Sally Forth

It’s bloody ridiculous! At my age, too! Silly old fool!

You’d think by now that I’d know better. After all, the once-rampant testosterone, while hardly quiescent, is at least under control, most of the time. And besides, I’m far too busy for these emotional fripperies.

But that was before she came along to disturb my comfortable equilibrium.

‘She’ being Sally. My lovely Sally. Even though I’ve never even met her, I have only to hear her voice, and all commonsense goes out of the window. I’ve fallen in love.

Sally. Darling Sally! O be still, my fibrillating heart!

She lives above me somwhere, and spends her entire time, bless her, telling me exactly and precisely where to go. Other women have tried this over the years, of course, but never to such devastating effect. The woman has me in thrall.

Sally Satnav is her full name. It sounds vaguely Slavic, but I don’t think she is. A perfect English Rose, to hear her sweet carefully modulated Cheltenham Ladies College tones. While I motor along the highways and byways, eagerly awaiting her next instruction, I dream of her, comfortably ensconced in her nice little bijou satellite, up there somewhere twixt atmosphere and cosmos , roses around the airlock, chintz-framed portholes and weightless Laura Ashley cushions.

I see her in her twinset and pearls, serene and at ease on an overstuffed sofa in front of a flickering fire, a brace of ginger cats snuggled up to her trim ankles. Tea - Darjeeling of course, cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off, or maybe Marmite soldiers, scones with jam and cream, Rich Tea biscuits, Woman’s Hour on the wireless, and a copy of Pride and Prejudice, or maybe some knitting, on her lap.

Her conversation is, admittedly, a bit limited, and consists mostly of instruction concerning exits on roundabouts, and left or right turns, but every perfect syllable brings a thrill to my trembling breast.

But it’s when I dare to disobey her that the real Sally emerges. Off comes the twinset to reveal clinging leather gear. Whips are brandished. Manacles are rattled. In an instant the voice turns from golden honey to blued steel. “Turn around as soon as you can”. “Go back the way you came” “You naughty, naughty boy!” Aaaaaaahhhhhhh.

And then finally she informs me, in a dreamy, post-orgasmic voice, that I have reached my destination, and I sink into anticlimax. The joy is in the journey, not the end of it.

Goodbye for now, dearest Sally. We’ll meet again on the way home, I hope. I’ll turn you on as usual, and you certainly will me.