Constant Companion

"June, it is time you understood my intentions for you. I mean you to be mistress, not just in this house. You are also a guardian of my position, as well as the right hand of my social and financial empire."
This was, in some degree, news to June. She had only a vague idea of how she--as Buck's mistress--fit into Buck's social sphere. She certainly had not expected Buck to entrust her with the details of his professional dealings. Yet it made sense; Buck had an extremely tight and exceedingly loyal circle, and June assumed that loyalty like that was a return on a certain level of disclosure and trust.
"June, I brought you here not only because I love you and love to give you everything, but also to be my companion. I never want to be apart from you."
*Nor I, you*, June thought furtively. The interjection must have shown on her face because Buck let out the short, silent laugh of one endeared.
"So we're agreed on that. Anyway, as my constant right hand, you will see and hear things that are not to be shared."
June answered only with a brief, grave nod.
"And, should that day ever come when my position is compromised, I will require you to stand for and with me. I hope it may never come to that, but if you need to stand alone, you will have to be strong."
As an answer, June stood up and sauntered over to Buck. She bent and kissed his forehead gently before ambling back inside, leaving her robe on the porch with him.

Always ready to oblige, Buck had let the subject drop for the moment, but he still required a more satisfactory answer than seduction. This was not the last conversation of its kind, yet it was ultimately the actions and events of their relationship that truly impressed upon June the importance of her role in Buck's life.
Explanations had followed: Buck's marriage, his business, his capacious yellow room filled with children's accoutrements. In the first, rather quiet month at the house, Buck had indeed made June his focal point. He filled luxuriant baths every morning before going down to breakfast (breakfast was a ritual he consistently observed alone. He left a breakfast tray for June in the dining room, with the expectation that she would pick it up and join him in his study. She usually read or did a puzzle or wrote in the study with him while he poured over papers until lunchtime.
Together they usually enjoyed lunch on the terrace, followed by an afternoon nap. They rarely actually slept, but they could talk for hours at a time, watching the sun begin its descent into the Western sky outside their bedroom.
Around three o'clock each day, they walked around the grounds and ended up at the pool. June usually swam laps while Buck continued working, but often he joined her in the shallows for roughhousing and general flirtation--"wet revelry", June called it. After a mutual shower in the bathhouse, they hiked out to the kitchen for informal dinner with the hired help. By the end of dinner and coffee, night had usually fallen. Buck and June spent some time lying on the lawn and discussing the stars, of which June had made keen study in her younger days.
When they returned to the house, it was drinks in the lounge, during which they put on music and danced or played billiards. The last hours before bed were passed reading in the library.
Before bed, Buck always took a brief shower, many times crawling under the covers after June had already fallen asleep. Sometimes he could not resist waking her for one last kiss and some tender words of goodnight. But more frequently he just wrapped her sleeping form in his arms and uttered only a sigh of perfect contentment. Although the format of their days changed with Buck's business and social calendars, their nights almost always ended this same way--even when they did not end until the following morning--with a shower and a murmur.


xoxo, Louis XVIII