Her computer crashes

For a few seconds Clara sat perfectly still, barely daring to breathe. She'd done it. She'd actually done it. She felt butterflies in her stomach as she imagined people reading her e-mail in disbelief; as she imagined them begin their plotting. She looked around the office, half expecting to see a group of workers gathering around one of the desks to begin whispering what they were going to do to her...

She looked back in time just to catch a glimpse of an error message before her computer suddenly shut itself off. Her brow furrowed as she felt a sudden frustration. Although her immediate thoughts were on the e-mail, whether it had gone through and the more mundane worry of not being able to do her work, the message that she had seen confused her. She was almost certain that it had say something about an administrator shutting the terminal down. She hadn't been able to read it all, but that was the jist of it.

Clara turned towards the IT desk and gave a jump of surprise as she found one of the IT nerds, Gerald, was standing nearby. Gerald was tall and gangly, and wore corduroy trousers, a cardigan and a pair of thick spectacles. He was in his twenties, but she always thought of him as being older due to his height. He was standing nervously, hands half in his pockets and half on his hips.

"Looks like you've had a spot of bother, then." he said, nodding towards her blank screen.

"I... yeah. Yeah, looks like it." Clara replied. Something about the way he stood seemed odd to her. Whenever he tried to talk to her socially, he always seemed awkward and nervous - very much like he was now. When it came to computer problems, however, he always transformed into a super-focused IT whizz. So why was his face moving between a gawp and a half-smile.

"Looks like the base unit's overloaded I, uh, you want me to take a look at it?" he asked.

"Yes please." Clara said, pushing her chair away by instinct.

"Oh no no! Please, don't move on my account." Gerald said, ushering her back with his hands. "No, I don't want to disrupt you; you can get on with some paperwork or something. I'll just slip underneath; you'll barely notice me."

He lowered himself to his knees and crawled underneath the desk so that his head was barely an inch or two from Clara's knees. Clara did as he suggested and grabbed a form that she was going to fill in later on anyway, although she felt a little confused. This was very strange. Why was Gerald so insistent on her staying at the desk? Surely it would have been easier for her to leave. She started biting her thumbnail again. HAD the e-mail gone out after all? Why was nobody talking to her about it?

"I'm sorry," Gerald said from underneath her desk. "But could I ask you to spread your legs a little please?"

"What?!"

"It's just that there's very little light down here. If you opened up your knees the sunlight might get through a little easier."

It suddenly dawned on Clara what Gerald was doing. He HAD seen her e-mail! Feeling a thrill of excitement, she spread her knees wide. There was a 'thud' as Gerald's head connected with the desk.

"You okay?" Clara asked.

"Y-yeah! F-fine!"

With her knees spread as they were, her skirt had risen up so that instead of resting just above her knees it was now taut across her upper-thighs. The light beneath the desk, she realised, would be more than sufficient enough to give Gerald an unrestricted view of her lacy red panties. She bit her lip as she pretended to study the form in front of her.

She found it hard not to jiggle as Diane, one of the accountants, approached her desk and froze as she saw Gerald underneath the desk clearly staring at the spread-legged Clara. Clara smiled, and pretended nothing was amiss.

"Hi Diane," She said warmly "What can I do for you?"

"I, uh, I was just going to ask about the e-mail you sent but, ah, I can see that Gerald has already... is already... I mean... I'll come back later."

After a few minutes, she heard Gerald tapping away at her base unit. It wasn't even a metallic sound; he'd clearly not brought any tools, and was just knocking on it with his knuckles.

"Everything okay down there?" Clara asked.

"Ah, not quite no. I've had to take your base unit apart and, ah, it, ah, it looks like the fan belt has broken."

"Oh dear." Clara said with mock surprise. Fan belts, she knew, were a car thing, not a computer thing. "Can we replace it?"

"Ah, not today, not today. Ah. We'll have to, ah, to put it on order."

"I can't go without a computer all day." Clara replied.

"No! No, no, of course not." Gerald bumbled. "Ah, well, I was thinking, ah, that if we had something that, ah, had the elasticity of a fan belt, then, then maybe it would work."

"What did you have in mind?"

There was a heavy pause. "Maybe... underwear elastic would do it." Gerald offered.

"You want my underwear?" Clara asked with mock indignation.

"No, no! Not want. Need. I, ah, I need your, your panties to replace the fan belt. It's the only way. Don't worry though; it will be just between you and me."

It was saucy, and a little quicker than Clara anticipated, but it seemed her first taste of indecency was due. Climbing to her feet, she lifted her skirt up at the sides and gripped the waistband of her panties underneath. She pulled these down, making sure the skirt dropped too to cover her. Once she'd lowered them to her knees she let go; they fell to the ground without a sound. She stepped out of them and smoothed down her skirt. Gerald's hand shot out and grabbed them, pulling them back beneath the desk. Clara retook her seat, although she kept her knees together at first.

"Ah... Clara?" Gerald said.

"Yes Gerald?"

"It's still quite dark down here. Would you mind, ah, opening your knees again?"

Clara took her time, opening her legs like the pearly gates revealing the glorious heaven beyond. Gerald hit his head once again.

"Can you see okay?" Clara asked innocently.

"Oh yes - I can see everything quite clearly." Gerald replied.