The Three Rs

by Ashe Barker

  I rush to get my answer in before Cain does. “It’s Abigail. Abbie. And I’m delighted to meet you, Mrs Benson.” I step forward, my hand outstretched. I want her to like me, and this seems as good a way as any to start.

  Mrs Benson takes my hand, shakes it warmly. “Phyllis. Just call me Phyllis, dear. Welcome to Parrish Construction. Have you had the guided tour yet? Not that there’s much to see…”

  “I was just about to, but now that you’re here…” Cain smiles warmly at Phyllis, and is that perhaps a hint of gratitude that now he can leave me in her capable hands? Sure enough, “I could do with getting over to the warehouse site in Rothbury, and if I get off now I should be there by ten. I want to supervise the delivery of that dressed stone if I can. You’ll be okay with Phyllis.” He turns to me and I’m half-expecting a kiss, but this is his office environment so he just nods politely as he moves toward the door.

  His van keys are in his hand, and moments later the engine starts and there’s the sound of the vehicle turning around in the yard. With a low growl the van disappears into the morning traffic, and Phyllis and I are left looking at each other across the office.

  Phyllis is obviously keen to progress matters. “Right, first things first. I’ll show you where the kettle is. Then we’ll get you sorted with a desk and a computer.” It’s not as though I’ve never actually used a computer before. Of course I have. Everyone has. But I normally just play Candy Crush Saga, Tetris occasionally. What I don’t do is log on to business sites, write letters, examine spreadsheets. All of those things that Phyllis is blithely rattling on about as I sit and gaze at the more or less incomprehensible screen in front of me.

  Having fortified both of us with cups of tea—for her—and coffee—for me—Phyllis shows me to a spare desk crammed in alongside hers, already set up with a computer, phone, some pens in the top drawer and a pile of notepaper. She leans over me to start the machine up and navigates into what I’m assured is to be my desktop. The various icons flashing happily on the screen will take me to the places I need to be, open up files I’ll need to access. Satisfied I’m on course, Phyllis returns to her own desk, leaving me to explore.

  Or more accurately, to sit transfixed like a rabbit caught in headlamps.

  A few minutes pass, and I manage to shift the mouse around a little, the small arrow jumping about on the screen. I point to one of the symbols, a letter ‘W’ in a nice bright blue. I know this one, it’ll take me into the written stuff. I click the mouse experimentally, and my screen transforms into a list of God knows what. I stare at it, really starting to panic now. None of it, not a thing, makes any sense to me. No matter how long I sit and stare, no matter how hard I concentrate, I just can’t understand any of what I’m seeing. None of it is familiar—it’s just an incomprehensible jumble of strange words, letters and numbers leaping about in front of my eyes. And I don’t know how to make it go away. I want my pretty desktop back—at least I had some idea what that was. I decide to look for it again. I point and click some more. Chunks of dark shading cover some of the words, then they simply disappear.

  Christ! I start to panic in earnest now. What did I just do? Where did those words go to? What did they mean? Was it important? Will anyone notice? Can I get them back?

  “Everything all right, dear?” Phyllis has turned in her chair and is looking over my shoulder at my screen. “Ah, right, the A.R.T. contract. That’s where Cain is now, at the site in Rothbury. Good idea to start with that. You need to get your head round our current projects.”

  Shit! I just wiped out half his contract.

  “I-I…” I’m stammering, knowing I need to say something, ask for help before this gets worse and worse.

  “Problem, dear?” Phyllis has turned around properly now and is looking hard at my screen.

  “I think I just lost it. Some of it. I don’t know how…”

  “Let me see.” She stands up, leaning over me from behind and reaches around me to tap two keys on my keyboard. Instantly the missing chunk of writing reappears. “There you are, all safe and sound again.”

  This time. I feel sick. What if she hadn’t been here? I didn’t even know what it was I’d been messing with, let alone how to repair the damage.

  Phyllis is watching me closely now, seems concerned. “Are you feeling all right, love? You look a bit shaky.”

