Of paint and passion

 At the party of a friend one night, Geraldine was wooed and seduced by a painter.

She was drawn to his muscular physique, his dark brown beard and sensitive eyes. She imagined the delicate brushes in his hands, the soft caress of squirrel hair on canvas, the thick urge of paint teased slowly across the creamy sea, swirling voluptuously under his control. 

In the darkness of the cab, her heart beat fast as he unbuttoned her blouse. His hands sculpted the soft clay of her breasts. 

She felt the caresses, the strong fingers, as his thumbs found her nipples. The blood rose in her veins. She became liquid.

On the bed in her apartment, she opened herself to him, contained him, devoured him, swallowed him. The brush of his hair, the salty savour of his skin, the stippled goose flesh, the long, washing strokes of his tongue.

In the morning, they walked to the bistro. He ordered a velvet Cappuccino for her, a double espresso for himself. She watched the crema cling to his upper lip as she lapped white foam from a teaspoon. She remembered him last night, hot and firm between her legs. As they sat, facing each other, she slipped her foot from her shoe, lifted it into his lap, and nudged him with her toes until he rested a secretive hand upon them. Held her there as he grew against her.

Afterwards, they walked into the square, found a bench beneath the plane trees. She felt the warm sunlight playing across the golden curve of her bosom. He had kissed her there.

She gripped his hand, and twisted herself into him.

'Would you like to paint me?' she said, 

'Paint you?' he said.

'Yes,' she said, 'naked?'

'I don't think I could,' he said.

'Why not?'

'I'm no good,' he said. 'I've no talent.'

'I'm sure that's not true!' she said. 'I'd love to see your work.'

'You would?' said he. 

'Of course.'

'Well then,' he said. 'Look over there. That house in the middle. I painted that. I've done lots round here, I'll point them out if you like, as we walk.'

jockey shorts

In an attempt
to drive
his taunting teenaged son
from his bedroom
as he tries to prepare for bed
the father strips

completely

naked

to the blue thread veins

that run across his chest
to the varicose vessels
that meander
from his groin
and delta down his inner thigh

the lad jeers
cheerily

at the whiteness
of the pallid skin
stretched shining
over the ridges of the shins

scoffs

at the loose-toned buttocks

revealed

as shapeless

jockey shorts

are thumbed down from the hips

complains
as a curtain of pendulous stomach

undulates in

a galloping adipose syncopation

but is silenced

as the father's flaccid weapon

larger than his own

claims victory

over the moment

the father

ignores the abuse

chooses to centre himself

in his thoughts

tosses the shorts

to the dirty linen basket

shakes creases

from folded pyjamas

stored beneath the pillow

ties a double bow

in the thick white cord

to ward against

further

more physical

attack

but

eventually

the lad grows up

and

sees that

he is
now the one
who strips to the white bone

before sleeping

contemplates

a ruined temple

as he yearns

for some more sensuous

corporeal sensation

prompt - Beyond the Horizon

My friend Sujata and I have decided to challenge ourselves to a regular writing challenge just to keep our pens moving.  We agree a prompt, write for an hour and then share.

Our first prompt has been Beyond the Horizon...

'You had to be fast,' she said. ' You had to really pelt back up the beach and up the path, you know, where we came down.'

I scanned back following her indicating hand, seeing her watch her childhood self running back along the beach and up the stony path, to stand breathless at the top and gaze out across the ocean.

'It's like you get to live the moments again,' she said, 'to turn back time. Come on shall we try? We've got about ten minutes I reckon.

The low sun was reflected in her eyes as she looked at me.

'Come on!' she said, ' you're not so old you can't run!'

'I'm a good bit older than you!'

'Nonsense, you're as young as the person you feel!' She laughed and threw her head back, tossing her hair in the breeze.

It was a gorgeous summer evening.

There was no-one else on Marsland Beach. It had been raining all day but now the clouds had passed on, dispersed, and the sun hung like a Chinese lantern in the sky, slowly drifting down towards the horizon.

'We used to make it sizzle when it hit the water,' she said. 'Hissssssssss.'

She squeezed the air out between her tongue and her teeth.

'Then we'd run all the way to the top of the cliff and watch it do it again. But we need to be closer to the path or an old-timer like you won't stand a chance. You only get about a minute and a half.'

