Category Archives: JJ

JJ Part 9 – attention-seeking

They look up.

“Hello Lucy,” says P.

“Hey Luce,” says J, slightly weakly.

“And Kids!” says P. “Kiiiiiids! Wassaaaap!“

Stanton fixes P with his gimlet-blue eyes. “I am four, you know,” he says severely.

And so far more mature than he was two weeks ago when he still loved the game intensely, greeting it with squeals and an attempt to grate the sound out himself in his wee voice.

Someone else wriggles hopefully.

J inclines her head gravely. “Lydia Henson,” she says portentously.

“Jennifer Jones,” comes the reply, followed by a lot of giggling. Lydia is a little over three, her mother being, as she put it, “a dismayingly fast mover.”

“How’s it going, babe?” asks P.

“Ach,” says Lucy, settling and dragging Kids to heel, “just – scuse me – back from the clinic.”

“You okay?”

“Well, yeah… Sorry, would you mind just…? Cheers. Yeah, I’m fine, everyone’s fine, but I’m knackered now. Anticlimaxes are draining, know what I mean?”

She notices J’s raised eyebrow. “You get yourself worked up for the implications of bad news, so when it’s good news it’s kinda…” she gestures.

“It’s like you get far more stressed when the crisis is over,” says J.

She nods. “Exactly.” She sighs. “I should get us drinks.”

“Yes,” say J, firmly. She moves over to the counter to order. J smiles abstractedly at the children and turns to P.

“Fundamentally bad timing, right?” says P.

“I concur. May I be so bold as to suggest a recapitulation and further exposition at a more convenient time?”

“So…” slowly “your request was to be in the affirmative?”

“Indeed.” Deep breath. “And I feel a further necessity for pejorative language for venting of my faecal emotional situation.

“Catharsis? Why certainly, dearest compadre. And may I just say how much I am admiring the restraint you are placing on your desire to express yourself utilising scatological and fornicatory terms of reference.”

“My most heartfelt appreciation.” J places her hands over her chest.

“Why are you talking funny?” demands Stanton, who has been flicking his head back and forth like a tennis umpire during this exchange.

“Well, darling,” says P, “J and I don’t want you to understand what we’re saying and children absorb far more than we realise because we’ve forgotten…”

“… and we don’t have any other languages in common apart from English that we can speak particularly fluently…” says J.

“I speak German, Hebrew, Sign Language, a little Ancient Greek and even less Welsh.”

“I speak French and Italian, a little Spanish and even less Welsh than P.”

“You see our dilemma?”

“Deeyemma!” exults Lydia, who, unlike her brother, has mostly been focussed on, variously, getting her seat buckles undone, ther whereabouts of her mum, the sound kicking her seat vigorously makes, attempting to reach the cup and saucer near her, which P had absently and reflexively moved well out of her reach as a result, and then making aaah aah aah noises while kicking and flicking at the belts. It’s amazing the difference ten months makes.

“She’ll be out of that on her own soon,” remarks J. “She already knows the key is in pressing those bits of the buckle – she’s just not quite dextrous enough yet.”

“Must be frustrating,” agrees P.

“I did it,” smugs Stanton.

“Yeah, but your auntie Katherine got stoned one night and decided to spend three hours teaching you, didn’t she?”

“To be fair,” says J, “I think he learned in spite rather than because of her efforts…”

“Mmmmh,” says P.

Lucy is back. “Are you impugning my twin?” she smiles, distributing drinks, including ones for P and J, they are slightly embarrassed to note.

“She’s been saving us the bother.”

“Oh really?” She raises her eyebrows. “I haven’t seen her for a while – although we were both due to go to the Gretchen Thing yesterday evening, but…”

“… Gretchen timetabled you away from each other, right?” says P.

She nods, lips pursed in a wry smile.

“Martin, Jane and I ignored her and came together.” There is an element of crow in P’s tone of voice.

“How could you, P?!” Laura’s mock-distress is delightful.

“Weeell,” a deprecating hand-wave. “Are you telling me you never rebel against Madam’s orders?”

“As if!” scoffs Lucy. “Although I don’t think Gretchen agrees with me about the educational merits of her exhibition for pre-school children.”

“Oh, congratulations!” P’s happier outburst turns more heads of nearby patrons than the earlier one. “A family coup indeed!”

“Heh, okay, so what did Kath do, then?”

P coughs, suddenly overcome.

“What?“ says Lucy with meaning. There’s a quick flurry of BSL between them. J ruefully determines anew to at least learn the alphabet sometime. Stanton leans towards her.

“They’re talking about a lady in a loo,” he whispers. “Why?”

“I don’t know, mate,” she confides, “But if I find out I’ll let you know in twelve years’ time, how about it?”

He fixes her with that Little Old Man look he’s been determined to adopt as part of his new, more mature persona befitting one of his great age. Then says “Okay, then.”

