February 27th- March 1st

I worried the matter of my job appointment for a couple of days but I didn't make any real decisions about it. Every time I steeled myself to approach Maximus something happened. One night my parents turned up unexpectedly and we had to entertain them, another night he came home in a foul mood after someone else's incompetence had caused his department to look bad and he had been hauled over the coals, unable to defend himself while the little weasel who had set him up smirked in the background. Welcome to the world of office politics, Maximus. I couldn't raise the matter of my desire to go back to work at that juncture.

My daughter, as ever, managed to solve my dilemma, if in a somewhat brutal fashion. Since her birthday she had developed this belief that all mail addressed to the house was somehow hers. Hence if you didn't watch her, she would sit on the hall floor when the postman delivered and gaily rip into everything that arrived. Maximus must have come upon her one morning as he was getting ready to go to work and he pulled the letter from her hand. It just happened to be confirmation of my acceptance of the new appointment.

I was in the bathroom, drying my hair when he walked in. I was aware of him standing there a moment by the doorway, saying nothing. I turned, smiled and then saw his face. In his hand he was clutching the letter with white-knuckled intent.

"What is this all about?"

I frowned and went over to ease the paper from his grip. One look and my heart hit my boots.

"You opened my mail?" I retorted, already on the defensive.

"No, Lily opened it. I retrieved it - I apologise if I then could not help but see its contents...when exactly were you planning to tell me?"

I swallowed and fiddled with my hair. "I was trying to find a good time."

"May I suggest 'a good time' might have been before you even accepted it? What of my opinion? Is it of no consequence? Are you merely going to present me with the decision and ipso facto I must comply? I thought we were a partnership. I thought that we planned our lives together?"

I pushed past him to finish dressing. "As long as the decision is the one you wanted in the first place, you mean? Come on, Maximus...when has our marriage ever been about anything but you laying down the law and me finally accepting it?"  I zipped up my skirt and slipped on a blouse.

He stood in silence while I sat down and started on my makeup. "So...you are going ahead with it?"

I shrugged. "Yes. If you would open your eyes you would see it is a good compromise. A short term contract - good for my career but enabling us to think of our own family plans by the end of the year. I promised you I would have another baby then..."

"A compromise...is that what you call it?" He laughed coldly. "And what compromise is there for Lily? Will she be handed to strangers to keep your notions of your independence alive?"

I spun round. "Fuck you...so you take some leave if you are so concerned. Partnership? Don't make me laugh!"

He opened his mouth to speak but then Lily ran in and he took a step back. "Tonight. We shall discuss this further tonight."

"I can't wait," I snapped sarcastically as he ran down the stairs. Shortly afterwards I heard him leave for work.

He rang me from the office later. His voice was curt and unemotional but I wasn't fooled. He does this when he is putting up a front. "Arrange for someone to take care of Lily tonight- perhaps that neighbour? I wish you to meet me for dinner in the city. My secretary will call you when I have confirmed the reservation."

He put the phone down. There was no question of me refusing. If I wished to discuss this with him then he was calling the shots. I banged the receiver down but did as I was told. As luck would have it, my parents called in and they took Lily home for the night; she occasionally stays over and absolutely loves it; I thought it might be better to get her out of the house as well, in case things didn't go too well.

By seven, I was on the tube, dressed to kill and ready for anything. 'No point in not swinging the advantage in my favour, is there?' I thought as I adjusted the tight black dress I was wearing and pulled my coat closer.  I was already getting some unwelcome attentions from a young man sitting opposite who was going to come in his pants if he didn't control himself. He was staring at my legs in their sheer black stockings and the diamante shoes. I hoped they worked as well on Maximus as they did on him.

He was already there when I stepped into the elegant French restaurant he had chosen. I knew he would be. There was no way that he would have me waiting alone at a bar, no matter how annoyed he was at me. I watched him for a moment through the glass frontage before I pushed open the heavy swing door. He was dressed in his business suit, and looked tired, sitting staring at a glass of red wine, his face impassive and his thoughts far away. I noticed him pass his hand over his beard and then sigh before shaking himself slightly and picking up the glass. There was something so sad about him that pulled at my heart. Imagine how he feels? At odds with me and even his little daughter crossing him whenever she can; he must feel alone and beleagured all of a sudden, the idyll he had built for himself beginning to unravel.

