Frankly Helen didn't mind admitting to herself her pleasure in being a working woman once again as she drove off to work after dropping Rose off at school. She'd enjoyed her years as a full time mother and had made the most of it. A series of mental images flipped through her mind of seeing Rose develop so fast from helpless baby, to toddler with a rapidity so that the only certainty was constant change. She pictured having to move like lightning when Rose had learnt to crawl and make a determined bee line for the half open sideboard door to investigate its contents with her typical thoroughness and sense of purpose.
Now she was back at work picking up her old job where she'd left off. She knew she wasn't in the same race as before her maternity break. She and Nikki had two careers going for them, the second being the unpaid vocation as mother to Rose. Nikki was working energetically for the Howard League of Penal Reform while Helen had resumed her previous job as local office manager of G E International, a firm specializing in computer products and how she'd secured the position was the sort of improbable miracle that very occasionally took place. As she moved closer to her place of work, a smile of satisfaction spread across her face as she recalled the generous good fortune that had unexpectedly opened up for her. On a similar car journey on a rainy Autumn day, she'd gloomily considered that the odds were stacked against her getting the job even though she'd been phoned up about the vacancy. A number of years spent as a full time mother had left her feeling mentally befogged, hopelessly slowed down back in the work situation and feeling that her life had revolved around endless washing, cooking and cleaning and thinking and talking about childhood concerns. Most of all, her preferred hours of work of twenty five hours a week didn't fit the badly stretched thirty seven hours a week she'd slogged through before Rose was born. Her mathematical mind couldn't duck this insoluble conundrum. Two hours later, all was changed.
"Tony Foster. That's brilliant,"Helen exclaimed with pleasure as the name of her assistant was divulged by the regional manager she' d known an infinity of years ago who had a twinkle in his eye from the very start of the interview. The CV he'd passed across the teak interview desk enable her to instantly place the man as Nikki's old workmate from her first office job after leaving Larhkall Prison. He'd also given vital evidence at Karen Betts trial when Fenner had framed her for a hit and run murder. All at once, a swirl of memories eddied upwards from the depths of Helen's memory where they'd lain undisturbed for years. She pictured this nervous young man suddenly grow in stature as he'd found the courage to bite back at the opposing barrister as he'd given evidence and joined the group of strong minded females at the pub. She and Nikki had last seen him at a Tori Amos concert that they and the rest of the Chix gang had gone to and both of them had wondered what had happened to him.
"You know him?" the regional manager asked in surprised tones. He'd pencilled in the man to work for Helen as he was amenable and for no other reason.
"He and my partner Nikki used to work together when they were lowly office workers. The two of them got on like a house on fire and I met him when he gave evidence when a friend of ours was wrongly accused of a hit and run murder," Helen blurted out without any contrivance. Blinking, the man figured out that, if there would be a good working relationship, far be it for him to question it.
On her first day at work, she'd blinked her way through the impossibly glittering and shiny world she'd entered and wasn't to know that the power-dressing new blue suit she wore wasn't designed to intimidate her fellow workers but to bolster her self-esteem. She really felt like a fish out of water as she reached out to engage her work instincts but she was painfully conscious of feeling anaesthetized. She shook hands with all the staff that would work for her and painfully sought to try and learn a whole new set of faces and names before finally locking eyes with Tony who, in his typically self-effacing way, was the last in the row. She saw through his reserved manner and she knew that this office move would suit him down to ground. She murmured to him to show her round her office which was exactly the same room as before but that it was bound to be affected by the passage of time.
Once inside the semi-glazed door, Helen and Tony grinned freely at each other and she gestured to him to take a seat in the open area.
"So come on, Tony, what's been happening in your life and how did you land up here?"
Tony rattled away in comfortably with a shade more confidence than when they'd last met but otherwise the man hadn't changed. For his part, Tony was interested in the way Helen had sketched in brief details of her own life and Nikki's and the conversation merged into Tony giving her a run down of the way this part of the job operated and Helen's pertinent questions as old memories came flooding back. The job wasn't greatly different and Tony was making her feel right at home.
