Down Drinking at the Bar

Joe Morrison wasn't particularly happy. His wife, who had been much too fond of drink had developed Korsakov, and she'd been in a care centre for years. He usually visited her in the afternoons.

Life was lonely at home; it had been lonely for as long as he could remember. There were a few comforts he'd stuck to, all those years: his collection of poetry, string quartets, a dram before bed and the barmaid at the Rose and Crown.

She had no idea that he enjoyed her presence; but whenever he went to the pub he would sit on a narrow bench halfway across the public bar and look at her from time to time. She was called Polly - he didn't know her family name - and she was a buxom woman with a friendly smile and something in her face that always touched him deeply.

A friend of his once asked him why on earth he went to the Rose and Crown? It wasn't particularly fashionable, and it was a few miles from the village - the village pub had a very good name.

"Yes," he had said, "but at the Rose and Crown the barmaid hands out daydreams free with the beer."

His friend had come along one day to find out what he meant, but he only saw an indifferent woman that could not elicit any enthusiasm in him. "Oh well," he had said. "The beer's quite good anyway."

Joe didn't mind; his daydreams were his alone. He often wondered what it would be like to spend the night with Polly, and to have her special smile directed at you alone - he especially loved her brown eyes. When she smiled at him while she took his order there were little creases in the corners of her eyes that did something half nice, half uncomfortable to his heart - but then, she was ten, maybe fifteen years his junior, and he didn't even dare to put his feelings into words.

One night he came in to find Polly wasn't there. He asked about her as lightly as he could, and the publican told him there had been a couple of drunk strangers round the night before who had tried to get it off with her. She'd done a lot of struggling and a few of the regulars who'd found her fighting in the car park had freed her but she'd been severely injured. She was in hospital now and he hoped it wouldn't be long before she was back again as he could hardly manage without her.

Joe felt his heart sink. "Oh no," he said. "Which hospital is she in?"

He was told, and he decided to go and visit her the next morning. He found her looking ghastly in a clean white hospital bed, all wrapped up and with a couple of drips - but she was conscious and she smiled when she saw him enter.

He apparently was the first to visit her - after all, she was only the barmaid, she said a little bitter.

He sat down at her bedside and tried to entertain her with a couple of stories, and the latest news from the village, and when he left he asked if there was anything he could do. She thought for a moment and then she asked if he could arrange for her things to be washed and could he perhaps bring her a book of Sudokus?

He took her washing home and washed it - he had a good washing machine and he was accustomed to doing things; his wife being ill had made him rely on himself. It was a little strange to be handling her underthings; but he didn't really mind - it actually felt very nice to be intimately involved with her in a way.

Over the next days he developed a routine visiting Polly. As he was her only visitor she was really looking forward to his visit; and they struck up a pleasant rapport.

Polly was slowly recuperating; she looked more like her old self again, and she felt her spirits return. She felt capable of reading again. There was a couple of romance novels Joe had brought her on her bedside table next to the flowers and a bowl of fruit, and she had started on one of them. It was a rather risqué one in its genre, and she felt quite turned on by it. Eventually she became so hot and worked up that she pushed the blankets off, shoved her panties down her legs and began to masturbate. She had a room of her own - and then to her shock Joe walked in.

Joe had to go to the barbers later that morning, and so he had decided to visit Polly half an hour earlier than usual. He put down her washing and then saw Polly half naked, looking at him with shock in her eyes and trying to sit up to retrieve her panties.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Joe said. "I should've told you - but it's alright, don't you worry."

He went back to the door.

Polly didn't want him to leave - and the she decided she might as well ask him to help her come.

"Joe," she said as he was about to leave the room, "won't you finish this for me?"

He turned beet red. Did he? Actually, yes. He turned around and stood beside her at the foot of the bed.

He looked at Polly's sex and saw how puffed-up and hot she looked, and he put out a trembling hand. He touched her very softly, almost reverently, and then tried to make her feel as good as he possibly could. He felt her pussy lips and parted them to look at the coral inside, and then stroked the soft inner labia at took them between his finger to feel their texture.

Polly lay back and enjoyed his ministrations. They were quite different from what she was used to; her occasional men friends were a lot rougher with her. Joe seemed to place her on a pedestal. She wasn't sure if that was what a woman wanted, but for once...

He slowly worked her towards the tops of her enjoyment, taking his time and making her feel treasured in a way she'd never experienced before. When she finally came it was a prolonged series of small orgasms that shook her being and filled her with a strange happiness.

"Thank you very much," she said when she was capable of speaking again. "Come over; I want to give you a kiss."

She gave him a chaste kiss on the mouth which seemed to burn on his lips. He helped her put on her panties again, and they sat talking for some more time.

When he left he realised he'd missed his appointment at the barber's. He drove home deep in thought, and before he washed his hands he held his fingers to his nose. The smell made him shiver.

They didn't mention what had happened at his subsequent visits; it didn't change their rapport, nor did it cause any uneasiness between them. Polly grew well again rather fast after that - it almost seemed as if she'd regained her lust for life.

When she was released from hospital the both fell into their old rut again. The year slowly turned to autumn, and then to winter, and Joe would often go to the Rose and Crown; the same daydreams he'd always had helped him through his waking hours though he knew them for what they were, just daydreams.

A couple of days before Christmas Polly, who'd felt rather lonely for a long time, decided she'd invite Joe over for a nice cuddle. Joe blushed fiercely and began to stutter. He told her he'd always dreamt about that, but with his wife in the care centre, and it being almost Christmas he didn't dare accept her invitation. Polly nodded. She understood, but Joe saw the hurt. So what would he have?

Joe shook his head. "I think I'd better go home," he said. He walked to the car park, and noticed it had started to rain, and it was very cold. The thermometer on his dashboard said it was minus three degrees centigrade.

Joe started his engine. He didn't drive off, but just sat staring out into the darkness, wondering whether he should go in again and accept Polly's invitation after all. No. He decided against it and with a heart full of pain he drove off. On the way he kept thinking of Polly - and then a line from one of his favourite poems came to his mind, on of the most desolate ones he knew, and that he'd never completely understood:

then shall i turn my face, and hear one bird

sing terribly afar in the lost lands.

Now I know what it's singing, he thought. Now I'll never - and then his wheels skidded on the thin layer of ice that had formed on the road and his car hit a tree.

Some days later, just after Christmas, one of the regulars sat down at bar. "Isn't it sad about old Joe?" he said. "He must have driven too fast, I suppose."

"Joe?" Polly said with a knot in her stomach. "What happened to Joe?"

"Didn't you hear? He drove into tree. Must've been dead at once."

"Oh no," Polly said. She slumped down with her arms on the bar, put her head on her arms and cried.