Gail Force

It was raining when Keisha stopped by on her way home from university. I was whiling away the time watching an old episode of

Mad Men

.

'God, it's wet! My shoes are drowned,' Keisha said.

'Take them off,' I suggested.

'I have,' she said. And then she saw what I was watching. 'Ha!

Mad Men

. Can you believe that crap?'

'I can,' I said. 'I was there.'

Keisha looked at the screen and shook her head. 'Total fantasy. It couldn't have really been like that. All the bosses are blokes. And all of the women are skivvies. Handmaidens. Bowing down at the feet of the self-important sharp-suited demigods.'

'Yep. That's pretty much the way it was,' I said. 'Back then.'

Keisha snorted. 'Yeah, right.'

Keisha is my great-niece. She wasn't born until the first week of the 21st century. For her, the late 60s may as well have been Ancient Greece. It was all long before her time. I even had to explain to her who Jim Morrison and Grace Slick were.

'You were there?' She shook her head in disbelief. 'And did you wear one of those little drug-dealer hats?' she asked.

'Oh, yes. All of the guys had at least one of those.'

She nodded. 'Cool.' (It seems that narrow-brimmed hats were 'cool', even if male chauvinists who wore them were not.)

'I think that Kenny Donaldson had one for every day of the week,' I told her.

'Kenny Donaldson? Who was Kenny Donaldson? Was he another of those flower-power singers?'

'He was my first boss.'

The first time that I saw

Mad Men

, Don Draper reminded me a lot of Kenny: cool as ice on the outside but pedalling like mad on the inside.

'Did you have a handmaiden?' Keisha asked.

'I shared a secretary with another bloke, if that's what you mean. Janice. Jan. A nice girl. She married a building contractor, as I recall.'

'And did she make you coffee and sort out your dry cleaning?'

'Yes, she did. Although I was always happy to make her coffee.'

Keisha nodded. Maybe great-uncle Sam was not such a total bastard after all. 'Did your place have any women who weren't handmaidens?'

'Secretaries,' I said. 'We didn't call them handmaidens. And, yes, we had a couple of female copywriters. And a female art director. Mad Mandy. A strange girl. I think she used to do acid.'

'But no managers. No top dogs.'

'Not when I first started. No. But then we pitched for a cosmetic account. Kenny knew the marketing director. Tennis club, I think. Or maybe it was a squash club. It was a long time ago now. Anyway, the marketing director let it be known that having a woman on the team would not do our chances any harm. That's when Kenny hired Gail.'

'As ...?'

'As a suit. Yes. She had previously worked in media sales. There were a lot of women in media sales back then. It was all face-to-face in those pre-internet days. I suspect that, to some extent, the prettier the face, the better the sales. But I could be wrong.'

'Did she have to wear a drug-dealer's hat?'

I laughed. 'No.'

'A suit?'

'Oh yes. She was very professional.'

'In what way?'

'Gail was all business. And she certainly took no prisoners.'

'Did she have a handmaiden?' Keisha asked.

'If you mean did she have a secretary ... yes.'

'Did you like her?'

Did I like her? To be honest, when Gail first arrived, I didn't have that much to do with her. She worked on the cosmetics pitch, and then, when we were awarded the business, she was the account exec. I was the account exec on the brewery business, so our paths didn't cross a great deal. But I think that we got on well enough when our paths did cross. 'Yeah. I liked her,' I said. 'She could be a bit sharp. A bit confrontational. And she did sometimes blow hot and cold. As I said: she certainly took no prisoners.'

'What does that mean?' Keisha asked.

'Well ... she tended to shoot first and ask questions later.'

Keisha nodded.

'A couple of the older guys were a bit sexist. Well ... very sexist. But she soon had them sorted out.'

'Good on her.'

'I think that most of the agencies were pretty sexist back in those days. And a lot of them were run by out and out bullies. They wouldn't get away with it today. But, back then ... well, it was just the way things were.'

'Was your boss a bully?'

'Kenny? No, not really. Charm was Kenny's weapon of choice.'

We only held the cosmetics business for about 18 months. The company was bought out by one of the big conglomerates and our brands were deleted. Orderly marketing, they called it. It certainly wasn't Gail's fault. And, after that, Kenny drafted Gail in to work on the First Resort business.

Most of First Resort's properties were dotted around the Caribbean, with a few more on the Costas. Naturally, Gail had to visit some of them - just to get a feel for what the business was all about. As I recall, her subsequent suntan caused a few ruffled feathers among some of the older execs. 'Work?' I remember Howard Austin saying. 'That girl wouldn't recognise work if it jumped up and bit her on her backside.' The truth of the matter was that Gail worked very hard indeed. I guess that beoing a woman in a man's world, she had to.

It was about a year later that Kenny promoted me to account director and put me in charge of the Christina Cruises business. Christina Cruises was a joint venture between P&M Shipping and a Greek squillionaire, and it was one of the first cruise companies to go after the emerging 'new middle classes'. One of my first duties as the new account director was to attend the World Travel Congress in Miami. Gail also attended. She was there in her role as account exec on the First Resort business.

