Short Stories Part 2 E-Book

Z.J. Galos

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Serie: Short stories
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Seitenzahl: 366

Beschreibung

Short Stories, Part 2, a continuation in the series of Short Stories. Book III continues with the adventures of a writer taking off where Part 1 had ended. This time, emerging from a writer's workshop, the author expands on unusual happenings in his life, including his friend's life and his meeting with genuine human individualistic characters. Book III entails eight stories, with the protagonist seeking his woman of choice, designing an interesting home extension in Africa, enjoying his Muses, and facing love and disappointments, while Book IV features thirteen stories, capturing romance, passionate love, revisiting magnificent cities, exquisite restaurants, adventurous travel, unusual rituals, the tragic loss of beloved writing instruments, and reminiscing about a sensual story of puppy love. Besides, the artistic side of the author has added two drawings at the start of each Book, enhancing the title stories graphically.

Leseprobe

Contents

Book III

- The Muses

An Icy Storm in Midsummer’s Day

Gargoyles

Myra’s Eyes

The Enquiry

The Muses

The Sacrifice

Veena

Book IV

– Orion’s Love Nest

A Walk of Rising Expectations

Love in the Mistral

Magic Resurrection (Thirteen Songs of Eros)

Orion’s Love Nest

Paraglia Marathonas: Maria

Vienna Revisited

At Botticelli’s

My Favourite Journey

Sites of Love

The black Dog

The Pen

The red Packet

The Trinity Children

BOOK III

The Muses

An Icy Storm in Midsummer’s Day

It became again a togetherness with a variety of virtual touches, talks and loving. It’s a circle, vicious, enjoyable, exciting, depressing, high-flying, and a final fall from the sweet cotton clouds. He went through the process and he disliked it in the end, yet he is out again to do the same workings all over again. Only, just now, it’s different to the times he had before. He has learned, thanks to his friends and a good Muse. How good has she been though? Was it quite an experience in practical psychology? He has suffered and being the hunter, he became the hunted. Not by the sheer personality of this Amazon he was wrestling with, but the mental games that ended brutally, due to the slaying of the Amazon by her master: Fate. Indeed, he was perturbed as she thanked him for his compassion, he even wondered who she’d propose for him as a replacement for her. Someone intelligent, he said to her and she laughed hollow with a sarcastic taint. However, in the end it all took its toll on him and rendered him emotionally unstable. He recalled her words: We can do this, but you have to be strong. Would he be? It took him six month after her passing to reach a reasonable positive mind again, and only then was he prepared to search for a new female Muse again.

The storm has subsided and the air smells fresh again. The leaves glisten, washed and cleared from the air-pollution’s sticky film and the pellets of hail that has melted into the clear-blue coloured water in the swimming pool. Its water feels warm to the touch, as does the stored energy in the surrounding flagstone pavers, which had heated up during the day, had radiated into the pool. He wished he could have a swim longing for skinny dipping. Since the woman with the long braided hair from next door does not watch him any longer, this action has lost much of its attraction. He had enjoyed being watched. Subconsciously it had turned him on; he could sense her eyes on his cock, when he sat down on the warm surrounding paved area drying in the sun. Perhaps he had fallen asleep once in a while and the sun had an effect on his arousal. She had desired him, showing it in many ways. He was though seduced by her beckoning, but something inside held him back. Finally, he had made up his mind not to get involved with her, a female minister of the Anglican Church. But, she was highly attractive, sexy, at least from behind, with her beautifully braided hair that reached down to the top of her bums. Gosh! He thought and imagined her hair opened. He saw her lying naked on her bed, covered only by her auburn hair. Now, those moments were behind him, however, an unfinished desire that was ill-directed, not entirely the true state of his heart, but along his desires for a comparable sexual partner.

Then he met Nimis online and she seemed immediately to him that she could be his saving Muse, Ana’s answer to his lively imagination and wishes. Initially he was head-over-heels in love with her, but she kept a secretive aura around her being. He thought about seeing her in real life, before he would place any judgement towards his inflamed feelings. He wouldn’t be happy living apart from her and she was not into sex online. It was then that he desired to see her at once.

En route to a job he had been commissioned to do, fate had redirected him to London. What an opportunity to see the city the way he wished to see it and not as a side-kick to some egotistical man, he had to travel with last time, part of a team-research work.

