My Muse

"You do not have success with women?"

"No, I don't, probably because I feel uncomfortable when I am alone with a woman."

"I did not notice this."

"With you it's different, with you I feel invincible."

I had chosen a quiet little restaurant that specialised in French cuisine. Monique took charge of the ordering, questioning the waitress on each dish before settling on Duck Marechale with a Bigarade sauce, it was sweet and succulent and we had a dry Rosé to go with it, it sure as hell beat my usual lunch of a sandwich from the local deli and a cup of coffee.

Reluctantly I set off on my rounds of the repairers, finishing at around four thirty, too late to go back to the office, so I headed home to be met at the door by Monique in jeans and a tee shirt and an apron, not one of those frilly things you used to see in old American TV shows where the little wife met the husband with a martini to tide him over while she cooked up burgers or something. What Monique was cooking for me definitely wasn't burgers. Apart from being the most beautiful woman that I have ever met, she was a bloody good cook. It was a leisurely meal, the food was brilliant, the wine, from my own stock, obviously superb, and the dessert was out of this world. I was going to have to watch my waist-line or I'd have to buy new clothes when these shrank.

After dinner she led me down the passage but hung a left at my study. "I have been reading what you have been writing. Do not ever think that it is not good, it is good, very good. You are a very good writer. I have decided that I shall sit here with you while you write, I will read while you write, you have a lot of books so I will not disturb you."

For the first time in I don't know how long, I was able to immediately pick up the thread of the current story and the words just flowed onto the computer screen without pause for the better part of an hour. Monique said nothing in that time, but at the end of it she got up from the reading chair and left the room. "She's bored already." I thought to myself, but a couple of minutes later she was back with two glasses of cognac.

"We will drink this and then I think it time that we went to bed."

What can I say about my bed? It was no longer just a place to sleep, it had become in two nights, a place where two people who loved each other cemented the bond between them. As I gained in confidence Monique found that she no longer had to lead me through our love-making, I was able to take control, and it felt great. I couldn't believe that I, a socially awkward man with no recorded success with women, was able to advance my skills so far in such a short time. The love making continued into the early hours of the morning only to resume some four hours later.

Fortified by coffee, (strong) and lots of it, and croissants, and the promise of more to come, I headed for work and the inevitable grilling from Grant. "Who was that gorgeous woman that you left here with yesterday, and does she have a sister? Where did you meet her? Are you seeing her again? How is it that someone as useless as you can attract a woman like her? On and on he went, even following me into my office. My response to all of his questions was a firm 'no comment'. Eventually he gave up and slunk back to his desk a beaten man.

"You caused quite a stir when you left with her yesterday, you realise that, don't you?" Sandra asked.

"Yes, and I'm going to milk it for all its worth."

"Okay, spill. Where did you meet her and who is she?"

"I met her on Saturday night at that stupid party that my next door neighbour invited me to. Her name is Monique, she's French and a singer. She took me to this club where she's singing and after that we went to her place, and on Sunday evening I took her to mine. We've been together since. Sandy, she's beautiful and sexy and I'm in love."

"About bloody time. If I was on the market I'd even consider hitting on you, but as I'm not I haven't, not that you'd agree to it, you're not that type, not like Grant who's hit on every single girl in the place, and some of the married ones as well."

"Grant's really pissed off. I don't think he'll ever come to grips with this development."

"It couldn't happen to a nicer person." She smiled as she dropped the files on my desk and went back to her work.

I sorted through the files, contacted those successful repairers to give them the go-ahead, sorted the completed jobs and sent them to claims for payment, looked at new claims to plan my itinerary for tomorrow. I was just about to head out for my customary sandwich when Monique walked into my office and my arms. Sandra looked pleased while Grant glowered (is there such a word?) at me from his office. She kissed me, and waited while I filed the files that needed to be filed, before we headed out to lunch. We paused at Sandra's desk. "Sandra, this is Monique, Darling this is Sandra, my Secretary, who approves of you by the way."

