by A. Archie
Luxman continued to give me a lift in the morning. I spent weekends attending my business course and making new friends there. The room was situated towards the back side of the house with own entrance so we had the privacy and did not have to go through the front door of the house. We occasionally went out for a meal together and relaxed over a chat. We both aimed high in life. We talked about things that we could do to achieve it.
Chapter Six
I was beginning to build up my customer base back at work. I was getting used to using the company phone to make and answer calls which I had never done before. I had a few sales in the pipeline mainly for computer accessories from other small computer assembly firms. It was good, they were going to buy from me on a regular basis. And getting to know them meant that I could even get a job anytime I wanted. One girl employed by the Pro Computers was from my business class. She helped me where she could and even putting a word to her director who agreed to buy computer parts from me. He visited my company later on to establish a good business relationship.
I wanted to do good business, make money and build good connections with the business community. The thing that worried me was not having a mobile phone to have full control over my affairs. Our company director had promised the marketing team mobile phones on different occasions but it never materialized. As I was not in a position to trust anybody I worked with, I decided to confront the director about buying a mobile phone after being let done by him on his promise. I approached the director and asked him if he was still buying me a mobile phone. And he said “Yes”. Then I said to him “I am colleting cash from Pro Computers. Is it ok if I buy a mobile phone using that money”. He answered “Yes” again. I collected the money and went to CallTel in Colombo. I purchased a Nokia 1100 with 500 free minutes and unlimited texts a month. I made sure that the phone was in my name not the company name.
I went back to the office and gave the remaining collected money to the accountant and told the director “I have a mobile phone now”. He asked to see it and I showed it to him. His face sank a bit as he really did not expect me to go ahead and buy one using the company money. “That is what happens when you muck about with me” I said to myself. I also had my mobile number put on the next order of my business cards. Till then I would have to write it on the card each time I visited a new customer.
I talked to potential customers more now and some customers also loved chatting to me even if we had never met. There was a girl form a local government branch who liked chatting to me. I started taking to her almost every day. She did not have a computer requirement as such. I did not visit her office which was on my way home not far from the office. She sounded very sexy and sensual on the phone. I wanted to meet her. After a few attempts on the phone she agreed to meet up. We planned a day out, a meal then going to the beach and to the movies afterwards. She told me to meet her outside her rented accommodation on a Saturday morning. I took a bus to her town in the suburbs which was about five miles from Colombo. I still did not know what she looked like. But I loved her voice.
A tall girl with darker skin and curly long hair appeared. “That must be her” I said to myself. Her face had marks left by acnes and about five foot ten with high heels. I was nearly five foot four. I met her and she said “You sound exactly the same as on the phone”. I smiled and we waited for a bus back in to Colombo. I held her hand on the bus while seated. We did not feel the time fly. I was not sure if I loved her. I was not into darker skinned girls. I wanted sex.
I took her to a restaurant by the sea front and ordered seafood for lunch. We were both relaxed, not nervous, pace the conversation not rushing it and enjoyed the meal. First time in my life I had taken out a girl for a meal, a tall girl. I just felt at home. We finished the meal and walked down the beach. The beach was quite, not busy with people, sunny but breezy. We sat on a file of rocks looking at the waves coming ashore touching the sand, breaking into forms and making the journey back again to make a new one. I touched her long curly hair as I talked then her lips and chin. She sighed gently and moaned as I touched her chin and looked at me lustfully stretching her legs and arms. I ran my fingers through her fingers and kissed her cheek. I licked her finger tips as I talked to her. Her necklace glittered in the sun light coming from the sea. I looked at her cleavage while holding her necklace in my fingers and letting it slip through. I said to her “Beautiful, white. Can I see?” She said “Yeah”. I ran my index finger over her top down her cleavage then pulled it. I ran my finger over her boobs and unbuttoned her top button then the second. She wore a white bra and she was very white down there unlike her darker face. I kissed her again, touched her ear lobe and said “Very beautiful”. I pulled her face towards mine and kissed her lips again. I ran my right arm round her back, held her tight against my body and kissed her neck up and down. She gasped as I did so encouragingly.
