by Monica Belle
Monday morning was not good. From the moment I woke up I was filled with apprehension, also self-reproach, telling myself that it would all have been OK if he’d accepted my offer. I hadn’t felt that way since waiting outside the headmaster’s study after driving a hockey ball through his window while he was talking with the chairman of the Board of Governors, only worse. At least I hadn’t offered to lick the headmaster’s balls.
I’d made sure I was immaculate, in a navy skirt suit over a white blouse, with stockings and a ribbon tie, my hair up and just a touch of make-up. Why looking respectable was supposed to make it better I didn’t really know, only that it seemed the right thing to do. I’d turned up a little early too, keen to seem as efficient as possible, but the big glass doors were already open onto the now finished interior where Stephen English was standing at the desk – my desk. He greeted me with a smile, perfectly friendly if maybe a bit stern, but I was stumbling my apology out before I could stop myself.
‘I . . . I’m really sorry about the other night, that is, I shouldn’t have drunk . . . and . . .’
He put a hand up and I stopped.
‘Don’t mention it, please. Least said, soonest mended, and it was my fault anyway. I don’t suppose you’re used to sherry? It’s strong stuff.’
I managed a nod, feeling embarrassed and also pathetically grateful. He gave me another of his smiles and gestured to the desk.
‘This will be your work station. Your primary function is to receive potential clients and enquiries, in person, on the phone and by email. Anything technical should be passed on to Paul, anything else to me. With time you can also handle sales to private customers, although this is not a key part of our marketing strategy. For now, I’d like you to familiarise yourself with our computer system.’
As he spoke my head had been going up and down like one of those nodding dogs you get in the backs of cars, and he finished with a beaming smile. As I turned towards my desk, he gave me just the gentlest of pats on my bum to send me on my way. It was like an electric shock, a gesture at once so assertive, so condescending and so casually intimate. I felt outraged but at the same time pleased, because he’d shown me affection after rejecting me before, a reaction that provoked further outrage, at myself.
He’d turned me on with one touch like a switch. As I sat down, I couldn’t help but wonder if he’d make a habit of it. Because I’d shown my true feelings he would now take casual control of my body, touching me when he pleased and where he pleased. The thought sent a shiver through me, even as I was telling myself it was an appalling way for him to behave.
To make it worse, he’d ducked down next to me to explain the workings of the computer system, which meant I could feel the firm muscle of his upper arm pressing against me, and smell his skin and some very masculine lotion he used. It was intoxicating and I had to force myself to concentrate as he showed me how to check the stock list and a dozen other functions.
I soon had the hang of the computer and was left to my own devices for a while. Paul was in the back, tinkering with bits of their equipment, and Stephen had joined him, only coming back to me when he wanted a coffee. I’d already guessed I’d be coffee girl and it shouldn’t have been a big deal, but as I went through the motions it was impossible not to feel that I was serving him, personally.
That just isn’t me. I’ve always held my own in relationships, more often taken the initiative. Now I was feeling grateful to have my bum patted and to be allowed to make coffee, and for a man who had rejected an open advance from me. Worse, he was a suit. Mum even approved of him. It was appalling, but I couldn’t help it, and even found myself giving him a little curtsey as I passed over the coffee.
He didn’t notice, reacting only with a distracted ‘thank you’ as he studied a diagram Paul was holding up, which only served to make my feelings worse. Just being there was bad enough, because for all my desire to see myself as a spy, I felt more like a captive. To be in love with my boss was almost too much. Part of me wanted to run screaming from the room, but it was an impulse I was unable to follow.
I’d gone back to my desk to drink my own coffee and continue to familiarise myself with the mysteries of their computer system, but I’d barely sat down when Stephen’s head appeared through the inner door.
‘Can we borrow you for a minute, Felicity?’
‘Sure.’
I hopped down from my chair, which was quite high, and as I reached him he spoke again.
‘This is a minor point, but I do think we will gain by projecting a professional image at all times, during office hours that is, so that it becomes second nature in the presence of clients.’
‘I’m sorry, how do you mean?’
‘Well, for instance, although naturally I wouldn’t expect anything of the sort outside hours, I think it would be best if you addressed me as Mr English, and Paul as Mr Minter.’
‘If you like.’
‘I think it’s best.’
So he got to call me Felicity while I had to call him Mr English. Why didn’t he just put me in a French maid’s uniform and give me a feather duster while he was at it?
We’d come into the warehouse, where Paul was now standing high among a bank of gadgetry, with all five camera models set up on a gantry and a spaghetti of wires running up to his computer. He gave a thumbs-up signal and Stephen spoke to me again.
‘If you could walk forward, towards the cameras, then turn left and continue a little way.’
I was facing the cameras so it was already too late as I realised the significance of the act. They were on, recording me, putting my face into the recognition program. I flinched but there was nothing to be done, only walk on as instructed, just like a good little dolly-bird receptionist should. Stephen continued to talk, oblivious to my stolen image or the gross invasion of my privacy his act represented.
‘This is just a test, of course. Once we’re sure of the system we’ll repeat it somewhere more picturesque.’
‘With me?’
