LOVE MANAGEMENT [story 90322 new version]

Remember your joke Steve? ‘What’s the difference between a wife and a prostitute? One’s Contract and the other’s Pay As You Go’.

You know what? I think that was the gag that set me off on this nightmare. Not that I’m laying anything on you. But you know what they say: ‘Loose talk costs lives’. ‘Cost’ being the operative word. I think I owe Love Ltd three grand and the boys at the Management don’t fuck about. You’re lucky with a broken leg.

We’ve not spoken for a while. Most probably that was about the last thing you said. That gag. And now Facebook reunites us. Aren’t we too old? Think I might be. By a decade. Two. Three…

You asked me how things are. You must have meant ‘are you getting laid yet?’ or ‘have you got a new boyfriend?’ or am I just projecting?

By last summer I was sick of all this being alone in my ivory tower bullshit. I got sex at sauna’s but I was bored of the lucky dip. I never knew what might be bobbing round in the cum scummed jacussi. If anything. I wanted something steady, something a little bit regular.

I don’t know why but true love just hadn’t come knocking. We’re talking about last summer mind. Things have changed. Or rather they had changed. But now they’ve changed back to not having changed. Or at least that’s what I’m worried about. Well actually everything’s changed and it’s all much worse than before. But I’m running away from myself here.

It’s last summer. Which, if you remember Steve, consisted of about six days of sun. Anyway. You remember. Cloudy. And I just started thinking to myself,

‘Enough!’

Maybe I shouldn’t be telling you this. Especially on Facebook. They own us, don’t they?

The point is it occurred to me that I could simply find love ‘pay as you go’. Get a nice lad out of Boyz and run up a tab with him. Twice a month. More if I had the money. A nice steady rent boy. Good plan I hear you say.

At first it went well. Morizio. Done time in Milan for drug dealing. Left him a bit bitter. But in September he got pneumonia and they put him under heavy sedation for seven weeks. I know Steve. It sounds a bit… I dunno. But basically they keep you sleeping till you’ve recovered. Less a cure and more just switching you off and switching you back on again. It works for computers.

So anyhow. Morizio had been switched off so I didn’t have my ‘pay as you go’. What to do? Buy another of course. I was following a natural logic, except I hadn’t thought it through.

This one was more pushy. This ‘pay as you go’. He started buzzing me in the middle of the night and asking for sex. Rather he wanted money for which he’d bend over any which way. Sorry Steve. I promised not to be graphic. But you know: take it up the shitter. That kind of thing.

The trouble was this: the more I said ‘no’ the more Dobby would start slashing prices. It was like DFS in January. What would you do? £20 doesn’t buy much sofa but if you’re faced with a desperate rent boy at four in the morning. Take it from me. After that first night I didn’t shit straight for a week. I got quite a bang for my buck. But you didn’t want to know that, did you?

So I’m starting to make sure I have a spare twenty tucked away under my pillow. I just can’t say ‘no’ to someone in need. unless they’re cold and hungry. But I suppose that’s city living.

The point is I’ve got Dobby. He’s Russian or Baltic or something. Lots of J’s and other low use consonants all pushed together. He said he didn’t mind being called Dobby. Don’t think he’s read Harry Potter. Not sure he can read. Anyhow. I’ve got him popping up like some strung out jack in the box at all hours when what should happen but Sleeping Beauty reawakens. This is the beginning of November. I’m thinking to myself:

‘I’ve got Dobby. I don’t need this shit.’

To be honest with you Steve, I’d forgotten how beautiful the beaut was. Suddenly I could see Dobby for what he was. Drug addiction close up lacks a certain glamour, like the veneer coming off a kitchenette.

Desperation might make you affordable but worthless too. Is that harsh? I despised him.

So I’ve got Dobby and then, ding dang dong here’s Morizio again. Another ‘pay as you go’. And suddenly it hits me: You only have one contract at a time but with ‘pay as you go’ the sky’s the fucking limit. Dozens of them why not? Hundreds and thousands.

Well. Maybe not the sprinkles but there’s no ceiling. And what’s more, it doesn’t seem to matter how often you say ‘no, no, no’. They just… you just can’t turn them off or send them away. They are always there. Just coming round uninvited swinging from my doorknob.

“What about the neighbours?” I hear you ask.

In the end I had not only both of them turning up willy nilly, but also their friends and fucking relations. I was like a brothel in reverse. Twenty whores. One client.

If I don’t pay those uber pimps at Love Management £800 by the weekend things could get very sticky.

This isn’t a begging letter. I’m just saying I’m in a scrape. I’m up to my fucking neck in scrape.

Apart from that everything’s fine. How about you?

THE REST CURE

It had barely been a moment before I was awake again. There must have been some glitch. I had had serious reservations in the first place and this just clinched it. I wanted out. Then Dr Ramsey wandered in, brushing between the curtains that surrounded my bed. The place had the feel of NHS with the price tag of BUPA.

“Doctor,” I said, raising myself partly on my elbows. “You’re fucking this up a bit. I think I want my money back.” I was surprised to find I had a broad grin on my face. This wasn’t funny.

“How do you feel?” the Doctor asked in his broadest Irish.

“I feel great!” I replied. It was supposed to be sarcastic, but he dusted it away with a simple and satisfied “good.”

“We did some tests on you while you were out,” he continued. “All the indicators are normalised. You should be feeling 100%.” There was a short pause while I said nothing. I’d arrived for the procedure feeling hysterical.

“On the verge of a nervous breakdown,” my GP had said. But now I felt fine. More than fine. Embarrassingly, even my libido seemed to have returned. Part of me knew the procedure must have been completed, but the rational part wouldn’t believe. Had two weeks really passed in the past 30 seconds? “By all accounts,” he continued, “you’re flying.”

I lay back and closed my eyes. I could feel the tears starting to well up inside me. I slid my hand down between my legs to feel if the implant was still there, but it had gone.

“I must be off the Sonambulate,” I thought. The Doctor had left me to it. Suddenly I wondered if he was still wearing those hideous, grey, patent leather slip-ons. Maybe I’d like him better if he wasn’t. He was smug and arrogant. I got out of bed and put on my clothes. They, and some possessions, had been placed on a chair next to me. There was a new mobile phone and an A5 desk diary along with my keys and wallet. I flipped the diary. It was full of my own writing. Almost unconsciously I opened the phone and an image of a dog appeared on the bright new screen. It was mine.

“OK,” I thought. “Right!”

The stress from the death of my mother and a hundred other sores that had reopened with the trauma, had pushed me to the edge. It was only my sense of duty toward Simba, my mothers’ dog, that had kept me getting up in the morning, even though the dog was to blame for the accident, running out in front of my mother like that. But my mother had loved that dog so much and it had meant so much to her that I couldn’t do anything but take her in. I suppose it was the hound too that led me to this type of therapy. She was in mourning too and I just didn’t feel I could leave her in kennels while I went on respite or took a holiday or whatever it was I thought I needed.

“Two weeks gone and what have I done?” I wondered. Maybe I’d find the mutt dead on my kitchen floor. Maybe I’d find myself fired. I left the bed and walked across to reception to book a follow up appointment. Then I went out into the street and walked the three miles home. Since when had I taken to walking?

The dog was fine. I walked with her down to the coffee shop on Cleveland Street where I usually got my breakfast before work. There was an old man talking with a small boy, maybe his grandson. He spoke in some Indian type language while the little boy replied with the occasional earnest “yes” in English. Sometimes the boy would shake his head a little before saying “yes” and I wondered if he was really saying “no” to the old man. I suppressed a smile and flipped open my new diary.