She was a frantic lover.

She walked a little in front – always – and I loved that. Her confidence. She led me. I'd watch her hips move. The curve of her ass in her jeans. I'd trace in my mind where my hands had been. My fingertips. Picture her naked beneath her clothes. If she turned to speak I would watch her mouth, remember how her lips had caressed me, her old-timer – the soft slipperiness of them, traces of her saliva on my skin. She always ended up astride me when we made love. Not straight away, but I always knew that's what she wanted, where she wanted to be. And it suited me. I could lie back and let her play. Let her feast on my body to feed her own desires. I know now that she was really making love to herself but it felt like she loved me. At the time. In truth I was just something for her to rub against.

I miss her though.

We stood at the water's edge directly down from the foot of the cliff path. She held my hand, facing the sea, looking out to where the sun was about to sizzle. She stood herself on a small rock resting on others. She found the movement in it tilting it back and forth beneath her feet, shifting her weight and holding my hand to balance herself.

'It's nearly there,' she cried, the excitement of the child she was remembering flooding her voice. 'Are you ready?'

'As I'll ever be!' I said.

For all that it was low in the sky, the sun was still bright and it brought tears to my eyes to look at it for any length of time.

I was standing next to her, holding the hand of this woman I loved, looking out across the sea. But my mind was in her. In her clothes. Swooping around her breasts. Sweeping across her belly and dipping into the soft curls beneath. My mind was my tongue tasting her, slaking my thirst for her, lingering on her nipples. My lips drawing her into me. Her hair. My nostrils filled with her musk. The fragrant moment behind her ear and down her neck.

'Hissssss!' she shouted. 'Sizzzzllllle!'

'Aha! It's down,' I cried. I'd missed the moment itself but jumped back in to join her.

'Come on!' She tugged at my hand. Started dragging me back up the beach towards the cliff path. 'There's no time to lose!'

I followed willingly enough, though the tightness in my trousers did not make running easy. We stamped over the wet sand, through the small pools left by the receding tide, finally hitting a rhythm that suited us both.

'Come on, old-timer!'

I was breathless but managed to stay with her until we got to the foot of the cliff. But she was full of energy still, while I was all but spent.

'Come on!' She shouted again letting go of my hand. Away she went up the narrow path, scattering pebbles and sand with her feet. I followed but she was soon ten yards ahead and the gap was widening.

My breath burned my lungs, my mouth dry, and the heat of my body raging. Legs seizing up, heart pounding, my feet slipping on the loose surface.

'Come onnn!' she called, now twenty yards in front. 'You'll miss the second sizzle!'

'I'm coming,' I said – I tried to shout it but the words just fell from my mouth, tangled around my feet.

'Some day,' she sang the words out, 'some day I'm going to sail away. Climb into a boat, just me, and sail away into the sunset. Beyond the horizon.'

She was at the top now. I was still way below.

'Hisssssssss! Sizzzlllllle!' she shouted into the wind.

The air was painful in my lungs, finding a dark target inside with every breath. A thudding angry ache grew and grew in my chest, sending a dagger from my chest up into my shoulder and down my left arm. Again and again.

She never came to visit me in the hospital. I've heard nothing from her since.

The heart attack left me like a crumpled paper bag, fearful of a recurrence.

I came to as the paramedics were loading me onto a gurney. She held my hand as they manoeuvred me back through the field to where the ambulance was waiting in the lane, but she couldn't look at me. Said nothing.

I could feel my hand holding hers.

But she was not really holding mine.

the last blackberries

am out too late again this year and all that’s left

are gritty on the vine, some bleeding under

clumsy thumbs, some bullet red, some green

some sourly shaded from the autumn sun

I pick a handful, two, just for the sake

of other more refulgent times and roll

them in this optimistic tub, where bruising stains

cloud plastic sides and maggots mouth their fill

more berries here but just at dog piss height

so left by others and by me and those

above protected by tall grey nettle shoots

that catch the fingers as the hand withdraws

then through the wood to see the tree that once

I fancied held my mother’s breath in sun,

where once I stood my hand held still against

the bark, and dumbly wept her loss again – again

Negotiation #5

What are you doing tomorrow?

What?

What are you doing tomorrow?

