Category: Uncategorized (Page 24 of 44)

There was nothing left to say. We were sitting opposite one another, but we were no longer able to even look at each other. I was stirring my coffee, even though I did not put any sugar in it, and wondering if I should fix it; not could I fix it. The thing was, I was fairly sure that nothing was going to fix this. The words were still hanging in the air over her head;

“I’m sorry, Paul, it just happened, and once it did I’ll be honest I wanted it to happen again.”

Now, I am not trying to be overly dramatic, but once my lover had told me that not only was being unfaithful to me ‘just one of those things’, but also that this momentary lapse of reason did not lead to feelings of guilt and shame, rather a desire to do it again, I did rather feel as though there was an end in sight vis à vis our relationship. I didn’t want to fix it now; in fact I just wanted to burn down the house.

She stood up and started checking her pockets; she was leaving, and I was starting to feel the anger rising;

“You’re going to him, right?”

She is standing there by the window, in my memory, but not as the grown woman in the exquisite ivory wedding gown who stands there now. As I enter the room and see my daughter, looking out expectantly for the car, a memory of another time comes forward to me so strongly…

Suddenly it is thirty years before. Though dark outside, the moonlight is streaming in through the window, and my little Molly is standing in a moonbeam, face pressed against the cold glass, staring out into the snow-covered garden.

“Look, Daddy, the snow has come! Do you think that Santa will be able to come now?”

I am a younger man; stronger and surer on my feet, and I cross to the window and quickly enfold my flannel-clad princess in my arms and pick her up;

“You, Mistress Molly, are supposed to be in bed. Santa won’t stop by this house if little girls are wandering about trying to sneak a peek of him about his task. Come on, I’ll take you back to bed and tuck you in.”

And then I am back in the room, and my daughter is to be a bride this day.

Here’s the thing, housework is not something that I am __good__ at; not even remotely.  I ought to be good at it – my parents are both accomplished cleaners, and I am not going for laughs here, I mean it.  Amongst their many talents they are both very good at cleaning up.  Certainly their profession is one with a reputation for cleanliness, at least in certain environments, and even though they have both mellowed a little in these last few years, toilets and kitchens are still places that shine and sparkle in their homes.  Not only has their influence been strong in the shaping of who I am, but I also went to a British, boys’ boarding school.  Have no illusions, the money that was spent on my education was spent wisely, on talented and interesting teachers, excellent books and equipment, but as anyone who went to my school will tell you, a good half of all the domestic cleaning was done by the boys.  On looking back this was also a good thing, it taught us how to sweep and mop a hardwood floor, or clean a bath – I don’t think that it was a bad thing at all…

So why is it that now, as an ‘adult’, with a job and a flat and (some) spare time on my hands, I find it __so__ hard to keep my living quarters clean and tidy?  I mean is it as simple an equation as there are no longer other people with more authority telling me what to do and when to do it?  Am I in fact a victim of my own lazy, idle tendencies, and without someone who can send me on a run up a hill before breakfast or who can keep me in on a Saturday night, re-doing my French homework I am in fact merely a slob?

In my own defence I do work a full-time job, and when I’m not doing that I am trying to maintain an active social life, write a piece of short fiction every day and work on three concurrent artistic projects, not to mention other random blogging (like this) and occasional meals and trips to the bathroom.  More to the point, after eight hours at work, doing a job that is not all bad, but by God could be a LOT more exciting, and spending __some__ time getting back into Reading through the unaccountably awful evening traffic, the VERY LAST thing that I want to do is empty the bin, wash the floors, sort the laundry, clean the toilet and do the washing up.  Am I alone in this?  I have a feeling that I’m not, but the very fact that (currently) I am not sharing my living space with another human being means that the only person who actually suffers is me, and insidious though it may be, at first it seems to be worth it.

I have recently got back on top of the cleaning situation in my flat, thanks in no small part to two friends who wanted to give me an Xmas present that they didn’t have to buy.  They came up with the suggestion, it went a little like this:

“You know how you do from time to time complain about how awful the state of your flat is, but then you never do anything about it?”

