Undress Her For Dinner

Chapter Two-1

Chapter Two

Elsa

I literally bumped into Elsa two months into my employment at Riordan & McCall. We were at the water cooler, she directly behind me, when I suddenly turned around and there she was. We both backed off and managed weak smiles.

“I’m so sorry,” I spit out.

“Dat iz okay,” she haltingly answered.

I’d seen the honey-blonde beauty on several occasions, running errands for busy account executives. I immediately saw her as the stereotypical office slut. Blonde, buxom and statuesque, with her thick German accent adding considerably to her allure. I think American men think of European sluts as mysterious and uniquely sensuous. I could see why she was hired; certainly, it wasn’t for her secretarial skills. As I was soon to learn, her English was only barely passable. I doubt she could read or write a word.

Yet, as I briefly caught her gaze and stared into the warmth of her yielding blue eyes, I had another, far different, opinion of her. She was not the haughty, bitchy femme fatale she appeared to be from a distance, but a scared young girl. I suppose she had to be over eighteen, but barely.

“I’m very sorry. I was just going on break. Would you like a cup of coffee?”

To my surprise, Elsa accepted my offer.

We moved into the employee’s lounge and sat down opposite each other at one of the mahogany tables next to the atrium, nervously nursing cups of steamy, fresh-made coffee. One thing I will say of Riordan & McCall, the ambience is transcendent, a literal rainforest in the atrium center of the building and modern art artfully gracing the walls—very often Harry’s work. Coffee and tea are designer brands, not the burnt- smelling swill found in most offices. Again, Harry’s doing. There are usually pastries and fresh fruit arranged on decorative platters in the break room, looking as though the spread had been set out just minutes before.

I realized as Elsa and I stared into each other’s eyes that our conversation might be more awkward than I planned.

“So, you’ve been here long?” I asked her.

“Tree mont’s.”

I nodded. “You’re from Germany?”

“Ya…ah, Yes.” She nodded as she pronounced the English word with a deliberate smile. “I very little Anglish.”

“You’re doing fine. You like it here?”

She looked around, as if she was looking for someone to be staring at her, then nodded nervously. “Verry hart. But I larn . . .schnell.” She seemed strangely cautious, more than I would think she needed to be. Friendly, but guarded.

“I’m sure you are learning.” I smiled as warmly as I could.

I was rescued from the uncomfortable situation by Jeanette, who I saw summoning me through the plate glass window, tapping on the glass until I finally turned her way. The woman was pushy and wouldn’t wait, but on this occasion, it suited my need to extricate myself from poor Elsa.

Since that day, I’ve looked out for her, making an informal study of her behavior and her adaptation to the office environment. She works exclusively for two executives who I find are particularly abrupt with her, as if she’s their personal slave. More than once I’ve watched her being verbally dressed down in front of the clerical staff for some perceived infraction, Elsa nearly in tears. With her limited command of the language, the poor girl couldn’t have understood half of what they told her. While I felt sorry for her, at the same time, I noticed an odd sensuality arising in these confrontations. I’m sure the feeling came from Elsa herself, as if she derived some perverse pleasure in the verbal abuse. I imagine that Mr. Hardaway and Mr. Cain enjoyed these scenes. It seemed to me that they appeared, after some study of their boorish faces, to be peculiarly sadistic.

The same two executives employ a young English secretary, Honey, who they treat with a similarly haughty disdain. Honey, having no problem with the language, has a more responsible position. But like Elsa, she seems to quiver inside her tiny panties when the two men are around. I say tiny because she’s just a bit of thing—quite the opposite of the well-endowed Elsa. She’s not more five feet tall and could weigh no more than a hundred pounds. Her t**s are small, but in the vernacular, quite perky, n*****s nearly always blatantly hard and poking outrageously through her tight knit shirts. In the funky fashion I associate with English sluts from working class towns, her physical appearance is sexily garish—spiky red dyed hair, dark roots and purple painted fingernails. Her short skirts barely cover her ass and when she bends over, it’s obvious that she wears ‘tiny’ panties, which cover almost nothing.

I finally had the guts to ask Jeanette about the foreign tarts, knowing that she’d have answers if anyone did.

She smiled, wryly. “That’s just Hardaway and Cain for you. They imported the two, got them green cards, a place to live, the whole nine yards, like they have their own personal European Playboy bunnies running around here. I think it’s pretty disgusting, but Harry would never say anything. He’d think it might interrupt the creative process,” she said with degree of disdain I’d not previously heard from her.

“Hmm, interesting,” I said, reservedly. I expected this kind of personal appraisal from Jeanette, who is herself a bit thick about the middle and far past her prime at forty-five, not that she would have ever looked like either Elsa or Honey. Her face is too round, her hair too ordinary in a style that looked dowdy twenty years ago, and her attitude too Midwestern—not that I haven’t cultivated quite an affection for Midwesterners, there does seem to be a modest, folksy quality about this part of the country that on some is pleasant, while on others just boorish and boring. To her credit, Jeanette is a decent and thorough secretary. Since Stephen has a lovely wife and what appears to be a solid relationship, he doesn’t need an Elsa or Honey to constantly whet his s****l appetite. At the same time, I sometimes wonder if Jeanette isn’t Mrs. Dunfey’s choice to make certain her husband isn’t straying. I could have spent hours with my unfounded speculations, trying to figure out the situation, but then, there were better uses for my time, I had to remind myself.

