Falling Off Her Pedestal

She was waiting at the bus stop when I spotted her through the arch of glass the wipers repeatedly cleared of snow. From a distance, she had the appearance of a tiny figure in some cheap snow-scene trinket. If the traffic had not been so slow, the snow-hushed rush hour a gruelling stop-start, I probably would not have noticed her at all.

It was not just her tallness, her ever-so-long legs in boots and shortish skirt that drew my eye; she appeared forlorn and abandoned. How inappropriate her clothes were for the conditions, her leather jacket merely decorative, not protective at all, her collapsable umbrella her only protection. Her attire told me that when she had left the house that morning, she had not anticipated this white-out.

The dawning of recognition on seeing her face. The disbelief that it was her in that place at that time. How different she appeared from the picture I carried off her in my memory, her moments of laughter and smiles in summer days all those years ago.

She anxiously scanned the road for signs of her bus, didn't even look when I pulled into the bus turn and got out of my car and called to her over the car's low, soft-top. Snowflakes settled heavily on my shoulders, wetting my shirt.

She probably thought I was some creep, so I called again, louder now: "Dolce!"

Hearing her name she turned to look, peering doubtfully, still not sure. "Oh, it's you. Greg. . . isn't it?" Then her smile.

"Get in," I said.

"I don't live in Weston anymore. It'll be out of your way."

"Where are you now?"

"Newtown. Benson Street. "

"Your bus might never arrive — in this," my finger pointing upwards. "I can't leave you to freeze to death. I'll run you anyway. Will Martin be home? It would be good to catch up," I said and then quickly retreated into the snug interior of my old MG.

She attended to her umbrella before getting into my car, shaking it, folding it away. As she did so, snow settled on her shoulders and in her hair. She dusted it away before opening the passenger door.

And then her legs slipping gracefully into the footwell, then the clunk of the door closing. She wore leather knee-length boots and a shortish skirt that rode high as she settled herself, revealing an expanse of thigh sheathed in opaque grey tights. She began wriggling her bottom in a quest for comfort in the hardly accommodating bucket-seat, exposing even more of her thighs as she did so. I watched her cross and uncross her legs, twist her feet this way and that trying to find enough space in which to rest them. She eventually settled into this kind of side-saddle position, her knees almost brushing the gearstick.

She saw me looking at her legs and tugged self-consciously on the hem her skirt. "Not a lot of room is there?" she said.

"I should have altered the seat for you. Your legs are very long."

"They're too long."

"They're perfect," I said, once again running my eyes over her thighs. She must have been six foot. When she wore heels, we were eye to eye.

Her smile was sweet, her gaze demur. "I never expected this snow," she said. "When has it ever snowed like this in April? And this jacket's no use. Can you turn the heating up?"

"This is as good as it gets," I said. "Anyway, where's your car?"

"I've given up driving to work. Parking fees are ridiculous in the centre. The bus makes more sense — usually."

"Perhaps you'll check the weather in the morning from now on."

"God, no. I'm up at the last minute, showered and out the door in all of twenty minutes. I'm still half asleep when I roll into the office."

She looked tired, worn down. She had aged since the last time I'd seen her. I thought of the girl she had been when Martin first introduced her to me five years before. She had been just eighteen, and I'd immediately thought her the most beautiful, elegant girl I had ever met. I was so jealous of Martin, could hardly believe someone like her could fall for a person like him.

I'd arranged to meet Martin and other friends at the races, never expecting a girl as sophisticated as Dolce would be his, or that Martin even had a new girlfriend. When I remember that day, I still get the same tingles I did the very first time laid eyes on her.

"Greg, this is Dolce. Dolce, Greg," Martin had said.

Her guileless smile. "Hi, Greg. Lovely to meet you. Martin has told me all about you." She had stepped towards me and offered me her hand, and I had taken it in mine. Even though she was such a tall and sturdy girl, her hand was small, soft and delicate. She drew me close by gently pulling my hand, kissed each of my cheeks.

To see her, to speak to her, was astonishing enough, but to touch her, inhale her, was to be given a peek into what it might be like to make love to her. There was something indefinable about Dolce, her refined feminine allure saved from primness by her visceral physicality. She had studied dance since childhood. She also swam, climbed, and kayaked.