"So pleased to meet you." Monique said as she stepped around the desk and kissed Sandra on the cheek.

"I am very pleased to meet you. You'll never know just how many years I have waited for this day, so you'd better look after him, he's a keeper."

"Oh Ben." Grant came out of his office. "Have you got the payment files for me?" It was just an excuse to drag an introduction out of me, so that he could apply all the smarmy charm that he used on Monique.

"Speak to Sandra, she can get them from my desk." We kept walking.

"You do not like that man do you?"

"On that point we are in total agreement, I hate him and all like him who treat women as their own personal play things."

"That is what tells me that you are a good writer, you know people, you know the good ones from the bad."

"In his case it's not rocket science, we had to make his office door wider just to fit his head through." She looked at me with a puzzled expression. "That means that he has a big head, he's full of himself. Something that I'll never be."

"But Cherie, when you become the famous author you will get a big head, n'est pas?"

"Never. It is not in me to be like him, I do not think that I am any better than anyone, different yes, better no."

"This I like about you, I see too many men who think that they are better than other men." There was something in her voice that bothered me. I shrugged it off as just my imagination.

Lunch was different from yesterday in that I took her to a different bistro, one that served what could be described as Australian cuisine, a combination of European and Asian influences highlighted by the subtle use of spices to enhance the foods based on the strong meat flavours of Eastern Europe. We chatted quietly to each other, our conversation an expression of the gentle nature of our love for each other. I was reluctant to see her leave but I had work to do.

After dinner I sat at my computer writing while Monique sat in the reading chair reading what I had written the previous evening. "Cherie, I must say something to you."

"What is it?" I was curious.

"When you write of a man and woman making love you describe what they do very well, but there is something missing."

"Yes?" I was more curious, where was this going?

"Where is the love between them? They are having sex when they are supposed to be in love. You do not say what they are feeling, they could be a whore and her client."

"But that is what people want to read, sex sells."

"When you make love to me it is different from when you have sex with a whore is it not?"

"I don't know, I have never had that particular experience."

"I do not know how to say what I am thinking, I do not have the English words for what I mean. Come, I show you." She stood up and stripped off her clothes, her beautiful body standing there in the bright light of the room. She dropped to her knees and opened my fly, pulling my cock from the confines of my trousers. Her mouth engulfed him and as he stood up she began to give me a blow job. It was crude in its speed, her head moved back and forth with increasing speed and just as I was about to come into her mouth, she withdrew from me and pulled my trousers down. Then she stretched out on the floor, her legs wide apart in a crude invitation for me to fuck her.

"Monique, my love, don't do this."

She stood and came to me, taking my head in her hands, she kissed me. There was none of the crude sexuality of before, instead there was tenderness and love. She undid the buttons and took my shirt from me, then enclosed my body in her arms. Her mouth covered mine and her tongue pressed against my lips asking for permission to enter my mouth. I allowed her entry. She held me like this for several minutes and then a hand moved between us and took my cock gently in its grasp, leading it to her moist and waiting pussy. She raised her right leg a little to allow me access to her body. I was hard, harder than I had been when she was sucking my cock, and it slid into her. A sigh came from her lips as she clung to me. I moved slowly inside her, I felt that this was what she wanted me to do, it was certainly what I wanted to do. I lost all track of time, it could have been ten minutes, (it wasn't) or it could have been an hour later, (close but no cigar, it was even longer) when she gasped and pulled my hips fiercely to hers just as he exploded, filling her to overflowing.

"You are a very good teacher." I whispered to her as we stood, my now limp cock held inside her, holding back the floodgates of sperm waiting to ooze from her. "I couldn't take you when you were on the floor, it is not in me to do this."

"This I knew, I knew that for you the love between us is more than just sex, you love me as I love you, and your expression of that love is making love, not having sex. This is why I love you and want your love all the time, and that is why that Grant person will never find love, for him it is about himself, not the other person."

