8. ALISTAIR
2184 Words
I leave the Café de la Place in the pouring rain. I met some guys there who I work with on construction sites; the idea of a beer after a day’s work was a pleasant prospect, but I admit that returning in the rain doesn’t excite me. I got used to the mild weather of the region much faster than I would have thought. So, like many locals, I don’t even know where my umbrella is stored, although I always have it at hand when I’m in London.
I raised the collar of my jacket and got as close as possible to the shops on the street. Some have awnings to protect me from the downpour for a few seconds.
I turned into a small street that would allow me to reach mine as quickly as possible. But then I witnessed a funny scene. At the start, I don’t really see what it is, the lighting is rather bad there, and the rain doesn’t help. I should have gone my way, but the thing piqued my curiosity. I approached and saw that someone was clinging to what seemed to me to be the back wall of the village bakery. And it looks like he’s trying to climb it. Is he looking to break into the shop?
I continue in that direction. I still tell myself that if it’s really a burglar, it may not be very smart of me to go to him alone, and without having warned the police. But as I progress, I notice two things: the first is that the person is far from reaching his goal, he seems to have the greatest difficulty in the world with climbing; the second is that I have the impression that it’s a woman, and her outfit doesn’t seem to me to be the one someone planning a heist would have chosen.
She doesn’t hear me approach, certainly concentrating on her task. She groans as I see her arms struggle to pull themselves up a little higher. From where I am, I have a magnificent view of her wriggling posterior. And I happen to know that behind! I’m not an expert on buttocks to the point of identifying their owner at a glance, but I happened to have had the opportunity to see it in this same blue dress not even an hour ago, leaving the Café de la place.
“But what are you doing there, buttocks in the air?”
Surprised by my presence, she lets out a cry and releases her grip on the wall. Without even thinking about what I’m doing, I move forward to catch her. She doesn’t fall from a great height, but she could still hurt herself. My arms close on the baker, whose curves I know but not the name.
“Let me go!” she screams, struggling.
I comply, not really in the mood to take a badly placed blow. Because the least we can say is that she has good reflexes. Her knee lifts and passes very close to my family jewels. Fortunately, my survival instinct is also on the job. The next second, I see her brandishing her bag as a weapon.
I stepped back, raising my hands in front of me in surrender:
“Hey, calm down! I mean you no harm.”
Despite the dim gleam of street lighting, I can see in her eyes that she isn’t totally convinced.
“You looked in trouble, I just wanted to help you,” I added.
“I was doing quite well until you arrived,” she cursed.
“I see that,” I said, nodding at her soaked clothes and dripping hair. “Can I ask you a question though? Why are you climbing your wall in the rain?”
She crosses her arms over her chest. I don’t think she’s aware of it, but the movement makes her cleavage puff up, and with the little raindrops streaming down it… It’s really not the time, Alistair!
“It’s not your business,” she scolds me.
“Okay, well, if you don’t mind, I’m going to go take cover. Good evening.”
I turn around, take one step, then two...
“Wait!”
I smiled internally. I suspect that if she’s alone in the rain, it’s not by choice. I turned in her direction.
“Do you have a phone? So I can call my brother to come and get me.”
“Sure. But come out of the rain, I live right there.”
I pointed to my house. It’s barely visible in the dark. She’s hesitating.
“You can’t wait for him in the rain, you’ll be frozen before he arrives.”
She nods and follows me. I’m tempted to reach out my hand to her so we can walk together, but I doubt she’ll accept it. We walk the hundred metres that separate us from my house. The gate creaks when I open it, which I admit gives a grim first impression of the place. I take out my bunch of keys and unlock the door as quickly as possible. I waved to her to come in. She stared at me as if to make sure it was safe.
“Don’t worry, I never chain women in my basement the first time they come to visit.”
She responds with a mocking smile, but a smile all the same.
“I’m sure that’s what all the perverts who chain women up in their basements say.”
She walks in and I close the door behind us. She stops in the hallway, observes it as if it were a museum gallery. It must be said that there’s enough to satisfy the curious, between old portraits and family photos. I haven’t looked at them for a long time myself. Especially not the pictures that recall a happy and bygone past.
“That would be an interesting idea. I could keep you prisoner here and force you to make me croissants every morning,” I blurted out.
My comment caught her attention. She squints and stares at me before saying:
“I’ve seen you before! You’re the customer who dared to comment on my underwear the other day. I recognize your accent!”
“My accent? I thought it was my face of unparalleled perfection that you had recognised.”
I give her my signature smile, the one that makes girls undress in front of me without me even having to touch them. News flash: it doesn’t work on her. She even looks more annoyed than anything else.
“Could I call?” she replies.
“Take off your jacket, it’s soaked.”