Only minutes before, on that day we first met, a brief squall had swept the racecourse, catching Dolce in the open. The sudden wind had sent strands of her hair all hither and thither and left her fascinator askew at the side of her head. That hint of dishevelment contrasted with her otherwise immaculate outfit, her impeccable poise.

Her height, her lingering proximity as she kissed my cheeks, and her intoxicating fragrance, they all filled me with a desire for her so complete it frightened me. Being close to a girl like Dolce, I realised I could guarantee nothing about my behaviour in her presence ever again. Before drawing away from me, she held my gaze. It was as if she were trying to remember me, searching for the person in her life I may have once been.

For me It had been love at first sight, though I would not have called I that at the time. Looking back now I can see it was precisely that. Having to live with the heartbreaking knowledge she was out of bounds was too much and I had to put myself out of harm's way, had begun to make an excuse if Martin called to ask me round to theirs.

Eventually, my aching crush abated, buried by denial in that rarely disturbed eluvium called, "if only". I did not like to look at all the "If only's" in my life: there were too many. But little by little, our friendships resumed for a while, until I was moved to another city by my company. My only contact with the couple being birthday greetings and the occasional email from Martin. I told myself my feelings for her had been lust only.

But then on that Friday evening when snow stilled the city, I found myself alone with Dolce for the first time, and emotions long denied began to surface.

"Shouldn't we get going?" she asked.

I realised I was staring at her legs again. I coughed involuntarily and turned from her and gave my full attention to rejoining the traffic, which was still barely flowing.

The car indicator tick-ticked as we waited for the kindness of a fellow motorist. The flash of headlights and my old MG found its place among the other barely moving vehicles.

"I suppose you've heard," She said flatly.

"Heard what?"

"About Martin and me."

"Have you finally named the day then?"

A scowl. "It'll have been two months tomorrow . . ."

"Two months?"

"Two months since I said enough is enough. I've left the bastard. You know Emily, don't you?"

"Emily Tomkins?"

"That's her . . . The Bitch! From now on to be known as That-Fucking-Bitch."

"Martin and her?" I was shocked. I'd always thought Martin and Dolce as forever. "My god!" I said, "Martin adored you. You were his perfect girl. I mean, Emily is a babe, but she's not in the same league as you, Dolce. No way is she! What-the-fuck happened?"

"That-Fucking-Bitch happened, that's what happened. Everyone knew except me. She lives in my home now — my home! Can you believe it? I'm sorry, Greg, it makes me so furious to think of her alone with him in our apartment."

Emily Tomkins! Gorgeous she may have been, I'd always thought of her as a girl that had risen above her comfort zone and would soon be sliding back down into the sluttiness from which she had apparently escaped. But I didn't know anything about Martin's involvement with her.

"I didn't know," I protested.

"You must be the only one who didn't." I sensed her thinking. She looked directly at me. "If you had known, would you have said?"

"You mean would I have told you about their affair?"

"Yeah."

"But I didn't know, did I? I've had a lot on lately; I haven't seen Martin or you in over a year."

"But would you have — If you had known?"

I asked myself if I would have told her. I didn't know. I thought hard. I might have; it would have been a door through which to reach her. But Martin was my oldest friend.

We were nearing a side road that I could use to escape the congestion — and her question. "If we go down here we can avoid getting stuck in the snarl of junction forty-five."

Well, that was the idea. Ten minutes later we had to abandon the car. A small hill had become a ski-run which my motor refused to climb. The engine roared, and wheels span, but we were going nowhere.

"What now?" She asked.

"We walk."

"It's five miles to my house. I can't walk that far in these boots."

I sat and thought. Then an idea:

"Look, Dolce, we're still in town. There's The Hilton. Its only five minutes by foot if we go via the canal tow-path. We could hang out at the bar. Maybe eat, kill time until it clears."

"My boss said it was set in for the night, which is why he said I could go home early."

I checked my phone. The BBC said the same: another six hours of snow, at least. And even if it stopped, the roads would be gridlocked for hours.

I said, "Your boss was right." And then very tentatively, "If it doesn't clear, we could share a room?" She looked at me in a way I found hard to read. Was it disbelief that I had even suggested such a thing? Or was it something else? I couldn't tell. "Twins of course," I added.