There it was laid-out for him and the game of Nimis started taking hold of his consciousness. Her secretive style apparent through her sun-sign and the way she presented herself, intrigued him. She wasn’t after men, she had at that time stated categorically to him. Well then, he thought, another Amazon, indeed. This time Achilles did not step into his armour to fight Penthelesia. This time he let subtle feelings take their course and at a moment of stirring, he dialled her mobile number; yet as she answered his call, he hung-up. She knew it was him and she understood his pride not to give in and beg her for sex. She responded to him the day after he arrived.

This was a different world; he did not expect anything, but love he did give her. It seemed unrequited love to him, but she took it. He could sense her deeper seated emotions, as she couldn’t cover-up towards him. She took his words, his poems, and his letters, his hand, and his kisses to her cheeks. Then he heard nothing further from her. She had a sparse way with communication, as if she was counting the words she wrote, while he was smothering her with adoration. He was his usual self again – overflowing, but he guessed that she had developed a taste for gender-love, after a huge disappointment with a male partner. She had indicated that to him and he wondered about further indications.

He didn’t mind her gender affairs, but he also told her that he could do to her just the same and even more to satisfy her. Would she wish to finish her present affair, before she was ready to be involved with another man?

“If I decide to get involved with you,” she said and stopped to think, but then continued “May is also involved with a married man.” He assumed it was her girlfriend.

“Married or not,” he said, “is it pleasure you seek?” But she not in a state of mind to pursue this discussion, just enjoying the superficial pleasures he offered her wholeheartedly. “Maybe some other time then,” he moaned, but he dreaded the thought of delaying such a pleasure of love – he had a gutfeel that it could be turning out to be great – judging about the way she had reacted to the touches of his hands moulded on her feet. In fact he could sense it to be tremendous.

“I am a passionate woman,” she murmured.

Darn! He thought, why does she refuse a good man like him then, making love to her?

She knew it could be unusually great with him, as a woman knows instinctively matters of the heart, but she was not at all in a state of mind and body to share lust in a stealthy way. It wasn’t what turned her on. She was a straight-forward type of conditioned woman and she wasn’t the heroine who has a secret life of an aspiring novelist.

As he touched her breasts, she pushed his hands off and then he slid his fingers to her vulva; she protested: I don’t do that if I’m not married – he thought to understand from her murmuring.

At the start she had sent him a poem, but since then she had never sent him another one. It was a good poem and he encouraged her to write. Pity, he thought, she has such emotional depths and she doesn’t make use of her talents. She rather wastes all on her insatiable drives to feed the desires of her gender-oriented relationships. For her a bit of clitoris is everything, he mused, as for him the pussy, so he couldn’t blame her. He thought of her as a clever woman, avoiding the onslaught of men, being single and stunningly attractive. All she wanted was a soft touch now and then, being satisfied by another woman. All she wanted from him was a great foot and neck massage. He did not mind. He loved her. He could give her a massage and get aroused quite easily. Pity that he could not take her top off that night; he was enticed, horny, and he desired to fuck her beautiful breasts.

That was his closest erotic event he ever could aspire to get with her. He could feel that she was closed-up considerably to a man touching her sexually, even if he was gentle. Her wearing of a sports-bra hindered the sexual sensation at that magical moment he desired sharing a great skin contact with her. He couldn’t imagine that she would not be aroused to his touches to her breasts and his kissing and sucking of her nipples, he wished to see and have her this way at least.

The next day he could have done it perhaps technically easier, as she wore a soft top. He was though tired-out, repelled by a giant wave of tiredness that surged through him like the climax he’d expected with her but never had. Falling almost to his knees, he sunk onto the softness of her bed that embraced him and he fell asleep. Here now, he wished to sleep with her and his mind was already reaching half way; he was overcome by thoughts that censored his actions, which had been genuine the night before. What a tragedy in the sense of wasted efforts to have love made enjoyable for two well-matching partners!

He saw Anne’s face. Her words still reverberated in his mind: We do not have much time! Then, as he thought back, he noticed that out of five years of a stealthy relationship, three years remained most memorable ones: The first year as an opening with many discussions and agreeing about the rules, the second, as a timid love but a promising start with interest of meeting in real life, the third, to transfer virtual love into reality. The fourth year was a highlight of twenty days and one of fucking and being in heaven all the time. In the fifth year she suffered a decline of her sexual powers and was fading away physically. Then there was the shock of her untimely death, like that of an infant. This was the reason why he was almost mad about Nimis. How could she resist a good loving? Did she not see it, or didn’t she feel it? Did she not need it anymore? Can’t she share her emotions equally with women and men?

