The Bitch Is Back

A woman with a Shakespearean name clacks up the stairs in four inch heels. She is bony, in a beautiful way, reminiscent of Audrey Hepburn. She fiddles with her long auburn hair nervously, her long fingers getting caught in the tangles. Originally he thought it was a boy's name. Hero. When he sees a woman ascending the staircase he suddenly realizes his preparation was all wrong. He needed tea, not whisky, and a tie and jacket and trousers, not an unbuttoned, untucked shirt with jeans. He's spent three years looking for this woman. Suddenly he wonders what she looked like at 18, and realizes that this would border on perversion and decides to concentrate on the envelope that could change her life. He doesn't know what she's been through for this envelope. Six months of daily AA meetings, recitals of the Twelve Steps til she got ulcers, a trip across France to find someone that she herself had been searching for. This envelope contains what could be termed by more melodramatic men as her destiny. He is not melodramatic. He is aware that she may cry. He doesn't know whether it'll be with joy or sorrow. He hasn't yet looked at the sheet. She presses down on the door handle, pushes open the glass door and walks towards him.
"I believe you have something of mine," she says. She is unnervingly confident; her eyes are blue and her gaze arresting.
Silently the envelope is passed over. The manicured nail slides under the glued down flap, and the small sheet is pulled out. Her only sign of emotion is a raise of the left eyebrow. He tries to avert his gaze, feeling that her parents should be here, a friend, a sibling, a boyfriend. It is intensely private, and yet she is sharing it with someone she has never met before. She looks up at him and he waits for the tears to fall. They don't. Instead she crosses her legs, puts the sheet of paper back inside the envelope, and sets the envelope down on the desk.
"Tell me about yourself, Antonio."
He is thrown and he likes it. He pours the whisky and it starts there.










Opinions please.


Happy Birthday to Justin for Thursday, cos you just KNOW I'll forget. Love xx


As for my birthday, we're meeting in Bar Suede in Concert Square at 8.30pm on 3rd February. All the cool kids will be there, drinking fishbowls. Come see us babies x