It’s about time someone else got a foot in the door. Or, a word in edgeways, to be more accurate. I know I said ‘About time,’ in my head as I smiled and said. ‘Okay, thanks,’ and accepted the offer to tell a story about a Christmas party. Every month we do this, one of us invited to tell a story and then we sit around mulling it over. Dissecting the line, its value, and go away and write one of our own that matches, prequels or sequels, or whatever.
I am not usually like this but the nearer it gets to Christmas… Well, it’s a story, I suppose. My turn now. A few hundred words to read to the group.
‘We were drinking cocktails at the time. Being precise, they or rather, it, was a ‘French 75,’ for the first time. Champagne, gin, lemon, and sugar syrup, if you want to know the contents. You’ll have to find the formula yourself or just keep tasting it until you get it right or it knocks you out
That was after the espresso cocktails, as he called them. Something like that, anyway. I don’t drink a lot but if I get offered something I like, I tend to drink it. Okay, them. Yes, I do mix things but I try not to get legless, or brain dead. Both have happened, mind you, but the worst is chucking up. The worst, ‘toilet-head’ is not me, except for once.
I’m quite a big girl. You know me, above average in most places and I do find it hard to fit in. I find it difficult to talk to people until I get to know them. There are regulars in the library, mostly older women or mums with children. Often children on their own, up to about ten, then they stop coming. Reckon they stop reading.
I still read a lot, think that’s working in a library for you. Or maybe why I work in the library. You probably know I’m a writer, a scribbler, a wanna-be hack without the smallest of success, yet. But I am still young and got the need to write, like all of us here.
Back to the beginning. We were in the Conservative club, of all places, where the sitting MP was doing a Christmas buffet for the town’s party members. Quite a number altogether. Not me! I was standing out like a sore thumb, like a nun at a party. Well, a goth at a party of Conservatives! It was the 23rd, yes, the 23rd of December.
‘He,’ was PR Joe. That’s what I called him. He had been a feature of the library for a few years. Always asking for books we never had. Textbooks on marketing, on psychology and business and all that sort of stuff. It was usually me at the desk when he called-in to ask for, order, or collect all those odd books. So he’d chat as I sorted and scanned them. I learned a lot, about him. He was at college, then an evening course followed by training courses etc. etc. I was interested enough to listen but not to care.
He was okay. Nice eyes, okay smile. One of the few blokes who spoke to me. He had casually invited me to the party, so I accepted, just as casually. Anyway, at the club, he, Gerald, was something or other to this MP and was able to free-load at the do. Well, he was gladding me up by ordering these cocktails. He might have been getting a bit tipsy. I certainly was, admittedly, and know I was snuggling up to him a bit. The drink, it was the drink. They were strong.
Anyway, we kept sort of moving out of people’s way, along the bar. He was moving forward into me, so I hesitated backwards. Eventually, on the third, no fourth cocktail, I found myself stuck in the corner with him, Gerald, pressed into me. As I said, I’m quite big, and tall, pretty sure of myself but quiet. This was the first time I ever felt intimidated and I had no sensation of its approach.
I suddenly felt trapped but stood there, a smile fixed. Drink in one hand and the other raised, palm flat, on the lapel of his jacket intending to move him away from me. Instead, he pressed forward and I could feel my own hand trapped, pressed to my chest. Felt my heart pulsing harder as I got more anxious at my predicament. I reacted, looked away as I felt his lower hand fondle my hip and slid round to my belly when I didn’t move. I was frozen, my eyes trapped in his again, mind-fogged, stuck. Too dazed to react but suddenly almost sober.
‘You are so beautiful,’ he whispered. I looked back at him, he didn’t notice the daggers. I jumped as his fingers spread to my groin, hit my head on the wall as I instinctively tried to get away. Him or the drink? I was feeling dizzy.
‘Are you okay? Do you need some fresh air?”
I felt the hand move, the pressure on my chest lessen and fall away. I was able to turn my body as well as my head toward the voice. That headlight feeling still had me. I recall screwing my eyes, swallowing and give a smiling yes in a croaky voice as I re-opened them. That man’s, Gerald’s, hand slipped away and I turned and faced the new voice fully. I recognised her as Milly from the Writers Circle.
“Yes, please.” Was all that escaped.
Milly took my drink from me, took my hand with his other and just led me. Helped me through the noise of people, into the foyer. ‘Do you want to go outside?’
‘Home, I just want to go home.’ That was all I could say. All I could say.
It’s not a big town. I had walked to the club. Milly walked home with me. Side by side, silently, sympathetically, still holding my hand. She offered to sit with me, I said thank you to her before I shut my front door.
I went into the kitchen, sat on a chair. Sat. Then just banged the table as hard as I could as ‘fuck, fuck, fuck,’ crawled out of my mouth and tears finally fell.
And that’s my Christmas story, from five years ago.’
short story by Amy, discuss.
Wordparc 