His eyes already tiring, have begun shedding tears as he writes. He needs to apply eye drops immediately. His erection does still function most mornings and he can be off to a sexual height quite easily, stimulated by the appearance of her sweet face, but would she care about that? He has given up on her a few times now, after she had avoided to sleep with him and now what has she got? More desire? To him it was like an outcry of his own fear of his libido’s loss and the last clasp to a woman, named NIMIS, but then she hopefully will remain a friend.

He had wished her to become his lover, but she isn’t a woman who could deal with clandestine love, perhaps. Then, what about her visits to her women friends? Of course, it had to be discreet. That’s all, everything else will destroy too much and he sees now the values of it, as she had first-hand experience. He thinks: I have been spoilt by the dedication of Anne, who was there for me daily. But unfortunately in the apex of his sexual love with her, she vanished amidst tears that tore his heart into two; but still it could be saved and mended. Something of a good surgical suture by other skilled hands still remained, he could be pasted together again and looking for a soulmate. One, who matches with oneself is always difficult to find. Will he ever find another one?

Facing the death throes of a beloved one, the lover will be on the procrustean bed of his pains; pains that arise as he is incapable of doing anything to save her, as love has ceased to be possible and the only healing available. Perhaps compassion will serve as soothing strokes to the heart, intact at periodical states of her consciousness. Then, as coma sets in, he is already far away, due to his commitments and his traveling, which raises his desperation, rendering it that much greater, without the slightest means at his disposal to have been of help, although he muses about the fact of having felt the need of being present at her death bed. Would that have helped? He has a bad conscious that he isn’t present. In the throes of his inner struggle, her soul-sister’s voice would still rebound in him: “It is better if you don’t come, remember her as she was rather.” Indeed, the last image of her remained the strongest, as he can see her still up and writing, her first cousin present; she would be on her feet, acting prolific and even smile, as her cousin says: “Could you read a poem for me?” Addressing him with curiosity in her eyes. And as he starts, Anne says: “But that is personal.”

“Well, all my poems are personal.” He says selecting one with less graphic descriptions of lovemaking. When he finishes, her cousin says: “Lucky person for whom this poem was written, awaiting him to reveal his lover. Anne just scribbles on and he is asked by her cousin to read another. Finally she asks him for his typed manuscript and she reads all the poems, devouring them, visually stirred by emotion. “She likes your poems,” Anne says at the same time, as she thinks the same. “I will do now an unusual thing…”- he leaves the sentence unfinished thinking about taking the two women to bed. That certainly would ease the apparent sexual tensions. After all we are partners in crime. But he does not say that aloud. Her cousin looks at him with beady eyes and swallows hard. Suddenly she gets up and leaves for the kitchen.

And now the year has ended and Anne is still vivid on his mind, so much as he will not need a video clip of her to recall the way she moved and smiled.

Sometimes he wishes to sedate his emotional life that kept pitching-up his innermost and let her go for good. After all, she said good-bye to him already and without saying the words like in a movie, she enticed him to make love to her. While it was already physically painful to her, to him emotionally. He didn’t imagine such a shocking sexual love ending some months ago.

Now he has already said ‘Happy New Year’ to Nimis, wishing to have spoken to her at least. He was emotional and he couldn’t. He doesn’t know where she is and he is not feeling happy to reach her at a place and a time disadvantageous to her. He senses that she would like him to be single, so he would be eligible for her. He, on the other side, wishes to be free from obligations, the best way to love and live, as Anne had taught him. The storm is over at the old year and a new one will be in the making again. And Nimis, what about Nimis?

*

Gargoyles

His mobile phone rang. “Guten Tag, mein Freund, ja!” Glens laughed as he conversed with the German words he practiced every time he called him.

“Guten Tag,” he replied “Have you finally come to tell me you are building a house?”

“Not yet,” he said, “but I am with a client who needs some ideas for an alteration of her roof.”

“Well, if it’s a challenge and I’m paid, I’ll do it.”

“She’s close to your home, Zarco.” Glens concluded, dictating him Sandra’s ten digit mobile number.

He struggled with his short story’s angle, he needed to finish for a writing competition, when he recalled to call Sandra. He left his mobile phone number on her answering service. Ten minutes later she called back. Her voice had a slight twist ending nouns and sentences. She sounds like a trendy, fashionable with-it artist-amazon, he thought. She agreed to see him in an hour’s time.

