Tracks - A Love Story

Our eyes met across a crowded room, or at least that’s what I would always tell people when they asked how we met, because ‘Brendan88 has viewed your profile’ doesn’t quite have the same romantic appeal. Not that I was embarrassed to have met the love of my life on Guydar, but having to explain to co-workers and cousins exactly what kind of app it was made the whole thing seem unnecessarily seedy. And I’d had enough of seedy by then; take the last man to send me a message before you, ‘Shy_Guy_6’, who communicated solely via dick pic and emoji. I tried engaging him in polite chitchat but that just got me a close-up of his anus followed by a winky face.

Thank god, then, that you replied to my message. You’ll never know how long I deliberated over what to say, before finally settling on an unimaginative but reliable ‘Hi', hitting Send, and holding my breath. In my head I call it ‘the last hi’, because I deleted the app immediately following our first date. Amy called that move ‘a little keen’ but I preferred to think of as ‘quietly confident’.

We spent a fair portion of that date sharing war stories from our respective experiences of online dating, laughing about the various deviant requests we’d received, both of us aware but unwilling to admit just then that we were drained, that loneliness is infectious and if we were forced to spend any more of our lives typing out gambits to strangers in text speak then it wouldn’t be long before our messages became tainted with the same desperation as all the others. We were each other’s saviour.

You were the most serious relationship I’d ever had, and even though I never said it in as many words I think you knew. You’d had a couple of proper boyfriends before, none of this was new to you, and that bothered me sometimes, but mostly I was just happy. Amy thought that the six month mark might be a bit early to move in together, but we joked that in gay years we were an old married couple. Not that we bickered much; mostly I hated it when you stole my aftershave and you would turn the air blue whenever you tripped over a pair of my shoes in the hall. It was tiny stuff though, silly stuff, because we were in love and we trusted each other.

And I did trust you. I wasn’t spying, I swear, but my phone was dead and I needed to check my email so I used yours, and while I was scrolling through work memos a notification popped up with a  familiar little chirp. A message from Guydar; ‘VersFunSW4 has viewed your profile.’

And that was when morbid curiosity overtook me, and I opened the app which was still on your phone almost a year after I deleted it from mine. Maybe you just forgot it was there, I reasoned with myself, but then I saw your updated profile pic, tanned and gorgeous in Barcelona. I took that photo myself, had even remarked afterwards how handsome you looked in it. Was that what made you choose it? It was certainly a success with the men on Guydar, judging from all the messages complimenting you on your eyes, your smile, one even saying he was captivated by the chest hair peeking out from under your shirt collar.

I felt sick. Sicker still when I saw your responses, all LOLs and winky faces at first but then less coy. Lengthy, intimate exchanges where you implied that you and your boyfriend had an ‘arrangement’, where you described in detail exactly what you would do to LondonSub22 and TroyBoy and all the others. And I realised that I hadn’t been your saviour after all, because you had never been lonely, you had a phone full of men just gagging to keep you company. I was crying by the time you walked in, that awful messy kind of crying where the words don’t want to come out, but you pieced it together quickly enough, grabbed your phone out of my hand and stormed out.

The thing with fights is, they usually end. Whether it ends with shouting or tears or sex or exhausted indifference, there’s always something. But that was the last time I saw you. Hours later when my phone rang and it was your name, I ignored it. I ignored it the second and third time too. When I finally did answer, it wasn’t you on the other end. It was a nurse who had been trying to get through to your emergency contact.

‘It was incredibly quick’, she told me. ‘He wouldn’t have felt a thing.’

That was a year ago. Just over, actually. I stopped counting the days after the first anniversary. Amy has finally convinced me it’s time to move on, maybe even to go on a date. But the thought of walking up to a guy in a bar and starting a conversation makes my stomach hurt, so I compromise, and say I’ll think about downloading Guydar again. It’s another month and a half before I finally give in and actually do it.

Shy_Guy_6 is still doing the rounds with his smut and smileys. They’re not even up-to-date photos; he’s spamming me with the same picture of his penis that he first sent over two years ago. This fills me with white hot, utterly irrational rage. I’m typing out a message to him, a furious demand to show his face or get the hell off this app forever, when my phone vibrates with a notification.

‘Brendan88 has viewed your profile.’

At first I think I’m reading it wrong. But there’s no mistaking the picture in the profile; not the one I took in Barcelona, but the one  you had two years ago. The first glimpse I ever got of you. It’s you, or at least a few thousand pixels of you, and I’m so deliriously happy to see it that it doesn’t register at first that this is impossible.

It’s a catfish, I think. Some scumbag found this picture of you in a dark corner of the internet and fancied taking it for themselves. ‘Despicable,’ I mutter. But what if it isn’t? What if this is really you, and you’ve found a way back to me? I have so much I want to say. I might even finally get to break up with you, and it would serve you fucking right.