  I’ll say I’m shaky. But I nod and manage to stick something not unlike a smile on my face, and I thank her for helping me. Then I have the presence of mind to ask her to remind me what she did to get the writing back again.

  “You just press Control ‘Z’. Undoes whatever you just did. Here, like this.” She drags the mouse across the screen, covering another huge chunk of the writing in blue, and moments later that’s gone as well.

  I stare at the screen, and at her.

  She just chuckles and reaches for my keyboard again. “Look. Control, and then you press ‘Z’. All back.”

  Sure enough, a couple of magical keystrokes and the contract is once more rescued. Control ‘Z’ is clearly of the utmost importance to me. I commit it to memory.

  “How do I find that first thing again? Where all the pictures are?”

  “Pictures?”

  “Yes. For the different places…”

  “Oh, you mean the icons. That’s your desktop, love. You can just hit the back arrow…” She demonstrates and my lovely, plain and more or less comprehensible desktop is restored. “Are you not familiar with Windows then? Did you use a Mac before?”

  Now she’s lapsed into some obscure dialect of Swahili for all I can make out. I just stare at the screen, and say nothing. What is there to say? I’m completely and totally out of my depth, as I knew I would be. Phyllis is already starting to rumble me and I’m not halfway through my first mug of coffee yet.

  Then inspiration strikes. “I’ve come out without my glasses, that’s all. I need them for working.” I’ve never worn glasses in my life, but Phyllis isn’t to know that.

  “Oh, well don’t be straining your eyes, love. What about if you just help me collate these letters for now and get them into envelopes…?”

  My excuse seems to convince her. For now. Stuffing envelopes sounds more like my sort of thing. I get to my feet, anxious to be away from the computer as quickly as possible, before I do some damage that can’t be so easily dealt with by Control ‘Z’.

  “Right, no problem. If you just show me what to do, I’ll be getting on with that.” And I’ll somehow find a way to make the job last all day if I have to.

  Phyllis leads the way into the room next door, a small space more or less completely filled by the photocopier and a table. There are three stacks of neatly printed documents on the table, some sheets of sticky address labels and a large box of envelopes. Phyllis explains that these are publicity flyers and a covering letter which are to be sent to all contacts on the Parrish Construction mailing list. My task is to take one sheet from each pile, in the correct order, and fold them into thirds before shoving the whole lot into an envelope. Then I’m to stick an address label on the front of the envelope. When all the envelopes are filled, she promises to show me how the franking machine works. That’s something to look forward to. Meanwhile, this looks like a task I can spin out nicely to at least fill the rest of the morning.

  And I do. Phyllis keeps popping in to see how I’m doing, on one occasion bringing me a fresh cup of coffee, but seems satisfied I’m safe to be let loose on this. And I am. It’s not especially interesting, it’s repetitive and I’d definitely get very bored if I had to do it all the time. But for today it’s just a relief to have a job I can do.

  At twelve o’clock Phyllis tells me it’s time for her to get off. She needs to get back to ‘her Stan’, who I gather is her husband who retired a couple of years ago and hasn’t been well recently.

  “It’s his heart…” Phyllis explains, and this is why she’s quite keen to give up work herself soon. “Makes you see what your priorities should be,” she
tells me.

  I can see that, and I thank her for her help today.

  “What will you do this afternoon, then? You’ve almost finished the mailing.”

  I have. There are only a couple of dozen envelopes left to stuff. I need to think fast. “I was wondering about having a look at the flat upstairs. I know the boiler needs fixing, but maybe there’s other work too, stuff I could get on with?”

  “It think the place is pretty much fine apart from the heating, but by all means go up and have a look around. Make yourself at home. The keys are in the key cupboard, it’s the set marked ‘flat’.”

  She fastens her coat ready to leave, so I thank her for all her help today. I’m not sure I’ll be able to work out which set of keys is marked ‘flat’, but if need be I’ll try them all. With a final wave, and a cheery ‘see you in the morning’, she’s gone and I’m left to my own devices. It’s only as she disappears around the corner I realize I haven’t asked her how to turn the computer off.

