MISSY

MISSY

Nora took three steps over to the fireplace. Nora knew it was three
steps. She always knew the number of steps to anywhere in the room,
from the comfort of her armchair. Nora had a thing about numbers. It
was something she had grown with and nurtured ever since her dear
departed father had told her as a seven year old&;#8230;
"&;#8230;There's safety in numbers, our Nora. There's safety in
numbers."

The tissue box on the mantelpiece was empty and Nora shook her head
slowly. The loss of Peter was obviously affecting her more than she had
realised. In her ordered life little things like this upset her, she
would normally have changed it straight away, still, there were two
spare boxes in the bathroom unit. The mist before her eyes cleared a
little as she blinked her way to get them. Damn Peter, he was causing
her to cry again. Opening the tissues she carefully placed the empty
box into the cream-coloured bin that was part of the matching bathroom
suite and returned to her chair.

Carefully she lifted Missy and placing here on her knee sat and wiped
the residue of moisture from her eyes.
"Oh Missy, you've driven Peter away, you naughty, naughty pussy you.
What is your mommsy going to do now?
Leaning forward she blew gently into the fur behind Missies' ears. It
had finally been the cats, her beloved felines that had brought down
Peters fa?ade. He had told her how much he liked cats but when he'd met
the six that lived with her his attitude had soon changed. There had
been the regular morning complaints of hairs on his trousers. Whose
fault was that! He'd thrown them anywhere on her furniture. How could
he blame her loved ones in that way? Missy was an old lady now and had
been Nora's' constant companion for nearly thirteen years. Why, she'd
lasted longer than Nora's' marriage to George!

George had been Nora's' first and only husband. There would never be a
number two, of that, she was certain. One husband, and thankfully, no
children. How could she ever have coped with mess and disruption?
George had been bad enough, forever putting things away and expecting
things done for him at the drop of a hat. And the sex&;#8230;

&;#8230;She shuddered as she remembered his firm torso. They had
been young then. She recalled the enthusiasm of their first couplings
that first six months&;#8230;and the numbers came flooding back!
First he would kiss her shoulder and then his right hand would reach
around and cup her right breast for a count of ten before sliding
lightly over her stomach&;#8230;copulation by numbers. She'd
screamed the accusation at him one morning as he'd been eating his
breakfast and by the time she'd served the evening meal, they'd been
discussing divorce. The marriage had lasted thirteen months. Unlucky
for him but very, very, lucky for her. She had gone out on the day the
divorce was finalised and seeing an advert in a local shop had
collected the little bundle she named after that momentous day. From
that hour on Nora Blakelock would no longer be a Mrs.

Composing herself, Nora stroked Missy. She put Peter to the back of her
mind and reached for the cigarette packet on the table beside her. She
knew there was only two left in the packet and she would have to get
dressed and go out. It was time to get on with things and forget about
that stupid man. The clock on the wall showed the time as ten-thirty.
What was she hanging about for? In an hours time the number seventy bus
would be passing the end of the street and then on to the dress shops
on Kingston Parade. It wouldn't be long before she felt better. Her
father had always said that she got her dress sense from her mother,
who sadly, she'd never got to know. She had dumped Nora almost as soon
as she'd been born, to run off, as her father put it, with an
'unwashed, longhaired beatnik'. It must have hurt her father though
because he'd gone and saddled his daughter with the mother's name. The
look on the faces of the people she met when out in the clubs was
always worth a good laugh to the girls when they went out.

"Oh well Missy. It looks like it's time to find a fresh model." It was
such a pain losing Peter so quickly. She tried to keep herself to no
more than four lovers a year and now, in the middle of August, she'd
already used up her allowance. If she had to move up to four a year, so
be it, besides, the boredom factor seemed to be moving in so much
quicker these days. At a rough estimate, now that she'd reached the big
four-O, that probably left her another twenty years of good sex. That
was another hundred new bodies to discover.

She looked down as one of the cats brushed her leg.

"Right then Missy, let's go and find number five."