The Nice Bloke

I was relieved when no jealous husband jumped out of the shadows wielding an axe. ...

She was a hard, aggressive driver, piloting the car like it was a missile. Rosalinde gave me a look of chagrin when music filled the car; a girlish smile, like I'd caught her eating forbidden chocolate.

"I like the song," she sniffed defensively as the Lite Funky Ones warbled about girls wearing Abercrombie and Fitch. "It matches the season," she added. I shrugged and smiled to show I didn't really mind. I was still weighing up the prospects of kissing Rosalinde later as she dropped me off at home. Nerves tickled my stomach with light but insistent fingers.

With a few directions from me, Rosalinde stopped abruptly outside the five storey Victorian edifice of my block. Once a seaside retreat for a wealthy family from London, the place had been carved up into flats that were now rented to people like me - students in need of accommodation. I was pleased with the place; its silent grandeur, like a chalk cliff face under the silver moon, looked impressive. I hoped it would impress Rosalinde enough to come in.

Rosalinde saved me from a moment of awkwardness. Before I could croak an invitation she said: "I've had fun, Victor."

I noticed the expression on her face; a veil of a smile that barely masked her melancholy. Her earlier ebullience had been washed out with the tide. I realised she was still upset about her marital situation and felt a waft of relief that I'd not bumbled in for a kiss.

Small compensation came when Rosalinde leaned across from her seat and pecked a kiss on my cheek. I felt the heat of her body warm me slightly through my soaking t-shirt; her hair smelled of the sea. "What are you doing tomorrow?" she asked.

Tomorrow! Jubilation like a burst of fireworks lit up my face in a smile. "I've got work at two. That's about it. Why?" I was eager as a puppy at the prospect of seeing her again.

"Do you know any good book shops? I've been going nuts trying to find one. Perhaps you have an idea?"

It was a perfect moment; and was probably the moment I fell in love. This was a second bite at the cherry. I decided that jaded fate had handed me a chance card, just like in the monopoly games of my childhood.

I did know of a place, just round the corner from where we sat as it happened. An opportunity had presented itself and I knew it. I decided to seize the day -- Carpe diem! Who dares wins and fortune favours the brave and all that.... The news about the shop was met with one of her grins. Emboldened, I asked her if she'd like to meet for breakfast.

To my delight, and astonishment, she agreed. "We'll make a morning of it. I'd be so glad of the company."

Rosalinde kissed my cheek again, said she'd see me at half-eight, and roared away as soon as I'd closed the car door.

3

Standin' on mama's porch, you told me it would last forever.
Oh the way you held my hand, I knew that it was now or never.
Those were the best days of my life.

ROSALINDE HAD BEEN PUNCTUAL. I'd been looking through my window on-and-off from eight o'clock and saw her arrive, or rather screech to a stop outside the building movie-cop style.

The night had been turbulent for me, tortured as I'd been by dreams of Rosalinde cavorting in the sea, her skin shining like a porpoise,. I awoke in a tangle of bed sheets at six and abandoned the notion of sleep altogether. Instead I showered, paying due diligence to the use of shower gel in all the nooks and crannies. I cleaned my teeth - twice - and then took up a sentry position at the window like a faithful Labrador.

"OK, breakfast." She rubbed her hands together and treated me to that infectious grin again. "I'm starving. That swim last night has made me ravenous." Her enthusiasm took me by surprise, as did her appetite when I collected two servings of bacon, sausage, two eggs, beans, tomatoes, mushrooms, and toast when the pretty girl with the European accent called our number. Rosalinde was a ketchup girl, I preferred HP. "I don't usually eat this every day," Rosalinde mumbled through a mush of beans and sausage. "But I'm on my holidays."

I grinned back at her; the melancholy I'd sensed in her had evaporated like the morning mist. I began to relax in her company. She was so natural and down-to-earth; her vitality and zest for life quite infectious.

"That bookshop," I said, "is just up Church Road. I pointed vaguely as I munched toast. "I found it when I was looking for some design texts. It's brilliant. Really quirky. What are you looking for?"

"Poetry," she replied. "I need some inspiration for next terms set questions. And I'm looking for some stuff by Frost."

"I hope we find it," I said and fervently prayed to the gods that Rosalinde would be successful. I wanted her to have a good day.

"Me too," nodded Rosalinde and turned her full attention to demolishing the pile of food on her plate. Eventually, apparently sated, she dabbed a napkin delicately against her lips and stifled a belch. "Pardon me," she smirked.

