This story was inspired by reading in a problem page the answer to a concerned woman who was worried that her silicone implants might explode if she took a trip in an airliner. The agony aunt or uncle reassured her this wouldn't happen, but added that "inflatable brassieres or 'falsies' can and do explode in the reduced atmospheric pressure of an airliner. So travellers who rely on pneumatic devices to boost their bustlines should discreetly let out a little air in the Departure Lounge." This suggested the scene at the end of the story, and a little knowledge of the "gas laws" suggested the problems Annette has in the middle; however, when I tried to write the story out, it didn't really come to life until "Lucques" sent me the picture of "My personal assistant" which is within the story in the version of it posted on the Tight Skirts Page. (I can't put illustrations in the Yahoo! version, I'm afraid.) She immediately suggested a character, and I found a name for her in a word puzzle I'd been looking at: she gave the story the tension it required to go somewhere, and I finished it quite quickly.
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"Her name’s Annette McGhie. She’s been in New York talking about some pension fund in Wall Street, and now she’s coming down here to discuss the acquisition of our company."
"You’re sure there ain’t nothing we can do about that, Randy?"
"Sure. It’s done now, and we can’t change it. We’ll come out of it well enough far as money goes, but if we get on the right side of her we may manage to hang onto some power as well. We need to know her, understand how she thinks…but I don’t know anyone who’s met her. I’ve done some research…" he broke off and leant forward to press the intercom on his desk. "Muranne? Would you bring in that file on Annette McGhie, please? As I was saying, I’ve done some research, and I want you all to think carefully about this. If we…" the door opened, and the room was filled with the sharp tapping of very high heels on a hard floor, making their way over to the speaker. "Thank you, Muranne," and the heels tapped out again.
"She’s a honey, isn’t she?" said the man who had not yet spoken.
"She sure is, Jeff. You know, she’s a good PA, but there’s more to it than that. I thank God every day that He sent me a PA with a beautiful butt and a tight skirt to keep it in."
"We were talking about this woman from England," the other man broke in.
"Thank you, Eugene, I was just coming to that. Well, these are the facts as Muranne’s been able to get them for me. There’s a copy for each of you, and you’d be wise to read it through before she comes. As far as I can see, the main things we have to understand are that she’s a great one for detail: always learns everything by heart, has the facts at her fingertips. You have to get up very early to outwit her, so don’t underestimate her. Also, she went to one of their best schools, and then to Cambridge—that’s kind of like going to Harvard or Yale if you’re English. I’ve never met her, but I’ve spoken to her on the phone, and she’s got one of these incredible accents, like some sort of duchess. She probably thinks she’s above us colonial types."
"Raised in a castle, you mean?"
"Something like that…probably wears expensive tweed. She’s never been married or had a serious relationship, and I guess she’s proud and thinks nobody’s good enough for her. Probably kind of aloof, you know? We might be able to use that. And the English upper classes have no sense of style, they’re famous for it. She must’ve spent her life dressing to run around in fields shooting birds. We’re famous for being gallant and charming here in the South, so let’s all do our best. I’ve made a start by ordering a limousine to pick her up from her hotel, make her feel like a film star. Flatter her a bit, tell her she’s pretty and beautifully dressed even if you don’t believe it, and she won’t know what’s hit her. I don’t suppose she’s ever thought of herself that way in her life."
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Annette closed the lid of the suitcase and locked it firmly. There was only one left open, and that had to stay open for the time being: she was still wearing her dressing-gown, and she had to put it away. Once she had finished dressing, though, the last case could be closed and sent down to the airport. She had no desire to hang around in this place longer than she had to, and she was worried that if she was away from London too long she would find someone had been promoted under her and stolen her position. The best way to avoid being stabbed in the back is not to turn your back in the first place: for her, that meant getting home again as soon as she could. When she left the hotel her baggage would be sent down to the airport, all but the briefcase she would be carrying with her. At the end of her day the oilmen would drop her straight at the airport, and she could get on her flight almost immediately, without wasting a minute.
With her usual methodical approach she had chosen her clothes for that day the night before and hung them neatly in the closet apart from everything else so that she wouldn’t pack them by mistake. She got out her suit and underwear and carefully laid everything out on the bed. She had left it off until she had finished packing because she didn’t want to get it creased moving about and bending over.
Taking off her dressing gown she did a few basic exercises for a while. At home she would have visited the health club before going into the office, to swim ten lengths and work out on the machines; but though the hotel had a pool she didn’t have time for anything so elaborate. Many travellers would have taken it as an excuse for a holiday, what with the tiring journey from New York the night before and an even more tiring journey back to London this evening, but Annette didn’t want to skip a single day for fear of falling into bad habits and ruining her figure. When she had finished she went to take a shower.
On her return she dried her hair, which didn’t take long as it was shorn off within a centimetre of her scalp, and then hung up the hotel dressing gown again. Looking in the mirror she checked that nothing had gone amiss during the night. Her face was fine-boned and delicately pretty, which was a nuisance to her as she would have rather been statuesque and intimidating: cutting her hair short and wearing sharply-cut clothes with a tendency towards leather was the best she could do to oppose the impression it gave. She was very small, but so beautifully proportioned that if an artist had painted her, nude as she now was, nobody would have guessed it. Her neck was long and elegant, her arms and legs slender, her hips slim, her stomach and chest flat. Those who liked her called her figure "boyish"; those who didn’t called it "skinny". She didn’t much care what other people thought if they disapproved of her, because that meant they were wrong; and her women-friends envied her, as it wouldn’t have been possible to be thinner or wear a smaller dress size without actually being dead.