I was a popular guy it seemed. In the past two weeks I’d obviously been painting the town red. I’d even drawn smiley faces next to a couple of dinner dates, one at a swanky place in Soho and the other at somewhere I’d never heard of. The smiles took me back to my dim and distant past where I’d used them to indicate a successful fuck. I wondered if I might have reverted to the adolescent script. Had I got laid in the last couple of weeks? And I was thinking that dry spell would never end. I checked the names in the diary. Had I had sex with Hilary and/or Vanessa? If I had, then I had no idea who they were or what they looked like. I scrolled down the phone book to H and found a Hilary. A picture of her popped up with her details. I did the same for V and there she was too. Vanessa. I recognised them both from work. Other departments, different buildings. I flipped through the diary further; out into the future. Improbably, I had a promotion interview the following Wednesday. On the Monday before that, in three days time, I had a meeting with someone called Bob. “Pick up script,” it said. Pick up script? I thought it best to investigate and popping a B into the phone found Bob’s number. No photo.

“Bob,” came a voice after a couple or rings.

“It’s Niles,” I said, hoping that would mean something to him.

“Miles of smiles Niles,” he said, but I didn’t recognise the description of myself. “Hellooooooo…” he intoned.

“Hi,” I replied.

“You’ll be wanting your Sonambulate prescription for that job interview,” he said matter of factly. “I’ve got it now, if you want,” he offered helpfully. I didn’t say anything. I could think of nothing to say. After what felt like an eternity, I hung up. It struck me then that there were implications. They made me anxious.

“No granddad,” the little boy must have been saying. “I don’t what to.”

IS THIS YOURS?

“Sorry I’m late honey.” He plonked himself down on the seat beside her and gave her a quick and slightly awkward peck on the cheek. They had been going out for three months but still had not sorted out that initial greeting. “I have lost my mobile. I’ve looked everywhere. I give up. Unless it’s at mums.”
“It’s alright,” she replied. “I was just reading a message from a friend. She reminded me of a lover I once had.”
“We’re going to talk about the past now are we,” he said with a twinkle in his eye. “I thought all that was verboten!”
“Nothing is forbidden Mark. Not really.”
“So tell me about him,” he said, edging a bit closer for intimacy. “Assuming it was a him. Not that lesbian phase.” Charlotte looked at him coolly. She neither smiled nor looked annoyed.
“After the lesbian phase,” she said, deadpan. Mark had been joking of course and he put the reply down to her dry wit.
“And?” he prompted.
“He was one of the few I dumped. Usually it is me who is getting the old heave hoe. Not that it’s happened that often.” She looked down at her drink. Mark saw that it had hardly been touched.
“Looks like it’s still your round,” he observed. “Mine’s a bitter.”
“You missed my round Mark.” He smiled congenially and got up to go to the bar. He gave her the I’m offering you a drink but I know you won’t really want one yet look which she shook her head at.
“I’ll be back in a mo,” he said and headed off.
A couple of minutes later he had returned and taken a seat opposite her. It wasn’t as intimate but he could see her better. He was looking forward to hearing about the looser she had dumped. He might even learn something.
“He used to wear the same socks day in and day out until the whole bedroom stunk.”
“Oh come on,” Mark retorted. “I do that. You are not going to fire me for that.” He realised immediately the slip of the tongue. Charlotte didn’t seem to notice.
“And it wasn’t just his feet,” she continued oblivious. “His pits, were the pits.”
“Yeah!” he agreed. “Sometimes on the tube… There was this guy last week. Fuck only knows what he’d been eating. Aquaphobic.”
“Is that a word?” she said engaging him for the first time directly with her eyes. “Deoderphobic too.”
“I hate those sprays,” Mark said. “They make your clothes all white.”
“Plus,” she continued, “he seemed to have an unhealthy relationship with his mother.”
“Oh shit!” Mark spluttered. “That’s gross. How long did that relationship last?”
“Until she dies I suppose.”
“Not with the mum. Between you and him.”
“Let’s see,” she said looking up into the middle distance, remembering it all again. “Three or four months I suppose.”
“I hope I last a hell of a lot longer than that,” he smiled.
“But what really did it for me Mark,” she continued without missing a beat, “was him being a liar. If you are going to have deceit in a relationship it has to be by mutual consent, right? No good one of you being all open and honest while the other scurries around all cloak and daggers.” Mark looked at her and wondered if the unease growing in him was showing in his eyes. “Oh! By the way,” she went on, starting to rummage around in her handbag. ”Did you say you lost your mobile?”
“Well yes,” he said, peering down into her bag. Suddenly she stopped.
“And another thing,” she said, looking up to gaze earnestly into his eyes. “It turned out he was fucking his ex the whole time?” Mark felt the icy finger of fate trace a path, from the nape of his neck, down his spine, to his scrotum. His bowls loosened. “Is this it?” she said flourishing is Nokia.
“Oh Charlotte,” he said. “Of course it fucking is. Where did you find it?” She leant over and tossed the machine into the faux fire, at the same time getting to her feet and blocking his way to his melting mobile.
“Now fuck off,” she said. “And take that meddling mother of yours with you.”

FOR SALE

The strains of Mendelssohn were wafting through the mocked up French windows and over the entwined couple. The eventual sound track would be anything but, however Steve Delaney, the director, was a Classic FM freak so they had to pump and grind to whatever. Even the adverts.

“OK,” Steve shouted, having eschewed the ‘cut and action’ shibboleths of the industry.

‘MONEYSHOT’ was still in its infancy, this indeed being the pilot, but it would go on to become the super long runner of Reality TV. It bonded home makeover with porn and the ubiquitous gambling of ‘now it’s time for you to have your say’ at 25p a word.

Daytime TV with a watershed twist.

The show claimed to rejuvenate the flagging sex life of a hapless couple by turning their tired old home into a sexy love nest. The live sex sequences that book ended the show were always filmed first in a mock up of the couples ‘new’ and sexy bedroom.

“Alex, darling,” Steve opined, “you look like you are having a baby, not making one. It’s supposed to be enjoyable.” Hapless husband Alex had grunted and strained his way through their first full on porn sequence only to shoot unexpectedly when the floor manager carelessly brushed his arse with her clipboard. It was these odd casual encounters that were setting his heart racing. When Peter from ‘makeup’ had shaved his sack, crack and back, his wet hard-on had screamed humiliation.

“Relax, relax,” Peter from ‘makeup’ had said, throwing him a lifeline. “It’s the same for everyone the first time. It’s all right. You’re not gay.” That day Alex had been close to tears so many times that ‘makeup’ was having trouble hiding the puffiness. “When it comes to porn,” Steve the Director had once said, “you just can’t hide that look of humiliation.” That is why he always did the face shots first.

The loss of the ‘cum shot’ or ‘reveal’ as they were choosing to call it, had caused widespread consternation amongst the production team. They would now either have to buy a cum sequence to superimpose over the bedroom ‘reveal’ (costly) or the flailing and ailing cock of our hapless husband would have to be pressed into service one more time at the end of the day. They had failed to get a decent penetration sequence and Beryl was resistant to a retake with a stunt cock.

“Amateurs,” Steve had grumbled, rather missing the point. One of the runners had agreed to fill in for Alex as a cock shaft but not for the cum sequence as they had a circumcision mismatch. There was also the condom issue. What had made the show such hot property was its’ bareback credentials without the whiff of snuff movie about it. Benjamin, the stunt cock had been certified HIV negative earlier that day but everyone knew that in this scenario it meant nothing. “I’m straight,” he kept saying until finally someone told him to shut it.

“If we can’t get this down in the next twenty minutes, it’s a no go. We’ll move onto Tracy and Dave.” Beryl’s eyes flickered like she was waking from a long dream. Their make over was about to be cancelled. She bit her lip and looked across at the runner and stand in dick; a tall, lean 20 something with an Australian accent and no foreskin.

“Alex,” Beryl whispered desperately. “I’ll do the penetration shot, but,” she said, grim determination lining her face, “you have to do that jack off shot before we finish.” Alex could feel his dick shrivelling beneath him, despite the head splitting effects of the two Viagra. “Get off me,” she hissed. Alex clamped a hand over his dick and struggled with the other to push himself free. He looked across at the Director. Steve could see he was close to tears and it pissed him off. Porn was for pro’s.

“She’s doing the stunt shot,” Alex said and stumbled off set.

“The stunt shot?” Steve said.

“The cunt stunt shot,” Beryl tried to clarify. She’d said the C word and she was mortified. She was also not making sense. She was sweating now and the body makeup was starting to run.