I slipped my left arm inside her unbuttoned top and circled my fingers over her bra and in between the cleavage. “Nice and soft” I whispered as I felt her boobs inside her bra. “Let me undo it” she said. She lifted her hands, brought it to her back and undid the bra. I kissed her cleavage, tits then fingered her hard nipples and held them in my lips. I was getting wet under my black briefs.
I kissed her lips and sucked on them. Then she returned it to me and sucked my lips. I put my tongue in her mouth and circled her tongue, it was good, so good. I stroked her boobs and nipples. As I did it, I drove my hand further down her tummy. I felt her soft flat tommy and rubbed my palm over, then further down as far as I felt the waistline of her knickers. Her body smelt of her scent and the perfume she wore. I asked “What colour is it?” She smiled with sensually lustful eyes. Her legs were apart and I slipped my left arm up her thigh under her long skirt while my right arm still round her back and holding her. I dropped my right arm down up to her bum and gently squeezed her there. I kissed her again and her forehead. My left arm was right up her thighs now, almost touching her knickers in between her legs. I felt the warmth. I stroked her thigh up and down erotically. Then gently mounted my fingertips over her knickers and rubbed over her slit. Her knickers were wet, juicy, sticky and soft. I kissed her upper thigh and licked there. Then I wanted to spread her legs wide apart, kiss and lick her in between the legs, smell her knickers and taste her juice.
I suddenly heard footsteps from behind us. I turned back to discover that a group of young guys had been trying to watch us secretly. They ran as I turned back and kept coming back. I did not want another fight here. I was worried about her safety. We decided to go back to the main road as soon as possible. They did not follow us. Whenever I looked back at them they ran further away. As we were walking up to the main road she asked me to check the back of her skirt. She asked “Was it alright? Is there anything? I replied “No”. She had been very wet and luckily had not dripped down to her skirt yet.
It was getting late now. We decided to go the cinema on another day. I dropped her back home and came back. It was time to chill out and ponder. I had the whole day of Sunday to myself to do so.
Chapter Seven
Nobody at work knew what I had been up to. I would not tell anyone. I had distanced myself from the guys at worked who I deemed as not up to my expectations. I, however, got on well with the marketing guys. They were always there for me. A new girl called Priya was recruited as the telephone operator. She was very down to earth, typical of a village lass. She immediately liked me. She told me a little bit about herself, family and her boyfriend and said to me “I wish I had a brother like you”. For now, any telephone calls coming to the company for me were secured. She was going to answer and pass them on to me or take a message for me. She always took my side and if she knew any bad talk about me, she came and told me.
She sometimes shared her lunch with me. I kind of started ignoring Edith now. What was the point if she had a boyfriend? I did not want to ruin the prospects of my job by blindly letting her lead me. After all, I was not really in love with he
r. I enjoyed the occasional flirt and it made me happy. Did I really want to fuck her? I was not sure. Why did she always want to flirt with me and look at me in the eye with awe? I could not go on like that. This needed to be sorted out before it did any damage to my sole. Should I let the time sort it out for me and wait or should I ask her out? Would she say yes or no? Did I really need this? Did I really want her forever and marry her? I pondered. My answer was no. What would be her answer? Time would tell. I should take this easy.
I was enjoying my marketing visits and discovering new places of business. It was so exciting. I could go wherever I wanted to go and do whatever I wanted to. That was the beauty and freedom of a marketing job. I would visit customers and then go to my favourite bookshops and cloths shops. I loved finer clothing and elegant ties. Long sleeved premium cotton shirts and tailor made baggy trousers were my favourites.
