Repairing the Past

Emma Thrower. The name seemed familiar to me but I couldn't put my finger on the reason why. I was certain I didn't know anybody by that name and I was equally sure that it wasn't the moniker of anybody famous, so why did it seem so familiar?

All of the other names on the list of interviewee's that lay on the desk in front of me were typewritten and accompanied by C.V.'s, but this one had been hand written, an obvious last minute addition and I could find no accompanying notes.

I had already decided that I was going to offer the vacant post of research assistant to the first girl I had interviewed that morning, a very able twenty year old who was ideal for the job. I still had to go through the process of interviewing all of the other candidates, not only as a matter of courtesy but also because there were certain other vacancies that, if they were suitable, they may consider filling.

The interviews were going somewhat slowly and I was running about half an hour behind schedule, mainly because my personal assistant had upped and left the company a few days before. She was allowed to leave gracefully although she wasn't given much choice after one of the directors had discovered that she was passing client information on to her brother who worked for a smaller competitor. She also resented the fact that she was my assistant. At twenty-three years old I was one of the youngest members of the department that I headed, something that she couldn't really accept.

By the time I had worked my way down to the last name on the list I was running almost an hour late. I pressed the button on my intercom and asked for Ms Thrower to be shown in.

The door opened and I was taken aback by the stunning vision of her when she entered the office. Immaculately dressed in a light grey business suit, the short skirt revealing at least four inches of her leg above the knee and her jacket not quite covering an almost transparent cream coloured blouse. She had short dark hair, was tall and slim and was wearing bright red lipstick. Her bright blue eyes peered through thick-rimmed spectacles. My first impressions told me that she was in her late thirties and although she dressed much younger her clothes suited her. Like her name she seemed familiar, and again I didn't know why.

I asked her to sit down but before I had the chance to say anything else she said, "Hello Claire. Would you like me to leave now?"

"Why should I want that?" I replied.

"After all I put you through in school I wouldn't blame you if you did." She stated.

Then it hit me. Emma Dawson, the one teacher who had made my life hell during the last three years of schooling. She had lost around half of her weight, had cut her hair much shorter resulting in her looking a lot younger, but now I knew her identity she was unmistakeably Miss Dawson.

"I'm sorry, but your name threw me." I told her, "You must have gotten married since we last met."

"Yes," she replied, "And I'm about to get divorced. I married Ed Thrower."

"Throw-up Thrower? Why? He was a creep!" I said. "Sorry. I shouldn't be so rude. I apologize."

"There is no need to apologize. You are right he is a creep. But you know the saying, 'A fool sees less than a blind man.' Well, I was a fool."

I smiled. I thought it better to not add any more to that part of the conversation.

"Why on earth does somebody with your experience apply for a lowly job like the one on offer here?" I asked.

"Necessity." She answered. "It may be lowly but it is a job and what is more it is something that I could do in my sleep. I am desperate for employment. But as I said, if you don't want me working for you I will understand and accept it."

I was puzzled as to why she needed employment. Until the moment she walked through my office door I hated, no, detested her. During those last years at school she seemed to do everything she could to knock me down. Endless after school detentions, extra homework and repeatedly low marks for my work made my later school days a misery. I vowed that one day I would get my revenge and now that the chance had arrived I wasn't sure if I wanted to exact it.

"Why do you need a job?" I asked. "Have you given up teaching?"

"I had no choice," she replied.

"Why is that? You know and I know that you are not exactly my favourite member of the teaching profession, but even I have to admit that you are an excellent tutor. The problem between us was personal not professional. To this day I still don't know why you had it in for me. What did I do to make you react so badly to me?"

She paused for a second or two before she replied, "You didn't do anything, nothing at all. It was what you were going to do that worried me. I just couldn't let you carry on along the path you were taking. I know that you will never be able forgive me and equally I know that you would never believe it if I told you that I only did those dreadful things to save you from yourself. Looking at you now and seeing you in your present position, I feel comfortable in the knowledge that I did do the right thing."