What am I doing tomorrow?

while today there are blackbirds

feeding young in the garden

and today the sourdough

is gently lifting in the kitchen -

its first proving

and today is the first day I have

time to sit down

since the last time

I sat down?

What are you doing tomorrow?

What am I doing tomorrow?

when tomorrow is probably filled

up already with moments

blocked with time and trouble and toil?

What are you doing tomorrow?

What am I doing tomorrow?

How easily you clatter the question around

Yes well

there is an Agenda

for tomorrow

I do have an Agenda

for tomorrow

but today

I have only

headings and subheadings

and outlines and landscapes

and plans and pre-frontal projections

and while a few papers have been

submitted for my early consideration

I cannot navigate

the complexities of tomorrow

until the vagaries of today

have been drawn into play

What are you doing tomorrow?

Ah, but if I were to tell you

something

for the sake of an easy answer

it would inevitably be

a short story

of possibles and maybes

a novella of nuance and supposition

a wish-list of the terrifying

and the fearsome

What are you doing tomorrow?

You come here with your crowbar question

levering yourself

into the slim and early tracings

of my promised tomorrow

I was just wondering…

you say

with your innocent

fingers fiddling

with thin porridge on the stovetop

and a sketch of an idea

somewhere across your brow

and I am wary of that sketch

because it is in that sketch that you

forge a steel cage that imprisons me

tomorrow

for it is that sketch

that fetters the ankles of my spirit

tomorrow

that channels the energy of my spirit

tomorrow

that breaks the resolve of my spirit

tomorrow

and casts me

into the pit of your desires

and the fuddle of my despair

What are you doing tomorrow?

If you insist on that question

then there is no tomorrow

do you not see?

there is no tomorrow

no tomorrow

I was just wondering whether you might be able to pick me up from the supermarket?

Negotiation #2

Are you washing up or cooking?

What?

Are you washing up or cooking? I’m not doing both.

No, well I don’t expect you to do both

Good , because I’m not.  So which are you going to do?

Well, which would you rather do?  You’ve been out all day – would you rather sit down while I wash up, and then you cook?  I could make you a gin. Or would you rather wash up and then relax?

God I’d love a gin – been fantasising about one all afternoon!

Ok, so I’ll wash up and make you a gin and you can cook.

I must say I had hoped you might have washed up while I was out.

Yes, well, I have been busy.  I haven’t just been sat around all day.

No, I know…

I have been working, too, you know.  I haven’t just been sat watching youtube, you know.  I have actually been working. 

Yes, I know…

I have.  I’ve booked a course and I bought those train tickets and I’ve been looking at holiday cottages.  So it’s not like I’ve just been sat here doing nothing.

Yes, I know…

You think I don’t do anything while you’re out, don’t you?

No of course not…

Yes, you do. You think I’m just sat around doing puzzles or watching television.

No I don’t.  I…

Holidays don’t just book themselves, you know.  Someone has to do the research.  Someone has to make some decisions.  If we left it to you we’d never go away anywhere.  You do want a holiday, don’t you?

You know I do…

Well, then someone has to sort it out then don’t they.

I’m very grateful.

So pardon me if the washing up isn’t done just when you walk through the door.

I’m just saying…

Pardon me!  But I have been busy you know.  I have been doing things for us, too, you know!

I’m tired.  Do you want a gin?

I’ve sent you a link to four cottages.  Four!  I’ve looked at hundreds and you only need to look at four.  So I need you to have a look and tell me which one you like best.

Ok.  I’ll look next time I’m on.

Make sure you do because we haven’t got long and they're going fast for those weeks.

I will. Gin?

Of course.  Did you get my text?

No.  I’ll make them then, shall I?

God – why don’t you ever check your phone?

I did check.  When did you send it? I checked before I left work.

About half an hour ago.

Well I would have been on the bus then.  I can never hear it on the bus.

I can hear mine on the bus all right.  You need a new phone!

What did it say?

What?

The text.  What did it say?

We’re out of tonic.  So if you want a gin you’ll have to stop at the co-op.

Confession

So, Nuala

Can I tell you now this secret?