One afternoon, I came back to the office after a marketing visit. I climbed up the first floor steps and enter the admin room where the director, marketing and account staff sat. As I entered the door Sana came towards me and said “I have eaten your lunch”. Sana had been in the habit of hiding my lunch and giving it back to me, and following me to the lunch room. However, Sana would not stop his cheap behaviour. I had enough of this. I approached him and gave him a double palm strike on to his chest. “Bang” my hands vibrated and he stood like a rock and did not move. I expected him to be pushed back by the force of the punch. He was very strong and double the body size of me. Then he started crying. I thought he was pretending to be crying. I walked away. This incident did not attract much attention and we forgot about it. But not me. A few weeks passed by and Sana still talked to me. Myself, Sana and another guy happened to be having our lunch break. After we had had our meals, Sana said to me “I could not breath when you punched me that day” in a serious note. I thought he must be telling the truth. That was the end to Sana’s picking on me saga. He learned to keep his distance the harder way and learned to respect me from then on.
Our computers were overpriced and we were hardly making any sales. Part of my job role had been to attend to tenders and if they lose, it was not my fault since the director and the general manager did the pricing. “Why do I not look for another job” part of my mind says. The other part of my mind reminds me of Edith. Which path should I choose. I was an idiot in some respect.
The management was out for a meeting and the office was left in the hands of the other staff. The guys who suspected that Edith was interested in me decided to take advantage of this opportunity. They had gone to her and told her that I was interested in her. She looked happy and kept looking at me. “Should I talk to her now? And be ridiculed in front of everyone else?”. This was the last chance. Now or never. Yet I had to approach her when she was on her own. And that was not easy when you work in an open plan office. It had to be either the lunch room or near the downstairs toilets. I tried my best not to get everyone’s attention and kept a low profile until I found her alone. I kept going to the downstairs toilets and the upstairs lunch room in the hope that she would go there.
It felt like it was a long time, years perhaps, someone was always there getting in the way. She was not all alone. At last I saw her going downstairs. She must be going to the toilets. I waited a minute and then hurried downstairs. I waited near the toilets but not too close to the entrance. I heard the door opening and that must be her. I pretended to walk towards the toilets as the men’s room was after the lady’s. As I saw Edith coming out, I said “Edith …” and she screamed loud. “… can I talk to you” I continued. But she ran upstairs.
If she had loved me she would have been delighted to see me there and to talk to. I was right from the very first day. They all had been making fun out of me. I was a hard nut to crack, it took a long while for me and them to realize that it was not going anywhere. Why would people do that kind of thing? They were slowly killing the good person in me. If the others were dishonest, what was the point being the nice and innocent guy?
The company not doing so well, the CEO decided to recruit a new general manager. The old one had to go. You would not sell computers by sitting all day at your desk and without a clear marketing strategy with your sales force. Marketing is tough, competitive and not for the paint hearted. A couple of interviewees came and the director openly talked about them with me. I even had the chance to read their CVs. The director really did not want a new general manager as he was friends with the old general manager. This was the CEO’s decision and with virtually no sales, the director had little option.
A fat man, Suresh was recruited with some experience in working abroad. I did not like him at all and most of us did not. He was a snob. I did not give him a shit and avoided him as much as I could. I had seen his CV. I laughed. I still have the mobile phone with me purchased with the company money and nobody questioned.
We did not have a downstairs showroom as such and the director and the new GM turned it into a showroom rather than a stock room. We had a computer with the internet and few others on display. It was there that I first created my email accounts. However, we still did not have company email addresses except the director and the GM.
