Day 1 (I was five and he was six)
(Your voice is thick and sweet and almost edible. I want to bury my teeth in it and taste it).
She will never forget the first impact of hearing his voice. She’s not sure whether there is a word for that feeling, but she knows it’s like a sharp kick, it hurts and is sweet at the same time. She feels like she’s pressed back to the wall and can’t breathe, and she wants to stay there forever.
A bit like how Since I’ve Been Loving You from BBC Sessions makes her feel, painandpleasure mixed.
They spend some time in the same room (it’s a book signing, in a tiny hipster bookshop, with cheap prosecco), and she’s constantly aware of the pain and is scared how much she’s overcome by lust. He talks to her because they ended up standing next to each other, and she wants to close her eyes and bathe in the proximity and voice of this stranger, but she has to smile and say clever things.
She watches his face, trying to understand what is so special about him. He’s not conventionally good-looking – big nose, small eyes – but there is something about his face that hypnotises her, whether it’s his sparkly eyes, watching, enquiring, or his smile, lighting the room up or his smooth, his moody lower lip or his glowy skin. Too smooth and glowy for a man, she thinks. Too delicious for his own good, and she wonders whether he’s unaware of it.
He talks about the book which is being launched, and is so observant, and his opinions so funny. She tells him she loved the illustrations, and he grabs her arm and tells her, smiling very awkwardly, that he’s the illustrator.
She hovers around the door when they’re leaving, but he’s in a hurry, and disappears quickly like a firework, blinding her with a smile.
(The physical pain you cause will never go away. It’ll grow like cancer, get inside my veins and bones and finally make a home in my heart and brain and stay there, like a squatter trying to win a right to stay).
She hasn’t felt anything like that for anyone, completely losing her head within seconds – except for songs, – but she’s hoping it’s a temporary lapse of reason, it’ll go away, she’s not capable of lust (or god forbids, love) anymore. She trained herself to make desires and hungers to go away. It’s so easy without them, so nice, so tranquil.
Later, in the evening, in the bath, she closes her eyes and the pain returns with the same intensity, with his laughter in her head.
His voice is thick and sweet and almost edible. She wants to bury her teeth in it and taste it.
Day 2: (We rode on horses made of sticks)
He’s still mind-blowingly beautiful, with practically luminous skin, like some faraway prince – and her heart hasn’t stopped pounding since he brought his face very close to hers and kept his phone between them, demanding that she guesses the song he was listening to when they accidentally bumped into each other in the British Library cafe. The song is Suede’s Heroine, and she tells him the first line is from Lord Byron, and he’s suitably impressed.
(the rumours about Death were circling the city, but I’m so glad that I decided it’s some social media-induced paranoia, or an advertising campaign for a new horror film, and refused to stay at home, scared – and bumped into you)
She looks at him and thinks she’s watching fireworks and can’t believe he remembers her. He does, and they sit together, drinking bad coffee. The pain inside her is amplified by his physical closeness and her bones softly crumble each time he elbows her to make sure she’s listening to him. He talks a lot. He has so much to say, all of it fascinating. She feels so insignificant, so not pretty, so clumsy and her heart feels like the unruly, fast drums in Love Will Tear Us Apart.
(How can a middle-aged man be so fucking sparkly, making me lose my head like this, after meeting you only once).
He’s talking and joking and bombarding her with bits of information and opinions and she’s blinded by him a bit and at the same time she notices how perfect his body is, not too muscly, not too fat, not too bony, just perfect. She’s surprises herself lusting after his body like that, because she usually needs months and a deep connection to want someone that much, that immediately, that painfully. She can’t even remember the last time she actually, actively, urgently wanted to feel someone’s skin this much.
He asks what she thinks about the Death rumours, and she tells him it’s rubbish. ‘I have stared in the face of Death’ she informs him, ‘for real, and he has left toothmarks on my body and filled my veins with cold ice, and I’m not going to believe some tale that he sits next to you on the tube, touches your hand, and boom, you’re dead. It’s 21st century, for fucks sake.’
(I look at your majestic hands as I say that and feel my fingertips bruising I want to stroke them so much).
‘Tell me more’ he says.
‘Tell you what’ she asks.
‘About death’ he says.
‘Death is no big deal, once you face it once, it becomes something ordinary. Not scared of it’, she tries to sound convincing, either to herself, or to him.
‘What are you scared of then’, he asks.
(Of you, I think. Of you getting up now and leaving, I think. Of you getting up now and leaving and us never meeting again. Of not knowing what kissing you feels like. Of not feeling the smoothness of the skin inside your arms. Of not knowing your favourite song.)
‘Well’, she mumbles instead, ‘I’m scared of it getting between me and people I love. Dying sooner before I can explain to them how much they mean to me’.
‘But you’ll make them suffer more then’ he says, ‘you’re so weird’, he adds and laughs. She decides that she wants to sit on that uncomfortable chair for the rest of her life and hear his loud laughter and watch how he shuts his small amber eyes when he’s laughing.