I look at my Guydar tracks. The last person to view my profile before you was a Belgian in a gas mask. I realise with a sinking feeling that I could actually do worse than a cheating ghost or an identity thief. So I type out an unimaginative but reliable ‘Hi’, press Send, and hold my breath.

~

The Selfie of Dorian Gray

The moment the shutter on the camera clicks, Dorian feels different. He is momentarily short of breath; it is almost as if, by capturing his image, the iPhone also drew the very air from his lungs.

“Preposterous,” he mutters to himself, and looks down at the picture he has just taken.

This, he realises, must have been how the accursed Narcissus felt, upon first catching sight of his own reflection in the river. Never before have his own eyes seemed so blue, his hair so golden, his lips so full.

It is, without a doubt, the perfect selfie.

~

“Don’t you dare hang up on me,” Sabina howls down the phone, like the proverbial banshee. “We are not finished here, you owe me an explanation!”

“Darling,” Dorian replies, in what he feels is his most reasonable tone, “I’m sorry if you got the wrong idea about me. But I’m just not looking to settle down. When did I ever say otherwise?”

“How cold you are,” she spits. “How cruel. So you think it’s alright to sleep with other girls? With other men? Do my feelings matter at all?”

Dorian ends the call.

“Needy, needy girl,” he whispers to himself, shaking his head. To take his mind off the whole debacle, he decides to check how many more likes his selfie has racked up. Twelve since he last looked. Satisfied, Dorian is about to return his phone to his pocket when he notices something. Something off.

He raises the phone to his face and squints. Impossible!

The picture has changed. His eyes are still blue, but paler; they have lost some of that trademark twinkle. His lips are still red, but they don’t look quite as full.

“How can this be?” He utters, but there is nobody in the room to respond, and of course the photo can’t very well speak for itself. Sabina called him cruel; this is a likeness of a cruel man. But that image was taken weeks ago, before he even met Sabina. Before he slept with her, and then her best friend, and then her brother.

But still, it’s undeniable – the picture has changed for the worst. Dorian shrugs, and puts his phone away. What does it matter? A glance in the mirror reassures him that in the flesh, he has never looked better.

~

Time is kind to Dorian, and unkind to those around him. With each year that passes, the selfie ages. With each heart he breaks, with every tramp he hits in his Mercedes, the eyes on the screen grow ever narrower and more flint-like, the smile gradually curling into a sneer. After a decade, it pains him to look at the photo at all – it has changed too drastically, reflects too much, while his own face remains precisely as it was.

There are two Dorians now, and over the years makes his peace with it, telling nobody his secret when they enquire after which face cream or cosmetic surgeon holds the key to perpetual youth. Not that anyone would believe him if he were to tell them the truth; that his withered soul is trapped in a magic photograph, belied by his own youthful, perfidious exterior.

He has long since removed the image from social media, obviously. He often wonders what would happen if he were to delete the selfie entirely. Would his every sin from those misspent years be returned upon him? Would his skin crack like parchment? Would he, god forbid, lose his hair?

Whatever spell the selfie has cast, it is a gift. To question or waste it would be a crime. And so Dorian vows to live as authentically as he can, pleasure and gratification his only commandments.

Instagrammed, immortal, and irredeemable.

~

Some Scenes Have Been Created For Your Entertainment

“This isn’t working,” said Jake. “I think it would be for the best if we don’t see each other any more.”

Annabel said nothing, although she wasn’t exactly surprised. By the time she finally thought of a suitable response, she couldn’t help but feel that the moment had passed.

“Cut,” she said. “Can you do that again, Jake? But this time, really look at me. Don’t be afraid to get a little bit intense, to make the viewer squirm, you know?”

“For god’s sake, Annabel!” He snapped. “Can’t you see that this is the problem? I can’t indulge you any longer. I won’t go on being a player in this little show of yours. None of it is real – the whole thing is just too weird.”

Annabel frowned, hoping his comments hadn’t hurt Bill’s feelings. Bill was her cameraman.

“I understand,” she said, “but if we could just give this one more go –”

“No, Annabel, it’s over.”

“Oh, I know that,” she said. “What I meant was, could we give the breakup another go? One more take, maybe two. I think we’re so close to nailing it.”

Jake’s lip curled up in disgust, but she signalled for Bill to keep rolling. Sure enough, Jake stood up and stormed out of the restaurant. With the right editing, it would make the perfect cliff-hanger before an ad break.

Annabel was the first to admit; reality TV wasn’t for everyone. She’d had some doubts about it herself, when she first got the call from the production company. Because no matter how unseemly your average Guardian reader might find it, the qualms of the prospective starlet are double. Was she anxious, apprehensive even, at giving a film crew unlimited access to her life, of forfeiting mherprivacy for god knows how long? Of course. But she also knew that the show, The Sweet Life, was too big an opportunity to give up.