It defused my temper. I entered that place ready for reconciliation. 

Maximus saw me as soon as I walked in and shot to his feet. His manners are impeccable and he will never play games with me like that. I am a lady; he will always show me respect. It brought a flicker of pleasure to my lips to see him stand there so serious, his hands folded behind his back and his demeanour formal.

"Hello, Maximus," I said softly.

"Good evening. No trouble getting here?"

"No...none at all. Lily is sleeping at my Mum and Dad's tonight."

"Ah."

He ordered another two glasses of wine and asked for them to be brought to us. Gesturing to an empty table in the bar, he led me there and held my chair while I sat, before joining me.

"We need to talk, Uma," he began simply.

"I know," I answered quietly.

He rested his elbow on the table and thought for a moment, his finger poised on his lip observing me. "Uma...if you really want this job, I won't stand in your way. I have thought about little else all day. I just wish you had told me first. It makes me feel so desperate that you do not trust me and would keep such a thing from me. Do you think that I seek to spoil your life? That I want to extinguish your flame? That is not my intent."

I listened to him speak so slowly, with so much grave thought, trying so hard to understand the world he had found himself in. I choked on a sob. I had done him such an injustice. This matter was all about my guilt and the interlude with Terry Thorne. Somehow that had becomes intrinsically linked to the issue of my job and I had done a terrible thing to him, even apart from my infidelity. What kind of wife was I for such a good man?

For a moment the idea of telling him about Terry occurred to me, of explaining about Isobel, the charm and the whole damn incredible story. He might believe it. He might just accept the hidden stresses that had been assailing us and see it as a reason for the bizarre and unusual trouble that we had been experiencing.

"Max...there's something I want to tell you..."

"Yes?" His face so open, so earnest, his eyes so wanting to feel that I loved him and did trust him, made the truth curdle on my lips.

"I just want to say....I just want to tell you...I love you, you know that? More than life. I have made a bad mistake and I'm not sure how I got myself into the whole thing." I decided then that it was still better to speak in euphemism so that he be spared the full knowledge- what good would the pain of that do him, even if it was not entirely our fault? "I do want the job, but it is for six months only and will leave me with an international credential which will enable me to write or freelance more easily. My intention is then to have another child. I will give you a son. Or another daughter. It was always my wish."

He smiled and placed his hand over mine gently. "I love you...I adore you...I don't wish for us to tear at each other like wild beasts. I have been very stern with you of late, treating you like a wayward child. I, too, bear some guilt in your apprehension to tell me the truth. I can appreciate that. Let us cast this all aside. Neither of us wants this to happen. I do not wish to fight with you. Let tonight be a new beginning."

Maximus called a waiter and asked for champagne. We were served a vintage cru and then he toasted my success at the job and the future. We both smiled. "Do you have any idea how proud I am of you?" he whispered.

How his loyal trust pierced my deceitful heart.

After a wonderful dinner, we walked hand-in hand along the Embankment and talked about nothing very much. I leant towards his ear and asked him if we could go straight home; I wanted to show him how sorry I was. He grinned and shook his head. "No...I think I want us to do something different tonight. Let's take a room here in the city, like two illicit lovers who cannot contain their passion. Somehow the tedium of our marriage bed may be at the root of this strange time we have had."

Was he finding some residual effect of the spell still lingering? It was clear to me now that his impotence had been directly linked to the malevolent potion under the mattress and also all the fights and strained atmospheres that we had undergone. But was our marriage bed tedious to him? Did he wish sometimes for adventures, other women, mistresses, sex with casual pick ups or whores? Had I failed him in some way?

But the idea appealed and I smiled my assent. We checked into a discreet but rather superb hotel in the area and asked for a suite for the night. No luggage -but would they deliver a bottle of champagne and some strawberries? The implication was clear but the management did not turn a hair. The key was passed across and we nonchalantly walked over to the lift before bursting out laughing as soon as the doors were closed. It seemed that we both felt like naughty kids doing something we shouldn't, for some strange reason, and it was exactly what we needed as a fillip to our recent disappointing love life.