"God, my mouth is dry," Helen exclaimed as the sustained talking took effect. Tony turned to the mineral water dispenser at the side of them and served two plastic container measures. As they stood up to drink, she impulsively hugged the man that she now knew hadn't changed in all these years.
"You'll give the rumour mongers a great start Helen," Tony said in his cryptic fashion, unfazed by his boss's affectionate greeting and physical close contact or the part glass paneled door to her office which gave full view of their intimacy.
"That was ten per cent of the reason I did it. The rest of it was to say how glad I am for us to meet again," Helen answered, a wicked smile spreading across her face.
"You know that the same rumour factory was sounding off about the scary lesbian who was going to take over the show when your predecessor was given the push. The guy couldn't organise a pissup in a pub,"Tony pursued without thinking. The expression on Helen's face darkened as she had supposed that she'd be remembered for the conscientious way she'd worked and not because of some stupid homophobic label.
"As bad as that? Things must have changed for the worse round here. It looks like something I need to straighten out," she responded dryly, her hackles starting to rise. There were half conscious connotations of G Wing governor revisited.
"Only a few of them. They're really not worth worrying about,"Tony answered, feeling guilty that he'd been so outspoken and seeking to make amends. Helen caught the drift of thought and started to relax again. She realised that she wasn't the young prison Governor only just out of her fast track promotion and a few years into her career but she was older and wiser, more broadly based. Being a mother meant by definition that she was capable of dealing with any curveball that life threw at her. Tony looked at her and nostalgic memories of her and Nikki came coursing back into his consciousness.
"Even if we hadn't met at that trial, I'd be sure to know you from hearing Nikki talk so much about you. You're just as smart as Nikki so I must be an open book to you."
"Right you are Tony. Let's shake on it," Helen grinned back at him. Tony reflected on the fact that his boss had a strong grip, something unusual for his experience of women. He immediately set to work to explain the set-up in the office and to chat about their shared duties.
Sally-Anne tottered downstairs in answer to the plopping sound of the mail onto the doormat, a towel wrapped round her long, damp hair and a dressing gown tied round her waist. To her mind, it promised to be functional mail at best like invoices and bank statements and otherwise tiresome junk mail.
"Don't worry babes. I'll keep the bed warm for both of us," sang out Trisha lazily from above her. Left to herself, the fair-haired woman only considered facing the post on the doormat till they were ready to get up but a conscientious streak in Sally-Anne prompted her to ensure the outside world was safe. Downstairs, the dark-haired woman laughed softly at this beguiling invitation and resolved to flip through the post and get back to what came natural. Even after the years they'd shared their lives, the sultry lift in her lover's clear voice stirred a flutter in her stomach.
"Be back in a bit. It looks like the usual crap," Sally-Anne called out to carry her voice up the staircase."Wait a minute, there's an interesting letter here. It's from the London Pride Organising Committee sweetheart. They want us at the next meeting and want us to have a special Chix float for all we've done for the movement. Hey this is incredible," exclaimed Sally enthusiastically.
Trisha sighed at her partner's well-meaning enthusiasm. Sally should have known that she put on her business head later on in the day while her libido could be aroused at any time.
"That's wonderful. It's great that the community want our help," she exclaimed as part of her mind registered the high compliment paid to them. Up till then, they'd let others do the organising as neither of them were committee people by nature and they'd contributed to London Pride by turning out with their friends to the event. However, her hormones kicked in."We'll deal with it later on. I really need your help right now."
Sally-Anne shook her head fondly and chuckled as she laid the letters on the side. The sexual plea in her lover's voice was irresistible and the side of her mind that was inclined to plan forward towards the future gave way to the pleasures of the moment. She padded upstairs and, on entering their bedroom, she was entranced to see a naked Trisha with a come hither look on her face who had folded a corner of the duvet to one side.