At the end of their first day of shooting, Bill had taken her aside and told her she was a natural. It took some getting used to at first; having to enunciate more, conducting the same conversations over and over in order to form a seamless narrative in the edit. And then there was the camera. She soon learned to suppress the instinct to smile or ‘act’, and just behave nonchalantly. It was funny, really. She’d always felt special. Like, maybe in another life she might have been Cleopatra, or Marie Antoinette, or Cheryl Cole. Turned out, she was born to be a TV star, which she thought beat being Kate Middleton any day.

When Annabel arrived home after her disastrous lunch with Jake, Mum and Dad were sitting in the living room. She positioned herself far enough away from the window that the late afternoon light wouldn’t ruin the shot, then said brightly:

“Hi kids! What’s new?” She talked to her mum and dad as if they were the young, hip parents of a 90’s sitcom. Apparently the fans loved it.

“Darling,” Mum beckoned for Annabel to sit next to her. Instead, she perched on the arm of the sofa, to better show off her Jimmy Choos. She was hoping to get an endorsement.

“We ran into Jake this afternoon,” Dad said. “He told us what happened.”

Damn. If Jake was blabbing to all and sundry about their recent split, it wasn’t going to come as much of a surprise to viewers when the episode aired.

“I won’t lie,” she said, with a heart-heavy sigh, “I’m really hurting right now.” This could be the episode’s closing act, she decided. The star of the show, letting down her confident, ready-to-take-on-the-world exterior, and showing her true feelings. There had been talk of a National TV Award, so she needed to give it her all.

“Why don’t you tell us your side of it, love,” said Mum, supportive as ever. Annabel had told her more than once that she was a firm fan favourite, but she’d hear nothing of it.

“Good idea,” said Dad. “Who dumped who?” Unfortunately, Dad’s directness had garnered him less in the way of a fan base.

“He…” Annabel paused, and let her voice falter. “He broke up with me. I never thought I was the kind of girl who needed to be with a man, but he made me really happy.” After another long pause, she added, just for good measure: “I'm heartbroken.”

“Oh, love…” Mum reached out and took Annabel’s hand in hers. “Did he say why?”

She hesitated before replying, reluctant to bite the hand that fed her, then resolved to tell the truth. She’d only be seen as braver for it.

“It’s the show,” she said. “It was all just too much for him.”

Mum’s expression changed.  She glanced at Dad, then turned back to face her.

“Annabel,” she said, in that gentle yet firm way of hers, “we’ve talked about this. There is no show.”

Annabel laughed. “What are you talking about?” Is this some kind of meta joke, she wondered, or perhaps something for the DVD extras?

“It’s all in your head, Annie,” Dad said. “The Sweet Life, the cameras, everything.”

Something in the way Mum and Dad looked at each other, that worried glance they shared, made Annabel uncomfortable in a way that being dumped by Jake just hadn’t.

“But Bill,” she said, no longer concerned with breaking the fourth wall.

“Bill’s not real either,” Mum said. “Look around. See for yourself.”

She turned to where Bill always stood when they were filming downstairs; in the doorway, where he could capture the entire room. Except he wasn’t there now.

“No,” she said, “this isn’t right. I’m a natural. People love me.”

Her eyes began to sting, and Mum pulled her into a tight embrace. Why did she feel like this conversation had happened before? Why did this feel like the umpteenth take? Tears quickly followed, and as she cried into her mother’s silk scarf, Annabel thought she heard Bill’s voice in her ear:

Give that girl a BAFTA.

~

I Saw Daddy Kissing Santa Claus

 I saw Daddy kissing Santa Claus.  That was this time last year.  I don't see much of Daddy these days.  Mummy made sure of that, with something called an injunction.  I can't say I'm 100% sure on what an "injunction" is, but it sounds painful, and I think it involves needles of some kind.  Now it's nearly Christmas again, and I've been really good this year, so I’ve written a second letter to Santa with a very special request. 

I asked if he and Daddy could come down from the North Pole where they live together, and have Christmas dinner with me and Mummy.  I haven't told Mummy about the letter, as every time I mention Daddy she starts throwing around the word "migraine" and then I have to go and play in my room.  I think it is best kept a secret, for now at least.  After all, everybody is nicer on Christmas Day - surely if Daddy and Santa show up, she'll have to make them welcome?  We did a whole play on it at school.