In the suite, I ran a bath in the large marble tub and scattered the fragrant foam and essential oils, adding a few rose petals from the display on the vanity for added romance. Room service delivered and Maximus opened the champagne, carrying it through with the strawberries to the bathroom. I lit some candles and turned off the main lights and there in the semi-darkness, we stripped each other's clothes slowly, item by item, kissing what we revealed in turn. Neither of us spoke.

I knelt to pull down his shorts and finally bare him completely; I kissed the tip of his erection. There was no problem this time. His hands came down to raise me to my feet and we stepped down into the sunken bath and sank into the waters. Lying back, resting in his arms, my hair knotted up in a band, we lay and sipped champagne, ate the fruit, teased each other with it, and talked as lovers do.

We spoke of things we wished to do together, places we wanted to go, things we desired both erotic and innocent. Maximus was open that night, his usual reticence to articulate his desires set aside and it was all the more decadent and arousing. In a way, what he wanted from me was what he had never had; he wanted me to be a mistress for him- I had only ever been in his bed as a wife. What was the difference in reality? None really- we were both equally uninhibited sexually and in truth there is little that we hadn't done together. But there in a strange hotel room, a certain anonymity made it possible for us to play a game that I supposed we never had; that I was a woman he had just met and this was the first time we had made love.

Sexual desire is seated in the mind- it is the brain that is the greatest of all the sex organs. Desire isn't actually about fitting body parts together like some construction set of the flesh- it can go here, or her, or here- but the image in our minds as we allow our desire to unfold is where the true ecstasy can be. We left the warmth of the fragrant waters, dried each other and wrapped ourselves in robes- he led me to the main room where I selected some music and we came together.

He took my fingers and interlinked his own, circling me with his arms and pulling my body close. We did not dance but simply moved together sensuously to the music, staring at each other and not speaking, in a room lit only by soft lamps. His hands relinquished their hold and loosened my robe until it snaked to my feet; he stroked down the contours of my naked body, a seductive massage as his rough and calloused fingers and palms tenderly moved across me.

"How do you wish for me to touch you?" his low voice whispered in my ear- it was touch enough to drive me half insane with longing.

"Like a man who hasn't touched a woman in years," I muttered back and caught the growl my answer made. He had been that man. He knew what those moments felt like and I wondered what experience his final release would be on the woman he chose on those nights.

"Dance for me," he commanded softly and sat back on a large armchair, his robe already parting and the protrusion of his turgid cock jutting out.

"As you wish." I whirled and gyrated to the sensuous beat- this time my dirty dance was for him. The man I loved. The only man who had a right to know me in this way.

Dancing is a sensuality all of its own; it loosens the body and is a prelude to sex- it can be sex itself. I touched myself as I moved, not lewdly but with a way that would clearly arouse a man further- smoothed my hands over my breasts until the nipples were pebble-hard, stroked my belly and ruffled up my hair, let my curls fall from their holding band to tumble provocatively about my shoulders, cupped the cheeks of my butt as I rotated my hips before him. I wondered how long he would sit and watch before he had to participate.

Giving him the look of a coquette, I caught his lazy smile; he dragged my eyes downwards and took his own cock in his grip. I watched him squeeze and saw the pearl of fluid seep from the swollen tip. "Taste me."

I knelt and lowered my lips, catching the drop on my tongue and then carrying it to his mouth; he grabbed me and pulled me roughly to his face, kissed me wildly, forgetting his control and Stoic discipline. This was for him. This is what the man behind the mask wanted. This was Maximus unleashed.

From there we slithered to the floor and rolled about like two creatures of nature who had just discovered the pleasures of the flesh. I dragged the robe from his shoulders and covered his chest and neck with kisses, biting, scratching, struggling to stay lucid in the wake of his ravening passion. He entered me with a few deep thrusts, I groaned and arched, digging my nails into his back, scrabbling for a hold on the thick muscle of his arm as he kissed and feasted on my flesh whilst ploughing my body. I felt like a tiny bird in his grasp, my femininity a feather-like gift to his awesome virility.

