It is 06.45 on a Saturday morning and she turns to you and asks if you are awake?

“No” you say.

“I can’t sleep either”. And a hand comes and tentatively feels at your chest.

“It is early” you say, but the hand is exploring now. You stir.

“Just making sure it is still there”, she says.

“It is still there” you say.

The fingers softly finger the still sleeping tissue.

“Would you like a cup of coffee” she asks.

“Mmm”.

The fingers and hand go away and the sheets stir. She’s gone. Sleep. But not really as the exploring fingers seem to have awakened the little length of soft muscle. Blast! You try to drowse away back into slumber and after a few minutes almost succeed. Then the door opens and you hear suddenly a very familiar rustle and smell a very familiar smell. And it is not coffee. She has, though, brought a cup of coffee but it is held by a rubber gloved hand attached to a rubber gloved arm going into a rubber raincoat, buttoned and fastened over – (you look down) – rubber boots that climb to the thighs. And it is ten to one that beneath is a latex suit.

You haven’t too much time to get over the surprise. For it is a surprise at 07.05 on a Saturday morning and as far as you can tell it is not raining and she didn’t need to go out for the milk. She pulls back the sheet. “While you are drinking that I’ll help you to dress”.

So what do you say?

I’ll tell you what I said.

Nothing.

I didn’t really get a chance to get down more than half a mouthful of coffee as you need both hands for the one piece heavy latex suit which has to be rolled on carefully from the ankles. Despite the many times of wearing it is still a troublesome garment to get oil up over the crotch and trunk and then the arms pushed in and a little help to get it over the shoulders so she can fasten the zip up the spine with a touch that channels a little shiver with it. Once on, of course, it is a smooth, sleek, shiny, sensuous second skin: a midnight cloak, a shadow garment of defence and an armour of attack.

Where was I? Oh, yes, 07.18 and she has collected my boots; my favourite soft legged pair that rise – stout rubber tunnels – to the crotch with straps from the top that clip to a waist belt and hold them firm to the feet.

I sit on the edge of the bed to pull on and fasten each boot in turn. She watches me, smiling. It is very exciting the way she smiles at times like this: an eager, private smile that I like to think is exclusive to me.

I have more than the usual trouble with the long gloves. It is difficult (and expensive) when you have split three pairs of latex gloves in two years mainly because of impatience. You never seem to have the thumbs in the correct position however you begin.

I collect a soft kiss before she closes me in the face helmet. I was not going to use the helmet because she has not put on hers but, well, she knows the aggressive pleasure I get from total enclosure and she has my chin pressed in and the eye slits in place before I even remember the coffee is still there getting cold. There is no way of drinking it now.

While 1 am fitting and fastening my calf length, very splendid high collar SBR coat, she steps away and stands provocatively so I can admire her dark emphatic shape against the light of the window, still cold with the October dawn. She stands buttoned and belted in her military SBR coat, all in deep black except for the blonde, soft hair that falls loose over the collar. I can never help a heart leap at a sight like that. It never fails.

Then (07.25) 1 go over and pull up the cowl of her coat: up over the head so I can tuck in the hair. I like to see her totally protected. She gives me a little squeeze, not hard but firm so that it ripples the rubber. I can feel myself warming, a familiar fire down my limbs to be trapped and intensified by the enclosing suit and boots, helmet and gloves and coat.

I turn slowly so that I can feel my covers rustle and flex. Sometimes you have to be teased before the vital buttons are undone and the all important zips opened. Sometimes gauntlets and goggles are added and we take our Honda down silver roads deep into the lakeland woods, white cold speeding air covering our midnight forms, until we seek and find a familiar, exciting sanctuary together. Sometimes – but this is not a sometimes, it is a NOW — 07.30 Saturday morning and I can just hear a neighbour listening to the radio, her husband putting his matched set of golf clubs noisily into the car preparing for eighteen holes and the couple in the flat below playing their normal morning duet for nicotined lungs.

“I feel very good”. I say.

She moves, gloved hand on buttons and spreads herself. She smiles that smile.

“Then I know you will be very good”, she says.