Tonight is Christmas Eve.  Mummy has laid out a carrot for Rudolph, but she refuses to leave a mince pie or glass of milk for Santa.  I feel the beginnings of doubt in the bottom of my stomach.  What if she goes into one of her very grown-up strops tomorrow?  I know there is nothing to be done about it now, so I let her tuck me in and kiss me goodnight, then squeeze my eyes shut.  I can't get to sleep straight away, so I occupy myself by trying to remember all the names of Santa's reindeer.  There's Rudolph, of course, but I always struggle with the others.  Donner.  Dancer.  Prancer.  Dasher?  Cupid and Blitzen.  The other names evade me as I drift off.

I wake up early the next morning, and run into Mummy’s room, shaking her shoulder until she opens her eyes and grumbles at me to put the kettle on.  I carefully make a cup of coffee, like she showed me, and take it up to her in bed.  She gulps half of it down and then smiles at me mischievously, reaching under her pillow and retrieving a small red box with a green bow.  She hands it to me and I rip it open – it is a new bicycle bell. 

“Your bike will look good as new with that snazzy new bell,” she says, finishing her coffee.  I force a smile and I say thank you, even though I feel a little crushed.  I’d asked for a brand new bike this year.

We go downstairs together and Mummy makes us both cheese toasties for breakfast.  When I have eaten mine, and washed the crumbs from my hands, I am allowed to choose a present to open from my stocking on the hearth.

It is a book.  I smile and say thank you again, slightly less convincingly, and then I give Mummy her present, the one I have spent the last few weeks working on.  I’ve made her a photo album.  I have avoided putting in pictures of Daddy, so mainly it is just photos of Mummy and me, padded out with pictures of Mummy’s brothers and sisters and Granny and Granddad.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Mummy says, tearing up.  “I love it.  Thank you.”  She hugs me so tightly that it hurts a bit, and kisses me on the cheek, leaving a wet lipstick print behind.  I wait until her back is turned and rub my cheek furiously with my sleeve.

The next present I open is a bookmark.  To go with the book, I suppose.  I can’t help sighing just a bit, and immediately I feel the room go cold.

“Sorry, darling, if this isn’t quite up to scratch,” Mummy says icily.

“No,” I protest, “it’s fine, honest.”

“Fine?  Oh, it’s fine?  Well maybe if your pervert of a father hadn't decided to up and run off with Pere Noel, we'd be able to afford better presents.  But he didn't.  And we can't.  So you'd best like it or lump it, my little prince!"

I apologise, and Mummy calms down.  I am starting to seriously rethink my genius plan when the doorbell rings.  It can’t be them, can it?  Daddy and Santa?  It’s too early!  I look at the clock and realise I must have woken up later than I thought – it’s nearly noon.

“Oh no,” I whisper under my breath, and as Mummy leaves the room to answer the door, I think I might be sick.

“What are you doing here?!”  I hear her shriek from the hallway.  “And you brought him with you?  What were you thinking?”

“We thought you knew,” I hear Daddy say, calmly. “We got a letter…”

I don’t hear the rest of the conversation, but I am familiar enough with the stern, adult tone they are using with each other to know that I am in serious trouble.

When Mummy re-enters the living room, she is followed by Daddy and Santa.  Santa isn’t wearing his uniform, which surprises me at first, but then I imagine he must be shattered after his night shift.

“I think you have some explaining to do,” Daddy says to me, but I am just so happy to see him that I begin to tear up, and simply run into his arms.  Suddenly, the loudest thing in the room is Mummy’s silence.

“Please let them stay,” I plead into Daddy’s jumper.  “Please can they stay?”

I don’t have to be able to see Mummy to sense her exasperation as she sighs and reluctantly agrees.

“Thank you,” Santa says quietly, clearly embarrassed by the whole thing.

For the next few hours, Mummy busies herself in the kitchen preparing lunch, clutching a glass of white wine like a good luck charm, leaving Daddy, Santa and me in the living room, playing with the toys they brought me.  I am so grateful to have them there that I don’t dare ask Santa why I didn’t get the bike I asked for in my first letter.

When the four of us sit down together, Mummy insists on carving.

“After all,” she declares, “I’ve become the man of this house.  It was a desperately deprived role.”

Dinner is eaten in near-silence, and I start to feel rather foolish.  This is far too much like the Christmases we had before Daddy moved in with Santa – quiet and tense.  I finally understand that grown-up expression “an atmosphere you could cut with a knife”.  Maybe things would have been best if I hadn’t written my letter at all.

But it is good to have Daddy around again, even if it is only for the day.  I hadn’t realised how much I missed him until I saw him come through the living room door earlier, holding Santa’s hand.  I think Mummy has noticed too – that this is the Christmas present I wanted more than anything, even more than a bike.  I keep seeing her from the corner of my eye, watching me and Daddy.  I wonder if this means she will let me see him more. 

