open the message and read it. Will had called an all-staff general meeting in the conference room in half an hour’s time.

“This can’t be good,” Paige said. She was looking at her screen, obviously reading the same message.

“Why not?” Imogen asked.

“All staff meetings are rare. Very rare. I’ve been here for nearly six months now and this is the first one I’ve seen called like this, at such short notice. We had one about a week after I joined, but it had been in the diary for almost a month. And it was a lunch meeting with a buffet provided. This is different. Look at everyone else. No one knew anything about it until the email came. They’re all looking at each other and asking if they know what’s going on. It can’t be good.”

I glanced around the room. Paige was right. Everyone was talking when usually they’d be busy typing.

I had a feeling Paige was spot on. This couldn’t be good.

“Thank you all for attending,” Will said as he stood at one end of the large room which took up almost the whole of the ground floor of the left-hand part of the building—the part that was curved at one end. The room could actually be sectioned off into smaller meeting rooms as well as being opened up like this for receptions and conferences and meetings of this size.

The general low murmur of chatter that had been in the room stopped and all attention was on the office’s managing partner. All the staff were present—even both receptionists, which meant there was no-one answering the phones. There must have been upwards of a hundred people.

“I appreciate that calling a meeting like this at such short notice is unusual. And I know that it has led to a feeling of unease among many of you since the last time we had to do this was during the recession when we reluctantly announced the redundancies.” He paused, visibly steeling himself for what he was about to say. “And, I’m afraid, your fears are not misplaced. I have some difficult news to deliver.”

He was standing in front of the large windows overlooking the carpark at the curved end of the building. He took a deep breath, looked at the floor, then began to pace back and forth as he started speaking again.

“I’m sure it hasn’t gone unnoticed that I’ve spent an unusually large amount of time out of the office at meetings this summer. A great deal of that time I’ve spent at the Head Office, trying to prevent a decision which I firmly believe will be bad for the Firm. I’ve spent time with as many of my Partners as I can, lobbying against the proposal which was put before us in the spring.”

I really didn’t like the sound of this. It wasn’t just what Will was saying either. It was the way he was saying. He sounded tense. Angry. Frustrated.

“A small group of Partners in the Firm believe it is time to refocus the business. The group are based at the Head office and two of our other London branches and, naturally, they believe that this refocus should be on the nature of work that they are interested in, that being high-profile Corporate work and high-volume Insurance and Personal Injury work. As I’m sure you’re aware, we don’t do much of that kind of work here in Westmouth.”

He stopped pacing and stood facing his employees, looking for all the world like the powerful businessman and lawyer that he was, confident and in charge, even though what he’d just told us meant he was perhaps less in charge of things than he appeared.

After another deep breath, he continued. “A key part of the proposal was the closure of what the group called remote branch offices—those that deal with Private Client work and small-scale Commercial, Domestic and Agricultural property. Exactly the kind of work we do here in Westmouth.

“I lobbied hard. I fought this proposal with everything I had. But this weekend, at a full meeting of all the Partners, a vote was taken, and the proposal passed. I’m sorry to have to report that the Westmouth office of JMS Law has been earmarked for closure.”