Nostalgia (Part 8)

“Dinner?” she asked, still drowsy and not yet fully awake I thought. I laid the pizza box onto the little table and knelt to retrieve the beer glass by the side of her chair.

“Wake up, sleepy head,” I cried. “Cheer up, sleepy Jean; oh, what can it mean? To a daydream believer and a homecoming queen! You once thought of me as a white knight on his steed, oh bugger I’ve forgotten the rest. Just imagine. Look! Here’s a beer; you can’t have pizza without a beer.” I handed the half full glass to her.”

“Thank you,” she said. “The Monkees? I used to so love that show when I was very small. What was it? Take the last train to Clarksville and I’ll meet you at the station.” She paused. She was still off key and still slightly cracked.

 “Oh fuck! I’ve forgotten too. I always used to wish that Michael would meet me at the station; he so looked like my dad.”

I sat down on my chair and flipped open the pizza box. Pulling the ring pull from the can, I took a swig, a large swig. Something told me that this was ever so slightly starting to get out of hand.

“Tuck in,” I said. “I have got some paper towel here. It is so not de rigeur to wipe your hands down the front of your jeans in front of guests after pizza. I’m sorry, I nosed around your kitchen looking for some things; glasses, paper towels, the fridge, vibrators. I’m sorry; with a big, capital ‘S’. That last one just slipped out!”

She smiled. There are smiles which can melt butter; there are smiles that can melt your heart; there are smiles which can melt the hardest heart; her smile could smelt aluminium!

“Oh, you won’t find them in the kitchen, my dear Dominic,” she replied. “I keep two, and a dildo, in the bedroom; an egg and some anal beads in the den and a waterproof, vibrating dildo in the bathroom.  Perhaps I really should get one for the kitchen.  Oh, your face! Such a picture! Let me get my phone. I should have you around all of the time. You surely cannot be shocked!” She smiled and then laughed. Such laughter as might shatter glass.

“You haven’t answered my question,” I said.

“What question?” She asked.

“The one that I asked earlier”

“Earlier?” She was now puzzled. This seemed to have taken a turn for the more serious.

“I asked you if talking to a stranger about whatever problems you might have would help; just after you apologised to me for not making love to me tonight!”

There are times when a realisation comes just as it occurs in the cartoons; a light bulb appears above the character’s head. And then there are times when the metaphor is more like a filament bulb which is running via a ‘dimmer’ switch which is set to low. Gradually the power is increased and the brightness goes from nearly zero to blinding incandescence and, gradually, as the power is increased, more parts of the revelation are revealed! Until...........

“Can we finish the pizza,” she said. “But first will you make a promise to me?”

“I only make promises that I can keep,” I said. “So, to know if I can make a promise, I need to know what it is that I need to promise. Does that make sense?”

“Yes,” she said. “Noun, verb, verb, noun; I understand the difference. All I want you to do is to play a silly children’s game with me, just once. It is, as I have said, silly and childish but no-one will play it with me anymore and I would so like to remember that innocence just once before I........I should not ask you; you have been too kind already. I only ask because you have been so kind.

“OK, I promise to play your game,” I replied. “Just so long as it’s not kiss-chase after first bunking into the park over the railings at night. The last time I did that, I got my boot heel caught in one of the railings and I ended up hanging upside down for half-an-hour; it would have been much less except my ‘friends’ were too busy laughing for that long before they could be bothered to release me.”

“Excuse me if I don’t laugh; that is funny, I know that it is funny, it’s just......” She exhaled. I had no idea of where this depth of breath had come from, or how it had been stored before its release.