“Okay,” says J, and they shake on it. She hopes profoundly that he forgets, as she has an annoying habit of fulfilling her promises.

“Did they break anything?” asks P out loud.

“No,” says Lucy fondly, “but they were very loud about that nudey lady and Lyd thought the hors d’oeuvres tasted like poo.”

Stanton sniggers before he can stop himself. P looks over. “And what did you make of it?”

“I thought it was…” he screws his face up… “scared.”

“Scary, was that?”

“No,” he shakes his head firmly. “scared like a little kid.”

“Jings,” says J, and they’re all quiet for a while.

JJ Part 8 – moments of truth

I stared at P blankly, then light dawned on Planet Jenny.

“Uh, 25th.”

“That’s Tuesday, right?”

“Monday.”

“Monday. Okay.”

“Or possibly Sunday night…”

“Bollocks,” said P softly.

“… it depends on the weather for the crossing. And we know he likes to do shit like that.”

“Quite.”

We shared a reminiscent grin at the dramatic boy-antics of Dan, my tautly-muscled boy-toy. He has a habit of running across cities to make early trains to surprise me, scaling fronts of buildings with a bunch of flowers in his mouth, lifting me exultantly and spinning me around loudly, walking everywhere with his arm over my shoulders, insisting on carrying stuff for me, worrying about me walking home alone at night.


Getting threatened by your history, said an old voice inside me, getting uncomfortable around certain of your friends…


I raised my eyes. I met P’s and saw, really saw, knew it wasn’t a reminiscent grin my friend was sharing, but a look of fond worry in response to my facial expression. My smile stiffened and then drained. If we only get one of those moments of clarity in a lifetime it’s an extraordinary gift.

P said softly: “He’s homophobic.”

“Mate,” I said, “I’m homophobic.”

I got a smile for that. “Yeah, okay, fair enough, but you know what I mean.”

I nodded, “I know what you mean.”

P took a deep breath. Looked me in the eyes. Looked down, looked up again. I had never seen my friend like this before so, before it could frighten me, I asked:

“What is it?”

“You,” there was some throat clearing, “you know when after you’ve split up with someone and then people tell you what they actually think of them, and you think ‘why could no bugger have told me that before?’?”

“You know I know that coz I’ve ranted at you about that more than once and we…”

“… had a pact which you, in your love-bubble, haven’t asked to be fulfilled.”

The moment persisted, heightened, thickened. We’d entered it when I’d truly opened my eyes to P’s feelings, and now it was reaching the crunching point. After this, the world will be different, no matter which way you decide. I know.

My brows creased up in the middle. I reached out towards P with my right hand, fingers splayed. P was looking at me intensely. I opened my mouth, started to breathe in.

“Hello guys! Fancy seeing you here!”

*

JJ part 7 – reality starts to bite back

Adhering with a shouting kind of texture to the back windscreen of a car was what was very clearly a heavily-soiled sanitary pad. One of those massive, nappy-like, old-fashioned things. Thick and black with gluey old ick.

It was around about this point that I texted you:

coffee. emergency. 10am usual. shit!

*

“Ah. That makes sense.”

P waits.

“And?”

Nothing.

“Is that it?”

“Well, it’s about 10:45 now, what more do you want? What colour pants I decided to wear today?”

“Fuck’s sake.”

“Sorry.”

A pause. They both scratch briefly, fiddle with spoons, that sort of thing.

“Look, do you want me to tell you how I paced the round in my small, rose-coloured bedroom? Do you want me to go into details of exactly how locked the muscles at my temples were, and what enormous gratitude I felt when I fell asleep? I can’t remember my dreams. They probably weren’t too bad. I find that generally when shit is really up-there tense you don’t need crazy-arsed vivid dreams – it’s all right here. My brain was probably glad to take a break.

“I’m sitting here in that oh-so Sunday keyed-up yet absolutely knackered place where everything’s just a bit too bright and loud. Looks like I’m not the only one.”

They look round at the mingled throng for a moment. The big Stelladollar (there are four in Cardiff) is rammed, as ever, and with a mix of folk, from trendies to families to ould folk to teens. The goth waitress keeps clomping up and down and preening in that “I really don’t care about my looks” way that only true goths can pull off. She also keeps narrowly avoiding clomping straight into the pushchair sticking out from the table down the way; the mother keeps fussing it back under the table, one eye balefully on the waitress, turning to mutter whenever she’s finished traversing.

Two boys at the back are pretending to be black, for reasons that are beyond JJ. Their friend looks on with a slightly uncomfortable… wait, thinks J, that’s not embarrassment so much as… love?

“Wow, which one does he want to shag?” P turns to look, and grins mercilessly. J recognises the look.

“Aw, now, P, don’t do it; I need all your considerable energies focussed on me me me today, I really do. And leave them to their day of rest, eh?”

