A Note to the Reader: although the following scenario is fictitious, it is based on real life. Once again, I must begin by thanking 'Aubrey' - my girlfriend, partner-in-crime and mistress - for allowing me to immortalise our wonderful relationship in this way.
*
As with most evenings, the traffic in London was proving to be a frightful pain. True, it was not exactly gridlocked, but the endless stream of cars was sufficient to reduce movement to a crawl; and from time to time, the driver of the bus on which I was sat would blare his horn loudly as he was cut off by one of the many cyclists who were weaving easily between the lanes. Thankfully, I had more than one reason to be distracted from the general chaos outside, and I found myself reaching instinctively for the silver chain around my neck as my thoughts turned to Aubrey, who I was due to meet in an hour or so.
Although our ongoing relationship had remained a secret from our colleagues at the office, several of Aubrey's 'girl-friends' were aware that she had become involved with a mysterious younger man, and I was told that tongues were beginning to wag as to the potential identity of her toy-boy. As expected, however, my Mistress was maintaining an impenetrable veil of secrecy, refusing to disclose any more than the most basic information about our antics, especially when pushed as to the extent of my prowess between the sheets.
Even so, the reputation of 'Mr. Big' - for such was the nickname that the girls had unknowingly bestowed on me - was causing something of a stir around the water-cooler, and Aubrey would often entertain me during late-shifts by filling me in on the latest gossip. Apparently, several of the young secretaries and interns had begun to speculate as to whether they might be able to persuade her to 'loan me out' for bachelorette parties and the like; naturally, I speculated that they imagined me to be some sort of toned, muscular demi-god straight out of an American 'frat house'-type film. I had a feeling that, if they ever discovered the truth, several of those girls would likely be sorely disappointed.
Obviously, I always did my best to voice such thoughts in good humour: the last thing I wanted was for Aubrey to think that I saw her as having settled for a 'second best' option. If there was one thing that I loved more than anything about her, it was the care that she took to never put such thoughts into my head; and her constant reminders that she looked upon me as the best thing that had happened to her in a long time. Unfortunately, I would occasionally take my self-deprecation too far - perhaps by saying that I didn't deserve to be with a woman like her - and that would force Aubrey to lay me across her knees at the earliest opportunity, and give me a few cautionary smacks with her paddle.
Tonight, however, nothing of the sort was going to happen: I was in far too good a mood to be speculating about what kind of man the naive young ladies in the typing pool suspected 'Mr. Big' to be. Nor was I concerned with how they might respond to the revelation that the strapping hunk of their fantasies was in fact only 5'6", corpulent, and afflicted by early signs of male pattern baldness. No, my focus was entirely devoted to the woman who had become as central to my existence as the Seven Sacraments had once been; before three fatal years at university which had all but severed my spiritual bond with the Church. To paraphrase Heath Ledger in 'A Knight's Tale,' I had taken to saying my Rosary to Mistress Aubrey and no-one else.
Even as the bus pulled into Grosvenor Gardens, my fingers were tracing the links of my silver chain in much the same way as they had once counted off the endless repeated sequence of the 'Our Father,' 'Hail Mary,' 'Glory Be' and 'Apostles' Creed.' I had fallen into a silent reverie, thinking back to that first night that Aubrey and I had declared our love for each other; and to the following morning, when I had passed her my Claddagh Ring at the breakfast table. As she had placed it back upon my right hand, the heart now pointing inwards, I had pledged my devotion to her, and declared that - regardless of what I might 'get up to' with other ladies - my 'first time' would be with her alone.
That was another reason why we were being so careful to conceal our relationship from the prying eyes of the office. Though the world was becoming more accepting with respect to 'alternative' sexual practices and 'alternative' relationship dynamics, we both felt that our colleagues might still harbour suspicions as to the true nature of an 'open' relationship. Would they truly understand that neither Aubrey nor I looked upon additional sexual partners as posing a threat to our own love and affection; or would they see it merely as an excuse for me to sleep around, and to indulge some strange perversion by encouraging Aubrey to 'scratch her itch'?
