I bent over the photo - copier, a fatal mistake. Mark’s big hand shot out to pat my bottom. Spinning round angrily I hissed

“Keep your hands off Mark, I won’t tell you again”.

“Ooh hark at you, little Miss Prissy, bet it is a totally different story when the lights go out”.

I had tried ignoring Mark’s crude remarks but was becoming so sick of him. He seemed to think he was the office Romeo but was actually a weedy nobody with bad breath. He tried it on with every female in the office, even touching up elderly Miss Braithwaite, the quiet, grey haired, accounts clerk. She had maintained a dignified silence whilst blushing very red. Mark was a real pest and just would not be told; in fact he seemed to believe that no, meant a definite yes.

“We have got to do something about that Mark before I get so fed up, I give in my notice” I was chatting to Donna in the rest room, while we ate our sandwiches. She had just become a victim of Mark’s unwanted advances.

“ Today he cornered me in the stationary cupboard and reaching across, he touched me. I gave him a real push and the little toe rag told me to stop pretending that I didn’t like it”

“Why don’t we just report him for sexual harassment, it is illegal you know”

” Sadly, it has already been tried. Mary the girl who used to be in the computer room, reported him to Mrs Hopkins the office manager for constantly patting her bottom every time he went past but somehow he wriggled his slimy way out of it. I think his excuse was she was an ex, angry that their affair had finished, you know, no fury like a woman scorned She was so disgusted that the boss believed Mark instead of her that she left the same day..”

“ What a slimy little creep. There must be a way to get rid of him”.

That night at home, I suddenly got a brilliant idea. I would show Mr wandering - hands Mark that he had better keep his hands off in future. Or else. First I phoned Kevin my Brother’s best mate.

“ You are sure it will work Kev?” Kevin laughed down the phone.

“Trust me Sal, this bloke won’t know what hit him ”

Next I phoned all the office girls, mucky Mark would soon be wishing he had kept his hands to himself.

The next day at work I was busily imputing last month’s figures when Mark came over to my desk.

“What’s this?” he asked picking up the carrier bag beside me and managing to brush both my arm and left breast as he did

.” Get your hands off that bag Mark, I’m warning you for the last time”.

”Oooh Miss Sexy, your voice tells me one thing but your body language quite another”. He delved his hands inside the bag and brought out a wispy black lace basque.

“I was right “ Mark sneered knowingly ” You really are Miss Hot Pants, you just pretend to be all frosty faced”. He danced around the office, waving the basque in everyone’s face before finally putting it back in the carrier bag.

That morning, Mark was a bigger pest than usual. He patted my bottom each time I went anywhere near the photocopier.He cornered Jane by the coffee machine, touching her in several place before she could duck underneath his arms. He managed to say something crude to Miss Braithwaite who ran into the restroom in tears. The final straw was seeing him thrust up against Donna the new little office junior, while pretending to give her letters to post.

“You really are a sex pest Mark.

I was the elected spokes-person and it was now or never. “Sexual harassment is against the law and we have all decided that as you just won’t keep your hands to your self, then we will have do something about it” Mark wasn’t bothered.

“You know that Mrs Hopkins won’t believe you, so don’t waste your time, she knows how sour-faced all you women are. What you need is a real man to give you all a good seeing too especially old Miss Braithwaite”

I could have smacked his stupid, leering face; he really made me feel sick.

“Don’t worry Mark we won’t be wasting our time, come on ladies”

All the female staff gave Mark a really good send off when he was escorted from the office with his personal belongings in a cardboard box. It had worked a treat. The dye that clever Kevin had sprayed on my black basque, had coated Mark’s hands, so that everything that he touched showed up red under the special lamp that Kevin had also supplied. Mrs Hopkins had no option but to sack Mark when she was shown the red marks on all the girls clothes especially the large red marks on my bottom. It had all worked better than I could have ever dreamed. It was so lucky that our Kev was a trainee scientist. We had done exactly what he suggested; wear light clothes that would show the dye more clearly. We wanted mucky Mark out.

I still had the sneakiest suspicion which I kept to myself, that the reason Mrs Hopkins had sacked Mark and thrown him out so quickly, might just have had something to do with the large red patches on her own expensive designer suit showing up so clearly under the lamp for the whole office to see.. The boss’s face had been a picture, she had not been happy.

You just never know with some people do you? They just can’t keep their hands off.

Jane Manning

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