Over Christmas pudding and custard, it strikes me that I’ve been rather selfish.  I wished and wished for what I wanted for Christmas, when I should have been looking for a way to make Mummy less sad.  I decide that my New Year’s Resolution will be to cheer her up properly, so that she’ll be the way she used to be.

After dinner, everybody avoids looking at me when I suggest we play a game.  I think Mummy wants Daddy and Santa to go.  Santa tries to shake her hand as they leave, but all he gets in return is one of her famous frosty glances.  Daddy at least gets a hug, before he sweeps me up into a huge kiss and cuddle.  Then they are gone.

I thank Mummy as she closes the front door behind them.

“You’re welcome, my little prince,” she says.  “He’s your Daddy; I never should have made him stay away.”

“So I’ll get to see him more?”  I ask.

“Yes.  As much as you like.”  She replies.

“And might I be able to go and stay with him and Santa, up at the North Pole?”  I continue, hopefully.  Mummy freezes.

“We’ll see,” she says, finally.

~

Personal Effects

It didn’t feel like that serious a bump on the head. Certainly not enough to kill her. But, here she was, standing over her own body, wondering what exactly was supposed to happen next.  It occurred to Eliza, just a few minutes after she slipped on a stray magazine and a brief collision with the coffee table ended her life prematurely, that her living room was kind of a mess.

“Eliza Brink?” A nervous, almost adolescent voice queried from behind her.

“What the…” Eliza span around, intending to chastise this intruder. “You made me jump out of my skin!” She admonished. “Or, out of my ectoplasm.” That thought made her wrinkle her nose. “I don’t know. I’m not entirely sure what figures of speech are appropriate for this particular situation.”

She turned her attention to her new guest. Tall, skinny, with hair that could do with a good trim and a denim jacket that had definitely seen better days.

“Who the hell are you, anyway?” She asked.

“Ah! Right…” The stranger reached into his jean pocket, pulled out a tiny rectangle of paper and proceeded to unfold it until it was the size of a broadsheet.

“I am the Reaper,” he read aloud, forming the words like a child who has only just learned to read. “But fear not, Eliza, for I am here to take you to a better place.”  With that, he refolded the creased document and returned it to his pocket.

“Is that it?” Eliza asked, incredulous. “That paper was huge.”

“The rest is directions,” he told her. “I’m new.”

“How new?”

“Very.”

Eliza rolled her eyes, then sadly realised that it didn’t quite have the same effect when her actual eyes were at floor level, staring at the ceiling.

“Fine,” she said, “but I have some things to do first.”

“Oh, sorry,” he shook his head, “that’s not how it works. There’s no time allotted in your schedule for unfinished business. Seems you must have kept your house in order, so to speak.”

“Except I clearly didn’t,” Eliza snapped, “or I might not have been killed by a rogue Marie-Claire. No. I’m staying to tidy up. Can’t have anyone finding my body in this bombsite.”

“Why not?”

“Why do you bloody well think? Because by the time the story gets around, they’ll be saying I was half eaten by cats and nobody missed me.”

“Jesus, lady…”

“Oh. Oh no. Enough of the lady. I may well not be eighteen anymore, but I don’t think I’ve quite reached lady yet! Not that I ever will now, I suppose.”

It was the Grim Reaper’s turn to roll his eyes. Eliza took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, glad to discover that it had a calming effect even when no air was going taken in or out.

“Listen,” she said. “What’s your name?”

“Pete,” he replied. Eliza perched herself on the arm of the sofa and patted the spot next to her. The grungy youth sat down next to her.

“Well, Pete…” She patted his knee, relieved that hand sanitiser would no longer be an issue, and said: “Is there any way, any way at all, that you could help me out? Please?”

Pete’s eyes flitted from the hand on his knee, to her chest, and then past her to the body on the carpet.

“Are you flirting with me?” He asked. “Because, I mean, I’m flattered and everything, and you are fit, but I just don’t think I’d be comfortable doing anything…” He lowered his voice to a whisper; “…with that in the room.”

Eliza removed her hand from his knee as quickly as humanly possible, and stood. Pete recoiled ever so slightly, as if she were about to slap him, but she simply began picking up detritus from the floor.

“What are you doing?” He asked.

“Masturbating,” she barked. “What does it look like, you cretin? I’m tidying up.” She vanished into the kitchen for a moment, then re-emerged with a bin bag.

Pete could only watch, and quietly despair. What was she going to do next, go upstairs and turn her mattress? Clean the toilet? This was exactly the kind of thing he’d been worried about. What had kept him up half of last night. He’d read her file beforehand, naturally. (Preparation is key in any job, his mum had told him that, before sending him off to Nando’s, CV in hand.) She seemed like quite a handful, for his very first job. His superiors had simply said, should a “situation” arise, to simply use his initiative.

Because initiative is something one is bound to find in a seventeen year old who died by falling off a motorbike while trying to impress a girl.

