A Lifetime Romance Pt. 02

So I dried myself off with one of the plush Turkish towels the Baglioni provides in lieu of the usual thin hotel fare. Then, I dried and brushed my hair and went out to see what to do about Paul.

I tried to wake him up. There was no luck. He is a lot bigger than I am and he seemed happy where he was so I shoved a pillow under his head and called the concierge for room service.

I estimated he would be out until at least 9 AM. I figured the room service waiter could help me resurrect him if he was still sleeping.

In case I slept past nine I put on my reserve nightgown. I didn't want to open the door the way I normally sleep, meaning naked. I turned off the light and went off to dream-land.

~

Paul

I awoke curled up in a ball on the floor with the bright English sun shining through the windows.

The Baglioni's windows are designed to catch as much light as possible. In my present state, the pain that was causing was somewhere off the end of the Richter scale.

I was naked from the waist down but I was wearing a shirt, tie and coat and I smelled very strongly of "Janey". Puzzling?

Because standing up was problematic I chose to crawl to the bathroom on my hands and knees. I then proceeded to "worship the porcelain idol" for 5 painful minutes.

I hesitantly stood up, washed my mouth out and ran water in the sink. I splashed the devastated, bombed out village that had formerly been my face.

I fumbled through my kit and found the Aleve bottle and washed four of them down with a glass of water. Brushed my teeth. Sat back on the toilet with my head in my hands and ran the tapes of last night's debacle.

The last record I had was of dinner downstairs. That was definitely disturbing. I had no idea why I was sleeping on the floor with the heady smell of "girl" on my hand and my absence of pants was mystifying.

I finally stumbled back into the bedroom losing all of the rest of my clothing as I went. I peered at the bed where Janey was peacefully sleeping on her back looking like a small, and very sexy version of Snow White. She had a beautiful silk nightgown on, in keeping with that image.

I thought to myself, "Whisky Tango Foxtrot? She never wears nightgowns?" She looked healthy, relaxed and peaceful. I must have looked like the last survivor of some particularly gruesome famine, or plague, or rain of frogs.

If I didn't get coffee I was going to die.

I stumbled to the dresser, selected some underwear. Then I stumbled to the closet, selected pants and a shirt. I successfully put on the shirt. But as I was pulling on the pants I fell face first into the closet.

~

Janey

I was startled awake by loud thrashing and banging from the direction of the closet. I sat up quickly, and saw a body sticking out of the door of the thing frantically struggling to pull a pair of pants up its legs. I knew that Paul was awake.

I composed myself on the pillow and waited for him to stop swearing and emerge.

When he did he looked like a survivor of a really horrific disaster, maybe an Ebola outbreak. His beautiful blue eyes were more red than blue. His hair stuck out in all directions.

His face was actually grey and he was moving like a person who thought his head would fall off if he tilted it the wrong way.

All in all it was a VERY satisfying picture.

He actually had the good grace to look shamefaced and said, "Was I appalling last night?"

I said, "No dear."

He said, "Did I embarrass myself?"

I said, "No dear."

He said, "What did you do while I was making a fool out of myself last night?"

I said serenely, "Oh, I fucked the two Pakistani men we met on the elevator and then went right off to bed."

He did a double take and groaned. I think he knew I was kidding.

There was a knock on the door and I said, "Room service, I thought you might need some coffee when you woke up."

He was looking at me like I was Mother Theresa

~

Paul

The swearing and thrashing around that ensued must have wakened Janey. She was sitting propped up on her pillows when I finally emerged from the closet floor. She looked serenely beautiful and highly amused.

She said, "How you feeling big fella?"

I did not mince words. I told her that she was a very cruel person to laugh at the mentally impaired.

She said, "You were quite drunk last night."

I belched.

She said with laughter in that smoky voice, "You don't remember anything do you?"

I told her smugly that I remembered dinner.

She smirked.

I told her that she would no longer have a husband if I didn't get coffee into my system in the next ten seconds.

She looked at the bedside clock, which was just coming up on 9AM and said, "I took the liberty of ordering room service. That is why I am wearing my nightgown." There was a knock on the door.

I don't believe it is possible to love her more than I already do. But there are occasionally times that love zooms into hyperspace. This was one of them.

My guardian angel had ordered a full English breakfast for me and her usual croissant and fruit concoction. The smell of the coffee permeated the room. The little man in my head did a damage assessment and decided that I might live after all.

We sat in the window and drank our coffee looking out over a sunny Hyde Park. I didn't ask her what had happened after the recording equipment blew up and she never volunteered.

It was never clear to me why she was so nicely tucked in and I had spent the night on the floor. But I didn't need a PhD to figure out that some things are probably better left unexplained.