Satisfied that no stray fat had been laid down beneath her skin while she wasn’t looking, she went to dress. Her informants had told her that here in the South women were expected to be womanly, not masculine. Nothing would induce her to wear anything pink or flouncy, but she wasn’t ashamed of being female and wanted to make sure the Americans knew she could express that openly. Before leaving London she had invested in ("invested" was the word she used to her accountant in the hope her clothes could be offset against tax) a suit calculated to raise their interest without making herself look too feminine or vulnerable, and that had to influence her choice of underwear. The suit had been designed to emphasise curves of a kind Annette simply did not have, and she had to make the best of it. She started out with a suspender-belt and black stockings; no panties, for the skirt of the suit was so tight that the less she wore under it the better. She wasn’t worried about anyone seeing anything they shouldn’t, as the skirt would keep her thighs well clamped together and prevent any accidental views. Next she slipped into black stiletto-heeled court shoes. High heels were an important part of the modern businesswoman’s wardrobe, but they were vital to Annette: at under five feet tall she was always in danger of having people look down at her, especially men, and she needed the highest heels she could balance in just to put herself on an equal footing. Because her feet, like her hands, were very small even for her size this unfortunately meant that a mere four-inch heel was as hard for her to wear as a five-inch heel would have been for a woman of average build, and despite daily practise she knew that six-inch heels would forever be beyond her—unless she had them made with platforms, which she thought unfeminine and ugly. For special occasions she could make shift to walk in five-inch heels, but it was too exhausting for daily work. Four inches, though, she could manage indefinitely: she lived in them, and even with three big Texans to face they gave her the confidence she needed to fight her corner.
She walked up and down a little to settle the shoes on her feet, in her stockings, suspenders and stilettos looking more like an illustration from a book by Eric Kroll than someone who ate share issues for breakfast. Then she sat down on the bed again and picked up a square of black leather with slightly rounded corners and gently shook it out. The skirt, for that was what it was, had a zip up the back. Annette was always careful to fasten zips and buttons before putting clothes away, to keep them in shape: now she unzipped it and carefully put first one stilettoed foot and then the other through the waistband. Standing up and balancing with scarcely a wobble from her ankles, she started to pull the skirt up.
It wasn’t easy. It was, in fact, the tightest skirt she’d ever worn; and that was saying something. She liked leather anyway, but had chosen it for this outfit in particular because it was strong. In a wool or linen skirt this tight she would not have been able to sit down without bursting a seam; the leather, though, would stand up to anything, and it was the finest quality material with a little stretch in it to make things easier. At its very widest circumference the skirt wasn’t much more than thirty inches round, and had Annette had any hips at all it would have been quite impossible for her to get into it; but she had done it before and she knew she could do it again, as long as she remembered the three P’s—patience, persistence, and pulling bloody hard. Though her backside was so slim as to be hardly there at all the skirt caught on it, and she had to stand with her back to the mirror poking her fingers down inside the waistband to cram it inside. The skirt also protested at being expected to fit over the stockings and suspenders, and Annette was glad she had thought to skip the rest of her underwear: it would have been out of the question to fasten the skirt with anything making it still more difficult. Finally she managed to force it into position, and still with her back to the mirror went on to the final stages. Taking a deep breath, she reached behind her and lunged at the two sides of the waistband. She managed to bring them together first time, reducing her waist from a trim twenty-two inches to a striking nineteen. Then she clipped a keyring to the slider of the zip and began tugging it upwards. It was extremely hard going, and she knew from experience that nothing whatever would persuade it to cover the last inch: with three people helping her in the shop they had once managed to get the zip all the way up by having one forcing the zip together from each side while the third pulled it up, but on her own it was impossible. Still, the skirts of her jacket would cover it. She locked the slider carefully, then let out the breath she had been holding and turned round to look. It was good. The too-tight waistband made her figure look rounder, but without her having to have an ounce of fat on her body: it was the contrast between waist and hips that had the effect, not any change in her. From the waist down, then, she was perfect.
There was a problem, though, higher up. The designer who had created the suit had intended it to be worn by someone curvy from top to bottom. Annette had had it altered to fit her, but even so the jacket was designed to accommodate a bust, which was something she had never had. She had thought long and hard about this, and finally come to a conclusion which was the best compromise she could think up. She slipped into a black lace bra which looked quite ordinary at first glance. It was a little more covered-up than a woman of her age and inclinations might have been expected to wear; but after all, having nothing much to show off there was no point in exhibiting a cleavage that wasn’t there. Then from among the many items of make-up lying around on the table in the window she selected a long rubber tube ending in a needle, which a casual observer might have imagined had something to do with intravenous drug use. Working delicately, she probed the left cup of the bra at the outside with her fingertips until she located what she was looking for; then she carefully slipped in the needle. Holding it in with one hand, she brought the other end of the tube up to her mouth, and blew. The effect was dramatic: in a few seconds she went up from an AA cup to what looked more like a C, though only on the left hand side. Satisfied, she slid the needle out again and located the valve on the other side before repeating the process. This time she took it more slowly: the valve made it easier to get air in than to let it out, reasonably enough, and so she had to be careful not to put too much air in and end up asymmetrical. When she was satisfied she removed the inflator and packed it neatly in her suitcase, which she was then able to lock.