“Oh, Cindy,” he murmured wistfully, “we could have been so good together.”

He had a vague notion that Eliza had gone upstairs, but was too deep in his own reverie to notice – until she descended in high heels, a fur coat and ridiculously large sunglasses.

“What… is… that?” Pete asked, resisting the urge to tell her how much it reminded him of his nana’s nervous breakdown.

“What, this old thing? Nothing.” Eliza shrugged. “Right! Let’s blow this joint.”

“Um. Not so fast… You can’t wear that.”

“Why not?” She looked down at herself, then back at him. “What’s wrong with it?”

“Nothing at all! It’s very… nice. But you didn’t die in it.”

“I’m sorry?”

“You can’t take it with you because it’s not what you died in.”

“Oh. That’s a rather unkind rule, don’t you think? What happens to all the people who die in those arse-less hospital gowns?”

“Exactly what you’d expect to happen, I’m afraid.”

Eliza grimaced, then acquiesced.  She removed the shades, then the coat, and finally stepped out of the kitten heels.  Then her eyes lit up with inspiration, and she strode over to where her body lay on the rug.

“I might not have died in them,” she muttered to herself, “but I can make people think I did…”  Then, to Pete, she said; “Come on, help me with this. Then I’ll be ready to go, I promise.”

Pete sighed, crouched by the body, and heaved the immobile torso up, enabling Eliza to wrap the fur around her own cold shoulders.

“You’re just lucky rigor mortis hasn’t set in,” Pete told her. “It would make this twice as difficult.”

“Yeah, I’m having a really lucky day,” Eliza responded, pulling both Ugg boots off the body and forcing its feet into the Manolos. Finally, she placed the sunglasses delicately onto her own face, which had turned a rather unflattering shade of blue.  The moment those glassy, unseeing eyes were concealed, she began to feel better.

“You know, the Ancient Greeks used to put coins over the eyes of their dead,” Pete said quietly. “So they could pay the boatman on the River Styx.”

“Well, those cost a pretty penny,” Eliza said, rising to her feet. “I imagine my fare will be paid a few times over.”

“You look a right picture,” Pete said, gesturing to the body with his foot. “In a nice way, I mean.”

“Don’t I?” Eliza beamed. “People will think I was off out to the opera.”

“Is it important to you?” Pete asked. “What people think?”

“I never thought so,” she said, gazing down at herself, “but yes. It is.” She was silent for a moment, then leant in as if to tell him a secret. “I had a look through my cupboards when I was cleaning. Found lots of coffee, and even more wine. Not much food. I hid a few bottles of vino in the back yard – didn’t want anyone thinking I was a lush.”

“Fair’s fair,” Pete agreed. “Are you ready to go now?”

“I think so,” Eliza nodded. She glanced around the now spotless living room, then down at her body one last time. “Come on then. Home, James, and don’t spare the horses.”

Pete smiled, even though this reference flew right over his head. He took Eliza by the hand.

“Let’s get this show on the road,” he said, suddenly nervous. Eliza squeezed his hand, and together they walked through the living room wall.

~

Juliet 2.0

It is never a good sign when your phone starts to ring in the middle of the night.  I reach out from under the duvet and fumble around on the nightstand, accidentally knocking the phone onto the floor in the process.  I mutter some choice words into my pillow and retrieve the phone, answering it while still face down.

“Hello?”

“Ty! It’s me, I need your help.”  It takes me a moment to recognise my cousin’s hushed voice.

“Jules?”

“You need to get over here,” she tells me. “Now.”

“What’s the matter?”

“There is some guy in our yard!”

“What?”

“He’s creeping me out. Can you come over?”

“Who is it? Do you know him?”

“Yeah…” I can practically hear her biting her lip. “I may have danced with him earlier tonight.  I thought he was cute, but that was before I realised he’s that psycho who’s had the hots for Rosie.  Real stalker material, you know?”

“And what exactly is he doing in your yard?”

Juliet sighs.

“I think he’s professing his love for me.”

“For you?”

“I know.  Rosie will be so relieved he’s not bothering her anymore.”

“Do you think he’s dangerous?”

“I don’t know. All the doors are locked, so he can’t get in.  But Dad’s away and Mum took one of her sleeping pills, so I’m all alone out here.  I think I’d feel much safer if you came over and told him to get lost.”

“Of course.” I stumble across the room in the dark, in search of my trousers. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.  Just shut the curtains and pretend you’re not home.”

“Thanks, Ty. I owe you one.”

“Don’t worry about it cuz.”  I hang up and pull on a shirt, before grabbing my car keys and heading out into the night.

~

A Cup Of Warm Sake

“You mean to say you’ve never seen Jules et Jim?”