‘Of course. It’s a curious thing but marketing studies repeatedly show that better results are achieved by visually pleasing presentations. Thus, while it makes no difference whatsoever in terms of demonstrating our equipment, sales can be predicted to show a significant improvement if our presentation shows you walking along a woodland path, rather than, say, me walking between a row of packing crates. It’s an entirely subconscious reaction, but that’s true of so much of advertising.’
‘So your computer can now recognise my face?’
‘I certainly hope so or we’ve wasted a great deal of money. Could you go out of the room and come in again, please?’
I obeyed, praying the whole thing would cock up and that the system would either fail to recognise me completely or decide I was somebody else. It didn’t. Almost on the instant I stepped back into the warehouse Paul’s system gave a self-satisfied ping. He clapped his hands in approval.
‘Perfect! That took less than a second, and at a different angle to her initial approach.’
Stephen beamed. ‘That’s good. Now we know the Koreans haven’t sold us a dud and the system can recognise a face, but there are still tests to be done to make sure it’s able to pick your face from among others.’
Paul called down, ‘It knows she’s not you or me, but we’ll need a much bigger sample before we can get an idea of percentage efficiency.’
Stephen gave a reflective nod. ‘Bit of a chicken and egg situation there. We have the original Korean data, of course, but buyers like to see these things working on the ground, and of course we can’t gather our own data until we have a system installed.’
He wandered off, looking thoughtful. They were evidently done with me, so I returned to my desk. A few clicks and I had my face up on the screen, labelled not as Felicity Cotton, but as 0000003. The thing had reduced me to a number, which was no big surprise, and also seemed to be capable of storing ten million faces. It had even captured me in 3D, allowing me to examine my head
from different angles, including from above and behind, which was bizarre. I could also play back the video, making my machine beep and display my code number every time it recognised me.
I had to admit there was a certain fascination to it, and it also gave me that uneasy feeling which had been creeping up on me in the last few years, that the sort of illegal things I liked to do were in fact wrong and that I should stop, or in my darker moments, that I should be punished. Not that I was going to be confessing to anything in a hurry, but I did seem to be developing an adult conscience, which was all very depressing.
Stephen’s voice cut through my reverie.
‘The council advisory team is coming on Wednesday. We need to have something to show them, and that means getting the video done today. As I was saying, we want it to look visually appealing, but I think you should look slightly suspicious too, otherwise we risk creating the impression of intrusion rather than valid surveillance. Perhaps if you put on some old jeans and a pair of trainers, and would you mind wearing one of those awful hooded tops?’
‘Not at all, no.’
‘Good girl. We’ll pick one up in the High Street.’
He had obviously decided I couldn’t possibly own a hoodie, and the way he said ‘good girl’ seemed almost as condescending as having my bottom patted, but again he was oblivious to his own behaviour. Stephen’s car was outside, a flashy silver Saab. He held the door for me, but somehow even that came across as a gesture of control rather than courtesy. Paul took their van, along with the equipment, and they already seemed to know where they were going, driving off separately.
Being alone with him in the car was worse than before, as without Paul around I kept wanting to say something about what had happened between us. If he was aware of my discomfort or felt any himself it didn’t show, his manner as bland and affable as ever as he turned on the sound system.
‘I imagine you like music?’
‘Yes. Shall I choose a CD?’
‘No need. I can choose from six, already preloaded. Shall we have a little Albrechtsberger?’
It sounded like some weird Goth band, which gave me hope, but turned out to be church organ music. As with the sherry Stephen simply assumed that his taste was definitive, and I kept my thoughts to myself as we drove into town. He gave me a tenner to pick up a black hoodie at one of the market stalls and we drove on to my house, where he waited while I changed into jeans and trainers. I wasn’t sure if they’d want me to change back later, and didn’t want to have to ask to go back via the house, so I carefully folded my work clothes into a bag and took it with me.
Stephen made no comment, and took the Lynn Road, still humming along to Albrechtsberger as he drove. I couldn’t help but notice that he was well over the speed limit, and slowed for the camera at Weeting just like everybody else. Whatever his attitude to lawbreakers it clearly didn’t extend to driving too fast, or perhaps he simply felt that such things didn’t apply to him, which wouldn’t have surprised me in the least.
He came to a stop at the mouth of one of the logging tracks, where the van was already parked. It was a place I knew well, not the best spot for parking up because there were often peeping Toms in among the bushes, but I had happy memories of coming under Dave Shaw’s fingers as he whispered filthy things into my ear. There was also a smear of rust and char on the ground at one side, evidence of a yet more discreditable episode in which I’d been involved. Paul was already out of the van, looking down the path that led into the woods.
‘This should be ideal. We’ll go a little way in to avoid traffic noise and I’ll fix the camera at about five metres.’
The path was certainly pretty. No timber had been taken out of that part of the wood for years so the sides of the track had grown in, leaving just a single grassy path running between banks of ferns and long grass, then well-grown bushes with big oaks rising beyond them. We walked in, the foliage quickly closing until I needed to push the taller ferns aside to stop them tickling my face.
