AS YOU MELT THIS HEART OF STONE

IT'S GONNA BE A LONG NIGHT

"Starin' at the moon again
Yes, you been out on the loose
You still feel like a haunted man
This kinda life just ain't no use...

She found a way into your heart
And you lie there wondering why..

It's gonna be a long night
Waiting for the first light.
It's gonna be a
Long long long long lonely night..."

                        ~ Gerry Rafferty

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I was looking through the window of my fast running car, as we passed the dark neighborhood of Tottenham and then the hubbub of the town.

It was now getting dark outside, only some deep tint of purple and maroon gave some depth to the otherwise light clouds floating on the London sky. The landscape changed to a quieter residential area, with more greenery and old, lavish houses.

We were on the way to my estate in Belgravia.

And by 'we', I meant me and my private secretary Charlotte Mia Thorne. Yes, you read it right. We were heading to my estate, to spend the night there and even if my inner voice added "under the same roof, together!", I hardly paid it any attention, as I tried to control the anger and frustration raging inside me. Looking outside helped a bit. The area leading to my estate adorned with natural trees, always had a calming effect on me. But even that was not enough today.

The more I replayed the events of this afternoon at Tottenham, more bubbles of anger rose from deep within my mind. How can a person be so stupid! Yes, yes, I am talking about her, the woman sitting beside me in my car right now, the great idiot problem magnet!

I was so angry that I had real difficulty to stop myself from shaking her madly or banging her head on the car window in order to instill some semblance of basic sense in her mind.

I mean, there should be some limits to idiocy for normal people! There seemed to be none for her.

First, she suspected nothing when she suddenly got a message from a man who abandoned her almost a year ago without any news so far. Second, she decided to rush to meet that person, her estranged father actually, to a shaddy 'cafe' in the most notorious part of Tottenham, all alone. It was I who insisted on tagging along with her giving some lame excuse of business meetings, otherwise she would have just done that, appearing at that location only with her naive and hopeful smile, f*** idiot! She would have gotten herself killed or worse...

I had to clench my wristwatch in deathly grip and take some additional deep breaths to stop from shuddering as I recalled the hungry looks on the faces of those lechers when their leader said, "First one to get her, first one to try her!"

And, even then, she was just insisting me to go. What did she say? Yes, she said, "I can take care of myself from here on!", the audacity! What did she think of me? That I would just leave her there amongst the wolves? Did she know me so little?

Anyway, as we were saying, her actions of stupidity. Third one surpassed all her previous levels of stupidity. It was completely insane and suicidal. When I was almost done with the drunkards, some twisted sense of self sacrificing greatness awakened in her and she chose to steal their attention from me to herself. She just decided to sacrifice herself to save me. If we were in army and had she been my subordinate, that plain defiance to my instructions and the move which risked both of our safety, would cost her a very grave punishment.

And no, even my inner voice wasn't pervert enough to conjure pictures of totally other kinds of 'punishments' at that moment. Even my inner voice knew when to sit back and just follow my orders, which she plainly didn't.