The Queen of the Night

The waiter was ready to take our orders. Pete ordered fresh oysters in their shells for himself, followed by lobster, Julie went for an entrée serve of calamari followed by Moreton Bay bug (this is similar to a lobster only with a weird shaped head), Steph hardly glanced at the menu, "Two serves of Samosas with chilli dipping sauce followed by two fillet steaks, rare, you know, whip off its horns, wipe its arse and chuck it on the plate, and salad with your own balsamic dressing, and we'll have a bottle of the 2002 RSW Shiraz." The confident way that she ordered the dishes and wines had me wondering how often she came here.

The meal was excellent, the wine brilliant, both bottles, and the coffee to finish was strong without the bitterness that comes from inferior beans and roasting. All in all it was a pleasant evening made even more so by the conversation that covered just about every topic without touching on the one that I knew Pete was itching to address, did I know Steph and, if so, how.

Pete dropped Steph and me off at my hotel and as soon as they had driven off she approached the valet parking attendant and asked him to find us a cab. She didn't ask me to go with her, she just assumed that I would. We sat in the back of the cab, she had her hand back there but this time I didn't try to remove it, this was exactly how I remembered her from my past. "Steph, I noticed that the bill for the meal wasn't presented and you didn't ask for it, how come?"

"The meal was part of a contra deal I have with the restaurant. You see, in my job I have to entertain high profile people, not all of whom want to be seen in the regular eateries, so I take them there. I put enough business their way to allow them to give me freebies from time to time. It cuts both ways and I don't think that they lose by the deal."

"And what is your job?"

"We're almost home, I'll tell you all in a minute." Did she 'we're almost home'? The cab pulled up outside her building. After negotiating the security systems and before getting to the lifts she pulled me to one side. "Come with me, I want to show you something." We went down into the basement car park and she led me to a car gleaming despite the dull lighting. As we approached it I recognised it, it was my old Mercedes. "I saw it in a car auction not long after you disappeared so I had to have it. I don't even drive it, it's been sitting here, waiting for you to come back." This was getting weird, if she was having an affair with her boss why did she go and buy my old car, and why was she so sure that I'd be coming back to her? I walked around the Merc admiring it and remembering back to when we would drive out into the country in her and spend a romantic weekend ensconced in some country hotel, not moving from our room except for meals.

Steph grabbed my hand and dragged me away, back up the stairs to the lobby and into the lift. She pushed the button for her floor and turned to face me. "I've so much to tell you and I want to know all about what you've been doing. Julie told me that you are a genuine hero and something of a legend in the SAS. I knew that you'd become famous."

"Yeah, famous for all the wrong things."

"What? What are you talking about? I can't imagine you doing anything wrong." We had reached her door and she ushered me inside. Another surprise, I stood and stared at my old, well not all that old, lounge room furniture right down to the HiFi and TV. She pushed a button and our favourite music wafted around the room. Before I knew it she had her arms around my neck and her tongue in my already open mouth, and I couldn't even push her away even though that was what my mind was ordering me to do. Whatever made me do it I don't know, but I found myself disobeying orders again. This was getting to be a habit.

"I think an explanation is in order, but first, why exactly did you run away?"

"Because you were having an affair behind my back. I was very angry and decided that if I confronted you with it I'd lose my temper and do something I'd regret."

"I wish that you had confronted me with it, because I wasn't having an affair at all, we were short staffed and I was just working very hard. I can understand now that it might have looked like it because you must have been wondering why I was always working back late and cancelling dates at the last minute, and that made you so jealous that the slightest bit of evidence that confirmed your feelings was enough for you to do what you did."

"But I saw you coming out of your building with your boss, and you had your arm around his waist."

"Oh that, that was a harmless charade. You see, one of the other girls in the office had a huge crush on him and was making life miserable for him, even calling his wife and telling her that she was pregnant to him and that they planned to marry. He discussed it with his wife and we cooked up a plan to get her to believe that he was having an affair with me and to make her jealous. It worked because, when she saw us, she packed her bags and left. I had another job lined up and left not long after she did."

