Demons to Slay

"Millie. I love you, I cannot think of life without you. Will you marry me?" She leaned out of bed, her lovely breasts jiggling, and she grabbed an important part of my body.

"I'll marry this; he's given me so much pleasure. And, as he is attached to you I will have to marry you. So the answers yes. Now get back into bed and let's start on these babies you talked about."

We couldn't actually start on the babies as Millie was still on the pill. She ceremoniously flushed them down the toilet in the morning. I would be leaving the next day so our last night together was very special. She had got over her inhibition of walking around in the nude and now seemed to positively enjoy it, teasing me and of course arousing me. Once that had happened, the result was a foregone conclusion. She revelled in the freedom to express her sexuality. It would appear that Allan could not allow her to be on top, he believed it eroded his dominant position as the man. I didn't have that problem and Millie became very inventive when sitting on me, much to our mutual delight. Hearing her cry. "Fuck me Greg, fuck me hard." brought us to a higher level of arousal.

Laid side by side, perspiration dotting our bodies and panting we talked. Millie's first question was.

"When will you be back?

"Next weekend. We'll start looking for somewhere to live." She got up on one elbow, her breast caressing my arm.

"You mean it then." I looked at her in surprise.

"Yes. I mean it. Millie, I love you, I want you with me, now, next week, next year for the rest of our lives. You! Only you. Your hand in mine forever." She sank down, clasping me, our bodies, slick with perspiration and our effusions slipping together.

"I'm your woman, Greg." Her legs moved, opening her body for me. "Take me again, please. Fill me with your love."

We parted in the morning, Millie back to her work in the hotel, and I returned to my work in Gloucester. It was the last time I saw Millie alive.

It has been often said that the plans of humans are naught when the Gods decide to interfere. The ancient Greeks described their Gods as jealous and capricious. Ancient Gods or modern Gods they act the same. Angela phoned me at work the next Friday and brought my world crashing down. It was hard to understand her through her wails and tears but gradually I understood the gist of her call. Millie was dead! Early that morning she had fallen down the stairs at the hotel and broken her neck. She was carrying a load of clean linen and caught her foot in the cord of a vacuum cleaner. I put the phone down carefully, fighting my instinctive reaction to hurl it across the room.

I went down to Tavistock for the funeral, sitting stony-faced at the back of the chapel as the Priest droned on. A Cleric that had obviously not known Millie, saying words to give her parents some comfort, platitudes from a book that had outlived its purpose. Angela gripped my hand as she sobbed quietly. I looked around, seeking the ex-husband who had treated her so badly, someone upon who I could vent my anger and grief. There was so few people there that I soon realized that there was no man of the right age, except me, who could be him. So my anger had to be contained. Finally the Organist played 'The Lord is my Shepherd' and the curtains closed around the casket containing my Love and my life.

I knew from that moment that I would travel the road of life alone. No love would compare to the love I had lost. No Millie, no children, no joy, just a cold purposeless existence. Fate had shown me a glimpse of Nirvana and then in a fit of pique, slammed the door. The tears finally came as I entered the Vale of Sorrow.