No Consequences Pt. 01

I was on a hunt for the best bag of beans in the city. I had never been to this coffee shop before — it was tucked away in an alley so I would never have found it without the Coffee Shop app. The lineup was short.

I had just asked for a pound of their strongest when a woman standing slightly behind me told the clerk to give me a pound of Bavarian Delight, then told me I should try that before I tried their strongest, French Delux, which, she informed, was very strong and quite acidic — the very taste I was looking for. But I'm not unappreciative; I went with the Bavarian Delight though I really wanted the French (and made a mental note to come back for it).

I do my own grinding so I had my bag in a few minutes and was paying when the woman said over my shoulder that she was just about to have a coffee, would I like to join her? I would have politely declined but I had the time and I had just this morning renewed a on-going pledge to myself to get out and about more often and be more social; I had gradually become something of a recluse. So even though I didn't want to, I accepted and I was soon sitting across from a woman I didn't know hearing about a blend I knew nothing about.

Her name I learned is Konrada; it's Polish, her parents immigrated years ago; she was born here although she said she was conceived there — 'a last poke in the Old Country' her father had told her. Then she told me she recognized me from a picture in the paper last month. I had won a writing award for my first novel, The Devil's Apron, a book, surprisingly, she had not only read but claimed to have loved.

"You have a load of talent," she said just before she was interrupted by a woman about her age who stopped by to question Konrada about why she recently left her job (she had been working too many hours; she needed a change). She is an accountant I learned from their conversation before I quickly finished my coffee and extricated myself waving goodbye.

As I drove home I reflected, not for the first time, on how isolating it is to be a writer, especially one who conjures stories from an imagination tempered, not from actual experiences, but from imagined perceptions — I don't have to actually do to feel; I don't have to endure to imagine; I don't have to fight or to love to write about it. My agent claims I am 'sensitively intuitive;' she says I'm adept at 'writing first hand accounts from third hand experiences.'

I'm not at all sure she's right. I am beginning to think I am a one book wonder: my one effort might have been wildly successful because I used up every original thought I've ever had. The thing I'm working on now has become an almost agonizing struggle because I am discovering I am a product of not only my enveloping isolation but my entirely middle class sensibilities. I am actually thinking of taking up boxing: I am in deep need of physicality. And I know I need to be roughed up.

In truth, I am turning into a narcissistic depressive and in the process becoming very old well before my years.

I liked the coffee but I knew I'd go back to the shop for the real thing the moment I ran out of it. I had just finished my third cup at 11:30, as always, when my doorbell rang. It never rings. She was there, the woman from yesterday's coffee shop, the woman with the Polish name; she was standing there with a bag in her hand. "I brought us some lunch," she said and almost muscled her way past me taking the bag through the hallway into the kitchen where, without asking or saying much of anything, she went through my cupboards looking for plates and glasses and, as I stood there stupefied, she soon had the food all laid out on the kitchen table and was pouring the milk.

"I don't drink milk," I said, trying to assert at least some control.

"You should, it's good for you." She sat down and began to plate the sushi, just assuming I wanted to eat raw fish at 11:39 in the morning. I didn't but I sat down obediently anyway and picked up the chopsticks, noting that this was the second time in as many days that she was coercing me into doing something I didn't want to do.

"Are you wondering why I'm here?" When she smiled she showed about as much of her glistening pink gums as her long white teeth — and there appeared way too many of them and they made such a tight U in her mouth that it almost looked like a V, giving her face a pinched look and when she smiled or grinned her rising upper lip reminded me of a raising awning, not an attractive look in a not very pretty face. I didn't have to answer, she told me. "I wanted to get to you before you're famous — then you won't have a listed phone number, never mind a listed address."

"When I'm famous," I repeated, sardonically.

"You will be ... you almost are now. You're working on your second book?"

"Labouring on my second book." I admitted, before trying a little of the sushi, or the rice part of it.

"Not going well?"

I looked over at her, actually really looking at her for the first time. She looks sober and solemn until she gets that dreadful gummy grin that gives her an almost comical look. "I'm wondering why you're here."