He arrived at Twenty-First Street and searched for number 69. His mind reduced the numbers: fifteen, six, he mused. A game he learned from a former Muse. Six sounds like sex. His mind played games of sexual positions, he saw in a French movie the night before. He parked his Merc 124 in the shade of a plane tree and waited. Halfway through, writing a poem to his new Muse, she appeared in her turmeric-yellow sports Merc. A Mercedes lover also, he noted.

She opened the plain steel door by remote control and he walked behind her car into the narrow driveway. She stepped from the low seat of the sports sedan by the time he caught up with her.

“Hi,” she tensed-up, her face showed stress. She unlocked the entrance door and he stepped behind her into the lounge. “Sorry about the mess,” she said,“ I have been busy at my shop.” She moved ahead in her tight red hip jeans. He noticed her slender hips, unusual for a woman in her late forties and he enjoyed moving behind her, as she led the way around her house with an artistic feel in the interior decoration

“I like your unusual environment,” he said absorbing the natural look of a brick wall, steel frames with cut-in patterns for a huge mirror. She noticed his interest

“I am eclectic in my taste,” she said opening the glazed double steel door from her dining area. Water from three spouts tumbled into cone shaped receptacles filled with brown pebble stones, cooling the air. The splattering noise soothed the mind. The wall at the back, entirely framed with steel angles and steel mesh, held the brown rounded pebbles like a riverbed run dry.

“A bit of a contemporary Alhambra, he said and glanced at her as she turned.

“I like natural steel, as decay changes its surface.” The rusty streaks, usually avoided by popular designers, Sandra used in a new aesthetic movement that emphasized the natural beauty of industrial products without conservation. “Your stone wall relaxes the mind, as one can meditate here,” he commented watching her reaction, “even the colours of stone and rusty steel complement each other.” Sandra smiled. She continued to show him around.

They passed the huge mirror framed in a wide welded steel frame, with cut-in flower decorations, hung on a natural brick wall, its plaster scratched off. He observed the cut steel frames with lines that appeared darker like scars of inflicted wounds on the skin of iron, covered with scales of brown rust. Further to the left of the yard, Sandra had placed two bouquets of twisted iron rods that appeared like a forgotten bunch of flowers, a lover had left behind. Sandra fitted into the environment of rusting reeds and stained brown pebbles with the natural painter: Rust on a high roll, has chosen her as a Muse. It had invaded her environment at the periphery of her unusual domicile.

Sandra appeared as an alert Amazon, sharp, without cutting him up, pointed, without piercing him. A woman with a deep throbbing artistic vein, without drowning anyone who disliked her evocative choices of decoration.

The fascination with her environment set his artistic half into an instant life, he could not control. Dissolving from his body, it presented itself for discussion and an artistic debate to face her. “Zippo,” his artist-half said and stretched out a hand. “Nice meeting you Zippo,” she took his hand and her curious brown eyes passed down his body. As he felt her scrutinizing his body, his spirit walked with Zippo and disappeared into the pebble-wall to take on a body of brown pebbles and rusted iron. She floated to the slotted mirror frame and her artistic self disappeared through the slots into the depth behind. Zippo followed her through a flower slot.

“It’s an unusual name,” she said.

“Yes, it’s related to fire and lighters,” he laughed.

“How come?” She tilted her head.

“It’s the way I paint my inflamed pictures.”

“You like fires?” She stepped back.

“Well, let’s say my spirit does.” She eyed him with big mystical curiosity that resembled her black iridescent Burmese cat, who watched her movements with huge green eyes.

Self-assured and restless, Sandra moved ahead and stepped through a glazed steel door that led to a wooden decking around a plunge pool. She stood in the semi-shade with a ray of sunshine crossing her face in a band that illuminated her hazel eyes. A tinge of sensuality flicked through her gaze, as if she could suddenly read his mind, while he thought of her emerging from the bedroom next door in the nude, taking her invigorating dip. He saw her slender figure and her well-shaped breasts, as she stretched and dived coming up for air. She pushed water from her mouth and breathed in pushing herself-up on the edge of the timber deck, her nipples hard points on the discs of brown areolas. He thought of the brown pebbles, the rusted colours, and he related them as the basic design element. He would crown the sectional elements of the wooden garage doors with them. A half-smile appeared on her profiled lips, her fingers touched his by accident, as she moved them across the layouts of her house with the proposed changes.

Step by step the figures of Zippo and Sarah returned from the slots in the mirror frame hung on the rough brick wall. Swoosh, swoosh, they danced like ghosts wafting through the space between their seated bodies and the brown wet pebbles in the stone wall with the three water features.