I nod, and wonder why this is such a terrible crime. You would think, from the way that Sophie’s eyes have widened, that I’d just confessed to sacrificing household pets.

“It’s a classic,” Sophie tells me, which means absolutely nothing except to say that it is her own favourite film.

“If you say so,” I reply. “Personally, I think it takes more than subtitles and shagging to make a decent piece of cinema.”

For a moment I can’t tell if I’ve offended her, but then she smiles and effortlessly picks up another piece of California roll.  When she suggested sushi for our first date, I thought she was a girl after my own heart, but there’s something curiously emasculating about her nimble manipulation of the chopsticks. I fumble with my own for half a minute, then shamefacedly resort to using my fingers. 

Sophie goes on to ask me what the last book I read was, and I chew my salmon for far longer than necessary while trying to decide whether to namedrop an impressive doorstep of a novel or simply tell the truth.

“Freakonomics,” I say eventually.  Sophie gives me a look of sheer, undiluted blankness for a moment, then launches into an impassioned case for why her new favourite read, Chocolat, might be the best book ever written.  I resist the urge to ask her whether she might prefer our date if I were an actual Frenchman, and reach for the tokkuri of sake that the waitress has just brought to the table.

“Oh, no thank you,” Sophie wrinkles her nose and places a delicate, defensive hand over her tiny cup. “I can’t stand that stuff.”

I shrug and help myself.

“It’s an acquired taste,” I say, not meaning to sound half as patronising as I do.

An uncomfortable silence falls on the table as Sophie nibbles on a sliver of ginger and I drink my sake.  Why isn’t this working? I ask myself.  I’m sat across from an attractive, arguably intelligent, attractive woman, but something doesn’t feel right.  And it’s not just the chopstick thing.

I awkwardly scrape the caviar off the one remaining piece of sushi before eating it.  Sophie watches me as I do it, and her expression once again betrays my sacrilege.  I bet she’s the kind of person who drinks champagne, regardless of whether she enjoys it or not.

The waitress brings us the bill. Your server tonight was Aiko, it says.  Aiko is quite pretty.  That’s not a good train of thought to be following on a date, I tell myself. Especially when, if you play your cards right, you could still be onto a sure thing…

I pay, and Sophie doesn’t even slightly pretend to reach for her wallet; somehow that makes her seem charmingly old-fashioned.  I don’t know if it’s the beer I had before dinner, or the sake, or maybe just the way Sophie looks as she stands up and smoothens her dress, but I’m starting to feel pretty good about tonight.  At the very least, I had dinner with a beautiful girl (and I may have written my phone number on the cheque for Aiko).

The taxi rank is just down the street, and Sophie leans into me as we walk out into the cold night air.  I instinctively wrap an arm around her shoulder, and find myself baffled at how naturally all this comes when there isn’t a table and conversation and bloody Jules et Jim getting in the way of everything.

“I had a great time tonight,” Sophie says, and I say the same, even though I doubt either of us really did.  It’s just part of the ritual.  Nobody likes to be rude, not when there’s the slightest chance of coitus in the air.  When we reach the first taxi, she places one hand on the passenger door, but lingers.

This is it.  That brief, tender window in which she decides whether or not to invite me back to hers for a nightcap.  I can tell almost straight away that whatever I’ve done tonight has been enough to swing the verdict in my favour; as I am about to bid Sophie goodnight, she stands up on tiptoe and kisses me.

She’s a little more forceful than I’d expected, and she tastes like lip gloss and salmon, but I’ve kissed worse.  Yet still, I pull away.  Some girls are just like caviar.  I know I should like it, but for some reason I just don’t.

At first Sophie looks confused, then wounded, but they both quickly give way to icy indifference.  “Night then,” she sniffs, and gets into the car.

It was a lovely first date, but I very much doubt there will be a second.  Why? A horny, indignant voice in my head asks as Sophie’s taxi vanishes around a corner. Why on earth would you pass that up?

“Because,” I tell myself out loud, “I am warm sake, and she is caviar.”

~

Saint Pris

Rick Hartman took one final puff on his electric cigarette before pocketing it as a skinny girl in a headset ushered him into the hotel room. He reached instinctively for a stick of gum, remembered that was no longer necessary, then decided to have one anyway – it would calm his nerves.

“Don’t fuck this up,” his editor had cheerily told him this morning. “Did you know how hard it was to get a whole half hour with Saint Pris?”

Not that hard, it would appear, otherwise they’d be sending golden boy David Everett instead of Rick, who had gained the unfortunate reputation around the office of being more than a little washed up. Still, interviewing the hottest musical act of the New Year might just be enough to get him back in everyone’s good books.

