Lilly Linton
Ha! I wondered what he was going to say now. Was he going to claim you could work more efficiently with all the doors locked? I wouldn’t put it past him, the stingy, stony old…!
Plink.
Ah!
Mr Linton,
It is a measure to further your abstinence and thereby the efficiency of your work. There is a liquor store only two streets away and a sweetshop selling solid chocolate right beside it. From your behaviour at the tavern, I deduced that keeping you locked up is the only way to prevent you from succumbing to irresistible urges.
Rikkard Ambrose
How on earth did he know I liked chocolate? Wait… irresistible urges? My eyes sparked!
I’ll give him irresistible urges!
Not alcoholic ones, though - the ones I was feeling right now tended more towards homicidal!
Still… there might be other kinds of irresistible urges, too. I blushed as, unbidden, memories flooded into my mind… soft skin pressing against my lips, moving, caressing…
Dreams! Hallucinations! The whole lot of them! Things like that would never happen in real life. In real life, Mr Ambrose didn’t go around kissing people. He went around bossing people around and locking them up.
I’d show him!
Fuming, I grabbed the next best bit of paper.
My very, very, very dear Mr Ambrose,
May I inform you that the strongest urge I feel at the moment has nothing whatsoever to do with alcohol, and everything to do with your disembowelment? OPEN THAT DOOR!
Your affectionate secretary
Lilly Linton
The answer wasn’t long in coming.
Mr Linton,
You may say anything you like as long as it distracts neither you nor me from working. The door stays locked.
Mr Ambrose
The obstinate…! But why was I wasting my time like this, anyway? I was in a superior position.
Dearest Mr Ambrose
You might not recall, but I have the necessary keys in my possession to open the aforementioned door. You gave them to me yourself. Therefore, I shall see you in a minute.
Yours affectionately,
Lilly Linton
I stuffed the message into the tube, pulled the lever and marched off triumphantly towards the door without waiting for an answer. My triumphant march was somewhat impeded, however, when my keys wouldn’t fit in the lock. I tried them again, and again. Still, they didn’t fit. Marching over to the other door, the one to the hallway, I tried to open this one, but discovered that it, too, had been locked, and my keys didn’t fit. By the time I had returned to the desk, another message had arrived.
Mr Linton,
I had the locks changed.
Rikkard Ambrose.
P.S. Affection is not among the services I require of you.
Heat rose to my cheeks on reading the last line. I had reached for the pen before I had started to think.
Dear Mr Ambrose,
I wonder you went to the expense of two new locks, simply for the sake of my abstinence! How wasteful of you.
Yours
Lilly Linton
P.S: If you do not require it, I shall not offer it.
Only half a minute later, his response arrived.
Mr Linton,
They were not new, but second-hand. I am still waiting for file 37VI288. Shove it under the door.
Rikkard Ambrose
I’d like to shove it up his…
Oh no. I didn’t want to have anything to do with his… Well, with that part of him. No matter how juicy it looked. Not even for shoving files up it.
Dear Mr Ambrose,
I demand to be let out immediately!
Yours
Lilly Linton
His reply was short and to the point. Who could have guessed?
Mr Linton,
You work for me, not the other way around. You cannot demand anything. Now bring me file 37VI288.
Rikkard Ambrose
What did I do? Yell? Hammer at the door in protest?
No.
I brought him the file.
I just managed it, all the while chanting in my head ‘Think of the money. Think of the independence it will bring you. Think of what you can do for Ella if all goes horribly wrong. You must have that money. You must.’
My chant was interrupted by the plink of another message arriving.
~~*~~*
‘Mr Linton?’
‘Yes?’
I resurfaced from a mountain of files I was sorting through and looked around. But there was no one there.
‘Mr Linton? The door to your office is locked.’
It was Mr Stone’s voice, coming from the other side of the door leading to the hallway.
‘Yes, um… Mr Ambrose wanted me to lock it.’
‘Oh.’ From Mr Stone’s bewildered tone, I could tell he wanted to ask why but didn’t think it was worth the risk of arousing the wrath of Mr Ambrose. ‘Well, I have his letters here. Sorry for the delay, the postman got here late.’
‘I see. Can you just shove them under the door, please?’
‘Of course. See you later, Mr Linton.’
‘Yes, thank you, Mr Stone.’
Hurrying over to the door I grabbed the pile of letters and began to leaf through it. Business, business, business, charity (waste), charity (waste), more charity (definitely waste!), pink envelope—
My hands froze as I stared at the crest on the pink paper. Not another one of these!
Heat rushed to my cheeks as I stared at the name of the sender. Samantha Genevieve Ambrose. Already once before had I entertained the idea that this might be Mr Ambrose’s wife. The idea had irked me back then. It drove ice through my veins now.
Flashes of last night again appeared in front of my inner eye. His arms around me, his lips on mine - no, no, no! It had all been a hallucination. What did it matter if he was married? He and I hadn’t engaged in amorous c—
Well, we had certainly done nothing that non-married people weren’t supposed to do. All this existed only in my head, it had been a dream.
Quickly, I ran over to my desk and stuffed the pink envelope into the drawer, to keep the others of its kind company. The old saying said ‘out of sight, out of mind’. I slammed the drawer shut and took a deep breath.
And soon I discovered that the old saying was complete poppycock.
~~*~~*
I would like to be able to say I worked like a slave that day, but it wouldn’t be true. Slaves are shouted at, and probably whipped, too. I, for my part, was simply badgered to death with little bits of paper. The latter method turned out to be quite as effective as the former, though. He kept me at it for about three or four hours without one pause or break. And if that wasn’t enough, thoughts of the letter tormented me ceaselessly. And the hallucinatory kiss! And… and… finally it started to feel like it all built up as a physical pressure, growing inside me. It built and built, waiting to be released—
Until I finally realized that it didn’t just feel like a physical pressure. It was physical pressure.
Oops.
‘Mr Ambrose?’ Marching up to the connecting door, I hammered against the wood. ‘Mr Ambrose, I have to use the powder room. Now.’
Silence.
‘If you don't let me use it, I’m going to pee in the waste paper basket,’ I threatened.
That worked. Footsteps approached, and keys jingled in the look. A moment later, the door opened and he stood before me: Mr Rikkard Ambrose in all his cold, stony glory. His eyes were like dark pools of unfathomable deep water. His mouth could have been carved from granite. And his lips…
Luckily, my bladder took my thoughts off that subject fast.
‘Finally!’ I hissed. ‘What the dickens do you mean by locking me up like this? Are you-’
He interrupted me with a curt motion of the hand towards the powder room.
‘Get in.’
I would have liked to stay and argue, but my pressing need was becoming ever more pressing. Oh well, I could always argue afterwards.