Unsent Letters From A Dead Man Pt 3

"Jim, eyes open love" A gentle pressure on my shoulder and a soft voice in the pre-conscious fog. I ignored it. "Jim! C'mon, You need to get up" The voice had hardened a little. Still calm and patient, but I knew who it belonged to now. I felt Elaine's weight on the other side of the bed and I turned to watch her. The room looked cluttered but homely, though I'd had little time to take any of it in the previous night when the two of us had stumbled into into bed, haphazardly undressing as we went. Route one stuff. There were interesting body parts to be explored, a crazy, insanely passionate tangle of limbs that didn't sort itself out for a good half hour. She had her back to me and was sliding on some garment or other. My brain was still in neutral, and would be for at least another hour. "Where are you off to?" I said, trying not to sound desperate or worried. "Nowhere just yet" she said without looking up from what she was doing. My eyes followed her in the half darkness as she walked round the end of the bed towards the curtains, opening them with a quick jerk. The light streaming through the window punched a hole in my half open eyelids, scorching the image of the window pane and the rest of the room onto the back wall of my brain, so that it remained in negative when I blinked or closed my eyes. "Now, can you move that lazy arse of yours and come and have lunch with me?"

"I'm not sure" I croaked. "I think you may have shattered my pelvis last night"

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An hour later we were huddled in the little perspex shelter next to the bus stop. I didn't need to be anywhere, but Elaine was working at 4pm in some shitehole pub in the city centre. I wanted to be back in bed with her, wrapped in those strong arms and legs, buried in blankets and body heat like any sane man would. Instead I was waiting on a bus that seemingly wasn't coming, as the wind and rain hammered against our flimsy hiding place.

"Is this bus usually late?" I asked, trying not to sound too narky. "It's probably broken down somewhere" she replied, giving me a weak smile and firing up another Silk Cut. "Sorry, it sounds like I can't wait to get away from you" I replied sheepishly. "It's just the rain and wind, I'm not really dressed for the weather".

I must have been staring a bit too longingly at the giant fake fur lined parka she had on.

"C'mon Jim, it's hardly you, is it?" she smirked, looking down at the coat then back up at me. Her long red hair framed her smiling face under the hood and made her look like a member of some long lost clan of Irish Eskimos. I wondered how Eskimos dealt with crappy weather. Maybe they just hung out in plastic boxes that smelled of urine, waiting for the No 25 bus like the rest of us. "If you're cold, I could give you a wee heat" Elaine whispered lecherously as she put an arm around me. I tried to put my arm around her, but it felt odd and uncomfortable as we perched upon the thin grey rail that passed for seating in the shelter. I let my arm drop and felt slightly more awkward than usual. She sighed and took a draw of her cigarette, blew out a stream of grey smoke at the ground, then looked back at me with an air of bemusement.

"Not in the mood love?"

I didn't answer, just stared at my shoes and at the never ending whirl of leaves, crisp packets and carrier bags that gusted around us and under our feet. I felt Elaine's hand lightly on my shoulder .

"Look, it's ok Jim, I know what you're going to say"

I heard the low deisel growl of a bus approaching and noticed she had got up to signal it down.

"Not here" I kept thinking

"Just, not here................"

Unsent Letters From A Dead Man Pt2a

The taxi eventually arrived and we left the night and the 3am chill of the city centre behind us. I sank down into my seat as Elaine gave the driver our destination, then she sank back with me, her head dropping to nestle on my shoulder. After a few minutes, I felt her lips and warm breath tracking up and down and from side to side on my neck, starting work on me again . I pulled away slightly and looked at her apologetically. "Easy there missus!" "Aw! I thought you liked that." she said, looking slightly baffled. "I do, it's just........" I trailed off and looked out the window. After a few seconds I turned to look at her again with nothing more than a shrug and a sigh. "I understand. Not here" she said with a nod. "Look, it's ok Jim. Just relax, we've got all night....." With that she put her head back on my shoulder, and stared ahead, as our Turkish taxi driver sped through south side streets that were almost totally unfamiliar to me. He said nothing, save for an inquiry about whether we should turn left or right at one point, but beyond that he gave nothing away. Good for him, not enough taxi drivers had their verbal diarrhoea in such good check. "So, how far now?" I asked her absently. "Five minutes pet" she replied, squeezing me reassuringly. I felt a strange mixture of comfort and embarrassment at her response. I hadn't been called 'pet' since I was about seven years old, yet there was something about the dream-like chaos of the past two hours that had set me a little on edge and her serenity was beginning to put me a little more at ease. I squeezed her back and I stared dead ahead into those green-blue eyes. We slowly and discreetly fell into each other and all remaining memories, tension, and bad karma I had been carrying started to drift away into the aether. The cab crested a rise in the road and Elaine broke away, sat forward and pointed out to the driver where she wanted us dropped off. We fished about for cash to pay the cabbie, then clambered out onto the damp streets of Rutherglen. I only had a the vaguest idea of where we were in relation to any place I knew. I recognised nothing of my surroundings as we walked to Elaine's flat and I concluded that I had left any sense of direction I possessed behind me, somewhere at the bottom of Union Street. I didn't mind. Where I was going, I wouldn't need it.

Unsent Letters From A Dead Man Pt1

"Don't let her kiss you."

"Sorry?"

"Don't let her kiss you!!"

"Why not?"

Karen looked at me like a mother telling her son why he shouldn't stick a screwdriver in an electrical socket.

"Just don't. She'll have you for breakfast."

"Breakfast is an important meal" I said, before smugly turning to look out the window of the bus.

"Yeah, but you've got no idea who she has lined up for lunch and dinner."

"Oh c'mon........... I'm a big boy. Besides, who says she's that interested in me. She seems like a decent sort. Funny, clever, unconventional. Not my sort at all.............."

"If I was a bloke, I'd go for her" she said absently.

I raised an eyebrow and turned the other way, staring at an Asian woman trying to get her buggy and children down the stairs from the top deck and off the bus, a queue of impatient, uptight citizens silently cursing in her wake. I stared at the floor and counted cigarette butts, then looked up again.

"Makes you a lezzer then" I said, not quite as under my breath as I had intended.

The force of her hand on the back of my head took me by surprise and my forehead took a whack against the steel bar that constituted the back of the seat in front. I stared daggers at her as she took her turn to look smugly out of the window.

"Violence is most unbecoming of a lady" I said weakly

"Tell it to a lady then, you little tit!"

My stop arrived soon after and I got up to leave in silence. Karen gave me the finger and a placid smile as I descended the stairs.

Her way of telling me to 'take care'.

It was much appreciated.