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irritated voice in the enveloping darkness. Although he couldn’t see him, he knew it was Stark.
    A few seconds later, his eyes adjusted to the gloom and it was then he noticed the ample bottom of Helen Clements, Stark’s twenty-something secretary, astride him on his big leather chair and trying somewhat feebly to extricate herself. The vertical blinds were closed but there was enough light for him to see that her blouse was open and bra undone, exposing her rather generous breasts and her skirt was rucked up over her thighs, revealing glossy stockings that seemed to sparkle in the gloom.
    ‘Didn’t you read the bloody sign outside the door, Jon,’ boomed a big voice which could reach the back of a two hundred-seat lecture hall without a microphone. ‘Can’t you see we’re having a meeting’?
    ‘Yes, of body fluids if I’m not mistaken,’ he stammered. ‘I need to see you immediately Alan,’ he said, seemingly oblivious to the difficulty that statement would present if Stark followed his request to the letter.
    Perhaps it was the dejection in Lehman’s voice or the dishevelled look of his clothes but it halted the words forming on his lips, an angry ‘fuck-off’ most likely, and his demeanour softened. ‘All right, all right,’ he said carefully easing young Miss Clements to one side, ‘but wait outside for a minute or two until we can... um tidy up. And close the door on your way out.’
    Lehman did as he was told and paced the area outside like a hungry hyena searching for its next meal. It took him several moments to realise that Helen, the same sweet girl who answered the phone and smiled at him whenever he arrived for a meeting, was now humping that smooth-talking legal guru Alan Stark. At forty-five, he was at least twenty years older than she was and at the last count, still married with four children and another one on the way.
    He gazed at her desk on which were displayed photographs of Helen and her boyfriend on holiday to Pathos last summer, an advanced certificate for word processing from Pitmans and pad of reminder slips with little smiley faces drawn on the corner, and slowly shook his head. Dipping a wick into the student population or lecturer pool was one thing, but his own secretary? It was too close to home even by his own debauched standards.
    The door snapped opened and Helen breezed out, her straight , black hair neatly combed, in contrast to the tousled mess Stark’s fingers were running through a few minutes before. Her white blouse was buttoned to the half-way mark giving him the impression her breasts were still trying to escape from their confinement and the black skirt, previously concertinaed into a space small enough to fit inside an A4 envelope, was now smoothed out and he couldn’t tell if the creases and folds that remained, were a result of their improvised liaison or a characteristic of the fabric.
    She walked towards him and put her hand on his shoulder and leaned over, close enough for him to smell her perfume and feel the heat of her breath. ‘Professor Stark will see you now Jon,’ she said.
    He looked at her as if she had just arrived from Mars and hastily retreated into Stark’s office before slamming the door behind him. Stark was now fully clothed and groomed, and sitting behind his desk, writing.
    The desk light was on, the blinds were open and law books were spread before the Head of the Law Department as he meticulously prepared for his next important lecture. With his blue, pin-stripe suit jacket hanging from the back of the chair, his thinning salt and pepper hair combed neatly in place and the strong scent of Chanel aftershave filling the air, he radiated the aura of a government minister or a FTSE 100 chairman and not a senior tutor, albeit a well-paid one at a south coast educational institution.
    Lehman sat down. Stark was using the heavy Waterman gold fountain pen he always used but never let anyone borrow, and he watched as it sailed effortlessly