"So am I, but here I am — you have to eat."

I pushed the plate away. "But not this, I hate sushi and I hate it even more in the morning ... and I hate using chopsticks because I've never mastered them."

Man, did she take this the wrong way: rather than cower with the reprimand, she took it as a teaching moment. She changed chairs immediately to the one beside me and for the next 10 minutes she demonstrated with the sticks, manipulating my grip, repositioning my fingers, encouraging me and soon I had it well enough to pick up a grain of rice from the table top. It was then that I realized I had eaten pretty much everything in front of me.

"You're a quick learner," she said, smiling her gums, "and you don't hate sushi at all, you just don't like the thought of it — and you're going to love the effect of it: it's a wonderful energy source; it burns clean without any of the pollution you're probably used to."

"I liked your coffee," trying to show some appreciation.

"Good," she said, getting up and taking the plates to the sink where she washed them as I drank the last of my milk. Then, like an apparition walking through a wall, she was gone, that's the way it felt: here one moment (uninvited), gone the next (unannounced).

And back again at suppertime, back again with a bigger bag in her hand, this time with only a half-gum smile before she shouldered her way past me.

My day is a routine, seven days a week. I write in the morning from 7 to 11:30, have lunch in front of the same cable TV news program, then research, pay bills and do whatever else has to be done (buy coffee) before I go for a walk at 2:30 — I head out my backdoor and follow the ravine north or south to connect to adjoining trails for at least a two hour walk, often much longer. It's on these walks that I do all my story thinking — I dictate my ideas and much of my dialogue into my iPhone and organize it all into my computer when I get back home. So my afternoon walks generate all my next morning's work; my creative pattern would be ruined if I didn't keep the cycle going.

What would I have been doing tonight if she hadn't materialized in my kitchen again? I'd be wondering what I could make for supper out of the few groceries I'd have on hand, then I'd eat it in front of the four hours of Chris Hayes, Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O'Donnell and Brian Williams on MSNBC while I toyed with my iPad, either reading, researching or most often when I am having a difficult time writing, doing jigsaw puzzles on the thing. I am always in bed by 10:15 reading myself to sleep by 11:30.

This time she knew were the plates and glasses are; she reached for them before she took off her jacket. Then she handed me a bottle of wine to open.

"I don't believe in fast foods of any kind, except sushi," she said, looking across the Indian curry at me. "I'll make the food from now on."

"This is perilously close to stalking," I said, feeling the strange energy she seemed to create in the room.

Half-gums. "If you ask me to leave ... I will leave, of course I will. But I don't want you to. I want to get to know you ... when I read your story I thought you must be a really interesting guy. Then I read the article about you and learned you live in the city, unmarried. And I saw your picture. Then I saw you. Then I talked to you. Then I rang your doorbell."

"Twice."

Full gums now. "And I'll ring it again tomorrow. I just left my job — I thought I'd go on a trip; I was planning to go to Europe, I've never been before and I can't wait to go, but then I met you. Europe can wait."

I didn't know what to say to any of this so I tried to be cool. "And so can work?"

"Well, it can wait for a bit — I have a new job starting in a few weeks, I haven't given them a firm date yet — I need a bit of a break." She took a generous forkful of mustard-coloured chicken but before she put it in her mouth she asked, "What are you writing about these days?"

"I don't like to talk about that," this felt a bit abrupt so I added, "I don't always know ... do you always meet people this way: knock on their door with a bag of take-out?"

She finished chewing then gave me her full gums. "First time and this will be the first time I've told a guy I want to stay the night — I have a book on my phone; I can read if you're writing ... I can clean up and read."

That stopped any chance of conversation. I ate nervously while trying to figure out what I should do or say: absolutely nothing came to mind. I'd had a few girlfriends when I was younger — before I took them as a threat, but I haven't had a relationship in three years and it wasn't looking like I was ever going to get another one again. She ate quietly leaving me to twist in the wind.

