The village of Oakvale-On-Roe is in the north of the relatively small English county of Downshire,
situated between the
old market Town of Nettlebridge, and their more
affluent neighbour, Roespring and Chris Thorn, head of Thorn publishing,
lives in a Large Victorian house
on Nettlefield road on the southern side of the village.
He inherited the company after his father’s sudden death, and it had
taken him five years to drag the business into the 21st century and to employ
the right people to run the various divisions because he wanted to run things
from arm’s length.
Of all the facilities and offices in the Thorn publishing family he
decided on making the Nettlebridge Book repository as his base of operations
and he bought “Red House” in Oakvale.
He loved books but he wasn’t interested in publishing per se which is
why he carefully selected a team of key men and women to embrace the old and
the new.
He was 25 when he took the reins and after five years of hard work, he
was ready for him to focus on his personal life, and he had someone in his
sights.
22-year-old
Katherine Lewis had worked at the repository since she was 17 and was the
youngest of the 25 employees by about 30 years.
She was taken on
as a general dogsbody and as a result she had become a jack of all trades, and
therefore indiscernible.
She was a shy, socially awkward bookish girl, who
appeared to lack self-confidence, but was a bright intelligent girl, with no personal
attachments as she was much more in tune with the romantic characters in the
literature she read and she was an only child who still lived with her parents.
Outside of work
she rarely went out, she certainly wasn’t a party girl and her sexual awakening
didn’t hit her until her late teens and although there were times when she
couldn’t stop abusing herself to deal with her urges there was no one in her
social circle, such as it was, that measured up against the romantic heroes in
her books, and even if there was someone she was clueless .
She was not beautiful, though she was not unattractive to look at, but she
wasn’t bubbly or outgoing and always wore a knee length skirt, white blouse and
tailored jacket, she had her short brunette tied in a bun, Katherine was tall,
slender with nice long legs, but was far from being well endowed in the
bustline, and had a habit of peering over her half-moon specs.
However, when she
first saw Chris Thorn, she was smitten, he was only at the repository on Monday
and Tuesday and she really looked forward to seeing him, but she didn’t show
any sign of it.
Chris also noticed
her and was impressed by her quiet efficiency and thought there was something
about her, but it was the former that made him give her a bit of a promotion,
on the days he was there she was to act in part as his PA and as she also lived
in Oakvale on the days he worked from home she would act as a courier for him
between the repository and his house.
Katherine had been
ferrying books and documents to him for a few months, and he really liked her
but he had no idea what he should do about it, he didn’t want to be
unprofessional, he certainly didn’t want to abuse his position of authority and
he definitely didn’t want to scare her into leaving, so he took the only course
open to him, do nothing.
As it turned out
fate took a hand on a sunny August Friday afternoon, when Katherine took the
decision to wear heels in order to make the most of her legs, she normally wore
flats because she was tall.
She changed her
shoes in the car and then tottered up the path that led up the side of the
house, but as she was unaccustomed to heels, she tripped and fell heavily as
she stepped onto the patio where Chris was sitting.
“Owwww” she
exclaimed
“Oh my god, are
you alright” he said as he scrambled to help her up
“Stupid shoes” she
cursed
“Are you ok?” he
asked with concern as he got her to her feet
“Ow, it’s my knee”
she winced “But I think it’s just a graze”
“Well come and sit
down and I’ll have a look” he said gently
He sat her on a
patio chair and then sat on the chair opposite and gave the leg a cursory
glance, her tights were shredded but the wound looked like it was just a graze
as she thought, but it would need a clean.
“I need to clean
it and make sure there are no foreign bodies in their” he explained
“Firstly, I need
to get to it, so you have a choice, I can either cut one leg off your tights,
but it might look odd going home with one bare leg, or you can take your tights
off”
“Tights off” she
responded
“Ok, let’s get you
inside, but first let’s take your shoes off” and lifted the undamaged leg up
and removed her shoe
“These are not
your usual footwear”
“I know” she said sheepishly “It’s a long
story”
“Well, it might be
better if you don’t put them back on today” he advised
“Ok, I’ve got
flats in the car” Katherine said as he helped her stand and offered his arm to
help her into the lounge.
