Anne had let herself out quietly and Geraldine lay naked on her front, cuddling her pillow, a draught from the open window playing a sensual tune across her thighs, gently stirring the hairs at the top of her legs, creating a slight arousing tickle. She parted her legs a little more, enjoying the sensation, her thoughts drifting to lovemaking with Edward, wondering if it would ever happen and what it would be like if it did. She wriggled and adjusted her position slightly to ease the discomfort to her chest, her movements gentle and subtle. Geraldine did not wish to lose the moment – these early day dreams were so precious, and often intense in their effect, giving Geraldine a buzz for many hours. As she moved, the cotton sheet rucked a little and a crease slipped between her legs, gently rubbing against her. Geraldine hardly noticed the additional stimulation as her daydream increased in its intensity.
Gently she rocked back and forth, her mind lost in the erotic dream, pushing herself onto the bed, the crease of the sheet stimulating her along with the dreams that aroused her mind. Hands were massaging her shoulders, hands occasionally trespassing as they slipped around her sides to cup her. Her breaths got deeper and deeper as her arousal grew stronger. She pushed herself hard onto the bed as if she were being mounted by a lover and in her dream felt the thrust into her, her unknown lover seeking to flood her body with pleasure giving fluids. She gasped when the pleasure peaked, her fine hairs slicked back against her body, showing a neat parting as if her body had begun to be unzipped.
'Wow,' Geraldine thought, 'where did that dream come from?' She arose, panting still, a damp patch visible in the sheet where her body had lain. Her whole body was moist with the perspiration from her fantasy and she headed to the shower, deciding on the way that the bed needed changing. She would have to change it before she went to Snips for twelve; it was certainly not on the agenda for the afternoon. In the afternoon she meant to sit and watch a Hugh Grant film and ensure that her perfect hair and nails did not go astray.
Allbaston & Edgar's report was virtually completed, but there was also the report for the Computer System at the County Council that had to be finished; presentations were due on Friday afternoon. She had done all the investigations and analysis and her recommendations were quite clear to her. Geraldine had roughed out the report; it just needed final polishing and her presentation preparing. 'No', she decided, 'Not today'. That report needed her concentration, and just now her brain seemed to have sent her concentration on holiday, her sensibilities seemed missing, presumed lost and her business acumen had been usurped. It seemed her girly brain had returned from its decade long sojourn and once more taken control. Ever since Saturday when she had first met and spoken to Edward she had felt feminine and alive. She had not felt that way for many years, not since she had lost Iain. Business, especially computers and reports and presentations, were things that she wanted nothing to do with at the moment, even though they were virtually all that had consumed her life for the past ten years. Perhaps she ought to take a holiday from her life? This really was a ridiculous state of affairs. After all she had only met Edward three days before and already her brain had turned to pea soup. Today, she decided, was not a day for reports and business. No, today was a day to be a woman once more, a day for hair, nails and a slushy film – probably Four Weddings, but most certainly something with Hugh Grant in it, and then hopefully a good evening out.
Anne pulled up on the drive in front of a semi detached house on the main road to Painswick. The beech hedge was still all brown and thin. Anne so hated beech hedges because of their lingering death like appearance through the winter months; she much preferred holly and spruce as at least they looked alive all the time. There were a few Cotswold stone tubs dotted around the edge of the drive housing a mixture of Erica and winter flowering pansy of which Anne heartily approved. Anne picked her stones heater up, realising that she was a little fragile still from last night. She decided two hands were needed to hold the heater and another two for balance – somehow she came up short in the hands department. Gosh, perhaps she shouldn't even be driving this morning. As Anne weaved a path towards the house, the front door opened and a tall thin woman with black hair called a cheery 'yoo-hoo'.
"Hello Stacey. Where are we going with this today?"
"Upstairs Anne, I know that we didn't have much room in the lounge last time, so I have cleared space in the second bedroom, and you can lay all your stuff on the drawer tops as I've emptied them too, I have folded an old sheet up and put it across the drawer tops, just to protect the wood in case of spills you understand, not that I'm suggesting that you would spill anything, oh, you know what I mean, come on in."