Rick allowed himself to be led into the centre of the lounge of the hotel suite, where two winged armchairs had been positioned to face each other. Rick took a seat in the armchair on the left, and waited. After a couple of minutes, when the gum had lost all flavour, his nerves returned. Saint Pris may have only been on the public’s radar for five minutes, but it still felt like he was anticipating an audience with royalty.

Almost quarter of an hour into his allotted time, Saint Pris finally appeared, surrounded by a small mob of makeup artists and bodyguards. She waved the entourage away as she sat down, and they vanished into an adjoining room. She looked smaller, frailer, than her photos suggested. Her pale, angular face was almost entirely masked by a massive pair of mirrored sunglasses that gave Rick the impression of looking at an insect.

Every pop star had to invent a persona these days. Saint Pris took hers more seriously than most, though. She claimed to be an extra-terrestrial princess from a distant world, and had yet to be spotted out of character. Rick found it mildly offensive that the girl’s management hadn’t bothered to put the slightest effort into their science fiction research when brainstorming a name; everybody knew Pris was the femme fatale from Blade Runner. A cyborg, incidentally – not an alien.

“Good afternoon,” Rick said, pressing the record button on his antiquated Dictaphone. “Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me.”

“You are welcome,” replied the girl behind the sunglasses, “it is lovely to meet you.” Her voice, expressionless as it was, could almost be that of a robot. Pris by name, Rick thought, Pris by nature.

“This is shaping up to be your year,” Rick continued. “A number one single, the cover of Rolling Stone, and you’re set to support Madonna on her next tour…”

“Cher,” Saint Pris corrected him.

“Of course. Cher. Anyway; very little is known about Saint Pris outside of press releases and music videos. What can you tell me about your background?”

“Saint Pris is an Archalian.”

“I see,” Rick smiled, humouring her. “But what about the woman behind Saint Pris? When did you first fall in love with music, for example? Where was your first gig?”

“Saint Pris comes from the 9^th dimension,” she intoned. Another affectation, it seemed, on top of the glasses, was referring to herself in the third person.

“The 9^th dimension?”

“Where stars freeze and water burns.”

“Saint Pris, though, it’s a moniker – an alias.”

“Correct. Saint Pris is a chosen name.”

“So…?”

Saint Pris did not respond, and Rick realised he was going to have to spell out the question.

“What is your real name?”

“Saint Pris is an Archalian. To utter the true name of an Archalian in this world is to tear down the very walls of reality itself.”

Rick leant in conspiratorially.

“Come on,” he implored. “Just between us. What’s your real name?”

“You must desist, immediately. Or you will face an unimaginable fate.”

Rick snorted. You could say what you liked about Saint Pris (and the bloggers certainly did), but he’d be damned if she weren’t committed to her art.

“Okay, okay,” he laughed, holding up his hands as if in surrender. But he had no desire to surrender. None at all. Nothing stays hidden, he thought. Even a bloody so-called Archalian has to have a birth certificate.

Saint Pris tensed, as if she had overheard his internal monologue somehow, telepathically stumbling across his intention to uncover her true identity.

“To speak the true name aloud is to condemn the entire cosmos,” she breathed. “This cannot be permitted.” And then, without another word, she removed her sunglasses.

The stare of Saint Pris was unlike anything Rick had ever experienced. At first he thought that his life was flashing before his eyes, but he knew that couldn’t be it, as the images being transmitted into his mind directly from Saint Pris’s eyes were much grander and far-reaching; wars, tsunamis, the moon landing, the hanging gardens of Babylon… The life of the world was flashing before his eyes. And Rick knew that he was done for.

The floor beneath them began to tremble, and a sinking sensation began to seep into Rick’s feet. He looked down, and the carpet itself had started to dissolve, pulling Rick down like quicksand.

“What’s happening?” He yelped, gripping the arms of his chair. “Help!”

Saint Pris simply looked at him with her saucer-like eyes, and shook her head.

“Please!” Rick begged, his knees vanishing into the quagmire. As the armchair started to subside with him, he let out a terrified scream: “Save me!”

“Give my regards to the 9^th dimension,” Saint Pris whispered into the void, referring to herself for once in the first person. “And good luck, Mr Hartman. Good luck.”

But there was no reply from Rick Hartman. The vortex swallowed him and the armchair whole, and seconds later there was no trace of him left in the hotel suite except for a battered Dictaphone on the carpet.

Saint Pris sighed, put her sunglasses back on, and carefully retrieved the tape recorder from the floor. She pressed rewind, and listened to the brief interview all the way through, from its delayed beginning to its abrupt end.

“Is that what I really sound like?” She pondered aloud, replaying it again, and again. Finally, she removed the tape from the Dictaphone and crushed it beneath her right high heel. There would be no more interviews today.

~

This little piece of nonsense was inspired by (and is therefore dedicated to) David Bowie, Lady Gaga and Lana Del Rey, among others.