British Winters

by Andrew Turner

  Chapter Eleven

  The Unwanted Gift

  Banging, someone is banging at my door. I had heard the sound of footsteps clanging on the metal of the fire escape; foolishly hoping it was for one of the other tenants. More a plain delusion than foolishness, as no one ever visits my neighbours. The ground floor is a pound shop, everything a pound, and looking at the stuff they sell it’s extortion. The first floor is Eric; he is a nice enough guy who suffers from jaundice once a month and the reason for his yellowish hue is? Yes, you guessed it, he likes a drink, though in his case I get it. Eric lives with his wife but claims she is his sister. He does this because his wife is a paranoid schizophrenic and a very unpleasant one at that. I don’t know her by name but I do know that she’s called me a ‘cunt’ more than once. In the second floor flat lives Simon, a man I’ve only seen twice. Both occasions showed him to be a lovely man, polite and even helpful yet I have never seen another soul leave or enter his abode. I live above Simon and every now and then I hear soulful acoustic melodies rise up through the floorboards. I place my ear to the ground to hear the sad tune better. Its almost like a friendship; two men alone, one playing to an empty room, the other eavesdropping into another man’s solitude.

  Bang, bang, bang!

  It’s Deb come to get her mistletoe kiss, come for the day’s final exchange of gifts. I exit the discomfort of my bed, trying not to disturb John, I mean Lou, and her young. Who am I trying to fool? The damn cat is called John. Deb bangs on and with every bang my walking pace slows.

  “Finally!”

  “I was asleep.”

  We walk to the lounge, where over a bottle of wine we tell each other about the events of the day. I’m not a wine guy, which is obvious due to my previous comments on my lack of knowledge pertaining to the term ‘oakiness’ which I have now discovered is a reference to the oak barrels the wine and other posh drinks are stored in, so yes, drink connoisseurs are saying it tastes like wood.

  The names and faces of the people in Deb’s Xmas anecdotes are lost to me, they smudge into nondescript, genderless pod people.

  “Uncle Wayne”

  “The pipe guy?”

  “No, that’s Mitch. Wayne’s the cellist.”

  “The guy with the weird lizard eye?”

  “No, that’s Dad.”

  Deb nearly spits a mouthful of wine in my face, when I relay the story of Luke dousing me with chocolate sputum. What a thorn in the side of any comedy writer, it must be, to know no matter how well crafted they are in their field, no matter how original and smart the punch line there is nothing that makes the punters laugh more than an unexpected bodily function. A fart in a church, a belch amongst toddlers or perhaps a little projectile vomiting from a young nephew onto his uncle.

  Deb has conflicting emotions when I take her in the bedroom; when I take her in to see John and her litter of three. An instant reaction of “Aww” emerges; an almost uncontrollable reaction to three new born kittens, the size of hamsters. You have to question a person who doesn’t have that kind of reaction. Like me, I didn’t have it and that’s really questionable. What kind of heartless monster am I? Baby cats, tiny little fuzzy kitties and my ‘Aww’ emotion was replaced with ‘Huh?’ To be fair, Deb’s cute and fuzzy reaction lasts all but two seconds and turns quickly into annoyance.

  “So now you have four cats you need to get rid of?” Looking into Deb’s eyes I could see hate still left over from when John made her pee in the sink.

  “I think it’s beyond that.”

  “Now you’re keeping them?”

  “I don’t know. They’re a family and they chose this place.”

  “So, if a junkie snuck in here and fell asleep on your bed he’d become your roommate?”

  “Firstly, that’s a giant fucking leap, and secondly, yes, if a heavily pregnant junkie shimmied in through the window of a fourth floor flat and gave birth to triplets on my bed I probably wouldn’t throw her out in the street or call animal control.”

  She laughed. I can’t recall the last time Deb laughed at something I said, well, laughed in a non-sarcastic way. She’s normally pissy with me, unhappy with my attitude or the way I dress. Recently, I’ve felt that our relationship has become Deb taking the man she’d fallen in love with and slowly turning him into a man she would have rather fallen in love with. It’s nice to hear her laugh. Deb’s one of those girls who try to smile without showing their teeth which nine out of ten times makes it look forced and the other time just makes them look really angry. However, a laugh takes that away. A real laugh rips the lips apart, putting the ivories on display. What a lovely human trait the big all teeth smile is, in most species the showing of teeth is a sign of aggression; in chimps it’s a sign of fear but for us it is an inability to contain one’s joy. This of course does not take into account those of you who have no choice but to bare your teeth because of size or protrusions and to you I apologise, for what, I’m not quite sure. But please take the apology all the same.

  We return to the lounge to exchange gifts. My gift to Deb is wrapped quite badly in cheap two-year-old Christmas paper. I had bought a ten metre roll of matte gold Santa Claus wrapping paper from the pound shop on the ground floor, which in this case has turned out to have been quite a bargain. She rips down the centre of the gift; it is a book, The Great Gatsby, an epic tale of love and friendship with a depressing end, kind of like The Empire Strikes Back. I’ll take back that flippant remark; it is in no way like The Empire Strikes Back.