Stacey never changed it seemed; each sentence was a train journey of conversation, each rattling along goodness knows what track. Sometimes Anne felt that she herself had not said a word, and that Stacey had used up an entire book full. She didn't quite understand what it was about Stacey. "Okay Stacey let me just get the heater plugged in and then I can get the rest of the stuff in whilst you have a 5 minute soak in your bath, which I hope you have all ready?"
"Yes Anne, well of course it is, I always have the bath ready for your time, and as you are almost always exactly on time, I know that it is important that it is ready because, well, it's not like a shower that you can just switch on and step under is it, no, it takes preparation and usually I would be adding my salts and scent, but I know that you just want me to cleanse and so I have put nothing in the bath."
"Stacey, that's good. Now it's time for you to put you in the bath, and I'll finish bringing the stuff in," Anne said, trying to hurry Stacey along, as the last of her potions and lotions, oils and gels were brought from the car into the hall. Shutting the front door after locking the car with the remote, she put her keys in the top of her handbag and put it on the hall floor in the corner by the door, slipped her shoes off and put them next to her bag. Starting with the table, she ferried the tools of her trade up to the bedroom at the back of the house. Stacey had indeed cleared plenty of space, and after leaning her table up against the wall, it always went up last, she pulled the curtains too leaving a small gap.
As Anne made her few trips up and down the stairs, she passed the bathroom which was next to the bedroom. Stacey had left the door open, and was lying soaking in the warm water. "Now I hope that is not too hot Stacey," Anne remarked walking into the bathroom after she completed her last journey, and dipping her fingers in the water. "I don't want you cooking," Anne said as she dripped a few drops of Lavender Oil into the water.
"Oh you know I only ever follow your instructions to the letter and I don't dream ever of trying to go against what you have said." Stacey paused speaking as she stood up, ready to get out of the bath. "Just do me a favour Anne and pass me the robe that is sat on the toilet seat. I suppose I ought to get extra hooks put up so that I can hang more stuff up, but then when I'm in the bath I don't need to use the toilet, so I can use its lid to store things can't I?"
"Here you are Stacey, now give me a moment to get ready and then you can come through. I just need to get the table in the right position." Anne left a slightly Lavender scented Stacey patting herself down through her towelling robe and went into the bedroom to set up the table.
After the shower had finished and without bothering to dress, Geraldine pulled the bedding off the bed, went into the kitchen and loaded the machine. First the pillow cases and then the bottom fitted sheet, and then finally the duvet cover squeezed in and door shut. Tablet in the top, Non Fast Coloureds wash programme, 'Ping'; sorted. Back into the bedroom, clean cotton linen from the cupboard, bottom sheet no problem, pillow cases, no problem. It was the duvet. It was always the duvet. Geraldine really got annoyed with duvets. Although the cover was easy enough to strip off, and tidying the bed each day was a doddle, it just seemed almost impossible to reload a duvet into its cover, and get the corners lined up, and get the duvet properly filling the cover to each edge, if you were by yourself. By the time she'd finished, having completed several star fish impressions and been inside the cover with the duvet at least twice, she was so hot and flustered it was obvious that she needed another shower. She imagined it would probably be the one thing that could finish someone after a separation or break-up – the first solo duvet run. 'Golly, this is so silly' she thought to herself as she dived into the shower for the second time that day giving herself a very quick sluicing.
