A night-time stroll

By Mark Sexton

Rural Metrosexual

It came about so gradual

She’s comfortable and casual

You know it is inevitable

She tries to hide the strain.

She’s a rural metrosexual

Her libido is contextual

And though she might perplex you all

You want her just the same.

As he trudged along the pitch-black country road, wearing nothing but a blood stained women’s raincoat, Alan was pretty certain that he could pinpoint the exact moment when the evening had gone awry. Up until that point it had perhaps been his most successful date ever. He’d driven out to Susan’s little cottage on the Bewdley-Ludlow road and arrived in good time. She’d welcomed him warmly at the door as wafts of delicious smelling vapour billowed past him into the drizzly night. She’d laughed at his jokes, even the bad ones. He’d improvised when she panicked because she couldn’t find a knife to cut the cheesecake. They’d fed each other by hand, which could have been disgusting but had just edged into sexiness with two bottles of red wine as lubrication. It was shortly after they’d popped the cork on the third that the moment occurred.

He’d just drunkenly reached over to pick up his full to the brim glass of burgundy and was carefully bringing it up to his lips when she started to talk about her ex-girlfriend.

Time then seemed to speed up and slow down simultaneously. He foresaw, perfectly, the blooms of crimson wine soaking through and spreading across his bespoke tailored chinos.

As the glass slipped through his fingers and fell, light as a feather, towards his lap, he grasped wildly at the plummeting crystal with his left hand. In his stupor he only managed to catch the base of the glass, sending a ruby arc over his shirt, trousers and the beige wool carpet.

“. . .fuck.” he gasped

After a moment’s silence she whispered, “Get your clothes off, I’ve got some stain remover stuff, if we slap it on now we can have them all clean and dry by morning.” Then staggered off into the kitchen.

Fuck, he thought again. Then he smiled. So, he was staying the night. The wine had splashed right across his white shirt and all through his lap. She re-entered the room as he dropped his trousers to reveal wine-stained Calvin Kleins.

“You can take those off too.” She smirked.

He’d felt trapped, the naked instant forced upon him. Undressing before a lover for the first time is a pivotal juncture in any relationship and stood there, with his back turned, naked in Susan’s dining room had felt perfectly ridiculous.

Peering over his shoulder there was relief and disappointment that she had left the room, taking his clothes with her. Before there was chance to worry about his next move a flurry of coat was thrown into the room and Susan called,

“Here you go, you can sling this on for the time being.”

When he slipped it on the shoulders pulled tightly across his shoulder blades and gaped ungainly at the front. This displayed tufts of chest hair which he hated, but not enough to shave smooth. She strolled back into the room, corner of her mouth raised in a part smile, part grimace and announced,

“I’m terribly sorry but I seem to have run out of the Dylon stuff, and washing powder, but don’t worry there’s a 24 hour petrol station just up the road. I’ll nip out and pick up some, they have a mini supermarket there.”

“Oh, I couldn’t let you go out on a night like this, I’ll go.” He volunteered.

“Dressed like that?” she laughed, “Well, okay. I don’t like walking around out there at night, it’s very isolated and you hear such terrible things.”

In the rush of chivalry Alan had forgotten his newly acquired flasher-chic attire and now unhappily trudged behind Susan to the front door desperately trying to think of a way to duck out of going on this night-time stroll. She kissed him lightly on the cheek, the corner of her warm lips brushing the corner of his.

“Take care, there’s a tenner in the inside pocket, that should cover it.”

And in an instant he found himself locked out, a cool night breeze tickling his downy exposed skin.

“Bollocks.” He thought, “I should have asked her to come too.” It might have been romantic. All manner of things can be romantic in the first few dates. Such things repeated, or attempted for the first time in a maturing relationship he knew were treated as signs of a long suspected mental instability.

He hiked along the side of the road with his hands wedged deep in the coat pockets to prevent it from flapping open. His feet scuffed through the roadside gravel and debris but no cars disturbed his pondering. Above him clouds span indigo across the sky, sucking up the stars and reducing the moon to a blotched milk-stain. Looking upwards made him feel dizzy and agoraphobic. The breeze rustled the hedgerow and left him searching the roadside for lurking muggers. He wasn’t surprised that she didn’t like to walk around here at night, but knew that if the garage sold Häagen-Dazs he would have discovered the reason that she did.

The hellish glow of the halogen lit signage blazed, blinking at him like morse through the patchy bushes and trees as he approached. The pumps were abandoned and only the attendant’s car lay idle to one side of the forecourt.

