A GREAT PLEASURE

I turned from the window and made my way back to the bedroom.

Nico was fast asleep on top of the bedclothes, his adonis like body sent a ripple of passion through me ... why couldn't my life be simple? Why couldn't I just lay down beside him and tease him awake with my hands, my mouth ...?

Why ...?

I passed him and grabbed my clothes from the floor, quickly slipping into them before splashing water onto my face, cleaning my teeth and pulling my hair back into a loose pony tail. Thank God I had inherited a face from my parents that didn't look too bad in a morning!

I leant and gently kissed Nico on the forehead as I passed, the touch of my lips on his brow causing him to sligthly stir before he fell back into his deep sleep.

The old lady would be in the hotel foyer by now and it was time that I put an end to this silliness.

If she was a deranged stalker then I would have to take the chance that the Porter and Reception Staff would be on help to help me out if the need arose.

I quietly clicked the bedroom door shut behind me and took the elevator to the ground floor.

As the pan pipes wafted the tunes of some '70's rock band who's name I couldn't quite remember around me my thoughts turned to my unwelcome visitor. Normally I would have had my staff sort out any unwelcome 'admirers' but, for some reason that i could not explain to myself, I was feeling a growing desire to see this lady in person. Something about her, about the way she spoke, was drawing me to her ......

The lift doors slid open and I stepped out from them.

The recption was quiet and empty apart from the receptionist, a bubbly young brunette who hailed from eastern Europe and the night Porter a surly middle aged Cockney. From the way they were slipping quiet word to each other I could only guess that within half an hour of them signing off from work they would be signing into an unused room and tearing each others clothes off.

I strode into the centre of the area and looked around, I didn't notice her at first,she was incredibly tiny, but there she sat, upright with her hands neatly folded on her lap, on one of the soft tan sofas against the far wall.

She stood and I approach, a welcoming smile illuminating her face ... I couldn't help but smile back.

'Amanda', she said as I took her outstretched hand and shook it, 'it is my great pleasure to finally meet you .....'

ROLL THE DICE

Fate, chance, kismet, destiny .... call this mysterious lady who comes calling on us all at some time or another what you like ... just hope and pray that when you do encounter her that she decides to smile on you.

Four friends, four bright, beautiful and exceptional young women were on the brink of discovering what she has in store for them ... would they, could they, rise to her challenge? Accept their place in the bigger picture, do what they had to do ....?

Amanda - strong, confident, and, already under threat, waiting for Madame Zhou ....

Cassie - Independent, maverick ... was she really in possession of the same gifts as her St. Lucian Grandmother?

Helen - Rational, logical and ambitious ... how could she equate this to the alcohol fuelled conversation with her beloved Aunt?

Millie - bohemian, loving and naive ... what does Marcus have to tell her?

The forces that are out there can be fickle mistresses ... why do they deign to select one person over another? Why do they relish in injecting the extraordinary into the ordinary ...? No one knows ....

Can religion give us the answers? Is faith the key ...? We all do what we must to answer these questions in our own ways.

Whatever conspired to make the situation thus could now oversee her plans falling into place .... four for good against one for bad ...

Let's roll the dice and see what happens.

JUICY LUCY

Millie bent down and absentmindedly picked up one of the red-topped gossip papers. The front cover featured a picture of American Socialite ‘Lucy Bessington’ captured in a rather unflattering pose. She was getting out of the back of a car, a carefully positioned black star over her crotch showed her to be ‘commando’, her pupils were dilated and she seemed to have a copious amount of white powder around her nose.

“Juicy Lucy the Junkie”. Oh Lucy what would your Daddy say?

Hating the part of herself that loved this scandalous dirt, she thanked God that she wasn’t Lucy Bessington this morning yet found herself unable to stop the side of her that loved this salacious crap and folded the magazine under her arm to enjoy later.

She shopped for bread, sausages, bacon, eggs and tomatoes, also grabbing some black pudding…. she was a Northerner after all!

Once she had another carton of milk and a carton of fresh orange juice, with bits, she was ready to rock and roll. Laden down with cheap carrier bags Millie made her way out of the store as she began to cross the road. As she reached the middle of the street the car that had been idling across the road roared into life and sped towards her.

Momentarily Millie stood transfixed, like a rabbit in the spotlight, as the car shot towards her. Strangely, she focused on the driver, female, dressed in a black suit, the face obscured by shadow.

“Thump.” Millie was hit at full force, her hands opened, the bags holding her groceries tearing open, their contents spilling and exploding. Millie lay there at the side of the road, bruised, battered but alive. Mr Aziz lay beside her.

“You saved my life”. Millie grabbed Mr Aziz, tears in her eyes. “Thank you, thank you”.

Mr Aziz smiled. “Are you ok? Thank God I was outside putting out the papers. I saw the car coming, there was only one thing I could do.”

Mr Aziz had leapt into the road, pushing Millie out of harms way, avoiding being hit by the car himself by a hairs breadth. “Mr Aziz you saved my life……thankyou.” Mille and her saviour got to their feet and stood as a small crowd of passers by assembled to see if they were ok.

WHAT A WONDERFUL MORNING

Millie awoke and uncurled herself from Marcus’ warm embrace.

She felt great. Marcus was here, they’d enjoyed a night of unbridled passion together and it was a beautiful sunny day outside. She slipped on her silk negligee and left Marcus sleeping soundly whilst she made her way to the kitchen.