“Right!” Steve said, but now Australian Benjamin, the cock de jour, was nowhere to be seen, apparently off making tea for the crew.

“Right,” Steve said again about ten minutes later. “We are going to make this short and sweet.” He was looking down at Beryl. Body makeup was being reapplied. “We will pan down from a side shot of your face and in one take swing found the back for the penetration. So keep your legs wide. As soon as Benjamin is in position we will start. 20 seconds and you are done.” Beryl was flooded with hope. It could all be over sooner rather than later. Benjamin had been whitened to the same skin tone as her husband and was none too pleased about it.

“Keep your stomach relaxed,” Steve warned dick stand in. “I don’t want hubby ending up with too much of a six pack.” The lights were in place and as they burned into life Beryl started to fry. She closed her eyes and for a moment was able to blot everything out. Nothing had meaning. Everything was purely sensation. A clock started to tick in her mind like the last scene from Village of the Damned and she could no longer hold back the thought:

“When will he start?” She felt ‘makeup’ mopping the sweat from her left armpit and in the same instant became aware of the pain in her lower back. She had been arching it for what seemed like an age in order to lengthen her stomach, giving her a leaner look, but now she seemed to be going into spasm. She opened her eyes and glanced amongst the constellation of lights for Ben. He was nowhere to be seen?

“For fuck sake!” she could here the director saying just inches away. He had started out all smiles and niceties. Now he was irritable and cruising the borders of vindictiveness. “Fluffer,” he shouted. “Any takers?” Beryl raised her head and could see an anxious looking Ben in a bathrobe. She glanced about till she caught the eye of ‘makeup’. He raised his eyebrows and drooped is lower lip but Beryl was non the wiser.

“Is there a problem?” she asked.

“Ben’s as soft as your husband, Beryl. We are getting nowhere at eight grand an hour.” Steve seemed all at once to have given up. You can’t fake a hard on, and without one to hand, hard porn was just sitting around with cups of tea.

Much later in the series most of the hardcore sequences were patched in from HD home video recorded by the couple in private. This was Beryls’ idea and she never got a penny for it. But until her innovation was introduced the set could be a living hell.

“What is a ‘fluffer’,” Beryl asked to no one in particular.

“The lucky boy or girl who gets to blow the porn star till he’s hard.” Peter in ‘makeup’ was looking disconsolately over at Benjamin and almost imperceptibly shaking his head. Beryl looked at him and wondered.

“Peter,” she said. “What are you thinking?” He twisted his mouth round to one side in a lopsided pout and bit the inside of his lower lip. He seemed to be wondering the same himself. He flashed her a roguish smile but said nothing. Beryl wondered if Peter would stretch to a bit of ‘fluffing’ but then thought better of it. “Fuck it,” she thought to herself. “I’ll ‘fluff’ it.”

At that moment the lights went and the cramped studio was thrown into stygian gloom. While the sparkies set to work the happy home makers convened for a quick quarrel.

“Look,” hapless husband Alex was saying. “You are letting that Aussie bloke fuck you, why give him a blow job as well?”

“I’m not ‘letting him fuck me’,” she retorted. “You are.” Beryl’s face was red and Peter in ‘makeup’ was eyeing her nervously, a powder puff at the ready. “You’re impotent Alex,” she blurted out half under her breath and just for emphasis she lowered her voice further: “You’re fucking impotent,” she repeated. Alex’s face went slack and for a moment his mouth fell slightly open.

“What the fuck are we doing?” Alex asked rhetorically.

“We’re getting our house redecorated. What do you think?” Beryl retorted. “We’re having a makeover. So,” she continued, “instead of standing there like a prize cunt get on with it and give that boy a blow job.”

“Oh fuck off,” Alex said. He was as happy as the next man to think outside the box but this was a box too far. “And,” he continued, “I am not impotent. You are just sex mad.”

“I don’t think so Alex,” she said, a tinge of defeat in her voice. “Twice a week?”

“Well,” he replied. “Usually it’s not with a caste of thousands.” Alex glanced across at Peter and Beryl followed his gaze.

“What are you looking at?” Peter said, springing out of some private reverie. The earlier unspoken suggestion seemed to be back in the air and everyone could smell it. Peter batted it away.

“I’d do it of course but me and your husband are not compatible in this one I suspect.” It was an excuse, but true too.

“Well,” said Alex grasping the wrong end of the stick, “I’d much prefer Peter to have his way than bloody blond boy Ben.”

“Yes,” Peter in ‘makeup’ said. “There is something about me that’s just less threatening. Must be my bald patch.” As he spoke a contingent was making it’s way over from the Ben camp.

“Could you help out?” It was the director speaking and he was pointing his question at Beryl. “We don’t have another woman available.” Ben was enjoying his new role of porn star and unbelievably was now chewing gum and nodding his head in agreement. Alex coughed to get attention.

“Peter has very kindly agreed to step in,” Alex said.

“No way José,” Ben replied. “I’m not gay.”

“No,” said Alex. “That’s not what I meant.” There was an audible sense of relief all round. “I think Peter said he’d be the stunt cock.”

“I said no such thing,” Peter responded. “When did I say that?” He caste his head about, as if expecting to hear the echo of some earlier incriminating conversation.

“Right!” said Beryl. “I’m sick of this. Alex… You give Peter a blow job and let’s get this over with.”

“I happen to be in a monogamous relationship,” Peter stated flatly.

“So am I,” said Alex.

“Right,” said Beryl, “and I’m the Virgin fucking Mary.” Nobody moved. “Oh come on Peter,” she wheedled. “No one will ever know.” Another moment passed while this small group tried to process that last concept and then, with perfect timing, the Director spoke.

“Agreed,” he said and turned from the group. “I want the whole bed area screened off,” he shouted. “And everybody, bar lighting and camera… Out!”

Later it occurred to all and sundry that if Alex needed a blow job then Beryl could have provided. Rationality had however been in short supply and had finally dried up all together.

Three days later when the production company called to arrange the home makeover, they found the place empty. In the middle of the garden was planted a large and new looking sign. It read: ‘For Sale. Vacant Possession.’

ALL TALK STOPS

The long, cold winter had preserved her. Now that the ground was softening, I was to cut her free and bury her.

In my loneliness I had lathed down the river’s surface to within a breath of her. By February I had polished the ice until her entire nakedness was under glass. There I would stand until the edge of death.

Now I must free her if she is not to be discovered, gas bloated, bobbing at the water’s edge down stream.

THREE DAYS TO DIE

THREE DAYS TO DIE

You know how it is. A sudden tiny increment of knowledge comes to you and you think ‘Ah! That’s what that means.’ That’s why I’m in a hurry.

There’s that thing they say about three days before you die. I was reading in the Metro News about a nursing home in South America. They had a dog who would go and sit on the bed of those inmates who were close to the end. I thought the dog might be giving them something; an infection or what not; that maybe the cause and effect were reversed. But no. This dog had a death hunch. The trouble was it made no sense. How could your death be foretold three days ago?

Now I understand. I’ve had that incremental shift. I’ve got something. I’ve got a grasp of something I didn’t have before. Sometimes it’s only being in a given situation that permits you to understand it. It’s not until you fight a dog that it bites you on the bum. And last night something happened. Now I know. I know I have just three days to live.

Tuesday night or Wednesday morning, I’ll be dead. While I’m writing, something is withdrawing.

It’s not a premonition. You must understand that. It is a decision. Something deep down says ‘enough is enough’ and that is it. Enough actually does end up being enough and from that moment the inexplicable countdown begins. Why it’s three days and not weeks, minutes or seconds I have no idea. But that it’s to do with a personal decision, I now realise.

Years ago, back in 1995 when Chris learned for certain that he would never walk again. That was on the Wednesday and Saturday night he was up and gone. But I never put the two together. But for Chris it was clear. He had give up the ghost. Throughout his illness it was the one hope that kept him alive and when that nurse spelled it out for him, delineated the grim truth… Well. That was it: Bang! Over. Done and dusted.

