Sand Storm
Copyright© 2026 by MicaMeesha
Chapter 7
Geraldine put the red dress on, and then took it off again. She put the black dress on and took it off again. She stood in her new underwear – almost invisible and hopefully flattering – and held first the one dress in front of herself and then the other, trying to decide which looked the best in the mirror. Geraldine turned the lighting up and then down, seeing if she could make a choice dependent upon lighting. The red showed more leg, and the black more cleavage. Her legs did look good. But then so did her cleavage. What was a girl to do? Pick up the phone; that’s what.
“Hi. It’s me.”
“Hi. I thought it was you phoning me earlier”
“ ... No time. Hugh worked his magic. Red or black?”
“Sophisticate or slut?”
“Sophisticate”
“Black”
“Thanks, bye.”
Right, so black it was to be. She slipped her hands inside the lace-edged cups of her bra one at a time and re-adjusted her bust; she was certainly being shaped and lifted. And then the door bell rang. What? Quickly she put her robe on and ran to the window and looked out. A taxi. She ran down to the door and opened it with the security chain on.
“It’s me,” Edward said. “I have a taxi.”
“Good for you. I am not ready. I am not dressed. I am going to take the chain off and run upstairs. You are going to wait at least one minute before you come in.”
Geraldine undid the chain, left the door only slightly ajar and ran upstairs, pulling her robe off as she went. She stood in her room, her chest heaving as she gulped in air and got her breath. After a few moments of deep breathing, she sat on the edge of the bed and unrolled her stockings onto her legs – slowly, no time for snags now. A quick spray of ‘No 7’ at her leg tops and her cleavage, a roll of deodorant here and there, and a little blusher to her bosom, and it was time for her dress, stepping into it and then a moment of frustration with the hanging laces which always wanted to hang out of a dress when not on a hanger.
“Grrr!” She sat on the edge of the bed again and put on her gold-strapped shoes. It was a pity that she had not had time to have her toenails done as well as her fingers. Her toes would be on show after all. Her shoes were almost invisible, just a thin base atop a 3-inch stiletto heel and three thin cross gold straps – gold toe nails would have been a perfect finish.
A few final touches and adjustments to her makeup, one final lift, heave and shove of her bust, and she was ready. Twenty minutes to eight, she was only ten minutes late. Edward was downstairs, with the taxi. A taxi was good – it meant that no one was driving and both could therefore drink safely, it meant that they weren’t going to be in the middle of nowhere, and it meant that if the worst came to the worst, she could get a taxi home again herself, by herself. ‘Golly – I hope it doesn’t come to that,’ Geraldine thought as she picked up her clutch bag and checked again that she had all that she needed.
She had stacked it earlier with what she felt would be her emergency survival kit of tissues times 2, a mobile phone, a credit card and five-pound note, a tampon and towel, and a small spray of perfume. The phone was set to ‘discrete’ so it wouldn’t disturb if any calls came in, the credit card and cash were obviously essential, and the sanitary – well, a girl always needed to be prepared, and they could always be used as a defence mechanism, ‘I’m so sorry, I’m on, we can’t’, and perfume is always de rigueur for any girl.
She went down, and Edward was waiting at the bottom of the stairs, hands gently cupping each other behind his back, his right leg gently rocking his foot from heel to toe as he stood quietly waiting for her. Geraldine could see that Edward was wearing a dark suit and white shirt under a long Abercrombie style coat. The flakes of snow had melted, leaving small droplets that glistened like gems. Edward turned to her as she started down the stairs, and Geraldine could then see that he was wearing a dark red tie. Cufflinks sparkled at his wrists, and Edward’s shoes glistened with high polish at his feet.
“Wow, Geraldine, you certainly know how to make an entrance. I know that you are naturally beautiful; however, may I say tonight you look simply stunning? That darker red really suits your hair and skin tone. Stunning.”
Red! Geraldine looked down at herself. She was wearing the red dress. The Red Dress! Anne would think she was a slut, and so would everyone in the restaurant. ‘Oh golly, what was I thinking?’ Geraldine’s heart was pumping; she felt the excitement in her body as she looked at her date for this evening. A date, something that she had hardly given a thought to over many a year, a date; she was standing in her hall about to go out on a date. Geraldine’s chest was thumping, her ears pounding, and her legs felt weak. She almost heard the blood as it charged around her veins, rushing back to her heart, to be packed on its way and sent on to the lungs to be recharged and sent back out down her arteries. This was no time for knees to fail or her voice to squeak. Geraldine took a deep breath and a pause before exhaling and then speaking.