After a second thorough dousing, and feeling a little guilty about not working on her Council report, Geraldine sat at the table, coffee and toast to one side, laptop computer and draft copy of the report to the other. Just in case her brain really was in 'stupid' mode she had made a copy of the report and filed it well out of harms way. And then if she had a mad moment, she could recover the report back to a sensible position. Automatic spell checkers and grammar correctors were all very well and good, but they were not able to correct you if you put valid words in the grammatically right place in the sentence, but were still factually incorrect; and the way she seemed at the moment, factual incorrectness was an all too credible possibility. The councils' problems were many and to be truthful the council officers were to close to the problem to see the only viable solution. After years of under funding, they had a computer system based on old technology and it really needed dragging into the 21st century. The problem was the cost. The council simply could not afford to replace it all. All that they could see to do was to replace everything in one go. That was where she came in. She had been in to the council and undertaken a thorough examination of the problem, or rather problems. The computer system had been installed in the 1980's – the computer cabling was wrong for what the council thought they needed to do, and that was just the beginning. The computers all had different operating systems, in fact almost every version of Windows you could think of. There were several different versions of the basic office programs, and the network hardware was so obsolete that no one could remember who now owned the company that originally made it. She knew what was needed and she knew what wasn't. The problem was persuading the council that they did not need to put in a complete new wiring system, and that all they needed to do was standardise on one computer system, one operating system and office system – and make their staff accept it, rather than listen to all the arguments that individuals always had for reasons why they needed individual specifications. She felt like printing 'it's just a computer system for goodness sake' on the top of every page of her report, and 'you do the work, it only helps you' on the bottom, but thought that it might convey the wrong message to her clients, and also suspected just thinking that of her clients demonstrated how stupid her brain was at the moment. After all everyone was entitled to think that their own work was very important.
No it was quite simple, and actually she had a solution that would come in under the proposed budget, and that should please the council tax payers, as well as more than meet the needs of the council. It would mean job losses, but they could be confined to temporary and contractor staff – of which they needed over a hundred just to keep things going on a daily basis, and it was those job losses that helped fund the program in her proposal.
But all she could think of at the moment was getting her hair done in... 'Shit!!!' Ten minutes time. Her brain definitely was in some strange time zone today. Geraldine ran upstairs and threw a bra, pants and dress on, ran down stairs, unplugged the percolator, blipped the electric door for the garage, shoes, coat and scarf and keys and was gone. She was only ten minutes late arriving at the hair salon.
Anne moved slowly down Stacey's sides, massaging away the tensions, her hands oiled with Vanilla and Patchouli oils carried in one her favourite base oils of organic Jojoba. She worked her hands over Stacey's shoulders, burying them deep into the warmth between the towelling table cover and Stacey's décolletage, and then sliding her fingers back from the deltoids, over the shoulders and down deep into the tissue of Stacey's buttocks, and then pushing back up and around Stacey's side.
"Now just lie there and relax Stacey, I am going to remove the towel and then I am going to work on your buttocks and thighs." Anne took the towel from Stacey and placed it over the back of a chair. She opened her heater and took out a pair of small hot stones and again spoke softly to Stacey. "This will be warm on your toes and will prepare your feet for when I arrive there Stacey, now just close your eyes and imagine water trickling and babbling in a brook in a leafy meadow." Ann then placed one stone between the big and next toes of each foot, and then simultaneously gripped Stacey's big toes, holding them both for a minute before releasing.
Anne went back to her oils case and added some drops of Bergamot and Neroli to her bowl and mixed in some additional Jojoba, swirling it round with her finger. Anne ensured that her palms were well oiled and then started on Stacey's bottom, kneading and rubbing, her hands gliding over the rounded surface, rubbing down into Stacey's inner thigh abductor muscles and then back to circle and manipulating the gluteus muscles. As Anne concentrated; her hands working the ligaments hidden beneath the muscle mass, her oiled hands massaged back and forth; her manipulations began unintentionally pressing Stacey down on to the massage mat and she began to go slightly pink and her breaths became deeper and were held longer.
Mr Adrian was huffy. 'What's his problem?' Geraldine thought to herself as his assistant, young, spotty, bleached hair, and very gay, washed her hair; her neck stretched taught as she leant backwards over a basin that as usual was at the wrong height for the chair that she was sat in. Could these salons never get it right? Did these people never have their hair done in the same way as their customers? As her hair finally squeaked and the last of the shampoo disappeared down the plughole, a hot towel appeared in the hands of assistant number two. Assistant number one presumably had not yet learned how to dry hair – or was it that assistant number two had yet to learn how to wash hair? Assistant number two then vigorously rubbed Geraldine's hair into submission, leaving her head looking part of some 1980's punk spike fest. Geraldine was then allowed to once more face the genius that was Mr Adrian.