We stopped where the oaks gave way to a pine plantation, now mature, so that thick trees rose in ranks with open space below them, while the path was considerably more open. One of the younger oaks looked ideal, and Paul had quickly pulled himself up into the branches. Stephen passed him the camera and set up the power source while it was fixed in place. Just as they’d predicted, it was hardly noticeable from ground level unless you knew it was there. Stephen thought the same.
‘We could leave it for a while, Paul. A field test would be useful.’
‘Who’s going to come past?’
‘A few people use the track, dog walkers I suppose.’
‘I’d rather stay close in case anyone notices it and decides they’d like a camera.’
‘Fair enough. Once we’ve done the take of Felicity we’ll wait nearby for a while. OK, Felicity, we need you to start out of range so the camera can track you.’
I walked further down the track. Here was my chance to test the camera and see just how little of my face it needed to see to recognise me. Just walking away from Stephen restored something of my determination, and when Paul called out for me to stop I pulled the hood around my face and slouched forward, deliberately looking at the ground. Ahead of me, Stephen was crouched at the base of the oak tree, peering at the laptop they’d rigged up to the camera, and he didn’t speak until I’d almost passed him.
‘I don’t think you have to look quite that suspicious, Felicity.’
‘Sorry.’
I’d looked around as he spoke, dislodging my hood, and at that instant the laptop pinged. It had recognised me, with maybe half my face showing and from above and behind, which was far too good for my liking. Not for theirs, as Stephen confirmed.
‘Positive ID. Excellent. Right, if you could just run through that again, Felicity, and don’t overplay it.’
I went back, this time with my hoodie open. The laptop signalled its triumphant ping when I was only halfway there. It was far too good and almost hoodie-proof. Both of them were well impressed, Paul speaking down from the tree as I went out of camera shot.
‘Excellent, and that last take is easily good enough to use. That should impress them.’
Stephen agreed, at least in part.
‘Yes, but we need a bullet point, something to really catch their attention. Felicity, you brought your office clothes with you, I believe? Would you mind changing into them and perhaps putting your hair up, to make you look as different as possible? That way we can demonstrate how the system uses facial indexing and can ignore minor changes.’
‘OK, but how does that work?’
‘A lot of systems simply take an image and compare it with others to get a match, in which case a new haircut or even putting on glasses will fool them. With the ZX it establishes a series of readings based on the bone structure of your head, which as you can imagine is far harder to fool.’
I gave what I hoped was an understanding nod. We were finished, done and dusted, or to use Steve’s favourite phrase, buttered and buggered. Nor was I particularly happy about changing my clothes. It was a simple enough thing; I’ve always rather liked showing off, and they’d didn’t have to see anything anyway, but somehow it seemed to be one more act of submission. I’d be undressing close to Stephen English. To all intents and purposes he’d ordered me to take my clothes off. The fact that it wasn’t for sex didn’t matter – it was going to turn me on.
To make matters worse, I couldn’t even flirt, not that I was going to do anything obvious, not after last time, because Paul was there and I very definitely didn’t want him getting the wrong end of the stick. I caught myself biting my lip as I retrieved my bag from the car, and spent ages choosing a quiet place in among the ferns to undress. Even then I was so carried away with the idea of Stephen ordering me to strip that I had my knickers half down before I remembered that it was completely unnecessary.
It was just as well that I’d gone well in among the trees, because somebody passed with a dog while I
was changing and would definitely have got an eyeful if I hadn’t been careful. Just hearing them pass made me blush and hurry to pull my skirt up, and immediately wonder what was happening to me, Fizz, who’d play topless in the band and flash my knickers in the street for the hell of it.
They were waiting, Stephen with his full attention on Paul’s explanation of how the camera tracked movement, as if making me strip to my undies in the middle of a wood was of no consequence whatsoever. I knew it shouldn’t have been either, but I couldn’t get it out of my head. I found myself smiling and hoping he’d say something as I waited for them to finish talking. He did, sort of.
‘Felicity, splendid, you look human again. Now if you could just walk through as you did before.’
I went through the same simple routine and, as before, the laptop pinged long before I’d reached the oak tree. Stephen gave me a thumbs-up as if I’d done something clever and I continued until I was sure I was no longer in shot. Paul was the first to speak.
‘Perfect. You’re a natural, Felicity.’
‘That was hardly difficult.’
‘You’d be surprised. A lot of people can’t help but keep looking at the camera, or just appear self-conscious.’
‘Are we done then?’
Stephen had closed the laptop and glanced at his watch as he spoke.
‘Just about. We should wait for a few more people to pass to see how the camera reacts, and then I don’t know about you two, but I could do with a bite of lunch.’
He was so utterly indifferent to other people’s privacy that I just had to say something.
‘Might people not object?’
‘I don’t see why. Besides, they’re unlikely to notice.’
His arrogance really was breathtaking, but he was right about nobody noticing. In the time we spent waiting three people passed, two just minding their own business and the third walking her dog. Stephen decided that was enough for the time being, and we left, first for lunch at the Green Man and then back to the office. They were very confident about making money, casually putting an expensive lunch on the company accounts, including a bottle of strong red wine which left them in an easygoing mood for the afternoon.