Corporate law was Monty's field. He had tried criminal law for a year but found it too frustrating. Most of his clients had had a tendency to plead guilty after one session with him, no matter how weak was the case against them. Whenever he had met his clients in jail he always got the impression that they seemed to be yearning to return to their cell. However, corporate law agreed with Monty. He had a natural talent for detail and the documents he prepared could not be faulted. He did not mind so much that the partners did not allow him to meet with clients directly. He believed that they did this to get credit for his good work themselves, but this somehow gave him a sense of pride and superiority. He knew his time would soon come, and he was prepared to wait. What did bother him a little though was the large turnover in secretaries. None of his secretaries ever seemed to last more than a few weeks. One girl had simply not showed up for work one day. They found out later that she had run off with a Greek merchant seaman. The next had given her notice after only two weeks and announced that she was moving to some godforsaken place in the North. The third had gone back to school to study Architecture. Now Monty was concerned about the latest girl. Her credentials were excellent, but he had doubts about her emotional stability. Why, only last evening as he was returning a twenty-page document for reformatting so that each page ended with a complete sentence, he had found her near tears; the area around her desk was littered with the red-pencilled pages of his previous three versions of the document. He was appalled by this because he liked to keep all corrected versions in a file he called PROGRESS VERSIONS - SUPERSEDED just in case! He had also noticed that the screen of her word processor monitor was filled with an endless stream of letters. Seeing the state she was in, he had not said anything, but just dropped his fourth revision of the document in her IN tray, and returned to his office, where he made an entry on his THINGS TO DO list for the next day, to speak to her about the matter. Had he looked carefully he would have seen that the secretary's screen looked something like this:

LLTHEPRIKKILLTHEPRIKKILLTHEPRIKKILLTHEPRIKKILLTHEPRIKKILLTHEPRIKKILLTHEPRIKKILLTHE PRIKKILLTHEPRIKKILLTHEPRIKKILLTHEPRIKKILLTHEPRIKKILLTHEPRIKKILLTHEPRIKKILLTHEPRIKKIL LTHEPRIKKILLTHEPRIKKILLTHEPRIKKILLTHEPRIKKILLTHEPRIKKILLTHEPRIKKILLTHEPRIKKILLTHEPR IKKILLTHEPR

and so on till the screen was filled up. In fact it appeared that she had fixed it so that the letters were appearing of their own accord, the screen scrolling automatically when the bottom was reached.

The problem with the secretary was still on his mind when he eased his BMW into its reserved parking space in the garage the next morning. However, Monty never let anything distract him from the task at hand. At this time it was parking. He got out of his car, walked to the back, opened the trunk, and lifted out his tightly furled umbrella and black leather attaché case. He then proceeded to perform his parked-car ritual, carefully checking off each item against one of his many mental checklists. Look in the front; lights off, check. (Never mind that the lights went off with the ignition anyway.) Check all doors locked; check, check, check, check. (The doors on his BMW were on a central locking system, but this check had been on the list for the previous car and Monty had maintained it.) Trunk just recently slammed shut, checked again for good measure. Quick check of parking position. Monty required the car to be parked centrally in the space, if the distance to the line on either side differed by more than four inches he moved the car. When in doubt he used his umbrella as a measuring rod. Quick walk round the car again for a general check, and he made his way to the elevator.

As he walked into his office he noticed that his secretary was not there, but the report was lying on his desk, efficiently formatted with a complete sentence ending each page as requested. On the last page was a yellow Post-It note with a message in red ball-point pen which read: HERE'S YOUR DOCUMENT, PRIK. I QUIT. He saw that the writer had pressed hard on the pen and a ghost image of message had transferred through to the first page of the document. He would have to print out that page again. "I knew there was some problem with that girl," he said to himself. Then he remembered his corrected, superseded versions, and wondered whether she had thrown them out. But he saw that they were there, stacked neatly in his IN tray. "At least she finished off her work before leaving," he thought. "Pity, she seemed to be a good secretary. What the heck is wrong with these young girls these days!"

He peeled off the Post-It note and took it to the Office Director, who, on reading it, rolled his eyes upwards, and said "Hell, Prik, not again!" Monty shrugged. "Maybe you should let me interview the next girl you call in," he said. "In the meantime, could you call in for a temp, please." Monty thought he heard the Office Director swear as he left his office. He was starting to suspect that the man didn't like him. On the way back to his office he stopped at the coffee station. He carefully wiped a clean mug with a paper towel, poured in some coffee, and emptied a small packet of artificial sweetener into the mug. He looked around for a spoon to stir the coffee. Monty never used plastic stirrers. He believed the heat caused them to melt a little and contaminate the coffee.

Monty was at work at his desk, having already ticked off several items on his Daytimer's TO BE DONE TODAY Action List, when his phone rang, a few hours later. It was the receptionist, the one with the sultry voice and confidential telephone manner. "Mr. Prikleworth? Your temp is here," she whispered, making it sound like an indecent proposal. "Send her in please," he said.

