44
" It is Sunday afternoon, preferably before the war. The wife is already asleep in the armchair, and the children have been sent out for a nice long walk. You put your feet up on the sofa, settle your spectacles on your nose, and open the News of the World. Roast beef and Yorkshire, or roast pork and apple sauce, followed up by suet pudding and driven home, as it were, by a cup of mahogany-brown tea, have put you in just the right mood. Your pipe is drawing sweetly, the sofa cushions are soft underneath you, the fire is well alight, the air is warm and stagnant. In these blissful circumstances, what is it that you want to read about?
Naturally, about a murder. "
― George Orwell , Decline of the English Murder
46
" On the doorstep Adele met Tony Limpsfield. She hurried him into her motor, and told the chauffeur not to drive on." News!" she said. " Lucia's going to have a lover." " No!" said Tony in the Riseholme manner" But I tell you she is. He's with her now." " They won't want me then," said Tony. " And yet she asked me to come at half-past five." " Nonsense, my dear. They will want you, both of them. . . . Oh Tony, don't you see? It's a stunt." Tony assumed the rapt expression of Luciaphils receiving intelligence." Tell me all about it," he said." I'm sure I'm right," said she. " Her poppet came in just now, and she held his hand as women do, and made him draw his chair up to her, and said he scolded her. I'm not sure that he knows yet. But I saw that he guessed something was up. I wonder if he's clever enough to do it properly. . . . I wish she had chosen you, Tony, you'd have done it perfectly. They have got--don't you understand?--to have the appearance of being lovers, everyone must think they are lovers, while all the time there's nothing at all of any sort in it. It's a stunt: it's a play: it's a glory." " But perhaps there is something in it," said Tony. " I really think I had better not go in." " Tony, trust me. Lucia has no more idea of keeping a real lover than of keeping a chimpanzee. She's as chaste as snow, a kiss would scorch her. Besides, she hasn't time. She asked Stephen there in order to show him to me, and to show him to you. It's the most wonderful plan; and it's wonderful of me to have understood it so quickly. You must go in: there's nothing private of any kind: indeed, she thirsts for publicity." Her confidence inspired confidence, and Tony was naturally consumed with curiosity. He got out, told Adele's chauffeur to drive on, and went upstairs. Stephen was no longer sitting in the chair next to Lucia, but on the sofa at the other side of the tea-table. This rather looked as if Adele was right: it was consistent anyhow with their being lovers in public, but certainly not lovers in private." Dear Lord Tony," said Lucia--this appellation was a halfway house between Lord Limpsfield and Tony, and she left out the " Lord" except to him--" how nice of you to drop in. You have just missed Adele. Stephen, you know Lord Limpsfield?" Lucia gave him his tea, and presently getting up, reseated herself negligently on the sofa beside Stephen. She was a shade too close at first, and edged slightly away." Wonderful play of Tchekov's the other day," she said. " Such a strange, unhappy atmosphere. We came out, didn't we, Stephen, feeling as if we had been in some remote dream. I saw you there, Lord Tony, with Adele who had been lunching with me." Tony knew that: was not that the birthday of the Luciaphils? "
47
" Progress is hardly ever dramatic; in fact, it is usually very slow. As every parent and teacher knows, education is never a matter of ten-step plans or quick formulas, but of faithful commitment to the mundane challenges of daily life: getting up from the sofa to spend time with our children, loving them and disciplining them, becoming involved in their lives at school and, most important, making sure they have a wholesome family life to return to at home. Maybe that is why Jesus teaches us to ask for strength little by little, on a daily basis - " Give us this day our daily bread" - and why he stresses the significance of even the smallest, humblest beginnings: " Wherever two of you agree about anything you ask for, it shall be done for you... For where two or three come together in my name, I shall be with them" (Mt. 18:19-20). "
49
" So the question is, what can I do to motivate you, Polly?”
She eyes me salaciously and I drop my gaze, unable to return the intensity.
Gently, she uses one finger to lift my chin and make my eyes meet her own. They are a vivid blue and alive with desire for me. The air around us is charged and the tension is palpable. My soaking pussy is a testament to how much I already want her…
“Well?” she asks, breaking my train of thought. I gaze at her face; just a few inches from mine.
“I – I’ve never done this before…”
“Done what Polly?” Rachel chides, removing her finger.
I miss the contact immediately and am rueful to have upset her. She raises one eyebrow at me.
“Thought about what motivates you?” she asks, sardonically.
“I’ve never been like this… with a woman, I mean…”
She rises from the sofa in one fluid movement and stands above me.
“Kneel Polly.”
Surprised by the order, I blink at her before I respond.
“Excuse me?”
Rachel smiles at me.
“Get. On. Your. Knees,” she says, articulating each word, and pointing to the floor in front of her.
“I am going to find a way to motivate you. "
― Felicity Brandon , Customer Service