When she got up to take away my plate I noticed that while she was wearing a somewhat baggy shirt she had skin-tight pants on that looked like they could be leotards.

She saw my look. "They're called yoga pants, I would never wear these outside in public but I've been told I have a good ass so I thought I'd like to play that up a bit — I know you can see my underwear — I thought it would be a bit much not to wear any." She was standing facing me, her legs a little apart when she lifted up her shirt and pulled it over her head. "Then there are these, I always try to hide them — I'm glad I've got them, it's just that they can make me feel really uncomfortable ... but not here, not now. I know I'm not very pretty so I thought I'd better use what I've got."

Through a white t-shirt I could clearly see a dark red bra holding truly impressive breasts. There were no grinning gums on display now; if her jaw seemed set in defiance, her eyes seemed clouded in doubt.

For the first time since I met her I felt a sense of my power; she was no longer the determined woman muscling through my door ... and into my life. Now she seemed a vulnerable woman in obvious fear of rejection.

"I don't think I am who you think I am," I said.

"And I'm not who you think I am, either ... if you think I've ever done this before. I haven't. You'd never ever go after me I know that so I'm going after you and I'm doing it with everything I have — I haven't quite got writer's tax law down yet but I started getting into it ... I'll sort it out soon and be useful to you."

"I have an accountant."

Full gums. "The closer you are to a client the better the advice."

I got up from the table but when I was on my feet I had no idea what I was going to do or where I was going to go.

She saw my dither. "Haven't you ever been in a situation where you wanted to use everything you could to win someone over?"

I thought back to Marian Gilford in college but said nothing.

She flung her arms up into the air. "This is me. I want you to get to know me, that's why I'm here and that's why I'm going to stay ... if I can, and that's why I'm going to come back, if you let me."

Nothing is free in life. Touch her and I could get nothing but headaches. "I always research after supper, it's part of my routine." I turned and left, feeling like an absolute tweeb ... on the one hand, but impressed by my control on the other. I didn't need any more drama in my life, I was getting enough of it these days trying to find my characters.

I once read an explanation of novel writing that just jumped off the page at me; it made the whole process make absolute sense to me. In writing a novel the author creates a bunch of characters in his head then turns them loose on a page and records how they act and interact. That explanation made perfect sense to me; my published novel was exactly that.

But I also learned that characters won't always do what you want them to, in fact, they will never do what they don't want to do — I had glimpses of this in my first go-around but they largely cooperated. This time it was like my characters don't like me: they won't budge, especially my female lead: I didn't create her stubbornness, she brought it with her — she was the reason I was going nowhere with my story.

In fact, I had been thinking of her pretty much non-stop for weeks. On my walks I put her into any number of situations but it's like she's as reclusive as I am, she doesn't want to do anything or go anywhere. I tried a number of times to dump her but I couldn't do that either; that's another thing about writing, you really get into your characters, you really want them to live, to find their full expression. But Jennifer Carter? She is totally unwilling to drag my story from one page to the next, never mind to The End.

Why? Sure, it could be that she just isn't up to the job, but I didn't buy that: she has character, she has depth, she could get there if she wanted to (as badly as I wanted her to). The problem, I had to conclude, is that I just didn't know her well enough: she would perform perfectly in the right situations, it's just that I haven't found those situations for her and I haven't found them because I didn't know women well enough — I can't predict how they'd react, especially women like Jennifer Carter ... and like Konrada Remp, for that matter, women who seemed to me to be entirely irrational to anything I might call predictable behaviour.

So what would Konrada Remp do as the lead woman in my story? How would she react to some of the situations I had to put Jennifer in? As I often did in the evenings I left the house and walked around the block thinking, this time about just that: what would Konrada Remp do? Sure, I didn't know her any better than I knew Jennifer Carter but at least I had a three-dimensional, in-the-flesh sense of her.