Nearly done. Back home she would have had to leave a coat out as well, because you never knew with the weather, but here she was confident it wouldn’t rain—and she wouldn’t be far from shelter if it did. She only had to put on her jacket, and she would be ready to face the world. She picked it up and carefully slid both her arms into the sleeves first before pulling it up: it was cut to fit very tightly, even if not quite so tight as the skirt, and if she had slid one arm right in and then tried to put in the other she wouldn’t have been able to do it. When the jacket’s padded shoulders were resting proudly on her slight ones, she looked in the mirror again and tugged it gently here and there until it was sitting properly. Once it was fastened it would be fixed for the rest of the day, so it was as well to be absolutely sure that it was perfect. Finally convinced it was beyond reproach she reached inside the front and took out a series of straps. There were two reasons for these. The most obvious reason for some auxiliary fastening inside the jacket was to make sure it fitted as tightly as possible round the waist while still looking neat. Simply cutting the jacket to be as tight as her skirt was couldn’t have worked, as the buttons would have looked embarrassingly strained: the best alternative was to put something else inside the waist which could be pulled tight without involving the buttons, and several of her most fitted jackets had cords sewn into the lining for just this reason. In this case, though, the designer had had something else in mind. The suit was designed to be worn ultra-tight, inches smaller than the woman who had squeezed herself into it, and so it was to be expected that she would bulge out of the waistband of the incredibly tight skirt. Even Annette, slimmest of the slim, was doing that; and under a skin-tight jacket the bulge wouldn’t look right either. So round the waist of the jacket inside a strong stiffened band had been fitted between the leather and the lining, and at the front it fastened with three broad leather straps. Annette slid the straps through their buckles, then one by one pulled them as tight as she could. The jacket crammed her body inwards, compressing her above the waist as effectively as the skirt compressed her below, until the unpleasant bulge above the skirt’s waistband was completely flattened out. Pleased with the effect, she fastened the two buttons over the straps, and then the third that covered her inflated bust. Then she looked at her reflection again. It was pleasant: she was as slim and lithe as ever, but compared to her usual figure she had lost three inches round the waist and gained six round the bust. She was a little breathless, but no more so than she had been at parties where she wore very tight dresses, and cocooned in more than skin-tight black leather she was an arresting figure, female and sexy yet formidable as well. They would know looking at her that she was not afraid to be a woman, but not afraid of men either. That was the effect she wanted. Delighted to have got it, she patted the straining leather of her skirt and then went back to reading through for the twentieth time all the information she had prepared for today.
Presently the telephone rang. The hotel catered to business people, and there was a proper desk for her to work at, so she was able to reach it without getting up and walking—something which might have taken some time, in those shoes and that skirt. "Yes?"
"Miz McGhie? Your car’s here."
"Thank you. Now, you know that you’re to take my luggage out when I’ve left and send it down to the airport?"
"Yes, ma’am."
"And it’s to go on flight BA773?"
"Yes, ma’am. You’ve told us all that before." There was a faint noise afterwards that might have been someone muttering "several times", but Annette ignored it.
"Good. I shall be down shortly. Please tell them to wait."
Five minutes later Annette McGhie, small but determined, exquisitely poised and sexy, had paid her bill and was on her way out into the car park. Fortunately the people who designed the hotel had had the Texas climate in mind: there was an underground entrance, and the car was waiting for her there. When she saw it, her composure broke, if only for a moment. She had expected a top-flight company car, a Mercedes or Jaguar or whatever the American equivalent was; they had sent a white limousine which looked about a hundred yards long, the sort of thing the better-off Elvis impersonators use, and to a woman brought up in the British tradition that Old Money doesn’t show itself off it looked inexcusably vulgar. She stopped short, then tapped back into the hotel lobby to ask again. No, there was no mistake. Yes, they were quite sure. The driver had given her name. Yes, he had been waiting there some time and she had better go on.
Well, there was no help for it then. Taking a tighter grip on her briefcase, and setting her jaw which would have been more impressive if it had been squarer, she tip-tapped out into the car park again and knocked peremptorily on the window of the limousine. It came down with only the faintest whine of an electric motor.
A plump driver in a peaked cap looked up at her. "Yes, ma’am?"
"Are you waiting for me?"
"What’s your name, please, ma’am?"
"Annette McGhie, representing Slater Chapman Investments in the takeover of Gran Chapo Oil."
"That’s who I’m waiting for, ma’am." He did something to the dashboard and the rear door popped open. "Won’t you get in?"
She did.
Annette wasn’t keen on ostentation, but once on her way she found that the limousine was a hardship she could enjoy. It was rather pleasant to look out of the darkened windows at the faces of other people in the traffic-jams, knowing that none of them could see her: an allegory of Big Business, in fact, with those in power keeping their own affairs private but watching all the mere people below them. The seats were covered in calfskin which creaked agreeably against her suit when she shifted position, and there was a well-stocked bar with its own refrigerator—which, after some thought, she left alone. She needed her wits about her. She asked the driver to give her a few minutes warning of when they would be coming to the offices of Gran Chapo, and then wound the partition between them up. She felt confident: her company was on top, these people would have to defer to her, she would come back with prestige heaped upon her for handling this on her own so well, and soon enough she would be moving up the ladder yet again. The only slight problem was that even in the air-conditioned car it was dreadfully hot: she was feeling confined inside the tight suit, and looking forward to getting out when she arrived.
The driver had radioed ahead when he was a few minutes away, and so Randy, Eugene and Jefferson knew when to come down from their office. They prided themselves on being true gentlemen, and from her accent Randy had come to imagine that Annette would be only a smidgen less upper-class than the queen of England herself, so he wanted to start out by making a good impression. They stood in the lobby until through the glass doors they saw the limousine coming up the access road; then they went outside, and by the time the car stopped they were waiting in just the right place to welcome whoever got out of it.
The driver got out, looked at the three oil-men, and touched the brim of his cap in a brief salute. "Good morning, Mr Harrigan, Mr Tyler, Mr Niedermeyer," he said politely, naming them in order of importance. Having waited for their acknowledgement and implicit permission to get on, he went round to the back door of the limousine.
