Lauren

I remember being in the pub one time, it was way across town, hanging out with so-called mates who weren’t really my mates anymore. I was drinking Guiness with a straw because my teeth were sensitive. There was this barmaid behind the bar called Lauren, wearing a short-sleeved chequered shirt, I think it was green and yellow. She was the only good thing about the occasion. In a way, she looked slightly masculine, ever so slightly boyish, but this might just have been her hairstyle. However, I approved of her appearance considerably. She was so attractive to the perception of my eye, it was unbelievable. On a sombre, boring evening, in the middle of a dull grey September, she was star of the show.

I can imagine saying a few words to her, like asking her how things were going for example, as I have always been as shy as wallpaper when it comes to social interactions, and especially with the opposite sex, but I cannot envisage me walking her home, which is exactly what I did.

I couldn’t repeat this feat now, with a strange barmaid who I don’t know, but I did it then. I must have been confident after a couple of beers. I waited until she finished her shift and said goodbye to my fake friends. The weird thing is, I can’t remember any of it. It’s so unlike me, this behaviour, that my memory doubts it. More than that, actually – there’s nothing there for my memory to doubt. I recall seeing her behind the bar in that unusual pub I didn’t usually frequent, and I recollect kissing her outside her house on the roughest estate in town, but the middle part, me walking her home, is entirely missing.

Anyway, the idea of me kissing a svelte young barmaid outside of her rundown home is a very treasurable memory in this landscape of kooky mind control that includes thought deletion, and I just thought I’d write it up to share and promote and preserve here on the blogspot.

Dogs were barking in the distance, and sirens could be heard swirling around each other in electric currents atop of the gusty, almost stormy wind. Winter had decided to bite. There was a light, feathery, almost imperceptible drizzle of rain spatter. A chill was picking up. A couple of cider punks on mountain bikes rode past us doing wheelies, blazing joints full of drugs which had probably been procured via an anonymous dealer’s QR code sticker on a lamppost. One of them commented on Lauren’s bum, where my hands were narrowly encircled just above, around the small of her waist. I didn’t grope her bottom, as I imagined that she would see that as tacky.

We didn’t use tongues in our kiss, just lips, but we did it for several moments, rather than it just being one single peck. Single pecks on the cheek are nice but kisses on the lips with no tongues are better. My gran used to say that if you use your tongues when kissing you are practically having oral sex with one another. I didn’t want sex with Lauren, she was too special for that.

The last time I’d had sex with a woman, there was blood on the sheets, and afterwards we disliked one another. It proved to be nothing but a shallow and superficial thick-skinned exchange in a cheap hotel. I hated everything about it, including what a savage carnal animal it made me feel like. With Lauren, holding her there in my hands beneath the fuzzy coronas of the streetlamps, which might have belonged in some magical fictitious urban setting befitting an utmost centre stage in a Hollywood blockbuster based on some colossal fantasy novel, I felt tender and gentle, like a Shakespearian prince.

Think of Running Scared (2006) meets Love Actually (2003). These are two movies which speak of reflective, wistful slums and elegant, polished sidewalks. Lauren was above her environment, in a way; her features sang of noble maidenhood on litter-strewn cobblestones, of tomboyish folklore on rolling green Irish hills, of artisan porcelain in burnt-out emporiums. To look upon her face in that dreamy shade of honeyed yellow from the overhead halogens made me think of yesteryear poets and nostalgic playwrights and portrait painters. It affected me so much that I felt compelled just to upload a few words this present day.

Because, all being said, this was over twenty years ago. If you are still at large out there, Lauren, I hope that some gentleman has made an honest woman out of you. I hope that someone has killed for you, died for you, and lost for you. I hope they have faintly shifted the Earth minutely off its axis for you. For you have touched me dearly. I hope someone touches you dearly in return. Shame it can’t be me! x