‘Yep’, she says, ‘I want everyone to suffer when I’m dead. Cry, sob and wail and be miserable without me, because I loved everyone and brought joy to the world.’
‘Right’ he says, ‘let’s not get ahead of ourselves now. Don’t die yet please, and don’t make anyone miserable. Especially with that ridiculous story about Death Sitting Next to You going around. Show me that collection of miniatures you were talking about earlier instead’.
(Facing death has left me not with fear, but a sense of urgency. A cliche life-is-short urgency, which makes me do everything quickly, breathlessly, without sleeping. I wish I could explain I’ve already fallen for you, so hard, SO HARD, so urgently, that I have a permanent lump in my throat because of you and every love song has become about you – and life is short and I want to tell all this to you).
She doesn’t. They look at old manuscripts together, and after much awkwardness, they agree to go and see that new indie band in Shoreditch everyone is talking about.
Day 3 (He wore black and I wore white)
She’s breathless, like she’s been from Day 1. She doesn’t remember anything before that. People, jobs, hobbies – all gone, replaced by the sweetness of his tongue and his blinding presence, accompanied by a constant ache in her ribcage.
Her mother calls. ‘Are you sure it’s safe?’ she asks. ‘There are all the strange occurrences, 26 dead for no reason already, why do you need to go to another concert?’. ‘Because I do’, she answers, without explaining that she’s going to meet the most beautiful middle aged man in the world who makes her sick with the sound of his laughter and the way he fires questions at her about every little thing.
She’s even more breathless when leaving the house (he calls her, telling her that he’ll be an hour early, so they can have a beer together). She’s breathless at the thought that they’re going to have a drink, sit next to each other and be immersed in music. Her ears are ringing out of excitement and nervousness. Nympho is pulsating in her head.
He’s already at the bar when she arrives and immediately, gallantly buys her wine and is so ready to talk and talk and entertain her and make her laugh. She wonders why is he single – because he must be, going out with her like that – he’s just too perfect to be single. That feeling will never ever leave her – thinking that he’s the most wondrous thing she’s ever seen.
The band come on, and they stand at the back of the room, elbows touching, and she discovers that he talks during the gigs as well – about the gig, admittedly, but he’s full of comments and funny observations which need to shared immediately. She wishes he keeps talking because the band are great but what is even sweeter, him loudly whispering in her ear and guessing the samples in the songs and being extremely pleased with himself like a child. At the same time he manages to sing along, remember every detail about the musicians, ask her a lot of questions, airdrum and run back to the bar when she finishes her wine.
(Sometimes I wonder whether you’re real or I just created you in my mind because people like you don’t exist.)
She wonders whether this is a date. She doesn’t know the rules of the game she hasn’t played for so long, after the last loves broke her heart and cancer broke her body. She wonders again why a shiny guy like him would spend time with her.
But then the shiny guy is full of songs and excitement and adrenaline after the gig and wants to talk more. ‘I know the best Vietnamese restaurant around here’ he announces. ‘Do you like Vietamese food? Do you like those tiny dumplings they make? What sort of food do you like? Have you eaten? Do you want to have a bite?’
She’s just nodding to all those questions, overwhelmed by tenderness for this excited child, his eyes sparkly with music, wine and a bit intrigued by her.
They walk to the Vietnamese. He doesn’t remember the exact address but is sure it’s ‘around here’ because there was a publisher ‘next door’ he used to work for. She timidly suggests googling it, but he’s sure he can find it and they continue their zigzags around the A10.
He admits defeat after 40 minutes, during which he got the whole story of her life out of her and they google the restaurant. It’s very close, and closed. So they hug awkwardly and go home but agree to go try the famous soup at that restaurant later that week. (Not literally the next day so it’s embarrassingly desperate, but not too late either as they’re so drawn to each other).
Day 5 (He would always win the fight)
3 more stations to Liverpool Street (they’re meeting there and walking to the Vietnamese), and she looks at her phone camera, – unsettled, tense, unable to read or listen to music – and doesn’t like what she sees. She’s standing as the carriage is full and can’t put on more makeup while standing and she panics. She thinks another layer of facepowder, more mascara and brighter lipstick will make him like her more.
When the train pulls up at Barbican, she gets off, in order to sit on one of the empty station benches, refresh her makeup and get the next train.
The elderly man is an elegant velvet jacket is also probably avoiding the crowded train, sitting still next to her, reading The Master and Margarita (she notices as it’s one of her favourites). After she’s done with her makeup, he gently touches her hand. ‘Miss’ he says, ‘Forget him. Come with me instead.’
He’ll get annoyed and annoyed waiting for her and not getting any replies to his calls and messages, and only when watching the news next morning, he’ll realise with horror that her face is the 27th.
He’ll cry a bit, mainly out of shock and partly because he liked her a bit, and tell everyone about it: ‘poor girl, who could imagine that!’. He’ll decide to do his best to forget about her, although he’ll keep avoiding the Metropolitan line for a year.
(Nobody else will think they want to bite into the sweetness of his voice, ever again).
Short Stories
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I really like how you reference songs throughout!