“Thank you, Edward, and may I say how handsome my dinner date is tonight? You look quite dashing yourself. Shall we go?”
“Oh yes. The car is waiting just outside; it’s a short journey to the café.” Edward smiled and put his arm loosely around her shoulder as they stepped to the front door; reaching forward, he opened it for them. Geraldine felt her heart flutter once more. ‘Goodness me,’ she thought, ‘get a grip, Ger.’ A mental bracing, a tightening of her stomach muscles, and she was ready. She set her alarm, pulled to and double locked the door, giving it a final push to make sure it was firmly secured.
Edward opened the rear driver’s side door for her and held her arm as she sat in the car; Geraldine, ensuring that modesty was maintained, held her dress tightly to her as she swung her legs in. Never an easy movement, and short red dresses didn’t make it easy. ‘Golly, it would have been worse in the black dress; the side would have opened almost up to my waist,’ she thought thankfully.
Edward shut the door and then went around the taxi and got in the other side, sliding across the seat to join her. As the door was shut, the driver checked that all was ready, and after a nod from Edward, they moved off down the increasingly white roads. Edward, pleased that he wasn’t driving, hoped that his anti-perspirant was up to the task before it this evening. He could not remember ever feeling as nervous as he did right now. He was sure his pores would be working overtime, and the reality and impact of the words he had said to the colonel came back to mind. ‘It’s a date, sir.’ Time now to steel himself and show his mettle. This was not the time for a faint heart, not if he were to win this woman. A mental bracing and a tightening of his stomach muscles, and he was ready.
“Well, madam, I have selected a quite nice café for us. It is just off the trucker’s route, and I’m told they change the tablecloths every year, and they use reasonable quality ketchup, only slightly watered down, in the plastic tomato squeezes. There are not too many holes in the car park, and the menu is fine if you like eggs or corned beef. I hope that this will be suitable for you?”
Geraldine joined in the banter. “Oh, I guess you must mean ‘Treasy Gruckers’. Yes, I was there the other day. You know, I think that there are a good couple of months left in the tablecloths. If we’re lucky, we will be able to get one of the padded plastic chairs to share; it depends who’s in there. That sounds fine.” Laughing easily, she stopped worrying about her dress and not at all about the weather. When dressing earlier, she had mulled for a while if she should Sellotape her nipples – they became totally indiscrete when the weather was cold, but fortunately, despite the falling snow, the taxi was warm and that problem had not manifested itself. She hoped that her tension and nerves would not do what the cold failed to do.
From the direction the taxi was going, heading out of town and up the escarpment, Geraldine guessed that they might be heading for Chez Nous. ‘That will be nice if it is where we are going,’ Geraldine thought to herself. It was one place she rarely got to, not the sort of place, as a woman, she would take business clients to for fear they would get completely the wrong idea, and her personal life was, well, to be frank, a chasm, a void, empty. ‘Maybe not so empty anymore,’ Geraldine mused, ‘so far so good. Let’s see how much of a gentleman he is!’ And then an afterthought, ‘Actually, I almost hope he isn’t!’
The taxi did indeed pull into the drop-off point at Chez Nous, and Edward got out and, walking round to her side, opened the door and gave her his arm to steady her as she got out. As before, Geraldine fixed her eyes in his to ensure any inadvertent immodesty caused by her clothes was unnoticeable by him. Out of the warmth of the taxi, standing next to Edward as he dealt with the driver, Geraldine felt the full force of the icy cold winter air and instantly regretted the lack of sellotape. ‘Golly, I hope that the lighting inside is soft. I want to talk to him face to face, and not have his eyes fixed on my chest. ‘Well, not yet anyway.’
Edward turned and put his hand lightly on her shoulder as they walked to the entrance, Edward opening and holding the door for her as they stepped into the warmth. Edward took his outer coat, shook it free of snow, and hung it on the pegs supplied, and then walked with Geraldine to the easy chairs in the waiting area. Geraldine sat in a small chintzy sofa, sinking into its soft, embracing cushions.
“What can I get you to drink, Geraldine?” Edward enquired, his heart still racing with the enormity of what this evening meant.
“I think a Baileys and ice, if I may?” Geraldine responded, her fingers stroking the pattern on the arm of the sofa as Edward walked up to the small bar at the end of the room and struck the small service bell. A petite dark-haired waitress appeared from a door at the back of the bar.
“Bonsoir, Monsieur Edward.”
“Bonsoir, Chantal Peaux, j’ai un Baileys et la glace pour mon ami Géraldine, et moi, un rhum et une glace foncées.”