Whispers uttered seemed to explode like rockets in my brain, senses rang with electrifying pleasure, light danced across my eyelids and then- off, out somewhere far from our mortal selves, freed by what we were feeling. We both clung to that sensation, struggled to remain there even as the frailty of our bodies dragged us back. Maximus ground down, now spent but still hard enough to make me gasp and I clung to him, wishing he could stay inside me all night.

He eased away and rolled onto his back, breathing deeply and smiling softly; I curled up on his chest, immediately wrapped in his arms. We were still stretched out on the floor. Suddenly:

"Did we really need a bed? Perhaps next time we simply ask for the floor rates?" Maximus chuckled.

I rolled over him and grinned. "Whoah...was I just hit by a train? Maximus Decimus Meridius you should come with a health warning. Or have a CRU on hand...now, tell me -was that a little less tedious for you?"

He gave me one of his long stares, his mouth pursed in amusement. "It was an improvement. Now, let's see what you can do for the rest of the night..." With a sudden movement, he was on his feet and had me over his shoulder, to throw me on the bed and leap on after me. He was relaxed. He was playful. I was about to get a workout. There wasn't going to be much sleep that night...

Things were so much better that I could hardly believe the stormy times that had preceded them. We had returned to my parents' house the next day, looking groggy and pale, still wearing our clothes of the night before. My Mum had given me the eye and mouthed, "Who's been a naughty girl?" I raised my eyes at her and she laughed, fussing over Maximus, who mostly grunted monosyllabic responses which she seemed to love. If there ever was a man who had just spent most of the night fucking his wife and was now in dire need of a bed in which to sleep, I have never seen one.

Lily jumped about, so happy to see us and for once Maximus did not seem too delighted, telling her to calm down and go to her mother. She pulled a face but didn't seem too concerned. Back at home, he took a bath and fell asleep in it until I woke him up and told him to get his head down. He asked me why I wasn't tired. I said I was but in a different way- what he had expended, I had gained; it has a rather animating effect. I received a 'tsk' for that, but I know he was pleased. He's man, after all, and they all like to know that their women are well satisfied- or die in the attempt.

We didn't have any sex the next two days- I reckoned we were just sexed out, so thought nothing of it because, outside of the bedroom, Maximus rarely left me alone, touching me, kissing me, pulling me onto his knee, stroking my hair, grinding up against me...even Lily noticed and told us to 'stop kissing' and jumped on his knee to distract him. The residual guilt was beginning to ease and I decided to wipe my hands of responsibility; I was the victim of a cruel and malicious trick that had ultimately failed. There was nothing that could really drive me from my husband's arms. But the sex-free days were necessary- I could barely close my legs over the weekend and had to sit in a warm bath to ease the swelling. You certainly know when the legion has marched through town.

On Monday evening, I had prepared an extra special meal. The plan was to get Lily down, slip on something alluring and spend the night with Maximus, picking up where we had left off. I had been thinking of it all day- even called him and asked him to be early - and randy. He replied he was always one but never the other. We giggled on the phone and I felt the rising sense of desire which then simmered all day.

He did not let me down. I hadn't even finishing bathing Lily when I heard his car in the drive. "Daddy's home," I said and she danced about, picking up some of my excitement. I had spent hours in the park with her that afternoon and she was already worn out and sleepy but in one of her hysterical moods. They always end with a madcap half hour, followed by her crying herself to sleep. I was already wondering if I could hasten the tears to get her off the quicker- am I a terrible woman or what?

I lifted Lily from the bath and wrapped a warm towel around her. She was giggling and silly- her usual mood just before she grew overtired. She put some bubbles on the end of my nose and blew them off and then threw her arms round me as I stood up.

"I love you, Mummy," she whispered.

I cuddled her closer, my beautiful child. 

"...but not as much as Daddy." She has such a way with words already. I shook my head at her.

"That is not a very nice thing to say, sweetie. We love each other the same."