The door opened, and the three waiting businessmen peered inside. For a moment the glare of the sun on the white bodywork blinded them, and they only had a vague impression of something moving; then the occupant demurely swung round in her seat so that she could put her feet on the ground without separating her legs, and they saw her. "Hello," she said. "Mr Harrigan?"
"That’s me, Miz McGhie. May I help you out?"
"Thank you, I can manage." She did, and a moment later was standing among them. They all towered over her, but she didn’t look in the least cowed.
The tweedy, hatchet-faced aristocrat they had had in their minds since Randy had described her to the others evaporated. The woman Slater Chapman had sent them was not much over thirty, very small and slender, and strikingly pretty. Her face was so flawless it hardly seemed real, like a porcelain doll’s; her hair was pale gold and cut very short, her eyes light blue. She wore a soft black leather suit that gripped her body in a tailored vice, showing off a well-formed bust, a minute waist, and slim hips. Short though she was, she seemed to have plenty of leg, and she was wearing shoes as implausibly sexy as Muranne’s favourite style.
Randy realised his mouth was open and shut it quickly. This was not a good start: never show yourself at a disadvantage. "Er, that’s good. I hope you’ve had a pleasant journey?"
"As well as could be expected, thank you. Now, which of you is Mr Tyler and which is Mr Niedermeyer?
"Oh…yes, of course. This is Eugene Tyler, and this here is Jefferson Niedermeyer." The other two men said hello politely and tipped their hats. "Now, shall we go inside? I don’t suppose you get heat like this back home."
"No, we certainly don’t. Please, lead the way." Randy did, and the Englishwoman accompanied him, her polished shoes twinkling in the sunlight, her hips moving expressively in the impossibly tight skirt. Eugene and Jeff, who would normally have made an effort to keep up and join in the top-rank conversation, found themselves falling back so that they could admire the view from behind. The effect was especially pleasing as she skipped up the couple of steps before the revolving door that let them into the building.
It had taken only a couple of minutes to conclude the introductions and get inside, but Annette was very relieved once she had followed Randy into the lobby to find that it was cool there. She had arrived after sunset, and got into the limousine in the underground car park: nothing had really prepared her for the heat that struck her like a blow when she stepped out of it outside the oil company building. She didn’t like being too hot: it made her sweat and that was humiliating, because it spoilt the crystalline perfection of her appearance. Inside an office building, surrounded by wealthy, money-minded men and protected by double-glazing and air-conditioning, she was back in her natural habitat and felt far more comfortable and confident.
The three substantial men dressed in the expensive boardroom descendants of cowboy outfits who had met her outside escorted her across the lobby to the lift—pardon, elevator: it was a good idea to remember the local words and make them realise she was at home here and no stranger despite being foreign. Nobody said anything at first, but as soon as the doors had slid shut the man who had been introduced as Eugene said "I don’t want to pry, Miz McGhie, but do you have much experience of oil?"
"I’ve administered a great many portfolios in my time," Annette said, "and most of them had oil investments in them somewhere or other. We do have our own oil wells back in Britain, you know. How far up are we going?"
"Right to the top," Jefferson Niedermeyer said, "fifty-seven floors. The view from Randy’s office is something you won’t forget. Miz McGhie, what Eugene means is that we all have oil mixed with the blood in our veins: our families have lived with it for generations, we know the business from the inside out. We don’t like the idea of handing it over to a stran—someone who doesn’t feel for it the way we do."
Annette considered this. The takeover was a fait accompli, but she was here to make sure that everything went smoothly: if the Texans took a dislike to their new masters through her they could act to slow things down, and that would cost money. Fortunately she had a good answer; and it wasn’t even a lie, or not entirely. "I don’t know the oil business personally, but of course there’s more to it than money. That’s exactly why I’m here—my company felt it was better if we had someone to experience it for real." That seemed to please them: there was some thoughtful nodding. Satisfied, Annette stood back in the corner of the elevator until the indicator clicked over to 57 and stopped. When the doors opened Randy led her out: the other two men waited until she had left, and then followed attentively behind. It was, she felt, a charming piece of old-world courtesy.
"Of course," Randy said as they made their way along a marble-floored corridor at the rate Annette’s skirt and heels permitted, "some people said it wasn’t a good idea because they didn’t think it was natural to be taken over from Britain. An American company, that’s one thing, and if it was Japanese, you expect it, but Europe’s supposed to be declining. They thought that a European company wouldn’t be able to hack it in the US market." The English representative suddenly looked up at him, and the expression on her previously enchanting face was not pretty at all. "Now, you know, I see that’s nonsense, but some—"
"Nonsense of the worst kind," Annette said curtly, "pernicious nonsense. If your friends, whoever they are, had stopped to think they’d have realised that if we were so senile we wouldn’t be in the position of taking you over. I can assure you, my people are quite capable of their own affairs, and yours too." They had reached a pair of enormous doors covered in polished wood with handles that to her at this moment looked like brazen croissants. "Is this the office?"
"This is the boardroom, Miz McGhie. We thought that was most appropriate for the preliminary discussions, even if the full board isn’t present." He opened the door and said "After you." Annette smiled fetchingly and went in. Randy followed, and discovered why it was that the other two had been so keen on falling behind ever since they first met her.
