Chapter 5

It was only when Andrew saw Suzanne that he realised how much he missed her. She was the person he was closest to in the whole world, even closer than Leslie. Grabbing her under her bum he lifted her into his arms and stilled her squeak with a long kiss. They finally parted and Andrew gently lowered her back to the ground.

“As ever, Andrew McLeod, good for a girl’s ego.”

Her smile was as wide as ever.

“I missed you.”

Everything else would be flowery adornments. It was the truth. Andrew missed her.

She squeezed his hand in hers as they walked over to the carpark. Andrew was tired of driving, having been chauffeur for the last two weeks in West Germany, and let Suzanne drive them back into town. The flat was blissfully quiet and Andrew found a note from Pete saying he was away for a week staying at Melody’s parents’ place. Mind you he didn’t date the note so he could be back right behind them for all Andrew knew. Whatever. Right now the place was their own.

“Come and sit with me and tell me about your summer of playing lumberjack.”

“Idiot. Anyway, you know very well I would look devastating in a lumberjack shirt.”

Pause.

“And nothing else.”

Well that was Suzanne’s birthday present sorted out. And his own.

“What has your summer been like?”

“Busy and boring all at the same time. The job has been good, nice and close so I can walk to work but other than that it has been pretty boring. I have even hung out with Vanessa.”

“Wow, life must be tough.”

“I know, right? It has been great having your car, thanks for that. It has meant I have had freedom to go and see people. Had to be the sober one too many times but that’s okay. I have seen Mary and Hannah, and caught up with Diana and Bobbie. I even saw June once. It has been nice just to chat to them but some of your phrases have stuck in my head. Looking backward especially. It is not that I am just going to drop these people but the truth is I am not that close to them. The person I am closest to is you.”

“We are facing the same issue. The person I am closest to is also you. I saw you at the airport and all these words tumbled through my head, smoking hot seemed to repeat a lot.”

She smiled.

“But it was more than just the physical, I had missed you. I didn’t think I missed you so much when I was at university, but now knowing that I have wrecked the summer by working in London rather than here, I miss you. Up early, swimming in the morning, just the understanding of me. You will sit and read or study with me when I went to put my head down for a few hours. All of it. I know that it took several years for us to become so close and I miss having that person close. I find myself self-censoring more than I ever did at school. I managed to out myself at work a couple of weeks ago.”

“What do you mean, out yourself?”

“I was working where they were using one of the programs Julian and I developed. I looked down and smiled, just a momentary flash of pride, but I shouldn’t have been looking at any of the reports and so I had to explain it was the report itself rather than the content that I was smiling at. As you can imagine that sounded idiotic. Further explanations just made it worse, they were skeptical and then taken-aback when it turned out to be true. I am proud of what we created and the good that we are trying to do with the proceeds but I sure as hell don’t like talking about it, even acknowledging it.”

“You have always been terrible at receiving praise. What do you say, old Andrew versus new Andrew? That has never changed, has it?”

“No, I get very uncomfortable when it is brought up. Some times are not as bad as others. This last time was awful. Senior people looking at me strangely. Plus where I am working they never normally get summer students, so there have been questions asked. Changing gears slightly, have you had a chance to think about accompanying me to Freya and Jim’s wedding.”

Suzanne looked troubled and Andrew tensed expecting a rejection.

“I am quite uncomfortable at these kind of events, not that I have attended one. I just don’t think I will enjoy it. But I also know that it is important to you and that you have asked me to be your guest. That means a lot to me, so I am going to go with you to their wedding.”

Andrew leaned down and kissed Suzanne gently.

“Thank you. But there is something you should know and I wanted to tell you face to face, because, well it is very odd. Freya has asked me to walk her down the aisle.”

Suzanne sat up from his lap.

“What. Why has she asked you?”

“It is a long and very personal story. Her parents were killed when the Germans invaded Norway in 1940. She was only 10. She managed to be evacuated, she was sent to live with her father’s sister in Scotland,. She married her first husband and it took them a long time for her to get pregnant. But they were involved in a car crash in early 1965, he was killed and she lost the baby. She shut all her feelings away for a long time and just concentrated on working, up until she met Jim. That infamous dinner when I took Allison Page to the North British and the four of us ended up having dinner together made an impression. Then we gave all the money away. If her child had lived he or she would be my age.”

Suzanne was shocked as Andrew recounted this tale.

“She has not gone a bit loopy and thinks you are her son, does she?”

“No, fortunately not. She just wishes that her son, she always calls the unborn baby her son, would have turned out just like me. She has had a tough time with sexism at the Civil Service, especially as she has got more senior. How I treat women is sufficiently uncommon as to be noteworthy. Then when you add in my body, my good looks, my charm.”

Andrew got no further as he was pinned to the sofa by a smiling Suzanne.

“So she has asked you to walk her down the aisle?”

“Yes.”

“The father of the bride is one of the big three speeches at a wedding. Do you have to do a speech as well?”