  I finish the remaining envelopes and stack them all nice and neatly in the box, ready for whatever comes next. Franking machine, perhaps? Then I take a stroll around the corner to pick up a cheese salad sandwich from a small bakery I spotted on the way in. I eat that as I gaze balefully at the mysterious computer screen once more—the desktop, I understand—and debate whether I might risk a bit more experimentation. I decide against such foolishness and spend the rest of the day pottering in the flat upstairs. Fortunately for me, there were only three sets of keys to choose from, and only one looked even remotely like keys for a flat. The others were either much too small—desks perhaps, or a cashbox, and the third set looked like they were for a vehicle.

  The flat is really rather nice. It’s about the same size as my previous home, one bedroom, a living room, kitchen and bathroom. There’s direct access from the office up a narrow set of stairs, and also from the outside. It’s fully furnished, nice, modern stuff, and the kitchen is well equipped. I could have been very comfortable here, although if Cain invites me to stay I won’t be in any hurry to move out of his house. Maybe we could rent this place out?

  I decide to clean the place up a little, although it’s not especially in need of it. It’s what I’m good at though and I actually do enjoy housework. I find everything I need in the cupboard under the sink, and get set to. I apply myself to cleaning, dusting, polishing. The next three or four hours drift past in a pine-smelling haze, until I’m startled by the sound of the door downstairs.

  “Abbie? Where are you?” It’s Cain’s voice.

  “Up here.” I go to the door at the top of the internal stairs, peeling off my rubber gloves. Cain peers up at me in surprise from the main office below.

  “What are you doing up there?”

  “Just giving the place a once over. I’ll be down in a moment.” I hurry to put my cloths and disinfectant back under the sink, and make my way downstairs.

  “The new boiler’ll probably just mess it all up again.” Cain is helping himself to coffee as I re-emerge, and I notice his clothes are dusty and his hands still grimy from whatever he’s been doing all day. No office job for Cain Parrish. He’s wearing a brightly colored light waistcoat which is flapping open, and his hard hat is dumped on my desk. He shrugs the jacket off too and stuffs it inside the hat then places the pair on top of a filing cabinet before making for the loo. “I’ll just wash the dust off, then we’ll head for home if you’re done here.”

  I step aside for him to pass me, but he turns to drop a quick kiss on the edge of my mouth. His cheek grazes mine, the ten hours or so of stubble feeling sexily unkempt as it rubs against my skin. He smiles at me, winks and the toilet door swings shut behind him.

  This brief respite leaves me a couple of minutes in which to sort out the computer, or more accurately to work out how to turn it off. I consider just unplugging it from the wall, but I know that’s not right. Computers are strange beasts, and one thing I do know is that you need to press the start button to stop it. I remember that because it’s just so ridiculous—a snippet of information I gathered from somewhere and managed to store in a corner of my brain. Not that it helps me now as I peer into every corner of my desktop for the start button. It used to be at the bottom, on the left—well, that’s where it was on the machines I occasionally used to play Candy Crush on at school, if I managed to finish mopping a bit early. Not here though. Here all I can see where my start button should be is a round circle a bit like a globe. Someone must have changed everything around.

  Shit, shit, shit! Why didn’t I start this earlier? Cain will be back in a few minutes wanting to get off home, and find me still messing about trying to shut down a computer, a task even a three-year-old can do in their sleep. I hear him coming back, and in desperation hit the power switch on the wall behind the monitor. The screen goes blank, and I squelch any misgivings about maybe offending the machine’s delicate sensibilities. I’m only just in time as Cain comes back out of the toilet, looking a little cleaner but still probably in need of a shower when we get home. I wonder if perhaps we both might be…

  “Ready?” He retrieves his van keys from inside his discarded hard hat, and flashes me his sexiest smile.

  My stomach clenches, way down deep, and my pussy starts to moisten. All thoughts of uncooperative computers are instantly dispelled. I smile back, nod and pick up my bag from the back of my chair.