The convention was held at Bal Harbour, an up-market beachside community at the northern tip of Miami beach. It was on the second day of business that Gail somehow managed to slip and sprain her ankle. The first that I knew about it was when one of the bell boys brought me a note from Gail saying that she had had a bit of an accident and wasn't going to be able to meet me for supper that evening.

Her note didn't say what sort of an accident or what the consequences were. So I phoned her room to see if there was anything that I could do. I think that she said something like: 'Apart from getting me a new ankle - preferably one that's about half the size of the one I currently have ...'

'Well, you probably should try and get something to eat,' I said.

She said that she had just phoned Room Service and put in an order in for a steak sandwich. 'You could always come and join me,' she said.

When I got to her room, she answered the door wearing one of the hotel's three-quarter length towelling bathrobes. And she did, indeed, have one ankle that was about twice the size of the other one. 'Maybe we should see if we can find a doctor,' I said.

'I've already done that,' Gail said. 'Or at least the hotel did. She - the doctor - said that it's just a sprain. Nothing's broken. I've got this ice pack. And some pain killers. Oh, and I've ordered you a steak sandwich. I hope that was OK.'

As well as the steak sandwiches, Gail had ordered a bottle of wine. A Californian red, as I recall. And, by the time that we had finished our surprisingly-good steak sandwiches - with French fries - the normally buttoned-down Gail had become rather loose. I guess it was probably the combination of the drugs and the wine.

'What would you like to do now?' I asked as I topped our glasses with the last of the wine.

'You could fuck me if you like,' Gail said.

I think that I may have laughed. Probably nervously.

'Don't you want to?'

'Do you want to?' I said.

'It would take my mind off my ankle,' she said.

As I watched Gail hobble over to the bed, lie on her back, and undo her bathrobe, I remember being both surprised and amused. It certainly wasn't a scene that I had even vaguely contemplated.

'You might need to help me,' Gail said, as she pushed her knickers down slightly and uncovered her glorious dark blonde bush.

I gave her a second or two to change her mind (she didn't), and then I kicked my shoes off and joined her on the bed. And then she did change her mind.

'No. This is not going to work, is it?' she said. 'I think I'm going to need the ice pack again. Sorry.' And she started to sit up.

'Just stay there,' I said. 'I'll get it.'

I went and got a towel from the bathroom and put it under her ankle. Then I got the ice pack. But it had turned to a slush pack. I had noticed an ice machine at the end of the corridor, near the lifts - elevators - and so I took an ice bucket - and her room key - and went in search of fresh supplies. Ten minutes later, we had the ice pack back in service.

'Sorry,' Gail said. 'Maybe we can try again tomorrow.'

'Where have you been?' Keisha asked.

'What?'

'I thought that you'd gone to sleep,' Keisha said.

'No. Just thinking.'

'Just thinking?'

'Yeah. Just remembering something that happened a long time ago.'

'You were smiling,' Keisha said.

'Was I?'

On the third and final day of the convention, Gail got to attend a couple of the sessions with the aid of a wheelchair that the hotel just happened to have on hand. And, that evening, she and I shared a surprisingly-good fish supper at the hotel's beachfront grill. But that was it. And the following day we flew home. There was no mention of our Room Service supper and what might have been. Although I must confess that, for the next few months, the memory of Gail's luxurious dark blonde bush did play a starring role in some of my midnight masturbation sessions.

And then - I guess it must have been a year or so later - Gail was head-hunted by O'Rourke & Bateman. Kenny tried to persuade her to stay, but the O'Rourke's offer was too good. It was a chance for Gail to move up to account director with her own account group.

On the night before she left the home of the mad men, Kenny took a bunch of us out for dinner at a Tuscan-inspired place in Marylebone. The meal was excellent. And afterwards, Gail and I shared a cab.

'Where to?' I asked.

'Well ... we almost got there in Miami,' Gail said. 'We could give it another go if you like.' And we got the cab to take us to Gail's place, which was just the other side of Lord's Cricket Ground.

I'm not sure why it took so long for us to 'get together'. Working together probably had something to do with it. And, to be perfectly honest, we didn't have that much in common. Not really. But the sex ... the sex was brilliant. It just worked.

That first night we started out with my tongue exploring her dark blonde bush and what lay beneath it. And, in the words of Restaurant Rex, an early food critic who had a column in the West London Gazette, 'I'm pleased to report, dear reader, that it tasted every bit as good as it looked'. After that, we had a brilliant doggy-style fuck. At 25, I wasn't exactly new to the pleasures of the flesh, but Gail was exceptional. Truly exceptional.

'You're smiling again,' Keisha said. 'Are you going to share?'

'I think that you had to be there,' I said.

It's funny how memory works, isn't it? I can remember that first night with Gail as though it was yesterday. I remember how she looked; how she smelled; how she tasted; how she felt. But I can't for the life of me remember why we didn't do it again for several weeks. Maybe one of us had to go away. I don't know.

