ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tom is a poet from Devon in the UK and has been published in Punk Noir, Bristol Noir and A Thin Slice of Anxiety.
The limo as a vehicle, in the UK, is generally reserved for two occasions: Weddings and Funerals. Both, I would argue come with rules and a certain degree of seriousness. In recent times, however, younger generations have begun to hire them for another reason entirely; debauchery. Tonight, it has been reserved for just this, but by tomorrow morning I will have wiped down the inevitable: blood, sick, vomit and cum - and will be picking up guests to take them to the church for marriage or the funeral home for a burial, I forget which it is. This job comes with its perks too, and as a writer gives me endless characters to meet, some even make it into the stories I like to write, especially when things heat up in the back. When faces look interesting, they can tell a story all on their own, or at least a scene of one. Like the other day taking a family to the funeral home, this man’s face said so much, it was all scarred up and had seen battle, he wore pins on the finest suit I had ever seen, and had golden grey hair.
Tonight, I’m taking this party around Blackpool pier before dropping them off at the airport. There are Four woman, in their early twenties and two men of the same. I turned 40 this year, but I’m in good shape, and the men look at me with a sort of understanding and the woman with a friendliness, I have a kind face. The pier and Ferris wheel are lit up tonight in lights that make them look like big edible sweets. The music is loud and they are well on their way to drunk, I like to be relaxed and let it be what it will be.
“Hey what’s your name?”
One of the girls wound down the window to speak to me, she was quieter than the rest and had long red hair, an angelic face and smelt like citrus fruits.
“My name is Charley, what’s your name?”
“My name is Christine, but you can call me Chrissy, I like your tattoos, I have some but they are hidden away under this skirt, do you mind if I talk to you.” She was tipsy but not drunk and I didn’t mind if the passengers talked to me. “Sure, I don’t mind, are you having fun?”
“Not really, I don’t really know them very well, well I know the girl whose birthday it is, I went to uni with her. Did that one hurt?” She reached out and touched my neck, pointing to a tattoo of an angel. “No, that one was ok, and by far not as painful as some of the others.”
She left her hand on my shoulder and moved it down onto my chest, I didn’t stop her. “You don’t want to hang out back there with the others?” “No, I don’t like the two lads that have come along, they are immature and rude. I’m thinking of not going on this flight.”
We drove around the town for another hour and I continued to talk with Chrissy, she was a graduate of law but was unsure, and seemed lost, like there was a war in her, that she could not give up on. I drove to the airport and they started to spill out of the back one by one, except Chrissy, she stayed and explained to the others that she didn’t feel like going, and stayed sat at the back, red lights illuminating her skin and hair, RED, too soft pink. We pulled out of the airport, I did not ask, she sat there leaning back on the black leather her short skirt riding up a little, leaving shadows that made the mind run. She looked up into the front of the cab and into the rear-view mirror. I put on Leonard Cohen’s, “Dance Me to the End of Love”, and she begun to move her body to it. Licking her finger with one hand and moving the other over her knees and over the tops of her thighs. I drove past the casinos, I drove past the clubs, I drove past all of the people; fighting and fucking in the streets, sleeping hard in the shop doorways, living and dying under the neon lights. She arched her head back and was unable to not touch herself any longer, she pulled up her skirt and opened her legs and felt up the inside of her thigh and to on top of her white underwear, “Dance me through the panic, until I’m gathered safe within… Let me see your beauty when the witnesses are gone.” The song was on repeat, no need for another. I have never understood love, but I know what it sounds, looks and smells like. Chrissy moved her underwear to the side and felt her vulva and clit in rhythm, she wriggled and convulsed and finally came and slumped.
“Dance me to the end of love.”
She put her underwear back and pulled down her skirt, crossed her legs and took a long drink of some champagne. “Where shall I drop you, Chrissy?” She seemed to revert back to the quiet introverted woman she was before, it was a glorious explosion of expression and now that part of her was gone and Christine was back and wanted to be driven to her home, where she would go to bed alone, watching TV and thinking about somebody that doesn’t want her. “Take me home Charley, I live at 15 sycamore road.” We drove in silence except for the traffic and people like zombies in these small hours.
“Bye Charley.”
She got out of the limo at her home and walked up a long leafy drive way to some flats, her red hair bouncing and long legs elegantly swinging up some steps, into the furnace like porch, lit up like a fire, and then gone like smoke up the stairs.
It was one A.M. and I still had time to clean the back out and get the limo ready for whatever was happening tomorrow, marriage or a death, I wasn’t sure.