She felt like Doris Day in one of those Technicolor movies from the Sixties, the world seemed animated and full of colour. She was going to look after her man and the best way to do this, as her mother had continually told her, was by feeding him well.

Millie held the thought for a while and smiled, the fact that her father had died from a body thumping heart attack in his late fifties “overweight and living on a diet of fatty food and alcohol” crossing her mind and temporarily dampening her mood.

She soon picked herself up again, however, by forcing thoughts of her beloved Dad from her mind and replacing them with the Doris Day classic “our lips shouldn’t touch, move over darling…”

She busied herself around the kitchen, setting the coffee machine and making herself a quick cup of tea. “Bacon, eggs, fried tomatoes…”. Millie planned it all out as she worked away. Her plans came tumbling down somewhat when she opened the fridge door…..instead of revealing the contents of her Mother’s well stocked chiller it showed the sparse requirements of a batchelor girl.

A softening, half-cut cucumber sat, its only intended use being to remove the puffiness around the eyes after a late night. An opened bottle of champagne with kitchen paper rammed in the top to stop whatever remnants of CO² that were left from escaping. Various face creams and beauty products which survived better in the cool environment. A few chilled, prepared foods. A pack of out of date chicken breasts and four bottles of Sauvignon blanc. Apart from a half empty carton of milk that she needed for the tea and coffee there was nothing here to feed her man with.

“Damn!”

Thank God for convenience stores, Millie thought to herself. The little one across the road was always open and they sold all the essentials.

Millie covered her head with a scarf, put her long Mac over her nightie and slipped on a pair of crocs. Ok, so she looked like a new recruit – to bagladies r us, but who was going to see her?

She whipped out of her flat and hastily crossed the road to the store. She didn’t notice the black car parked against the kerb, its engine gently purring.

Millie was totally unaware of the danger behind the wheel.

ON THE STREET OUTSIDE

I woke early and rolled over to wrap my arms around Nico. He responded by nuzzling up to me but his slow, rhythmic breathing indicated that he was still fast asleep.

We had left my apartment in the early hours and checked into the chic Soho House Hotel. The thought of all those bizarre, silent creatures appearing from nowhere was too much for me to stomach, I just had to get out.

Dressed only in a couple of silk robes, Nico and I must have appeared a little unusual as we hailed down our taxi.

Thank God for Soho, I knew no one would bat an eye there, no matter what we were wearing. We would fit right in with the butch leather queens, the transsexual prostitutes, the high-heeled divas and the tourists. A colourful, vibrant village within the centre of a huge cosmopolitan city, it welcomed all who flocked into it with open arms and a smile on its face….. I love it.

I lay there wide awake before untangling myself from Nico and wandering over to the window.

A bright Spring morning was already up and about outside and I smiled down at the street below. The last few party revellers were making their way home, still giddy from alcohol… or whatever their drug of choice was. Women with men, men with men….women with women.

As they exited stage right the players of the next scene arrived on stage. Young barristers, head to toe in black, drawing on European cigarettes and chatting away on cellphones.

Long haired and uniformed street cleaners ambling along, working at their own pace. Skinny young businesswomen striding along in their trainers, their Jimmy Choos carefully packed away in their shoulder bags.

As I had seen so many times before, life goes on, no matter how weird my own had become. When Emmanuel died and I was hounded by the Press, when my stepson-in-law tried to have me committed and of course now…..the world kept turning and the “poor players just keep on strutting and fretting” centre stage.

I was just about to turn away and curl up next to Nico when I had the feeling I was being watched. I looked down and my eye caught the gaze of a woman standing there. Small, elderly and Chinese, I didn’t recall where she had come from, yet I had just been looking at that self same spot.

She looked up at me and smiled before crossing the road and making her way into the hotel.

NIGHT FLIERS

I made my way to the kitchen in the semi-light that is about as dark as London ever gets I felt a vague sense of unease. The hairs on the back of my neck prickled into life. I could sense movement, but not that of a human. My eyes focused – was there something flying about in here? An object brushed past my cheek and then another ….. what was going on?

I leaned over and turned on a table lamp, its dull but improving yellow light a symptom of its energy efficient design. My jaw dropped and my eyes widened in horror, the air was filled with the beating of tiny wings making their way to this new source of light….they were everywhere…..the delicate dark bodies covering the walls, the curtains, the roof. There were hundreds, probably thousands of them. The room was a livid kaleidoscope of small, brown moths.

A GREEK HERO

I flung the door open and fell into his arms, kissing him all over, caressing him, holding him.

“A drunk blonde wearing nothing but her sexy underwear…..this is some welcome home!”

Nico lifted me up as I wrapped my legs around his waist and he carried me inside. Within minutes his clothes were a shredded mess on the floor and my knickers and bra were torn to bits next to them.

We made love against the wall, fast, furious and hot as hell. I ran my hands over his shaved head, a memory of Samson and Delilah and bad times held at bay by the sheer force of passion.

He carried me to the bedroom for round two, every bit as passionate, but slower, more gentle, more sensual. I gave myself to him completely. I needed this, needed to just feed my physical needs and leave my problems behind…. for a few hours at least.

I awoke in the early hours, my throat was dry from all the wine I had consumed earlier but, although fatigued, my body felt good after its sexual workout.

I got up and made my way into the kitchen to get a glass of water, turning to glance back at Nico’s naked body lying face down on my bed, his rhythmic breathing washing over me, making me calm.

Nico’s presence had calmed me, brought me to my senses.

Thank you Nico.