God has to help me these Wednesdays when all of my usual routine falls by the way side and I take that drive several cities over to evaluate the losses and gains of this month. It is an excuse for them to cover any lingering doubts about our last meeting and to raise new doubts in this one. They are confident in me. I know it from the funding I receive, the encouragement, the extra work, the additional labor, but as it is the nature of the beast, they must also try to tear down what they have built.

How can I blame them? I am the same.

I closed the manila folder and sat patiently amid the sounds of paper and pens tapping against stacks of those yellow legal pads. I had backup, if it could be considered such, this time, in the form of someone who wants to be me one day. He is 3 years older than me and regards me with eyes far shrewder than I would like.

The questions began and I fielded those that I could, deferred others and did the usual dance I do every few weeks. He sat beside me, writing down my answers, which, I found, annoyed me. I turned my head and he put down the pen before I finished speaking to the small audience of my well paid and fattened (office) superiors.

When they were done, I stood, as they all did, and pushed back the chair from the long conference table. I always head directly to the door after these. I hate them. HATE this meeting. But today I paused as I heard my boss, a man that I respect, but whose job requires far more tact than my own.

I turned and looked at him. The smile was forced, at best, a polite extension of social courtesy. I shook his hand.

‘When are you planning your next vacation?’

I shrugged. ‘When I don’t have fires to put out.’

He smiled. ‘There are always fires to put out.’

‘Then vacation has to wait until a rain storm.’

His smile faded and he placed his hand on my shoulder. He is several inches shorter, he reached up to do it. ‘I don’t want you burned out.’

I nodded my head and excused myself, walking to my car. I drove directly back to my house. I knew she would be there, she waits for me when she can and when I need her too.

I wasn’t certain of my mood. I wasn’t violent, I wasn’t steaming, but I was a far cry from the other side of that spectrum. I was carefully balanced. I wondered briefly if I had slipped into that abyss where everything is gray.

I opened the door and didn’t see her curled in the chair reading. I walked further in and deposited my case and jacket on the bar stool in the kitchen. Still I did not see her.

I walked up the stairs, undressing as I went. I like to lounge around my home in these soft cotton pants N gets me from some store I don’t remember.

I walk in my bedroom and I see her. I feel a smile curl my lips and I realize that all is not gray.

‘What are you wearing?’

She smiled and the glitter on her lips catches my eye. She did that twirl that only women are capable of and asked me, tilting her head to the side causing her pig tails, held up by fuzzy blue things, to spill sideways. ‘Like it?’

She turned and wiggled her butt at me and I noticed the ruffles on her ass. I raised a brow. ‘You look utterly ridiculous.’

‘I know!’ She laughed, as we both had back when Taylor had dreamt up this version of her own pink one. It was completely unsuitable for N. She was liquid sex, black lace, leather and soft skin, not furry things and lollipops.

She bound towards me and I opened my arms up, laughing. I wrapped them around her and my hands cupped her ass, covered in ruffles.

‘I love you D.’

‘Love you too, pet.’

‘How was your day?’ She asks, nuzzling her face in the curve of my neck.

‘Perfect.’