P chuckles. As they continue to look around in mutual interest mixed with a familar, companionable shärden-freude, P’s look of easy malice and nosiness slips slowly but inexorably. Concern begins to show.

“Er, babe?”

“Hmm? Oh, lookit the chavs on the outside; that close to pressing their noses to the glass!”

“Jenny?” P’s voice is gentle, but the sound of her name brings her sharply round. “You do know it’s Saturday today, right?”

*

I looked at P in horror for a full minute. And then people started looking our way again, this time as I got loud.

“What? What the fuck?” I waved my hands around in time-honoured fashion. People nearby very obviously didn’t stare… I lowered my voice, more because it was becoming plaintive. “What the fuck is going on, mun? I mean…” I tailed off briefly, staring wildly at the side of our table. “I mean – losing time I could understand, but gaining it?! Gaining a fucking day?”

“I thought you knew, I thought you were having a joke, but…”

“It’s Saturday?”

“Yes. All day, as my dad used to say.”

“Jesus shit.”

“This is good, though, right?”

I stared at P blankly for a bit, realisation slowly dawning. “I guess. I mean… Yeah, I guess.”

P took a deep breath.

“When’s he back?”

JJ Part 6 – heading home

I slipped the phone into one of the inside pockets of the jacket and made my now-unimpeded way through the door. It, like the one above, was clearly built with heft in mind, the difference being that this was close to a hundred years old and not designed specifically for fire exclusion. Out of deference to some honourable vestige of myself, I made the effort to close it quietly, then turned to face the night.

I paused under the porch. A cool, damp breeze touched my face uncertainly. Scents of wet concrete, old fag-ends and drying weeds insinuated themselves. The night smelt shifty, dirty, conspiratorial. Great and marvellous. My paranoia was spreading its unwashed grip across an entire electromagnetic spectrum as well as an entire city.

Next I’d be eyeing lampposts for looking at me funny.

I sniffed and crunched my shoulders briefly, feeling about fifteen. The night snickered at me, cars distantly shushing on the sticky-wet tarmac and street-lamps mocking through a faint aureole of post-precipitation. It was clear that the world outside had been subject to that peculiarly Welsh rain that defies all umbrellas, not through intense, driving horizontalness, but by being too light to fall down properly, a distinctive kind of too-heavy-to-be-called-mist drizzle that actually floats upwards. Just enough damp to irritate, not enough to slicken or soothe. Squeaky windscreen wipers, frizzy hair, constant blinking weather. The night seemed particularly orange somehow, the roads still reflecting and the air lens-like with moisture. I ached for my bed suddenly, and the miles between here and it seemed long.

(Okay, they were about two miles, but you know what I mean.)

My feet stuttered down the couple of steps and on through and over the aforementioned sources of scents. I was looking all round me and unconsciously turned right, towards home. Didn’t even think about it.

*

“So?”

“What?” J drags her gaze back to the present.

“Where the fuck where you?”

“Richmond Road.”

“Ah, right. I get it – one of those big, old…”

“… adapted student houses, yes.”

“Hence the fire escape.”

“And the students.”

“And the fridge. Look…”

“Don’t even think about it!”

“’kay.” P’s tone is flat and a little bitten.

*

I hunched, then, into the slowly-clearing night, wondering if things could get any worse and gloomily prepared for them to become so very shortly. This is the kind of night when blokes randomly follow you home, or you slip in something no longer nameable on the pavement that probably has at least one component ancient cardboard and possibly ancient takeaway to boot. The kind of walk home that seems interminable, in other words, and packed with small, grim incident. Need it be added that people would be driving like nutters? I could hear the car tires sneering sibilantly on the damp tarmac.

I walked stodgily at first, then picked up more of a swing. There are few things that can’t be improved (or at least, be retreated from slightly) when walking is involved. Some people would argue it’s something to do with adrenaline. Some people would doubtless go on in some kind of feng shui vein about realigning energies. Doesn’t really matter, as long as it’s true…

After a while I realised I was somewhat lunging with my walk. As you know, there are several ways to walk at night, but the best two are either “invisibly” or “don’t fuck with me.” I was mostly giving off “angry wounded animal.” The sort that attracts nutters for miles, in other words, keen to engage you in conversation, often starting with the line “Cheer up!” With no heart for dissembling or subtlety, I decided that quick was probably the way to go. This was never going to be a walk I was going to enjoy. However, in view of this being nutter-weather, I also decided to stick with the main streets rather than stitching that usual short route I dart across town through the small streets and yes, drag everyone down with me late at night, don’t roll your eyes.

Somewhere between half- and three-quarters of the way home the air subtly cleared. It was no longer damp, but a kind of recently-rinsed clear. Almost a pleasure to walk in. The raising of the sky, however, made the night much darker, larger, less fathomable.

I was starting down Wellfield when I stopped in my tracks.

“Jesus holy fuck.”