He asked me once what palliative care meant. I lied, thank god. Otherwise, the weight of guilt may have killed me.

STORY 90223

STORY 90223

What’s the difference between a wife and a prostitute? One’s contract and the other’s ‘pay as you go’.

And you know what Steve? I think that was the gag that set me off on this nightmare. I’m not laying anything on you. Loose talk costs lives though. We’ve not spoken for I don’t know how long. But that was about the last thing you said to me. That gag. And now Facebook reunites us. Are we too old for Facebook? Think I might be. By a decade or two

You asked me ‘how things were going’? You must have meant ‘are you getting laid yet?’ or ‘have you got a new boyfriend?’, or am I just projecting?

But by last summer I was sick of all this being alone in my ivory tower bullshit. I got sex at sauna’s but I was bored of the lucky dip. I never knew what might be bobbing round in the cum scummed jacussi. If anything. I wanted something steady, something a little bit regular.

I don’t know why but true love just hadn’t walked through my door yet. We’re talking about last summer mind. Things have changed. Or rather they had changed. But now they’ve changed back to not having changed again. Or at least that’s what I’m worried about. Well actually everything’s changed and it’s all much worse than before. But I’m running away from myself here.

It’s last summer. Which, if you remember Steve, consisted of about six days of sun and enough cloud… I can’t think of an aphorism. But anyway. You remember. Cloudy day after day. And I just started thinking to myself,

‘Enough!’

Maybe I shouldn’t be telling you this. Especially on Facebook. They own about everything we think don’t they?

The point is it occurred to me that I could simply find love ‘pay as you go’. Get a nice lad out of Boyz and run up a tab with him. Twice a month. More if I had the money. A nice steady rent boy. Good plan I hear you say.

But at first it went well. Morizio. Done time in Milan for drug dealing which left him a bit bitter. But in September he got pneumonia and they put him under heavy sedation for seven weeks. I know Steve. It sounds a bit… I dunno. But basically they keep you asleep for weeks on end till you’ve recovered. Less of a cure and more just switching you off and then switching you back on again. If it works for computers why not us?

So anyhow. Morizio had been switched off so I didn’t have my ‘pay as you go’. What to do? Buy another of course. What else. I was following a natural logic, except I hadn’t thought it quite through.

This one was more pushy. This ‘pay as you go’. He started buzzing me in the middle of the night and asking me for sex. Or rather he wanted money for which he’d bend over any which way for. Sorry Steve. I promised not to be graphic.

The trouble was this. The more I said ‘no’ the more Dobby would start slashing prices. It was like DFS in January. What would you have done Steve? £20 doesn’t buy much leather but if you’re faced with a desperate rent boy at four in the morning. Take it from me. That first night: I didn’t shit straight for a week. I got quite a bang for my buck as they say. But you didn’t want to know that.

So I’m starting to make sure I have a spare twenty quid tucked away under my pillow, being kind hearted. I just can’t say ‘no’ to someone in need. It’s different if they’re cold and hungry and living rough. But that’s living in London for you. The moral maze. But I’m getting off the plot here.

The point is I’ve got Dobby. He’s Russian or Baltic or something. Lots of J’s and other low use consonants all pushed together. He said he didn’t mind being Dobby. Don’t think he’s read Rowling. Anyhow. I’ve got him popping up like some strung out jack in the box at all hours when what should happen but Sleeping Beauty reawakens. This is the beginning of November. I’m thinking to myself:

‘I’ve got Dobby now I don’t need Sleeping Beauty.’

To be honest with you Steve, I’d forgotten how beautiful Sleeping Beauty was. Suddenly I could see Dobby with fresh eyes. Drug addiction close up lacks a certain glamour. It’s like the venire coming off a cheap kitchen.

Desperation might make you affordable but worthless with it. Is that harsh? Suddenly I despised him.

So I’ve got Dobby and then, ding dang dong here’s Morizio again. Another ‘pay as you go’. And suddenly it hits me: That’s how it is. You only have one contract but when it comes to ‘pay as you go’ the sky is the fucking limit. Dozens of them why not? Hundreds and thousands. Well. Maybe not the sprinkles but there is no real limit. And what’s more, it doesn’t seem to matter how often you say ‘no, no, no’. They just… you just can’t turn them off or send them away. They are always there. Just coming round uninvited to my doorknob. What did the neighbours think?

In the end I had, not only both of them turning up willy nilly, when they needed a bed or money more like. But also their friends and friends of friends. I was like a brothel but all upside down.

If I don’t find £800 by the weekend things could get very sticky. Which is not to say. I mean I’m not saying. This isn’t a begging letter you understand Steve. I’m just saying I’m in a bit of a scrape. In fact: I’m up to my fucking neck in scrape.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m having sex till it’s coming out of my arsehole, but to be honest with you. I don’t need it.

Come Christmas I had well and truly fallen for Morizio. I’ve not seen him for six weeks. He upped his rates. New Years Eve he had cleaned me out.

Apart from that everything’s fine. How about you?

HOME IS AN EMPTY HOUSE

I never even saw him leave. He had been told to go and I never knew why. Not for certain anyway. It left a vacuum in the house and in my life. But no one asked me, a mere child, what I thought then of the expulsion.
Albert Spear was big in a way my father never was. He stayed in a small room, sharing its landing with the ‘cupboard of death’. Occasionally as children we would dare to clamber into its confines, in amongst the broken picnic table and mildewed tent and wait for the counting to stop. Otherwise it was just a landing, a necessary staging post on ones journey from the second to third floor where our attic bedrooms crouched.
Childhood games, stories read by my grandmother and adult tension, in a house without Television or Radio: These were the things of my childhood as a young boy in the 1960’s. And then one day there was Albert, bearded; that great stomach under those shapeless jumpers and the powerful Jewish drawl, foreign as Israel. I had no idea where he came from. At six years old I only knew he was from a different place where people were big and gentle, somehow blown in by the wind, a Mary Poppins from the world of giants.
It was only years later that I realised the incongruity of the name. But then I suppose he was born before the horror. My family was pockmarked and lame and from time to time folks would come to live in the gaps and craters: In amongst the conflict, witnesses who never spoke of it. Not to me at least.
One day, early on, Albert caught me on the stair. He beckoned to me. Though he was huge, with the growl of a bear, I wasn’t frightened of him. And me, so timid. I was making my way downstairs and he stopped me on the landing.
“Come in,” he said conspiratorially. “Let me show you something.” He took a small disk from a paper sleeve and fiddled it over the awkward spindle of his gramophone. Penny Lane was in my heart and in my ears for the first time. And from that point on I would go to his room whenever I could and enter another world. His world. The world out there, separate from my family.
What had seemed so strange at first: this man, his gramophone; slowly started its journey toward normality and somewhere on that path it met my home life, with its disjointed elders, coming the other way. I found myself looking at my father, my mother, my grandmother and wondering who they were. If perhaps Albert was my real father. Maybe he was the emotional normality that all children crave, without knowing it.

One day I made an announced to the dinner table. It was a repetition of something I had heard.
“I hate Jews,” I said.
Albert in his big, soft, gravely voice said, “I am a Jew.”
I was mortified.
Then I said: “But I love you Albert.” Now this is something that I had never even thought to say to my own father.
Then Albert said: “And I love you,” and after that I never saw him again. The vacuum he had filled, he left behind, and that September I was sent away to school.
I know now that love, like speech, must be learned early or never.