It struck me on my second lap and when it did I felt a huge sense of relief. Why not? Why the fuck not? I mean, sure they aren't anything alike, Jennifer is pretty and smart and a bunch of other things that I obviously hadn't fully fleshed out properly and Konrada isn't, the pretty part, at least, that gummy smile is an enormous turn-off, and the pinched face reminds me of a weasel. But they're both interesting in an odd sort of way, both unmanageable, both unpredictable. I could make Jennifer from Konrada, no problem, and if I did I wouldn't have to guess at her actions and reactions, I could kind of predict them out of Konrada ... once I get to know her, experiment with her, see what works, what doesn't. Why not?

On my third lap I was having serious second thoughts as I neared the house but on the fourth I was totally into at least trying it — what did I have to lose? I was going nowhere with Jennifer anyway, why not give her a personality transplant and why not make her metaphysics actual physics, I had the prototype — who said a heroine has to be a beauty? If it didn't work, fine, lesson learned ... nothing lost but time. Writing is a craft, right? This could be a test tool in my writers' toolbox: the character as knocked-off real person. I got excited.

When I walked up the steps to my door I was committed to trying it for three weeks if I could get her to hang around ... unless, of course, Konrada proved as unwilling in fact as Jennifer is in fiction.

You think about a woman a lot different when you need her: the stalked could become the stalker. When I flopped down in the chair in the living room across from her I had entirely forgotten about Jennifer Carter and was now fully committed to getting into Konrada Remp. But was it a good idea to get into her physically? It seemed I could but would it be smart?

The memory of her standing in those yoga pants told me I wanted to but I've never been the type to follow my cock. When I got in bed with my agent, Carol Hattersley, a woman who is over 60 — 32 years older than me, I didn't do it because she excited me, although, strangely, she did, I did it because I excited her and I thought it would be in my best interests to give her what she wanted — not all that far from my motivation wth Ms Remp.

There was another reason, too: having sex with Carol Hattersley was my first overt act of conscientiously going after a woman for the writer's experiences — I was listing them in my writer's journal, new experiences I could draw on, but, alas, in the year since I've been keeping the journal I've had bugger all to write about. Sex with my agent first happened four months ago, I know the exact date because it's in there. The weird appearance of Konrada Remp was an item I added last night ... and will be adding to nightly, if she stays around.

When I looked across at her she put down her phone, repositioned herself in the chair and gave me her full attention, her lips tight against all those teeth, her top lip having to stretch to conceal them.

"I heard you go out." She said.

"I often go out in the evenings to walk around the block; I need to walk to think clearly."

She seemed curious. "What were you thinking about?"

"My main female character, she isn't cooperating; she's fighting me on every line."

"Can I help? I'm a female ...," some gum, "although not much of a character."

"I don't know about that. How many females show up at a guy's place unexpected in leotards and a translucent t-shirt? I'd call you a bit of a character."

When she isn't showing her gums she is a tiny bit cute but either way she always manages to look cheerful as if her personality is naturally happy-go-lucky which I doubt it is, but it leans that way.

"They aren't leotards they're yoga pants. I told you why I wore them."

"Ah, yes, fishing with your body."

Gums. "Whatever works."

"Aren't you supposed to be a little more subtle than that, a little more coquettish?"

She laughed with real joy at this. "Me? Coquettish ... in my dreams."

I'm not an audacious person, far from it but she had a way of dictating events so I wanted to assert some authority and shake things up ... see how far she really would go. "OK," I said, with an impulse inspired more in my groin than in my head, "Let's see what's on offer."

My words might have been a starting gun: she all but sprang to her feet and came over to stand a couple of feet in front of me. She is obviously proud of her body; she wanted to be inspected. And I could see why. Her hips seemed at once wonderfully athletic and gracefully feminine; her stomach impressively flat adding emphasis to the erotic mound at the apex of her remarkably athletic thighs.

I reached out and put my hands on her hips, innately expecting her to object. Not a chance. Instead, as if my touch was a command, she moved closer and slowly began to turn ... until her ass was front and centre, then she wiggled it tantalizingly. "I get a lot of complements on this." She was looking over her shoulder at me, grinning her gummy grin that, with her body in my hands, couldn't turn me off.