"Pardon!" I replied, unintentionally raising my voice, "I got where I am today by my own hard work and determination. No amount of your detentions or extra work let alone criminal low marks had anything to do with it."

"You're wrong Claire," she replied, "So totally wrong."

"How?" I asked, "Just tell me one way that your actions helped me to obtain my present position. By keeping me back after school all you did was to make me resent you more and more. It didn't help with my education one little bit."

"Nor was it designed to," was her surprising answer. "I didn't do it to improve your education, I did it to protect you. Tell me what you would have done with your time if you hadn't been detained after school. No, I will tell you."

I looked at her as she continued, her voice becoming a little raised and emotional.

"You would have hung about with your so called friends. Ask yourself what they are doing now. Sharon and Stephanie are both in prison. The other Claire works in a chicken-processing factory, working all hours that God sends for pay little better than a slave, trying to scrape together enough to keep herself and her young child. As for sweet little Joy, you will find her in the cemetery with her brother, both killed when the stolen car they were in collided with a bus. Not one of your 'little group' has done anything with their lives except you."

"That still doesn't explain why you continually gave me detention." I told her.

"But it does," she said. "Every time I heard through the grapevine that they were going on one of their little shop-lifting expeditions or were going to do some other misdemeanour I did my hardest to keep you out of it. I couldn't say anything to you because you just wouldn't have listened. I know what everybody said about me, being a fat bitch only there to make your life a misery. I know my actions stopped you from enjoying yourself with your friends but that is the cost that had to be paid. I just couldn't stand by and let you destroy your future. Unfortunately it was too late to do anything to help the others."

We looked at each other in silence for a few seconds. She took a tissue from her pocket and wiped a small tear from her cheek before she stood and picked up her bag.

"I think that I had better leave. I don't want to upset you and I certainly don't want you to think that I'm just making up excuses for my actions. I'm just so glad that I have found out that your life has worked out so well for you."

She turned and headed for the door.

"Please stop," I said. "Come back and sit down. I'll have some coffee made. I'd very much like to continue our conversation."

"Are you sure?" she asked.

"I'm positive." I replied.

I pressed my intercom button and asked Julie to bring in some coffee and we settled back into our chairs.

"Tell me Emma," I said, feeling a little uneasy calling my former teacher by her forename, "Why did you have to give up teaching?"

"Do you remember Stephen Gaskin?" she asked.

"Do I ever!" I replied. "Evil little bastard. He was in the year below me but was still the worst kind of bully. Lots of fellow pupils in my year suffered at his hands. Complaints were made but the school authorities did nothing about them, which just made matters worse. He knew about the complaints and just took revenge on those who made them. Someone should have stamped on him long ago."

Our conversation stopped as Julie came in with the coffee.

After she had left the office Emma said, "Not only was he evil but he was very clever as well. We couldn't do anything about him. He always had an answer, always had an excuse or an alibi that put him somewhere else when incidents occurred. We just couldn't prove anything."

She instinctively started to pour out the hot drinks, not waiting to be asked.

She continued, "Well his brother Shaun is at the school now and he has picked up where Stephen left off. He knows his brother was untouchable and believes that he is the same. If you thought that Stephen was evil then you should meet Shaun."

"I can imagine what he is like," I said, "His whole family are the same."

"There was an incident a few months back involving two young girls," she stated as she passed me my coffee, remembering after all these years that I liked mine white with two sugars, "They, the two girls that is, were having a close relationship. He heard that someone had seen them kissing in the showers and decided that he could make some money out of this information so he confronted one of them. She was horrified that he knew and gave him some money to keep him quiet, but of course he kept coming back for more. She knew if she said anything both her and her friend would get into all sorts of trouble so she kept paying up."

I sipped my drink and Emma continued.

