We sat, drank champagne, and talked about our lives deepinto the night. The restaurant didn’t rush us and I could gladly have stayedall night in her company, but eventually, stuffed with food, drink and coffeewe almost fell out onto the pavement. We were laughing and drunk, not just fromthe alcohol, but from the high spirits that only an evening in perfect companycan provide.
Our route back to the hotel took us directly past the EiffelTower. As we walked close by, I slipped my hand into hers. She seemedsurprised, but not in a negative way.
“You’ve never done that before,” she said.
“Well, I’ve never been with you in the most romantic city inthe world before,” I replied, and turned to her in the shadow of Paris’s mostfamous landmark and kissed her full on the lips.
She responded enthusiastically, her tongue probing its wayinto my mouth. After that, we couldn’t get back to the hotel quickly enough andwere soon tearing our clothes off each and flinging them across the room.
It was one glorious night of passion, which more than livedup to my office fantasies. Sadly, it was one that I never did get the chance torepeat, as the opportunity never really arose again. In fact, although I didn’tknow it at the time, this was to be my final liaison before married life beckoned.
I was really glad that it had been such a memorable one.
Sarah
March 2018
The two years following my romantic interlude with Carol inParis passed relatively uneventfully.
I enjoyed the social life and travel that my newfoundvocation brought, whilst continuing to skilfully avoid doing any actual work.
The weekly planning meetings were a source of much amusementto me. It was full of young graduate trainees all clamouring to impress me.They were incredibly eager to get their voices heard and climb the corporateladder, but I just found them irritating.
Kissing the boss’s arse and asking as manyknowledgeable-sounding questions might have worked on some people, but I sawright through the falseness.
There was a general sense of panic around the building dueto the dire times that the company had fallen on in recent years. After decadesof being one of the major food retailers in the country, the 2010s had broughtone crisis after another.
A surge of popularity for foreign discount chains undercuttingprices had seen many former loyal customers desert our stores in droves.Various food scares and other scandals had dogged not just us, but the otherbig retailers as well. Most of them were also struggling, but not as badly asus.
To try and combat the decline, it seemed we had launched allmanner of initiatives, none of which seemed to have made any difference. Sonow, in these weekly meetings, my eager young charges competed desperately,trying to be the one to come up with the genius idea that would turn thecompany’s fortunes around.
Listening to the various suggestions it seemed to me that wehad completely lost sight of the golden rule of focusing on the customer.Everything seemed to be about money and manipulation – coming up with cleverpromotional ideas that worked well on paper, but were insulting to thecustomer’s intelligence.
The whole BOGOF (Buy One, Get One Free) offer had beencompletely abused in recent years. Once a great way of giving customersfantastic deals, it had been cynically manipulated to try and trick theshoppers into believing they were getting a bargain when they weren’t.
Modern shoppers weren’t falling for it. They were more cluedup than ever before, thanks to price comparison sites and other resources. Theydidn’t like being taken for mugs and voted with their feet, heading off to thediscount stores instead.
Most of the ideas that were brought up in the meetings werejust variations on the same old themes. Sometimes I decided to take the pissand throw in an utterly ludicrous idea to see what the reaction would be.
“I know,” I said, one summer morning when I would muchrather have been elsewhere. “Why don’t we forget about tired old BOGOFs andintroduce Buy One Get Three Free instead? That will pull them in. No one’s everdone that before. We could do it on say, blocks of cheese. All we have to do israise the price of the cheese from say, £3 a block to £10 and we’ll belaughing. They’ll be getting four for a tenner, but they’ll think they aregetting the bargain of a lifetime!”
It was a ridiculous suggestion. Although there might be theodd idiot who would think it was cheap, the vast majority of the general publicwould see through such a blatant con immediately. And who would want to buyfour blocks of cheese at one time anyway?
However, since I was the boss and I’d suggested it, all thesycophants in the room were eagerly nodding and agreeing. I was surrounded byyes-men and yes-women.
The only exception was Carol, who had a disapproving look onher face, and when she questioned me about it later, I admitted I had said itfor a joke. I was impressed with her for challenging me. I liked people whodidn’t follow the herd.
From March 2018 I found I was no longer required in work. Ihad been given three months’ compassionate leave following Sarah’s death.People had been very sympathetic on my return and even Barry had been nice fora day or two.
It was just as well, really, as I had been waking up mostdays with an absolutely stinking hangover. Clearly booze had been my way ofblotting out the pain. On the plus side, my tobacco cravings had more or lessdisappeared now, and the fags vanished from the house soon after. I must havepassed the point where I had taken it up.
Not going in to work gave me time to plan how I was going toprevent Sarah’s death. It also allowed me to spend time with a grieving Staceywho had grown progressively unhappy as the year had regressed.
She no longer had David in her life to support her; they hadmet at Christmas 2018, so she was now alone, away at university and grievingover the loss of her