“I like your Chinese cupboard,” Zarco said as his fingers ran along the highly polished dark-grey lacquer with white decorations of flowers and leaves, highlighted on the lacquered surface.

“I’m an eclectic person, Zarco,” Sandra said moving to the main bedroom. The white floor in a cement finish, decorated with a darker band around her king-sized bed, felt like a marble floor to the feet.

“It must be nice to bare feet,” Zarco said, as he imagined her walking barefoot on it. Sandra looked at him with her half-smile, he interpreted as not too interested in him physically at that moment. He felt though that she as a sensual woman might be interested in any individualistic beings, men or women.

The bedroom ceilings resembled white painted cement boards above a white exposed timber support. The industrial character became aesthetically acceptable through its structure masked with a layer of white paint. A glazed section at the gable end let natural light deeper into the space. The glare, absorbed in the matt white paint of the ceiling, bounced back as a pleasant natural illumination.

“Well,” he said, “I like the stark arctic white against the dark brown-purple of the bathroom walls.” She smiled.

“One could disappear in the bathroom,” she turned into artist model Sarah again, circling her index finger for him to follow her. He turned into Zippo and followed her into the bubbling Jacuzzi. “Ahh, how wonderful you look, Sarah.” She descended onto his lap, a goddess, born from the rusting steel and floating on the purple foam.

“The stair must go,” Zarco said.

“Whereto?” she replied and frowned.

“It’s like a knife, cutting through the heart of your carapace you retreat into.” He moved his hand as if he would emphasize the slashing of someone with a knife.

“Swoosh, swoosh,” the sound of slashing blew from his lips. “I think it supposed to be against a wall,” he said and paced through the room to find a position.

“That’s what the Feng Shui-man said as well,” she retorted with excited eyes at him having touched this crucial point. The art of placement of objects and elements seemed to be touching them both.

“Sure,” he said, “placement art is always worth listening to.” She nodded. “I’ll show you the rooms upstairs.” She spoke while she moved up on the wooden treads in her elegant way, swinging her hips slightly. He watched her rhythmic gait, his aesthetic and artistic other half emerged at her side. He gazed at her back. Her hip-slacks slid down and showed her smooth skin and when her pants pulled tight around her flexing legs. And he stared at her well-shaped bums.

“See?” Zippo said “She is sexy, no?” The voice said aloud and it sounded like a dialogue with her. She turned, smiling at him and climbed the stair. “This stair needs maintenance work, Sarah,” he said.

“Indeed,” Sarah replied “the stair must be sanded down,” she turned at the landing. “The floor gave-in.” She frowned. He bounced up and down on the flexing timber.

“Not much support,” he said. Sarah looked frightened.

“Yes, it’s all rotten,” she carried on showing him the two small bedrooms.

“Indeed,” he said and recalled the playful note of a colleague teasing him with sparkling eyes: “We have to do more research, Zarco!”

“Yes,” he replied and looked into the play of her eyes shooting off sparks as an invitation to a pleasurable game. His mind memorized Sandra’s walk up the stair, as he intended to find a typical movement, emphasizing her character. In time it’ll come to him, like a poem, or a piece of prose writing. Given respite, while it will percolate through his artistic filters, the concept’s creation will take shape: A painting first, as she’s definitively a model for more than a poem, or a short story later perhaps? Or whatever his creative delving would be.

He looked at her well-shaped breasts she pushed them out, opening the door and he waited for them popping out at the top, as she stretched back waiting for him to touch them. He was mesmerized by her beautiful figure. She is my client, he thought, how would I continue? He felt tempted to touch Sandra, but then all would be finished for the business. She might refuse my advances if I take the goose now and loose the golden eggs, she would stop working with me and I would have to resign from the job. I would lose a good opportunity proving my artistic talent and furthermore I would lose out on a necessary income.

It’s sex or income, make your choice Zippo, he talked to himself aloud, as she emerged from the mirror frame’s leafy slots. He grinned. “Damn you Zippo,” he could clearly hear his voice, as his other half became jealous of him being so close to Sarah, while he had to watch. She smiled as he looked up from observing the aching floorboards as their eyes met and he returned her shining gaze.

He had dealt with business women before. Tricky, he thought, as she asked for a quotation for his work. “I have to go,” she moved down the wooden stair. He followed her, less enticed as on the way up. He packed the floor plans and his sketches and left. He mused about his multi-layered impressions, as he moved outside her house along the tight driveway, bewitched, intrigued, along a path to artistic impressions in architecture, something that had evaded him for a long time. Since he had taken up writing poetry, meeting his Muse, his other half. No other woman had called him: My Man.

