Call Me Alice
by Alasdair McPherson
Genre: Romance
Swearwords: None.
Description: Untrue confessions of a randy author.
_____________________________________________________________________
I was planning to go on a cruise but I was seduced by a cookie so now I’m in the South of Spain until the beginning of April. I arrived in this fairly unspoiled town on the 3rd of January to settle in a studio apartment that is clean but basic. The balance of what I would have spent on a two week cruise will keep me in groceries during my three month stay.
I have a book to finish so I don’t mind the rainy days, especially as the rain is warm! I can scuttle to the covered market and then settle in to write with the windows steamed up. It is harder to settle to writing on the many good days when the spring-like weather encourages me to loiter over coffee in a secluded plaza. After all, I convince myself, everyone I see is a potential character so I’m not completely wasting my time.
The only fault I had at first with the apartment block was the security. The locks are sturdy enough but the doors themselves look flimsy. I felt much happier when I noticed that the main police station is at the end of the street, so there is a steady stream of officers passing my building.
When I had been settled for about a week I thought that I had reason to doubt my judgement. The muse had deserted me and I was sitting rereading the latest draft to get some inspiration when the apartment door was hit hard enough to make it bow inwards. Instead of going to the window and yelling for help from a passing policeman like a responsible author, I went to the door and looked through the spy-hole.
There was nothing to see, but the door of the apartment opposite was gaping wide. You would have assumed that a burglar was in the flat: I was overcome by curiosity, so I opened my door and looked out. I think I’m going through a Hemingway phase. I almost tripped over a large man lying mumbling on the ground. At his head was a small lady who looked up at me and apologised.
“Should I call for an ambulance?” I asked wondering what the Spanish word might be.
“Oh no! He’ll be all right if you can just give me a hand to get him onto the bed.”
The man from the upstairs flat had come half way down where he could see the tableau.
“It’s Ok, dear,” he called upstairs. “It’s just a drunk. I’ll help him in. I won’t be two minutes.”
The pair of us half-carried him in and dumped him on the bed where the little woman began to struggle with his jacket. The upstairs neighbour made off pretty smartly but I stayed to help make the drunk comfortable and accepted her invitation to a coffee when he was obliviously snoring.
She looked more resigned than worried about her husband’s condition and she honestly admitted that it was the normal behaviour when he was on holiday. They had flown from Manchester that morning and he had topped up a pre-flight libation with a bottle of duty-free spirit during the flight. The second bottle on the shuttle bus from the airport proved to be his undoing.
“Not much of a holiday for you.”
“I’m fine so long as I can sit by the pool and relax.”
She made fresh coffee and smiled when she brought it back to the kitchen table where I was sitting. She has a good figure and, now she was smiling, a pretty face. About forty, I would guess, but she’s a neglected wife and I’m on my own and suffering a bit of writer’s block.
“Can I show you round the town? You’ll need to shop, I suppose, and I could show you the best market stalls.”
“I hoped there would be a supermarket. Would I have to haggle – I don’t think I could do that.”
There is something about a helpless female that is extraordinarily appealing to a man. This woman sitting opposite me had become almost beautiful, so I tried even harder to get her away from the drink-sodden object snoring in the bedroom. She only stopped long enough to change her shoes and check her make-up and then we were off!
She had led a sheltered life with a husband who made all the decisions. It was like talking to someone who had been locked away for fifty years and had totally missed female emancipation. After we had shopped she was happy to walk on to look around the town. It surprised her when I insisted on carrying the shopping bags and it surprised me when she took my arm. She immediately consented when I offered to buy her dinner in a bistro close to the main plaza.
We were on our way back to the apartments before I gave any thought to the next stage in what I was already seeing as an affair. I had enjoyed her naïve chat and the weight of her breast against my arm, but it was about time I steered the conversation into a more intimate channel. I knew that my attempted seduction would be half-hearted – she deserved better than a lecher to console her for marriage to a drunk.
Before I could make my move, her phone rang. I could feel her tense up when she answered it. It was her husband and he was not a happy man. I had no difficulty following the conversation as he bellowed at her.
“Where are you, you stupid cow. There’s no food in the place and you haven’t even unpacked.”
“I met someone who showed me where the shops are. We just lost track of time.”
She told him that she was almost back at the apartment.