In the boardroom Annette made her way briskly to a large leather-padded swivel chair at the head of the table, in front of the huge windows that looked out over the city. It wasn’t really appropriate, but the others knew there was nothing they could do about it: it was an assertion of position, a bit of office politics, and they would just have to grin and bear it. She sat down with a great air of finality and a rich creaking of leather on leather, and crossed her legs. The tight skirt rode up, exposing more of them, and showing that the lines promised as it strained across her thighs with each step were no illusion. The three men simultaneously realised the effect this was having on them: they sat down and crossed their legs too.
"Now, gentlemen," she began, looking through the papers she had brought, "it would take too long to make a comprehensive survey of all your assets, so I’m just here to do a lightning tour and get a feel of what it’s like on the ground where you make your real money. I believe there are a dozen or so major sites…?"
"That’s right, ma’am. I generally use a helicopter to cover the ground between them when I’ve a lot to do, like this. I thought you might want to do something like that, so I’ve had it brought out on top of the building and it’s waiting for your command."
"Thank you. Have you given any thought to what you’re going to show me today?"
"I had Muranne make out an itinerary. If you wait just a moment I’ll ask her to bring it in." He leant forward and pressed the intercom switch in front of him. "Muranne, honey? Would you bring in the schedule we made up?"
"I will," said a female voice from the intercom, and Randy sat back looking satisfied. Everyone in the room fell silent and looked attentively towards the other door to the one through which they had come in. Presently it opened to admit Muranne.
Sometimes you know you’re going to be friends from the moment you set eyes on someone. As soon as Annette saw Muranne, she took an instant dislike to her.
"Miz McGhie, this is my personal assistant," Randy said. Muranne wiggled her way over to Annette and said "Hi!", putting her hand out. "Charmed, I’m sure," Annette said rather sarcastically, and gave the hand a shake so loose that it felt like soggy cardboard. Muranne looked down, slightly dismayed, then gave a broad smile and wiggled back to Randy to hand him the documents she had brought.
Muranne was in her early twenties and pretty, but pretty in a quite different way from Annette. She was fairly tall and looked very robust, the sort of girl who would laugh anything off. Her hair was a reddish gold, rather long, and worn in bunches from the side of her head, a style which in those pre-Spice Girl days was still associated only with small children and made her look as if she was trying to convince people she was as innocent as a baby. The rest of her appearance didn’t bear this out. Her face had been heavily if carefully made up, with pale blue-green eyeshadow that complemented her eyes and light pink lipstick that matched the cheap plastic disks in her ears. Annette, who believed that except at the opera and the Lord Mayor’s Banquet jewellery should be expensive and unobtrusive, thought they were in the worst possible taste; and the obviously costly and well-made silver anklet she was wearing must have been a present, since she clearly didn’t have the wit to choose such a thing nor the money to buy it. It wasn’t hard to guess it was a gift from her boss. She had squeezed herself into a short-sleeved blouse in orange and white checks which was much too tight over her prodigious bosom, and a shiny black miniskirt of some artificial satin which strained to bursting-point over her ripe hips and bottom and was so narrow at the hem that despite being almost indecently short it limited her to small steps. The exaggerated walk was further emphasised by perilous court shoes whose heels must have been at least six inches. She was obviously a woman who wanted to be thought of first and foremost as pretty and sexy, and didn’t care if it lost her respect for her intellect.
"Here you are, Ran—er, Mr Harrigan," she said, doling out some papers to Randy and leaning forward unnecessarily far: the result was that Randy and Jeff got a splendid view down the neck of her blouse, while Eugene, who was nearest her, got the satin straining desperately over her bottom instead. Annette, at the other end of the table, was more interested in the reactions of the three men, which she observed with distaste and contempt. She would never have admitted to envying Muranne’s voluptuous curves; rather she thought that it was unprofessional, that they were here to do business and this sort of carry-on was just a distraction and a waste of expensive time. Then Muranne came back, wiggling her way to Annette again, to pass on some papers to her too: "This here is your copy of the schedule, Miz McGhie," she said, in a thick accent and pronouncing schedule as if it were spelt skedule. Most Americans did that, including the highly educated lady of the New York pension fund with whom Annette had been talking the day before; but somehow coming from Muranne it was immediately annoying. When the personal assistant reached her she noticed another fault: an eye-watering wash of strong and not very good perfume with a heavy musk base. Had this girl no shame? It was a great relief when Muranne finished and wiggled her way back to the office door, vanishing through it.
The three men looked after her wistfully. Randy said with a happy sigh, "Ah, there’s nothing like a female backside in a really tight skirt to take away the blues!" Then he looked round to find Annette glaring at him with undisguised hostility. "Begging your pardon of course, ma’am." He reflected on her own suit—her skirt was nearly as tight as Muranne’s, and the black leather was if anything even more daringly sexy—but though he was tempted to compliment her he didn’t think she’d take it well. He had worked with female executives before, but the locals tended to be more relaxed: this exotic but stiff upper-class Englishwoman was outside his experience.
For a few minutes they studied the schedule. Annette queried a few points, and though nothing was changed she did get explanations of why certain things had to be done in a certain order, and why some items had been missed out while others had been included. Once she was satisfied that no-one was attempting to deceive or conceal, Randy said "Well, then, shall we go?", and the party rose to its feet. As they were passing the door to the office he opened it and put his head round. "Muranne, honey? We’re ready to go up to the helipad now. Have you got everything I’ll need?"
"Sure have, Mr Harrigan!" she answered enthusiastically. There was the unmistakable sound of a briefcase being locked shut, and then the quick tapping of a woman walking in very high heels and a very tight skirt. By the time she joined them, Annette was already out in the corridor: she didn’t see why she should wait for a mere personal assistant, especially one so aggravating.
