The Pheromone Lady

It was a beautiful spring morning in a market off one of the
arterial roads leading to the Elephant and Castle.

The narrow street was flanked by boarded up shops and crumbling
tenements. There were of old cardboard were strewn everywhere. The
puddles in the gutter had a filmy, oily surface and there was the smell
of fish that was past its sell by date.

But the sun; reflected in bedsit windows and bouncing playfully of the
bonnets of cars, forced it's way into every corner and crevice. It was
the kind of day that makes us feel happy for no reason the moment we
step outside our front door; that makes us think of bees working busily
away among heavily scented roses; of butterflies, courting couples, and
decisions we spend the rest of our lives regretting.

Nobody was more full of that blameless, unreasonable joy that leads us
all to folly than Silas Luckjoy, who was on his way to buy a
pornographic video, which only goes to show how vigilant we all have to
be these days. For there was nothing about Silas to warn you that he
might be filthy pervert who ought to be castrated and locked away
because hanging was too good for him.

He didn't wear pebble glasses or a dirty mac and when you spoke to him
he didn't give you shifty, sidelong glances. He looked you straight in
the eye and when he smiled, his honest, dog-like sincerity acquitted
him of any crime except being in the wrong place at the wrong
time.

It's true he was talking to himself, but he probably had a mobile phone
hidden away somewhere; you can't go locking people up just because they
like a natter.

Now don't forget! Petra had reminded him as he left their thirties
council flat that morning and stumbled over a potted geranium. You go
straight to the sex shop. You don't fuck about on the way and you
don't, I repeat DON'T, spend the money on Quality Street, do you
understand?

"Yes, Petra", he replied obediently.

"Or else don't expect to&;#8230;."

"Yes, I know."

"And make sure it's got plenty of big cocks in it!" she yelled after
him as he made his way along the balcony. Several neighbours stole a
quick glance through their curtains. It didn't bother Silas. He was
proud of Petra's temper in much the same way as other men are proud of
owning a crocodile or a pit bull.

When she'd slammed the door, Petra went into the hallway and took a
good long look at herself in the full length mirror.

"You bitch" she said to her reflection. "You sodding ungrateful bitch!"
But the words sounded hollow.

She knew Silas deserved better, that he was as devoted to her as when
they first went out together. She was still at art college then. She
wore leather and safety pins in those days, and it was strangely
touching to have a guy who bought her flowers and chocolates, even if
he did eat most of them himself.

Nowadays she wore loose, chunky sweaters and long shapeless skirts that
went down to her ankles. Their bit of balcony was full of pot plants
and hanging baskets and she worked part time in a health food shop. If
there was one thing she hated more than chocolates, it was his slightly
flabby, naked body trying to snuggle up to her in bed. He always seemed
to smell of the bins he worked on no matter how much he'd washed.

Petra clenched her fists and screamed silently, hoping he'd disobeyed
her and bought the quality street after all.

Silas meanwhile, was filled with a glowing, unreasoning warmth for his
fellow creatures. There's nothing like strolling though a busy market
full of good things on a warm sunny day with money in your pocket, even
if you're under strict orders not spend it. Pimps and drug dealers
seemed to smile and wave at him as he went past. He felt an
unaccountable urge to pat little children on the head and help old
ladies across the road.

"Videos not chocolates", he repeated to himself under his breath as he
made his way through the Saturday morning crowd. "Videos not
chocolates."

Silas couldn't resist a quick glance at the sweet stall. They were
selling selling two big boxes of Quality Street for the price of one.
It was almost more than he could stand. Yet he made an almost
superhuman effort to struggle on a few more steps before coming to a
complete standstill.

A few hundred yards ahead of him was the sex shop. He'd got Petra on a
promise. He had only to make a dash for it, grab a video, put his money
on the counter and he would be sure of his reward. If he bought the
chocolates Petra would kill him, and then later she
wouldn't&;#8230;&;#8230;&;#8230;

Videos not chocolates.

But try as he might, his legs wouldn't move forward.

"Are you lost my dahling?" Silas felt a hand clutch softly at his
sleeve and he caught a faint whiff of perfume. He looked down to see
that the hand belonged to a wrist covered in bangles and
bracelets.

"Not really", Silas replied. "You see, I'm on my way to the sweet, er
sex shop to buy a dirty Quality, I mean video Street, that's to
say&;#8230;..

"Oh, you naughty, naughty bad boy!" she squealed delightedly, slapping
him on the wrist and pushing him playfully before abandoning herself
peals of laughter. She was a large, colourfully dressed woman. He'd
have had her down as Spanish but these days it might just as easily be
Kossovo or Chechniya or one of the other places they whinged about in
Petra's Guardian.

Presently, her laughing subsided. It was as much as Silas could do to
gape at her huge bosom rising and falling as she struggled to get her
breath back.

"So doesn't a brave, handsome boy like you have a special woman in whom
to confide the most secret longings of his heart?" she asked finally,
looking at him admiringly.

"Oh yeah, I've got a partner if that's what you mean" Silas replied
casually, as if for his part he was shagging partners rotten every day
of the week.

He always felt a touch of pride at having a partner. His mates on the
bins all had girlfriends. Later they became wives and stopped giving
them blow jobs a few weeks after the honeymoon.

"Only the thing is, " he continued in a loud confidential voice so that
half a dozen traders looked round" she gets tired working down the
health food shop and she's asked me to buy something to moisten her up,
if you get my meaning."

She motioned him close to her, and he had the not unpleasant feeling
that he was about to be swallowed alive. "See here" she whispered. "I
have in this bottle a potion which will mingle with your natural
masculine odours to make you irresistible to this woman in your
life."