THE BUILDER

Allison slipped the scones in the oven and pushed the door to. Sometimes she got the feeling of being on automatic, shadowing the movements of her earlier life so as not to cease moving all together. She turned from the stove and surveyed the kitchen. It had been tidied enough and the dog and kids always ended up making the place a mess again. It would be pointless to shuffle the same tired knickknacks more. The two cords that ran from her heart out beyond the grave were tugging again today, turning her mind back in on itself, away from the rain outside.
Claws on the wooden floor and a peel of yelps presaged some uninvited guest and Allison straightened up, recalibrating her being in the shift from private existence to public performance. She practiced a brief smile and was momentarily relieved by its easy flicker and the concomitant quiver of her spirits. But it was not the smile that lifted her, rather the thought of his atmosphere entering the kitchen. It could only be Bob. Who else would visit this arse crack of the Malvern Hills in such weather? The kids were still at school and the postie had been and gone. She pretended busyness but knew he would take an age getting from the van and making the short journey across the garden. He always did. Why, she had no idea. The dog was getting frantic as Allison started to fill the kettle.
Bob was her unfortunately named builder, a fact the children took great delight in.
‘It’s Robert,’ Allison would say, ‘not Bob,’ though she called him Bob often enough. To them he would always be: ‘It’s Bob the Builder mum’, and their smugness irritated her.
She had first hired him when deciding to extend the kitchen out into the backyard. Before the cull. She had gone for a two-storey job and to hell with the expense. She made a dining/kitchen area on the ground floor and an extra bedroom on the first, next to the musty, plasticated avocado shower-room. That would have been baby Jeremiah’s room, but, of course, he never made it to needing a bed of his own.
After Adrian and Jeremiah had died, it left just the four of them. That was the four of them and Bob, on those occasions he tired of his first wife and his looming insolvency and stopped by to mooch about or hit something with a hammer.

She had made the tea and they were now sat at the kitchen table with the paraphernalia between them.
“I’m considering hanging myself,” he said as his opening gambit. The rain was falling for the twelfth consecutive day and she herself had been eyeing the shotgun speculatively. Not seriously of course, what with the kids, but it was a fantasy option. Maybe for later.
“Could you find a joist that would hold?” she asked, looking at him with brows uplifted. She had been considering spending the last of her husbands insurance on ‘doing something’ with the stables and had pencilled Bob in for the job.
“Don’t kill yourself yet Robert,” she said. “There are the stables to do.”
“They’re made of wood Allison,” he said emphatically. “They are good for horses and nothing more.” She could tell he hadn’t finished. There was a coup de gras in there somewhere.
“And?” she prodded, tentatively.
“And also…” he said. “Only a psycho would want to take a holiday in this shit-hole.” They were both escapees from the ‘rat race’, from the big city smoke. The dream and reality of escape had turned out to be a disappointing mismatch.
“Fucking hell Bob,” she said. “Where is your Chutzpah?”
“It Chutzpahed,” he replied.
They both sat in silence for a moment savouring the time honoured gag.
“I wouldn’t mind so much,” he went on, gesturing weakly at the drizzled kitchen window, “but it’s June. The summer will soon be over.” Allison looked across at him and saw to her surprise that he was crying. Not sobbing, but one solitary tear had stumbled from a crumpled eye. Allison looked out the window again, giving him a moment to himself. There was a break in the cloud and for a brief second the sun streamed through, improbable rays like some old master: The Descending Dove of Peace, scoring the air. Then it was gone again.
“Would a bunk up help?” she said.
“It has been a while,” he replied. “I thought we might have…” he paused, “moved on.”
“Oh come on Robert,” she said. “Don’t be daft. People like us never move on. Unless,” she continued, her eyes crinkling beautifully with her smile, “you call blowing your brains out moving on.”
He decided to put off the noose for a while longer and instead retreat to the solace of her well-worn sheets.
“I’d like a bunk up,” he said.
“Yes,” she replied. “Maybe even another cup of tea. What do you think?” The place seemed warmer. Robert could smell something cooking in the oven.
“I like spending time with you,” he said. “You’re nice.”

HORSE (P)RIDE

“What would he do in this situation?” she thought to herself. She ran the programme like somewhere inside of her there was a fragment of him that was independent of his being. She turned the corners of her mouth down slightly like he did when he was thinking and narrowed her nostril, tilting her head back. He was turning it over in his mind. Next thing she found herself patting her imaginary pockets for tobacco but then remembered she had finished the last of it earlier that day, during midmorning coffee. She spotted something out the corner of her eye and for a moment clicked out of character to snatch up a piece of hard wood lying by the side of the bench. It was a bit of root or wood knot. A stem of branch came out one side and had been cut clean through, most probably with the long handled pruning sheers that hung in his garden shed. It felt just right. It was the perfect pipe. She parked herself down on the bench and gave it a couple of fairly hard taps on the front of the seat to clear out any old ash. She may not have any tobacco but several times she had seen him chewing on his unlit stem pondering a problem. She put the end in her mouth. It was too green to be perfect. There was a hint of sap there but the bitterness could pass for the acridity of tobacco. After a while she pulled her left foot up on to the chair as only the thinnest of men are wont to do, and held on to her shin. After a couple of muted clicks in the back of his throat she shook her head slowly.
“It’ll never do,” she said to herself. “The girl has done it to herself and now there’s no helping her.” Hillary was immediately unconvinced that her father would be so harsh. “Hillary,” she attempted again. “Whatever were you thinking?”
“I’m sorry papa,” she said. “I never realised it would do that if I let it out.” Her father looked at her with a quizzical gaze and took the pipe out of his mouth. “You are a very naughty girl. We’re going to have to shoot him now and I’m sorry to say that that is entirely your fault. You should never have let him out of the field.” Hillary could feel her eyes filling as she spoke. She had no choice. She would have to try and retrieve the situation herself.
Pride comes before a fall and she had been certain she could handle him. He was big and boisterous and on one of their long walks things had got a little out of hand. She loved him desperately and in the end all the inner admonishments of her father could not stop the impending disaster. Now she was pregnant and he had bolted. Where she knew not. In principle at least she could recapture the huge cart horse that was careering round the country lanes of Whittering, kicking out at cars and pedestrians, but she could never regain the other, or lose what she had growing within her. Deep within her darkestness. She had been insane to try to ride the horse to Beachy Head. Now she would have to drive the car. She had seen her father do it often enough. But she was not her father and now she was no longer her father’s little girl.

REMEMBER NOSTALGIA

“A Bittersweet songing for things, persons, or situations past.”



She had passed him a crumpled page torn from a notebook. He read it:

“Weep not upon the pillow or the down
Cast not that is your grace upon the wind
As sweet is fair that shadows not the frown
Blown in by tempests that have come behind.

The solstice can portend an endless day
And too can herald up the longest night
The coldest hour’s before the morning ray
The greatest tears before all’s set to right.

And yet, within the sunshine of that youth
When every petal still was yet to bloom
The light was clearer and all illumined truth
Could comprehend until the edge of doom.

But now the years have forced their wisdoms taint,
And all I thought was good, I see just ain’t.

William Shakespeare 1778”

