Three Years Ago
The hotel manager works down a form on a clipboard, ticking off boxes and checking annotations.
“I have to say Charlotte, that I’m very happy to offer you the job, but perhaps you’re a bit wasted on room cleaning? We have a position on the reception desk and I’d be more than happy to give you a trial on it, a well turned out girl like you.”
The red-haired girl with the intense green eyes looks down. “I’d rather not. The chambermaid’s job is fine. I’m…. I’m not very good with people. I wouldn’t be at my best on a front desk. I’d rather be in the background, where I don’t have to meet people.”
The manager nods sympathetically. “Shy eh? Well, if you’re happy that way…. You’ll be assigned the third floor. It will be your job to work your way through the guest rooms and public areas of that floor….”
*****
The woman is tall, elegant and immaculately turned out.
Her make-up, whilst apparently demure, hosts smoking eyes and well-defined lips, shaded to produce an apparent pout. Her fingernails are long, exquisitely manicured and painted in a shade to match her lips, a shade just shy of fuck-me red. Trim ankles and calves end in four-inch heels, and a slim line traces up the back of her stockings.
Her skirt, whilst ending at an inch above the knee, is slit to reveal a hint of shapely, toned thigh and her blouse, while merely suggestive of a cleavage, would unbutton rather easily. And the wide belt she wears emphasises her narrow waist and generous breasts.
She sits at the bar, legs elegantly crossed at the ankle, drinking what appear to be cocktails, but which ‘Charlotte’ has noticed are all ‘virgin’. By her side is a collection of bags, each bearing the logo of some expensive clothier or designer.
Charlotte’s work takes her all around this floor of the hotel; cleaning rooms and guest suites, vacuuming carpets in corridors, mopping and polishing floors, polishing brass and glass.
It is a constant cycle of work and allows her to regularly pass through or by the bar area.
A man in a suit takes a seat at the far end of the bar. Waving the barman down, he orders a drink, takes a newspaper from his briefcase and settles to read.
her time over cheap paperbacks left by guests and cheaper
need cleaning, don’t
in the lounge longer than might be expected. The
his paper notices that the
her. She smiles, accepts the
her stool to face him, recrossing her legs in
a while. Too quietly for Charlotte to pick out the words, but after only a few
of olives and peanuts, polishes the brass plate of the tall
the following
works her way through the public bathrooms on
trolley of cloths and wipes and cleaners into the men’s washroom, she
door from the corridor swings open, a
Charlotte makes
don’t worry, Honey. It doesn’t bother me.” And he proceeds to unzip
flaming, Charlotte
It bothers me….
the corridor, she sees the woman again, entering
Money?
takes
exits the washroom and saunters off, and Charlotte resumes
elderly man wearing a chunky
him. As she sashays across,
flushes and retreats to the safety of the