“Certainement, Monsieur. Prenez votre siège, et je vous les apporterai plus de.” Edward rejoined Geraldine, electing to sit in a sofa opposite rather than next to. “And so how was your day?” he enquired, his pulse racing as he searched for innocuous small talk, desperate not to accidentally offend with stupid words, but not wanting to appear a complete idiot at the same time. Asking about her day seemed an innocent enough opener.
“An easy day, really, Edward. I had a hair appointment at lunchtime. You may not know, but we are quite privileged. The hair stylist from The BBC Parkinson Show is now a resident in the village, and my appointment today was with him. A coup really, none of my girlfriends have yet tried him, and so I am sure to have several interrogations from them as to what he is like. Anne, my best friend, has already tried interrogation, and really I think I made a hash of side-stepping the issue.”
Edward hoped that his huge mental sigh of relief had stayed internal. An open conversation and not a series of yes no exchanges that would have quickly exhausted any pretence at conversation. “Yes, I had heard something about him; I think from one of the women in the office, I’m not sure, perhaps not, but anyway. What is he like, and why would you want to sidestep their enquiries?”
“Look at my hair. What do you think? You saw it before; can you see it now? You tell me.”
Edward was mortified once more, knowing that it was almost impossible to answer correctly. “Well, your hair is lovely, but it was before, in my opinion. I cannot see a difference, to be honest. Perhaps a little shorter, but that is it. I am sorry.” Looking at her face, Edward almost breathed a sigh of relief. It seems his answer was acceptable.
“Exactly. No, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I didn’t mean that you had to be sorry. Golly, no, I meant my hair was exactly the same. I paid; no, I won’t tell you how much I paid, but my hair looked exactly the same after as before. He was a stuck-up prig of a man, full of himself, and considering the cost, it was not an enjoyable experience. So, tell me, how do I tell that to my friends? They will want chapter and verse. I don’t want them to waste their money on him, but I’m sure that they won’t believe it from me; after all, he’s worked for The BBC for goodness sake.”
“Ah, well, now that is easy. You can say to your friends that you now know why he ‘used to’ work for the BBC. Suggest that they perhaps might want to try him for themselves, but that you feel the cost is perhaps a trifle over the top in comparison to results achieved. You might add that you are glad you tried him, but in your opinion, his reputation exceeded the results, and in the future you shall spend your money elsewhere. I can add though, that whilst the results may not have been quite what you expected, your hair and the face it frames do look quite lovely this evening. It has not been, as it could so easily have, a disaster.”
Geraldine felt herself redden; a blush started at her bust and seemed to go on and on, unsatisfied with its journey until it had passed her cheeks, swept on beyond her eyebrows and nestled somewhere amongst the ringlets of her hair. “Oh, golly. Thank you; you do say the nicest things.” A small tremor gripped its way around her loins. Anticipation, it seemed, had also given her Goosebumps, and the excitement of being here with him had added smaller Goosebumps to her bigger Goosebumps. She squeezed her knees together and smiled her most radiant smile, looking directly into his eyes as he spoke.
Edward looked back directly into Geraldine’s eyes, opening what he hoped to be a path that would lead to her heart. He took her hand in his and spoke softly yet confidently.
“Geraldine, as you come to know me, and I really hope that you do, you will find out that I speak only the truth. It goes with the person that I am and, beneficially, the work that I do. My parents taught me that honesty is important and that if I could not speak the truth, I should not speak at all. I have added a further lesson to that of my parents, and that is that I must not be or seem to be untruthful by not speaking.”
Edward paused a moment, squeezing her hand hoping that she would not respond just yet. “That came out different from what I meant. It sounded a bit robotic. Look, I’m just trying to say that I am an honest man; I am what I seem.”
“Nice sentiments, Edward, but I suspect they are not always practical. Like everyone, I try to be truthful and honest. Sometimes it is not practical or possible to be honest. Look at Father Christmas.”
“Well, I would, but he’s not here.”
“Well, of course he’s not. He doesn’t exist, but we do tell our children that he does.”
“So you don’t believe in Father Christmas. Interesting.”
“Idiot! Of course I don’t. I mean to say, honestly.”
“Ah, but you see, he does exist.”
“I think that you said that you tell the truth. Now how can that be if you are now telling me that Santa exists?”
Chantal came across and put their drinks on small white coasters on the table in front of them. “Madame, Monsieur, votre boissons. Je retournerez en approximativement cinq minutes pour vous porter au restaurant”
Geraldine leant forwards and took her drink. She swirled the ice around the glass, watching and enjoying the patterns that the ice made in the browns of the Baileys. She took a sip and savoured the creamy texture and coolness on her tongue. Edward took a large draft of his rum and smiled across at Geraldine.
