Getting Madame de Pompadour ready for her assignations with His Majesty the King has been much easier since the Doctor’s last visit. He’s a very old friend of hers, or so she told me the first time I found them together in her boudoir. The twinkle in his eye made me wonder, but it’s not my place to question my betters and my lady has always been very good to me. Anyway, the dear Doctor has saved my position as her maid and possibly even my life.

There was a dreadful row when one of the pins I’d used to secure my lady’s collar stabbed one of His Majesty’s fingers, which then bled all over the expensive blue silk brocade of his favourite waistcoat. The fiddly little bone buttons I spent hours sewing onto my lady’s finest apparel after that greatly frustrated His Majesty and annoyed him even more than the time he fell over her little dog and split his breeches. Not to laugh at the sight of the suddenly exposed royal nether regions took every ounce of my self control and even my lady’s painted lips were twitching. Anyway, I’m straying from the point. The Doctor appeared one morning in that sudden way of his, winked and handed me a very useful addition to my sewing basket. Now I can get my lady dressed in a fraction of the time and His Majesty can do the opposite, all thanks to a roll of something  the Doctor calls Velcro.

This piece of flash fiction won the 'Shaggy Dog Story' mini-saga competition set by Helen Yendall. The brief was to write a maximum of 250 words and include 'bone', 'dog', 'collar' and 'stray' in any form. The judge's report can be found at http://blogaboutwriting.wordpress.com/2013/04/28/shaggy-dog-tales-the-winners-judges-report/