"Then it started to turn really nasty. He decided that he would rather have something other than money. He told her that she would either have to let him have sex with her or he would spill the beans. He told her that he had some photographs of her and her friend together. I'm sure that he was bluffing as no such pictures ever turned up. Anyway, it reached a point where he was waiting for her to leave school. She knew that I kept some money in my desk so she helped herself to a five pound note, enough to get a taxi home."

"And you found out." I said.

"Yes, but not in the way that you might think," she replied. "He caught up with her later that evening. One of his little hench-men had seen her taking the money and had told him. He cornered her and threatened to tell me if she didn't give him a blowjob. She managed to escape from him and the next morning she found me and confessed about the theft."

"What did you do?"

"I knew that something wasn't quite right and sat her down and coaxed the whole story out of her. She told me that she was so sorry for taking the money and said that she had intended to put it back before I discovered it was missing. I told her that I didn't accept her apology because you only have to apologize for doing something that was wrong. I also told her I didn't want the money back and if anyone was to ask her she was to tell them I had given her permission to take it."

"That was the end of the story?"

"Far from it. We carried on with the day as normally as possible. Shaun confronted her again and she just ignored him. Later that day he marched into my classroom, pointed to this girl and said in a loud voice so the whole class could hear that she was a thief and had stolen money from my desk. I asked her if it was true and she replied that she only took the money that I told her she could have, namely a five-pound note."

"I bet that shut him up!"

"No, he just started shouting about how she and her friend were having a lesbian affair and that I must also be a lesbian as I was covering up for them."

"What did you do then?"

"I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and marched him to the headmaster's room."

"So he was finally dealt with."

"Of course not. To cut a long story short I ended up with the choice of either resigning my post or being prosecuted for assaulting a minor."

"I can't believe it. You mean he has gotten away with it?"

"Totally. The two girls in question have been split up. They are no longer allowed to attend the same lessons together or any other activity on the school premises. The only person left smiling, and gloating, is Shaun."

"Didn't any of the other staff stand up for you?"

"I thought at the very least my husband would. Being the Deputy Headmaster he was in a position to lend weight to my defence but decided that he would have to stay neutral. Spineless bastard."

"That's why you're divorcing?"

"No, that was just the final straw. There are other reasons which I don't really want to go into. I ended up loosing my job, my home and very nearly my children."

"Children?"

"Yes, I have two. Emily who is four and Sandra who is almost three."

"Have you got any pictures of them?"

She opened her bag and took out a photograph and handed it to me. They were the sweetest looking little girls.

"They are gorgeous." I told her. "They certainly take more after you than Ed."

"Was that a compliment to me?" she asked.

"Of course it was," I answered. "You must admit that you look so much more attractive now than when I last saw you. I didn't recognize you when you came into the office."

"Thank you very much," she replied, "I never thought that I would live to see the day when I received a compliment from you."

We both laughed and then finished our coffees.

"Does this mean that I might stand just the slightest chance of being considered for the vacancy?" she asked, placing her cup back onto the tray.

"No chance at all I'm afraid." I replied.

"Oh well, never mind," she said as she took the photo back and placed it into her handbag and then stood for the second time. "I hope that we have at least cleared the air a little between us. I am so very glad that you are getting on so well."

She turned to walk away, obviously a little upset by my last statement.

"Where are you going?" I asked, "The interview isn't over yet."

"But you said that I wouldn't be considered for the vacancy."

"Please sit down, you really must stop jumping to conclusions. I said that I wouldn't consider you for that particular vacancy."

"You mean there are others?" she asked.

"If you are willing to give it a try, I would like to offer you the post of my personal assistant. The job entails much more than its description implies and you would in fact be almost equally responsible for the running of this department. I would of course have the final say in all matters, to begin with at least."

Her smile reached from ear to ear. She was much prettier than I ever remembered her from the past. She stood up, came around to my side of the desk and gave me a big hug. I hugged her back."

"I'm sorry," she said, "I shouldn't have done that."

