Read The Lesser Bohemians for Free Online Page B

alright, he says, touching my fingers to his mouth Thank you for choosing me. Then, self-disgust over-running my everything else, I grab my bag and leave.
    Â 
    Into the world from out of his room I blink in the light of day. Will I look back at his window? No. That’s done. If I turned around even the house might be gone. Let his soap kiss devolve into scum on my hand. Relinquish. Extinct it. Go. Hedge again. Road. Schools and railings. Train up on a rail bridge ahead. Cheap second-hand fridges lining the path. That turn’s where we were. My turn is right – so I would have found my way back, mid kebab salad gossamering to puke. Sun of the morning. London day. The banjaxed exhuming themselves from doorways. Buses and music. Spivs and Goths. New Age Travellers and leather coats and too-tight jeans and diamond whites. Everywhere heaves of fighting in the streets. This is the finest city I think and, no matter how awkward or bloodily, I am in it now too.
    Â 
    I go straight to hers. Good morning. Good night? Come in come in, we’re just woken up. Into her room and her fella stretched out asking So did you shag him or what? She Tea? and Sit! indicating the bed. I plomp back, maybe on his legs, and tell my tale. Well not all. Well some. Well anyway the bit about sleeping with him. She going I knew it! Him going Fuck! You do know who he is, right? And I don’t, but he does, so rings him in. Theatre mostly. The occasional film until that one last year had everyone raving! Now he’s the dog’s bollocks. Oh, is he? Yes! God you’re such a div! Then follows various smart-aleckings before tinkering for truths. What was he like in bed? What did he do? These I proffer as Transfigured Night, The Devils and filthy dishevel of bedsit. Incredulous they but sniff my palm for his soap. And I can still smell him on me under my clothes. Seeing him again? Probably not, no. Why? she says. I chuck forth an embroider and love my shape in its light: Whyruin a perfect night? Bravo! he bravo’s offering his joint which I slide down with, saying This is the life. Knowing that Yes it is.
    Â 
    Do you have to use my hot water up? I have to wash. Every day? Too much lady, too much. Get a shower, I think but keep to myself and wash my expedition away. Fare thee well purple foothills of sex. I clean a man off my body. I clean a man off my face. Lick from breasts. Spit between legs. The sweat and. Where mouths. Thigh dry blood what’s he. What? What is he doing now?
    Up Lady Margaret Road in the wintering air. The trees and distance and closeness, the same. Evening, to you, town. Evening, to me. A little light think amid bus staunched breeze and he’s really only streets away. Somewhere over maybe there. Did he wash his sheets? Is he with someone else? Or his daughter? How he smoked his cigarettes. Three or four draws down to the tip, is that a telling thing? Back in my room I practise it. And smoke far on into the dark, until dawn goes white over Kentish Town Road, the Assembly House, the Forum and beyond to? Don’t know. All London then, I suppose.
    We are rat tat pull and snigger. We are drinks and draggeldy home. I am chips and she’s pickled egg. Always for the tale and tale again. And it gets heavy with the lies I make but I like them. She does too. Thrown on the bed type three times come. Interlocked fingers or wrists held down. Why she doesn’t notice the new every time is beyond me. But I lie well. But not inside. That, unhitched, goes flail about. Wheedles its sticks into You let me down. Sorry, Mind says to Flesh. No matter no matter, get over – though Camden stays shoulder checked. Revoke that memory. Forget the face. Just be in on the joke. Part of the tease. These are not things barred tome any more. These are me as well. And the. But the. Fleadh wears down. Knees from kneeling. The time on my own, until my once becomes like not at all. This the lamest fun of lonely that she can drip