I stood there not saying anything. Could I have been wrong about her all along, had she been faithful to me?

"My new job was to act as a temporary Personal Assistant to visiting VIP's. I was to do all the things for them while they were in Australia that their normal PA's did for them back home, like keeping an eye on their schedules and making sure that they made appointments on time, booking theatre tickets for them and arranging both corporate and private dinners. It pays very well and the tips are most generous. I now have a regular clientele that I keep in touch with and look after whenever they're in town. They depend on me and treat me as a friend rather than an occasional employee."

"Do any of them, you know?"

"Oh, do you want to know if my duties include having sex with them? No. Some have tried but I refused politely but firmly."

"So you've never had sex since I left."

"If you'd asked me if I'd made love in that time I would have been able to answer no, but, as you've asked if I'd had sex I will have to say yes, on a few of occasions I relented and allowed a date to have sex with me. Don't get me wrong, in some rare cases I actually enjoyed it, while it lasted that is, but after he'd snuck off into the night I felt bad about having been so weak. I can honestly say to you that the last time I made love to a man was the last time that we made love. Do you believe me?"

"I wish to God I could, but right now I'm confused, I don't know what to think."

"Now you know how I felt when you left. I didn't know where you were, your parents didn't know or weren't telling me, your boss didn't know any more than we did. I even rang all the hospitals in the vain hope that you'd had an accident and didn't know where you were. We contacted Missing Persons and they couldn't find you, I don't know how hard they tried. In the end I gave up looking, I gave up pestering your parents but I never gave up wanting you to come back into my life. Now that you're back I'm never going to let you go even if I have to chain you to my bed."

"I'm sorry for my stupidity, sorry for hurting you like that, I guess that I just wasn't thinking straight. If it's any consolation, I didn't contact my parents until I was at Duntroon and I swore them to secrecy. Even if you'd contacted them you wouldn't have found out where I was."

"What made you choose the SAS? As I remember it you wouldn't even hurt a fly."

"In my warped way of thinking I rationalised that, because they were the only unit that were consistently involved in front-line action, I would have a better chance of being killed in action. I was too chicken to commit suicide but had no problems with the concept of dying in action, I guess that made me more willing to take risks, which was pretty much what I did when I accused this stupid fucking, pardon my French, officer of setting my squad up to walk into an ambush. I might have been mad at the time but I sure as hell wasn't stupid, my SAS self-preservation training over-rode any thoughts of death I might have had. We soldiers always think of our mates before ourselves and I wasn't going to risk the lives of the men in my squad, whatever the orders told us to do."

"So you became a hero, and your insubordination got you transferred back home, home to me. Yes, I do believe that there is a God. What you've told me about Afghanistan is pretty much what Julie told me, what she also told me is that you're something of a legend in the force, something to do with keeping up the ANZAC tradition of not taking any bullshit from stupid officers."

Author's note: The ANZAC tradition began in April 1915 when a force of Australian and New Zealand soldiers who were supposed to secure the strategic Dardanelles found that they had been put ashore by the British navy at the wrong place. They endured the next 9 months under a constant barrage from the strategically and numerically superior Turkish army led by Kemal Ataturk. Their opinion of the British officers in particular was formed in that battle and confirmed on the Western Front in places like Fromelle, where thousands lost their lives in often futile infantry charges into the teeth of superior German firepower. The things that set these troops apart from others was the spirit of mateship, the valour with which they fought and the ingenuity that they used. They also chose not to salute British officers. The tradition continued through the Second World War and Vietnam only in Vietnam it was the Americans they ignored. Jungle warfare tactics learnt and refined in Papua New Guinea during the Second World War worked very well for them in Vietnam.

"Yeah, and look where it's got me, back here in some training posting when I'd rather be back on the frontline with my mates." The look on her face made me rethink that last remark, maybe being back here wasn't so bad after all. "Though it does have its compensations." I hastily added. No sooner had I said that than she was in my arms, kissing me and crying and laughing.

