Chapter 4: Moving On

Often I was away from home for up to a month or so at a time, sometimes even longer, flying home for the odd weekend during the longer stints abroad to see the children. During those longer trips I did have a couple of tentative relationships, but there was only one that became anything like serious.

Semine was a Danish woman I met over dinner at a colleague's house in Sweden. Whether he set the pair of us up, I don't know. But if he did, he should branch out into the dating industry. Semine and I hit it off like a house on fire.

Divorced around the same time as me, I was to discover that she had two children about the same age as mine as well; Semine and I soon found that we had a lot to talk about. There were some remarkable coincidences in the circumstances - although tenuous to some peoples eyes - of our divorces as well. Semine had actually caught her husband in bed with her sister. Well surely infidelity within the family can't be that common.

Anyway Semine's husband and her sister had run off to the UK together, and she'd heard sod-all about them and never received a penny in maintenance from the bastard since. Although she did get the house; but she had two teenage children to support. I'd made a mental note to see if I could trace the bugger and stitch the sod up somehow when I got back home.

I went back to Semine's hotel room after dinner that first evening. She was only supposed to be in Sweden for a couple more days and I think we were both in somewhat of a hurry. I really can't explain why after sitting at the dinner table for no more than a few minutes I knew that some kind of a relationship was going to come out of our meeting. The way she was looking at me, I just knew that Semine was thinking the same as I was.

On the way back to Semine's hotel in the taxi — I was supposed to be dropping her off on the way to mine — we started kissing and cuddling like a couple of teenagers; I don't remember any groping or anything like that, it was just kissing, I think. Whatever, by the time we got to Semine's hotel there was no question of me continuing on to mine. We paid the cab off and proceeded straight to Semine's room where we sucked and fucked the rest of the night away.

Now some folks might think that Semine was a loose woman to climb into bed with a guy she'd met for the first time that day; I can assure you that she wasn't. I think we were both reticent about what we were doing, but we knew that time was short. Semine was supposed to be going home to Denmark the next day.

Semine — the name by the way means goddess of sun, moon and stars — didn't take the ferry home the next morning; after calling her daughter — who appeared ecstatic that she'd finally met a man — she moved into my hotel room with me and stayed for a further five days. Even coming with me to work during the day, we covered her presence by passing her off as my official interpreter. Not that I met a soul in Sweden who didn't have a reasonably good grasp of English. No, not a bleeding word, except maybe for hallå — hello- and tack — thanks or thank you; generally I rambled on in English and everyone appeared to know what I was talking about.

Semine had to return to Denmark at the end of that week though, and I flew home to the UK for the weekend as well. Katie seems to have a sixth sense about some things and almost the moment she arrived at the flat on the Saturday morning insisted on me telling her all about Semine. Well I didn't go into fine details, although my daughter shook me to the bone by asking if Semine was good in bed.

"Christ dad, I only asked." She said with a cheeky grin on her face after I'd chastised her for asking such a question. "If she can put a smile back on your face, then good luck to her. Do you think that you'll get married; I'd like to meet her before you do."

Marriage to Semine was not something that had crossed my mind at the time. It could be that my daughter was just giving me a warning not to let things get out of hand too quickly. However she seemed pleased that I'd teamed up with someone, even if Jamie didn't sound as pleased when he heard about my new girlfriend. Mind you, Jamie for some inexplicable reason seemed to get the idea that I'd be moving to Denmark to live with Semine. I have no idea where he got that notion.

For the next two months whilst I was based in Sweden, Semine and I made regular weekend trips on the ferry to be with each other. Katie and Jamie flew over one weekend to spend it with us in Denmark, Jamie wasn't too enamoured because he was without Frankie for the weekend. He seemed to get on well with a friend of Semine's daughter though.

On another weekend Semine brought her two over to the UK to spend it with me. Most of that weekend was spent in Oxford Street shopping, and doing the tourist sites. The kids seemed to get on quite well though.

At the end of my stint in Sweden, Semine and I went on holiday together for three weeks. We had a great time and fucked like bunny rabbits at almost every opportunity we got for the first two weeks. Half way through the third week though things changed a little; we both knew that decision time was rapidly coming upon us. Before we got home again we had to decide whether we were going to get married or just remain friends and opportunist lovers.