*

J rolls her eyes and head sideways at P.

P gestures. “What?”

“I’d worked it out.”

“Uh-huh?”

“Bloody Gretchen.”

“Oh, her.”

*

I’d missed her friggerty-damn exhibition thingy wotsit bastard thing, hadn’t I? Fuck, no wonder she’d been… ah, crap…

I hunched again and stabbed my forehead into the night. Tock, tock, tock, went my stride. Buggerybollocks and damn.

I tripped on the edge of something. Fine, fucking wicked, just dandy. Of course no-one was watching or hell, even there, but still. Surprisingly, I stopped, did some breathing, tilted my head back, felt the night cascade off me. What-the-fuck-ever.

Equilibrium somewhat restored I pushed off into the last few hundred metres, feeling sure that nothing could really freak me out any more tonight.

Hah.

Round the corner and into trees and parked cars. Adhering to one…

*

“What?”

Shudders. “Huh, grim even by your standards.”

Grimly patient: “Go on.”

JJ Part 5 – inevitably baffling communications

Some motherfucker had set my phone, for some reason best known to Beelzebub, to Manic Bastard Loud Volume, and had conspired with whichever god was running the show tonight to hide it somewhere underneath the random crap in my bag as opposed to in my back hip pocket, as usual.

I found the damn thing just in time to register the name on the call display and go through that split-second decision of which was the more painful option: to answer and risk waking even more people, or switch it off.

*

“You answered, right?”

“Yeah.”

*

As you know, I’m sure, for Gretchen there is no such thing as too busy to answer the phone or too late to answer the phone. I would pay in spades sooner and later if I failed to answer.

“Yes?” I muttered, hunching over as if this would shield me from audibility to all but Gretchen.

“What’s the matter, did I wake you?”

“No.”

“Why are you so quiet? Why can’t I hear you properly?”

I reached for the doorhandle. “Because I’m muttering, Gretchen.”

“What?”

“I’m muttering. I don’t want to disturb anyone.”

“Good grief, are you with another of your conquests?”

I felt my nostrils flare and my shoulders tighten. I could not fucking believe the contempt in her voice. Katherine had warned me and I hadn’t listened because damn me, I know better. Wanker.

I squinted at the display screen. Sure enough, 2:45am. “No, I’m just…”

“What?”

Slightly louder: “What do you want, Gretchen?”

“Oh, good grief, straight down to business, isn’t it, screw the small talk.”

“I’m sorry, I…”

“I mean, I think I’ve got a right to be upset. I organise a fantastic, innovative exhibition, I put a lot of time, and effort and personal energy into it, and not only do people not turn up but would you believe that bitch Katherine Greely has the affrontery to… are you listening to me?”

I had omitted the obligatory ‘uh-huh?’s and ‘oh dear’s that one has to employ frequently, but not gratuitously, as a continuo to Gretchen’s soliloquies, partly through trying to keep quiet, but mostly through distraction at trying to operate the fiddly door mechanism which turned out to need both hands and some concentration.

“Sorry, I’m just…”

“Look, I really can’t hear you, you know. Can’t you speak up?”

“No, Gretchen, not just yet, can you hold on a second?”

“What?!“ She sounded incredulous.

“No, really, look, Gretchen, it’ll only take another 10 seconds while I…”

“Are you trying to fob me off?”

“What? I…”

“You are, you’re trying to fob me off, I can tell.”

“Listen, if you’d just…”

“I don’t have to take this, you know.”

“That’s right, you…”

“I can’t believe you, you’re so incredibly selfish!”

“Huh…?”

“You don’t care about me, you don’t care about Steven, you don’t care about anyone! No-one but yourself.”

“Gretchen, that’s not true, I…”

“Really, I don’t know why I bother.”

“Gretchen, please…”

“It’s not too much to ask, is it?”

“Gretchen, please don’t cry…”

“Well, I’ve had enough, I can’t do this any more.”

“Oh, Gretchen…!”

“I’m going to find someone who’ll listen to me, someone who cares…”

“But…”

“Goodbye!”

“Gretchen…” Booooop.

I blinked down at the handset. 2:48am. “Who the fuck is Steven?”

*

“That bloody woman!” P’s hands slam down on the table. Customers look round from their coffee at the skinny bugger with the crazy hair shouting and carrying on by the window. “I swear she is evil…”

“She’s not evil…” J is keen to stave off another of P’s ‘Why the CIA need to visit Gretchen for the sake of humanity’ tirades.

“I know, I know: she’s unhappy, she’s frustrated, she’s misunderstood, she’s a good person really, and blah blah blah…”

“Actually, I was going to say: ‘She’s not worth the effort.’”

P raises an eyebrow. “Really?“ J is appraised seriously for a moment. “What’s bringing this on?”

“I dunno. A new perspective, maybe…”

“Kinell.”