“Do you have any idea what time it is? You’re out on the streets with a stranger at midnight. Have you no sense? Get in a taxi right now. I’ll meet you and pay the driver.”
He didn’t wait for an acknowledgement. Apart from holding my arm more firmly she had shown little emotion during the call. Now she sighed.
“I’ll have to get a cab. I’ve enjoyed myself so much.”
I pointed out that we had only about three hundred metres to walk, but she became quite uneasy at the thought of disobeying her husband. Raoul was at the rank and I opened the back door of his taxi for her. She turned and kissed me with surprising passion and then she scrambled into the cab for the short ride home.
Five minutes later I was climbing the stair to my apartment still not sure whether to be glad or sorry that the evening had not ended in passionate embraces.
The next morning I had completed my shopping and was enjoying a coffee in the sun when she and her husband walked by. I said good morning and smiled and they both looked a bit startled. They had walked on ten metres or so when he turned and walked back towards where I was sitting.
Now he is a boozer but he must weigh thirty kilos more than me and I was sitting down so I didn’t view his approach with any confidence. What the hell had she said to him?
“Hi there, I’m Frank and the wife tells me that you’re one of the chaps that helped me when I had my little turn.”
So far, so good. He ordered a Spanish brandy that he downed in one while the waiter was standing there.
“Keep them coming,” he told the man. “Spanish brandy is practically non-alcoholic,” he told me.
He described a medical condition that had the same symptoms as being drunk and told me how embarrassing it could be until he explained it to people. I didn’t really follow the explanation, but it took four glasses of brandy to make it.
Then he asked if I knew Alice.
“Did you see a woman there when you were helping me into the flat? Someone called Alice took Emily, my wife, out on the town. I’m sure she meant well, but Em’s not used to the bright lights. I worry about her. She’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer,” he laughed.
I said that I did not know the other people in the flats and I suggested they visit the area around the pool to see if his wife recognised anyone. Emily isn’t as daft as he makes out: she was sharp enough to invent Alice, keeping my name out of things. I left him shortly after that to go back to my room.
I don’t know what did it, but the muse had stirred and I had a fruitful afternoon. It was after five when I noticed that I was hungry, so I printed off the six pages I’d written and made myself a pasta salad with a tuna fillet in the fridge from the night before. I had treated myself to a second glass of fino while the pasta was cooking and I was feeling pleasantly relaxed when there was a gentle tap on my door.
It was Emily looking nervously over each shoulder to see if there was anyone on the stair. I pulled her inside and repaid her for the kiss she had given me as she got into the taxi. One thing led to another and we were naked in bed before she told me that she had actually called to apologise.
“I meant to kiss your cheek last night, but I sort of missed in the dark.” She was willing to second my applause for her error!
That was the start of the strangest affair I’ve ever had. That first night Emily and I used our hands and lips to give and receive pleasure. She had never experienced fore-play but she was a receptive pupil with great enthusiasm. She had arrived just after six and we were enjoying ourselves so much that it was almost ten before I made a determined effort at the final connection that nature has designed for the mutual delight of men and women. I had tried several times before, but she had pulled away and continued teasing me; I was enjoying myself too much to persist.
Emily froze at the first tentative insertion and then she leapt out of bed and scrambled into her clothes. From a totally relaxed equal partner in sexual pleasure she became a rigidly unwilling participant. She was out the door before I gathered my thoughts.
The next day started as a repeat: Frank joined me to drink brandy while Emily shopped at the market.
“Don’t get any more strawberries, Em, they’re bringing you out in a rash,” he yelled after her. I made a mental note to put a new blade in my razor.
He talked of the difficulty in identifying Alice, the woman who had led his wife into danger and I advised him on steps he might take to find her.
“She may have been a visitor to our apartments. People come from other blocks to use our pool, you know.”
“I don’t suppose it really matters. No harm done, but I would have liked to give her a word or two of advice on how to treat a vulnerable woman. I make no apology for being a caring and considerate husband!”
Frank is an accountant who works very hard to keep ‘the little woman’ and he relaxes in the evening with a couple of drinks. Emily keeps the home and cooks at midnight when he wakes up from his little nap. On holiday he starts earlier and goes on longer. He sees nothing odd in falling into a drunken stupor every night of his life.
That evening Emily arrived just after four, slipping through my door before it was properly opened. She apologised for running away, explaining her actions by saying that she could not commit adultery. I was more than a little surprised since we had spent four hours in adulterous embraces the previous evening.