I feel that the thing she wants the most is to get out of here as soon as possible. But she still takes off her wet clothes. I grab it and hang it on a hook with my jacket. I kicked off my shoes and called over my shoulder as I headed
stairs:
“I’ll be back, go sit in the living room.”
I go to the bathroom, get clean towels from the closet. I take off my shirt and wipe myself straight away with one of them. I then went to my room to get a dry T-shirt. I’m about to leave the room when I think of something. I go back to my closet, grab another T-shirt and sweatpants before heading back down.
I find the baker where I left her. She hasn’t moved one inch. There’s even a small puddle at her feet, a result of her dripping dress. It sticks to her body like a second skin. I look away to avoid being tempted to examine her curves.
“You should have gone to the living room, it’s warmer there.”
“I didn’t want to mess up anywhere.”
I handed her the towel and the dry clothes.
“There’s a bathroom down the hall if you want to change.”
She looks at the pile of laundry cautiously.
“If you stay soaked, you’ll be sick tomorrow.”
That’s enough to convince her. She grabs the stuff. The tips of her fingers brush mine, they’re frozen. She walks quietly to the bathroom and closes the door.
I go into the kitchen and turn on the kettle. I pull out a bag of Earl Gray for myself and rummage through the cupboards looking for potential tins of tea or a fruity herbal tea that my mother might have left lying around. Something tells me she must be the kind of girl to like this stuff. I fill two mugs with hot water, and the next moment she comes back wearing my T-shirt and my pants, the bottoms of which she has rolled up over her ankles. I see she tries to discipline her half-soaked hair.
I pushed the cup towards her on the table.
“I made you some tea, miss…”
I let my sentence hang, thinking she’ll complete it for me, but she doesn’t.
“Usually, when a woman gets to wear my clothes, I at least know her first name,” I say in a joking tone.
She blushes slightly, which makes her look adorable and almost innocent. But something screams at me that there’s nothing innocent about this woman. That under this angelic look hides a temperament as lively as the fiery reflections of her hair.
“Romy,” she replied, holding out her hand as if we had just met.
I’m surprised at the gesture, but take it all the same. She’s a little hotter than before, but I convince myself that she needs me to warm her up, which is why I take my time before releasing her.
“Alistair.”
“Thanks for the dry clothes and the tea,” she said, sitting down facing the steaming mug. “Do you mind if I call my brother now?”
Am I allowed to answer no? Because as surprising as it is, I don’t want her to leave. But since I promised not to chain her up either, I took my smartphone out of my pocket and put it on the table in front of her. She takes it in her hand and bites her bottom lip, drawing my attention to them. This isn’t the first time I’ve noticed how delicious they look. Full and fleshy, red like cherries. Lost in my contemplation of this aspect of her anatomy which, on its own, awakens a whole host of fantasies in my head, I’m surprised when she speaks to me.
“You don’t have a charger?”
I don’t understand, my phone in her hand seems to be on.
“For my phone,” she says, going to get the device. “I can’t use yours, I don’t know his number by heart.”
She sticks her mobile under my nose, and what a pity, it’s not the same brand as mine. I shake my head,” she sighs.
“I can try to call my parents,” she said aloud, but they unplug their landline most of the time so as not to be bothered by sales calls.”
She dials the number. And when she hangs up without having managed to reach anyone, I offer a silent prayer of thanks to all the telemarketers, Jehovah’s Witnesses and gas companies who made Romy’s parents choose their peace of mind over the safety of their daughter.
“I can take you back,” I reassured her.
I don’t want her to think she’s going to have to walk home. She seems to weigh the pros and cons, then asks:
“It doesn’t bother you?”
“If that were the case, I wouldn’t suggest it to you.”
“You can just say that out of politeness.”
“If it was, I wouldn’t tell you either.”
She made a small sound of protest.
“You can say that I did this out of self-interest. Tomorrow, I’ll come to the bakery, and you can offer me one of those totally indecent chocolate éclairs you make.”
She smiles.
“You have a sweet tooth?”
“A what?”
Although I have practised French for a long time, I sometimes have trouble with certain expressions.
“You like sweets, I mean.”
“Not that much, but your pastries... they’re something special, I must admit.”
“Thank you.”
She blushes again, and I wonder what I could add to keep her in this state.
“Your cakes are almost as good as sex.”
She widens her eyes, but instead of running away from the subject, she asks:
“Almost?”
“Yes. I prefer a woman to an ecéclair. Although I never tried to sleep with the second.”
She burst out laughing. I did the same before resuming a more serious look. I stared at her intensely, and with a voice that was a little too full of innuendo, I asked her:
“And you, Romy, do you prefer s*x or cakes?”
- Writer