"Well, I love you but I love Daddy more. I'm sorry...don't be sad...you are very nice..." she added, pulling my face to hers with her little hands. I had to smile at her. The old Oedipal complex again. My daughter and I, subconscious rivals for the man in our lives. At that moment Maximus leant on the bathroom door. He had discarded his jacket and was in his shirt and pants with the tie loosened and a few buttons open. I could have jumped his bones at the sight of his tired but imposing manliness.

"Look who's here, Lil...your boyfriend, Daddy! Hey, Max...just get her dried and dressed will you while I finish dinner? I'm running late and the little madam has already told me I'm second favourite tonight."

He grinned and reached for her, picking her up swathed in the soft white towel. She squealed, "Daddy!!" and lavished him with kisses. I tossed her pyjamas over his shoulder as he left the room and abandoned them to their mutual lovefest while I drained, wiped down the bath and made my way to the kitchen to prepare our evening meal. He could get her to bed- which he loves- and then it was Mummy's turn to get some loving.

A short while later, I heard Max's voice raised in what sounded like anger and then Lily came running into the kitchen, crying "Daddy shouted at me!" I picked her up to see what was the matter and at the same instance heard the front door bang. Moments later, the car engine fired up and I heard him drive away. Running to the window, I was too late to stop him.

"What happened, Lily?" I asked in utter amazement at his behaviour.

"Daddy shouted at me." It was all the sense I could get out of her, she was very shaken and cried bitterly. I rushed to the gate but his car was disappearing around the bend in the road. I did not know what on earth had happened. One moment he had been smiling and glad to be home and then he walks out? Had he received a call from the department? But wouldn't he at least have said something to me? And why had he upset Lily? A cold shiver ran down my back, the return of the old nagging dread. Did he suspect? Had he discovered something? Had Isobel done something further?

MAXIMUS

When I compare myself to the man I was, I have to smile. She calls me and I sit chatting on my office phone like a lovesick boy. How does she do that to me? Every time, she reels me in and suddenly I am no more the rigid disciplinarian but some priapic fool whose cock drives his brain. But why not? When did I ever really want anything else for myself than that? To spend my days on my own land, raising my son, and my nights in my wife's arms? I was always the most unlikely of prominent generals, in truth, alone amongst those other birds of prey all waiting to pick each other off and grab the laurels for themselves. I just shouldered the task and found myself rewarded with even more tasks that I did not seek. The irony was not lost on me; I was always punished for success. It is a trait I have noticed often in life - that those who can are asked to do and those who can't are given comfortable positions that don't expect too much of them.

So now, I put myself first. I am good at my job, have won respect and position, made a few enemies no doubt  who are annoyed at my relatively meteoric rise, but I seek little more advancement and do not push myself forward.  I have all that I need and now lack the real allegiance to a cause that once drove me. I am a man of honour - let no one say I did not do my duty-but I will never again sacrifice my own for any cause. I have won the right to that privilege with my own blood and sacrifice.

I left the office early and, if it were not for the accursed traffic and the endless dreary rain, would be home even before Lily was ready for bed. I miss so much of her life; she is mostly asleep or bad-tempered when I come in and I rarely get the chance to spend some time with my little girl. Tonight I shall read her a story...she has recently been enjoying some of the lighter myths - but I have to choose carefully. She cried when I told her Daedalus and Icarus. Uma told me off for that. Apparently a child so young should only have sweet things, not cautionary tales. They do so spare their children from real life these days that it makes me wonder. This world is no softer in reality than mine was - so why not give them some life lessons steeped in mother's milk?Perhaps the Golden Apples? Perhaps Heracles in his cradle? Perhaps Atalanta?  I mulled over this great knotty dilemma on the drive home.

The house was quiet when I entered; I could hear their distant laughter and the splash of water; I knew they were upstairs and it was bath time.Throwing down my outside wear, I ripped off my tie and rolled up my sleeves before dashing up the stairs to my two girls. There they were, Uma on her knees and a little naked cherub of a Lily, chatting away to her mother as she stood ready to be lifted out.

"Good evening, ladies," I grinned from the door.

