PROLOGUE:

 

  'She reached behind her head and removed the clasp that held her ponytail so firmly in place and placed the clip in her mouth. With both hands, she then ruffled her hair into some sort of order, causing her blouse to strain with the effort of keeping her modesty in check and failing badly as the gaps between each button pulled apart allowing a partial view of the red lace of a bra that clearly had to work for its living. She then placed the clip in her handbag and took a sip of her drink, leaving a red lipstick mark on the rim of the glass as she did so. She closed her eyes against the pleasant sting of alcohol as it burnt away the stresses of the day.'

SEDUCTIVE REASONING: PART ONE - CONNECTIONS

It was shaping up to be another long evening of boredom and I was about to make my way to the hotel bar, for the prospect of spending the night trapped in my room with nothing but mindless game shows coupled with the sound of frantic lovemaking coming from the room next door was quite frankly, unbearable. The rhythmic banging on the wall accompanied by the shrill sounds of a woman screaming for a deity I doubted even she believed in, drove me from my cocoon of dated seventies wallpaper and furniture that should have been replaced some ten years before the room had been decorated.

I pocketed my wallet, picked up my book and left the room.

  Having been sent off to another God-forsaken part of the country, some small town full of low lives and ne'er-do-wells, I had ended my day, as per the previous three days with my book and a glass of bourbon. The book was a place in which to lose myself. To wander within a world of fantasy in the hope that such meanderings would stave off the monotony of this repetitive lifestyle, whilst the bourbon was an attempt in inducing a semi-drunken state whereby the book would seem a little more interesting than it actually was. To be fair, it wasn’t the book that was uninteresting; it was the fact that I had read it so many times before that I could now quote it word for word without referring to the text. The years had become a sort of "Groundhog Day" for me of late, except that there were three hundred and sixty-five of them. The same thing over and over again, punctuated every six weeks or so by a return home for two weeks whilst I reminded myself why I got married, and to reintroduce myself to my wife.

   I design computer software for a living and fix the issues created by others who are, let’s say—less talented. I work for a large telecommunications company, who shall remain nameless, save it became known by their competitors that their mainframe systems were so outdated that they had felt the need to put me on a ten-year exclusive contract. They wanted that I bring them up to speed in this ever-increasing digital world, and at the same time attempt to drag their workers kicking and screaming into the twentieth century.

I must add at this point that at the time of writing we were well into the twenty-first century, which I should have mentioned before my last statement as it would have gone some way into preparing the base for my little joke.

So anyway—back to the bar, book, and bourbon.

On entering the bar I saw, without surprise that it was empty. No one in their right mind would deliberately visit this town, so why they thought it needed a hotel was beyond me.

The pale and uninteresting pictures of horses went hand in hand with the other items of a racing nature. It was an attempt to create a theme for this small corner of the hotel, something that spoke of some heritage of an equine nature. It seemed that some one hundred years ago, the town gave birth to the winner of some cup or another. The horse in question, ‘Darling Bessie’ I believe its name to have been, had its picture at the heart of the bar. Resplendently domineering as it hung above the fireplace—guild framed and ostentatiously pretentious. There was an old poker machine in the corner that would gladly take your money if offered, and an old man behind the bar who would be willing to do the same.

I placed my book on a table nearest to the window as I found that the dull lights of the bar were a little too harsh for me to read by and that the natural glow created by the long spring evenings and the low setting sun, was just right. It also gave me the opportunity to judge when my evening was over.

No more light to read by equals time for bed.

The barman greeted me by a simple raising of his eyebrows, for such was my routine since the day I first checked in we both felt that we had gone past the need for actual words, other than for me to tell him to get a drink for himself. Even this was now so mutually accepted that I didn’t wait for my change anymore on the assumption that he would use the remainder to get the beverage of his choice. The raising his glass to me, and mine to him was our only acknowledgment of this. After that we both got on with the evening until the night was spent, it was then that we were forced to exchange our nightly farewells by way of a,

   “See you tomorrow Charlie”, followed by a “Mind ‘ow you go Guv.”

  About an hour and two more refills into the evening, other patrons of the hotel began to populate the bar. This wasn’t unusual, as at some point the lack of anything on television, and the further lack of an ability to walk the streets safely, meant that the hotel bar was ‘The place to be’—if only for a few hours, serving as it did as a catchment point for all the flotsam and jetsam of societies lost and forgotten. As I ran my critical eye over this collection of outcasts, I suddenly realized with some degree of distain that I was, in fact, one of them. This antisocial group of misfits had drafted me as a member without my knowing, and seemingly without objection.

 

One of the silent few was a lady that looked as though she was in her mid to late sixties, although further interaction with her later proved her to be a good few years younger. Life, years and circumstance had left their marks, as only bad experience and the loss of youth’s fire can do. She was around the five-foot-six, a height added to by heels that were not overly high, but tall enough to warrant the description of a stiletto. I am of course guessing about this, as I have no real idea about what would or would not put a shoe in this category. Her jet-black hair was pulled tightly into a ponytail that fell just short of her shoulders, the roots of which betrayed her attempt to slow down the encroaching years by means of cheap hair dye. Underneath the severity of her businesslike scowl was a face that had once shone with the raw beauty of her youth—for even through this mask of premature aging she was still quite striking.

She wore a black skirt suit affair, the jacket of which covered a white starched blouse and a matronly bosom that was balanced out by an equally impressive rear end, covered as it was by an above the knee skirt that appeared to be one size too small—or maybe she was one size too large. Whether this was vanity on her part, not wishing to admit that she could no longer fit the clothes that would have been flattering twenty years ago or the fact that the said garment was a perfect fit when she bought it, and that time, neglect and a poor diet had added a little more padding where it was not wanted, was not clear.

The black-rimmed glasses she wore did nothing but add to the severity of the lady’s look and I fancied that she wore them more as a mask than of any necessary or practical use. The whole ‘disguise’ was capped off by the heavy application of foundation cream that helped highlight her dark eyeliner and bright red lipstick, both of which had been applied with an expertise that came with years of practice.

I would see such women during my travels as I drove the many miles from one town to another. Professional women in a male dominated world with whom the term, ‘multi-tasking’, was almost regarded as a religion. To be able to drive, talk on the phone and apply make-up without crashing was truly an art in itself. I could barely change the to the next song on my playlit without nearly causing an accident.

 

She went to the bar and ordered herself a large vodka and took the time to examine the flat black document holder that she carried with her whilst

Impressum

Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Texte: Iain Cambridge
Lektorat: Ken Frinton and Debra Cambridge
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 05.02.2017
ISBN: 978-3-7396-9697-3

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Widmung:
For Deb and Matthew. My love for you both is eternal.