A few minutes later there was a knock on his door. On his "Come in", the door opened and a woman walked in. She was dressed plainly but elegantly, her outfit offset by carefully chosen items of simple jewellery. She was relatively tall, with dark, short, brown hair, in her early thirties. He thought "Good, maybe a slightly older secretary will be more stable than the young ones I had lately." She looked vaguely familiar. Monty rose, extended his right hand and with his left indicated a chair, saying, "Please have a seat Miss, eh..?" "Carter," said the woman, "Cathy Carter." Then added, "Hello Prik. Long time no see!" Monty froze, his right hand still holding on to her hand, as if reluctant to let go and risk having her disappear like she did fifteen years earlier. After what seemed to be an eternity, but in reality was only a few seconds, he found his voice. He suspected it was someone else's voice he had found because it sounded different from the one he remembered. He would have to have a word with his voice to stop it fooling around and being away when he needed it. But under the circumstances he decided that he had no choice but to use the voice he had found. "Cathy! I don't believe this. What is it now? Fifteen years? I never thought I'd see you again after you left. How are you? You're looking good." Cathy smiled. "Monty, you're still answering your own questions," she said. She looked at him and around the office, at the neat stacks of papers on his desk, the pencils aligned in order of length to one side, Mum's picture in a gilt frame, the carefully aligned picture frames on the walls. "I see you haven't changed, Monty," she said. "I didn't know you became a lawyer, but somehow I'm not surprised."

"Yes, there were some minor changes in direction in my plans, but basically the overall career course I had outlined to you all that time ago is still on track. But enough about me. Tell me about yourself." Seeing Cathy again after all these years had brought up emotions he no longer even knew he still possessed. He felt his voice, or at least the voice he had found recently, leaving him again, probably going to look for its rightful owner. And, before it left for good, he said, "I want to know everything, tell me everything."

Cathy leaned back in her chair, "There's not much to say really. I had no set plans, I still don't, and took life as it came, as I still do. After I left you I went back to school, majored in psychology, for no other reason than that it seemed to be a fun thing to do at the time. After University I travelled for a few years, Europe, a few months in the Mediterranean, then on to the Middle East, and Asia, staying wherever and as long as I could support myself. Taught English in Japan, for a couple of years which was interesting. When I came back, I took a legal secretary course, and have been working as a temp ever since. Temporary work suits me because it allows me to take off whenever the opportunity arises, or whenever and wherever the fancy takes me. No permanent relationships. Queen of my own domain. With all the temporary work I've been doing, it's a wonder we never got to meet before. I would think you have gone through quite a few secretaries." She smiled a Mona Lisa smile. Monty mentally reprimanded his legs for turning into jelly, and his heart for choosing this time to practice the drum solo from the opening of the 2001 Space Odyssey theme.

Monty looked at Cathy. He suddenly realised that sometime in the past few minutes the muscles of his jaw had decided to take a break and that his mouth was open. He closed it, and smiled. "Actually," he said, "you're quite right. I've been having a devil of a time finding a good secretary who stays more than a few weeks. They look promising enough on paper, and are fine for the first week or so after they start, but then suddenly things start to go downhill, and then they're off doing something weird like studying Architecture, or trekking in the Himalayas. It's become such a pattern it's almost boring." His mind, unlike the rest of his body parts, seemed to be still functioning adequately, and was already thinking of how he could persuade Cathy to take up the job permanently. She had obviously been at a loose end since she left him, hence her footloose career to date. He still believed that she had given him up so she would not hold him back in his career. But now he was well on track to achieving all his goals. Maybe they could get back together.

Cathy, still wearing the Mona Lisa smile, which suited her so well, seemed to be reading his mind. "Monty," she said, "you still don't get it do you? How can you go through life without ever recognizing the truth? To you the problem in any situation is always an external one. You never even considered that the problems you face, large or small, could originate with you. Your careful planning, scheduling, organizing and lists convince you that you are right. And the results seem to confirm it. But in the process people get hurt. Oh, I'm sure you do not intend to hurt others. You're a very decent man at heart - otherwise I would never have fallen in love with you so many years ago - but you hurt people and make them angry nonetheless. Monty, we are both much more mature now and I feel I can be frank with you. When I left you fifteen years ago it hurt, and I was angry that it had to end. But I realized that if I stayed with you we would both hurt each other more. You would have stifled me and I could have frustrated your ambitions. I hoped that time would teach you the value of spontaneity in life, the merit of imperfections and the importance of sensitivity to others' feelings, but it appears that it hasn't." She paused, her face a little flushed from the emotion, and let out a small laugh. "Monty, I do believe, you don't even realize that your nickname has absolutely nothing to do with your name and all to do with how you behave. Monty for heaven's sake, look at yourself! You are a classic, predictable, unadulterated PRICK!" There were tears in Cathy's eyes now.