I laughed and didn't tell her about the smear of egg yolk on her chin. I thought she'd take the joke.

It was a perfect morning. Another day of blue sky and sunshine, with pretty girls jogging towards the sea-front, making the most of the time before the beach filled with sunbathers and fractious children demanding ice-cream. For me it wasn't the weather that gave the day that special glow. It was Rosalinde. I spent half-an-hour just watching her as she browsed in the book shop. Just observing her surreptitiously gave me pleasure. I adored the way her lips puckered in a moue of concentration when reading synopses on dust covers, or how her eyebrows arched when she found something of especial interest. I studied the way she moved; the tilt of her head; the blue-black sheen of her hair....

Then there was the darker side to my feelings, the sexual urge. Brief but lurid fantasies sprang to mind. I recalled her easy nakedness of the night before and longed to touch her breasts, to kiss her mouth, and even tongue that place between her legs....

My reverie shattered when Rosalinde came to me wild-eyed and beaming. "I've found what I want." Rosalinde held up an anthology of Robert Frost's poems. "They didn't have this at Waterstones! I'll read you some if you like. Down on the beach."

As she turned to stride off to the cashier I called, "Roz!"

It was the first time I'd used her name. She turned. "What?"

I pointed to my own face and said, "You've got egg on your chin." I blushed yet again at teasing her.

Rosalinde paused; she wiped a hand across her face and examined it. Then she looked at me and gave me her smile. "You shit. You let me walk about...." And then, another first, Rosalinde touched me -- OK, it was a punch on the arm, but by my standards I was making progress.

We sat on the beach for an hour. Rosalinde read to me, as promised, at the water's edge. I listened to Stopping by woods in just about as an inappropriate setting as there could be for a poem about mid-winter -- under a blazing sun, with no snow or horses in sight. From there we went back up into Hove and walked along Church Road again. We drank coffee al fresco and Rosalinde scandalised me by commenting in a disparaging way as people walked past.

"I don't mean any of it," she grinned. "I'm just having a great time in good company."

Inevitably I blushed at the comment; Rosalinde laughed away my discomfit.

We took lunch in a small café. Nothing too heavy after the gargantuan breakfast and afterwards continued our meandering stroll.

Rosalinde halted outside the Albion pub.

"This place looks interesting," she said as she peered in through the open door. "Fancy a drink?" I hesitated since I was due at work in just over an hour. Rosalinde saw my anxiety. "Just one... maybe two?" She had me. I'd agree to anything. Since I'd bought breakfast, Rosalinde insisted on paying for the drinks. I didn't like it. The man should pay, I insisted but was poo-pooed by Roz. "Don't talk bollocks," she said indignantly. "Sit over there and I'll bring them over. The man pays indeed" she scoffed, as I skulked away chastened.

I sipped my pint in a mild huff. Rosalinde held her gin and tonic and swirled the contents. "So," she began, "no girlfriend?"

Shit! I thought, and gulped at my pint.

My face burned. "No. No girl. I told you, I'm not good with girls."

Hearing my own petulant tone angered me. Dammit, I thought, don't fuck today up.

"You blush a lot," Rosalinde observed. "Is it something you do, or do I make you do it?"

"It's something I do, yeah, but I've been worse around you," I admitted. My voice still sounded bitter in my own ears.

Rosalinde must have sussed she'd probed too far; her expression softened. "I don't mean to make you uncomfortable." Then came the second occasion of physical contact, more gentle than the punch; she reached across and touched my hand. "And I don't mean anything by teasing you." Rosalinde paused. "If anything," she murmured, "I tease you because I like you."

My thoughts boiled. Liked me? What did that mean? Did she like me as a friend? Was it a brother/sister thing? Just what did she mean by liking me? Was I just, God forbid, a nice bloke? I had no words; I just swigged my beer and went redder.

Rosalinde's phone rang. She checked the screen and muttered a curse. "Withheld," she explained. She cursed again when she answered. Rosalinde held a hand over the mouthpiece. "I'd better take this," she said. "It's Simon, my husband... soon to be ex-husband," she corrected quickly. "I don't know how he's got this number, but if I don't deal with it he'll just keep on pestering me." She stood and hurried to the front of the pub to take the call outside in private. She threw an 'I'm sorry' look over her shoulder and left me staring after her.

