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George Franks was an accountant. He was good at what he did but he’d always ploughed his own furrow and never wanted to be part of the big corporate world. He’d been happy enough with his own small practice, doing the books of small businesses around the quiet market town that he’d moved to after qualifying. There was just him, working in a small office in one of the downstairs rooms of his semi-detached house, in a quiet cul-de-sac, on the edge of an estate of 1950s houses, close to the edge of town.
It wasn’t the most exciting existence as he would be the first to admit. But, on the other hand, he found he managed to keep a steady income and at least he was his own boss, able to take holidays as and when he chose.
The day was much like any other. He’d spent much of the morning finalising the payroll returns for a small engineering company. Then he’d had to take an hour or so to read through the latest information on company registration and corporation tax. Then one of his clients, Allison Callow, had appeared with the copy invoices that she’d promised so that he could finish the sales tax returns for her shop. She’d wanted to chat but he’d excused himself, wanting to get on. George was not really feeling very comfortable making small talk anyway.
George usually found his customers by personal recommendation, so he wasn’t too surprised when he received a telephone call from a woman, saying that he had been suggested by one of his clients and asking him if he would be prepared to do the books of a new business that she was setting up in the town. He’d invited the woman around to discuss things and had been pleasantly surprised when he saw from his window a Mercedes sports car pull to a halt outside his house at the time agreed. A slim, forty year old, red-haired, woman climbed out. Most of his clients weren’t too wealthy, none of them were attractive. This one was certainly the second and seemed to be both.
Women weren’t an area in which George had a great deal of experience and he found himself both attracted and rather inhibited by his visitor from the moment that he opened his front door and invited her into the front room that he used as office. He couldn’t help comparing his new visitor to the rather mousey Allison Callow with her rather conservative clothes in subdued colours and her diffident manner. This woman was quite different.
She smiled as she pushed her sunglasses up onto the top of her head and brushed against him as she followed his welcoming gesture. George gave an embarrassed smile and backed away from her clumsily, banging his head with a resounding thump against the wall of the hall as he did so.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” his visitor said. “Was that my fault?”
“No, not at all,” said George, “please go through. It’s all right. Quite all right.” George followed her through, somewhat bemused by the smartly dressed, sun-tanned woman whose appearance contrasted so greatly with most of his clients. As they entered the office he felt embarrassed by the muddle of paper piles across the desk and over the chair that he kept beside his desk for visitors.
George apologised for the mess, scooping up a heap of files from the chair, dropping one and scattering loose papers around She smiled, said it didn’t matter, and sat down.
“I do hope you can help me, Mr Franks,” she said. “You do some work for one of my clients and they suggested you.”
“Oh, good,” George replied. “I like to think I do a good job and it’s always nice to be recommended.”
“I’ve just set up my consulting chambers in town,” she said, passing him a business card.
George looked at the cream, card embossed with the two initials E & W intertwined. “Erica Wilkie FRPsyS, Principal Counsellor, EW Therapy Services” the printing on the card said. He looked back at this visitor, no wiser about her business.
“And I need someone to take care of my books, look after my tax returns and so on. It’s not too complicated, just myself and two other counsellors but I like to have things well organised, and I am always anxious to see that things are done just so for the tax man. There’s no point in making life difficult for oneself after all.”
George took in her immaculate appearance. The soft, tan, suede jacket and skirt that she wore, the immaculately laundered pale cream silk shirt, the carefully applied make up; all spoke of a woman with precise habits. He wasn’t in the least surprised that she liked to have her financial affairs in order. In his experience it was clients like this that proved the easiest to look after. “Well, I’m sure I will be able to help,” he said. “Perhaps, you’d like to explain the business, any assets that you have and so on.”
“Well, I’ve brought some files. I thought you might like to go over them first. Then perhaps I could show you around the offices.” Erica gave him the most disarming of smiles.
George nodded in agreement. “Of course,” he said. “That will be fine.” He caught himself staring directly at her, taking in her green eyes, the way that her long auburn hair brushed the shoulders of her jacket, the freckles on either cheek, the healthy tan that showed in the V of the neckline of her blouse, the diamond studs in the piercings of her perfect ear lobes, the curious gold pendant that she wore on a slim gold chain – it was the intertwined symbols for Venus and Mars, the male and female, except that whoever had made it had set it upside down, the arrow of the Mars pointing down, the cross of the Venus pointing up. To distract himself, he picked up the file and leafed through the various papers, conscious that she appeared to be returning his look with a penetrating gaze. He coughed, embarrassed for a moment. Erica, on the other hand appeared unperturbed. “Err, perhaps I could call you in a day or so? That will give me enough time to examine this file, I’m sure.”
“That will be fine, Mr Franks,” the woman said, getting to her feet. George stood up in response. “It’s been very nice to meet you, Mr Franks,” she said, extending a neatly manicured hand.
George reached out and took her hand. As he did so, he caught a subtle hint of her perfume. His expression glazed over, and then, suddenly, he realised that he had been holding her hand for far too long. Erica Wilkie smiled indulgently. George finally freed his tongue. “It’s been nice to meet you too, Ms Wilkie,” he responded, standing almost rooted to the spot while she collected her things and turned to go.