He took his digital camera snapping pictures. The black cat with mesmerizing green eyes appeared in front of him, watching him from a safe distance. The mannerism of Sandra’s fingers, her intonation of words, stretching the last syllable of nouns, resembled the cat’s moves. Her slick movements as she walked between an array of lizards, reptiles, and snake replicas in wood, metal or stone. She kept them on parquet floors, concrete floors, and around the house on the dark timber decking around the plunge pool.

The cool colours of her bedroom represented her main character: The innocence of her spiritual soul attacked by the darker side of her brown-purple artistic nakedness. Zippo could see her: One half dressed in a deep purple leotard with slots and cuttings in the stretch fabric, to show her delicate porcelain skin. The other side on her left, with the bleeding heart of an artist, denuded from the cloth. Drops of magenta dripped from her heart down to her thighs like tears.

The black and white figure reminded him of soulmates, the matching ‘other half’ – The Dionysian versus the Apollonian spirit – darkness against light, positive thoughts against negative ones. He attempted to stretch the list of contrasts forever in the same breath as he admired her bathroom contrasting with her bedroom; her dark grey and silver Chinese cupboard against the rough brick face and the rusted slotted steel framed mirror.

He returned the second time with an engineer, whose comments he listened to in accordance with his conceptual design. CC, the engineer, knew the place from the previous owner. While he talked about general matters with Sandra, Zarco took some pictures with his digital camera. Some he captured with her portrait at the edge of the frame. He behaved like her Burmese cat pawing around a bowl of milk. He felt not superior to CC and his former knowledge that invaded his delicate relationship with Sandra wouldn’t bother him. Feeling challenged by CC, the engineer and Glens, the builder, he thought that she would still place him above them as her choice of artist. Zarco made it clear to her that she intrigued him and he wanted her. Would she consent at the end of the job? Her Burmese cat broke the ice, as she sniffed first at his lowered fingers and then his feet, before it crawled up and moved behind his seat and then settled behind his ears on his shoulders. Sandra took it off him into her arms and it snuggled at her breasts curling around her. She looked at him and Zarco felt as if Sandra, who cuddled the cat, would cuddle him in this sensual act of intimacy. Then CC, who was a cat lover, cuddled the cat, but rougher than Zarco did, who it preferred to snuggle up to, and then CC left. Sandra talked to Zarco reflecting on his ideas.

The condensate water on the glass of cold water stained the moss-green painted surface of the wooden table top. He wiped the run off drops with one hand and moped them up with a tissue from his pocket. Her strong sinewy fingers touched his, as he sketched for her his idea of a new elevation. A partly finished torso hung across a mirror at the entrance. Sandra’s? Her sculpted fingers gave it away. He began to love her physiognomy. He wondered how she moved when she made love. The door to her bedroom stood open, but he could be wrong with all his assumptions about her. Was she out to be excited in role playing? Possess and being possessed, but given a chance she would ride him. Being a businesswoman made her tough. Is it now all about commands and orders? He mused. However he had to chuckle inside, with his poetic descriptions of her ‘Jewellery box-home, she glowed, he was literary at present in the driving seat.

“It’s late, I must be going,” she exclaimed suddenly, “I’m opening a shop in Pretoria.” She gasped. He still wanted to keep her for a while, fascinate her with his story. They talked on. He told her about writing a book with its hero being an artist. He wanted always to become an artist. Through her inspiration, his love for painting surfaced suddenly stronger than ever.

“Your space is inspirational to me!” He concluded: “On a quest finding my ‘Other half’, I made a step forward, realizing my artistic calling through the genre of painting.” He finished with her, packing his sketches into his X-clusive Books’ plastic bag. He rose. “I’ll give you a call.” He left.

He arranged a meeting with Glens, who wanted Sara to be present, but Zarco told him that this meeting would be only informative. He outlined the scheme to Glens, but he sensed that he wouldn’t talk about Sandra with him. No personal matters. All chit-chat with Glens would do nothing more than wedge a rift of doubt between himself and Sandra. Somehow another story unfolded, as Glens started to mention another woman, he also knew from a previous job. Glens used her as a metaphor and Zarco would add two and two together.

“Jody had an operation, did you know?” Glens spoke with a stern face. “I wasn’t aware of that,” he replied, “is it a serious matter?” He looked at Glens, whose face coloured pink, as if he would have caught him red-handed with another man’s wife. Glens turned into a steel-chameleon and placed himself on the new façade of Zarco’s design, just below the roofline. He looked magnificent.