"Don't be sorry," I told her, "I rather enjoyed it."

I couldn't tell her that when she hugged me I felt her small breasts press against by shoulder through the thin materials of our blouses and it excited me.

I stood up and we hugged again. This time I put my hands on the small of her back and held her tightly against me. Her perfume made me feel light headed and as we embraced I could feel my nipples harden. I wanted to stroke her ass but somehow managed to control myself. As we hugged I thought that I could feel her nipples harden as well but thought that it was my imagination.

We arranged for her to start the next morning and I could have sworn that when she left the office she almost skipped like an excited young schoolgirl.

The next morning saw me arrive at the office a little earlier than normal. All of the previous evening I couldn't get Emma out of my mind.

Just after she had left I went to see my superior and told him that I had found someone ideal to fill the post of my personal assistant and informed him that I had to act fast to secure her services. I also told him that we would have to pay her a little more than her predecessor and together we worked out a package that I would put to her when she arrived the next morning.

I had taken my time in getting ready for work that morning. I took my lead from her appearance the previous day and selected a light blue business suit. The short skirt was about six inches above my knee and the jacket would be worn open. Beneath this I wore a thin white blouse and made a point of omitting to wear a bra. My breasts are very small and don't need any support and I wanted to see her reaction to the way I was dressed.

I wore light make-up and brushed my short red hair back. I felt sexy and wanted this to get across to Emma.

I had always known that I was gay. I have never fancied boys in the least and in normal circumstances I would go for a girl around my own age. But Emma did something to me the previous day. I was determined to find out if I stood a chance with her. She was so different from the woman who I had crossed swords with all those years ago.

Emma finally arrived at just before ten o'clock. A new desk for her use had been moved into the office and it was adorned with a brand new computer system.

As she sat in her plush new chair I stepped towards her. I leaned over knowing full well that she would be able to see inside my blouse. My nipples were erect and I was feeling excited. As I glanced to her eyes I could see that she was indeed looking at my breasts. She carried on talking as she took a long look, slightly shifting her position to get a better view.

I asked her to come and sit at my desk and we went through the financial package that had been worked out for her. She was surprised at the size of her salary, only expecting to be paid a little more than was on offer for the post she originally came to be interviewed for. I thought that she was going to fall off of her chair when I told her that it was in fact over double what she had been expecting. This, coupled with the fact that she would also be getting a company car and other incentives made it very hard for her to hide the excitement that she was obviously experiencing.

We had a coffee and I then took her outside to show her the car she would be using until she had chosen one of her own. It was the one that her predecessor had returned earlier that morning. I will never forget her surprise when she first saw it.

"It's a fucking Jaguar!" she exclaimed before profusely apologizing for her use of obscene language. I just met this with a laugh.

I found myself staring at her as we walked back to the office. She led the way, giving me a fantastic view of her body as we walked along. She was wearing a suit similar to the one of the day before except this was cut a little tighter and the skirt was somewhat shorter. As she walked her hips gently rocked from side to side and her ass looked delicious. Her long slender legs moved with the grace of a ballet dancer. I was going to enjoy Emma working with me.

My continual teasing was over the following weeks was lapped up by Emma but as the days and weeks went by it slowly fizzled out. She still made me as horny as hell as we both continued to dress in the same way and I was forever trying to catch a glimpse of bare flesh beneath hers. A very heavy workload put paid to any plans that I might otherwise have had. Although, on my evenings alone, I often dreamed of seducing her. I ached to be with her, to touch her, to caress her, to kiss her, to love her. The last I didn't have to imagine. I was already in love with her.

During the next six months Emma took to the job like a duck to water, she was a natural. It had reached a position where we were running the department almost as a team of equals as opposed to a manager and assistant. I trusted her completely and the memories of 'The Other Emma' from my school days faded significantly as we became quite close friends. Because of her young children we rarely met socially but I knew that would change, as they grew older.