Eventually she stopped, she looked me in the eyes while she gathered her thoughts. "All right, enough of this small talk, you and I have a lot of work to do getting our lives back on track and it starts right here and now." She literally attacked me, tearing at my clothes, ripping them from me until I stood, naked, in the middle of a pile of rags. Her clothes followed although I did notice that she was a little more careful how she took them off. I stood there watching in amazement as more and more of her was revealed and when she too was naked I figured that it was time I went into action. I remembered the things that she liked me to do to her way back when, so I tried them, and was pleased to find them still effective. In no time I had her writhing on the floor clawing at him and trying to force me to push him into her sopping wet pussy, but I was stronger than she was and I was going to stretch this out for as long as I could.

By the time that I relented and pushed into her she was a jibbering mess. She surrendered to me and I used just enough force to bring her to yet another orgasm before four years of frustration poured from me into her. I stopped moving then and just held him inside her until he eventually subsided. Her eyes snapped open as if she was suddenly aware of where she was and what had just happened. "My God that was good, you are good do you know that. I suppose that you're going to tell me that the SAS taught you to fuck like that, it's not something that you would have learnt from books or watching porn, unless of course you've been lying to me."

"I haven't lied to you, the SAS had nothing to do with that and I haven't been watching porn. Let's just call it instinct. Half the time I didn't know what I was doing or why, it just felt right and good."

"It felt more than good. Do you realise that I'll never make love to another man, nor will I want to. Anything after this will be an anticlimax so you'd better keep making love to me." She stood up and held out her hand to me. I took it and she led me to her bedroom that was dominated by my old bed. After I'd climbed in I remembered that it wasn't very comfortable, but then it felt different, and better. "I bought a new mattress for it, the old one was disgusting, I don't know how you ever got any sleep because I couldn't sleep in it."

"I seem to remember I had problems with it myself, I just never got around to doing anything about it. Now I probably wouldn't have had any problems sleeping after the uncomfortable places I've had to sleep in."

"Let me remind you that sleeping isn't the only thing we'll be doing in this bed tonight." Her hand was exploring the possibilities of a repeat performance. He was rising to the occasion but the possibility occurred to me that at some time soon I would crash and nothing that she could do would wake me. Strength and endurance was something that I needed badly.

He performed very well if I may say so, but no sooner had I rolled off her and kissed her goodnight than I was dead to the world. The last thing I remembered was her arms holding me to her and a contented sigh escaping from her.

The phone jarred us awake sometime late morning. Steph picked it up and grunted something at it. She listened for a couple of seconds before handing it to me. It was Pete. "Wake up Mate, times a wasting. Get you lazy arse out of bed Julie and I will be there in five minutes and we're going to show you a good time."

"Fuck off!"

"Now don't be like that, where's that fighting spirit that you're famous for?"

"Dunno, now leave us alone, I for one need my beauty sleep." I pushed the kill button and put the phone down.

Steph was just getting comfortable against my body when there was a banging on the front door. "Open up! We know you're in there! Let us in before we kick this door down!" Then I heard him mumble an apology to one of the neighbours on this floor as I walked to the front door. I realised as soon as I saw the astonished look on Julie's face that I had neglected to put on any clothes, not that any of them were worth wearing after Steph had ripped them from me last night. Oh well, they've probably seen worse. I pointed to the sofa and, grabbing my jocks from the floor, the only serviceable item of apparel left, I went back into the bedroom. Steph had scrambled into her panties and wrapped a robe around her body and handed me one to put on before going out into the living room to talk to them.

"I won't ask what you two have been doing. I called by the hotel this morning to invite you to a game of golf only to be told that you'd left with 'the lady' after we'd dropped you off." I didn't like his emphasis on 'the lady' but I let it slide. "So we thought we'd come around and invite you to breakfast before golf. We tee off at eleven so get your skates on."

"We can't, sorry."

"Why not?"

"Because I don't have any clothes that are fit to wear." I pointed to the pile of rags that they'd walked past when they came in. "I need you to either go back to my hotel and pick me up something to wear or lend me your clothes so that I can go back and change, what'll it be?"