“Yes,” he gulped, as his face coloured to a darker pink.

“Gore hit her and broke her jaw.” He averted his eyes.

“Impossible,” Zarco said, but nurtured his curiosity, enticing Glens to spill out more. Glens finished his tale with details and the two yearlong shaky relationship with Jody and her violent hubby, Gore. Zarco realized that he heard this story from the third viewpoint already: Spouse, wife, and lover. Eyeing Glens as he talked, once set onto his track as a stealthy lover, he couldn’t be stopped. Glens switched-on like a cross-country runner, took short cuts, and telling half-truths. He could hide all his personal drama behind his stories; yet bragging indirectly about his sexual prowess.

“You are getting older, Glens,” he said and watched the fired-up tradesman turned builder.

“Memory fails first and then slowly the other lower human compartments.” –

“No!” Glens protested, as if Zarco hurt his pride that lay between his thighs…”the department down there is still in good working order.”

Zarco smiled as he sketched in his mind all characters that sprung from the art of a sculptor, assembling steel scrap metal welded together. Create a set of animal, he could use as gargoyles and depict the story in fixing them to the corners of Sandra’s house. He had ignored all the chit-chat before, but now the rusty steel animals became alive.

He recalled the chameleon, where Glens sprung from, just about Sandra’s bedroom. He pointed at the rusted buckled figure: “I use these as protective elements to your house, extending lizards, crocs, and mambas.”

He showed Sandra their positions, watching her smirk, comparing her to her cat. Yes, he would fix her to a corner too. He turned CC into a bristly gnome, Gore into a dragon, Glens into the confused knight, the gardener into a chameleon. What would he be, the invisible scribe, living in the decorative cuts of her steel mirror frame watching her dinner guests?

If Sandra turned into the slick lizard on her table, he would join her as the other lizard. Lazing in the sun and lying on top of each other at times of inner heat.

The third time he came to see her, she did not appear. He parked his car under her plane tree and waited. Then the gardener appeared. He finished his writing: Seeking Anna. Assuming her to be at home, he dialled her mobile number. She opened the gate and he rushed to the entrance door. She received him dressed in her gym gear. Her tight pants showed off her slim figure, her top zipped-up, kept her generous breasts in check.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said. Sandra looked pale without her make-up. He noticed her dark brown eyes. This is Sandra natural, he mused, observing her bums as she moved ahead of him. She wants me to concentrate on her body parts, she knows I would admire, he thought. Well, she had succeeded.

“You came for the plans?” He nodded and she confirmed “I have phoned the former architect for the originals, but the firm has none.”

“Sloppy indeed,” he murmured, “usually one approved copy has to be kept.”

“This is the only copy I have,” she spread the drawing onto the parquet floor. “Please don’t lose them, otherwise I am left with nothing.”

“I’ll copy them and bring them back to you.” He looked at the paper prints on the floor she’d left spread out.

“I have a busy morning here,” she said “we are painting the chairs.”

“It’s a nice colour,” he commented, “like magenta, indeed.” The stocky woman painting her chairs moved the brush irritated being observed, spraying dots of oil paint across Sandra’s only plan copies.

“Oh Gosh!” Sandra rose checking her track suit for paint. He followed suit.

“I’m sorry,” said the stocky woman with a frown. Strange character, Zarco thought, obviously her friend.

“Do you want to talk to me?” Sandra said, and as he nodded, she moved. “Let’s go over here.” She pointed to the soft couch opposite her TV-wall. The cupboard with a curved shape and brushed steel elements suited her natural style. He called it ‘Punk interior style’.

“No cat here today?” His hands probed the cover. He sat down and spread his sketch from the upper floor.

“I found a solution for your staircase,” he said, rose, and she followed. He stopped at the steel door that opened to her wooden decking surrounding the plunge pool. “Here,” he said and pointed his hands to describe physically the position to her.

“I see,” she cooed, “Yes, I like it!”

“It’s the best place, my gut-feel tells me. I took time to consolidate all ideas and overrule the spots recommended before. I am convinced now!” He moved back to the soft settee and checked the plan on the table against the position he had described.

“You’d like some coffee?”

“Yes, I like some,” he followed her to the open kitchen.

“I have no milk,” she said.

“Don’t bother, black is fine.” He sipped his coffee immediately, while he explained to her the proposed upper floor layout. “OK,” she said.