What I mean by that is, lovers when we could arrange to be in the same country together. My children were in the UK and Semine's were in Denmark, and on top of that none of them were young enough to change educational systems in mid-stream. And that didn't take into account our jobs; we were both in pretty good jobs that neither could contemplate throwing up lightly. Perhaps we were not in love enough, but the eventual decision was that we would remain friends, with benefits when the opportunity presented itself. Which it did several times a year for many years!

I had a couple of short liaisons after that whilst I was away, but for some inexplicable reason I never got anything like close to any other woman in the UK. Yeah I bedded a few but none that I wanted to get closely involved with except maybe for Anna; Anastasia to give her, her full name.

Now the way I met Anna was quite funny, even funnier to some folks than it was to me. Even to this day I have to wonder about the short relationship I had with her and was it all that it seemed to be. I'll let you ponder on the question the same way, as I always have.

It all started with a company seminar down in Torquay. The Palace Hotel if my memory serves me correct. Anyway the company had virtually taken the place over and Brass from our operations all over Europe were there. Including our PA's and that meant that Lizzie was with me, doing her dizzy thing and winding-up all the unattached — and some of the attached guys - as usual.

Anyway the Junket - because that in essence was what it was — had been thought up by the "powers that be" to bring the management of all the different operations together in one place to get to know each other. The company had been buying up smaller operations all over Europe for god knows how long, but they all remained essentially working as they had been before the takeovers; it was only the likes of me - that travelled around a lot - who had any kind of social contact with any of them.

This junket was to enable the management of all the different operations to get to know each other. Basically one of the board members got up on the stage every morning and for about an hour rattled on about group identity and interdepartmental cooperation etc. Then the rest of the day was spent playing sports or silly games of one kind or another. Your opponents always selected by computer to make sure everyone met as many people as possible.

Me, I knew just about everyone and my job for the week was to wander around making introductions. It was on the Tuesday I think, that I lost Lizzie just after the boring speech. I was pretty sure she was around somewhere with half a dozen randy guys in tow, all hoping they were going to get lucky. I had no real need of her services that day, so I wasn't looking for her when I spotted her in the dining room having a quiet cup of tea on her own. I was surprised that her little entourage of admirers had disappeared though.

"Hi kiddo, seen the randy buggers off have you? What you doing in here the sun's over the yardarm let's go and have a couple of bevies in the pub whilst it's quiet." I said plonking myself in the chair beside her.

Just for a moment a look of confusion came over Liz's face, then she smiled before replying that a drink in the pub would be nice.

Completely unexpectedly she took my arm as we walked out of the hotel to a pub just down the road. A drink in the hotel bar would probably have meant that we'd be pounced on by some of the wolves after getting into Liz's knickers.

Strangely that day Liz sounded a little more serious than usual. Several times I asked her if she was feeling all-right, usually I'd have got chapter and verse on who had tried to ply her with alcohol the previous evening and how she'd drunk them all under the table. During that walk Liz remained uncharacteristically quiet. And somewhat confusingly what conversation she did make for some reason was about Jamie and Kate, and when I had last seen Semine; as if she herself hadn't booked the plane ticket for me?

Things got even more confusing in the pub, we talked about music and the like. Not a subject I'd ever known Liz to talk to me about before that day. After hiding away for a couple of hours of peace and quiet and eating lunch in the pub, I thought we'd better go and show our faces around the hotel for a while, so went back. Liz disappearing quite rapidly and unexpectedly after we had entered the hotel's reception area.

I didn't see Liz at dinner that evening, but she walked through the lounge later, where I, and several of my foreign colleagues were sitting, chatting about sweet FA and having a quiet drink. A few moments later Liz completely shook me by strolling over with a big grin on her face and then, without a by your leave, planted a kiss on my forehead. Then, whilst I was still in shock and before I had a chance to ask her what I'd done to deserve such an unexpected favour from of her, she walked away again.

Less than five minutes later she was back, and did almost exactly the same thing again. I was completely lost as to what she was playing at. But a couple of my colleagues seemed to think it was a great game and began to kid me that they now knew why no one ever got anywhere with my lovely PA. More than one of them had tilted their hats in Liz's direction over the years, to no avail.

But Heinz one of the managers from our Berlin operation showed that he was more observant than the rest of us. "Why does Elizabeth keep changing her clothes this evening?" He asked.

"Sorry!" I replied.

"Red dress, blue dress and now red dress again. Why does she keep changing her dress?" He asked again.

Sure enough Liz soon reappeared, and she was wearing a blue dress.