However, I was paying little heed to such thoughts tonight; instead, my head was filled with memories of Aubrey and I in various stages of passionate entanglement. As I hauled my duffle-bag off the bus's luggage rack and hoisted it over one shoulder, a particularly memorable vision flashed across my mind; the memory of when she had first emerged from the bathroom on that first night in Liverpool, swathed in that long black evening gown with the sequinned bodice. I could still remember how spell-bound I had been, and how she had advanced across the room, drawing me into a breathless embrace and pushing her heaving bosom against me.
As I recalled again the feeling of our lips meeting for the first time, my heart quivered in my chest and my crotch began to burn with lust. This situation was not helped by the fact that, no sooner was I out of the station, than I heard a very familiar voice calling my name from across the street. I stopped dead in my tracks. Aubrey had emerged that moment from Victoria Station - she had evidently travelled down by train - and her arrival was so precisely timed that you might have suspected that she had apparated. Moreover, she seemed oblivious that passers-by were staring at her, because she was grinning from ear to ear, jumping up and down, and waving at me like a maniac.
Finally, the lights at the crossing changed in my favour, and as the traffic ground to a halt amidst a cacophony of blaring horns, I half-staggered, half-ran across the road; dropping my duffle-bag as I threw myself into Aubrey's open arms. Not caring about the tide of humanity swirling around us, we locked ourselves in an embrace that almost crushed the breath out of our bodies, and exchanged the furious, passionate kiss that we had evidently both been anticipating for several hours. My hands were stroking Aubrey's back, caressing the length of her spine, while she had the fingers of one hand entwined in my hair, the other stroking the thick fur of my beard.
From the perspective of the onlookers, I suppose that it must have looked like the climactic scene of a cheesy romantic comedy: the moment when - having spent the entire preceding ninety minutes denying their feelings - the two leads are at last consumed by passion, and the film concludes with the camera panning around them and pulling away to reveal them standing in the midst of a vast crowd of cheering strangers. Not that anything of that sort was happening here; we were simply too overcome with emotion to pay any attention to the audience who we seemed to be attracting.
At last, we broke apart, the ferocity of the kiss having left both of us gasping for breath. A few of the crowd were still staring, and we glanced around at them, smiling nervously as we picked up our luggage and headed towards the Underground. As we linked arms and wandered down the street, we could hear several isolated whistles being directed at our retreating backs, together with a few whoops of encouragement; however, these soon faded as we turned into the station and disappeared from sight.
"Holy fuck!" I giggled to Aubrey, collapsing gratefully into one of the moulded aluminium chairs on the platform; "I think we gave that lot out there something to talk about. I've been waiting a long time for this..." I tailed off, content to just stare into my Mistress' beautiful brown eyes, feeling my heart start to melt again as she wrapped one of her strong arms around my shoulders and gave me a gentle squeeze. With a deep, contented sigh, I reached over the arm of the seat, placing my hand on top of her thigh, massaging the soft flesh through the fabric of her pinstripe suit-pants.
Aubrey smiled warmly. "Oh Leonard, you really do over-dramatise things, don't you? I've only been seconded to Head Office for a week. The way that you flung yourself at me just then, you'd think that we'd been apart for a year and a day!" Slowly, she rested her free hand on top of my own, encouraging me to move further up her thigh, until I could have stretched out my fingers and touched the fabric covering her crotch. However, it was clear that Mistress want to tease me, because she suddenly increased her pressure on my hand, and whispered "later baby. My little slave boy only gets to touch my pussy if he behaves himself."
Knowing just how close I was to Aubrey's most sensitive area, I let out a little whimper, and adopted instinctively the 'wounded puppy-dog' look that had led her to christen me 'Zeus the Chihuahua.' Seeing my expression, she began to pat my head and stroke my back, murmuring soothingly in my ear as leaned towards her, nuzzling against her shoulder. I felt so comfortable that I could sense myself starting to drift off to sleep, and I probably would have done had the train to Hammersmith not chosen that particular moment to rattle into the station, shattering the intimacy of the scene as the doors gilded open, disgorging a flood of noisy commuters.