“Frank and I are fundamentalist Christians – Creationists - who believe that every word in the Bible is absolutely true.”
She felt herself to be free to enjoy any and every sort of sexual gratification so long as it did not involve penetration because that was the only sort of sexual activity mentioned in the Bible. (Except for onanism, of course, and we had no need to even consider indulging in that way!)
Not being allowed to reach the natural fulfilment of our activities in bed is not as frustrating as you might think. Over the week we spent together we became extremely inventive and I had time to explore some interesting byways of the sexual path that I had disregarded in the past.
From a few things she said during our hours in bed, I suspect that the guy that delivers her groceries is going to be made a tempting offer. Frank and I still spent the mornings together and I have to admit that added a certain piquancy to the evenings!
When Emily and Frank went home at the end of the week, I would have been happy to have sworn off coition for life, but then I bumped into a new arrival on the stairs who changed my mind again. Her name, believe it or not, is Alice!
Swearwords: None.
Description: Untrue confessions of a randy author.
_____________________________________________________________________
I was planning to go on a cruise but I was seduced by a cookie so now I’m in the South of Spain until the beginning of April. I arrived in this fairly unspoiled town on the 3rd of January to settle in a studio apartment that is clean but basic. The balance of what I would have spent on a two week cruise will keep me in groceries during my three month stay.
I have a book to finish so I don’t mind the rainy days, especially as the rain is warm! I can scuttle to the covered market and then settle in to write with the windows steamed up. It is harder to settle to writing on the many good days when the spring-like weather encourages me to loiter over coffee in a secluded plaza. After all, I convince myself, everyone I see is a potential character so I’m not completely wasting my time.
The only fault I had at first with the apartment block was the security. The locks are sturdy enough but the doors themselves look flimsy. I felt much happier when I noticed that the main police station is at the end of the street, so there is a steady stream of officers passing my building.
When I had been settled for about a week I thought that I had reason to doubt my judgement. The muse had deserted me and I was sitting rereading the latest draft to get some inspiration when the apartment door was hit hard enough to make it bow inwards. Instead of going to the window and yelling for help from a passing policeman like a responsible author, I went to the door and looked through the spy-hole.
There was nothing to see, but the door of the apartment opposite was gaping wide. You would have assumed that a burglar was in the flat: I was overcome by curiosity, so I opened my door and looked out. I think I’m going through a Hemingway phase. I almost tripped over a large man lying mumbling on the ground. At his head was a small lady who looked up at me and apologised.
“Should I call for an ambulance?” I asked wondering what the Spanish word might be.
“Oh no! He’ll be all right if you can just give me a hand to get him onto the bed.”
The man from the upstairs flat had come half way down where he could see the tableau.
“It’s Ok, dear,” he called upstairs. “It’s just a drunk. I’ll help him in. I won’t be two minutes.”
The pair of us half-carried him in and dumped him on the bed where the little woman began to struggle with his jacket. The upstairs neighbour made off pretty smartly but I stayed to help make the drunk comfortable and accepted her invitation to a coffee when he was obliviously snoring.
She looked more resigned than worried about her husband’s condition and she honestly admitted that it was the normal behaviour when he was on holiday. They had flown from Manchester that morning and he had topped up a pre-flight libation with a bottle of duty-free spirit during the flight. The second bottle on the shuttle bus from the airport proved to be his undoing.
“Not much of a holiday for you.”
“I’m fine so long as I can sit by the pool and relax.”
She made fresh coffee and smiled when she brought it back to the kitchen table where I was sitting. She has a good figure and, now she was smiling, a pretty face. About forty, I would guess, but she’s a neglected wife and I’m on my own and suffering a bit of writer’s block.
“Can I show you round the town? You’ll need to shop, I suppose, and I could show you the best market stalls.”
“I hoped there would be a supermarket. Would I have to haggle – I don’t think I could do that.”
There is something about a helpless female that is extraordinarily appealing to a man. This woman sitting opposite me had become almost beautiful, so I tried even harder to get her away from the drink-sodden object snoring in the bedroom. She only stopped long enough to change her shoes and check her make-up and then we were off!