"See, she has changed it again, how does she get changed so quickly and why?" Heinz asked.

"I've no idea what she's playing at; but you should know Lizzie by now. Who can guess what she's going to do next!" I laughed back at him.

Once again Liz was heading in my direction but this time I was ready for her, when she was in range, I grabbed her hand, pulled her down onto my lap and wrapped my arms around her holding her tight.

"Ok Lizzy, what's the big game; why the quick change artist all of a sudden?"

"I'm not with you boss." She replied.

But Heinz got in first. "Elizabeth!" — actually Heinz always pronounces her name Elizibet — "You wear a red dress, then a blue dress and then red and now blue again."

"Sorry Heinz, but you are mistaken. I haven't changed my dress since I came off the tennis courts at one o'clock." She replied smiling.

"Liz we were in the pub having lunch at one." I pointed out.

"No, I had lunch with Elizibet today, Jimmy!" Heinz contradicted me.

By this time I could feel Liz's whole body shaking and she was making strange noses trying to stifle her laughter.

"Come on, what's the game Liz?" I demanded, tickling her until she could no longer stifle the laughter.

Okay I had — like most everyone else at the so called seminar - probably drunk a little more falling down water then I normally consume that day, so I was in the mood for messing around a little. You have to let your hair down sometimes.

"All right, all right, I give in Jimmy. And if you don't stop tickling me, I'm going to pee all over your trousers." Liz eventually managed to say.

I stopped tickling her and she grinned at me before waving her arm in the direction of the door she'd entered the lounge by. This caused me and the other guys to look over at the doorway and we were all surprised to see Liz stroll back into the lounge. Only this Liz was wearing a red dress. In shock I stood up and that dumped Liz on the floor.

"Charming." She commented as I helped her to her feet again. "Boss I don't really have to introduce my sister Anna to you, do I? After all, the pair of you sneaked off for lunch together."

I looked from a grinning Liz to an equally grinning Anna; they had to be identical twins. I could remember Liz mentioning her sister Anastasia who lived in Canada many times in the past; but she'd never mentioned that they were identical twins.

"Sorry, Jim." Anna said taking my offered hand and shaking it. "Liz told me you always enjoyed a good joke, and so when you mistook me for her this morning, I couldn't resist seeing how long it took you to realise your mistake."

Then she lent forward still hanging onto my hand so I couldn't get away and kissed me full on the lips. That kiss — or maybe it was the shocked expression on my face - prompting hoots of laughter and several questionable comments from around the room in general.

"If I'd known Liz's boss was so handsome; I'd have come back to the UK to visit a lot sooner." She grinned at me.

By this time the guys were, really laughing at me; it appeared that more than a few of them had seen Anna and Liz together earlier in the day and were in on the game. I had wondered why not one of them had shown any sign of disapproval when the girls had kept kissing me earlier. Fraternisation between staff members wasn't taboo or even particularly frowned upon in our organisation, but it was discouraged between managers and their subordinates for obvious reasons.

I'd better explain that as my personal assistant Liz was on equal footing as far as seniority went with at least half the people at the seminar. Liz was empowered to sit in on meetings in my absence and act on my behalf when I was away. Her veto of any action that she felt she wasn't sure how I'd react to, was as good as my objecting to it in person. Generally nearly everyone in the company was aware, that I'd never had cause to reverse anything that Liz had said and done on my behalf.

Back to that evening. The joke on me over, most of the guys drifted away and left Liz, Anna and myself chatting amongst ourselves. Later we moved into the ballroom where there was dancing every evening.

I might add here, that nearly all the married guys had their wives with them and some — if not all of the female employees — had their spouses with them as well. Add to that there were more than a few girlfriends and boyfriends on the junket as well. The whole affair was a kind of "you're in our big family now" exercise. What the shareholders would make of the extravagance I had no idea.

Somehow I found myself dancing with Anna for most of the evening. The moment Liz came off the dance floor, some randy bugger or the other was waiting to ask her for the next dance. Lizzie's reputation as a dizzy blond had spread far and wide. Word had also got around that she was a tease and an ice-maiden on the quiet as well; I do believe a lot of the would-be Casanova's were trying to prove the rumour wrong. And/or possibly hoping to gain some kudos by being the first to thaw her out. I don't believe anyone got lucky and I was pleased that Liz apparently didn't have to demonstrate her boxing skills that week either.