by Lawrence Poole
Denise Sparrow knew she had made a big mistake, she just didn't know precisely how big. Nonetheless, a mistake had clearly been made. She'd worked as a junior curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art for over a year. Her performance of duties was above reproach - until the past week.
She had prepared an important acquisitions manifest with infinite care, going over the numbers, titles of works, and amount to be paid for each, time and again. There were only twelve paintings and four sculptures. She had added up the cost and filled out a payment voucher. How could she have made such a simple mistake? All it amounted to was the displacement of a single naught.
Now, there would be the devil to pay.
The particular devil in question was her superior, Nedra Monahan. NM, as she was known throughout the administrative offices, was a stickler for detail. NM had an ironclad set of protocols and procedures for everything. No deviation from the norm would be brooked, regardless how small or insignificant.
Denise knew that the error she had made was neither small nor insignificant. Sadly, her displaced naught appeared on the bottom-most line of a list of sums. Surely anyone might have missed that - it was human error, pure and simple.
Arthur Boswell, a creepy little man in accounting had caught the errant naught immediately - it was a difference between tens and hundreds. In hindsight, it was next to impossible not to have caught the error, Denise conceded. If only she had noticed the final tally before she signed-off and sent it downstairs to accounting.
Thanks to Boswell, it had been placed on NM's desk by the end of work. No check had been drafted, no check mailed. There had been no fearful and apologetic phone calls made. Not a single museum director needed notifying. No real damage done. None. That's what Denise told herself.
If only Boswell had brought it up with her, instead of NM, the old dyke.
Denise skimmed the pale blue knickers up over her thighs and snugged them tight on her bottom, feeling just a little sore from the previous night's frolic. Her boyfriend, Derek, had been a bit too energetic with her, so now she was going to be tender all day. Smoothing the front of the tiny underpants over the plump swell of her pussy, she turned in the mirror to inspect the rear view. Her bottom was her best feature. Round and high, it sat proudly between a narrow waist and firm thighs. The seat of her knickers had a seam in the center that allowed each cheek to be cupped fetchingly in a filmy transparent mesh.
She reached back and gave one cheek a gentle squeeze, remembering Derek's playfulness when he had taken her from behind the night before. Just thinking about that sexy interlude made her feel a little randy in spite of the soreness.
Picking out a demure pleated skirt in grey wool, a black cashmere turtleneck, and a cute, pinstriped blazer with a flared back, she studied herself in the mirror. It was as professional an ensemble as she owned - and still very sexy. She finished off her outfit with opaque, black stockings and her favorite suede Charlotte Olympia pumps, with those heels - those very high heels. She felt entirely delicious whenever she wore those heels.
Over recent weeks, the weather had turned unexpectedly cool. Once outside her apartment block, Denise was glad for her blazer and stockings. October was usually her favorite month, but the weather in the north of England had been unsettled and gloomy since summer's end. Denise missed the sunny autumns of her childhood in Missouri.
As she walked up the stone steps of the museum, Denise felt a flutter of nerves in her stomach. There was no doubt that NM would ask for her today. What recourse did Denise have but to blame her inexperience and beg for leniency?
NM was a sour old thing. Slouching into her fifth decade like some hoary beast, she sported the beginnings of wrinkles around her eyes and mouth, and had started to put on pounds. Denise was certain that NM clung to her regimen of endless rules and protocols in an effort to counterbalance the chaos that age was wrecking on her body. How the old thing must envy her. Every time Denise entered the suite of administration offices, she could feel all eyes following her progress. Most of the male staff wanted a go at her - she was sure of it. She could see it in their eyes when she stopped to chat, or when she bent over to retrieve something from a file.
It gave her pleasure to think of their hard little willies tenting their trouser fronts when they thought about her. Let them look - a look is all they would ever get.
When she entered the curatorial suite, Denise saw Dr. Susan Chambers striking a leggy pose, perched on the edge of Denise's desk. Dr. Chambers was Assistant Chief Curator, NM's chief cohort, and a scheming twit in Denise's estimation. She acted as if she had the only doctorate in the whole museum, when in fact the place was chock full of PhD's.
Denise was ABD at Dickinson College, and she knew a thing or two about art history and the value of credentials.
Dr. Chambers was a tall blond with a flat chest and runner's legs. She was a sharp-featured, humorless woman who wore her hair in a severe bun, and favored skirts too tight and heels too high for her forty odd years. Dr. Chambers rode, and shot, and took pains to let everyone know it. Some said she had Percy connections by marriage - a marriage dispensed with years past.
Dr. Chambers might ride, Denise surmised, but not on her own land, and she might shoot, but not her own fowl. No, she paid for the privilege, Denise was certain. Most likely by spreading her legs and opening her mouth for the ancient toffs whose lineage provided the birds and brush.
"Hello Denise, I've been waiting for you," Dr. Chambers said, fixing her with a lofty smirk before Denise had gotten to within ten yards of her desk.