The longer Monique stayed with me, the more confident I got with my writing. When she told me that what I had written was good there was no sign of her words being a platitude. I had come to appreciate her criticisms as much as her praise, for someone without a full grasp of the English language she showed an amazing understanding of the feeling in my prose, the poetry in my words. If I thought that I was good before, I was thinking that I was much better than good, not brilliant (yet) but getting there.

There were times when she wasn't with me, when she had to go back to her apartment, to do her laundry or whatever, get ready for a singing gig, when the words ceased to flow, I became blocked. When this happened I just stopped writing until her return. Just having her with me, even if she said nothing, was enough to inspire me. I hoped that a time would come when I was able to give up my dull day job and become a full-time author. This was some time off and I still had to earn a living.

Grant was being a right royal pain in the arse at work. He tried to start a rumour that he and Monique had made love one day while I was doing the rounds of the repairers, even going as far as saying that he had arranged my itinerary so that he had time to slip around to my place and fuck her.

"Grant, a word in your shell-like if you would." I said as I walked past his office on the way to mine. "Hold all calls." I told Sandra as I walked past hers. He followed me into my office and sat down.

"What's the matter?"

"Monique will be here in a few minutes and she will be bringing my Solicitor. I will be asking you to apologise to her for the rumours that you have been spreading about you and she having sex."

"How do you know it isn't true, how do you know that she isn't a whore taking you for what she can get from you?"

"You will find out soon enough." I could see them walking through the office. Sandra ushered them in with a smile on her face, she had heard the rumours and alerted me about them, knowing them not to be true.

I took Monique in my arms and kissed her. She stood close to me, her arm around me. "Thanks for coming Jim." I said to my Solicitor. "This is Grant, I believe that you have something for him."

"I sure do." He took a paper from his briefcase and handed it to Grant who read it.

"This is bullshit! I can prove every word that I have said." That's Grant all over, working on the three 'B' principle, bluff, bluster, and bullshit.

"That's interesting, could you give us a record of the time and place that these assignations took place?"

"I can't remember exactly, but I can check my diary, that'll tell me."

"You do that." Jim told him.

He wandered off to get his diary. Opening it at a recent page, he said. "Here it is, Thursday the 20th at 11:00am, I was at your place for an hour fucking Monique."

Jim sifted through his files and took another sheet from it. "Ah, here it is. At 11:00 on the 20th, Ben was at Blandford Crash talking to Bob Blandford, would you like to hear what Bob had to say about that visit? Don't worry, you're going to hear it whether you like it or not. It says here that when Ben visited them he had with him, and these are Bob's words, 'the most amazingly beautiful woman that I have ever seen, Ben introduced us to Monique, his partner. It was obvious from the way that they looked at each other that they were very much in love. Some guys have all the luck.' End quote. So you see you lying bastard, you couldn't have been having sex with her at the time that you said that you were, or any other time for that matter, and do you know why? Let me enlighten you, every day that Ben has gone out on the road since the first week after he met Monique, she has gone with him. She has come in to meet him when he was going out, and has gone with him. I'll also tell you why she has done that, it was because she loved him very much and couldn't bear to be apart from him for any length of time. On the days when he had to be in the office all day they had lunch together. You didn't know about this because they didn't want you to know about it."

"This is bullshit and I can prove it!"

"You'll have your chance to do that, because, unless you issue a full and unequivocal apology to Monique in front of the staff here, you will have to prove it in court. Monique is suing you for slander."

"She can't do that!" He was getting desperate.

"She can and she will. Sandra, would you gather the staff together and wait for us in the boardroom?"

"You bet." Sandra was enjoying this.

"Now, one last time, do we get an apology or not?"

Before he had a chance to answer Henry (The big boss) came into my office. "Ben, why are the staff all heading for the boardroom?"

"We are going to have a meeting to discuss a rumour, or rumours, that have been spread around the office about Monique and Grant."