"Tell you what, Greg. We'll go for that drink and wait and just hope it clears."

"Sounds like a plan," I said. Already my ego was crushed, the word "hope" a leaden thing falling on my thoughts of her and me alone for the night.

The estimated five minutes walk to the Hilton became fifteen. As we made our way through snow that fell heavier with each step we took, she had to hold my arm for support as her footwear, fashion boots at best, were hardly adequate for the conditions underfoot. As soon she tried to walk, she skidded and slid. She reminded me of a baby giraffe trying to stand for the first time. I had to quickly take her arm to stop her slipping onto her butt.

We walked along arm in arm, and every few paces she would lose her footing and nearly bringing us both down. The snow settled densely over our coats and by the time we reached the hotel we resembled a pair of towship-scavenging polar bears.

We found a place to hang our wet coats. I asked if she wanted a hot drink. Something stronger?

"I'm frozen," she said. "Is it too early for brandy?"

I order two doubles. The bar was on the third floor. We found a seat by the window with views over the city.

My toes have no feeling," she said as she removed her boots.

She brought up both feet and tucked them between her haunches and the leather of the bench seating, her stockinged toes peeping out, which she massaged lazily with her fingers as we talked. There was a background murmur of conversations from the other patrons who sat close by, their words indistinct becoming white noise to soothe us. We said little, watched snow fall vertically beyond the glass.

Dreamily she said, "I love it when you can steal time from the world, moments like this when no one can claim you."

"Yeah, like when you are a kid and it snows and the school bus doesn't come, so you have to go back home and then you sit and watch it fall."

We sipped our drink silently looking out.

"Do you want to talk about Martin?" I eventually plucked up the courage to ask.

"Not really," she said flatly. "But I suppose you being his friend you must be dying to know what happened."

"How long had he been. . ." I'd nearly said, shagging Emily. I managed to catch my tongue, change it to, "playing away."

"Greg! I hate that phrase. Playing away makes a treacherous betrayal sound like a team sport — and it isn't!" Then, in an almost whisper, "It's heartbreaking."

Couldn't I say anything right? I looked into her eyes, thought she might cry.

"How did you find out?"

She seemed to gather herself for the telling. "I got a text one evening before he got home from work. It was intended for her, but the idiot sent it to me."

"Texting without due care and attention. A capital offence," I said

She looked at me with intense anger burning in her beautiful large brown eyes. "Do you know what it said, Greg?"

"No. Tell me."

"It said, 'Can't make it tonight, the stupid cow wants me to go to her parents with her. It's her Mum's birthday. Love you so much. Can't wait to get shut of her.'"

"Jeez," I exhaled. "The bastard."

"Double-fucking-bastard!"

We sat silently for a moment, again looking out into the night. Beyond the glass, the snow was turning to sleet. I said, "We might be able to make a move in an hour if it turns to rain."

I saw something new in her expression. A decision made. "You know what you were saying?"

"What was that?"

"About a room."

"The one we won't need anymore." I laughed.

"What if I said that we still do need that room."

"I'd ask you why."

"And what if I said that I wanted you to hold me? Could you do that, Greg? Just tonight? All night?"

"I can do that," I managed to say. But I don't know how I found the ability to speak the words. The idea of us being together made my mind reel.

She smiled and reached out her hand and touched my cheek. Her eyes were sadder than any I had ever seen, "You're such a sweet man."

I went to the reception and learned they only had one room. It was expensive: the Deluxe King, coming in at twice the price of the usual, and four times what I pay at a Travel Lodge. But I did not hesitate when they told me the price. I would have spent ten times the amount to be with Dolce for just one hour.

We did not speak in the lift, stood side by side and watched floors counted down as if we were strangers. She had not bothered to put on her boots; they dangled from her hand. When the lift door opened I stood aside to let her pass.

"Which way?" she asked. And then she saw the plaque with room numbers and arrows and headed off. I followed her without a word.

Our room. Spacious and high above the city, two walls entirely glass. The thickly caked snow was beginning to slide down the panes revealing the blur of the city's lights in a haze of twinkling beyond our concern.

The bed was high, the mattress vast. I could not comprehend that we would soon be under its covers.