“She would prefer that I did a speech but would understand if I was not comfortable doing it. Said in such a way as to give me no choice. Just like Jim wants me there at his stag. Can you imagine 20 judges all old enough to be my grandfather, and me. I will need to check if Lars is going to be there.”

“Lars?”

“Oh sorry, I thought I had mentioned him. Moira’s boyfriend, or maybe fiancé, it is tough to keep track.”

“Does that mean we will be at the head table?”

“Oh hell, I had not thought of that.”

Suzanne pulled him in for a passionate kiss.

“I will be there Andrew. But I fear that I have been very naughty while you were away and am going to be even naughtier between now and the wedding. Whatever are you going to do?”

Suzanne squirmed in Andrew’s lap as she felt him harden beneath her.

“I think that I should go to my bag and get the present I bought for you.”

The childish joy on her face was so cute. Andrew wondered what the look would be in a couple of minutes. He went to his bedroom and separated the cuffs from the corset leaving them in the room and bringing the bag with the corset back through to the living room. Suzanne was bouncing like an excitable puppy with a sugar high. He laid the bag on her lap.

“This is for you. As soon as I saw it I knew this would be perfect.”

Suzanne practically shredded the bag to get at the contents. When she held the corset up her mouth was a perfect ‘O’.

“Oh my god Andrew. This is beautiful. Where did you get it?”

“A little place that I found. Do you like it?”

“Like it? I love it. Will you help me try it on?”

Wild horses etc.

Suzanne started stripping right there in the middle of the living room. Her top and bra were off in seconds, and when she held the corset up against her body it was clear she would have to remove her jeans too. So less than a minute after Andrew handed her the thing, she was sitting on the couch wearing only a small pair of knickers and looking bloody fantastic. She also knew him well.

“You behave. I know that look. Let me try this beautiful thing on first.”

Now it was not a copy of a Victorian corset, all whale bone, and very constricting. But it was also not just elasticated fabric either. There were stiffeners in the sides and along the back of the corset. It was also lace up the front. There was nothing quick about this process. Once all the lacing had been undone Suzanne wrapped it round her middle. Andrew had a reasonable idea of Suzanne’s measurements so had chosen an appropriately sized one. As he patiently started stringing the laces through the small eyelets Suzanne held the corset in place. Andrew worked as swiftly as possible to get the laces back through all the eyelets and eventually it was sufficiently laced up that Suzanne could let go. Then it was back to the bottom and the even longer process of tightening the laces from bottom to top. The first third was straightforward as the corset followed Suzanne’s shape from her hips into her waist. But the middle third was much more challenging for him. Working all the slack out of the laces and tightening the corset round her waist was hard work. He had a vision in his head of some Victorian period piece on the TV where the maid has her knee in the back of the lady getting corseted to squeeze the lady’s figure. As a front lacer Andrew could hardly knee Suzanne in the stomach so it was with aching fingers that he got the lacing past the narrowest point of the corset. It was also not a torture device, it was designed for someone with a normal waist not some 22” waisted supermodel. This would have looked ridiculous on Heloise for example. The lacing up to the bust allowed for more discretion and in fact Andrew did not tighten it as much as it could have been to allow Suzanne’s generous cleavage to look magnificent. When he was finally done, all but three minutes of half an hour, Suzanne looked incredible. Her waist was cinched in, but not painfully so, and all it did was augment what was already an hour glass figure of some note. Now she looked so breathtakingly, painfully gorgeous. Andrew’s renowned poker face betrayed him again.

“Who did you buy this for Andrew? Me or you?”

“How about both of us?”

She laughed and pulled him down to kiss.

“Thank you it is beautiful. I love how I am constantly aware of it. I will know I have been extra naughty when I have this on.”

Andrew went through to his bedroom again and took a plain white dress shirt and an above the knee skirt of Suzanne’s from an impressive selection that she maintained there. Looking back this was as much their house as his house. He carried them through to the living room where Suzanne was running her hands over the front of the corset feeling the leather. She looked at him when he came through carrying clothes for her.

“I thought I would take you out to dinner.”

“Wouldn’t you rather stay in Andrew?”

Suzanne sashayed over to him and smiled a seductive smile.

“Oh no, there is dinner and thinking time before we come home to play. Naughty young ladies do not get to control the evening.”

Quietly saying two of her trigger words to Suzanne caused her eyes to flare. Walking round to stand behind her Andrew took her arms and bent them behind her back. Her fingers felt the two steel eyes, sewn in the back of the corset. He said nothing and let go her arms as Suzanne spun round to look at him.

“What are they Andrew?”

He chose not to answer and instead simply slipped the shirt on her and started doing up the buttons until the top of the corset was just about hidden. Right on the edge. Sometimes a little peek and sometimes nothing. The black of the corset drawing the eye against the white of the shirt and the paleness of Suzanne’s skin. Then Andrew had her step into the skirt which he zipped up the side. The shirt hung down over most of it. Dropping to his knees Andrew slid his hands up under the skirt and gently tugged and pulled her knickers down and then off. As he finished dressing, and undressing her, Suzanne’s face broke into a smile. But Andrew was not finished.