“Well now, I find it amazing that a person of your intelligence does not believe in Father Christmas.” Edward looked for the hole in the floor that he could fall into; he simply could not believe that he had just said that.
“That sounds a little patronising to me. You don’t know me well enough to know how intelligent I am, nor do I you.”
He searched but could still not find the required hole. “Well, I deserved that response. I didn’t mean to patronise; I am so sorry. And as to your intelligence or mine? You must have an opinion of my relative intelligence, as I have of yours. I look at you and I talk to you, and I do not see a vacuous bimbo. You presumably have done something similar with respect to me. I suggest that this is an automatic thing that we all do, and subconsciously we term our responses in accordance with the person that we are talking to. You and I talk easily, and we are relaxed in each other’s company; that much is obvious even after such a short time. I suggest that means that intellectually we are compatible. What we are doing now is starting the process of discovering if we are socially compatible and if within all this wonderful compatibility, we actually like each other.” He paused for a moment.
‘I think I already know my answer,’ he thought quietly. ‘God, I so want to develop things with you.’ He took her hand once more and continued, “Now pick up your drink, take a sip to good food and good company, and let’s see if we can’t enjoy this evening.”
“Salut.”
Just as they raised glasses, Chantal returned, “Excusez-moi, Monsieur, Madame. Est-ce que je peux vous montrer à votre table maintenant?” She took their glasses and placed them on a silver tray, then led them through to the dining area. They were led to a smallish table adjacent to the large fireplace. There was a fire burning, with a large oak log sitting in the middle of the embers. Occasionally the oak log would let out a crackle, and a small spit would erupt followed by a small shower of sparks.
Edward held the back of the chair for Geraldine to sit and moved the chair under her as she lowered herself. He then went round to his side of the table and made himself comfortable. Chantal placed their drinks in front of them and passed them a small card that listed the options available for their starting course.
“Voici le menu pour ce soir. Votre plat principal naturellement est déjà préparé.” As Geraldine & Edward looked at the menu, Chantal put some sprigs of herbs on the fire, and the aroma of rosemary soon wafted around their table.
Geraldine looked at Edward and suppressed the urge to just take him in her arms. ‘Golly, I’ve got the hots; this is so ridiculous. I just so want to kiss him.’ Geraldine imagined her lips brushing against Edwards’, his hand caressing the back of her neck, as he simultaneously held her waist with the other. With a start she arrived back on earth, and instead of kissing, she simply enquired of him, “What is your fancy this evening? The choice looks excellent, and my French is rusty. Did the waitress indicate that our main course is already on its way?
“Sort of,” Edward replied. ‘What I really want isn’t on the menu,’ he thought. ‘There I go again, losing concentration; I really think that you are what I want.’
“Yes, sort of,” he continued almost without a detectable pause, “and they will speak English to you of course, and indeed some of the staff are English. I just like to take the opportunity to speak French when I come here, and Chantal and the other staff know that. I usually come here for business meetings and so have little time to enjoy the restaurant per se. Tonight with you for company, this is a real treat. I have taken the liberty of advance ordering the main course, simply to give the chef the opportunity to get in high-quality produce knowing it will be sold, rather than us having to select from what the chef thought would be ordered, if you see what I mean?”
Geraldine really didn’t care what he had ordered; she doubted if she would taste any of it. Her mouth was dry, and her pulse was racing with the pure pleasure of being there, with him. Taking a hasty sip of her drink to provide some lubrication to enable her to speak, she answered him. “Well yes, I imagine, however, that the menu and food quality are always good here, and so what have you pre-ordered?”
“Lobster: the Thermidor here is the chef’s signature and is quite exquisite. If it turns out that you do not want to eat lobster, that will be no problem for the chef; she will be able to prepare something else equally fabulous in my experience.”
“No, Lobster sounds like a good choice. I so rarely eat fish these days simply because so few restaurants offer a good choice, and a Thermidor is open to creative interpretation, and I look forward to the chefs. I have glanced at the menu and can see nothing I would not eat. Go the whole hog – you order.”
Edward caught the attention of the waitress, and speaking slightly slower than before, in an effort to allow Geraldine the opportunity to understand more fully what he was saying, he placed their order.
“Mademoiselle, nous voudrions commander la pâte de truffe pour commencer, et pour boire, peut-être avoir une bouteille de Domaine William Fevre Cote de Bourgerots.”
The waitress left with their order, and Edward smiled across at Geraldine, his confidence beginning to grow, feeling sure that he had not in any way made a fool of himself – yet. “So, tell me of the child I saw you with; she looked delightful and strong-headed.”