Try Something Good

Try Something Good

- I can't tell you how or what to eat. I just don't think it's ladylike
to suck noodles from the box. Who knows how old these noodles are. They
put them in buckets at the close of market and serve them back up the
next day. It's almost as crude as eating kebabs. Kebabs are for one
thing only; late nights and filthy sex.-

She wondered how many people got turned on by shish and green peppers
and if pretzels with coffee could offend. He laughed. And when he
laughed it was like the whole world stopped. The face in the crowd. A
whole summer of festivals jammed into one short moment.

She wanted to jump on his back, stand on his shoulders, throw her boots
to the wind. One moment could make her feel exactly like that. Instead
she took his hand.

Smells of incense and burnt orange carried them along aisles whilst
music battled for supremacy from stall to stall, competition between
canvases. Hard-edged tones, mellowed by needs to earn a wage, fought
for custom and brightly coloured hats, headscarves, scars and lip rings
pushed for bargains.

- Would you like to try something really good?- He pointed at some
octopus legs and grinned, knowing her answer even before it had time to
form in her own mind.

- Not really.-

- Go on. For me. We can live in octopus heaven and play that song by
the Beatles when we get back.-

- I don't think I'd like it, Neil. I mean really. I really don't think
I?. God, ok.-

A few seconds of slimy suffering, that's all it would take. He laughed
again as he fed her.

- Piggy back home?-

A dusty trundle and he threw her onto the bed.

- Shall I take my boots off now?-

The sexiest words ever.

So for then, she did. She also, somewhere inside, knew that boots
didn't stay off forever. That life had to go on and that was just the
way of things. The elusiveness of what they had and why they clicked
embodied in that moment of flailing boots, noodles and octopus legs and
the thumping colour of drums of many rhythms.

And that was how it was. But there was no way she could compete forever
with the streets; the markets; the old Dog and Bell.