  “So, what did you do all day then?” Cain tosses the casual question to me as he re-sets the alarm.

  I mutter something about dealing with some letters.

  “Right, good start. What else?” He opens the van door for me to clamber in, then makes his way around to the driver’s side.

  “Not much really. Just, you know, finding out where things are.” Yeah, like the kettle. And the Control ‘Z’ keys.

  Still, my vague answers seem to be enough to keep Cain off my scent, at least for now. A few minutes later we pull up in the driveway in front of his house.

  “Okay, I need a shower. I’ve been scrambling around in bloody holes all day checking foundations with the clerk of works. Do you want to dig around in the freezer and see what you can find for us to eat?” He’s unlocked the door and ushered me inside, pausing at the bottom of the stairs to give me my instructions.

  I have a better idea though. “I could, but I’d rather wash your back for you…”

  His eyes narrow, but he nods. “Or there is that approach. Give me a couple of minutes to get the thick off though…” He starts up the stairs, but pauses halfway. “Oh, and, Abbie, would you mind bringing some strawberry jam with you? You’ll find it in the fridge.”

  Chapter Ten

  Strawberry jam?

  Cain is inventive, I’ll allow him that. After a leisurely half an hour spent under the streaming jets, caressing each other, smoothing soap into some very sensitive places, shampooing, rinsing and generally working each other into a frenzy of lust, we’re at last back in the bedroom. In the shower Cain brought me repeatedly to the brink of orgasm, then back again, and now I’m quivering wildly each time he lays so much as a fingertip on me. Draped loosely in a large bath sheet, I kneel in the center of his huge bed, waiting for whatever he decides is to come next. I sincerely hope it’s to be me, but with Cain there’s no telling.

  I’m right. His own towel looped tightly around his hips, Cain instructs me to lose mine and to lie down on my back. Naturally, I obey. Picking up the strawberry jam from the bedside table where I left it, he unscrews the top of the jar.

  “Put your hands behind your head and keep really still. I’m going to coat your nipples in jam, then lick it off. That sound like fun to you?”

  He stands beside the bed, his eyes are running up and down my nude body admiringly, but he’s clearly waiting for an answer. I nod slowly. It does sound like fun. It also sounds like it’s going to tickle and I seriously doubt I’ll be keeping still for very long. I say as much to Cain.

  “My jam, my bed, my rules. I want you to keep still, an
d if you don’t think you can, I’m happy to help. Would you object if I were to tie you up?”

  I look at him, stunned. I hadn’t anticipated this. But as I reflect on the idea, a wisp of delighted anticipation curls inside me. It grows, and I know I want to try it. This might be very nice indeed.

  I try not to sound too eager though. “I, well, maybe. If you’d like to. Here?”

  “Yes, here. I want to tie your wrists to the bed head.”

  “But why? I mean, what then?”

  “I think you know what then. I’ll tie your ankles too, your legs spread nice and wide. Then, you’re mine. I’ll touch you, play with you, spread jam anywhere on your body I like and lick it off. Then I’ll do it all again. And make you come as I feel like it. And I’ll fuck you. How does all that sound?”

  It sounds quite delightful, but he really has no need to tie me to the bed. If that’s the deal, I’m going nowhere. I say as much.

  Cain smiles. “Ah, but helplessness is such a powerful aphrodisiac. Just think of it. Naked. Spread out on the bed. Mine. Can you hand over control to me, sweetheart? Will you let me have your body to do as I like with it?”

  I consider, but only for a moment. “Yes, I think so. I trust you. Would you untie me if I ask you to?”

  He doesn’t answer that question at first. Instead, he places the jar of jam back on the bedside table then he stretches out alongside me. He’s still wearing his towel, while I’m completely nude, but somehow the dynamic doesn’t feel too imbalanced. He kisses me, lightly at first, then deepening as he slips his tongue into my mouth. I’ve completely forgotten my question by the time he finally lifts his mouth from mine, but he hasn’t.

  “Yes, I would untie you. But we do need to talk about safe words.”

  “About what?” This sounds heavy, dangerous even.