"Look who's here, Lil...your boyfriend, Daddy! Hey, Max...just get her dried and dressed, will you, while I finish dinner? I'm running late and the little madam has already told me I'm second favourite tonight."

"DADDYYYYYYYYY!" Lily screeched and held out her hands, wriggling around for my attention. She is so beautiful, as only a tiny maiden can ever be. Skin so flawless, milk-white and fair, both chubby and leggy at the same time- just perfection. How I wish she could stay like this forever and never have to know the world out there. I expect all fathers wish that for their daughters.

Whisking her down the stairs, I settled in the lounge and rubbed her dry. She always complains at my handling of her, "Noooo!!! Mummy does it soooo soft....like this...." But then she giggles and snuggles up to me for more. She already understands that she is a female and that men are stronger and rougher and she likes it, as all women do. How powerful is the sense of our gender, deep within us from the start.

Lily snaked out of my grasp and ran naked around the room in a silly mood. The TV was playing and she stopped and noticed the performer- some tuneless pop music video with another gyrating scantily clad child-woman. Lily giggled and said 'Sexy dancing!' and proceeded to wiggle her little nude body in some imitation of the sexual lewdness before her. I snapped off the set and told her to stop that, but she was in one of her uncooperative frames of mind. There also seemed to be some knowingness in her jumping around that I did not approve - that little innocents should be tainted by this!

"Lily- stop that! Come here!" I grabbed her pyjamas and tried to catch her but she ran away and stood up on the couch, waving her little bare buttocks at me and laughing. I snatched her up and plonked her on my lap. "That is very naughty behaviour. I don't want you to do that."

She pulled a face, suddenly upset- I knew she was sleepy and expected the inevitable tears. Instead she slipped her arms round my neck.

"I sorry. No shouting." I smiled at her and told her I was not angry. She kissed me. I kissed her back.

"I like kissing boys," she suddenly announced as I pulled on her trousers. "I kissed Uncle Terry. He doesn't have a hairy face." I let her ramble on, barely listening to her, aware that she had seen Terry recently and that he was always affectionate with her.

"Dad?" She suddenly giggled and caught my face in her tiny hands. Before I could respond she planted a wet open-mouthed kiss on my lips and pushed her tongue in between. I pulled back.

"Don't do that, Lily," I warned.

She giggled shyly and put on her bashful look.

"That's how Mummy kisses," she muttered.

"Don't be silly," I replied, wondering had she observed us recently. Uma and I were no longer as free before her now that she was able to understand so much more- but still...

But she went on. "...That's how Mummy kisses...Uncle... Terry..." She spoke in an emphatic tone then stopped and laughed with a curious little smug look on her face. I stopped and stared at her. What had she said? Had she said what I thought she had said? Perhaps she was confused, mixing up the names?

"Uncle Terry came and he was kissing Mummy like this..." and she tried to kiss me again, making little whimpering noises and sticking her tongue out. For thundering seconds I sat on in the chair trying to make sense of what she had said. Terry? Uma was affectionate and usually kissed visitors on both cheeks- but the mimicry that Lily had affected was unmistakable. The child was acting out a sexual kiss to which she had been a witness. In my home. Before my child. My wife and another man?

I felt a wave of nausea drive a tide of anger through my blood. Red spots danced before my eyes. I blinked and struggled to find any single other explanation for her comment but there was none. In the kitchen, I could hear Uma singing to herself as she prepared the evening meal; I knew instinctively that I could not face her then. I needed time to think. If I reacted on impulse...who knows what I might be capable of?

"Go to your mother."

"Don't want! Read a story! Read a story!" Lily jumped up and down on my lap.

"Go to your mother!" I placed her rather ungently on the floor. She scrambled back.

"NO! STORY!"

"GO TO YOUR MOTHER NOW!" My voice was louder than I had meant it to be and her eyes widened in fear. Her little thumb jammed in her mouth and she took to her heels, running wildly out of the door, already crying. I did not wait for a reaction.

Grabbing my car keys and throwing my jacket and overcoat over my arm, I charged for the door, slamming it behind me as I left the house.