"I heard about that and couldn't believe it, I thought that she must surely have had better taste than get involved with him. If he hadn't been good at his job he would have been flicked ages ago." The way he said it you would have thought that Grant wasn't even there. "If what you say is true, I might have to review that decision. What do you have to say for yourself Grant?"

"All right, I lied, okay, I made it up. I just couldn't understand how someone as naïve, as hopeless with women, as Ben here could manage to get someone like Monique, and keep her."

"I will tell you how." Monique got in quick before anyone else could reply. "It is because he is a kind and caring man who has love in his heart not his penis. You are a bad man, you cannot hold a girl for long because you think only of her as a toy. Ben is the most gentle lover that I have ever had, and with every kiss, every caress, he tells me he loves me. He does not have to say the words that slip so easily from your lips, because I know that he loves me, I will love him always because of this. I would rather die than allow you to even touch me, let alone allow you to make love to me."

"Grant," Henry looked at him angrily. "You will get your secretary to type up your apology for you to read to the staff, and while she's at it your resignation. If you do not comply with this order, you will be sacked on the spot and lose any entitlements that you might have. Do I make myself clear? I am glad that the staff have taken this action because it shows me that they are prepared to stand up for what they believe is right and proper. We are going to join the rest of the staff, I might even call a celebration. If you haven't joined us in five minutes you can kiss good-bye to any entitlements that you might be expecting, so you'd better get your finger out."

Five minutes later he walked sheepishly into the boardroom. We were all seated around the table on which, somehow, had appeared snacks and several bottles of proper bubbly.

"Guys, if I could have your attention for a few minutes." Silence descended on the room. He looked at the page in his trembling hand for several seconds. "I would like to humbly apologise to Ben and Monique for the slanderous rumours that I have put about that said that Monique and I had been lovers. This is not the truth, we have never been lovers, I don't think she'd have me."

"You got that right." Sandra said.

"In my defence. . ."

"We don't want to hear it."

"In my defence, I was jealous, more jealous than I could have ever imagined. Here was this beautiful woman obviously in love with Ben."

"You'd better quit while you're ahead." Someone said.

"I couldn't work it out, me who has been so successful with the women, and here he was, the first time that I've seen him with a woman and look at her, I just couldn't work it out. Life doesn't make sense."

"How many second dates have you been on?" Sandra asked him.

"Not that many, I don't think there have been many."

"Doesn't that tell you something about yourself? You can never be able to love someone more than you love yourself, and us women don't like having to compete with anyone for affection."

He handed Henry his letter of resignation and left. "Send me what's owed." Were his final words. We at least waited until he was out the door before we cheered.

If we thought that would be the end of it we were very much mistaken, but it would take several months before this reared its ugly head again, and a lot happened in that time.

The first book I wrote after meeting Monique has just been picked up by a publisher and would hit the shelves in a couple of months. I was feeling good about myself at last. I haven't given up my day job yet, but I've been given a promotion so I'm not on the road as much as before. I still go out from time to time, just to maintain the contacts from my previous position, but these are more along the lines of friendly chats than work, although, if any concerns arise during these meetings, I make sure to follow up on them. Monique and I still lunch together each day, and she and Sandra have become great friends, chatting often on the phone, or when Monique is in the office. This is the lifestyle that I would like to see continue, I don't know about giving up work and becoming a full time author.

"Cherie, I have the good news to tell you." It was three months later and we had just made love and coming down from the experience of it. Monique's lips were a centimetre from mine, her hand on my face. "Today I have been to the doctor, I am having your child."

"That's great news!" I kissed her. "Monique Marie Lefleur, will you marry me?"

"Ben," Whenever she uses my name it means that she is going to say something bad, like when she doesn't like something that I have written. "Ben, Cherie, I cannot marry you. I would marry you in an instant if I could." She added quickly when she felt me stiffen.

"Why can't you?"

"Because Cherie, I am already married."