The Right Question

"People always ask the wrong questions." A cloud of beer breath enveloped me and I looked up to see a typical Friday night lager jockey. Six pints in, tie askew, sweaty, aging skin loose and jowly. Washed up on my table, spun into me by a social eddy, pushed loose from his office friends by a strange current in the busiest pub in London. He looked down at me, searching for comprehension in my eyes.

"And then they get the wrong answers," he continued, his logical emphatic.

There seemed to be nothing to say but he was determined, his palm spread on my table as he swayed, his thoughts crystalising.

"Take you. You're sitting here as your mates spin through the herd. And what did they do to deserve such largesse?"

He had hit upon a good question. What was I doing, indeed? I'd been the one to introduce them. Loose acquaintances. Friends of friends. And now I watched them wrapped so tightly in each other that the world stopped turning. At least until tomorrow morning. An answer formed on my lips and I looked up to an empty space where the man had been. He had no doubt been carried away on a haze of empty Friday night possibilities. He would end up in the curry house with his friends, then to stagger home to his disillusioned wife, a half-watched DVD before sleep overwhelmed him on the sofa, beer-shits in the morning and an enforced day of domesticity. But he had hit upon a good question.

My warm gassy lager was suddenly unappealing, and I had clearly had the last meaningful conversation in that pub for that night. I stood and began to walk out. It was just about the longest pub in town, swirling colours mixed with hope and desperation, failure and compromise. I plugged myself in and began to move, a step ahead. I found each gap between the glassy-eyed revellers and I noted them driving each other higher into the realms of the unreal, shouting out their deepest desires to others shouting just as loudly. I swerved and spun and pirouetted and was never touched, my balance impeccable, my decision making perfect, and after a mere four minutes my greatest ability left me standing in the neon glare of the impersonal West End street. 'How to leave a packed pub' will be my autobiography and my epitaph.

I ploughed my way through the slush, head down to keep the sleet out of my eyes. The street sang it's own song, less obviously despairing but with more despair. Here were the people who weren't in the party, empty glasses yearning to be at least half-full. My collar was up, a defence against intrusion as I set out on my quest. I'd ignored a call too long, and I thought I knew the right question now.

The blast of warm air caressed me as I stood on the escalator and I closed my eyes. I let the clanking metal carry me down, feeling when to step off as the stairway flattened out. I could walk every step to my accustomed place on the platform with my eyes closed, though I'd never done it. And not tonight, either, my impatience forcing my pace.

The Central Line train was soothing with its hums and hisses, and the impersonal recorded announcements. The woman's voice was purged of anxiety, making every stop sound like an oasis of desire, a thrill of the chances waiting just beyond the ticket barriers. Holland Park then Notting Hill Gate. I ignored the alkies outside the station, unwilling to feed anyone's addictions but my own.

I walked along the quiet street, my hands deep in my coat pockets and my mind serenely empty. Then up the stairs to the door. Buzz number three on the intercom and wait.

"Hello," she said.

"It's me. You aren't sleeping are you?"

The door buzzed open and I walked up the tiled stairs, once grand but now faded. Her flat door was already ajar and I walked into her world of warmth. She was reaching into the cabinet by the wall, rummaging around. She smiled victoriously as she pulled out a bottle of red and waggled it at me invitingly.

"I thought you were out with those no hopers you work with."

"I got bored when they decided they didn't need my company any more. So I thought I'd come and distract you from your thesis."

"Do you really think I have nothing better to do with my Friday evenings?" she smiled as she flopped on to the sofa and picked up the corkscrew, spinning it around her finger, "I am in the middle of watching Blade Runner. Be a lamb and open the wine."

I grabbed two glasses out of the kitchen and slumped down next to her, my accustomed groove welcoming its old friend. I opened the wine without screwing up and pouring it all over myself. I poured a couple of glasses and she drank. I glanced at the screen to see Decker glide through the toy workshop and I turned back to her. There was no need for thought as I leant towards and she looked at me in confusion, knowing that everything had just changed forever. I reached up and pushed a stray lock of her hair behind her ear then took the arm of her glasses and gently pulled them off her face.

As I took her glass out of her hand I sensed a hesitation, a nervousness in her that told of an internal battle; was it time to flee? I set her wine down on the table next to her glasses then leant closer to her, not letting my lips touch her for a fraction of a second then closing that final distance. I was gentle but definite because I meant this and she had to know it. This was no game.

For a second she didn't respond and I felt her disbelief, before, in a sudden rush, she threw her doubts away. I took her top lip in my mouth, letting the tips of my teeth scrape her sensitive skin almost imperceptibly and she put her hand up to my cheek. My arm was around her waist and it was the most natural thing in the world for us to entwine as learnt each other.

Her hand played with my hair as if she owned it, spreading her balm over me, then she pulled me tighter to her, her leg between mine now as our tongues danced with the pure joy of the newly found. We fell into a fractal dream, ever spinning in a pattern that would never end, like all good first kisses pregnant with life changing opportunity.

But all first kisses must end, and she softly broke away, one hand resting possessively on my chest.

"Why now?" she asked with elated wonder.

And as I picked her up and carried her to her bedroom I knew it was the wrong question. The right question had come to me in a fog of beer and false fellowship: The right question was 'for how long?' And the right answer was simple; for as long as she wanted me.