Denise looked at the wall-mounted clock. She was five minutes early.
"I believe I'm quite on time, thank you," Denise chimed with a breezy confidence she did not feel.
"NM will have you in her office at the hour." The older woman's impeccably thin eyebrows remained at their unnatural elevation.
Denise walked past the tall curator and hung her blazer over the back of her chair. Unlike the good doctor, Denise had full, ripe breasts, and she intended for NM, and Dr. Chambers for that matter, to take note. She took a deep breath, aware of the tall woman's eyes on her chest.
"I suspect I know what NM wants to see me about."
Susan Chambers smiled, uncrossing her impossibly long, muscular legs, "Yes, I would think so. The department is talking about nothing else."
At just nine Denise knocked once on the chief curator's door.
"Yes, Denise," NM said through the closed door. Denise wondered if the old cow could actually see through oak.
"You wanted me, NM?" Denise cracked to door two inches. Two inches prescribed by NM in a memo to staff.
"Ma'am."
"Ma'am." Denise corrected herself, suddenly she a little felt chastened. Whether by the timbre of NM's voice, or by the ornate door of heavy, polished oak, or the encroaching awareness of the magnitude of her transgression, she wasn't sure.
Entering an office lined with files, half-filled storage racks, and dominated by a magnificent 18th century desk, cluttered with books, Denise noted the broken Roman marbles and three computer monitors blinking green numbers.
NM tapped vigorously at a keyboard. Every one of her pudgy fingers was heavily beringed. Her short-cropped hair was dyed a black that had never existed in nature - saggy eyes peered out through heavy, tortoise-framed glasses.
"Umm..." NM muttered. It was a statement of portent without need of elaboration.
Denise quailed. Her shoulders slumped, withdrawing her perfect breasts from NM's consideration. The old woman stopped tapping and gave Denise a cold stare through thick lenses. A thin, angled light bathed the surface glazing of the windows but failed to penetrate into the room. Denise could make out a faint crusting of cappuccino froth on NM's upper lip, and fought to stifle a nervous giggle.
"I'll see you at half after work's end, Denise." NM's voice was low and matter-of-fact. "Your numerical error nearly cost the museum a pretty penny."
Denise kept her gaze down at the carpet beneath her feet. Heart beating rapidly, she was surprised to note the unmistakable tingling of butterflies swelling up from the region below her stomach.
"Your tenure here is just under one year, am I right?" NM's gaze never wavered. "I am disinclined to offer you any sort of alternative with regard to consequences. I'm certain you will accept whatever penalty is offered to you, so we may dispense with any notion of negotiation, and put this clumsy incident behinds us. Am I correct in my thinking, Denise?"
This was not at all the reaction Denise had hoped from the chief. Her perfect breasts slunk between bowed shoulders. Her protuberant rump felt something less than pert. No matter how she tried, she couldn't force herself to brazen it out with NM. She was intimidated.
"Yes, Ma'am," Denise said under her breath.
"Good." NM smiled thinly at Denise. "I will administer a penalty commensurate with your transgression, after which we shall hear no more of this matter. Are we agreed?" NM cleared her throat loudly, and looked hard at Denise.
"Yes, Ma'am. Sorry, Ma'am."
"Go away. I'll see you in the conference room, at day's end." NM resumed her study of the big computer screen.
At 5:30pm Denise walked down the empty hallway toward the conference room. Nearly all the staff had departed from the administrative wing, and Denise was feeling more than a little alone. All day she had worked at her desk, not taking her lunch break, keeping one eye on the advancing hands of the clock.
One of the uniformed cleaners was working outside the door. Denise was sure he gave her a smirking look when she passed by. She wished her heels didn't click so loudly on the polished surface of the floor. She felt his eyes moving over her as she knocked once on the door and cracked it slightly.
"Come," said a voice that was decidedly not NM's.
The room was cold and dimly lit. Daylight faded in the row of tall windows overlooking the street three stories below. Along the length of the room ran a gleaming oval table, capable of seating twenty. At the far end was an aged, leather Chesterton some ten feet long. Perpendicular to the head of the conference table, beneath a pristine whiteboard, sat an old wooden desk. NM leaned against the edge, skirt rucked a bit too high, and looking unusually cheery.
With trepidation, Denise scanned the space - arrayed along one side of the long table sat three figures, backlit in the gloaming light. Denise's heart sank when she saw the gaunt-faced Dr. Susan Chambers, a smile playing on her lips. Alongside her sat Professor Chalmers Link, historian and critic at large. In his early fifties, Link was a large, florid man with a thick mane of red hair. He had chaired the museum's Board of Directors for more than a decade. It was widely rumored among the junior staff that NM and Professor Link had once been an item, romantically.
The wattage of their relationship dimmed substantially when NM eventually embraced her lesbian nature. It was also rumored that Link continued to harbor feelings for the dumpy old rag.
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