She didn’t keep her lead long, of course, because once out in the corridor she was faced with the basic choice of going left or right and no idea which to do. Randy, ever the gentleman, came out and said "May I show you the way?", and she was happy to accept. He took their group back to the lift, and they rode up another floor into the roof space. The journey was short, and Annette was glad of it: in that confined space Muranne’s perfume was stifling. When the door opened Annette hurried out, to find herself in a dingy passage: there were a few other doors, mostly marked with warning symbols or "KEEP OUT", and a steep flight of stairs leading up. At the top an open door framed a fragment of rich blue sky. She hesitated at the bottom. Randy said "Ladies first," and gestured up the stairs, so she had no choice but to climb them, which in her tight skirt and high heels wasn’t easy; but she was used to it, and managed well. From the stink she could tell that Muranne was right behind her, and the three men followed behind that, admiring what they considered one of the prettiest sights in the world, the rear view of a woman in a tight skirt and high heels going upstairs. If only, Randy thought to himself, if only Annette’s bust were a little bigger, she’d beat all in that outfit…
Again it was a relief to emerge in the fresh air: there was a stiff breeze which at first blew from Muranne straight onto Annette, but it wasn’t hard to get out of the way. The roof of the office building was flat, and a helipad had been built on top of it with a very short flight of steps up. Sitting neatly in the middle of it was a Bell Jet Ranger with the company’s logo painted on the side. Annette mused on this, considering whether it would have to be painted out after the take-over; then she realised there was nobody in the cockpit. "Mr Harrigan? Where’s our pilot?"
"Right here," said Randy, taking up his place next to Muranne. For one horrible moment Annette thought that she was going to fly the helicopter; then she realised he meant himself. "Come this way. You can ride next to me, and that way I can give you the best view and explain anything you want to know about the moment you see it. Muranne, you ride in back, between the other two." Muranne giggled coyly and looked at the other two men, both of whom blushed and grinned as if looking forward to it. "Keep your mind on your job, though. I may need advice. Now:" he moved forward and opened the door of the helicopter, "may I help you up?"
Annette needed help, though she tried to make herself look as capable as possible. She had to be half-lifted into the helicopter, but once there she was all right: the skirt was not too tight to sit down in, and being made of leather was too strong to tear if she made an incautious movement. She had known that some kind of adventurous transport was inevitable on this trip, and that was one of the reasons she had chosen leather.
Muranne was another matter entirely. She found getting up into the helicopter just as hard as Annette had, but she made a song and dance about it. Annette had stood in front of the open door until Randy said "May I help you up?", and then accepted; Muranne opened the back door, tried to raise one leg which just resulted in a sound of fabric tearing, then said "Oops! I can’t get in by myself…would one of you guys like to help me?" And there was an unseemly scramble at once between Eugene and Jeff to be the one who had the honour of giving her a boost. Annette did her best to ignore the performance behind her, but from the giggling and little shrieks of surprise she could tell that Muranne was making a big deal of it. Finally she was in and sat down with a good deal of wriggling on the seat. Leaning out of the helicopter to show off the view down the neck of her blouse to best advantage, she called "Mr Tyler? Would you go round and sit on the other side of me? Then Mr Niedermeyer can sit on this side. You’re the important ones, so you need to look out."
"I’m happy to give up my window seat to a lady, Muranne," Eugene replied.
Muranne laughed. "Yes, but I haven’t often been in a helicopter: I’ll feel much safer with a big strong man either side of me." Eugene snorted with amusement and went round to the other side of the helicopter. When everyone was safely strapped in Randy started the engines, and in a couple of minutes they were sweeping over the city on the way to the first of the industrial sites.
It was a long, hot day. They visited sixteen oil wells or groups of them, two storage depots and a refinery, and in each place Annette tapped to and fro on her high heels inspecting this and that, asking pertinent questions, and trying as much as possible to keep in the shade. She could see why the three men were wearing cowboy hats with broad brims, and wished she had something similar; but a big straw hat, the most suitable female equivalent, wouldn’t have looked right with a professional outfit, and she didn’t want to dress up like a cowgirl and be mistaken for a flat-chested Dolly Parton.
One thing was clear enough; going for leather hadn’t been a good idea. It had done her proud many times back home, but in this climate it really wasn’t suitable. She looked at Muranne with her thin cotton blouse and microskirt, and envied her: there was plenty of draught on her legs and arms, at least. The men were sweating frankly despite their hats, and that was something Annette was determined not to do as it would spoil her image of glacial perfection. And whatever the practical advantages, dressing like Muranne would have lost her the respect she had tried so hard to gain. At one point, after half an hour or so in the relative cool of the refinery control room, they stepped out into the heat of midday and all five staggered. Annette quickly stood up straight and pretended not to have been affected; the men mopped their brows; but Muranne said "Whew!" and casually unbuttoned her blouse to indecent levels, showing off an ample bosom crowded into a black lace bra. The three men stared frankly, and Muranne, obviously enjoying the attention, did a little stretch for them, putting her head and shoulders back, taking a deep breath, and wiggling her chest. It was more than Annette could stand: "Let’s go!" she said curtly, and tapped her way off to the helicopter again, the others in tow.
