Never in her most arousing of dreams did Maureen imagine she would bag the man who could so easily have been the leading man in the piles of romantic fiction which, for so long during her life as a single thirty something, had kept a small flame burning inside her lonely heart.
In those days, working as a lowly typist in the accounts section of a stuffy bank in the City, she followed the dress code to the letter, and the clothes rack in her modest bedsit in
a respectable postcode south of the river, was full of freshly laundered cream blouses and black pencil skirts that ended just above the knee.
Of party outfits there were few; just a floaty summer dress with a gay floral pattern which she had to admit showed off her slim arms and athletic legs to rather flattering effect. Alas, Maureen had few opportunities to meet, let alone catch the eye, of the type of well-heeled gentleman with a touch of dash and maybe even, a whiff of danger, who she so achingly yearned would step off the page and come into her life.
But as another paperback was placed on the pile beside her bed and she flicked the switch on her bedside lamp, she sank into a sleep full of melancholy premonitions of a lonely future in which she may never feel the warmth of a man beside her in bed, their bodies touching, the feel of his hands, and more, on her slim pale body.
Work was her life in those days. Though outwardly demure and consensual, she learned quickly and had a lively grasp of what it took to get ahead, away from the banal chatter and gossip of the other girls in accounts.
She wouldn't partake of such inane banter, but that didn't mean she wasn't listening, in between inputting figures and bashing the keys on her electric Olympia.
Mostly in the all-female typing pool it was regular office chat about holidays, shitty bosses, food, clothes, the usual things. But her eyes would widen and her fingers barely touched the keys when she heard voices drop and from across the flimsy partitions, conversation would take a turn to matters of an altogether more salacious nature.
On one occasion, it was one of those sultry days in late July when half the office was on holiday, she overhead two of the girls talking in low giggly voices about their boyfriends and their relative attributes. Using words she would never have countenanced, but which made her temples glow, she heard Erica talking about her man, who worked in the KwikFit fitting ridiculously heavy tyres to SUVs.
His nationality was of no relevance, but Maureen had heard rumours of how well endowed some men could be and her coffee went cold as she evesdropped, and she could feel her heart beating against her tight wired bra as Erica quietly swooned over the size of her boyfriend's appendage.
And as luck would have it, she would have a grandstand -- well, more like a peephole -- demonstration of just how big, later that same week.