After my surprise at Rosalinde's dash I wondered again about Simon. If Rosalinde was hiding from him I surmised, then he couldn't be a particularly pleasant guy. How had he found her number? And, again, I wondered if he was here, looking for her. I took a contemplative swig of beer and imagined scenarios. I've always been good at imagining, it comes from all the books I read as a kid. Being an only child I had a lot of time to myself. I read books and thought a lot -- Which is probably why I'm so awkward around women. I think too much and do that over-analysing thing.

Rosalinde came back with a face like thunder. "My bloody mother," she said and took a deep draught of gin. "That bastard Simon conned her into giving him my number. Damn it, I'm spitting mad. He won't leave me alone. Shit!"

"Will he come down here?" I ventured.

Rosalinde, grim-faced, replied: "I wouldn't put it past him." She drained her glass and then examined it as though surprised that it was suddenly empty. "I need another one of those."

This time I paid.

"Let's make an afternoon of it," Rosalinde suggested after I'd delivered the drinks. "Blow work out. Stay with me." She looked at me, imploring me with those startling green eyes. "We need some fun."

"Please, Vic," she implored and touched my hand again. "I have to put on a front at work all the time. You know..." she pulled a face and said in a mocking tone: "Miss McCready, English teacher. Don't show the kids that you're human ..." She looked me in the eye and slid closer to me in her seat. This time she took both my hands in hers. I could smell her scent and my cock thickened of its own accord. "I feel so... free down here. And now I've met someone I know. ... Come on, Victor. Live a little. ... And take my mind off Simon."

"But..." I began. It was a half-hearted attempt; I already knew I'd not be serving drinks that afternoon and evening. Drinking yes, but not serving. "OK," I murmured. "You're on." I pushed all thoughts of psycho ex-husbands with their arrays of weaponry and superb detective skills to one side. I also dismissed work - well, almost. I did make a call to Chris and told him I was ill in bed. I could tell he didn't believe a word, but there was nothing he could do about it.

"Get better by tomorrow," he said gruffly and hung up. Neither Chris nor I knew that I'd never be back to work there.

We left the pub and collected Rosalinde's coupe from the seafront parking bay she'd left it in. She drove the thing like a kamikaze pilot and swerved and swooped though traffic with suicidal ease.

This time, with the sun high in the sky bathing us in benevolence, with girls in short dresses walking along the prom and the car windows open, Bryan Adams belted out the summer of '69 through the coupe's speakers. As I watched Roz drive with aggressive skill, I really did feel that these could be the best days of my life. I was in the company of a woman I'd fancied for years; I'd thrown off work -- an act I found liberating beyond belief. Bucking convention just this once was exhilarating; I felt truly alive.

She parked the car in the hotel car park and looked at me through shaded lenses.

"Drink?" she asked.

I nodded and grinned. Buoyed with the exuberance of my rebellion I used an expression from university drinking days. "Let's get shitfaced."

She laughed and reached to me and squeezed my thigh.

Then the afternoon descended into a blur.

4

If I could offer you one tip for the future,
Sunscreen would be it.

I WOKE UP CONFUSED. It was dark, completely dark, and I hadn't a clue where I was. Disorientated and groggy, and with a raging thirst, I struggled to remember. There'd been the drinking with Roz but events were hazy. I recalled the start of the session - a pint in the bar of Rosalinde's hotel before we moved on into Brighton itself. More pubs, more drink. A dim recollection of a pizza in Pinocchio's and the remnants of a drunken conversation where - I groaned aloud at the recall - I'd revealed my sexual status to Rosalinde.

Someone moved in bed next to me.

"You awake?" a voice asked.

Despite my befuddled state, my eyes opened wide in surprise. I was in bed, naked, with Rosalinde beside me. We were in her hotel, or at least I assumed it was her room since the exact details had evaporated from memory.

"What? How?" I spluttered.

I heard her chuckle in the dark. "I suppose that means you are awake then."

I nodded, a pointless exercise given that the curtains were more like blackout blinds. "I'm awake." My voice was a croak. My head movement made me nauseous "But...?"

"Can't remember, huh?" I heard her giggle. "It's a little vague for me too, but I seem to recall you wanted to spend the night with me. Quite insistent too. It seemed a good idea at the time, so...."

I was appalled. The six pints of brave juice had obviously battled with my natural inclination towards the timid, and won. "Shit.... I'm sorry...."

"You were an animal." She said in the darkness. "The things we did together. I'm really impressed. What a lover!"