  The classic love stories like Gatsby are always the most brutally honest. They span over years and they are more about the yearning than the romance. Today, Hollywood tries to melt our hearts over the flip flopping of two young idiots who have only known each other for a couple of days, believing that it is the early sparks of a relationship that embody the passion of real love. This is nonsense; only through time can true love ripen. Gatsby’s love for Daisy is all-consuming. It spans the globe and the ages. The love in rom-coms is a lot of ‘You just don’t get me!’ Stereotypes of guys fearing the loss of freedom whilst simultaneously fearing the prospect of growing old alone, and the female characters scream ‘Girl power’ while still taking the form of the prissy princess who needs her man. Is this love? When I think about the couples that I know, I fear real-life coupling has in fact become a generic parody of this. Is it life imitating art or the other way round? The human species is fucked; films try to depict life and life tries to mimic films. A copy of a copy of a copy of a copy leaves an unidentifiable blurry black blob.

  “Great Gatsby, cool.”

  “Have you read it?”

  “No, well I started once and… I’ll try harder this time.”

  Deb passes me my gift, wrapped as though it was a gift for the gods. I doubt it’s a young virgin, which is a good thing as I really don’t have the room for another person around here, now John’s a mother. Tearing away the paper a lengthy box emerges. God, I hope we’re not going to have another gold chain debacle like last year. I don’t wear jewellery, I feel no need to drape myself in precious metals; metals that are in some way supposed to indicate wealth and, in today’s pecking order, also your importance. Funny how it seems to be the poorer classes of society that are walking around looking like Mr T on one of his especially shiny days. No, it isn’t for me; I am neither an ancient pharaoh nor a modern day chav. I’m sure she won’t have done it again. The fighting and tears of last year will have not been easily forgotten. I know you are meant to act delirious with happiness, no matter how much you really hate the gift, but it had to be stopped in its tracks. If I had seemed satisfied when seeing the gaudy thick chain she had purchased for me, I would have been hen-pecked every day: “Why aren’t you wearing the chain I got you?” and then the guilt would set in. The guilt would have made me put it on for her, then she would get me more: sovereign rings; chunky bracelets; oh God, maybe even a diamond stud earring. Sometimes you just have to be cruel to be kind… to you
rself.

  It’s rope, shit she’s going to kill me! She laughs and smiles, not like before at my joke about the pregnant, acrobatic crack-head; the laugh is one of a naughty little girl caught with her hands in the biscuit tin and the smile is one of a stripper who’s just explained that for a little more cash there’s other tricks she knows. The rope is a sex thing. Looking at it again I notice that it is not some run-of-the-mill rope you get from the DIY store to strap down an old mattress to your roof rack. This is no coarse rope made of coloured plastic threads. It’s soft, plush white cotton; the kind of rope you get in a child’s magic set.

  “Rope?”

  She laughs again; this time in addition to the naughty girl smile she bites her bottom lip. She exits the room, then returns with a dining room chair and demands I sit on it. She grabs my Christmas-styled home knitted jumper and in one swift movement I’m topless; topless with my head stuck in the jumper. Deb gives it a final big pull, getting leverage by shoving her foot on my inner thigh. The heel presses down hard, the pain is great but it doesn’t break the skin. As my head pops from its woollen prison, I get flashing thoughts of hostage situations; the bag being removed from their head, the blinking as their eyes readjust to the light, their hair dishevelled and the fear, the fear of what is to come. Deb backs away from me, jumper in hand. She tries to remain in the sexy atmosphere she is attempting to create and she is not successful. I am not that comfortable with my hairy man boobage being out on display but I am intrigued to know where this is all going. The intrigue fades when Deb starts tying my hands to the back of the chair. Does she know about Jenny? Is this a fatal attraction moment? Her hands run through my hair, her tongue does a lap around my ear and she says, “I’ll be right back.” I hear her go into the bedroom. I hope this isn’t some elaborate scheme to tie me down so she can kill my cat, and yes, she’s my cat. I recognise that now; if it lives in your bathroom and brings life into the world on your bed it’s your cat.

  “Hey, Deb, what you up to?”

  “I’ll be in, in a minute.”

  When she comes back into the room I try to look around at her but she stops me, holding my head like a vice. “Merry Christmas, Noel.” This is the gift. Soft core bondage is the gift. I hear the CD tray open and a disc being place… In the Air Tonight? Phil Collins, that’s what she has chosen for this? Whatever this is?

  She appears from my right hand side in ill thought out fetish clothing: a black silk corset with pink lace, and a mesh tutu in matching colours. The underwear looks to be a more innocent, white cotton affair yet has some lower cheek cleavage on display to show the innocence to be a façade, as are the school-girl, knee high socks that are placed into the high heeled shoes of a street walker.

  I don’t want this. Of course I’m a guy so I do want it and by it I mean any possibility of female nudity that could end in an overrated male orgasm. Not this though, this is brutal. This is a woman I know, a fellow human being making a spectacle of herself for the sole pleasure of another and that other being me. I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place; the rock being the dead weight of guilt in my stomach and the hard place being my penis. Amazing how my brain can be a congested motorway of thoughts, few of which are of a sexual nature and still my hormones, outranking my brain, have ordered blood to gush forth into my flaccid appendage making it now a mighty version of its former self, though I have to say not any prettier.