J screws up her face slightly to one side, her expression part-rueful, part-serious. Mostly, though, she just looks tired. Tired and… resigned?

P frowns sympathetically. “Go on, then, get on with the story. What happened next?”

*

JJ Part 4 – dressed for excess

It’s hard to march on thin, hallway carpet in bare feet. It’s even harder to do it in the sure and certain knowledge that perfect strangers are watching your bare and naked arse doing it. But I did my best. The corridor lights were still off, but there was now enough ambient light from other rooms and the skylight overhead. No need to nick a candle now, I thought grimly, just get in there, get my clothes, fuck the hell off out of here. Questions can be answered later, right now all I want to do is be dressed and heading for home.

Steeling myself for a second in front of the threshold, I pushed the door open decisively and started casting around immediately for my clothes. The girl in the bed seemed to be a remarkably heavy sleeper. Maybe I could just get dressed and out and…

“Sandra! Oi, what the fuck are you doing?! Sandra!”

My friend in the light brown silk was feeling concerned that I was about to nakedly murder her friend, presumably.

“Sandra!“

I turned and, irrationally angry by this stage, rammed the door closed, flicking the light switch as I did so.

“Wsgfl?”

“Hi Sandra,” I said lightly, a mocking edge to my voice. “I’m looking for my clothes.”

“Whaaa?“

Jesus shit. I turned impatiently and, glory be, found them piled fairly neatly near the foot of the bed. I started ramming my legs into my jeans, finding the texture curiously rough and comforting, the weight lending its realness to me. It is impossible to put on socks quickly, while standing up, with any dignity. No, really it is. So fuck dignity, accuracy would do. My knickers were nowhere to be seen, but my black, front-fastening bra was lying over the toe of the right boot.

I risked a look at the woman while pulling on my shirt. Christ, the dark-blue heavy silk one. I’d been out to impress, clearly. Fuck. She was staring, pale-faced and with rumpled dark hair silkily in all directions. Her eyes were still screwed up against the light and the duvet was hauled up under one armpit and over one shoulder.

And she was absolutely drop-dead gorgeous.

I stared for four seconds. Then pushed into my boots, bent rapidly to the laces and hauled my jacket off the floor. I stood up and swept it onto my arms in that smooth movement that only years of wearing that jacket brings. Damn I like that jacket. I was muttering “It’s a far, far better thing I do now…”

“What?”

“Jesus.” I turned without looking at her face and raced to the door. Then raced back, picked up my black army bag and hurled the strap over my head and across my chest. Then I was out of that door.

The dark-skinned girl was still there, but had retreated five yards down the corridor. Her body posture had changed and now she just looked mostly embarrassed. Yes, there was defensiveness and a hint of some slightly more aggressive emotion, but mostly she was sagging, her body twisted slightly with the torture of avoiding looking into the face someone who had been shagging her flatmate. God, did she even know she… Sandra, remember? was… fuck, part of me was aching to turn the shaking in my belly to laughter. My clothes in her room showed an incontrovertible right to be there, along with the fact that, as everyone knows, dykes have right of way! Had I suddenly sprouted a wheelchair, I couldn’t have become less interrogable.

Hah. There’s two ways to go in a scenario like this: imperious or charming. I chose the latter.

“Sorry about that earlier.”

“That’s all right,” she muttered.

“I don’t suppose you could show me where the front door is?”

“Sure.” Golly, she was everso quiet now.

Back past the kitchen in absolute silence, and I spotted the white girl chewing her nails, bum perched against the greasy table, lights off again but candles still lit. She hunched even further into herself as we passed. We came to a heavy fire door (fire door?! Where the fuck were we?), which she drew open, and then gestured to the dark, old-fashioned wooden flight of stairs.

“Down the stairs and it’s straight ahead,” she said curtly, and let the door slump shut behind me as soon as I was through.

Jesus-fucking-shit-Christ, I kept muttering to myself down the stairs. What in the name of buggery-fuck is going on here and where the arse am I? In fact, I had a fair idea about the second part of that question, and was starting to formulate some theories, along with the vague hope that it was the closer of the two most likely.

And so, I’ve crossed the downstairs hallway, I’ve started to open the front door and I’m about to get out of this darkened house of gorgeous-but-crazy, surly young women, I’m about to get some fresh air and start heading from home, when God decides to piss on me yet again.

*

“What happened.”

“Guess.”

“What?!”

“It’s the kind of thing you’d say.”

“Which suddenly makes it all right for any sane person to say?”

Glare.

“Oh, okay then! Er, it was raining.”

“No.”

“The door was locked.”

“No.”

“Naked vagina girl comes running down the stairs after you and this story gets less… edgy… and more fruity.”

“No.”

“Argh, a mad axe-murderer.”

“Closer.”

“A shot rings out!” P clasps hand to chest. “And you’re flung to the ground by a rugged stranger who catches the bullet in his chest, sinks to the ground besides you and dies in your arms, eyes locked with yours, the last word on his lips ‘Angeline…’.”

