Address me as Hon. Hiram Priest, esq.
(This is linked to a now defunct thread and, necessarily, has a weird beginning)
The tryst had been disappointing for Hiram.
The room was uncomfortably warm for nine in the morning, humid and cloaked with an unpleasant miasma. Hiram, now spent, reached up to mop his sweating forehead with a shirtsleeve. The coffee on his desk had grown cold, and with bleary eyes, he watched his accountant put herself back together.
He didn't want things to be uncomfortable because of their tryst. However, deep down, he was embarrassed for himself. Through the episode, he was painfully reminded of his advanced years: spindly milk-white legs with dark blue spider veins which reminded him of a map of the Missouri River, an appendage which had neither the length or girth of bygone days, and the speed of a quick-draw exhibitionist.
He pulled up his britches and looped his suspenders over his skinny shoulders.
"Are you okay?" he asked the earthy young lady across from him.
Flo wiped the mess from her chin, for she was not so stupid as to have let the old man get the ultimate prize... not yet. She would hold out for a ring before he would get that lodging for his geriatric desires.
"Are you okay?" he asked the earthy young lady across from him.
"Of course, Mister Priest" she said with brisk efficiency "I am glad to have done my duty in relieving you of those distracting thoughts which might hinder the prosecution of our business." she said, clambering back into her dress.
Outside, Sally, hearing strange noises when passing the office, had listened, concerned, at the door. From the grunts and gasps coming from within, she had feared that Mr Priest might be having another seizure.
She knocked and called out the same words that Hiram had just said to his secretary: "Mister Priest, are you Okeh?"
There was a sound of a key in the lock and the door was flung open by a cross looking Miss Patterson Forde
"What do you want?" she asked testily.
Nothing daunted, the slim pot-girl pushed past the rather tussled looking taller girl and ran into see Hiram, who looked somewhat wan and puffed out.
"What's happened Mr Priest?" she asked with a concerned frown "Did you have another paroxysm? Would you like me to fetch your anodyne?" she asked, gripping his bony hand. "You mustn't let Florence over-work you!" she warned.