Unravelling (Pt1)

Note: Mild sexual content. Please don't read if offended.

When asked, I normally said, I work in computers. It wasn't worth
saying what I really did. I mean, if I did, they wouldn't understand.
If they understood they probably knew me already, and then why would
they be asking. At first I tried something generic, I said, a
researcher. But that lead to snowballing questions that got me back to
the same place, of the woman, staring at me, popping like a fish. I
said I was a scientist. Once. She was some drippy-hippy carrot waving
type and it didn't go down well. I though it would impress her but all
I got was an evening long lecture about the imminent destruction of the
planet. The word scientist seemed to equate in her tie-dead head to
some syringe wielding test-tube baby fiddler laughing manically while
he, of course he, cooked up new ways of dripping hot fat into the wired
eyes of bunny rabbit. I never used the word again.

So now, I just say 'I work in computers', just like most of my friends.
The difference is, with most of them it's true. My social circle is not
the most random of population samples. But out in the real world,
enough people know someone who works with computers for them to nod
knowingly, as if 'working in computers' was an proper job, like a
farmer, train driver or an astronaut. So little Johnny, what do you
want to be when you grow up? A doctor? A baker? 'No daddy, I want to be
a something in computers,' says little Johnny proudly.

Celina takes another glug of expensive wine and I try not to wince. I
calculated each swallow adds another fiver to the bill. Or more
accurately, peels another fiver from the wall of my debt pit. I find it
difficult to think of debt in terms of a mountain, a mountain being an
object of which there is a lot. Considering debt is an absence of
something, a lot of something in my case, a great chasm in the ground
seems more appropriate. There are resonances with the phrase
'bottomless pit of money' too, bottomless used in the poor sense of
somewhere that money is placed and falls straight out the other end,
rather than the rich sense, where daddy provides forever. Yes, I was
dining rich girls in the hope one of them might slip up and marry me
into money. And yes, I ended up paying dearly for the privilege of
short, cold, cheek-pecks and confused stares.

She mulls another glug around her mouth, rolls the glass on her lip and
stares right at me with fine, starlight eyes. 'But Martin, isn't that
something people say when they don't think they person they are talking
to will understand what they actually do for a living?'
The problem I've found with rich girls is that sometimes they are smart
too. I tried to avoid them before. The smart ones tended to see through
my wafer thin ploy and left me trying to remove red wine from a white
shirt. I had bought a stain remover especially.
'I'm a,' I said, looking around for inspiration, 'I'm a
researcher.'
'OK. Good. Now we're getting somewhere. Researching what?'
'Maths.'
'And?'
'And physics. Maths and physics research.'
'Right. Great. For a moment I though you were going to be some lofty
academic who can't distil his life's work into a sound bite for mortal
comprehension. But now I know - maths and physics. Is that numbers from
zero upwards then? How high have you got?'
'I'm looking for the next dimension.'
'Ah ha! We have lift-off. That's more like it. I'm sitting back,
prepared for the girl to be blinded by science.' She settles back into
her chair, and swirls the wine in her glass with the faintest of
movement from her hand.
'All this,' I waved my arms around, trying not to attract the waiter's
attention, 'all this stuff, is just the tip of the iceberg. There's
much more to the universe than you can see with the naked eye. It's
much more complicated and yet much more simple. You know what a
dimension is?'
Eyes flutter. 'I've lived such a sheltered life Martin, but even in my
short, narrow, shallow, fleeting experience, I understand what a
dimension is.' She crosses her arms under her breasts, pushing them to
the brink of her dress' neckline.
'Yes. Four basic dimensions you can see all around you. And in everyday
life that's all anyone needs. Balls bounce off walls, and cars drive
around roads. Everyone's content with objects having height and width
and depth and clocks showing us moving through time. But everything
we've learnt in physics in the last hundred years tells us that the
universe only works if there are many more dimensions than we can see
around us. And that's my job. I'm looking one of these invisible
dimensions.'
She helps herself to another glass and flashes a row of still
glistening white teeth. I sit, waiting for a face full of her wine or
popping, but her smile doesn't fade. It gets bigger.
'Wow. That beats them all,' she says quietly, puts down her glass. 'I
work in an old folks home. The dodgers come out with some strange old
tales. One of them swears Elizabeth Taylor is his daughter. And we
can't let another watch the news. If she sees a world leader, she does
graphic kiss-and-tell. You should come and meet them, you'd get on with
them ok.'
There's a little siren going off in my head at this point. When my mate
Gary set this up, he told me he dropped her off at a big house.

