Briefs Encounter

Briefs Encounter by Neil McCall

As I emerged on to platform 5 at Stafford station I noticed a familiar figure dressed in unfamiliar clothes, an elegantly conservative Laura Ashley style dress of the kind which certain ladies are advised to wear by their brief when they are being taken to court accused of running a “disorderly house”. It made her look like a middle-aged off-duty headmistress, which in a way she was.

“Hiya, Mistress Sadista, what are you doing here? Been run out of town by the Vice Squad, then?” I ventured.

“It’s my morning off, Ken, or I’d command you to kneel and lick my feet on this dirty platform like the witless worm you are,” was her predictable rejoinder, but her eyes were fixed firmly on the empty tracks disappearing into the distance towards London.

“What are you waiting for?” I asked

“Since you ask, I’m looking out for a 650 rpm Bromley And Brixton Turbo on the Congleton stopper,” she said. When I failed to reply to this baffling pronouncement she turned and elucidated: “I’m gricing. Looking for some good haulage. Loco-bashing. Trainspotting, in other words!”

I knew that even hard-working dommes like Mistress Sadista had to have free time and leisure pursuits – I even know of one who writes poetry – but I hardly expected her to be found writing down train numbers, now that was really kinky in my notebook.
I glanced along the platform; at the furthest end, a group of middle-aged men with lank hair and padded coats overdue a visit to the dry cleaners were engaged in a similar pursuit.

“It’s a woman’s right to choose,” I conceded, “though I thought you’d choose Jimmy Choos.”

“They’re just for business,” she said, “for leisure I choose choo-choos”.

“So aren’t you going to join those guys?” I asked.

“Misogynist bastards gave me the cold shoulder,” she explained. “I just hope one of them turns up for a spanking session one day, I’ll hit him like the Eurostar on a French hay wagon!”

“So what’s so special about this Turbo thing? Is it a steam engine?” I persisted.

She give me a sigh, and cast a patronising look in the manner in which I’d seen her endeavour to explain to Mrs Iqbal that her suburban newsagency business really ought to stock a wide range of nipple clamps.

“Have you ever seen a Bromley and Brixton turbo unit outside of the North Kent gyratory?” she asked.

I had to admit that I almost certainly hadn’t.

“No, they’ve never been seen north of London,” she explained, then her brow furrowed in thought.

“I tell a lie,” she said, as though her day job had nothing at all to do with weaving erotic fantasies, “they tried one on the Flying Scotsman once, but the suits in first class all complained, the diffused reflection from the chandeliers meant they couldn’t read their laptops.”

Just then a smudge of yellow appeared on the horizon, and the men at the platform end began to gibber excitedly, and even Mistress began to look interested, her tongue softly peeking through her full lips like a soft porn promotion. But then a worried look crossed her face:

“There’s something wrong … very wrong!” she muttered, staring intently at the oncoming train.

The Congleton stopper shuddered its way into Stafford to howls of outrage from the male trainspotters and burbled to a stop at the north end of the platform. The men came running towards us, and Mistress also began to walk smartly down to the drivers end. The trainspotters overtook her in a great clanking of Thermos flasks, and began to converse animatedly with the hapless driver, who had to wind his window up to shield him from the spray of angry spittle. Mistress came back to where I was standing.

“Would you believe they took off the B&B turbo at New Street and replaced it with that heap of shit!” she stormed.

I perused the Congleton stopper; I was a vanilla in trainspotting terms, but apart from a latitudinal smear which the carriage washer hadn’t reached and a small piece of graffiti questioning the parentage of the Aston Villa manager, it didn’t look too bad to me.

“That’s a Vorsprung Und Apfelbaum multi-cam hydraulic unit,” she said, and I wondered whether I should be writing all this down, “they’re common as fleas on a mangy dog’s bollocks round here. Coventry Central must have two hundred of the sods allocated!”

The driver switched on his screen wipers to get rid of the spit, and, at a signal from the guard, set off all stations to Congleton. Mistress Sadista flicked through a pocket timetable:

“If I go under the wires to Crewe on the Runcorn Flasher I should get there in time to cop the Tuesdays-only Kendal Mint Cake empties coming through, that’s always a good bet for a double-headed Woggler, but I’m buggered if I can think of anything worth coming back on!”

She closed her notebook with an air of finality.

“Another morning wasted,” she sighed. “Unless …”

She turned to me.

“Old Jim’s not around for his Tuesday appointment, he’s gone to see his sister in Rwanda. I can fit you in now if you like, I’ll give you the Senior Perverted Citizen’s concession with coffee and cake thrown in. How does that grab you, Ken?”

“By the goolies, as usual, Mistress,” I replied. “But I’ve got to get to London this afternoon.”

“Oh, come on!” she said. “It’ll only take an hour or so, and with the Boy Scout Jamboree at Watford Junction all the trains’ll be heaving so you’ll have to stand anyway!”

I suppose I was due my next appointment, the last lot of bruises were just about faded. She fumbled in her handbag, found a leash and clipped it to the collar around my neck For once, business would just have to wait.