“I draw it up like this,” he concluded.

“Let’s have a party then.” She stretched.

“Well, I’m sure it’s still too early.”

“It’s never early for a celebration…have a drink meanwhile, all’s there on the sideboard. Please help yourself, I’ll go and change.”

After his second drink a man arrived, dusky and well dressed. He introduced himself: “I’m Sandra’s ex.”

“I am Zarco, her architect.” Sandra came down the stair. She greeted her former husband like a friend. “Let me show you the new design, Fred.” Sandra unrolled the originals from Zarco’s protective carrier and explained roughly the scheme. Fred seemed to have little interest, but once Sandra had finished, he asked her what she would like to drink. “Gin and tonic, two ice.” Fred came back with the drinks, while Zarco rolled the drawings together again. “I must say,” Fred started suddenly, “the design is unusual and original, certainly better than the scheme of the other architects.”

“My husband is old-fashioned as far as houses are concerned.” Sandra frowned. “However, I think it’ll be just great.” She smiled. “Cheers,” we toasted to each other. More guests arrived and soon the cold and hot buffet as well, one of Sandra’s associates had organized.

The party was in full swing and he noticed through the lounge window that Sandra had an argument with her husband outside. Somebody came to refresh my drink. I had enough and wanted to go.

When Sandra returned, she had another drink and walked about chatting to some friends. As she came across Zarco, she asked him if he could check out a new formed structural gap behind her bedroom wall. Zarco followed her upstairs. On top she turned suddenly and kissed him. Zarco kissed her back, but felt suddenly weak in his knees. He told Sandra. “It’s not from kissing, is it?” she laughed. “No, I think it’s the drink…”

“I hope it’s not that darned…” Zarco did not hear her last words any longer, as he collapsed onto her bed. Sandra closed the door and walked down to the kitchen to check on her associate who made the catering arrangements.

“Hello Sandra,” her right hand associate greeted her, “we just ran out of drinks.”

“Well, let’s close-up, I want to turn in.”

“Have you taken him upstairs?”

“Don’t be silly, he felt ill, somebody must have spiked his drink.”

“Nonsense. Let’s have one for the road,” Hilda, her associate said. Sandra felt flushed after the drink. “My god Hilda, you have a heavy hand!”

“Well, whose glass is this?”

“I don’t know.” Sandra sniffed at the drink. “It smells potent!”

“Let me taste it,” Hilda said and took a swig. “Not bad, it would be a pity to waste.” She downed the drink. Ten minutes later she ripped her clothes off and jumped into Sandra’s small deck-pool outside.

“Come on Sandra, the water is fair.” Just as Sandra took off her clothes and prepared to join her, Zarco arrived from upstairs. “Come join us, you’ll need some waking up.” Sandra laughed.

“Thank you, I’d love to, but it’s late.”

“Well, have a short jump-in then.” Suddenly Hilda seemed to be unwell and collapsed. Sandra called for help. Zarco held her up and they both rescued her from drowning. “We have to lay her on the couch,” Sandra said. Zarco fetched a bedcover and they laid her on it. Together they pulled her into the nearby lounge. “it must have been her drink,” Sandra murmured.

“Tell me about it,” Zarco said.

“But you recovered.”

“I stopped in time, as I noticed that it affected my vision. I had one black beer and felt sick, but collapsed afterwards.” Somebody rang the bell outside.

“Who the hell could that be at this late hour?” Sandra checked the spy hole. “It’s the neighbour.” She opened the door. Meanwhile Hilda recovered too and Zarco brought her a glass of cooled water to drink. After some sips she went back to sleep.

“What happened?” He asked.

“Let’s have some coffee,” Sandra said “and I’ll tell you later.” Zarco phoned his spouse to let her know that he was a guest at his client’s residence and would not be driving home tonight. On intuition, he took Sandra up to her other bedroom and they made love languidly. In the morning Sandra had made already breakfast, the coffee and croissants tasted just wonderful. He felt good and thanked her for the night.

“We would not have given up making love just for these damned KO-drops, would we?” She said.

“Oh you found out?”

“My husband did, as I asked him to check your glass, you and Hilda drank from.”

“And the culprit?”

“Damned Matilda, one of my business associates, who disliked your plans. The KO-drops that matched your glass were inside her handbag they found lost in the park across the road. No idea what happened to her. It’s Africa,” she concluded philosophically.

“I’m glad we are alive.” I kissed her good-bye, said hello to Hilda and drove to my studio.

*

Seeking Simone