He watched her as she walked out. The memory of the vision of her back as she walked away stayed with him all afternoon. In fact he found it quite difficult to get his mind back on his work at all.
Although thoughts of Erica made it difficult for George to concentrate for the remainder of the afternoon, he finally finished the tax return forms that he was working on for Allison Callow. He’d called her to say they were finished and she’d offered to come around and pick them up. George, wanting to spend his time thinking about the work for Erica, put her off. “No,” he said, “don’t worry. I’ll post them.”
Allison had seemed disappointed for some reason but George didn’t really understand why and besides he had other things to do.
He picked up the folder that Erica had left behind, catching himself lifting it to his nose to see if it still held a trace of the scent she had been wearing. Feeling foolish, he dropped the file to the desk and opened it.
As he had suspected, Erica adopted an extremely organised approach. The various invoices and receipts had all been categorised and filed together in date order. It was a pleasant surprise. So many of his clients expected him to work his magic on a pile of dog-eared receipts, all jumbled up in an old shoe box.
He went through the entire file. By the time he had finished reading it, a few things puzzled him. There were quite a few bills for construction work. George supposed that was reasonable. Presumably Erica had needed work to be done to set up the consulting rooms. He wasn’t sure though, why, there were bills for things like steel bars and heavy balks of timber. The various medical items, the examination couch and lamp for example, were also to be expected he supposed, but he hadn’t thought that Erica’s therapy service really required that sort of equipment – after all she wasn’t a medical doctor or anything, although one of her associates could be, he supposed. And then there were the bills from a local horse tack business. It was all a little puzzling but he was sure that Erica would explain what it all meant. She obviously saw all of these items as legitimate business expenses.
On the other side the revenue aspects of the business looked extremely healthy. All her clients appeared to pay for their therapy sessions in cash. There wasn’t any detailed breakdown of receipts from individual clients but from the bank account statement he could see that there was plenty of cash coming in. George could only assume that Erica’s therapy was extremely well regarded. Either she was treating a very large number of people or her clients were paying hundreds of pounds for each session. He could quite see how she could afford to dress as she did and run that Mercedes.
With his initial work finished, he telephoned Erica the following day to suggest that they met.
“Good morning, Ms Wilkie,” he began. “George Franks here. I’ve finished looking at those files and I wondered when it would be convenient to have a talk?”
“My,” said Erica, “you have been quick. That’s very good. Well, I feel obliged to respond similarly. How about this afternoon?”
“Well yes, but we haven’t discussed fees or anything yet.”
“Oh, I am sure your fees are only fair, Mr Franks. I’m coming back to the offices and driving right past your place at about two o’clock. I could pick you up. That way you can see our offices. I could show you what’s there and that will help to put things into a proper perspective, I’m sure. Then I’ll run you back.”
“Oh, but won’t that be inconvenient?”
“No, not at all. I have to be over your way later and I can easily bring you back.”
George agreed and that afternoon he found himself headed across town in Erica’s car. It was only with considerable effort that George succeeded in preventing his gaze being drawn to Erica’s legs as her skirt had ridden up when she slid into the driver’s seat. She’d tugged it down as she started the car which had made him notice, he told himself, but it hadn’t done any good and as she drove confidently through the traffic, it was working its way back up again. George caught himself looking again. As he looked up again guiltily, Erica turned towards him and smiled before looking back and swinging the car around a slower driver in front of them. “Are you all right?” she asked. “I know some people find my driving a bit assertive.”
“No, no, it’s fine,” said George, grateful that she seemed not to have noticed him staring at her legs.
Their route took them through the centre of town and out to the southern edge. Erica swung the car up a short drive to the pebble dashed, bay windowed, frontage of a large, 1930’s style house. Gravel crunched under the car’s wheels as it slowed. She drove around to the back of the house, parking the car beneath a tall sycamore tree that brought some pleasant shade on the hot afternoon. “Excuse me for a minute, Mr Franks,” Erica said as George climbed out. “I just need to make sure everything is all right, I won’t keep you a moment.”
George nodded as Erica got out of the car. He watched her, almost furtively, following the very agreeable view of her backside in its tight skirt as she walked into the house.
He was paying so much attention to Erica’s departing rear that he didn’t hear the girls coming towards the house, out of the garden.
The two girls came up one on either side to the car. He looked up at the taller, blonde, as she drew level with the car door. “Were you looking for someone?” she said.
“Ms. Wilkie,” George said, nodding towards the house. “She asked me to wait here.”
“Yes,” said the blonde, “she always does.”
George looked puzzled but the suddenly felt himself pushed forward from behind. The girl behind him grabbed his arms and pulled them behind his back, winding him as he fell against the side of the car. He was about to call out in protest when he felt something round and hard being pushed into his mouth. He tried to push out whatever it was with his tongue but without success. He felt a strap being tightened around his face at the same time as steel cuffs clicked shut around his wrists.
“Right, come along with us,” said the blonde, grabbing George by the arm and pulling him from the car as he was dragged helpless, silenced, half falling and half staggering into the house.
© Freddie Clegg 2010
All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced or reposted without permission
All characters fictitious
E-mail: freddie_clegg@yahoo.com
Web Group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/femdom_fables/
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