Thank you for reading this story. It takes place in the UK's record-breakingly long, hot summer of 2018 when everything felt unusual and old secrets long hidden were given up by the earth.
There's more story than sex in this one. Please leave a comment if you'd like to, as I really appreciate those of you who take the time to write them.
Everyone in this story is over the age of 18.
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The short hairs on her arms catch the yellow light as she busies herself with clearing the books and magazines that teeter ambitiously all over the big, square table. It's a significant task since the low table takes up perhaps a quarter of the floorspace of her generously proportioned Edwardian front room and every square inch of it is covered.
She's a voracious reader, both discerning and not. This week, I spy Austen, Greene, Haruf and Sebald, alongside the thrillers and romances she reads for fun, and the creased copies of 'Hello' and 'Grazia' which she refers to as her 'sugar fix', as she stacks them into neat piles for their imminent removal. I couldn't care less if she left the table as it is, but she likes to clear it up; a ritual that precedes our regular film marathons.
I watch her openly, her head bowed in concentration, her arms and hands flashing busily. It's one of the rare times I can watch her like this, since she's the one who's usually eyes up and wide open, drinking in every detail, filing them away for later reference. It's what writers do, she's told me more than once. 'We borrow, beg and steal the details of other people's lives. We are silent thieves, Mikey. Vampires.'
The first time she'd said it, I'd gone home and combed through her latest book (whether it was one of her prize-winning ones or not, I couldn't say) to see if I could find anything I recognised -- about me, or, more comfortably, details that reminded me of something we'd witnessed together. But either she's got a far better memory than me, or I'm not perceptive enough to know when she's writing about anything or anyone I know. Could be both, couldn't it?
"Sit down," she says, her voice full of some form of question. 'Why haven't you sat down already?', she's really asking me, even as she appears completely on-task, pulling piles off the table, re-positioning them on the floor by the radiator.
It's an excellent question. Usually, I'd already be sprawled out on the wide, lumpy couch, lining up our film choices and discussing our options for tea breaks and dinner because I'm attractively obsessive compulsive like that. I need to know the timetable.
But today, I'm not doing that. Today, I'm stalled in the doorway, captured by the sight of her.
Which isn't the unusual thing. No, the unusual thing is that my unreliable brain is choking itself on words I've been dying to say, and not say, for months and months, and which seems to have dire consequences for my ability to walk or talk. Thirty-five years old, and unable to command my motor functions. And if she seems a little bit more frenetic than usual -- or maybe there's a slightly distant, introspective quality to her today -- I'm not objecting. I'm doing my own hiding.
A bright white delivery van pulls up outside the window, throwing translucent rainbows of light over the walls of the room. It's always been one of my favourite places even though it's completely crammed with -- well, books, obviously -- but also her funny, old-fashioned furniture that ought to be uncomfortable, but isn't; the tall, dark carvings she brought home from her years in Kenya; the greetings cards tucked into the bookshelves like flags, and the giant, jumbly spider plant that lounges in the bay window and is called Sebastian. Yes, really.
If I surveyed all of this in the cold light of day I'd surely run a mile. As my last ex had rather dramatically proclaimed, 'I can't believe you can spend even a second in her flat, it's like at the very opposite end of the spectrum for you.' Which hurt me then, and still does now, actually.
"God, go get the keys for the window locks. If we don't get that window open I'm going to burn up. I can hardly believe it's only May. They say it could go on for weeks, this heat."
I don't move right away. Not until she looks up at me, her cheeks pink from her exertions, a slight frown pulling her eyebrows together.
"Michael, are you alright?"
And that does the trick. Social embarrassment churns in my gut and forces me to mumble something before backing out to search for the key. And despite the chaotic fullness of her flat, its unruly untidiness, I have a pretty good idea of where it'll be. I might know this flat as well as she does, since we always meet here, never at mine. Even in winter, when that gloriously tall bay window is rattling in the wind and we have to wrap ourselves in blankets to keep warm. Even then.
All the other rooms are tiny, completely out of proportion, because it's a conversion, just a slice out of what was once an elegant mansion, fit for an Edwardian entrepreneur, his family of five, and the servants. I stalk through it to the tiny kitchen, returning triumphant, key in hand, discovered in the glass tumbler on the shelf above the sink, and, this time, manage to cross the room and unlock the window in a mildly masculine, capable sort of way. I open both panes, top and bottom, because that's how sash windows work best, apparently, to let the air circulate.
"Yes, that's better. Thank the good Lord," she comments, flopping down to the couch, her hair looking like honey poured over the powder blue of the velvet cushions beneath her. "I love the heat, but here in London it feels as natural as plastic flowers, don't you think?"
I let my gaze skate over her, brain still knotting my words together too cleverly for me to speak.
"Like that, today, is it?" she teases. "Ok, silent man, do your thing and tee up our viewing pleasure while I grab us some water."
With that she springs up, full of a careless grace that always amazes me, her summer dress swinging with the momentum as she pads towards the kitchen. I bite back a groan, fumbling with the remote controls to fulfil my allotted role as master of all technology before she gets back and starts to really excavate my mood.
She returns with a full bottle, sweating with condensation, and two glasses, rounding the table and pausing in front of the plant.
"I'll just give Sebastian a swig," she hums, tipping some of the water into the plant pot, peering at it soaking into the soil before making a return journey around the table to sink back into the couch, flicking her legs to settle them on the tabletop, ankles crossed.
"Ok, good, what's on the menu for today then, Mike?"
"I thought we'd do some classic Jacques Tati, if that suits you?" pointing at the screen where I've cued up the afternoon's viewing.
"Oh, brilliant choice. 'Monsieur Hulot's Holiday', 'Jour de Fete' and 'Play Time'? What perfect choices for this weather," she smiles, handing me a tumbler and slopping water into it, some of it spilling over onto my shorts, before doing the same for herself.
I settle back, copying her relaxed posture, wondering if my thumping heart is going to flatline, or if it continues on this path to annihilation, whether she'll be able to feel its vibrations through the cushions we're sharing and will demand to know what the devil's up with me.
And then, slowly, gradually, the comic genius of Tati transports me to a different place, where mere mortals struggle to make sense of a modern world that's becoming increasingly surreal. Well, indeed. We both laugh, Rachel more prettily than me, and I fall in love with being here with her all over again.
It's halfway through our second film and our first bottle of wine, the light outside finally, slowly, softening to dusk, that she seizes the control from my hand and presses pause. My heartrate thunders back into life.
"Just need a pee. Want anything?" she asks.
"Only that you wash your hands afterwards?"
