[cpower36]

As much as I would have loved things to have been different, they have always been the same.

Witnessing a moment of self doubt or nervousness has always been worth far more to me than a hundred meaningless drunken conquests. Modesty over conceit. Embarrassment over confidence. Always.

So it was with Claire, a girl of about nineteen, who I worked with in the mid nineties. I say I worked with her, but she was, despite her tender years, in the lower reaches of management. Aloof, driven, and assertive to the point of rudeness, to say that I actually liked her would be less than truthful. Claire was also, to my eyes at least, rather beautiful. The conflict of enjoying her looks immensely and yet finding her personality equally unattractive always held my interest like a stone in my shoe.

The first thing that struck anyone when they first met Claire was her physical stature, or more accurately perhaps, the lack of it. She was truly tiny, perhaps only five feet two, and as slender as the word itself. Her breasts were small, domed, but were at least present and attractively high, whilst her wrists and ankles looked like they would surely snap in a moderate breeze. Claire’s natural blonde, summery hair was usually tied back in a ponytail, but a complex French plait sometimes made a welcome change. Her pale skin was as smooth as a pebble, and was sprinkled with a dozen golden freckles either side of her nose.

She wore the plainest outfits for work, a black pencil skirt and black tights teamed with various white blouses that always seemed to allow her white bra strap to be visible to those who wished to look.

Claire was a constant source of fascination. She would enter each day at Eight o‘clock sharp, sit down without a word for anyone, and begin drinking a mug of tea that almost seemed bigger than she was. It was often an hour before anyone spoke to her, and I never once witnessed her instigate a conversation. I would usually be able to watch her across the canteen at lunchtime, alone as always, frowning over her paperback while dabbing crumbs away from her delicate pink lips.

I was the only one who bothered to watch her leave too, awkwardly pulling on her raincoat before whispering ‘Goodnight’. No one ever seemed to summon enough effort to reply before she was well out of earshot.

To watch Claire each day was like watching rainwater pouring down a storm drain. Boring yet captivating. Tiresome yet enthralling.

Things were, however, about to change.