"Come here babes," the fair-haired woman sexily commanded.
"But I've just had a shower.I feel all clean and fresh," Sally Anne replied playfully.. Trisha pretended to roll her eyes heavenwards as she thought up a brilliant answer to that problem.
"There's an easy answer to that one. After I've had my wicked way with you, we take a shower together,we'll have a sexual encore and both end up clean and fresh."
Sally-Anne advanced with a smile on her face as she loved being seduced by her lover all over again. Trisha's nimble fingers unwound the tie on the other woman's dressing gown and slipped it back off Sally's shoulders to drop on the floor to be joined with the towel from her head. Softly and lovingly, Trisha placed her hands on her lover's shapely behind and kissed her stomach several times. Sally's hands stroked the other woman's long fair hair and passed on to her neck and shoulders. This was a moment both women loved as much as anything as they started out slow and easy so their lovemaking took time. With a quick grin, Sally eased the fair haired woman down on her back and straddled her.
"My you're being the strong one," drawled Trisha, loving the feel of the dark-haired woman on top of her.
"Only as much as you want to let me," answered Sally-Anne softly.
The two women moved into each other's arms with sighs of pleasure and soon they were both gently floating on a rising tide of emotional desireand physical affection. They ardently kissed and touched each other as if they'd been separated for months. Trisha ran her fingers through the other woman's long damp hair and onto the soft moist skin of her back as their soft kisses became deeper and hungrier. This was what they each wanted as they sighed and murmured with great satisfaction. Finally, Sally Anne moved slightly to one side and her right hand started to lovingly caress her lover's flank. Trisha gave a gasp of pleasure as she knew that this was the prelude to Sally stroking the inside of her thighs, something she particularly loved. Finally, a smile spread across the face of the dark-haired woman as her fingers entered Trisha and their rhythms coaxed Trisha's hips to rock back and forth as her desires boiled up inside of them to a delirium of pleasure and over the edge into the climax she'd been wanting all this morning.
Two or three hours later, two indistinct shapes staggered out of a steamed up shower and flopped back onto the bed. They were swathed in dressing gowns and towels wrapped round their heads.
"Can you guess why I've avoided like the plague going down the gym?" Sally Anne said playfully as she lay on her back laughing softly. She felt physically exhausted but a lovely lazy replete feeling coursing round her system.
"Let me guess. You hate being bossed around by lycra clad PE teachers and wasting energy on cycling machines going nowhere fast," teased Trisha, touching her lover on her nose and snuggling up close."Or is it that hours of thoroughly satisfying lustful sex with all the acrobatics involved are much more fun and burn off the calories? We've really been doing each other a favour, babes."
The two women burst into delighted laughter and they hugged each other affectionately. The white aura was wrapped around them along with a shared intimacy and sense of purpose.
Three quarters of an hour later, a bare footed Trisha was working at their computer, dressed in a sky blue T-shirt and white trousers while Sally-Anne leant over her shoulder. Just for once, the fair-haired woman was not taking too much notice of her partner's figure hugging blue jeans and short-sleeved white shirt which showed how much of a mission she was on.
"You really want to know everything about every Pride event there ever was even though you and Nikki first started this club way back when and celebrated it in not so many words?" Sally-Anne observed wryly. That made Trisha laugh and sit back from her studies on the computer screen.
"You know how much hard work we've put into our club so you can imagine how much more work it took for Nikki and I to get it off the ground in the first place. We didn't have the time to think about politics, we just did it,"mused Trisha, staring into the distance as memories came flooding back."When you came on the scene, so did John Deed and he got us to take up causes over court cases one of those being yours. I suppose this letter has reminded me that we ought to be more out and proud on the streets and not just in Chix."
"I've got a few interesting ideas," Sally-Anne said mysteriously which caused Trisha to turn and face her partner with a questioning smile on her face. Her curiosity had been roused.