The hot weather and the complex task of keeping track of all the niceties of an unfamiliar industry didn’t improve Annette’s temper: as the day went on she also started to feel increasingly confined inside the tight leather suit, and her feet began to ache. She didn’t want to let her temper affect the way she did her job, and directing it at her work, the three oil executives or herself would have done that; so instead she chose to take it out on Muranne. The PA was an easy target: she was too young, too pretty, too sexy, too busty, too blonde—which Annette was too, but not in a way which made you label her as a blonde bimbo. Muranne, she felt, was a hindrance rather than a help. She wasted too much time on dressing up and making herself look pretty, and working as she did with men who hadn’t yet realised that it was a woman’s professional performance that mattered rather than her bra size she interfered with the ability of others to get on with their jobs by showing off and distracting them. Perhaps if Randy hadn’t had her at his side distracting him, his company wouldn’t now be suffering a hostile takeover…she felt she had to give him some advice. At their last stop, a complex of oil derricks in a barren landscape dotted with patches of dry scrub, Randy broke off staring into Muranne’s cleavage long enough to offer to take Annette up onto a gantry so she could have an overview of the site. She accepted, on condition that they went up together and alone; and this was accepted by the others in the belief she wanted to talk business.
At first she did, and some important things were cleared up. Having made sure he would co-operate, she decided to press home her advantage:
"Where did you get your PA from, Randy? Do you use an agency? Which one?"
"Not really, Miz McGhie. I chose Muranne myself: she more or less came in and asked for the job. I made sure she was up to it, and I’ve never regretted hiring her. She’s a great little lady, don’t you think?"
"No," Annette said bluntly. "I think she’s a silly young idiot. She wastes your time and everyone else’s by prancing about like that, pretending she’s modelling for some soft-porn magazine. You’d be better off with someone who concentrates on doing her job efficiently and effectively rather than on playing to the gallery."
Randy put his hands in his pockets and sighed heavily, staring out across the tangle of derricks and "nodding donkeys" while the wind tugged at what remained of his hair. "She’s not dumb," he said. "She wouldn’t be any use if she was: it’s just she likes to dress up and play up to please me. She’s very smart when you get to know her."
Annette snorted contemptuously. "She’s a silly young idiot, Mr Harrigan, and she should have better things to do with her time than carry on like that. Most decent secretaries want to prove their worth and get promoted to management. How does she think anyone’s going to take her seriously when she’s dressed like that?"
Randy looked her up and down. He saw a small and thin but extremely pretty woman a little over thirty, wearing dangerously high heels and a more than skin-tight black leather suit with a rather short skirt, the top button of the jacket straining over a generous bustline. The lapels of the jacket showed nothing but creamy skin: evidently it was too tight to wear anything under it. He looked again, fascinated: earlier on he had thought her only fault was being too flat-chested, but now he realised she was fit to compete with Muranne. Why hadn’t he noticed that before? Annette gave a sniff which for a moment threatened to pop the top button on her jacket, and swept away, leaving him to follow in her wake and wonder if he’d lost his eye for a round lady.
The day was nearly over: it was still mid-afternoon, but Annette had a plane to catch, and there was no holding her back. Randy flew them all back to the office building, as had been arranged in advance, and gentleman that he was escorted her down to the limousine. As they shook hands he looked once more at the astonishing bust straining the confines of her jacket and said "Miz McGhie, are you sure you couldn’t cancel your flight and catch a later one? I’d be honored to take you out to dinner."
"Another time, maybe," Annette said distractedly. "I need to get back quickly, I have work at home as well as here. I don’t want to come in and find my job’s been given to someone else. Thank you for all your efforts, Mr Harrigan. Goodbye." And she turned, and the last he saw of her was the setting sun glinting on her skirt as she bent to get into the limousine, the shine of the leather displaying every curve, and for a moment the metal teeth of the straining zip flashing the sunlight straight back at him; then she vanished into the shadow of the limousine, and was gone.
Annette kept her poise up as long as the executives were looking at her; but as soon as the limousine door was closed and she was invisible behind mirrored glass she sat back on the leather seat with a loud creak and a sigh of relief. It was still hot in here, but at least she was out of the sun, and she could sit down. She was sorely tempted to kick off her shoes, but she was afraid that if she did she wouldn’t be able to get them back on again, and she had more sense than to risk that.
There was another problem, though. She fumbled at her jacket, the leather taut now and packed with convex curves, and hunted through the unaccustomed cleavage for the top button of her jacket. It was rather difficult to find, and while she was searching for it she glanced up and saw the driver’s eyes on her in the rear view mirror. She glared at him, but the only response was a little crinkling of the skin around the eyes which suggested a smile. Stonily ignoring him instead, she went on working with both hands until she had hold of the button. It was very difficult to get it undone, because the leather was stiffer than the usual fabric of a suit and the tension across it was so great; but finally she managed to get it free, and with another faint creak the two sides of the jacket flew open, revealing her bra. She gave another icy look at the driver’s reflection and hit the control which brought up the smoked-glass partition.
It was obvious what had happened, of course. She had forgotten which of the gas pressure laws she learned in school stated it, but she knew that given a closed volume of gas a rise in temperature produces a corresponding rise in pressure. She had carefully inflated the bra to the right size before setting out, and the heat had acted on it making the air expand and her bust seem to grow through the day. She had become aware it was happening gradually: at first she hadn’t realised there was anything wrong, for the jacket was tight and inclined to pull across her body anyway if she moved. After a while, though, she had realised that it was impossible to get it to relax; and then seeing her reflection in the window of the helicopter had seen the top button straining and understood what was going on. A little more thought had told her why as well. Unfortunately there was nothing she could do about it: she had carefully packed the inflator tool with the rest of her underwear, and now it would be either in the depths of the airport’s baggage handling network or somewhere in the hold of her plane. Whoever designed the bra had made sure it couldn’t deflate by accident, and the only way to let air out again was to push the inflator back into the valve in the right way. She hadn’t imagined she would need to collapse her bra again through the day, and now she was regretting it. Through the afternoon she had had to put up with the embarrassment of the men talking to her chest instead of to her face, they way they had to Muranne from the start, and she was afraid they were so absorbed in admiring what they imagined to be her bust that nothing she said would stick in their minds. Now at least that was over, but she was still carrying around too much air and the only safe and reliable way of getting rid of it was with the inflator which she wouldn’t be able to get her hands on again until she was back in London and unpacking. In the meantime, the most she could do was keep her jacket undone while she was hidden in the back of the car, which at least made it more comfortable, and hope that as the sun went down and the temperature dropped so she would gradually return to the shape she had intended when she was dressing that morning.