  She starts to unlace the corset, then pauses, looks at me and shakes her index finger back and forth like a metronome in a ‘No, no, dirty boy.’ way. I want my itchy Christmas jumper back. I wish to be back in bed with my stray cat and her litter of bastards. Deb lifts a leg on to the arm of the couch to undo her shoe. There is no sexy way to do this. Taking off shoes is a fiddly operation, unless you’re like me and all you wear are tatty old trainers that you have never undone the laces or if you have shoes that are velcro fastening and they don’t make too many stripper shoes with velcro. She struggles with the buckle and so not to lose the mood she shakes her ass a bit. Deb’s been drinking all day. I hadn’t really noticed it before, but she has planned this, and so with foresight, she’s drunk her inhibitions away. One shoe off, she plops down on the couch. Time to tackle the second.

  The shoes are off, the socks too. She rolls them down, stopping every inch, slowing down to reveal her calf muscles, the ankles, heels and then toes. She has cute feet but there really is nothing hot about the unveiling of someone’s feet. The show is over. She’s got nothing left; the corset falls to the floor, the mammaries are out on display. My mouth, dry from my gawping, loose jawedness, suddenly re-hydrates itself. Deb kneels before me and takes me in her hand. Her tongue ever so lightly touches the tip, my fingers touch the loose end on the knot restraining me to the chair. I yank it like a ripcord that releases the parachute seconds before you hit the ground and in this case crash through it and into the deepest darkest realms of hell. Not that the prospect of getting a blowjob from Deb would be anything like burning in the lake of fire, on the contrary they are blissful moments of tingling pleasure. However, to allow a lover to do this knowing that in the near future you could be ending the relationship, that’s something that will most certainly make you one of Satan’s bed fellows. My arms free, I take Deb by the shoulders and push her away.

  “Stop.”

  “Stop, why, what’s wrong?”

  “I don’t want this.”

  “Really, because you’re sending very mixed messages, Noel.” Her eyes look down at my manhood, still exposed. I swiftly pop him back into my trousers and put my Christmas jumper back on.

  “I… I don’t want us.”

  She’s Bambi in the headlights, frozen in fear, frozen in the hope that if she doesn’t move neither will time and the metaphorical car won’t hit her. It’s already happening though. Our relationship is a bloodied body by the roadside of life’s journey.

  I stop the CD half way through the drum solo.

  “You’re doing this now? Christmas Day while I’m half-naked?”

  “I didn’t know this was going to happen.”

  She stares blankly up at me still kneeling on the floor. Rage builds up in her lower jaw, making it tremble. Her hand rises up in a fist; it flies in between my legs smacking me full force in the nuts. She holds back nothing. Deb runs screaming into the bathroom, and I drop silently to the floor unable to make any kind of vocalisation beyond a squeaking, wheezy sound.

  Still in pain, I wobble to the bathroom door. The lock has never worked but I know I should not enter. My forehead makes contact with the cold white gloss of the door as I lean forward. I hear Deb sobbing on the other side.

  “Deb?”

  “Shut up, just fucking shut up!”

  “Ok.”

  “How long have you known, Noel? How long?”

  “Known that it wasn’t working?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t think it ever really worked, Deb.”

  “Fuck you, Noel, just go fuck yourself! Do you know how hard I’ve worked at this relationship? I’ve watched your dumb movies, I’ve put up with the beard, I’ve ignored the fact that you won’t speak to any of my friends.”

  “That’s what I mean, it shouldn’t be this hard, if it was the real thing you’d like the beard not tolerate it. If we were meant to be together I wouldn’t fob off your friends, because we’d have a similar taste in the kind of people we like to be around and I wouldn’t be forcing you to watch movies you don’t like because we’d choose films we both like.”

  “Are you fucking kidding, are you some kind of fucking child? Give and take, Noel, that’s what a relationship is.”

  “Name one thing we have in common, one thing.”

  “Lost, we watch Lost together.”

  “Hardly the best foundation, Deb.”

  The bathroom door opens. Deb now back in her normal clothes stands in the door way, mascara tearstains down both cheeks.

  “Why wait so long, Noel? Why wait until today
?”

  “I didn’t know I was waiting, but I knew I couldn’t let you continue what you were doing tonight, not when I knew I didn’t love you.”

  “How fucking noble. You didn’t stop me sucking your dick last night.”

  “No.”

  Deb leaves and I sit on the couch cradling my sore balls. The phone rings, and, as always, I let the machine get it.

  “Noel, it’s your Mother. You are a lying little bastard. It’s Christmas Day and you don’t even have the charity to go see your own grandad. Well, he sends his love.”

  “BEEP!”

  Is there a point at which the human spirit will just break under the endless weight of the ever mounting guilt? Or does it just get stronger with each addition, finally making you immune to it and in so doing turns you into a heartless bastard, who, with his new-found lack of conscience, goes on to make millions by selling brand named gag sticks to bulimics and lipo to fat infants? Oh I long for that day, a day when I can have a peaceful and untroubled night’s sleep.