It's not easy, knowing everyone on Earth has almost exactly the same fantasy about your wife.

Oh, yes, he knows exactly what they think.

In their fantasy, she embodies the incredible aura of the Rhapsody. She glows, leading out rebels and kids alike out into the stadium, where the drum beat thudded through the walls, through the steel girders of the stadium, through the floor so that just standing there became as vital to you as your own heartbeat.

That was when she became one of the faces of the biggest revolution for centuries; became someone whose face you could pick out of any crowd instantly.

Every fool on the planet had been out there, cameras flashing and recording every moment of it from every angle imaginable. She was there, right at the front, leading the fight. Instantaneously, the world knew her.

In the eyes of the world, Meat Loaf the bohemian rebel was everything they had needed. Galileo, the Dreamer, was the voice of the operation, singing the songs of freedom and acceptance to millions, but when it came to watching him on screen, he was barely able to scrape a sentence together without Scaramouche holding him by the hand and feeding every other word to him. Scaramouche, in turn, couldn't hold her temper even a tenth as well as she could hold her whiskey, and any interviews she sat in on quickly descended into chaos. But Meat Loaf could do it all. Her quick responses, cheeky personality and dirty laugh made her the go-to for their press releases, and pretty soon she was the only one they really wanted to see.

It didn't take long for her to become a worldwide presence. The world, having had Meat's voice and face projected into their daily lives for months, started to become more of an idea to them as a person, and as such, became more - public - territory. Her face was used to market cosmetics, food, clothing, and a thousand other commodities.

It is then that the fantasies start. From being told that using the right tools, travelling to the right places, wearing the right clothes, can make you more like her, she begins to become a symbol rather than a person, and this is how the fantasy starts.

(None of them can even begin to imagine how completely this repulses her.)

In their fantasy, Meat Loaf is their best friend, their confidante. She might be their lover, or their next door neighbour, or their college roommate. In any case, she is not someone that has a global following. In exquisite irony, the base of the fantasy has to be that she is not someone that everyone knows, and that everyone wants a part of. In the fantasy, she is just for them.

They fantasise about the conversations she will have with them. She will share their hardships and their woes, she might shed a tear for them. Maybe she encourages them to leave a partner or escape an unhappy living space, she offers herself to them - and they cannot turn it down.

They dream of the turns their friendship takes, until one day (or night, or weekend, or lunch break) the dynamic changes. The shift in the continuum that makes her truly theirs.

They imagine that one moment of change (under the strobe lights or in a darkened storage room or in their bedroom) will suddenly snap, and that the affair will begin.

They envisage her eyes, bright and sparkling and glass bottle green, will flash up at them, and they will see the hint of hope, suggesting that, perhaps, they might feel the same way as she does? They imagine the slightest flush of her cheeks, the shy nibbling of her teeth at her plump bottom lip, the tiniest catch of her breath when they meet her gaze.

They long for the moment that she will take action, leaning towards them, a slow-motion capture of her hand lifting to their shoulder or cheek, her face getting closer until they can see every freckle on her cheeks, until her lips are on theirs and their wildest dreams are coming true.

This is where the fantasy begins to unravel. The imagination fractures off in fractals as the imagination takes a million routes to one destination -

her legs, clad in torn fishnets, wrap around their waists and hips, while thick doc marten boots drum against their back, pulling them closer, pressing herself against them

lips enticingly slicked with cherry-red lipstick, staining their shirts, smearing against their neck as she mutters filth against them, feeling nimble drummer's hands unbuttoning, unzipping, pressing against every one of their buttons as she unbuttons shirts, jeans, expert fingers opening bra straps, unlacing, unzipping

pulling their hands a dozen directions to her breasts, to cup her bum, to hold her by the waist until she gasps, leaving bruises with over-eager fingers

voice, husky and beautiful when she sings, would be the same pitch until she begins to gasp in pleasure, maybe she's moaning maybe she's crying out maybe she's begging

Andrei thinks of these things as he stands in the corner and watches her laughing with a reporter, batting her eyelashes coquettishly in a masque of naive girlishness, her sexy low chuckle juxtaposing perfectly.

The reporter thanks her, the air kisses of the elite coming more naturally now than she could ever have imagined, and then she stands and looks for him, and he takes a step forward, sliding his phone into the pocket of his long coat. He holds out her jacket as she approaches, and she shrugs into it with a smooth gesture that he, who notices everything, has seen her practice in the mirror until she had it perfect, down to the moment that she tosses her hair over her shoulder and winks at him.

"Shall we?"

He inclines his head, and when she steps towards him, he raises one arm to place a hand at the small of her back, gently escorting her to the door. When they reach it, a clamour echoing even through the heavy wood, she glances up at him and winces. "Is it bad?"

"We can go the back way?" His voice is steady.

"No, it's ok." She stiffens her shoulders and leans into him, as he pushes open the door to a roar of noise and light that threatens to swallow them whole.