A gun metal grey Purgeot 306 swerved erratically past him and screeched to a halt under the garage canopy. The door popped open immediately and spilled a sobbing woman out into the night. Alan trotted up to her as quickly as dignity would allow. She was short, slightly built and he guessed that she was in her mid-forties.

“I hit it!” she wept.

“What did you hit?”

“A little deer!” she cried, then gasping “It just ran out right in front of the car and I swerved, but it was too late. There was a wet crunching sound. . .”

She staggered off to one side and was sick. Alan wandered around to the front of the car to inspect the damage, but was alarmed to see the deer, neck broken, mangled and bloody, impaled on the left hand light cluster. The woman was walking back over to him.

“I’d stay there if I were you,” he advised, “let me see if I can clean it up first.”

“Oh God! Do you think I killed it? I can’t have killed it. . . I’m a vegan.”

“I don’t think there’s any doubt it’s dead. You see, it’s sort of skewered on the front of your car.”

She burst into tears and slumped by one of the pumps.

“I’ll see if I can sort it out.”

He wandered over to the night kiosk, where the garage attendant was peering excitedly over at the car through the bullet-proof glass. He whistled tinnily through the metal grill.

“Well, well. I’ve never seen anything like that!” he declared. “We often get people saying that they’ve just missed hitting a deer, but crikey, that’s been spiked. Do you think she’ll want to keep it?”

“She says she’s a vegan.”

“Perfect! I’ll go and get some paper towels, if you could wrap it up and sling it over there I’d be really grateful.”

“Eh? Aren’t you going to come and gimme a hand?”

“Well, I’d love to but. . . you get all sorts of strange folk out here at night.” He looked Alan up and down meaningfully.

After prizing the carcass from where it was wedged under the bumper, carefully wrapping it up in paper towels and leaving it by the plastic yellow grit tank, Alan glanced down to see that he had managed to smear his date’s coat with deer entrails. He wondered if the evening could get any worse. The vegan hopped back into the car, still teary and shaken, thanked him and drove off into the night.

The sound of laughing informed him that he was not alone. Outdoors, the voices travelled quite a distance but the ceilingless sky robbed the noise of coherence and the sounds seemed strangely like birdsong through double-glazing. They’d come in through the other entrance and were standing by the “Pay-Here” hatch, messing about and puffing on foul-smelling roll-up ciggies. A big lad on the edge of the group with glasses and a centre-parting watched him approach. Alan stopped about three yards away from them and cleared his throat. They glanced around at him, shrugged and formed a little huddle, the only sound now the endless rasping puffs and exhalations of smoke and vapour.

“They’ve gone to find us some Rizlas” said the big guy, “they’ll be back soon.”

“Is the shop not open then?” asked Alan.

“Um, no, security or something. You get some odd bods around here in the early hours.” He explained and then let out a deep booming chuckle as he eyed Alan.

Alan slipped his hand to the coat’s inner pocket, feeling for the money and hoping that Susan carried an attack alarm or maybe some Mace. The tips of his fingers touched something long, smooth and plastic. Turning to one side to shield it from the view of the group he tried to extract the mystery object, but it was longer than he realised and snagged on the inner lining. He felt something cold and metallic fall and the night air was pierced by a sonorous clatter.

The group looked nervously at the object and then at him before shuffling, almost as one, towards the road. Once they had moved a few paces away, the first of them turned and ran, the others following in a mass, laughing. Alan bent down, picked up the kitchen knife and slipped it back into the coat. Well, at least it’d give them a funny story to tell.

The attendant arrived back at the hatch with a handful of cigarette papers.

“Where’d they go?”

“I think I scared them off.”

The attendant looked at him and laughed.

“Damn pity I missed it. Been an odd night so far, that’s for sure. What can I get you?”

“Well, Susan reckoned I could get some Dylon and washing powder here.”

“Oh, you’ve come from Susan’s!” The man smiled.

He came back with a stain-stick, especially good at removing wine stains, small box of washing powder and a little tub of praline ice cream.

“The usual,” he said, “I’ll put it on the tab.”

And so, armed with his bag of goodies Alan began the short trudge back to his date. Having pinpointed the exact moment that the evening had gone askew he set his mind to pondering how to explain his lengthy, blood spattered absence.

She opened the door unnervingly quickly after his knock, he stood there mutely as she surveyed his dishevelled state.

“Had to deal with a deer, huh?” she sighed, “I swear they’ve been crossed with lemming’s around here. Come on in, we’ll run the coat through the wash too.”

“I bought praline ice-cream.”

“Good man.” She grinned and locked the door behind them.