“Angeline?!”

“No?”

“No.”

“Fuck it, I dunno, the door slams and everyone wakes up and the house security person comes running.”

“It wasn’t that posh a place.”

“Oh for Jesus’ sake what then?”

“Gretchen rang.”

Jaw slackened, P’s voice sinks to a low, serious “No…”

“Yes.”

*

JJ Part 3 – encountering the natives

I swung round fairly snappily. The woman behind me was morphing visibly from shocked to angry, and it was only a matter of time before:

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

“I,” I’m sorry, but I seem to have woken in your housemate’s bed stark naked and bereft of memory – didn’t know she even had any housemates to shock with my naked arse.

“Who the fuck are you?”

“Erm,” Good question. I thought I knew, but that person wouldn’t ever land themselves in this situation, so maybe your guess is going to be better than mine?

“If you don’t start answering me soon there’s going to be trouble!”

“What, more than there is already?” Great, my tongue unglues itself and comes out with sarcasm. Nice one, mouth, going for some kind of record for pissing this woman off, right?

“Fuck off!”

“Just what I was about to do. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll just be on my way.”

She backed off as I headed towards her. I guess she just wasn’t up to accidentally brushing my skin. She glared; I gazed right back at her. If you’re naked in a stranger’s kitchen, the best way to go about it is just through sheer effrontery. Probably.

Someone new skittered to the doorway. Like the first girl she was barefoot, but dressed in the baggy-teeshirt-and-pyjama-trousers uniform; the washed-out green of the teeshirt complemented her dirty auburn hair. The first girl clutched her fur-edged silk-looking robe closer to her throat as I got closer. Hmm, I was right; she was naked underneath it. Probably got up for a drink of water; last thing she expected was a nude stranger looking into the fridge at the household’s collection of…

(Fucking hell!)

The red-head backed way up to the wall. She looked more frightened than the other. “What’s going on?” she hissed at the dark-skinned woman in silk. She shook her piled-up crown of glossy curls and drew back from me even further as I passed through the doorway.

“I don’t fucking know, do I look like I fucking know? Hey! You! Where d’you think you’re going?”

“I’m getting my clothes,” I returned, over my shoulder.

“I’m calling the police!”

“No!” stage-whispered the other girl.

“I wouldn’t recommend it,” I said, still heading for the room that held my clothes.

“Huh?!”

I turned. “Have you looked in your fridge lately…?”

*

“So, what was in the fridge?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“I don’t want to know?”

J nods, a suitably grave expression on her face.

“But…” and the solidity of the expression on J’s face is enough to stop even P from continuing.

*

JJ Part 2 – exploring the surroundings

I lay on my back and thought up some new swearwords. That didn’t help so I decided to try to get out of the bed and reconnoitre without waking my companion. Maybe I’d find some other clues outside this room. Easier thought than done, obviously. Lifting the light duvet gently, I arranged it over her back and sat up very slowly. Keeping close to the wall and hoping fervently this wasn’t a cheap bed with springs that would jounce her awake as I moved, I slid down towards the foot of the bed. First obstacle: a pile of something or things just beyond the foot. I had no idea how far and deep it extended, what it covered, how precarious it was or whether it would squeak, break or tear if I stood on it. Arse.

I stiffened. The woman had stirred. She mumbled, wriggled, sighed and (blessed be!) curled up, probably into the space I’d left with no particular sounds of distress or waking up. I now had a space at the bottom of the bed to squeeze past her feet and onto the floor beyond. Supposing it wasn’t an elevated poncey thing three feet above the ground, and supposing that stuff at the end didn’t lap the bed on all available sides.

I made it to the ground without incident, but was now faced with several new dilemmas: where was the door, where were my clothes, was this just a bedsit, in which case was this all there was to not see? Would there be a bright light coming through the door to wake up the woman and pose more questions than I could comfortably answer at the moment? I decided that, if questioned, I would tell her I was going to the loo and leave it at that. Hmm. That left: where is the door? The pitch darkness was still pretty much in evidence; which at least precluded a blinding brilliance bursting into the room the second I found the fucking, grrrraaaarrgh, where’s the fucking door already?!

It should be noted at this point that another thing I’m renowned for is an inner rage that could stride worlds. Mostly I have it on a leash and don’t actually lose it at anyone, but the stories do exist of shouting audible over half a mile away and through walls (you think I’m exaggerating? You know nothing) and the way my eyes change colour… So I clamped down on the unhelpful images of finding furniture and hurling it around. I’ve really got to get some more sleep. Maybe in a few days’ time, when… oh fuck…

He’s due back soon. I think. Shit. What day is this, anyway? Think, what’s the last day I can remember, what’s the last thing I can remember, why can’t I remember anything, what…?

