Tara was dressed in a coffee-coloured knee-length dress, with a matching vest over a white shirt. She wasn’t even wearing a coat. On her feet, Tara was wearing old fashioned brown boots. They wouldn’t have looked too out of place in the nineteenth century. She was too nicely dressed to be going out into that rain. Tara sat in her chair and started eating her lunch. Tara’s chair was facing sideways to the desk, and I knelt on the floor in front of her. Tara was grinning while she chewed her food and was shaking her head as though she couldn’t believe I was going to clean her boots again.

Last week, Tara seemed to have decided not to deliberately provoke Helen. But obviously she had since changed her mind. Then Tara looked down at her feet and shook her head. Tara said “I walked through the frost on our lawn this morning... just so there would be something to clean off!” In the last ten months, things have changed a lot at my work. From the start of September, the government began subsidising our services, and we’ve been really busy. We put on more staff, and had to move to larger premises.

Tara said “Well... sorry to even ask, but...”, Tara exhaled loudly, then continued “could I ask you a really big favour?” Tara’s coat was hanging on a hook behind her office door. It was a beige/light-brown waterproof coat. Tara said “It’s just got a few hairs and fluff on it.” Andrew asked me to his office for a chat. He also thinks I’m trying to win Tara’s affections. He basically said that Tara is bad news and will “throw you under the bus without giving it a second thought”. He kept telling me there are plenty of women out there, and I should give up on chasing Tara. Tara works a nine-day fortnight, getting a rostered day off every second Friday. I don’t take days off and I work five days a week, every week. Tara always pops in on Fridays to catch up on her paperwork and dresses kind of casually on those days, but somehow still looks better dressed than everyone else. On Fridays, Tara sometimes wears boots but often is wearing sneakers. And you’ve never seen such clean sneakers. They are Nike Cortez sneakers: white with a red swish and a white sole, and somehow they are still as pristinely clean as the first time she wore them. Obviously Tara doesn’t wear them outside other than walking from her car to the office. Friday was a little better for me. Helen still not talking to me, but is that such a bad thing? Tara had a rostered day off, but as usual she popped in for an hour or so to catch up on some paperwork.

I continued wiping Tara’s boot. She had never put her foot on me like that before, and I was struggling to remain calm. I assumed this would be about the incident at reception today, and maybe might even drag up last weeks incident involving me, Tara and Helen. I was actually a bit worried about it. In the end, Tara was really annoyed with me for not telling her that I was voluntarily making her coffee, and that it wasn’t one of the office staff duties. I apologised and managed to convince Tara that I liked it when she called me to request a coffee. How did I do this? I told her that I often get wrapped up in my work, and forget to get myself a coffee... so whenever Tara called, I was happy to take a break to go and make coffees (one for Tara and one for me). Tara accepted this story and continued to call me twice a day for her coffees. (Funny thing is, I didn’t really drink coffee before then, but now I drink coffee twice a day at work, so Tara won’t catch me out for lying)And secondly, if my submissive behaviour is the catalyst for Helen losing her temper and getting fired, then my behaviour might come under scrutiny from State Office or Human Resources.