Do you ever lie in bed late at night and wonder: 'How the fuck did I get from there to here?' Three nights in a row trying to get comfortable on a granite-hard bed in the ice cold guest room – no wonder friends rarely stayed a whole weekend – had given me plenty of time to think about that. And to regret what I'd done. Okay, perhaps not so much time to regret as, well, time to regret being found out.
At least it stopped me worrying about what would happen once she threw me out and I was left living in a drab little flat, with a staircase reeking of cabbage and flatulence. She'd probably let me keep this bastard bed as a form of punishment. Somewhere I could sit sewing back on the sleeves of the shirts and jackets she'd thoughtfully cut off when in the full throes of her righteous wronged-woman rage.
A car swung into the close. I tensed. Was it her? It drew to a halt outside. No, she would have parked on the drive. The engine continued running. Chances were it was a taxi. She'd gone out about six, slamming the door and crunching through the gears - just in case I had forgotten that I was officially The Enemy - not saying where she was going or who with. However haywire things had gone, though, she wouldn't leave the car. I was sure of that.
"That's very, very kind of you," I heard her say, deliberately and loudly. Shit, she sounded pissed. Maybe there was enough time to throw on a pair of trousers and climb down the drainpipe and head for the hills before she got upstairs.
The taxi driver said something I couldn't catch and she laughed that dirty laugh she had, the one that always seemed at odds with her slightly demure, though immaculately presented, self.
Four-inch heels clatter uncertainly up the pathway. Pissed, she would probably march in here and set about me with a giant frozen haddock. Deep breaths, I told myself. With a bit of luck she'd just stumble off to what was no longer 'our room' and sleep it off. Then I could sneak out early in the morning and hope the storm had eased a little by the time our paths next crossed.
After a few fumblings and muffled swearing, the front door opened. Loud footsteps on the stairs. Not even a detour to the kitchen for a drink of water. She probably couldn't wait to test the efficacy of the electrodes with the special genital attachments I feared she might have been out buying.
The bedroom door swung open; a click of the switch and Jackie was there, leaning on the doorframe in the sudden flood of light. She was definitely pissed. This could be bad…very, very bad. Mind you, at least if I needed long-term hospital care I'd have a roof over my head for a while. And, of course, there would always be the nurses as a bit of compensation. If dick-less men could enjoy such compensations, that is.
Her dark blonde hair was showing signs of having been caught in a high wind or something. Slightly dishevelled, she didn't look as if she was about to strike.
I wondered if the relief I felt was just a false sense of security. After all, there was still an outside chance that the electrodes and the haddock might be concealed in the skin-tight electric blue mini-dress that had been sprayed on to her curves. Was it new? I hadn't seen her wear it before. And why was I wondering about that at a time like this?
Hanging on to the wall, she slipped off the shoes and advanced slowly, sensuously almost, across the room, stopping a few feet from the bed. A distinct ruby flush confirmed the pissed diagnosis. Her brown eyes, which for the last few days had eloquently spoken of a huge, hard anger, were as soft as they always had been before she had called me into the kitchen and showed me her discovery. I like to think that she overreacted a tad. I mean, what kind of woman flies into a rage over a pair of cunt-stained knickers, even if they are someone else's cunt-stained knickers? Okay, most women.
Her body language was different now. She was less rigid, less threatening for a start. Even though the next time I would see her would probably be when she flung my shoes out of the bedroom window after me, I took on board the fact that she looked very, very sexy indeed. Not that tall, but slim and soft, with legs that were longer than they had any right to be. A Raymond Chandler line came back to me: 'She was a blonde, a blonde to make a Bishop kick a hole in a stained glass window.' Of course, lovely as she looked, the only thing likely to be going through a window, stained or not, was me.
Then she dropped the bombshell.
"I'm horny and I need a fuck," she whispered, then she giggled through the hand that had moved up to cover her mouth, as if she couldn't believe what it was saying.
