Chapter 12

I got to work a little early on Monday morning, anxious to make the move into my new office and to meet my new personal assistant. It took me about 15 minutes to move my files and personal junk out of my old cubicle and into the much larger office.While my new office was probably the smallest one in the row, it was easily twice the size of my old space, and most importantly, it had a door. Someone from the tech support staff had already moved my computer and fax into the office and it took me only a minute or so to check and confirm that all my data had survived the journey.

At 10:30, I heard a soft tap at my office door and I looked up to see the knob twisting and someone coming in. The girl who walked in was about five feet six or so and looked to be about my age, mid twenties. She had dark brown hair, dark complexion and was a little on the heavy side. Not fat, but perhaps as much as fifteen pounds overweight. She was pretty and her smile revealed a mouth full of nice even teeth.

"Mr. Matthews? Hi, my name is Lupe, and I was told that I'd be your personal assistant?" I found out that I'd actually be sharing Lupe with two of the more established account reps in the foreign exchange department. They were outside sales types who seldom spent much time at the bank. Lupe told me that they mostly used her to answer their phones and keep track of their appointments calendar. She claimed to have been so bored that she'd been considering quitting. Lupe told me that she was 24 years old, came from a large family, being the oldest of seven children, and that she still lived at home with her parents. I asked her to please call me Jim, and that I was sure that I would be keeping her so busy that she would soon wish that she was back to being so bored that she thought about quitting.

Over the next hour or so I filled her in about the automated exchange system, the potential problems, and my plans to slowly phase in the changeover. She seemed very bright, asking so many good questions that I was soon very confident that the two of us would make fast progress in getting the switchover handled successfully. By the time we got done with our first session, it was lunch break time. Right before Lupe left for lunch we agreed that she would take an hour in the morning to take care of her other responsibilities and another hour right after lunch. The rest of the time she would be working with me. I told her that I had to take care of some changes in the client interface program with the software people that afternoon, so that I wouldn't need her until the next day. All in all I was very happy with this first meeting with my assistant. Some of the questions she had asked had started me thinking of possible solutions to problems I'd been having with making the client training easier.

I returned home that night in a good frame of mind, still full of ideas about work and looking forward to implementing the needed changes. As soon as my car pulled into the carport, I saw Donna open her front door and walk quickly towards me. She was dressed up in a light print dress and wearing some kind of dressy shoes. Her hair was loose but in a new style that looked great on her. She walked over to me and had a smile on her face like I'd seldom seen from her before.

"Hi Jim, how do I look?" She stopped and did a slow 360 turn.

"You look great, as you well know, what's the occasion?" She looked better than great, but I didn't want to feed her ego more than I already had.

"Oh, nothing much, I've just got a date is all." Her words somehow caused me some pain. I tried to smile through it though, acting totally calm.

"Well, good for you. Have a good time." I turned and start walking to my house. Donna followed me in, making her way to my kitchen, grabbing herself a beer, and high tailing it over to my sofa.

"I thought you said you had a date?" I asked.

"I do, fool, it's with you. You didn't think I'd let you get away with taking Momsie out and not have you take me out too did you?" For some reason I found myself able to breathe freely once again and my good mood had returned instantly.

"So, if we have a date, where are you planning on taking me?" I asked, hoping she'd say that she'd leave that up to me. If she had, I would have taken her down to Newport Beach for dinner and a walk on the beach.

"Car shopping. We're going to get rid of that piece of crap jalopy you drive and get you a really cool set of wheels so I won't have to be embarrassed to be seen riding with you anymore." I was surprised by her answer, but, I had to admit, the idea of another, better, car did have its appeal to me. With my recent promotion, I was certain that I could afford to drive a better car.

"Donna, you really do surprise me sometimes. Here I was getting ready to let you have your way with me and, instead, you pick probably the least romantic possible situation, car shopping. But OK, if that's what you want, that's what we'll do. Let's go." I turned to leave, but Donna stayed rooted to my sofa. "What?" I asked.

"Jim, go clean up, I'm not going to go out with someone who doesn't even bother to clean up for a date." I smiled and started back in and headed up my stairs. Before showering, I took the precaution of locking both my bedroom and bathroom doors. In fifteen minutes, I was back downstairs, showered, shaved, dressed and ready to go. Donna was in her favorite spot when I came downstairs, two empty bottles sat on my coffee table. She jumped up and intercepted me at the foot of the steps and made a big production of smelling me before stepping close to me and wrapping me up into her arms. The kiss she laid on me had me instantly horny, and I really did feel the vibrations all the way down to my toes. I tried for another, but she just stepped back and laughed, telling me it was time to go.