E Daymuir - Betwixt Natasha

On the fifteenth floor, a tall, slender, attractive woman in a figure hugging white work coat, walked gracefully down a plush carpeted corridor, flicking delicately with a feather duster at framed original paintings of exotic holiday destinations. Lucinda Lovebrace, the joint owner of Pro-Clean, looked after the directors’ offices. The industrious Julie Bunford, her partner in the cleaning venture, looked after the other three floors.

Julie, who had cleaned Lucinda’s penthouse flat for almost two years, was the catalyst for this wonderful business opportunity. The light dawned when Julie announced that she was going to give up cleaning.

'I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to leave and get a fulltime job. People are not prepared to pay a decent hourly rate for a cleaner anymore, present company excepted, Miss Lovebrace.' She gave a deferential bob of the head, which characterised their relationship. Lucinda Lovebrace nodded to indicate her understanding as she re-appraised Mrs Bunford. God only knew why she was a cleaner. Apparently, she worked for a Bank when she was younger. Now a strong handsome woman in her late thirties, Lucinda found her very attractive. High cheekbones, a generous mouth with full lips, natural auburn hair and light blue eyes. She had all the attributes and a good figure, although it was usually well hidden under loose fitting clothes. The business antennae, which stood Lucinda Lovebrace in such good stead over the years, virtually shrieked for attention. An opportunity to gain valuable information for one of her favourite and potentially most lucrative ventures was so obvious; she could kick herself for not seeing it before.

Lucinda Lovebrace was a single woman in her early thirties, with two great passions – money and sex, and an insatiable appetite for both. She spoke with a distinct upper class accent and was obviously well educated. She had a broad vocabulary but chose to litter her speech with choice Anglo Saxon expletives, which, in her plumy accent, sounded perfectly acceptable. Due to her chosen lifestyle, rather than her profanities, the well-connected Benningham-Smythe’s, a highly respected in the elite world of private banking, were greatly relieved when she changed her name to Lovebrace and traded as Anita von Beta.

Lucinda appreciated Julie Bunford for her good sense and work ethic and showed her appreciation by paying well over the going rate for her services. But, as Julie Bunford would readily admit, ten hours a week was more than enough to clean for a single woman, even allowing for the size of the penthouse, a daily change of sheets on her queen size bed and polishing all the carefully angled wall mirrors in the windowless bedroom. She never touched the one in the ceiling.

In her second week, Julie had been rather shocked to find a large black dildo lying on the bedside rug. The discovery put her in something of a quandary. If she left it where it was, or kicked it under the bed, she would be neglecting her cleaning duties. On the other hand, if she tidied it away in the wrong drawer, Miss Lovebrace would know she had found it and might, heaven forbid, even think she had used it on herself. She shuddered at the thought as her hand hovered over the right hand bedside table. One of her golden rules was never to open bedside drawers. Discovering something, which was no concern of hers, could present all sorts of problems. However, on this occasion she had little option. She gingerly tugged at the handle and the drawer slid smoothly open to reveal – an unopened pack of ribbed condoms – a bottle of Horny Goat Weed tablets – two bubble packs of AA size batteries (one pack open with two batteries missing) – and a tube of vaginal lubricant.

She walked to the other side of the bed, tugging and smoothing the faux fur bedspread as she went. The drawer in that bedside table contained a range of brightly coloured sex toys, laid neatly in a row and graded according to size. Unlike the enormous black dildo, they all appeared to be battery operated. There was an empty space at the end of the row, which looked right for the dildo and she was about to put it back in its place, when she noticed a small plastic bottle of ‘Sex Toy Cleaning Fluid’ at the back of the drawer. Cleaning material, of any description, meant only one thing to Julie Bunford – something had to be cleaned. She unscrewed the cap, dribbled a trail of the fluid along the full length of the dildo and with her index finger encased in a yellow duster, worked the fluid around its impressive girth. Then, wrapping the duster around the full circumference, she cleaned the dildo with long vigorous strokes. As she was sitting on the edge of the bed, with the non-business end of the dildo resting on her thigh, she was conscious that anyone coming into the room might have wondered what she was hoping to achieve.

With the dildo cleaned to her satisfaction, which meant it had taken on the lustre of a well-polished piece of ebony, she carefully set it down in its allotted space. There were eight sex toys, one for each day of the week and two for Sunday. She laughed at her own little joke. She considered herself broadminded but failed to understand why Miss Lovebrace, who was such a clever and successful businesswoman, could possibly have a need for such things. Sex for Julie Bunford was not a joy but a duty. She had been married for nineteen years to Peter Bunford, an engineer at Meltcon. Following the birth of Rebecca, she vowed never to go through the experience again. The truth was she never did enjoy sex, yet she found herself intrigued by Miss Lovebrace, who seemed to live for it. The mirrored wardrobe door, next to the bedside table with the sex toys in, was always locked. What could be in there didn‘t bear thinking about, although, she had a warning of sorts when she took the job. Charlie Bell, a good friend from school days and the concierge at Laburnham Court, called to say that the woman in the penthouse was looking for someone trustworthy and discreet to clean for her. He intimated that it was a strange set-up, but that in his case, turning a blind eye was well rewarded. So, if Julie wanted the job, it would be best not to ask too many questions.

Julie was surprised, pleased, and extremely flattered when Miss Lovebrace suggested they go into business together. It was an unbelievably good deal. Miss Lovebrace would make all the necessary start-up investment for the office cleaning business but they were to be equal partners, sharing any profit on a fifty-fifty basis. She would also be paid hourly for her time at the same excellent rate she received from Miss Lovebrace for cleaning the penthouse. The most astonishing suggestion of all was that Miss Lovebrace would help with the office cleaning and not charge the company one penny for her time. Julie thought that very strange, but who was she to argue? Thanks to a twelve-month contract to clean the offices of Travel Plan, the business was up and running within four weeks. Travel Plan was one of the most successful package holiday companies in the country. Julie had no idea how Lucinda Lovebrace managed to win the contract, but it all worked brilliantly. She was responsible for cleaning the twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth floors and Miss Lovebrace looked after the directors’ offices on the fifteenth. With such a big increase in her weekly earnings, she would have been quite happy to clean all floors, but Miss Lovebrace insisted, arguing that the business was a partnership and until it was established enough to employ someone else, she would help out. After only one week of working together, she also insisted on first name terms – Julie and Lucy.

The sweet, sickly smell of chocolate from the Meltcon factory was heavy in the air. It was something everyone living and working in the vicinity grew accustomed to. Lucinda Lovebrace stood by the corner window in the sales director’s office, a vantage point with an unrestricted view towards the Trading Estate entrance and the road from Hamsworth. She had some business other than cleaning to attend to, but having been almost caught in the act a couple of months previously, she proceeded with great caution. It had been a long hot summer and they were in the middle of yet another heat wave. Yesterday’s storm had cleared the air but she could not risk being discovered by another insomniac director, arriving early. Her sensuous lips twitched into a half smile as she remembered the events of that dawn encounter.