The results of Gary's little sideline have been mixed to say the least.
It's a simple idea. Gary drives a taxi to bolster his faltering
bursary. We have an arrangement. For a monthly fee plus commission, he
asks to all young, single, female fairs, if there are interested in a
blind date, gets their number and passes it to me. The first girl was
great. Pretty, quiet, but a good listener and lovely long leather
boots. Of course, she turned out to be a psycho, but that was only the
next morning. Ronda however was a disaster from the start. I like plump
women, but Gary's idea of plump and mine are somewhat different. She
ate the meals of two men, and one of them was mine. She had to go
before she bankrupted my bailiffs. It's been a roller coaster ever
since. So when Gary said a big house, I should have know better. I can
feel the wallet moths snapping at my groin.
'I hope you don't think that's too dull. After extra dimensions.'
'What? Er, no, not at all.' My main objective now is to close this
experiment down with minimum cost.
'So tell me, how are you going to find this extra dimension?'
'It's complicated.'
'I'm a complicated girl.' She gives me a looks that makes me think it
might be worth a little investment still. 'Tell me.'
'Ok. You're in your car. The steering wheel looks circular. It has
height and width. Two dimensions. Has girth too, you can grip it, the
third dimension of depth. And you're driving along, trees passing by,
the clock on the dashboard says you're going to be late. So you're
moving through time.'
'Oh yes. Girth, moving through time.'
'Er, yes, well, imagine you can fly up out of your car, through the
sunroof into the sunlight. You fly up and up. Then look down. From up
there you can't see the depth and height of the wheel. The car itself
looks flat against the road. Soon, the road looks like a line on the
map. Then as you whoosh out of the atmosphere, you can see the county
as an outline, before the Earth drops away, merges with the sun and
becomes just another point in the sky. That's where all these extra
dimensions are. They're all tucked away where we can't see them.'
'And you go looking for these teeny dimension with a big magnifying
glass,' she giggles.
'Er, yes. Mostly maths, but yes.'
'I understand. My ex-boyfriends penis was like that. It was in a teeny
dimension. I couldn't see it from the other side of the bed.' She leans
forwards and puts her hand on my knee. The air from her mouth is sweet
and alcoholic. 'I want to know if your penis is in the teeny
dimension.' She reaches up my leg and I reach for the wine.

It was good wine. Most of what happened next was a blur. I remember a
flustered waiter, then standing in the rain, sucking at Celina's face.
In the back of a taxi ripping at each other's clothes, Celina's feet
bagging on the separating window to get the driver to pull into a lay
by. She wasn't proud or ashamed. She exhibited herself for the
entertainment of his mirror.

'I might be pregnant.' Hot smoke blows on my face. I open my eyes.
Celina is bending over me, aiming smoke rings at my nose. She didn't
smoke last night. I can't see properly, which means once again my
contact lenses are shrivelled on the floor of a taxi. I can make out
she's helped herself to a t-shirt and cracked open a bottle of wine,
which she splashes from a martini glass onto the bedclothes. 'What do
you think of that then lover?'
'You're not on the pill?'
'Nope, never touch any drug the doctor wants me to take.' She taps her
tummy, 'All your little soldiers are in here now, chasing down my
innocent little eggs. Randy little buggers.' Her hand closes around my
morning erection and starts to pump. 'Just like daddy.' She moves to
straddle, still smoking, and slips me inside.
'No, don't,' I mutter weakly.
'Don't you find it more exciting like this? Everyone tries to deny what
sex is really about with little pills and packets. But it's only about
making babies. Every thrust. Every grunt. Make sure it's special. Well
what could be more special than this? It could change our lives. It
could make a life, or lots of lives. Lives that could save the world,
come on, explore new planets. Come on Martin! They could cure diseases!
Find new fucking dimensions!'

After she disengages, she lies next to me, still smoking, with her legs
on the wall above the headboard.
'I can feel something happening,' she says. 'Can you hear that fizzing?
I think it's happening right now, I can feel them fertilising me right
now. Oh, that tickles.' She rolls over and hugs my feet. 'How does it
feel to be a daddy?'

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Please let me know if you would like to read part 2.