“It’s nice,” he said and held it out for her.
“It never occurs to us that our greatest writer may be yet to come,” she said looking at him earnestly. “William Shakespeare in this sonnet addresses the issue of nostalgia for the first time. We can return to Uclid or Euripides and will find nothing of nostalgia there. Admittedly Uclid was a mathematician, a discipline not known for it’s introspection on things past. But it’s a great name. They don’t make them like that anymore. Unlike Euripides which is still a first name amongst the people of Andora where a 2 litre bottle of Gin still only sets you back €12. But even these havens from national taxation are being swept away in the headlong rush to a reunited Europe.” Trevor couldn’t think of a response. “I remember the 1970’s like it was just 30 years ago,” she continued. “The paucity of my relationships. The power cuts of ‘74 and the three day week. All the consequence of industrial action. Do you remember ‘industrial action’?” But it was rhetorical. Trevor said nothing. “And I’m not talking about a one day tube strike. Oh no!” and she shook her head and made that ‘I’m serious now’ look with her eyebrows. She might start banging the table. But she didn’t. “This was the real McCoy,” she opined leaning back in her red plastic chair. “Class action: Capital versus labour. And I don’t mean New Labour either. I mean labour with a small ‘L’: Marxist labour. Can you recall?” Sure Trev was old enough. He remembered the three day week. And that shit kitchen they had seemed to live in back then. But did he want to go there. Enter in. Enter her mind. So he did nothing. Said nothing. She chewed on the inside of her mouth. “There were those Flying and secondary pickets.”
“Yes,” he said. Either way he could set her off. The occasional response might be just right.
“Closed shops, police brutality. I remember one time, the miners had built a snowman which the police ran down with an armoured van. The next day the snowman was back, only this time build round a caste iron bollard. How they all laughed, playfully pelting the ambulance with snowballs and half bricks when it eventually got through the crowd to the blood soaked occupants.”He knew Lillian was taking the piss. Playing with him. Playing at ‘me is crazy girl’. But hitting her would just make matters infinitely worse. He could feel a tightening in his chest. He had to leave. She wasn’t done: “And in those days there was no global warming either. The country baked itself to a crisp in 1976 but we were spared the unending whinging and hypothesising. It was all so much more straight forward: ‘Another 8 cows died of starvation in Northumbria last night.’ There was something comforting about it all.” Trevor smiled. He couldn’t help himself. For a brief second he wished this was the old Lilly. The one he had married. Now the sparkle had become a gleam and he thought about slitting himself.
“Now what?” he wondered as she leant forward opening a palm toward him. “Like Angela Rippon and her legs,” she proffered. “She didn’t have to get her tits out did she? See what I mean? And Nationwide!” she said like it was its own explanation. “If you came from elsewhere it must have been a nightly punch in the guts. An assault on your parochial pride. Just imagine how the Welsh must have felt. No wonder they were burning down holiday cottages.” Trevor got up slowly and kissed his wife on the forehead.
“Bye bye my love. I’ll see you soon.” He turned and walked as casually as he could toward the door. He thought about looking back for a final wave but the look of wet pain could be more that he could endure. He chose not to and departed.
“For great stretches of history nothing happened,” she continued, nodding confidently to herself. She would not dwell on his betrayal now. She could save that for the merciless dark of night. “One generation would live much like the next. Nostalgia would have been hard to foster. Not the case now. However, we are in danger of heading off to the other extreme: the past is different from the present to be sure but it is raked over with such intensity and regularity it no longer lives in the past as such. It is constantly being reinvented, updated to fill the multitude of colour supplements, glossies and TV channels.
I remember when Channel 4 first came on air. Someone was mourning the passing of an era: No longer would we come into work or school and be able to chat about the collective TV experience of the night before. With four channels everyone would end up in their own viewing bubble. Oh! How sweet and naive. Look at us now: TV bubbles, iPod bubbles, goodness knows what else. Hubbles, bubbles, toils and troubles as the Great Bard might have said. Mind you: I’m nostalgic for the iPod already ever since those phones came along broadcasting to the whole bus. Like we all wish to know for example that: “I want to be your wifey.” I don’t what to know. I suspose many do not. “I want to be your wifey.” Did you want to know that? “I want to be your wifey. I want to be your wifey.” I can do without it. But there you go. Things change, so people have to change with them. Wifey or no wifey. But it’s all bread and butter and short cake. Like the look at the old school rooms up in the attic of my soul. And let’s not forget. Let’s not forget. Let us never, ever forget…

Words: 1122

LOVE, AGGRESSION, BLINDNESS [draft]

‘Clinical observation shows not only that love is with unexpected regularity accompanied by hate (ambivalence), and not only that in human relationships hate is frequently a forerunner of love, but also that in a number of circumstances, hate changes into love and love into hate.’
Freud, S. New introductory lectures on Psychoanalysis. Translated by J Strachey. New York: W.W. Norton, 1964.


The first thing I did was reach up and touch where my left eye should have been. There was some tape and wadding, a bandage round the side of my head. My good eye swivelled about surveying the ward.
“Ah! You are back in the land of the living,” came a muffled voice from my blind side.
“Piss off?” I suggested convivially. Offended silence. A flat screen played out a National Geographic ™ Special on Aggression and Bonding in Rhesus Monkeys and I blink my good eye closed. I could feel the prick of tears on the inside of the lid and bit my top lip to hold them back. I had felt so alive with him. And now I didn’t know where he was or if he even lived.

All I knew was I'd blearily opened the door the night before and fumbled for the kitchen light. I’d been robbed: The floor was strewn with old newspapers and cornflakes packets, junk mail and itemised bills. But there was no broken glass or splintered doorframes. Stuff like that. It only took a moment to fathom it out. My paper recycle bag hanging from a hook by the kitchen door had split. I’d been loading it up for a week more than it could take. I never knew if the industrial sized guilt bins by the station would be over flowing. On any workday morning I might take the super abundance of bottles and stuff out with me and then find myself left with the fuckers, unable to punch them through the brush slots hearing them smash, crackle and pop on the waiting losers below. So, back to the flat and suddenly I’d be eight minutes late for work. So I’d put it off and put it off. The toilet and the rubbish shoot are quick and easy. It's the recycling that reminds me who I am. Part of who we are.
And then there was that meek little rat a tat tat on the door. Somehow Aaron had let himself into the block without buzzing up.
“Hey baby,” I mocked. “You sneak thief you. How did you get in?”
“Same way you’ll get in,” he winked.
“Jesus!” I thought. “He was smashed as me.” Out loud I blur, “I can’t fuck now, I’m fucking fucked. See?" and I look down at myself just to make sure. "Completely. Just look.” Spliff shuts me right down, but he comes on an animal. But I mean… an animal. I see him lurching forward and realise I have nowhere to hide. I can’t run. It's my home. I’m going to have to deal with it right now.
“Piss off Aaron,” I try.
“Aye,” he says with that dirty grin on his face. We’d already crashed around the municipal bins on the way home and even then a blow job was just about all I could take. What did he want now?
“Come on darlin’,” he grinned wider. “You know you want it.” It was grotesque.
“Fuck off!” I spat back but it was lame. I reeled round and caught a glimpse of the Jack D proud above the spices on the top shelf. It looked like a figurine of the Virgin Mary from St. Peter’s square, sold along with the poster of the blinking Jesus and biros with the heart on the end which lights up when you write.
"Put him off and put him out," came a voice of redemption. Failing that, maybe I could just pass out myself. Then he could do what he liked. I wish I'd just faked it and crashed down on the floor amongst the shite. But I didn't. No. I can feel the regret grabbing at me with it’s filthy green nails. But regret’s too late. Instead I grappled the freezer door and yanked it open.
“Ice,” I said. “Just a cheeky one Aaron.” And I chucked the tray across the kitchen to the draining board.
“You like that big JD don’t you.” I purr in my best porn voice.
“Baby...” he lassiviates but doesn't seem able to complete the sentence. I lurch across for the top shelf like it’s the saving grace. Now all I need are two glasses and the where with all to pour ourselves the knock out drop.
“Mmmm….” He says as I bend over fumbling for the glassware to civilise the moment. “Nice arse,” and yanks at my jeans. Christ all mighty. My pants are down. Now I wished I wore a belt like everyone else my age. I wish now that instead of handing him that heavy glass tumbler I’d given him the £200 I kept in Spartacus for rent and just asked him to leave. But he was my boyfriend. Was that it? I was trying to remember. Back then I still wasn’t sure.
“Fuck off off me will you you fucking fucker. Just fucking leave me alone.” I turn and punch him hard in the face.
“Just fuck off,” I repeat. But then I get it: a flash of blinding white light across my kitchen, crashing into a thousand shards again the walls. There is something searing up from my ear and down into my left eye like an endless corridor leading blindly off. I think I’m going to piss myself and grab at my jeans. Christ, I’m reeling. He fucking hit me. I try to blink and lucidity strikes: you know the kind, where things make real sense: drink, I think and yank my jeans up.
“Drink!” I say and flip the cork expertly across the room. I surprise myself at the dexterity. I notice I’m violently shaking, but have no idea just how bad things are. “Drink it!” I demand and slop some in his direction.
“Careful,” he replies, flicking a lighter in his left hand, “or I’ll burn you.”
It all seemed like baggage: Aaron, the drink, the dope, all the irrelevant hangers on. But deep down inside I knew that throw it away and I’d be left without a thing: a tidy kitchen with nothing in.
“Hey Aaron baby…” I pause a moment and it’s like the whole world is suspended animation, except that it's spinning. “I’ll do something ghastly with this bottle if you don’t shut the fuck up.” It was a joke but came out nasty. Maybe my cut up face added to the filth of my mouth. He lunged across the tiny kitchen to the sink and for a thankful moment I thought he had reached his nadir. I thought he was going to puke. I took a gulp of air and tried to blink again, but the left side of my face was numb. I could feel my right eyelid sliding up and down across the smooth of my eyeball. The next moment he’d wheeled round and was looking at me, a sharp blade held up in the kitchen neon.
“That’s my best knife,” I said flipping the JD round to make a club of it. Insane excitement rushed through me. I could feel the fluid running down like it was emptying itself into my armpit. In a moment I was soaked: Bourbon and blood.

