The aging man sat alone and drunk at his kitchen table, sipping his drink as he waited for the girl. Looking around he hardly noticed the hard won treasures from his sweat and sacrifice.
The velvet lounge suite with its torn plastic covering, the mirrored bar with the neatly arranged empty bottles, the white patches on the wall from where his family had once viewed the happenings in the room.
He glanced at the clock; the girl was late, they always were. He poured himself another drink and heard the door bell. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and got to his feet. Slowly, awkwardly, he made his way to the door to let her in. He paused at the door to try and regain his composure and then pulled it open. He let her in and she followed him back to the kitchen. She asked for the money. He grunted and nodded at the fold by the phone. She asked for a drink and made light conversation trying to stall for time.
He was drunk, old, ugly and as far as she could tell, bitter and probably twisted.
She asked him if he lived alone. He said yes, his wife had left him for the mongrel from next door. He had found them once in the lounge. She had been in her night dress with this bastard laid out beside her, his head against her breast. He beat his wife that night and threw the mongrel out of the house. She begged him to understand that she only wanted affection and company, that it was not what it seemed.
For a few weeks it was quiet and then one day he came home from work to find them both in bed, his bed. She was naked. It was too much this time, beyond denial. This time it was going to stop, he would make sure it never happened again.
The girl poured herself another drink, not sure if it would be better to get it over with, or get him drunker. Either way she loathed him; his words were of one who never considered, one who was blinded. She asked him how it ended.
The man said his wife had left him to go and live with relatives after he had punished her, and as for the object of her infidelity, well he had poisoned him. He said if you get rid of things at the source then they are over for ever.
The girl glanced at the clock. She had been there for half an hour, long enough to probably convince him it was an hour being as drunk as he was. He didn't need convincing. He poured another drink, a double, and downed it in one gulp. The girl could tell he was beyond caring, beyond comprehension, lost in his twisted world of bitter memories. She didn't want to screw a murderer.
As she opened the door to leave she heard his stilted slurred words,
"My wife, the bitch, she loved that Labrador more than she ever loved me."
Aghh!
1 month ago