She came to me and asked me to hold her, rested her head against me as I wrapped her in my arms. I had never embraced intimately a woman who was so tall, and for just a moment I was unsure of myself. It was as if there were too much of her; too much woman, too much curve, an overabundance of softness. For a moment I wondered if I would be inadequate.

The heat of her body carried the scent of her day; her underarm spray, her hair products; cigarettes and fabric conditioner mingling in the fibres of her clothes, and I wondered who it was in her life who smoked. But below those, her person was awash with her female creature pheromones, nature's essential gift to her sex. When we kissed, my desire for her became primal.

To have the woman I had adored from a distance giving herself to me. . . . Well! It was soul-shaking. I knew the world would never again be the same place it once was. I tied and tied, but the enormity of it was beyond comprehension. I could not believe it was happening.

If she had been any other woman my hands would not have hesitated, but I hardly dared touch her intimately. It was not the fear of rejection that prevented me from undoing the fastener at the side of her skirt or the buttons of her blouse. No. It was the fear that by hurrying to an assured conclusion, I might miss so many things about her. In years to come, I would need to remember, evoke, relive, and cherish everything.

So we just stood pressed together, I do not know for how long for. We did not kiss.

"Do you want another drink — I could call room service?" I finally asked her.

"Wine would be nice. Is there a menu? I'm starving."

I broke away from her and walked to the dresser. "Here." I passed her the room service brochure.

She studied the menu for five minutes before saying, "I'm going to have a Club Sandwich. What about you?"

"The same. Wine? "

"Please."

"Red or white?"

"White."

I ordered us both a Club Sandwich, the wine too, and we chatted while we waited for room service to arrive. It was as if we were colleagues away at a convention. She told me about her work, and I told her about mine.

"I thought life was perfect," she said. "I had the most wonderful bloke, a job I loved."

"You still have your job," I said.

"My work suffering because of him. I can't concentrate when I'm at the office."

I wanted to say something, but I knew that whatever I said to her would be a truism unworthy of her. "It may seem bleak at the moment, but you're a talented and gorgeous woman. Life will be good for you again one day."

"Perhaps you're right. You are right — of course, you are — but at the moment I feel so betrayed. How could he. . .? You're a man, Greg: how could he have done that to me? What is wrong with your sex?"

I was about to go to her again, but the room service arrived and so I went and answered the door. The waiter wheeled the trolley in and began fussing with the wine bottle. I let him uncork it and then tipped him and walked him hurriedly to the door.

We ate in silence, sipped wine with our food.

When we had finished eating, she said, "I should shower."

"You don't have to — not for me," I said.

"I must. It's been a long day."

She stood, began towards the bathroom.

"I'll join you, then?"

She turned and smiled. "If you like."

"Can I undress you?"

"I'm not a toddler, Greg. Believe it or not, I'm big enough to fasten my own shoelaces." She smiled sadly.

"I'd like to, though,"

"It's been so long since Martin undressed me. We'd just get naked as fast as we could."

I stood close, reached out and slowly undid each button of her blouse, one after the other. All the while she held my gaze, smiling like a mother allowing her child one last treat before bedtime. When I removed her top, she took it from me and folded it carefully and then reached to her side and placed it on the dresser surface in front of the mirror.

Before I unfastened her bra, I caught her eyes again and saw how they now shone with secret pleasure. Perhaps she sensed how much this meant to me, was starting to realise that such knowledge could give her complete command of me. But if she did sense how utterly in thrall to her I was, she chose not to abuse her power.

I had to take a deep breath when I saw her naked breasts. I purposefully delayed touching them. But, oh man, how I looked and looked, studied their every millimetre. She had enchanting breasts, proportionate to her build, shapely, taut, the aurora pink, her nipples not yet stiff.

I love to undress women, remove their tops and skirts, their tights and panties, but after the glory of her breasts, my excitement was at fever pitch. My fingers fumbled as I struggled with the waistband fastener of her skirt, the impossible small zip that refused to cooperate. When I eventually had them undone, the material of her skirt was reluctant to leave her hips. When I tugged down, the body of her tights came along too. Her skirt fell to the floor, and she stooped and retrieve it, folded just as she had her blouse.