Thinking Into the Stone

                 Image courtesy of Janssenfrank and taken from Wiki commons


                     



                               

                      Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be



                                                            Robert Browning





     

           


                           'Slept with her yet?'




That's how abrupt he was. But I had grown accustomed to his ways in the short time I had been visiting him. He didn't want to know what I'd had for breakfast, he wanted to know if I'd fucked her yet.


'No.'


His silence betrayed his disappointment so I placed my hands on his cold grey shoulders and let him have it.




'What's that?'


'Strawberries,' I said.


'What?'



The miserable old bastard could get what he was given. I wasn't about to stop eating all the things I wanted just to please him but I think he enjoyed it because his gravestone had gone blank. He was wordless for once and that only happened when he was eating or drinking or thinking of something shitty to say.



'You never had Strawberries?'


'Of course I fucking haven't,' he said, 'In my days you were lucky to get bread and butter for supper and a slap on your backside for dessert.'



I didn't argue, he was probably right.


'What else have you got for me?'

I thought for a moment. Then decided to do it.




'A kiss.'



'A kiss?'


Now I knew he was interested. Women and ale was all he was ever interested in.



'Go on. Do it,' he said.




I closed my eyes and thought about last night.



Mary's lips that tasted of the strawberries we'd been eating from the basket at the back of her Aunty Veronica's house. Her rosewood hair that would never do anything she wanted it to when she wanted it to. And then her tongue. Her tongue finding mine for the first time. And my hand wandering nervously down the crease of her back. Slowly downwards. Mary closing her eyes. Mary gasping. Mary's gap-toothed crooked smile.




That would do. I removed my hands from his gravestone and turned to walk home.


Let him stew for a while. Dirty old git. That's all he was getting.





I got as far as the gate at the end of the church yard and looked back to see what he had written on his stone. I had to squint but I could just about make it out.





'Thanks Son.'






                                                 


                                                      (C) Ally Atherton

                                                                    2014







 364 Words








Written for this Monday's Light & Shade Challenge. Take a look and join in if you like.