Okay, keep it cool, JJ, chill the fuck out. Find the door, find where you are, get the fuck out of here and home and sort it from there.

Bless you, inner adult. What would I do without you?

Run around panicking, drinking too much and shagging random strangers.

Hmm.

I sat, crossed-legged, naked arse flush with the floor and plush into the carpet – nice carpet, very thick. Chill. Closed my eyes, opened them again. Still nothing (and a moment for reflection: this girl’s got some seriously intense light-blocking equipment here; either that or the power’s out across the town or I’m in the fucking countryside because it’s dead quiet, too), but lateral thinking had come back from trying to rouse memory (in vain, dammit) and pointed something else out:

Can I feel a breeze?

Damn, yeah! A faint breeze scattered itself irregularly over the left-hand side of my face. For want of anything else to give me direction (and it was back towards the area beyond the foot of the bed), I uncurled upwards and moved as softly as possible towards it. Did you know that you move quieter if you use the whole of your foot rather than tip-toeing? True: roll each foot slowly and gently along the length before taking the next step. Moving slowly also obviates bumping loudly and painfully into unseen things, something I was keen to avoid. Instead of sweeping my hands way out in front of me and risking knocking something to the ground, I elected for one hand palm-out hip height and about three inches in front of me, waving slightly across my front, the other in front of my face (noses are delicate things). Well, I reckoned silence was more important than speed. You’d think I’d done this before…

Luck seemed to be on my side. If I’d thought about this more clearly at the time I’d’ve maybe realised that this meant beaucoup bad shit was on its way. Never mind. Anyway, a mercifully squeaky floorboard-free journey later my hands brushed against the raised edges of panelling on an old-fashioned wooden door, unpainted or varnished. The ssshhush of my skin on its surface sounded deafening to me. The handle (round, also roughly wooden) was over on the right. Now the test: was it locked, bolted, squeaky, shielding us from actinic brilliance? Fuck it – I’m going to the loo, remember?

I could feel my heart beating thickly in my throat, my fingers becoming slippery. Breath. Thud. Breath. Thud. Squeeze the handle firmly, rotate to the left and pull.

Hah!

Nothing.

By which I mean that there was no sound or light but that the door did open.

Blimey…

Sweaty hand to sweaty chest, I stepped out into this new darkness, which smelt different and was colder, but not as absolute. Praying that she didn’t live in a bedsit, I left the door slightly open, propped on the thick pile, and padded along towards the faint, faint flickering light I could see coming from round the corner ahead to the left, reflecting off… well, who cares what colour the walls were?

As I walked along, skin pinching and tingling with cold and apprehension, I began to review my earlier suspicion. The house (if such it was) stank of candles (to my nose, at least) and had the odd, quiet, thick-breathing air of everyone having gone to bed, which at the 2:30am my internal clock said it was, was kind of unusual for a student house on a Friday night.

Eh? Student house? What was I doing in a student house?

The memory refused to respond to more prodding, and I gave up in disgust. I was near the corner in any case. Still moving quietly and slowly, I poked my head round, then quickly moved to the open doorway (again on the left) which was spilling the flickering light onto the badly-painted, flaked white walls (well, you wanted to know…). I realised I’d been holding my breath when the near-completely-liquid light almost guttered in the resultant gust. I unpeeled damp fingers from the doorframe and made my way in – it was an empty, empty kitchen.

God, J, what were you expecting: a row of bald, pointy-toothed cannibals sat down to dine? Nice image: thank you, just what I need right now.

I flitted into this new space, noting the smells of rolly tobacco, stale food, metallic water, dying houseplants. Okay, I spotted some of these things too, but my sense of smell really is that acute. I pulled out a chair, and sat down, only checking its cleanliness cursorily. Jesus, what a mess! What on earth was I going to do – inspect every room as I went until I found some spare clothes, Doctor Who-style? Maybe I should just go back to the sleeping woman with a candle, pick up my clothes, fuck off out of here, hope no-one notices.

Not a bad idea. I was also hungry. A look in the fridge wouldn’t go amiss…

Head stuck in the fridge, three things happened at once. I registered the contents and pulled up sharply. The lights came on and the fridge started to whirr. Someone behind me screamed very loudly.

Oh shit.


*

“What was in the fridge?”

“One thing at a time – don’t you want to know who was screaming?”

“Well, yes, but people scream all the time. In my world anyway.”

Dryly: “Yeeees.”

“And hang on – you were naked?”

“Yeah.”

“In this strange house, with the strange woman, with no memory of – I’m guessing – the previous five hours at least, you decided to walk around naked.” P looks somewhere between impressed, mocking and a little concerned.

“I don’t think I was quite feeling myself at the time.”

“I’ll say.”

“Can I continue?”

“Shit, yes – I’m on tenterhooks.”

“Okay then.”

JJ Part 1 – suspicions awake

So, I had woken up, in the dark, in a warm place, lying on my right side with my left hand resting on a warm, moist vagina.

