This is a true story from the 1980's. My name is George and I had just finished college and returned to my home town with my beautiful Hong Kong Chinese wife Suzie. She had been over here studying at the same college where we met and within two years we were married. I had got a job with a small, local electronics company and she was a lab technician, again with a local company. We had bought a modest house and were just starting off in life. I was pleased that we had both secured employment as the UK was in recession and jobs were scarce.
The electronics company, where I worked, was run by two brothers and their brother-in-law. Dick was the managing director, Philip the sales director and Antony, the brother-in-law, was finance director. They had inherited the successful business from their father who had retired.
The two brothers were not diligent in their work. The firm had been handed to them on a plate all too easily. They enjoyed the high life, both were married, but had a steady stream of affairs. They behaved badly with most of the female employees, always touching them up and making rude suggestions. Dick was always bragging about the size of his manhood and what a brilliant lover he was.
I had not been there too long and already two office girls had left the company in floods of tears after encounters with them. Antony was different, he was a lot sharper and as far as I had seen, always behaved properly with his staff. He did let slip to me once though, that he went to photo sessions with page 3 girls. You could, for quite a large fee, go and take topless pictures of these pinups and that he had quite a large collection. All in all I had grown to quite dislike them.
Sometime later we were invited to Dick's large house out of town for a works Christmas party. Most of the staff were there with their partners and the drinks flowed. Suzie had gone into the kitchen to get some food from the buffet. Philip had spotted her and followed. He approached her and started to say that he "Always wanted to shag a Chinese girl" and "Could he have a Christmas kiss?" He put his hand on the wall above her head but she ducked down under to escape.
As she walked away he said, "Don't be so miserable, its only a Christmas kiss."
She came and found me in the lounge and told me briefly what had happened. I said, "That's what they are like, just be aware and try not to get into that situation with them."
We left shortly after.
I had been there a year and there was a chance to do some overtime. I was given a factory key and the alarm codes so I could stay later some evenings. I was grateful for the extra money.
Suzie had family back in Hong Kong and every few weeks she would phone them to keep in touch. Back in the 80's International calls were expensive and so one Sunday I suggested we nip down to the factory and phone from there. All the directors lived out of town and the phones were used heavily in the week and so no-one would notice a little bit more on the bill.
"Are you sure?" she said.
"Yes, it will be fine," I replied.
We live close to my work and so we walked down. I let us in, switched off the alarm and locked the door behind us. We went upstairs to the offices and Suzie had a nice long chat with her mother. All went well and so it became a routine. Every third Sunday we would go down and she would chat away to her family. We went down this one Sunday, it was a hot day and we were just in shorts and t-shirts. We climbed the stairs up to the offices as usual. Suzie was on the phone when we heard a noise. The office door opened and in walked the three directors. Suzie immediately hung up and we sat there frozen with fear.
"Argh!" said Antony. "We thought we might find you two here. You see business now get fully itemised phone bills," (a new thing in the 80's). "I bet you didn't know that, George?"
"No," I stuttered.
"So I was going through our bill when I noticed an expensive call to Hong Kong. When I checked further I found that this had been happening every third Sunday. So i had a chat with my fellow directors. We thought, who had access to the factory and would want to phone Hong Kong? So we decided to come down to investigate and we appear to have caught you red handed."
We both turned white and said nothing. What could we say?
Antony went on, "Well George I think this is a sackable offence and that we should phone the police to report a theft. Suzie, I know Rob who runs the accounts at your firm and I would be obliged to inform him that he is employing a thief. What have you got to say?"
"Well," I mumbled, "we have done wrong and we are sorry. Can we pay for the calls?"
"I think it has gone beyond that now."
There was along silence.
"We are, however, prepared to be generous and offer you a way out of this mess."
"Yes," I said eagerly.
"Well, we are quite happy with your work generally and so if you were to pay back the money that you have stolen."
"Yes," I said again.
"We would take your factory key back as you can't be trusted."
"Yes yes fine."
"There is one more thing. Dick and Philip have a soft spot for Suzie."
"More of a hard spot," said Dick with a smirk. My heart began to sink.
"In order for them to forgive what you have done they would want to have some 'fun' with her. I could take some pictures of the event for my collection."
There was a look of horror on Suzie's face as the implications of what he was saying dawned on her.
"What do you mean, 'fun' with Suzie?" I asked, rather naively.
"Look, George, you know these two like their ladies. Work it out."
Suzie was shaking her head and saying quietly, "No no no."
"Look, why don't you both go up to the top office, shut the door and decide which way you want to go."