My next memory is of driving down from North London on a sunny afternoon. I think that it must have been a Saturday or a Sunday. I had probably been to a bookshop that I used to frequent up near Hampstead Heath. As I got down towards Lord's, I decided to make a little detour to see if Gail was at home. I remember ringing her doorbell and, when there was no reply, deciding that she wasn't at home. And then, just as I was walking back to my car, she appeared. She was wearing a three-quarter length towelling bathrobe like the one that she had worn in Miami. She said that she had been out in the little courtyard at the back of her flat, enjoying the sun.

'Oh. Come in,' she said. 'I thought that you were someone trying to sell me something. Or worse: one of those religious nutters.'

I followed her into the kitchen where she made a jug of Pimm's. And then we went out to the south-facing courtyard and, once out there, Gail poured a couple of glasses of Pimm's, removed her bathrobe, and lay back on the towel-covered sun lounger. She was naked beneath the bathrobe. Well ... naked save for a slick coating of suntan oil.

We sipped and chatted for a while, and then I moved my chair closer to her, spread her elegant legs slightly - she didn't object - and put my fingers to work on her beautiful cunt. Three or four times I brought her to edge of orgasm, but then pulled back. Finally, I led her over the edge.

Gail's little courtyard was very private. There were no neighbouring windows overlooking it. But when we reached the magic moment, I'm sure that Gail's vocalisations would have left any neighbours within earshot in little doubt as to what was going on.

'Perhaps we should go inside,' she murmured when she had had a chance to catch her breath again. 'Don't want to get

too

much sun, do we?'

The table in her kitchen was just the right height. I bent her over it and lined my super-hard cock up with her hot, slippery slot.

'This is your turn,' Gail said. 'Just be my guest.'

'Be your guest?'

'Just whatever makes you feel good,' she said.

That was the afternoon that I discovered that fucking her in the arse made me feel pretty good. It seemed to make her feel pretty good too. Perhaps that was what she had meant by 'Be my guest'.

After that, Gail and I got together once or twice a week. I even wondered if I should invite her to move into my place. But the more that I thought about it the less it seemed like a good idea.

'You never have any Coke in your fridge,' Keisha said.

'No. I don't drink Coke.'

'Never?'

'Not for a long time,' I said. 'I used to enjoy a splash in my rum. But I haven't drunk rum for years now.'

Keisha frowned. 'Why not?'

'Don't know,' I said. 'There was probably a reason that I stopped - but I can't remember what it was.'

Keisha frowned again and shook her head.

I can't remember exactly when or why Gail and I came to an end either. It probably had something to do with Gail's bouts of depression. Every now and then she would turn into the blackest of wicked witches. I tried, a few times, to get her to go and talk to her doctor about it. But she said that her doctor would just give her zombie pills. 'I don't want to be fucking zombie,' she said.

I didn't exactly forget about Gail. She wasn't the kind of woman that you could easily forget. But I wasn't tempted to pick up the phone. However, about a year later, she phoned me.

She had a couple of friends who were thinking about setting up a travel agency that sold nothing but cruises. They had done quite a bit of homework. On paper it certainly seemed like a viable proposition. But they wanted to talk to someone who knew the industry from the inside. 'Would you meet them over a glass of wine?' Gail asked me.

'Well, my knowledge has a particular perspective,' I reminded her.

'I've explained that,' she said. 'But they think it would be really helpful.'

We agreed to meet up at The Fruit of the Vine.

Gail's friends - Toby and Vanessa - seemed pretty switched on. And they definitely seemed to have done their homework. We chatted for almost two hours. And then they disappeared into the night with my business card in Vanessa's voluminous handbag.

There was still some wine in the bottle. Our second bottle. I poured half into Gail's glass, and half into mine. 'So, how are you?' I asked.

'Busy,' she said.

'And are you still living just beyond the third man boundary?'

Gail frowned. And then she smiled. 'Oh. No. I've abandoned Lord's to the true cricket fans. I've bought a flat just off Hyde Park Square. I can walk to work.'

'Nice,' I said.

'It is. I probably paid too much. But it's a great location. And it had all been done up. You should come and have a look at it.'

'I will,' I said.

'Now would be good,' Gail said. 'No time like the present.'

Funnily enough, I knew what she angling at. But we finished our wine and went anyway. She was right. The location was great. And the flat, while small, was nigh on perfect.

'The main bedroom is just through here,' she said. I followed her, and waited while, as fastidious as ever, she removed her jacket and her skirt and placed them carefully over a chair. We didn't bother with the bed. I pushed her back against the wall and pulled down her knickers while she freed my cock. Her cunt was hot and slick. And everything went together the way that it always had.

'Well, that still works,' I said after we had both come.

'We could have made a great couple,' she said. 'Maybe even Mr and Mrs.'

'Except I would have had to learn to love vegetarian food. And you would have had to learn to love post-bop jazz.'

'I've given up being a vegetarian,' she said. 'And, in time, I might even learn to like jazz.'

'You're smiling again,' Keisha said.

'Am I?'

'You are. I'll make you some coffee,' she said.