"Looks like I go to your hotel. Have you got a car Steph?"

"Yes, why?"

"While I'm gone why don't you and Julie go down the road and get some breakfast. If worst comes to worst you can always go to Harry's."

Author's note: Harry's refers to Harry's Café de Wheels that is something of an institution in Sydney. It started life as a caravan parked on the wharf at Woolloomooloo where all night revellers could ease the munchies on their way home. It's most popular dish was a meat pie topped with mushy peas which, in the cold light of sobriety didn't look all that appetising.

They left me there to ponder my fate while they set off on their various errands. What had happened? Here I was back in Sydney with no real plans other than to enjoy my leave when I'd been confronted by a blast from the past, and what a blast. The woman who I'd loved more than life itself and who had betrayed me was back in my life telling me that I'd got it all wrong and that she hadn't betrayed me after all. Not only that, but she seems to be obsessed with me as evidenced by the car and furniture. Was she back in my life again and everything would be perfect, or was I going to find a pet rabbit bubbling away on my stove? What made it worse was that my early warning system wasn't working.

Breakfast was coffee and croissants, we chatted about not a lot while Pete was trying to convince the girls that they should make up a foursome, for golf that is. They eventually agreed, and what we thought would be a quiet game of golf turned out to be anything but. For whatever reason we attracted a bigger crowd then Tiger Woods, not really but it seemed like it. There was a media contingent that wanted to know all about me and how I came to be playing golf with one of the most eligible women in town. 'No comment' didn't cut it and they kept pestering us until I was just about ready to tell them all to fuck off. Steph stepped in and called a halt to the festivities.

"Guys, if I tell you what is going on will you leave us alone?" There was a general mumbled agreement. "We are four friends trying to enjoy a quiet game of golf. I don't know who put you up to this but the big scoop is that there is no scoop. Peter, James and Julie know each other from Duntroon, Julie is my cousin and I agreed to make up a foursome. That is all. If you're looking for some sordid sex scandal going on you should look elsewhere. End of story."

"Captain Forrester, isn't it true that you spent the night with Miss Benson?"

Stephanie stepped in again. "That is true. As you may or may not be aware, Captain Forrester has recently arrived back in this country after a long tour of duty in Afghanistan. The four of us had dinner last night and he very gallantly accompanied me home. I invited him in for a cup of coffee," this bought sniggers from some of the reporters, "we had no sooner got inside my apartment when jet lag hit him and, as it was quite late, I suggested he stay the night. He accepted."

"So the two of you didn't sleep together?"

"When you say sleep together, do you mean did we sleep in the same bed, or did we have sex?"

"I suppose it would be too much to expect you to admit to having sex, wouldn't it?"

"Yes. Next question?"

"Will you be seeing each other again?"

"Another stupid question, open your eyes, here we have an extremely handsome man, a war hero even, and I'm a normal warm blooded woman with perfectly good eyesight, of course I'm going to be doing my best to see him again, but if he doesn't want that then I won't."

"What do you say to that Captain Forrester?"

"Please, I'm not in uniform and I'm on leave so I won't insist on formality, the name is James, Jimmy. As to the question, I too am a normal warm blooded human being and this woman, you'll have to agree, is a very beautiful young lady. I would like to get to know her better and to do that will mean I will invite her to join me at sometime in the future, and no, I am not going to tell you the where or when of it, and if that leads to a closer relationship then so be it, but if it doesn't then that also will be it. Now can we please finish our game of golf in peace?"

We finished our game of golf and none of us are willing to broadcast our score because, after the interruption we just couldn't concentrate. We thought that would be the end of it. We were all wrong.

Someone must either have a good source of information or else a nose for a story because the evening magazine section of the TV news on the commercial channels were all running the story of how Steph and I had been engaged and had split up before I joined the army and how fate had brought us together again. Then one channel broadcast a 'Facebook' page that suggested that Steph was not the person she claimed to be. It called her the 'Queen of the Night' and portrayed her as a scheming bitch who had several affairs with married men that had broken up their marriages and who she subsequently dumped.