“Yeah…”

“Well how about we help you get started on it as a Christmas Present from us to you?”

I’ll be honest with you, I was not initially excited about the prospect of letting even such close friends into my flat to see my shame – I mean don’t misunderstand, it was not a health risk or anything, but I had not let things go quite so badly downhill since I’d been a student, and there was a part of me that was indeed very ashamed.  They cajoled and persuaded for a little while and I relented as long as they would take a gift of some wine that was left over from my exhibition opening as a return gift, basically to assuage my guilt.  They agreed and last weekend they came around at the appointed hour and the cleaning began.

I am writing this now from a clutter free desk in a tidy and clean flat – well I still need to sort out my bedroom, but I feel confident that that will be dealt with by the end of Sunday – and I like being here again.  It was so lliberating, I cannot even begin to tell you; I have learned the hard way that the trade-off in terms of mood is so pernicious that I can never let it get out of hand like that again.

So here’s the problem, I’m still working full-time, and will be for the forseeable future; I am never going to be comfortable with the inconvenience that housework represents, and yet if I let it slide I risk letting the dirty demon back in, and I know now that sadness and shame lie down that road.  What to do?  Well I suppose the lesson of my youth, cloistered far from the bright lights of the city and from the delights of the opposite sex, would be to just buckle down and do it.  Does anyone think that is likely?  No.  What I __am__ going to do is retain a cleaner, and join the ranks, finally, not only of the middle-class, but also the middle aged.

I can afford a cleaner, particularly for this tiny flat where a pro should only need three to four hours a week to keep the situation under control.  There is a secret agenda here that panders to my own self-knowledge as well…  If I am paying for a cleaner to come and do the bathroom, kitchen and the floors and what-have-you, then I will want value for money, and I will only get that if at my end of the bargain I do two things that will ensure that whoever I retain can quickly and easily clean the flat.  As long as I keep the place de-cluttered, and the washing-up done, then a professional cleaner can make this place shine in a couple of hours – I have no doubt.  It’s a little pathetic that I have to rely on my own northern heritage and ability to wring all of the life out of any service that I pay for to encourage myself to carry out the mundanest of tasks, but if it works it works…

At least in days and weeks to come I will be able to say that I got some help, and the help, helped… 😉

.

EOT

The evening sun, streaming through the quartered windows, warmed her skin where it fell. She was not sure why she had been moved to lie down in this patch of sun, but now that she was there she just enjoyed the sensation of having the warm sunlight play across her body.

She ran her hand down the inside of her thigh, opening her legs, letting the soft breeze from the bathroom’s open window play across her pussy, and then covering it with her wrist. The tips of her fingers were deliciously close; she lay just out of reach but for the tensing of her wrist. She lingered, enjoying the laziness of the moment, and building the anticipation of the second when she would give in and push her fingers between the soft folds to spread the wetness, that was starting to build, to her clit. She imagined the relief that would come and then the sharp climb towards release that she could manage so easily on her own when the mood took; held still in the sunlight letting her imagination touch her first before she let herself move.

—

This story was inspired by a photograph created by Scott Church, you can see it here.

The evening air was cold and bitter as he climbed up out of the Underground station and started to head down The Strand. December in London, away from the madness of Regent Street, Bond Street and Oxford Street, was oddly subdued. The few signs of life were of groups of colleagues having their Christmas jolly or not-so-jolly depending on whether it was a joy or a chore, and the odd fast moving business man or freelancer zipping between Covent Garden and the offices on The Strand.

Not one of them could see what Jonas could see. He hated this time of year; there were far more shades on the streets. If you can see the dead without casting magic or using talismans – if you can just see them – then there are many kinds of entities that might trouble your sight. Shades were a particular dislike for Jonas. A ghosti that does not know who it was in life, and that cannot communicate in any way apart from by instilling fear is no fun to spend time with. As he passed the Aldwych one of them tried to get his attention.

