Today being Christmas. Well, almost. And nothing good comes at Christmas.
Which is why I’m sipping whisky behind the bar, wishing for a crowd to distract me. Crowds are good, even if the people are mostly arseholes. Crowds keep my hands busy and my mind off of everything else.
Stevie slaps a twenty on the bar.
I nod my thanks and he takes off, leaving me alone.
Shit. Got nothing to do now, have I? The place has been scrubbed and polished to a shine, the floors are freshly mopped, the booze restocked. The loo’s clean and ready for the next onslaught of punters.
Which won’t be tonight.
Something knocks at the door and I look up only to see an empty coffee cup caught in an eddy of wind, knocking at the glass like a ghost of Christmas past. Like regret.
Stupid paper coffee cup. Paris has finally fallen to the carry-out coffee craze, direct from the States, which is not a good thing.
Mention of the States makes me think of my neighbor. Of course it does.
How could I not think of her when she’s responsible for today’s exhaustion? Not to mention the constant half hard-on.
I sigh and look down. I could give up, I suppose. Let the fire die out, grab a bottle and head upstairs for a wank and a film. Something loud and aggressive and old school that willreallyget her back up.RockyorRambo. She’d hateRambo, wouldn’t she?
Well, perhaps not. She knew lines fromScarface, which I’ll admit surprised me. The woman looks like a walking lolli, so the idea that she might be a fan of grim, vintage mafia movies seems like cognitive dissonance. Perhaps a horror film would be better, to cover whatever off-key singing she does.
I grin, considering. I could do the fullPurgeseries, couldn’t I? Keep her up late with the screaming.
Fuck. Why on earth did I just go and think of late-night screaming? Because, yes, I’d meant it in a violent, bloody way, but my libido immediately feeds me a more pleasurable version—her beneath me, those massive tits out in the open, nipples as hard as they were under that ridiculous little T-shirt this morning, her back arched and me balls deep inside a body I think aboutconstantly. I think of that sweet scent she walks around with. Some vanilla or spice or chocolate. I don’t bloody know, do I? What I know is that if her smell haunts me from a distance, I suspect that if I got close and put my face between her legs, it would be absolute hea—
Damn it!
Another knock against the door draws my attention with a start. I must look as guilty as when twelve-year-old me discovered that Mrs. Arbonaut forgot to close her bedroom shades at the weekend, which led me to make up every possible excuse to sit by my window and wait for that magical moment when the bra came off.
The face looking in, however, isn’t close to Mrs. Arbonaut’s, with her tight little blonde bun and that bright red lippy she wore every single day. No, this face is long and gaunt, the nose broken a time or two, the smile as crooked as the rest of him.
I look up and the man pushes inside, glancing about to ensure we’re alone. “Y’a personne?”
“Yep. Nobody here, Raf.” I shake my head. “Looks windy out there. Cold.”
He nods and smiles and slaps his gloved hands together for warmth.
“Fire’s lit,” I tell him. It’s as close to an invitation as he’ll get. I pull a carton from the refrigerator, take off the top, and slide it into the microwave. “Duck?”
“Mais non,” he protests, waving me away as he starts to turn back towards the door. It’s his usual dance and I let him get a couple meters away before calling him back.
“My friend ordered it at lunch. Something came up and he had to leave before it arrived.” A bald-faced lie. “Mine’s upstairs. This will go to waste if you don’t eat it.”
The oven dings and he walks over, drops his bag and settles at the bar. I draw him a pint of bitter and pour one for myself, ignoring the smoke and body odor smell coming off him. “All right, Raf. You been home at all this week?”
“Nah. Too much work.” His tone is fatalistic, unconcerned. “It would take me hours on the RER and then I’d just have to turn around and come back.”
“Welcome to run up to mine if you need a kip.”
Shaking his head, he slurps down half the beer and smacks his lips.
“It’s Christmas,” I remind him, as if the lights and decorations and frantic last-minute shoppers haven’t made that obvious enough. “You could celebrate with a nap and a shower.”
“Ouais.” With a wide smile, he accepts the plate of food and the cloth napkin and cutlery, eyes the empty bar in front of me, and, after I nod to him to go ahead, tucks in. “I need to be out there.” He takes a bite of duck breast and leans back with a sigh. “Best night of the year for chestnuts.”
Chestnuts, which he roasts over a barrel fire just up the way and sells to passersby wrapped in day-old newspaper. In the summer, he hawks sweet-scented jasmine wreaths and roses to tourists sitting at outdoor tables, which is a more dangerous job than you’d think. Between getting run off by annoyed restaurateurs, yelled at by couples in the midst of break-ups, and accused of all kinds of crap, including stealing a woman’s necklace off her person—who it turned out had taken it off back at her hotel and forgot, the silly cow—the man deserves hazard pay.