This sounded too good to be true. Silas couldn't believe his luck. "You
mean all I have to do is splash it on like the aftershave and I can
shag her senseless?"

A few drops on that manly, rippling chest of yours and she will rip
those overalls from your sexy, quivering body!

"Well thanks very much" Silas said, reaching out for the bottle. "I
don't even know your&;#8230;."

"Eleven pounds ninety nine including VAT", she said promptly,
straightening up instantly and affecting to brush down her clothes with
her hands.

Silas fumbled about in his pocket and fished out the money, giving the
sweet stall one last long, despairing glance.

*****************************

Petra was moodily watching Vanessa when he came in. "So did you get
it?" she asked, without taking her eyes off the television. Silas said
nothing but sat down next to her. Then he nudged her irritatingly in
the ribs so she was forced to look at him.

"I've got a surprise for you, Petra!"

"Oh for God's sake, did you get the frigging videos or not?"

"Petra, have you noticed anything well&;#8230;different about me?"
He asked, edging closer to her.

"Look, if you've been at the chocs again don't expect me to drop
my&;#8230;." she sniffed. "Wait a minute, you didn't tell me you
were working on the bins today"

"I got it off a woman in the market" Silas grinned proudly. "She said
just a few drops but I used the whole bottle!"

To ram the point home he held empty bottle between his thumb and
forefinger and dangled it in front of her eyes as if he was trying to
hypnotize her."

"Look, just get your filthy paws away and don't come near me until
you've had a&;#8230;.Oh no, you didn't! Not&;#8230;Oh God, I
think I'm going to be sick!" She ran to the toilet clutching her
throat.

Silas sat looking confused for a while, then shrugged his shoulders and
switched over to the cowboy film.

That night Petra slept with her back to him. Every time he tried to
snuggle next to her, she pinched more of the duvet. He lay shivering,
listening to the steady patter of the rain against the window.
.
It was still raining next morning when she bought him a cup of tea in
bed. That was how it was with Petra. Whenever she got really mad at
Silas, she'd relent afterwards and be all sweet and tender with him for
a while. It was just like eating a box of Quality Street. One moment
you nearly broke your teeth on a toffee. The next you'd be sinking them
gratefully into a strawberry dream.

Petra, anticipating his next move, shook her head slowly and covered
her chest more tightly with her dressing gown. Then without further
preamble she launched into her carefully prepared speech.

We may assume that she paid tribute to his patience, gentleness,
honesty and general good character. I've no doubt that as some point
there was an injunction for him not to be too hard on himself. All the
while, the rain streamed down the window in rivulets. Seen against the
background of greenery on the balcony, it gave the impression of a
particularly dreary rainforest.

She finished up by pecking him on the cheek and saying "I don't deserve
you", which was very sweet and all that but hardly to the point.
.
*****************************

Later that day, Silas went to the market and found the lady who sold
him the Pheromone.

"I don' know what you talking about.You want cigarette lighters, I give
you three for a pound. "

"I'm telling you" Silas insisted, his anger rising. "I bought this
bottle off you yesterday and now I want my money back!"

"I sold you nothing. I no seen you. I refugee! You want cigarette
lighter or no!"

"Look" he almost screamed, pointing to the bottle and waving it
frantically in her face. "You sold me this! You told me if I put this
on Petra would let me shag her. But she didn't, she just go mad at me
and, now she&;#8230; " His voice had risen several octaves by now
and his lower lip to tremble. "And now she won't let me have my
nookie!"

As for what happened next, she told herself that she felt overcome with
pity for the poor boy with no mother. But there's a poetic kind of
justice in a saleswoman being conned by her own products and I like to
think that the Pheromone hadn't quite worn off yet.

She led him up an alleyway, through an old doorway and up a narrow,
filthy staircase. Her unmade bed was strewn with used underwear. She
sat down panting heavily and asked Silas to undo the buttons on the
back of her dress. Half a minute later she assured him it was all
perfectly natural and offered to put his clothes through the
wash.

"And now we go back to the bedroom and do it properly?" she said, with
just a touch of severity.

*****************************

"Now let me get this straight" said Petra.

It hadn't sunk in yet, and she was holding up her hand so she could
count the points off one by one on her fingers. "Your saying you love
me, and you want us to carry on being together; but you don't mind not
shagging me."
"That's right" answered Silas casually, as if blokes made offers like
that to girls all the time.

Petra blushed, then she smiled up at him with a tenderness he
remembered from the early, blossoming, springtime days of their
love."

"Oh Silas!"

"Of course, if it's all the same with you, I wouldn't mind lying next
to you occasionally and handling your&;#8230;"

"Silas!" she bellowed.

Silas thought it best not to press the point. He shrank back into the
sofa, affecting to watch the cowboy film and furtively slipped a
Quality Street into his mouth.

And so that was that.

Whenever Silas felt restless he'd go down to the market and made a
rendezvous with the Pheromone lady. She wasn't shy about asking for
what is the prerogative of every woman of easy virtue and Silas was
happy to fork out. Now that he wasn't suffering from love deprivation
he didn't need to spend so much money on Quality Street.

And nobody was more content than Petra. They slept in separate beds
now. "It doesn't interfere at all with our sex lives" she told her
friends. This was strictly true.

Every day she thanked her lucky stars that she had someone that gave so
much for so little. "He's almost as good as a vibrator who does the
dishes" she boasted. This was only half true, but she always gave him
money for Quality Street when Bob the builder came round to paint the
skirting in the bedroom.

Sometimes, when they were sitting watching TV together, Petra would
feel a sudden urge to hug Silas, and hold him close to her.

And if Silas got any fun out of it, he had the good sense to keep his
mouth shut.