And now I’m here and it was all I could remember. I don’t know where he was or if he lives. All I know was that I was stuck in this hostile place and for the first time in my life in love. A nurse stepped up to my good side.
“Where’s your friend?” she asks. “He was just here.”


Word 1322

THANK YOU FOR CALLING

“Look,” said Dr Walid Mohammed “I’ve performed more of these than you’ve had hot dinners, and not one complication.”
“Ok, ok,” said Peter Davinchy. “But I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the crap service from that restaurant, so listen: I don’t want you lot here screwing things up even more.” Dr Mohammed could not decide whether the attitude was due to the patient’s pain, anger or simply because he was an ‘A’ grade arsehole.
“I’ve never had a complication. You’d be the first,” he repeated.
“Yeah. Right,” Davinchy replied. The consultation was over. The Doctor had already unstrangulated his hernia and pushed it partly back into place. Only a pressure bandage was holding it now. At 9am tomorrow he would open him up and position and attach the internal gauze. He would need to reduce the size of the hiatus in his lower abdomen. All men had them to allow the seminal vessel from the testicles to enter the abdominal cavity. Under pressure from the intestines or trauma they can split wider and wider and coiled chunks of gut can protrude. This one had started to go on the other side as well but the Doctor would not mention this until after the op. He knew this type of man. He would be demanding a double hernia operation, a non starter. It just wasn’t done and the Doctor could easily avoid the aggravation by just not mentioning it.
“You’re fine,” said the Doctor as he walked away from the bed. Part of him knew this comment would irritate the patient and he felt better for it. But it wasn’t the doc that really galled Davinchy, it was the restaurant.
In some ways it was the best meal he’d ever had, not least as it was so out of the blue. You never expect that much from a buffet. He didn’t. It’s canteen food usually. But firstly there were waiting staff so you never had to get up, and secondly there were three chef’s in the middle of it all, knocking it up fresh. At £85 a head, it was a bargain. He’d not eaten since breakfast so come midday he was starving and had kicked off of all things with a little pasta salad just to take the edge off. The abundance of roasted strips of red pepper and cream sauce in the salad had got his juices going. His friend Ben had been raving about the lunch buffet at the Tower Art’s Hotel for weeks. ‘T and A’ Ben called it, but then he was obsessed with sex. T and A: that’s ‘tits and arse’ in case you were wondering. Peter hadn’t seen his own appendage for years, not without the help of a mirror anyway and he didn’t use the hotel in ‘that way’. For him there were other compensations and food was most definitely one of them.
The place was an Aitkins diet wet dream. Davinchy worked through grilled king prawns, steak, broiled ham with onions, a pile of lamb chops and French fries. Food till the cows came home. He’d lost count. It just kept on coming. It was a kind of paradise. There was something about the feel of rich bloody juices trickling down the side of ones face that felt delicious. His body would sweat in response, his forehead, armpits and groin getting wetter with each mouthful. He was going to thank Ben for this discovery but that was before the agony had began.
“For the love of god,” he’d said later to Philomena. “There is absolutely no point in just splashing water on it. You’re just spreading the puke all over my carpet.” She was useless. She would have to go. And now here he was needing surgical intervention because of the incompetence of that restaurant. His lawyer would sort them out. Someone’s lawyer would. His own seemed not to understand the obvious case against them. The place had almost killed him for fuck sake. The Doctor had said as much.

Peter flipped his phone open and scrolled down the menu. His phone dialled and he hopped nimbly through the options at the other end till he was through to the matre de again.
“Davinchy,” he said.
“Ah yes. Mr Davinchy. I trust you are fully recovered? Would you like to place another booking?”
“No I fucking wouldn’t! I’m in hospital because of you, you prick. And don’t just hang up on me again you arsehole?”
“Thank you for calling. Goodbye,” cut in an automated voice at the other end before the line went dead. Davinchy narrowed his eyes and smiled a little.
“This,” he thought to himself, “is a war I am going to win.” And that’s how it was. He won his case against them. After all, he was the kind of man who always got what he wanted. Always got what he deserved.

DANGER: NO FLOOR

It did not kill him, but it could have done. He pushed gingerly at the door. So far as he could hear there was no one down stairs but he was worried that he might dislodge something more. The door was stuck. He didn’t want to shoulder it for fear of falling. He stepped back and looked at the door of his living room again. There was the sign, hand written and stuck in place with silver gaffer tape. He glanced about. The electricity had been switched off but not the gas. It felt arbitrary, like what had happened to his front room.
And it was his favourite room too. Ben Worthless had wished it had happened to the back room which he barely use. But that’s the kind of pointless thinking he’d been trying to get away from for the past two years: If only this was like that, then that wouldn’t be like this. What do they say?: “If my aunt had balls she’d be my uncle.” Pointless thinking. He tried to look on the bright side. He was lucky it didn’t give away under him, or during Saturday’s now postponed party. The idea of them all crashing down on the family below, glasses of red wine thrown involuntarily at the walls as they dropped the three meters, made him feel sick. The shock of it and the smell of faeces and blood like when Jenny had been mown down in her new driveway in Waverly. So maybe he was lucky: ‘Fortune in misfortune.’
But it was his living room. It’s where he lived. Where he had lived. And lucky’s not what he felt right now. The walls were still painted ‘Jamboree Yellow’ from when he and Jenny had lived together. The colour just seemed too happy now. He wanted to go for the all white look with the ‘signature’ colour in the window bay, a brilliant blue, maybe ‘Retonic Blue’ by House Hue Executive. It’s the fashion: a block of bright colour to set off the white. But one needs fascist flat walls to pull off that kind of thing successfully, not textured wallpaper, which must be there to hide something nasty in the plaster finish beneath. Something too damaged to filler over.
He’d built this small platform by the window so as he could sit up there and type and gaze out up Warren street to the new hospital for inspiration. The surveyor suggested it might have been the extra weight that caused the initial joist to give. The first Ben knew was when ‘downstairs’ rushed up to say their ceiling was coming in. He never heard a thing. Apparently there was a crack like gunfire.
Everyone seemed to have gone out. They were coming back but Ben didn’t know when: Later perhaps. The engineer, ‘downstairs’, the surveyor, the builders. Suddenly, after all that activity the place had gone dead, everyone vanished, leaving him alone again and this time without the sanctuary of his front room.
“Fuck it,” he thought and gave the door a good kick just by the handle. It shot open and banged about in mid air like a loose shutter on the second storey. He edged toward the doorway and peeked his head over into what had been his room. Two thirds of the floor had dropped out emptying most of his possessions into the flat below. His upturned couch, computer, oak table, potted plants and guilty platform were all strewn below in amongst the possessions of the downstairs flat along with a mass of rubble and plaster.
Ben sniffed in the powerful smell of dust and rotting joists and then hurled himself from the ledge of his doorway head first into the room, diving forward toward the glass coffee table below like it were a far off swimming pool or a window back to the past.