Now, don’t get me wrong – in my still-fairly-inconsiderable lifetime I’ve had several vaginas (vaginae?) under my hand and even woken this way before; one girlfriend use to berate me reasonably frequently for waking her up like that – I used to fiddle with her in my sleep – and what I like (one of the things I like) about my current lover is that that kind of thing is perfectly appreciated and frequently reciprocated, but the trouble was that nowadays I should be waking up with a penis under my hand so what the hell was going on?

I opened my eyes. No information to be had there – it was pitch fucking black. I mean really. Bugger. I closed my eyes again, partly in a display of dramatic self-pity. Idiot. Now, the automatic thing a body does in the dark when confronted with something strange (strange in that the species is known but the individual identity of the entity is a mystery) is to feel around carefully to aid identification. This, I felt, wasn’t an option. In fact, so many complications could arise from that simple action that it didn’t bear thinking about. Unfortunately, my treacherous brain commands (barely) a libido the size of a planet, so the immediate consequences of trying to determine the ownership of an unseen vagina by touch alone came clanging hot, fast and vivid into my brain. Luckily, my inner adult cut in swiftly with images of the long-term consequences (curse that pesky superego); both sets of sensations brought me out in a rush of adrenaline which woke up some parts of my brain hitherto dormant.

I opened my eyes. Still nothing. I closed them again stealthily – in case overt eyelash-brushing might attract attention.

If you can’t use touch or sight, said my lateral-thinking cortex, why not use other senses? Does she smell familiar? Good thinking, I told my lateral brain. While you’re up, can you go see if my memory’s awake yet because I’d dearly love to remember what the fuck’s going on here. Okay, said lateral thinking and tiptoed off. Thanks, I whispered and got on with the job in hand. No, not the job in hand!

Well, here was a relief, I thought as I stealthily sniffed. Of all the complicated emotional connotations this incident already had, at least I wasn’t in bed with an ex-lover. I have a ridiculously acute sense of smell, and have catalogued in particular the scents of various lovers. Women have more evocative, varied and individualistic body scents than men (even forgetting artificial scents). Contained within the body of one woman are a riot of different smells (and textures, tastes and sighs, murmured the part of me thoroughly turned-on now by all this – I didn’t find that particularly helpful and struggled not to panic or kiss the woman). Anyway. God, pull yourself together! And I could rule out any smokers I knew.

She shifted suddenly and turned onto her right side, away from me, rolling her hips and belly under my lightly-brushing hand, too startled and libidinous to move. My fingertips carried a trail of her across her hip, but she settled into sleep again. I lifted my hand off her stealthily and wiped it on my leg, registering support for my original suspicion: damn, I was naked.

There was no real chance here of pretending that we’d shared a bed for practical, platonic purposes and had shifted together accidentally overnight and I could go back to sleep and never mention this to her. We were both extremely naked and the room smelled of burned-out candles (among other things). Bugger, bugger, bugger, bugger, bugger.

Oh, this was bad, this was very bad (I still had no idea how bad – if I had, I might have given up altogether at this stage).

So, I was in bed with a strange woman, or at least a woman I’d never been to bed with before. A non-smoking woman I’d never been to bed with before. A non-smoking, short-haired, slim young woman I’d never been to bed with before who owned a double bed. This knocked out… hold on a second… about fifteen to twenty women I knew off the top of my head straight away. It also precluded my flatmate, for which I was profoundly grateful. Although, if I was in my own flat I could sneak out now, back to my own bed and pretend with heroic fervour that this never happened. Positive side to everything, right?

And then the truly weird thing about all this finally gave up knocking politely and occurred to me by kicking the door in (so to speak). Here I was, meticulously piecing together scanty clues and non-clues; why couldn’t I remember what had happened? Okay, you spotted that already, but I’d like to see you do better in a similar situation, I really would. For me, it was such an alien concept that it either just hadn’t occurred or I’d been wilfully ignoring it. I mean, I’m renowned for my memory. In a way. Aren’t I? I think. Maybe I had amnesia…
Okay, who are you then? You know your name?

Absolutely. Occupation? Currently undecided. Next? Age? 27. Address? The slightly less reputable end of the park in the boho part of the city. Marital status? Unmarried and likely to become extremely single unless I can find a way of not letting my current boyfriend know about this. Unless…? I let my left hand sweep back gently behind me, but found no bodies (with penis or otherwise) between me and a wallpapered wall. I lay on my back and thought up some new swearwords. That didn’t help so I decided to try to get out of the bed and reconnoitre without waking my companion. Maybe I’d find some other clues outside this room.

*

“So you had no idea who this woman was?”

“Didn’t I just say that several times?”

“Don’t get snippy, I’m just trying to get things straight. As it were.”

“Ha, bloody ha.”

“Go on, then.”

“If you don’t mind…”

*