One day, I was trying to login to my emails in the showroom and no one else was there. I had the joy of exploring the internet, reading the news and learning about Europe. The joy did not last long. A tall guy from the engineering department came and asked if he could quickly use it. I said yes in the hope that he was going to be brief and then I would be free to use it. I waited and waited but he did not seem to finish. He was an ok guy but had been kind of awkward with me lately and jealous. I said to him “Are you doing to be done soon?” politely. He said “Yes”. But he had no intention of giving it back to me. I waited a minute or two and said. “I need the computer now. I had been using it”. He looked at me angrily and pushed me. I pushed him back. He then threw a punch at me. I blocked him and wrestled him to the floor. He was slim but a lot taller than me. Each time he tried to get up, I wrestled him back to the floor. At that moment, a couple of engineering guys walked in to discover that we had been fighting. They grabbed both of us, pulled us apart and stopped the fight. I looked at the defeated opponent and warned him with my index finger, never to fight me.
Chapter Eight
It was time I left this amateur place. I knew what was coming and I could not stand the new GM, the snob. His office was downstairs in the space next to the toilets. The empty space was turned into an office with a metal frame boarded with plywood panelling and glass. What a place to have an office! Probably he could watch girls going to the loo. Soon he started interviewing girls for his secretory. Few girls came, however he did not seem to like anyone and kept interviewing. He must be a womanizer in disguise. Something did not click right about him when I first met him. This must be it.
One day he called me to his office and asked to see my mobile phone. I thought he just wanted to see it. I showed it to him and then he said to me “You can leave it here and go”. I immediately knew what he was up to. I was not going to let it go. After all it was in my name. I said to him cunningly trying to hide my ferocity “Could I write down the numbers on my phone and bring it back to you”. He took my bait and agreed. Otherwise I was going to whack his fat face and grabbed the phone off him. I ran upstairs, took my bag and said to the director “The GM wanted my phone. He is not having it”. Then I left the office, walked further down the road and took a bus home never to go back.
I ran to see my landlady who happened to be in the kitchen cooking lunch. I said to her “I left the job. Had some problems at work. If anyone comes and asks. I am not here”. She agreed. I dashed out thinking that they were out on the chase. I enjoyed a lunch out thinking what to do next. I phoned a few of my contacts in the hope of finding a new job. I received a phone call from Sana “Come back and return the phone, Suresh says”. I said “NO”. I told him not to get involved with my matters and it was none of his business. Actually it was
the new GM who had asked Sana to phone me. I received a few phone calls from the office which I believe was from the GM. I did not answer. I came back to my room cautiously put the phone on silence mode. Locked myself in expecting a knock on the door. I heard a motorbike. It was Sana. I heard him calling my name from outside the house. He did not know the entrance to my room. I did not answer and I heard him leaving. Few days later I heard a knock on the door. It was the company clerk. He called my name but I kept quiet and did not answer. I would have spoken to him. He was an ok guy with me. Obviously the GM sent him for me. But I was not sure if he was with someone else from the company. I never went back.
Chapter Nine
I had some savings till I find another job. The rent was not a burden yet as I still shared it with Luxman. Before I left the company, I had anticipated what was coming and was also planning to find a new job. So I had my CVs printed. I wanted to find employment with a good company. A company that I could grow with. I must aim high, then at lease you would end up half way. I told Luxman that I had left the company and was looking for a new job. I did not tell him all about but unburden my frustration at the new GM with him.
In the coming days, I visited all the major IT companies, talked to the receptionists and asked to speak to a sales manager or MD. Most of them asked me to leave a copy of my CV with them. They were friendly and helpful. I was given an interview with the main Compaq computer dealer. My interview was with the MD. He was a young arrogant basted. My first impressions about him was negative. He pretended to be busy. He asked me to consider him as a potential customer and try and do a sales pitch to him. Those were old rotten obsolete interviewing techniques. Did I really want to work with or work for a dickhead like him? No. I did not do a sales pitch. Then he asked “Where would you see yourself in five years’ time?” Oh I know. I hated that question to the core. Instead I asked him few questions about his company, the current and future position. If you did not fucking know how to interview, I would interview you instead. If you needed a high calibre guy like me, you got to ask intelligent questions. I said to him “I do not think this is the right place for me. I have few other interviews lined up. Thank you for your time”. And I left the interview.