“Ok give me your
car keys and I’ll get your other shoes while you take your tights off”
“Ok thank you” she
said meekly “I’m so embarrassed”
“Don’t be” he said
and squeezed her hand
He retrieved the
shoes from her car, got cotton wool, a towel, some warm water and a tube of
antiseptic cream then knocked lightly on the lounge door
“Are you decent?”
“Yes” she
responded and he walked in to find her sitting on the sofa, so he set the
things down on the seat beside her.
“You really don’t
need to do this I can easily go home and do it”
“Nonsense” he
retorted and pulled up the pouffe and sat in front of her
“I won’t hear of
it”
Adam lifted her
right leg so it was resting on his lap and with his left hand supporting her
knee he began cleaning the graze with a cotton wool ball and warm water and
found himself absentmindedly caressing the back of her knee lightly with his
fingers as he cleaned the wound, then he dabbed her leg.
“That looks ok, I
can’t see anything that shouldn’t be there, so I’ll just put some antiseptic
cream on”
“Oh ok” she
replied quietly
“Now this might
sting a little” he said, and she winced briefly as he rubbed the cream gently
in while still caressing the back of her knee.
“How’s that” he
asked
“Lovely” she
replied wistfully
“Good” he said and
smiled “Now would you like a drink”
“No, I’d better
go; my mum will wonder where I’ve got to” she replied regretfully
“Another time
then” he suggested
“Yes, I would like
that” she replied gleefully as she stood up and then her leg almost gave way
and he had to steady her.
“Are you ok?” he
asked with concern
“My leg just went
to sleep” she replied unconvincingly “I’m ok now, just a bit tingly”
Two days later
Chris attended St Nicholas Church, and he caught sight of Katherine with her
family, and he intended asking her about her leg but lost sight of her at the
end of the service so it would have to wait until Monday at the repository.
He decided to have
Sunday lunch at the Ramblers before heading home for a relaxing afternoon.
Back at the house
he had just finished making himself a coffee and was about to take it and his
book out to the patio when Katherine appeared at the back door wearing a floral
summer dress.
“Hello” he said
with genuine warmth “Would you like a drink?”
“Tea please” she
replied
He made her drink
and then asked
“Do you want to
sit inside or out?”
“Well, its
spitting of rain” she replied
“Inside it is
then” he said “you know the way”
Kathrine put her
mug down on the coffee table, but before she sat down, he said
“How is the war
wound?”
“It a bit sore,
but the bruise is coming out” she replied
“Do you mind if I
have a look?”
“Oh ok” she
responded and he crouched down to take a look and she lifted the hem of her
dress to oblige.
“It’s a very
attractive colour scheme” he said and then put his hand behind her knee and her
leg went wobbly.
“Are you ok?” he
asked with concern as he stood up to support her
“It just went
tingly”
“Oh, it went
tingly again” he mused
“And what keeps
making it tingly?”
“It’s not a what”
she replied enigmatically “It's a who”
“What do you
mean?”
“Your hand on my
knee made me tingly” she said shyly
“Really?” he said,
“Are you sure?”
“Yes”
“So, what else
makes you tingly?” he asked and kissed her naked
“Oh yes” she
replied and stiffened
“So, what about
this?” he said and kissed her neck
“Erm very tingly”
she remarked and her hands gripped him tightly
“Perhaps we should
try a kiss
“You want to kiss
me?”
“Of course, I do”
he said, “But only if you wa….”
He never finished
the sentence as she was kissing him rather enthusiastically, and they spent the
following couple of hours on the sofa kissing between short conversations
because Katherine was mainly interested in the kissing, being new to the sport,
but then he took her upstairs and made her tingly all over.
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