Nothing, I recalled none of it. I'd known a woman intimately for the first time and I remembered... nothing.

Then I heard a strange noise. It was Roz trying to hold in a laugh but it blurted from her. "Oh, Vic," she giggled. "You fell asleep. Almost as soon as you got into bed you were gone."

"I'm sorry, Roz. I shouldn't be here. I can't believe what I did. It was just drinking...."

I really don't mind, Vic." There was a pause before she added: "It's nice to have someone here with me."

There was nothing I could say. I lay there in the dark, immobile as a table. Part of me was relieved that nothing had happened. I still carried the virgin suitcase though, but at least I'd remember the event when I did, finally, lose it.

"There are glasses on the side and a tap in the bathroom," Rosalinde said when I told her I was thirsty. "Bring me one too will you?"

I lurched across the room, hands groping blindly and unsteady from the booze. I cursed when I stubbed my toe on some lurking furniture. A Light came on and I turned to see Rosalinde, hair all tousled and with swollen eyelids, smirking at me from the bed. Covering my privates with my hands in an instinctive movement, I limped towards the bathroom door.

"You look like shit," I said to the mess looking back at me from the mirror. "It ain't big and it ain't clever." Still in that surreal borderland between pissed and hung-over, I just grinned to myself and whispered: "And you're in bed, with Miss McCready, naked." After filling a glass and draining it with a couple of deep swallows, I refilled it and drank again. I took two full glasses back into the bedroom. With both hands full, and still with the residual brave juice within me, I strode full-frontal to Rosalinde's side of the bed.

"Thanks," she said and reached for the glass. The movement caused the quilt to slide down. I couldn't help but stare at her breasts. The girls just hung there in plain view. Big, round, and firm, just as Paul the pot-man from the pub had prophesised, and decorated with pebble-sized nipples and large coins of areola. My cock thickened quickly and hung at half-mast. Rosalinde couldn't fail to notice my arousal before I managed to turn away. "Get back in," she said quietly. "I just need the loo."

She flung the covers back and, unselfconsciously naked, padded to the bathroom. I stared at her back and buttocks as she moved. The shape and curves of her body.... I wanted her badly. I listened to the steady tinkle of her stream and imagined her sat on the seat as she pissed. The thought caused my penis to stiffen fully. I felt a strong urge to just walk in and show her my erection. I fantasised about her reaching for me, squeezing my cock in her fist before she opened her lips to fellate me....

The flushing toilet brought me back to reality, and, with my erection safely hidden beneath the quilt, I watched Rosalinde walk back to the bed. The front view was just as delicious as the rear. My cock throbbed with desire as her breasts jiggled. I glanced at the trimmed triangle of her bush and almost moaned with lust. Even in that state, taut as a bowstring, I made no advances when Rosalinde slid back into bed and turned out the light.

I slept. The next time I woke a gap in the curtains showed it was daylight outside. Given the season that could mean the time was anywhere past 4am. The booze had worn off and I knew I was due for a killer hangover. Mine usually kicked in at midday. Right now I needed another drink of water -- probably a gallon. Throwing back the covers, and this time avoiding stubbing my toe, I took the water glass into the bathroom. My guts rebelled at the onslaught of liquid and I suddenly felt sick. I fought against the swell of nausea and gripped the sides of the sink tightly, closing my eyes and breathing deeply.

"Shower?" I heard Rosalinde say behind me. I opened my eyes to see her reflection in the mirror regarding me with a frown of concern. "You OK, Vic?"

"A bit queasy."

"I'm not surprised. We put some away."

Then it happened. I watched Rosalinde detach herself from the door jamb she'd been leaning against. Without turning I saw her reflection walk slowly towards me. I knew something was going to happen. Was it the look in her slightly slanted eyes? I thought I saw a purpose in her expression. She moved very slowly. The roll of her hips; her body; Rosalinde's nudity, and the tilt of her head.... I stood completely still, hands hot against the cold porcelain sink. I didn't want to break the spell.

She reached me; I could feel the heat of her against my back. I sucked in a great gulp of air when I felt her flesh press against me. Rosalinde wrapped her arms around my waist and I felt her hot breath between my shoulder blades. With her face just above my shoulder, Rosalinde stared into my eyes through the mirror, and, with a sly smirk, slowly slid her cool hand down my stomach - a lioness stalking its prey, hungry fingers relentlessly moving in, her eyes never left mine, though my own shifted back and forth from her hand to her smile...