"So madam," the huffy one puffed, "what do you want me to do with this, this, God awful creation that you present me with? Who did you allow to massacre you before, the cut is terrible, the layers are mixed, the style is so old?"
Geraldine decided that counting to eleven was needed; ten would not be enough for this self important egotistical fool. One, two, three…simper mode engaged at eleven – good! "Oh, you know, just this guy in town. It did look quite good, but not as good as you can make me look I am sure. I do love my curls and a longer style is what I really like as I think it frames my face better. It needs to be a style that is relatively easy for me to maintain, I have a lot of business meetings and sometimes after a particularly long journey I need to look good quickly."
"So madam wishes to style her own hair," asked the huffy one?
"Golly no, no, you are the man," gush, gush, "I just meant to be helpful as after all I have known my hair for many years now," Geraldine replied, and quite wittily too she thought.
"Ha ha, madam, ha ha. I will create today a cut so magnificent; people will fall at your feet, overwhelmed by its magnificence."
'Yeah, right' thought Geraldine, 'just get on with it, Phillipa does my nails in thirty minutes and I don't want Phillipa swooning at my feet and spilling nail polish everywhere.' Geraldine was really not enjoying this man's attitude at all. 'So much' she thought, 'for a hairdo being therapeutic'. The scissors snipped and snipped. The comb scraped and the fingers teased. Mr Adrian would stand back and tilt his head first one way and then the other and then tilt Geraldine's head first one way and then the other. He sighed occasionally, sometimes he tutted, and once he even laughed. Eventually he stood back.
"Is finished. Is magnificent."
Geraldine was spun around in the chair to face the mirror to see the wonderful creation, to bask in Mr Adrian's greatness. She looked, she stared, she looked away and then back. She did not feel basking was appropriate.
"Thank you. Is Phillipa free now?"
Mr Adrian just stood there looking at her as if she had taken leave of her senses, as if she were a mad blind woman. The greatest hair stylist of all time had just created a work of living art, a creation worthy of the Turner Prize for Art, and his model, his Mona Lisa, his 'La Giaconda', had just simply said 'thank you.' He waved his hand in a swirly motion and went off behind a curtained doorway. Assistant number one clenched and squeezed his backside cheeks together and pointed across the salon.
"Phillipa is through there. I should think that she's ready for you now. You can settle up for the whole lot at the end if you like." He said, his voice rising in squeakiness as he spoke.
As Geraldine walked across to Phillipa, she realised that she had left both new dresses at home – hanging forlorn and all alone on the back of the bedroom door, not even having the comfort of the company of her other dresses and skirts which were either in her wardrobe, her laundry pile or Ironing mountain. No they were alone with only each other for company. Not only had she left her dresses at home, but also the nail polish that she had intended to bring in case nothing suitable turned up here. 'Shit!'
Geraldine sat in the manicure chair, itself a bit of a coup for Phillipa actually. A dentist friend of hers had closed one of his practices and his leather bound dental chair had been begging – and here it now was, resplendent in it's new home. Phillipa had had some leather piping added to the seams of the chair and had removed all the compressed air drilling equipment, but had retained the powerful light. It was a chair that her customers found vaguely familiar, but few could work out why.
Geraldine shuffled in the seat until she felt comfortable and looked at Phillipa as she walked across to her. So pretty Geraldine thought, make up - perfect, hair - perfect, white lab style coat made from silk, stockings showing below with straight seam – perfect. Pity she was the size of a semi detached house.
"Hi, and now what can I do for you today?" Phillipa enquired in a beautifully toned south London, estuary accent.
