I’d been introduced to her earlier as “Carol”, and I knewthat she worked with me in my office. She was younger than me, mid-thirties ata guess and being dragged onto the dance floor by her was a major ego boost.
On the floor she wrapped her arms around me and, with herhead on my shoulder, said into my ear, “All these years we’ve worked together,Tom, and I’ve never had the courage to tell you this until now, but I bloodyfancy the arse off you.”
I pulled back a little to look at her face, which was justcrying out to be kissed, and leaned in instinctively. Well, why not? It was alovely, romantic snog, without any sexual overtones, just full of affection.This was something my life had lacked. Contrary to popular opinion, most of theescorts I had been with in London had kissed, but that was a mere prelude tosex and it had all been fake anyway.
As for Lauren, she hadn’t seemed particular interested inkissing at all, always wanting to get straight down to the action.
Kissing Carol was the first time I think I had felt genuineaffection from a woman. Later I would find out more about the years we workedtogether, confirming that nothing like this had happened between us before.Perhaps that could change.
“Will you call me?” she asked tentatively.
“Of course,” I said. But clearly I wouldn’t be able to andperhaps my other self in my former timeline hadn’t either, as I had no inklingthat any of this had occurred until today. She hadn’t attempted to contact meeither, so perhaps this little romantic moment hadn’t occurred in the originalversion of this day.
It didn’t matter one way or the other: all I knew was that Ihad a good friend here, whether I managed to take it further in the past ornot.
I hadn’t been too sure how I was going to handle work. Infact, I had been dreading it, but meeting so many of my colleagues that nighthad certainly helped. Before the party there had only been Nick, but now therewas Carol and others, too.
As long as I could bluff my way through the first few days Ididn’t see any reason why I couldn’t pull it off, even if I was going incompletely cold. It was going to be the ultimate case of on-the-job trainingand I’d just have to figure it all out as I went along.
There was no obligation to go in at all really. After all, Icould just phone in sick anytime I fancied a day off. It would only be one day,as in theory I’d go back in the next day. I could do it every single day if Iwanted to, and carry on as before, but quite honestly I’d had enough of that.
Now I’d met Carol, I wanted to get to know her and have someproper human interaction. I was not going to get that sitting around the houseall day in my underpants watching old quiz shows on a channel I’d discoveredcalled Challenge.
So, on the day following my party, I dug out my old suitthat I had not worn since my trip to Cheltenham, and headed off in the companyBMW to work. This had rather impressively appeared out of nowhere on mydriveway that morning.
Presumably, with it being my last day I was going to have togive it back. I’d been managing without a car for quite a while now. It seemedI’d gone almost two years without one before I bought the Mercedes.
It was cold and raining, and the traffic around the OxfordRing Road was horrendous. Eventually, I pulled into the driveway of the agingand ugly office block which had served as the company’s Head Office since the1960s. Then I realised I had a problem, the sort of thing I was always runninginto.
The entrance to the car park was controlled by a barrierwhich was opened using a keypad which meant yet another PIN number that Ididn’t know. I pressed the button to call security and got a rather angry-soundingresponse from the other end.
“Is that you, again, Scott?” bellowed a voice out of thespeaker. “You’d forget your bloody head if it wasn’t screwed on.”
“Yeah, sorry,” I meekly responded. “I can’t seem to remembermy entry code.” There must be a camera somewhere, but I couldn’t see it. Howelse would he have known it was me?
“How long have you worked here?” he replied. “Too long, Ireckon. I think it’s time you retired. In fact, I’m personally going to chuckyou out myself at the end of the day.”
With that, the intercom cut off, and the barrier went up.Unfortunately for me, I was soon to face the same problem when I reached theentry door to discover another keypad blocking my way.
I pressed the button again, and a large man, roughlymid-fifties and dressed in a security uniform, appeared in the doorway lookingfurious. There were no prizes for deducing that this was the same man who hadspoken to me before.
I later discovered that his name was Barry and he used to bea sergeant major in the Army before retiring and taking this job. As I was soonto learn, he kept up a constant stream of banter with everyone and, despite hisbelligerent behaviour, was a hugely popular character around the building.
“I’ll swing for you, Scott, I really will,” he said as heopened the door. “I’m not surprised they bloody sacked you, how are yousupposed to run a multinational corporation when you can’t even open thefucking door? No wonder the share price has gone to shit.”
I retorted lamely with the first load of drivel that cameinto my head. “We are busy making all sorts of crucial business decisions everyday at board level, you know. Remembering trivia like the key code to get intothe building isn’t that high on my list of priorities, I’m afraid.”
“Don’t make me laugh,” said Barry. “I bet you don’t evenknow how much a tin of beans costs in one of your shops. I suppose you want meto let you through the internal door as well?”
“Please,” I replied, and he swiped a card through a
