She Stood in a Shadowed Doorway

She stood in a shadowed doorway a few moments before stepping out to stroll nonchalantly under a street light. Her white sheath skirt tight to the thigh. A flashy female figure with fading, red-brown hair with face set in lacquer smile. The neon nightscape reflecting in plate glass. A police pick-up car cruising past. She dodging back into the doorway. On the other side of the street a well-fleshed man of forty was eyeing her with bright and predatory eye.

She met his glance as he came up to her. A grin glistening on his wet mouth. He could see she was aware of his stare. The opening of her blouse; the swelling inside; the white cleft; shadowed. Mary Magdalene had been no less than she, he thought. His presence tense before her. She thinking inside herself, here's yet another mediocre male! At length she was the one to break the silence. The paint on her lips mouthing her name was Roxanne.

'What did you say your name was? He asked.

'Roxanne.'

'Is that all?'

It's enough, isn't it?'

The masculine shape of his voice said he was called Tony - Tony Hart.

Turning back to the doorway, her mouth smiling. She beckoned him to follow. A hallway leading to a flight of stone stairs smelling of damp, the banister greasy to the touch. Stairs going up and up steep and dim as Calvary. On the third landing they came to a door that opened into a large airless room. A shaft of neon light from the street laid bare thin, torn curtains loosely hanging over a dusty window. In one corner was a large matrimonial bed pushed against the wall. A stain on the counterpane.

Unbuttoning her blouse, Roxanne said, 'Here, let me undress,' her hand detaining, restraining his hand. Tony now finding himself searching for something to say. Shyness? Or perhaps imagining how he might introduce a touch of tenderness into the encounter, giving some personal consideration. Not just the crude conjunction of bodies on a bed going through motions. Something deeper. He wondered if it were possible, perhaps simply talking or holding one another for a while. Standing there watching her slide stockings off. But he couldn't get the words out.

Then he touched her with his voice, saying: 'Look, there's nobody in the world, but us tonight.' But his words to Roxanne were like a hot wind blowing over her face. She pulled a mouth, her black eyes blazing, her voice cut, said: 'Take it easy, Tony.' That broad smile on his fat face; his mouth a meaty mass about to move above her throat. She shrinking back as if a flame had leaped towards her face, tearing her mouth away from his. The impact of his life slicing into hers. Their thoughts clashing like pebbles in mid-air.

'I'm disappointed, sorry,' he said. But a deep, bedrock distrust was hardening her heart. If she were female foolish enough to ... No, no, no, she told herself, men must be kept strictly within the four-square enclosure of themselves, and I must keep myself taut and tight within my own self. She said to him: 'Now you're so terribly male upset, aren't you? Well, you crossed the forbidden frontier. What must you expect?'

Warp-heads like him, Roxanne thought. No hopers of the worst kind. He was just another brutal, clumsy male, she argued within herself. Men are tough, insentient creatures, hard as iron. He, like all men was selfish, aware only of himself, must prove himself in the male position in face-to-face embrace. Men - the deception they expect and need! And me the mere tool for his ego-satisfaction. That's all I am to him. He'd never own me publicly. He'd be the first to throw stones if I appeared amongst his friends. Well, let's get it over with, she thought, stiffening, hardening her spine in resistance. They were fitting together for the thrust of lust.

But the deeps are dark in the human soul. Feeling herself turn to stone, Roxanne shut tight her mouth, her eyes becoming fixed, her vision in-turned, her body slipping from her as he entered her. She, mentally detached from her body, was thinking of Cherie, the girl who often worked the same beat as herself. Cherie would return to Roxanne's room later that night. In imagination she felt Cherie's blood-red lips upon her own. The warmth of the girl's body and breath. Roxanne was living it all inside her head. Let your mind float, she was telling herself. Cherie, the woman she had come to know better than herself. Tender love kindled, a soft flame lapping her. Yet somewhere on the edge of her mind, or in her heart, Roxanne wept.

But gripped in her strong arms and straddling thighs, Tony had never felt more utterly alone. And within himself he said to his soul: No, we can never meet ... except for a moment. Foolish of me to have expected more. Our lone paths cross one another - briefly, then we're blown apart forever. So except for a few random street-meets on nights like this, Tony Hart has remained faithful to the mezzo-tint of memory, a love of his early days, Jenny, the girl who had died.

Well, he's got what he wanted, Roxanne reflected as she returned once more to her body, her eyes mocking the sated lover tossing money onto the bed. She putting on her mouth at the glass, was busying herself with herself. Tony's thoughts were tortuously in-woven as he observed her slender fingers counting out the cash. I no longer have existence for her, he said to himself.

In a closing of words and doors, it was like a nail being driven through your heart, Tony fancied. He was now beating a retreat. She following him down the stairs to where she stood like an avenging angel in the shadowed doorway. Her look of scorn unnerves, he thought. Enough to destroy the man in a man. Tony felt stiff as a conscience. His lusty night blowing away like dead winter leaves.

© 2011 ROBERT DAVIDSON