Chapter 2: When First We Met

How do you talk to a Goddess? Others seemed to have no problem, but here I sat tongue-tied while the smooth-talkers each tried their hand with her. I'd said 'Hello', obviously, when Alice had introduced her to everyone. I didn't quite catch her name and I was now too embarrassed to ask. I'm useless with names. If I'm introduced to you at a party I can guarantee that I'll have forgotten your name 10 seconds later, even if I've been talking to you all that time. So now I was reduced to generic greetings and pronouns as in: 'Did you have a nice weekend?'

Still at least she hadn't sent me away, like she did the others. It was a few weeks before I realised that none of the office Lotharios had managed to get her to go for an after-work drink, let alone a date. What was even more amazing, I never heard any complaints. Usually when a new woman successfully repels the advances of some of our more enthusiastic womanisers, you can be sure that the odd rumour would soon be circulating concerning the sexuality of the new recruit. Nothing overt you understand, the company had some stiff sexual harassment policies; at least one person had been dismissed under them. Even so, to hear nothing on the office jungle drums was quite astounding - she must have had the diplomatic skills of an Eleanor Roosevelt.

Somehow we drifted into eating our packed lunches together in the meeting room that the management let us use for this purpose. Having lived all my life with my 'name blindness', I was adept at conversing intimately with someone without actually knowing the name of the person to whom I was talking. Eventually she called me on it.

"You've forgotten my name haven't you?"

"No." It wasn't quite a lie; I hadn't known it in the first place so I couldn't forget it could I?

She smiled at me and I could see her thinking furiously. Meanwhile I just admired the curves of her face, the breathtaking blue of her eyes and the way that her nose wrinkled when she was deep in thought. Suddenly she smiled in genuine pleasure, I was dazzled, delighted and dizzy all at once.

"Oh you're a tricky one aren't you?"

"I am?"

"Yes. You didn't know my name in the first place so you can't have forgotten it!"

She spoke triumphantly, but in the manner of someone who has worked out the answer to a tricky problem, not someone gloating over another. I could take no offence at being discovered.

I smiled ruefully and prepared to own up. "You caught me out; I didn't quite catch it when Alice introduced you. You can ask anyone though, it wouldn't have mattered if I had. Unless I use a name constantly, I forget it within the first 10 seconds. Now, at least, I can ask you what I've been too embarrassed to ask, for the last six weeks: what's your name?"

"What would you like it to be?" For some reason that I couldn't fathom, I sensed that this was not just a bit of witty banter, so I gave it some thought. One of the things that had attracted me to her in the first place, was her serenity and the more I thought about it the more I knew what I would like her to be called.

"Serena. I'd like it to be Serena." If I'd thought her first smile was dazzling, then the one she gave me now would have blinded me for a week. She reached out and held my hand, a shock in itself, and gazed into my eyes.

"Then that's what you shall call me."

From then on that's what I did. She was Serena; eventually I noticed that the rest of the office joined me in using it. At first I was a little put out that something I had thought was a private thing between the two of us was now common currency, so I asked her about it.

"Why is everyone calling you Serena? It's not your real name."

She blushed a little. "I like it. I've never really owned anything of my own and 'Serena' is the first thing that's been truly mine. I told everyone that you gave me the name and I prefer it to my real name. I asked them all to use it from now on. You don't mind do you?"

Of course I didn't mind; how could anyone deny a Goddess anything? Especially when she looked at you wide-eyed with eyes so blue you could drown in them. I stammered out my denials.

"N... n... no of course not."

She leaned across and kissed me on the cheek. "You're so sweet." I must have blushed seventeen shades of red. I don't remember finishing my lunch or walking to my desk or anything much of the rest of the day until she stood before me as I walked across the foyer to leave the office. As usual, at this time of day, there was quite a crowd all leaving at once.

"Where are you taking me for a drink then?"

The sound of collective jaws dropping, mine included, was the only thing that could be heard. I struggled to find an answer that wouldn't make me, and her for that matter, look stupid. Luckily, she saved me from myself by continuing almost without pause.

"Never mind, I'll find out when we get there, won't I?" With that she slipped her arm through mine and we walked arm-in-arm out of the front door. When we were a few yards down the road she turned to me. "I hope you don't mind me doing that, but I'd be old and grey before you gathered the courage to ask me out, so I thought I'd take matters into my own hands," she looked up at me and winked, "so to speak."

"How could I refuse you anything?"

She kissed me again; this time more forcefully on the lips. "You are a real sweetheart, you know that?" She hugged me and rested her head on my chest for a while. My arms automatically returned the hug and she sighed blissfully as I cuddled her and kissed the top of her head. "So where are you taking me?"

"As it happens, my little minx, I do know of a very nice Italian restaurant just down the road a bit. Would you like to try some authentic Italian food?"

She wriggled with delight at my calling her a 'minx'. "I'd try anything as long as you were with me." She laughed and released me from her hug and we continued down the road to the restaurant.

After that first date, which went swimmingly, we were inseparable. We would meet up for lunch, then eat dinner together after work. After a while, she insisted that we cook for each other, as eating out all the time was just too expensive for me. Since she was still a student, I refused to let her contribute to the bill. Gradually we seemed to spend more and more of our free time together until I couldn't conceive of doing otherwise and so I began to broach the subject of our future plans.

At the office we were considered a single unit: Serena-and-David or David-and-Serena depending on to whom you were talking. I couldn't remember a time when I was happier. As the weather improved, our lunches migrated to the park nearby. Since we were away from the office, eating our lunch became the secondary purpose. The majority of the lunch hour was spent with her on my lap kissing and cuddling. This always led to a certain stiffness on my part. By now our lunchtime trysts were just a form of extended foreplay before our evenings together where she would make sure that no residual stiffness remained before we would fall asleep in each others' arms.