An hour later Annette was in the airport business-class restroom, her jacket open, anxiously inspecting her bra and ignoring the strange looks she was getting from the other users. Things had improved, but not enough, and she didn’t have the courage to try anything as revolutionary as dabbling cold water on the bra cups—she was afraid of ruining the jacket. After massaging it a little and finding it was still uncomfortably full, she went into one of the cubicles and locked the door. She returned holding the bulging bra diffidently in one hand, with her jacket fastened again, and inspected her reflection. No, that was even worse. The jacket simply didn’t work with her natural and almost non-existent bustline: she would have to put the bra back on and put up with feeling packed into her suit like a sardine in a can. At least it was cooler here, and it would stay cooler too: the plane would be air-conditioned, and back in London the heat would never be anything like as bad as it had been in Texas. Nothing like this had happened when she had tried this outfit on before: she had to trust that back in normal conditions it would sort itself out.
Annette took her seat in business class with an undignified sigh of relief and the usual creaking of well-polished leather. An hour in the cool spaces of the terminal buildings had restored her bra to the size the designers had intended, and she was relieved the whole business was over at last. In business terms it didn’t matter what Randy and his colleagues thought of her—their opinions didn’t matter now the takeover was a fait accompli—but she would rather have gone down in their minds as a hard-headed, smartly-dressed businesswoman and not a busty executive tart. She was afraid that to them the only difference between her and Muranne was that her clothes were better: it amazed her that three men who had risen almost to the top of their profession could be so confused by an ample bosom or the way a woman’s hips moved in a really tight skirt.
Well, it was all behind her now. She nodded curtly to the man who took the seat between her and the aisle, put on her reading-glasses, got some papers out of her briefcase, and as the engines started up outside began writing a scathing report on the unprofessional conduct of the Texans and their inability to concentrate in the presence of a curvaceous PA. She was good at this sort of thing, writing as she did from the point of view of someone who considered herself entirely beyond reproach. And at least she was comfortable again—relatively comfortable, anyway. Her feet were still tired, and the tight straps that underpinned her jacket made it a little hard to breathe, but with her bra back to the dimensions she had chosen she at least had room inside it to expand her chest again.
She worked away quietly for the next hour, while the plane rose over the Atlantic to a height of thirty thousand feet and curved towards the North Pole on its long journey to London. She was tired, her feet were aching, and it was getting late, and even in business class the space between the seats wasn’t exactly generous, so she had many reasons to feel a little awkward. Sitting still in her chair she was at least relaxed, and had little reason to move. If she had been more active, as she had been through the long day that had just ended, she might have noticed something up sooner.
It was the noise that alerted her. When the sun went down she asked the man beside her if he minded her closing the blind and with an odd grin he said no, not at all; so she leant over to pull it down, and there was a very odd noise from within her jacket which brought her up short. It wasn’t the familiar, luscious creak of well-polished leather: it was a stranger, sharper noise, a noise of friction between surfaces of some artificial material, a noise she’d heard before…she struggled to think where. Long ago…when she was a little girl…at a birthday party…candles, presents, funny hats, balloons, games…balloons! That was it—the strange rubbery scraping noise when two balloons rub together! But why should there be two balloons inside her jacket?…
…Oh, dear. She looked down, not just glancing as she had before, but looking hard, and realised that things had taken a nasty turn. Now, too late, she remembered that for technical reasons airliner cabins are only pressurised to seven-tenths of an atmosphere: she had filled the inflatable bra at ground level, and with the lower air pressure it was expanding again. It was far worse than it had been in the afternoon: the bra had swollen to twice its usual size, and was pushing desperately against the confines of the tight leather jacket as if trying to escape. Looking down she could hardly see her skirt: only a wall of inflated bosom jutting forward and straining the top button of her suit to desperation.
There was no point making excuses. Whatever the effect on the fit of her jacket, she was going to have to take the damn thing off now, before anything worse happened. "Excuse me," she said to the man in the aisle seat, "would you mind getting up so I can come past?"
"Certainly," he said, and moved out into the aisle, clearing her way. The cabin-crew had dimmed the lights now that it was night, but even in the shadows she could see a distinct lump in his trousers: obviously he was enjoying the view. It was disgraceful. Moving awkwardly in the confined space with her tight skirt and high heels, Annette turned round in the seat and tried to get up; but it was too difficult to get her balance, and she had to reach out for the back of the seat. She could have managed this an hour earlier, but now the jacket was so full that there was no longer enough room for such manœuvres: the straining top button gave up the unequal struggle and loudly popped off, hitting the man waiting in the aisle in the crotch. He smiled. Annette, conscious of the top of the jacket gaping open under the pressure of her bra, got to her feet pretending nothing had happened. As she came out from between the seats he pushed back, to sit down, and accidentally—oh yes, accidentally, she could really believe that—brushed against her chest on his way past. The result was more than he could have expected: there was a loud bang, and suddenly she was a 38F on one side and a 32A on the other. He looked down in surprise at her now asymmetric bosom.
"Excuse me," she said blandly. "Indigestion." And clutching her jacket closed to preserve her decency and hide her strange bustline, she wiggled off to the toilet.
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