The Project Manager

I really wanted to do engineering but Dad said it wasn't suitable for girls. Architecture was too flighty so I became a surveyor. I told him it was like being an accountant and he was happy.

Here I was on my first job. One month out of college and I'm on a building site, part of the team making a landmark to last a hundred years. At last!

I'm nearly the youngest and certainly the smallest on the team but I've been briefed. I'm representing the client here and my employers. I'm entitled to respect and must insist upon it.

I'm not on my own here of course but on a project this size we share out the work and I'm responsible for the ground works contract. Five million pounds worth of everything from digging the foundations to the landscaping.

First day there I'm into a contract meeting. The architect has changed the building. The engineer says he will have to redesign the foundations and the contractor wants it minuted that this will cause a delay and additional cost and he wants a change instruction. Then they all look at me.

I spend the rest of the day reading the contract, trying to find out what I'm meant to be doing.

Next morning my boss calls me aside for a quiet word. The client has heard the foundations are in delay and the contractor has put in a claim for more money. They're depending on me to keep it on track. I'm not just a quantity surveyor, I must project manage this contract. What have I let myself in for?

After lunch my site safety boots are delivered - the smallest in the boot room I notice - and I get a hard hat high visibility jacket and head out on site. It looks like the ante room to hell. Acres of mud stretch ubder steel grey clouds in all directions with occasional buildings being attacked by enormous yellow machines. Everywhere are men doing things. Shouting, waving, driving the machines.

"Hey sonny what you doing?" It's the contractor from the meeting yesterday. "Oh it's you Miss Patil. What are you doing here." I pull myself up to my full 5ft and look him in the eye "My job". He looks down and gives me a smile and his eyes twinkle soo blue. He's Patrick and he's old enough to be my father. He walks me round the site.

We go up in the crane to get a view out over the site but first I have to put on a safety harness - like a mountaineering harness. Patrick helps me tighten the straps until I'm being squeezed all round by these straps then we go up a ladder to a tiny platform a mile up in the air. I am scared by the height, a freezing wind is blowing at me trying to push me off. Patrick comes up the ladder behind me and I feel him behind me from my neck to my ankles. His arms around me as he grips the hand rail in front of me.

I feel like a god, flying above the little ant people far below.Yes! This is what I want.

CHARLES

The problem I find is Charles the architect. Charles is brilliant. It must be so; he told me himself. From his desk we get a constant stream of wonderful drawings. The problem is no two are the same. He can't make up his mind.

I corner him one evening when the site office is quiet (Everyone else starts at eight and goes down the Pub at five. Charles wanders in after nine and stays till seven).

"We need some answers Charles. When will you get out the rest of the information?" I say.

"What do you think of this?" he asks.

"Charles" Swish. Smack. In my nervousness I had picked up a ruler. Now I brought it down on the drawing board. It makes a surprisingly loud smack. Charles jumps and stares at the ruler like a rabbit caught in the headlights.

I feel a sudden twinge in my crotch and notice a lump in Charles'.

I rub up against him. " Which is it Charles? This" swish, Smack "or this?" swish, Smack.

"Eh This one?"

"Very good Charles. See you get the drawings issued by morning"

I make one last rub up against him and leave.

I'm feeling so excited I can hardly drive to my digs and I spend half the night masturbating furiously and imagining flogging Charles to a pulp.

Next day the drawings are on my desk though one has a funny stain.

JOHN

John is the engineer. If Charles was an endless stream of drawings then John is an endless stream of talk. Everything has to be done by the book and John has an endless stream of reasons why his calculations aren't done. He sits at his desk across from me all day typing away at his computer.

I want to try the rubbing up against him but the way he's sitting I can't get near him. I don't really fancy it anyway. Charles is beautiful and delicate but John is old and sweaty. I figure it out eventually. I come in one day in a suit and instead of trousers. I notice he's looks away every time I look up. He's directly opposite me so only he can see under my desk. I decide to try something.

"John. When will those calcs be ready" I ask.

"Well. These things cannot be rushed. Our quality assurance procedures .."

I open my legs so my skirt rides up until he can see my panties and his logorrhoea dries up in mid flow.

"Er" he mutters.

"Tomorrow?" I ask.

"Eh?"

"You'd do that for me?" I ask rubbing my stockinged legs together.

"Er. Yes. Of course."

Now whenever after he starts to bluster I just rub my legs together and he loses track of what he was saying.

PATRICK

It's not Charles or John I fantasise about. Once a week Patrick and I square off in the contract meeting.

"What do you mean it's an extra" I'll shout. " The contract specified matched 5 year old Quandong trees not less than 2 metres tall. We've changed it to Nasturtiums you can get in any garden centre!"

He played out those damn quandongs for months. He'd ordered them. They were in a nursery in Singapore labelled and ready to ship and if we cancelled the order we wouldn't get a refund - we would have to pay extra.

He is always makes it sound so reasonable.

The months whizz by and finally we are in sight of the end. The sprinkler systems are to be commissioned and Patrick and I will be witnessing it on behalf of the contractor and the client.

I'm wearing a 'little girl' summer frock but I'm all business.

"Show me these damn Quandongs then. Let's see what we got for all that money." Patrick leads me into the far corner of the garden. There is no one else around - Charles designed this corner of the gardens as a private spot

I sit him down under the ha ha out of sight then get myself soaked by the sprinklers so my dress clings to me like Lolita in that movie. I start a belly dance for Patrick, undulating my hips as I walk towards him then plaster my wet body against him.

He tries to push me away. "We can't. No. It's not right" he stumbles. "I'm
too old for you. When your my age I'll be walking with a zimmer frame"

Time up!

Note : The complete version of this story titled "Love Amongst the Quandongs" can be found at http://assm.asstr.org/Year2000/26134