I knew your mother

once

a life ago

more than once

and many times

I held her

and she held me

in ways you may discover

but she distressed me with her

distance and her constancy

while I destroyed us in

another’s arms

but in all the years that have since

flowed over me

I only have regretted

what I did

and I have never repeated

that particular travesty

so when you see your mother next

please tell her this

that although I cannot say I love her now –

that would be ludicrous –

I carry still the burden

of my clumsiness

and wish

that time could turn again

and I would do things differently –

we may not even

stay the course

a second time

but I would be more honest and

courageous

and should our loving of each other

cease

a second time

then I would seek to find a

more respectful

way to leave



Chris reading Confession

Tankard

Brewer’s Gold

Left Hand Milk Stout

Modus Operandi

Dirty Stop Out

 

Down at The Two Brewers

on a hook above the barmaid

a tankard hangs

with his name engraved

upon it, ‘Ron’,

in a thin, unpractised hand.

A small plastic yellow clip

coils around the base of the handle

to distinguish it

from some other of a similar design.

It is a warm evening,

one that shepherds delight in, and

Ron trudges down to the Brewers

to take a nip.

Ron loves the ale.

Real ale.

Ale without hiss or fizz,

ale with honesty, brewed

with truth and taste

and sweet bitterness

that curls gently around his tongue

and dwells in him

for hours to come.

Black Betty

Smog Rocket

Neck Oil

Chiff Chaff

She sees him pass the small

window before he gets to the door.

She reaches the tankard down.

He walks in.

She knows his familiar time

and his familiar taste.

“Tanglefoot, Ron?”

she asks.

“Not tonight, Jan.

Bit too strong for

a school night.

I’ll have the Wadsworths.”

He knows them all -

specific gravity

hop mix

age.

Fursty Ferret

Black Sheep

Green Devil

Goats Leap

Three is his limit

on a social night

when Richard is there, or Tom,

but most nights

it’s just one that he’ll sip for an hour

stood up at the bar

waiting for someone to talk to him.

Nun’s Ruin

Warlock Stout

Bumblethwacker

Ghost Ship

So the week he died

and they brought him home

and we gathered

like elephants

gently moulding his bones

with disbelieving trunks

I could not bear to think of his tankard

hanging unused for months

before someone

there behind the bar noticed

how dusty it had become

and took it down and washed it with just

a short thought

for Ron and

rehung it in its place

for fear of dislodging some fixture

in time

and space.

And then to repeat the process

A few weeks later

and wonder again and

maybe ask

the landlord or the other staff

whether they had seen

him. Had Ron been in

recently?

I could not bear to consider

that outcome. And so,

one frosty afternoon,

a week after the funeral

I wandered down to the Brewers

and with my heart pulsing

in my throat and my eyes

burning with uncried

tears I asked

if I could have Ron’s tankard,

the one with the yellow plastic clip

as Ron would not be coming

anymore.

Jan was not there. The young

man who stood behind the bar said

“Oh, right.  I don’t know him.

Has he moved away?”

And all I could do was say

“Yes.”

And take the tankard

and flee back up the sobbing hill.

Dark Moor

Black Mule

Barnsley Bitter

Skullsplitter

And so

I’ve got it now

stood at the back of the cupboard.

The yellow clip has gone,

unnecessary,

there’s no mistaking whose it is,

the looped engraving

still names the man

‘Ron’

Fabarillo

Funky Pigeon

Fat Sprat

Nip

You, in your skinny jeans

There’s a tautness

around the seams

that’s rather pleasing

a tensing of the fabric

as you move

the definition of your buttocks

is quite teasing

and of the creasing

across your thighs

we do approve.

We take pleasure

in the way

the cloth enfolds you:

there’s a harmony –

the touch, the look, the sound.

There’s a sense

that a voice inside your head

still scolds you

for wearing skin-tight jeans

around the town.

But please pay no

attention to its chiding

never change

don’t toe a puritan line

for there are some

the other side of living

who think

that you

in those

look rather fine.

"Lingerie" and Lipstick

A tale of unrequited passion and underwear... fancifully embroidered from a few sketchy facts 

On returning in 1948, 

from service overseas, 

Ronnie at the age of twenty, 

took up lodgings in the house 

of a middle-aged widow 

and her adolescent daughter.  

The arrangement was hung 

upon the twin pillars 

of breakfast in the kitchen 

and an evening meal 

in the chilly dining room.  

There were contractual obligations on either side, 

standard stuff: 

payment a week in advance; 

a rent book; 

a laundry basket emptied weekly.  

