8 - Valentine's Night Massacre:
Mackenzie's place was a long-term serviced apartment in Chelsea. Basically a furnished one bedroom flat but with a hotel's hot and cold running housekeeping.
Mack and I had met on one of my first jobs for the TSG. I'd been attached to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and posted to the British Consulate in Houston, Texas.
I'd met her in November during the British Remembrance Sunday ceremony, laying a poppy wreath at the memorial in Houston Veterans Cemetery. She there in her role as a serving officer with the National Guard.
My posting to the States had only been six months in duration, but in that time we'd developed a deep relationship. After I'd been posted back to the UK we'd kept in touch by email and Skype. But I wasn't optimistic. Long distance relationships just don't work.
Last summer Mack surprised me; she'd been offered a place at Kings College on a postgrad course. Our relationship was physical again.
I'm relaxing in a deeply comfy leather armchair, nursing a glass of red wine, gazing out over Chelsea Basin and the London skyline. Oh, and waiting for Mack to finish getting ready so we can go out.
I'm booted and suited, wearing the Hugo Boss suit that she bought me as a Christmas present. I don't get many opportunities to wear it at work.
"You're not planning any kinda surprise for Saint Valentine's night, are you shug?" Her voice came from the bedroom.
"Madog, Michael, John. Sergeant. 30574712," I replied. "Name, rank and serial number as required under the Geneva Convention."
Mack popped her head round the doorway from the bedroom.
"Not even under strict interrogation?" She asked.
"Do your worst, you'll get nothing out of me," I said in my best attempt at a heroic stiff-upper-lipped Brit voice.
"Really?" she raised an immaculately groomed eyebrow. "We'll see."
She came out of the bedroom wearing a black lacy bra with matching panties and garter belt, along with sheer black stockings and spike-heeled shoes. Mack didn't so much walk over to me as sashayed, swaying her hips outrageously.
"I'll tell you anything you want to know," I croaked.
"Yes you will," she smiled and bent down to kiss me on the lips. "Now tell me
Sergeant Madog, have you made reservations to go out some place to eat tonight?"
"Ah, no," I lied.
"Good, we'll order in," she purred. Mack rested on the arm of the chair, reached round my shoulders and hugged me into her breasts. "As it is, I'm feeling kinda overdressed."
Mack grasped my tie, she rose gracefully and pulled it taught. I took the hint and stood. She used the tie to lead me into the bedroom.
"Strip," Mack snapped.
It was definitely an order. I began to undress, dropping my clothes on the floor.
"What're you doing?" she asked. "Babe, that's the only good suit y'all have."
"You don't mention it often, just every time I spill something on it," I tell her, "and you're seriously killing the vibe here."
"Just you do as ordered soldier!"
"Ma'am, yes ma'am."
When I've undressed and hung my clothes up in the wardrobe, I stood before her in my underpants.