“Harry doesn’t have a secretary, does he?” I asked her.

“No. He doesn’t need one.”

“No?”

“He can have any one of us, if he likes.”

“And who does he favor?”

“If he wants something done quickly, it’s usually me,” she said proudly. If he needs a little titillation, I imagine one of the other girls. But I don’t think he has much need for a secretary anytime. He just passes off business matters to Justin, who’s more than happy to lap his boots.”

Justin McCall is the son of Harry’s late partner, Elton McCall, who I was told was as eccentric as Harry. The company had to be saved several times by enterprising junior associates who had business sense enough for collecting fees and organization, which neither founder really cared about. The slightly pudgy, plain-faced Justin fit perfectly into the roll of business manager. I have an inkling that he takes even more control than he’s actually been given, but Harry abdicates to others anything that is not directly involved with his creative work. Justin, like Mr. Hardaway and Mr. Cain, has a keen eye for the slut female. His secretary, Michelea, is Bosnian, another of the ‘girls from abroad project’, although in this case Michelea is solely Justin’s girl—not just his secretary but his fiancée as well. She pads after him in the same slave-like manner as Elsa and Honey attend to their bosses, however, on Justin’s strict orders, she dresses like a schoolmarm. It’s rather fascinating to watch her exude an abundance of s****l heat while she’s wearing blouses up her neck, and skirts that practically skim her ankles. She wears her dark hair up swept into a bun, revealing the only body part open to scrutiny—her long and very sensuous neck.

Her flawless olive-skinned complexion glows radiantly, her wide smoky eyes reflect the mystery of her culture, suggesting, perhaps, gypsies of the East. The only slightly s****l aspects of her attire are the leather ankles boots with spiky four-inch heels. You’d think she’d be crippled by now wearing them all day, every day, but the sultry brunette carries herself with the same alluring aplomb at five o’clock as she does at eight in the morning.

It’s obvious that Justin has total control over Michelea; the girl compliantly obeys his every order. Perhaps that is another characteristic of an Old World culture, where most women continue to be subservient to their men. Justin milks that quality for his own rewards, leaving me to wonder what it’s like in their bedroom.

The other women in the Riordan & McCall Design Group are as modern and freethinking as I am, although I have yet to hear their personal opinions regarding the three young sluts. I find the whole matter very odd, but this oddity seems to be accepted here, just as these people would accept most any behavior, lifestyle or libertarian political idea—Harry’s doing. He’d probably have three young sluts for his own, if he were younger.

I believe someone said he’s seventy-five, though he doesn’t look a day over sixty.

***

A few days ago, I was surprised to see a man looking very much like my stranger on the train walking toward Mr. Hardaway’s office. I was just leaving my office on the way to see Phil when the man walked by not seeing me. I instantly froze in my tracks, so stunned that I simply stared in that direction for an uninterrupted minute, finding my surprise only amplified when a very nervous Elsa was buzzed into her boss’s office. She seemed so filled with trepidation—I could see her hands shaking even from twenty-five feet away—that I was afraid she wouldn’t be able to open the door. I’m not sure why I was so rattled by this small event. If it was my stranger, then perhaps there was a legitimate business reason for him being here, and there was certainly no reason why it wasn’t logical for Hardaway to request Elsa in his office.

However, in this case, logic really didn’t apply.

I regarded the man’s presence and Elsa’s frayed nerves as a sign of something sinister going on behind that closed door. Once I got my bearings, I almost walked to Hardaway’s office so I could listen at the door. But my better self prevailed and I returned to my own desk to contemplate the savage feelings that this situation created. I kept an eye on the hallway, watching for the stranger to leave, and was rewarded about thirty minutes later by the sight of the same man walking toward the elevator. Seeing him more clearly this time, I confirmed that it was my stranger.

A cold shiver raced up my spine, as if a demon from another world had suddenly invaded mine.

I immediately left my desk and moved toward the door, looking through the windows in the direction of Hardaway’s office. Elsa was back at her desk, appearing to be quite rattled. Wondering if I was simply reading things into the incident that were not there, I decided to wander back to her desk to satisfy my curiosity. Since the day we bumped into each other at the break room, it wasn’t unusual for me to stop by her desk for a friendly, though brief visit. Conversation was still difficult with her limited English. To cover myself, I grabbed a file from my desk, which suggested that I was on my way to the Xerox room just a few feet beyond Elsa’s desk.

“Is everything okay?” I found myself asking as I approached her. I was right. She had been crying.

She stared at me with such sadness, drawing me even closer to her with her big sad eyes. “Ya. . . yes, jus fine.” She nodded, trying to smile. Her efforts were fruitless. For a moment, I thought she would break down sobbing and I wasn’t sure I wanted to be in the middle of that sort of scene.

“Well, if there’s anything you need…” I offered, reassuringly.

She pulled a rumpled Kleenex from her purse and blew her nose.

I knew I had to remove myself fast, or the whole scene might turn ugly. I sensed that wouldn’t be a good thing for her, or maybe even me. Perhaps my leaving would allow her to compose herself. Not saying anything more, I nodded kindly and moved on to the copy room.