Whether portraying themselves as trendy urban or substantial suburban, incumbents and aspirants to the centres of power tend to spend Sundays routinely. Not many go to church in Europe, unlike in the United States where God is always kept as handy as membership of the National Rifle Association. European citizens, and the politicians whom they beseech, lean towards a Sunday that leaves Deism out in the cold. Once churchy, European capitalists and their human market had finally come out as a secular whole.
One lobbyist for bio-diversity among other things, a self confessed man of appetite, found himself unable to give satisfaction that Sunday morning. His libido had been neutered by a recent telephone call. A dosage of hubris raised his spirits, but nothing else. He contemplated naked shoulders above the bedsheet. She did not know how important he was. Knew nothing of his secret life.
“Are you awake, Stella?” he asked a dark spread of hair on the pillow. She always slept with her back towards him.
The shoulders moved. Her hidden face seemed to turn into the pillow and she affected to stir by manufacturing lazy sounds. To her surprise, he ran his fingers playfully over her head and the mattress flexed as he elbowed himself into a sitting position. So no morning sex, she thought, unless he was changing his routine. His fingers stopped their irritating stroking and she heard him sigh. Convinced that she was spared, she coyly put a hand over her eyes and turned towards him. It hid her relief.
“Everything all right, darling? You are so strong in the mornings…”
“I have a few people to see,” he said. “It has to be person to person.”
“But you don’t have to see them right now, do you?” she pouted, with confidence that this flirtation was perfectly safe.
His ego flexing, the lobbyist drew down his eyebrows and tightened the muscles around his mouth. He was in the habit of asserting that amongst the environmental wimps and hanging binoculars he was their hardliner, their man of action. It would do no harm to let her pant for a while. She was enslaved by his masculinity. They always were. “Not this morning, Stella,” he said, living his image of himself as ‘Control’.
Oh my God, she thought, what a bloody poser! I must dump this pathetic asshole. Hey, first though, I’ll take him shopping for a Rolex. Or perhaps the latest Omega? Make the asshole pay plenty. I earned it.
“Think I’ll have a shower,” she said, swinging bare legs over the side of the bed and escaping to the bathroom. She hoped for a golden handshake. It couldn’t happen soon enough. One more faked orgasm and her screams would be of genuine frustration.