In the Cold November Rain (standard:romance, 555 words)
Author: FrenZy	Added: Jan 20 2007	Views/Reads: 3141/2	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
This is just a little sad fiction to fit into the grey November mood..

London, November 2006 

I sat alone, wrapped in a dirty bath towel, chain smoking. Josh Groban
was playing faintly on the radio, the television turned mute – all I 
could make out was the face of a soap opera star, talking wordlessly 
with tears on her eyes. Such cliché, I snorted in disgust. Who would 
buy such a fake expression? 

I stared at the bathroom, its door open, revealing the perfect exposure
of the wet mirror – my fingerprints pressed there just a couple of 
minutes ago. A bottle of painkillers sat beside a few expired 
toiletries. I was too wound up to care. 

I sighed and stood up, inching toward the half opened window. It was a
depressing London weather in November, the unfriendly humid air 
poisoning my oily skin, adding redundant moistures to my hair, the rain 
washing over me like a bad nostalgia. 

I grabbed the only cup of coffee at the table – it was half empty. I
ignored the bitterness on my taste buds, abandoning the urge for sugar 
high, a little more alcoholism, and another dose of that painkiller. 
And then I lit yet another cigarette, resisting my desperation to choke 
out loud. 

If I could just take one look at the mirror, I would not see the same
person anymore. My energy had drained out of me, I was as tired as the 
next Londoner hopping on the tube heading back home. I had lost a 
couple of serious pounds, my fingers smelly from smoking too much, and 
my mouth tasted of nothing but coffee and cigarette. And of him. 

I glanced at the motionless body next to me. A man's body. I almost
laughed out loud. What was a man's body doing on my bed? And worse, 
what was this man doing here? He hadn't been here for nine, ten, oh, 
eleven months. And suddenly there he was, two hours ago, turning up on 
my doorstep with that devilish grin of his. Yes, he was the devil, and 
I bowed to him like a slave. 

“I need you,” he had said to me. I just looked him in the eye, looking
for an answer, or simply just an inch of truth. 

“You need a place to stay,” I interpreted his words for him, or rather
for us. 

“Tonight,” he confirmed it. I did not know whether I should laugh or
cry. 

We had made love. We mixed euphoria, exaggerated sadness, a little of
alcohol, too much smoke, and enthusiasm. But I wished there was just a 
touch of love. We made up for the lost time he had given me. 

I stroke my bare finger on his cheek. He stirred in his sleep and opened
his eyes dreamily, as if he was traveling a dream and I had to shake 
him up to reality. 

“I love you,” I whispered. 

A slow smile stretched across his face. “Thank you,” he said, and then
fell back asleep. 

I just stared back at him, this child trapped in a body of a man. My
mind repeated a million questions I would never get the answers to. 

Do you love me? Will your wife come looking for you? Will you say
goodbye and never come back? 

And I just sat there, waiting, in the cold November rain, answering all
my questions to myself. 

** 


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