She felt good tucked in under his arm; he felt comfortable holding her close to his body, and it felt clear to him that neither of them was under any illusions about where this walk was going to end up. She squeezed him a little tighter and it occurred to him that she was probably having the same thoughts; walking along as they were without speaking. That was the other thing that felt good – he was not desperately trying to think of something to say to her.

She rubbed the top of her head against his neck and a little jolt of unbidden joy flew down his spine. It was the mystery of human chemistry, to his mind, but clearly his body liked her just fine.

Back at her house she let them in and pointed to the sitting room while she headed for the kitchen. He shed hat and jacket and stood at the hearth. Moments later she returned with two shots, and a joint. She placed the joint on the coffee table and passed him a shot glass.

They both downed their shots, she pointed down at the joint;

“After.”

Then she was kissing him.

The soft morning sunlight slowly trickled over the village like soft golden syrup as the sun came up that morning. From above the village, it looked to Peter as though someone had opened an unseen blind, slowly, and light had spilled across the landscape, like paint from a tin carelessly kicked over.

He was glad of the light; soon he would be in his bed and his younger brother would be about the task of watching the sheep. To many it might seem to be a dull existence, the life of a shepherd, but that night alone he ahd chased off two different wild dogs and less than a week before he had been required to face down a family group of wolves who seemed to want to eat his sheep. When not protecting the flock from the local fauna there was plenty of time to think and contemplate the world, and even to read. His father had been adamant that he learn to read and now he was almost never away from home without a book in his knapsack.

He could hear Tom coming up the hill, and so he got to his feet to greet his brother.

“Honestly, Sal, I don’t know what else to do.”

Her friend shook her head and smiled.

“Let me get this straight, you have made eyes at him, squeezed and hung on longer than the friendly hug, and even landed a kiss on the lips, rather than the safe cheek or forehead , and he hasn’t realised that you quite fancy him? Outrageous! What with men being such perceptive and frankly psychic creatures. He’s just toying with you Jen. He knows you’re panting for him and he just wants to see how hard you’re prepared to work!”

Sal tried to hold her serious face as she finished her analysis, but it only held for a moment before she collapsed onto the bed in peals of laughter.

Jen looked at her, confused, and started flapping her mouth like a fish, failing to come back with a witty rejoinder.

As Sal recovered her composure she saw this display of speechless frustration and nearly lost it again.

“Jen you need to talk to him. Do you know how many times most men get slapped for getting all those signs wrong before they get to thirty?”

What does this mean? She clearly enjoys being close to me, being held by me, even to kiss my cheek. Normally I can tell if the affection that a woman shows to me is sisterly or not; chaste or not. This woman I cannot decode. It’s as if she can only broadcast in NTSC and I am PAL, as if her messages are enigma encoded, but using tomorrow’s keyword and I only have today’s.

It’s fair to say that I am not confident at the moment; part of my uncertainty is a rather pathetic ‘are you sure? really?’ reaction to signals that in my youth I bolted at, without any concern for the potential awkwardness if I had misunderstood them.

Is she attractive, you ask? I find her very attractive. I mean to do her no disservice in saying that she is not the kind of attractive that ends up on the front of magazines or in music videos; in fact I mean to honour her by saying such. She is beautiful indeed, but more than that there is a spark in her eyes and a candour in her character that is intoxicating. I should just ask her? Kiss her?

The moments ticked by at a snail’s pace, time slowed down by the weight of realisation as we all saw the truth in what Philip had just said. It was still hanging there;

“You don’t have any rights, you fools. You’re all here trying to find a way to improve education and you haven’t realised that the people who really own our country do not want the vast majority to be educated, or liberated in any way. Who would run the machines, do the boring clerical work? Don’t you children realise that there is no power-block currently in the world that could survive an entire generation thinking for itself?”

We were all looking at each other, and then at the floor or desks or our hands, desperate to not make eye contact and find acceptance in the eyes that we met. It was too hard to imagine; surely none of us were prepared to be that cynical?

I looked up and allowed my gaze to find Amy’s. She was crying, silently. I let her see my own pain, hoping that this small act of solidarity, in hope, might in some way touch her soul.