And there were requests for consideration 

from the landlady 

regarding 

the use of the facilities; 

the practicalities of locking up if Ronnie should be returning late; 

and an insistence upon a reassuring absence 

of lady friends.  

Ronnie, 

though filled with an innocent confidence 

garnered through his years abroad, 

still harboured an unrequited yearning 

for a certain young woman 

named Dorothy 

whose acquaintance he had made 

at the American University in Beirut, 

and consequently he had, 

at this time, 

no interest in exploring 

other romantic avenues.

One afternoon, 

on opening the top right hand drawer of the chest in his bedroom, 

Ronnie was taken aback

by the presence 

of a pair of his own 

white cotton jockey shorts 

laid carefully 

atop the rest of the contents in the drawer.

source: https://www.etsy.com/uk/market/1948_vintage_ad

The shorts, 

softened with age and frequent washing 

and with a developing looseness in the elastic, 

bore the hallmarks 

of some 

unwarranted attention:

red daubs on the white fabric, 

which upon closer inspection 

revealed  themselves 

to be scarlet lipstick 

applied directly to the garment 

from what must have been 

liberally-coated female lips.  

Bow-shaped kisses 

staining Ronnie’s intimates.

Ronnie hurriedly slammed the drawer shut.

Then tentatively reopened it 

perhaps in the hope 

that the chest was in some way magical 

and offered the possibility 

that the garment might have

 mysteriously disappeared 

or at the very least 

returned to its unadulterated state.

It had not.

Removing the underpants 

from the drawer 

he placed them flat upon the candlewick counterpane.  

Then after a moment’s consideration 

folded them carefully 

ensuring that 

as far as possible 

the sticky evidence was 

concealed within the bundle.  

He then secreted them 

at the back of the drawer 

in his bedside cabinet 

alongside 

his address book, 

the photograph of Dotty in her tennis dress, 

his Authorised Version, 

his rosewood pipe 

and the two coiled sleeve supports 

sent to him by his mother 

in anticipation of some, 

as yet unidentified, 

desk-bound employment.

The meal that evening 

was somewhat more hurried than usual, 

and during it Ronald found himself 

studying the two female occupants of the house 

with questioning, 

curious eyes.  

He found himself checking 

their mouths 

as they chewed 

in order to establish overall shape and size 

and looking for any hint 

of artificial colouring.

In bed that night 

he continued his mental enquiries 

as to the identity 

of the perpetrator 

of this act of 

sartorial violation.

The older woman,

in her late forties, 

was somewhat dowdy in both 

attire and  disposition.  

Since the death of her husband, 

Ron surmised, 

life without her male companion 

may have provoked 

a longing in her loins 

and his own presence

may have brought about a 

surging of sexual desire 

encouraging her to throw 

caution to the wind.  

She may have regarded the lipstick 

as the final weapon in her 

arsenal 

of aging femininity 

and found her passion 

thoroughly expressed 

through this 

cosmetic ejaculation.

The daughter, Rosemary, 

fifteen and timid, 

had given Ronnie no prior indication of an interest in him: 

her fringe concealed eyes that shone but dimly; 

and she was as yet 

still seemingly unaware 

that the slight plumping 

out of her chest was a 

prefiguring 

of a general maturation 

of her pubescent body.  

Ronnie, 

having often observed her 

with one or other 

Victorian novel 

under her arm, 

wondered whether she had 

fallen prey 

to a powerful 

romantic 

attachment 

to him 

which could only find voice 

through this reckless act 

of passionate graffiti.

In his mind, 

Ron placed the two side by side.

Mother and daughter: 

the sexually experienced 

against the innocent.  

He balanced probability 

with desirability.  

He weighed his own, 

largely unformed, 

ideas 

of an imagined bedtime companion 

with these two potential, 

flesh and blood candidates, 

and then again 

cross referenced them 

with Dorothy.

His confusion was complete.

He rose at six 

after several sleepless hours; 

hurriedly packed his few things

(save the underpants) 

into his brown cardboard suitcase; 

wrote a brief note of apology 

(though not of explanation) 

to his landlady 

and inserted the next week’s rent into the envelope 

before quietly slipping 

out of the house 

toward the 

Green Line 

bus stop.