"Hello, you must be Phillipa? I'm Geraldine by the way. Well I am going out tonight for dinner, although where is a bit of a surprise, so I don't actually know what type of establishment, but I do want to look good, and thought I would treat myself to a hair and nails do. I have a choice of two dresses, one is a red satin, a rich burgundy really, but more red than burgundy and the other is a black slash side. Unfortunately I was running late and managed to leave the dresses at home, and so colour matching will not be easy"
"Not to worry Geraldine we will sort it out for you, don't you panic. I have just the things to make you look stunning tonight, and you will find it very friendly on this side of the salon." Her rather pointed remark was made with a smile on her lips as she rather obviously looked straight at the curtained room hiding a very distraught senior hair director and his simpering attendants. "Now then let's have a look at your nails." Phillipa pressed the 'lights on' button with her foot and examined closely Geraldine's nails, turning her hands in all directions and peering closely, looking finally down at Geraldine's feet.
"Right then Geraldine. This is looking good. You have excellent nail structure and only two lightly ridged nails and I think we can get away without tips. Your cuticles need only minimal attention, and so I am really confident I can make your fingers look superb in the time that we have available. I suspect that there is not enough time to do toes too. Did you want them doing?"
"No, not this time, I can probably keep my toes well hidden, but my finger nails must look stunning. I am reliant on your skill. What can you do for me?"
"Two options spring to mind really. Your nails are a nice length without being too long. That lends itself to a first thought of a French manicure. Classic but hardly stunning. My other suggestion is a highly polished gold foil. Either choice will go with either outfit, and would probably go with anything else you have, just in case of last minute changes. For the French I would square off your nail ends slightly more than for the foil. You can of course go with a standard polish, we have some of the finest polishes available, and you could always purchase a small bottle of the polish I use to take away in case you needed a quick emergency touch up."
"Oh, okay. I had just thought a polish, the French never occurred to me, I don't really think it's me, but the Gold sounds as if it is something just along the lines I am looking for. I have never had foil before, let's go with that."
"Right then Geraldine. You sit there and relax. Just put your hands on the rests at each side of the chair. I will do everything; I just want you to enjoy the experience. I will go and get the things that I need, and be back in a moment." And with that Phillipa pottered off, a tsunami on legs, and started collecting the various oddments required to transform Geraldine's finger nails into glossy gold.
Phillipa returned and sat to one side of Geraldine and took her hand and rubbed an aromatic oily solution over Geraldine's hand, paying particular attention to the cuticles.
"This will slightly soften the skin, making the cuticle work a little easier. It's a composition of my own design, and it also has an anti ageing product which will help fill fine lines, not that you have many, but it will make your hands look younger. And don't worry, it's not a Cinderella Potion, your hands won't suddenly age at midnight. It will just wear off gradually, and usually I would expect it to have worn off by this time tomorrow."
As Phillipa worked on Geraldine's hands, massaging and gently pushing and shaping her cuticles, Geraldine finally relaxed and felt pampered. 'Now this is more like it' she thought, dreaming and becoming lost in her imagination and thoughts of what the evening and indeed tonight might bring.
After almost an hour of inane chatter as she worked, Phillipa had finished and Geraldine looked at her hands. 'Wow' was the word that immediately sprang to mind. Her nails were perfectly shaped, slightly squared, perfectly smooth and glistening with a highly polished gold. They were absolutely stunning there was no question of it; this was something that was sure to catch the eye. Phillipa explained that in order to ensure a high gloss, she had used a top protective coat that would take a little longer yet to dry, and so Geraldine should take care of what she did with her hands – avoiding angora jumpers would be an excellent idea! Well at least for another hour, just to ensure that the coat was suitably hard and protective.
With paranoia mode suitably engaged she asked Phillipa if she would therefore be kind enough to take Geraldine's credit card and car keys out of her purse. Phillipa took Geraldine's Gold card across to the till and totalled up the days bill and bought the authorisation slip back for Geraldine to sign. Geraldine almost baulked at the amount that she had been charged for Mr Adrian – Phillipa's fee was puny by comparison, yet staggeringly more effective in actuality. Mentally vowing to never use the foolish Mr Adrian again; in fact she decided she would make a point to phone up for appointments specifically not with him; she signed the slip.
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