Words: 652

NATTER

“Yes. And without even opening the box,” said Catherine.
“It’s like a bit of Las Vegas by the sea,” said Helen.
“Bournmouth’s the entertainment hub for the whole of the West. I mean Torquey is all very well if you want to look at the same bit of art for six months but…”
“Well. You know I prefer the cinema.”
“Well yes, of course.”
“You get to take the weight off your feet for an hour or two.” Helen shifted the receiver a bit while she spoke. She was getting a crick in the neck. This had gone on and on.
“Yes,” said Cathrine.
Blue
“Although you never really know what you’re getting.”
“I just look at the blurb in the freebee and try to read between the lines. Actually that’s not true,” said Cathrine. “I just follow the herd. Not much point watching a film no one else wants to watch. You can tell them about it but they won’t really know what you’re talking about unless they’ve been there.”
“Unless they’ve seen it, yes.”
“Yes. Unless they’ve seen it. Otherwise it’s a bit of a non discussion. Like talking to yourself with someone else in the room.”
Black
“Mind you, I talk to myself.”
“Not with someone else in the room.”
“Well, no. It’s the first sign of madness isn’t it, talking to yourself?”
“First sign of madness, Helen.”
“Call me crazy.”
“Crazy Helen.”
“Thanks,” said Helen.
Blue
“Could be worse.”
“Oh I don’t know. I wouldn’t fancy it myself.”
“You don’t know till you’ve tried Helen. I think I’m cracking sometimes.”
“I know what you mean.”
“Do you?”
“The school is driving me nuts.”
Black
“Really?”
“The PTA.”
“Oh yes. That. Father McFearson says that most parents are bastards.”
“He Does Not!” said Helen, genuinely shocked. “Oh Cathrine really. Father McFearson’s a very nice man.”
Blue
“Oh I don’t know. Nice like Christopher you mean?”
“Of course. He’s gorgeous. Your husband I mean, not Father…” There was a long pause: the kind you can get away with face to face, sitting in the same room together. “Cathrine?” said Helen.
Black
“Laurence of Arabia was gorgeous and he was a sadist.”
“He was a masochist.” Helen corrected her. “Burning matches and all that. I saw the film. We saw it together didn’t we? You want to see something next week?”
Blue
“Helen I can’t. I’m...” There was another pause. “I’m busy,” while the tears ran down her face.
Black
“Cathrine. What’s wrong?”
Blue
Black Blue
Black Blue
Black Blue
Black Blue
Black Blue
Black Blue
Black Blue

LOVE IS AN AWKWARD CHILD

Bunny pushed back in his chair and looked out through the grime to the familiar trees beyond. If it did not stop raining soon he would either shit his pants or get very wet. There was one cracked print hanging lopsided on the caravan wall. It was someone else’s broken dream. Bunny had forgotten it was there.
He had grown used to the mildewed smell of the place but its mood inveigled itself into his soul, like the proverbial rotten apple in a barrel.
Outside there was a Christmas tree, now ten foot tall. It had appeared one January from the big house as a sideboard decoration and had prospered from neglect.
Last year a couple of men had arrived while Bunny was rolling asphalt, patching roads for the English. They ran a pale wood fence all round ‘his’ field just skimming his home by a hairs breadth. But it was no more his field than was the tired green caravan. He was a guest of the family that lived in the white house on the far side of the gravel drive. He had wondered at the fencing. After a couple of days a horse box arrived for the daughter of the house, the little girls birthday present, soon to be forgotten to wander disconsolately round it’s too small plot. That first night it had butted the window of his caravan frightening the bejesus out of him. After that he stopped using the back room and slept in his chair. Bunny was a small man and the equestrian beast was massive.
You might have thought that Bunny was born in his late fifties and died there too. But he was born young and died old like so many. He had not always lived like this: alone and during the winter months, cold as stone. Before he lost his teeth, apart from the ‘Bunny’ tagged front two, he had had a full set, the complete mouth and face of a younger man, the possibility of a home, independent of his mother and room enough for love.
But love is an awkward child and once when the little girl from the big house had been playing by the bonfire outside Bunny’s door, Bunny had invited her in. The child had stood in the doorway unable to discern a place where she might be, a patch of floor or a stool, and so had remained standing there, blocking some of the late afternoon light with her small frame. Eventually she asked Bunny how he was and Bunny had replied that he was ‘fine’ and then went on to say:
“You see those blues over there?” The child had looked at his work overalls hanging on a peg on the wall. “Well,” said Bunny. “They’re mine.” She had not been able to digest this piece of information and after a while had backed out of the caravan like it had been an indecent proposition. With studied casualness she had made her way back to the big house. Bunny had sat there a full hour after that, keeping his mind a resolute blank. Just once he had asked himself what he had said so wrong but then stopped before the tumult of answers that came, rushing down the years to break him up.
For almost as long as he could remember he had looked at life through the bottom of a bottle but had found no answers there, no message, not even a cry for help. Now it had become pure habit and a Guinness could last him all evening during winter, maybe three during summer.
Life had held out more to him once, many years before the caravan, even before the roads, though he had always laboured. He came to England for work. Maybe his soul had been washed over board somewhere between Cork and Fishguard. Maybe leaving Mary behind to live amongst Protestant wealth was the greatest mistake of his life. But back then it was a gallant move to win her with his foreign money and tales of work abroad. Little Mary. Not even a photo to warm his frozen heart.
The rain beat so hard on the caravan roof now that he could not hear himself regret and that was better than a Christmas whiskey or an extra bottle of beer. Even so it was as relentless as a bad idea, and Bunny’s anus was aching.
He picked up a sheet of news and took it into the back room. Squatting over it he crapped and wrapped it to a neat parcel. He placed it in one corner. The rain thundered and he wondered why he had never thought of it before.

Words: 790

THE CANCELLED APPOINTMENT

She was as jumpy as hell. Having had to wait at the salon, everything was now half an hour behind. She clipped across the parkey flooring glancing at the answerphone as she headed for the bedroom. There were two messages she’d need to check. She had an hour and forty to dress and makeup, do-able except for all the help she was getting which was bound to slow her down.
Just ten minutes behind schedule and the whole team of them bustled out to the waiting cars. Traffic permitting the delay was fully acceptable.

Later that day her hardened face looked again at the answerphone. Those two messages. Unread. She pressed play. The first was her step father wishing luck from Mozambique. The second was Carl. Her chest tightened:
“Hello Bella my love how are you? You doing okay? All nerves? Look, well of course, I’m ‘all nerves’ too. I mean, well you know. Sorry about this my love, I know I’m not supposed to see you today till the big moment and I guess you’re at the hairdressers but I know you’ll get this before hand. I know I shouldn’t speak to you on the big day. It’s bad luck and all that but, well you see, well I’m in Guernsey with my brother. I know what you’re going to say: “What the fuck are you doing in Guernsey you little shit?” And yes it’s true Jason was here, I mean there, I mean in London yesterday with me on our stag night and everything. I know I told you he wasn’t coming but he just bowled up. And then we all got drunk and we ended up moving the party from La Barca to the night train along with Trev and Jilly. I know what your going to say: “Not that bitch?” Right? But we just bumped into each other at Trevor’s house by chance, as she’s staying there and you know and then I got all panicked like I do and she said that you…”
There was a brief pause.
“Well never mind that. I mean. Oh no. Can I delete this message and start again? How do I do that? Shit!” There were a couple of beeping sounds as he punched the hash and star buttons, then lower tones as he tried one and two. “Bollocks.” He said under his breath but clearly audible from the little white box.
“What I mean is that it got late. Well not that late, as we got the last train, but… You know: We started early and the last thing I wanted was just to have you standing at the church and have no one turn up. Especially me. I mean, not no one, just not me…
“Not me turn up and the best man and Jilly. Well not her, because you wouldn’t let me invite her, didn’t you. You said “No old flames,” so no old flames it was, even though somehow both Bill and Stewart wheedled their way onto the guest list. I’ll be honest, if Jilly had turned out to be a dyke I can’t see you having allowed her along, but it was all different with Stewart and his big gay kisses and cuddles and as for Bill. I mean what’s that all about Bella? When was he ever a photographer? No way did he have to do the photos. I mean, he’s shit and my dad’s a pro. What’s wrong with my dad for fuck sake. He wanted to do it. No. Had to be hunky Bill. Bella. Anyhow, that’s not the point. I’m too far away and me and Jilly…”
She flung her forefinger out and stabbed at the delete. “Bleeep,” said the machine. One bleat sounding much like the other. She stood in the middle of her hallway dressed like a complete fucking fool and started to think about all the other ways she could have blown sixteen grand.