She had led a sheltered life with a husband who made all the decisions. It was like talking to someone who had been locked away for fifty years and had totally missed female emancipation. After we had shopped she was happy to walk on to look around the town. It surprised her when I insisted on carrying the shopping bags and it surprised me when she took my arm. She immediately consented when I offered to buy her dinner in a bistro close to the main plaza.
We were on our way back to the apartments before I gave any thought to the next stage in what I was already seeing as an affair. I had enjoyed her naïve chat and the weight of her breast against my arm, but it was about time I steered the conversation into a more intimate channel. I knew that my attempted seduction would be half-hearted – she deserved better than a lecher to console her for marriage to a drunk.
Before I could make my move, her phone rang. I could feel her tense up when she answered it. It was her husband and he was not a happy man. I had no difficulty following the conversation as he bellowed at her.
“Where are you, you stupid cow. There’s no food in the place and you haven’t even unpacked.”
“I met someone who showed me where the shops are. We just lost track of time.”
She told him that she was almost back at the apartment.
“Do you have any idea what time it is? You’re out on the streets with a stranger at midnight. Have you no sense? Get in a taxi right now. I’ll meet you and pay the driver.”
He didn’t wait for an acknowledgement. Apart from holding my arm more firmly she had shown little emotion during the call. Now she sighed.
“I’ll have to get a cab. I’ve enjoyed myself so much.”
I pointed out that we had only about three hundred metres to walk, but she became quite uneasy at the thought of disobeying her husband. Raoul was at the rank and I opened the back door of his taxi for her. She turned and kissed me with surprising passion and then she scrambled into the cab for the short ride home.
Five minutes later I was climbing the stair to my apartment still not sure whether to be glad or sorry that the evening had not ended in passionate embraces.
The next morning I had completed my shopping and was enjoying a coffee in the sun when she and her husband walked by. I said good morning and smiled and they both looked a bit startled. They had walked on ten metres or so when he turned and walked back towards where I was sitting.
Now he is a boozer but he must weigh thirty kilos more than me and I was sitting down so I didn’t view his approach with any confidence. What the hell had she said to him?
“Hi there, I’m Frank and the wife tells me that you’re one of the chaps that helped me when I had my little turn.”
So far, so good. He ordered a Spanish brandy that he downed in one while the waiter was standing there.
“Keep them coming,” he told the man. “Spanish brandy is practically non-alcoholic,” he told me.
He described a medical condition that had the same symptoms as being drunk and told me how embarrassing it could be until he explained it to people. I didn’t really follow the explanation, but it took four glasses of brandy to make it.
Then he asked if I knew Alice.
“Did you see a woman there when you were helping me into the flat? Someone called Alice took Emily, my wife, out on the town. I’m sure she meant well, but Em’s not used to the bright lights. I worry about her. She’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer,” he laughed.
I said that I did not know the other people in the flats and I suggested they visit the area around the pool to see if his wife recognised anyone. Emily isn’t as daft as he makes out: she was sharp enough to invent Alice, keeping my name out of things. I left him shortly after that to go back to my room.
I don’t know what did it, but the muse had stirred and I had a fruitful afternoon. It was after five when I noticed that I was hungry, so I printed off the six pages I’d written and made myself a pasta salad with a tuna fillet in the fridge from the night before. I had treated myself to a second glass of fino while the pasta was cooking and I was feeling pleasantly relaxed when there was a gentle tap on my door.
It was Emily looking nervously over each shoulder to see if there was anyone on the stair. I pulled her inside and repaid her for the kiss she had given me as she got into the taxi. One thing led to another and we were naked in bed before she told me that she had actually called to apologise.
“I meant to kiss your cheek last night, but I sort of missed in the dark.” She was willing to second my applause for her error!
That was the start of the strangest affair I’ve ever had. That first night Emily and I used our hands and lips to give and receive pleasure. She had never experienced fore-play but she was a receptive pupil with great enthusiasm. She had arrived just after six and we were enjoying ourselves so much that it was almost ten before I made a determined effort at the final connection that nature has designed for the mutual delight of men and women. I had tried several times before, but she had pulled away and continued teasing me; I was enjoying myself too much to persist.
Emily froze at the first tentative insertion and then she leapt out of bed and scrambled into her clothes. From a totally relaxed equal partner in sexual pleasure she became a rigidly unwilling participant. She was out the door before I gathered my thoughts.
The next day started as a repeat: Frank joined me to drink brandy while Emily shopped at the market.
“Don’t get any more strawberries, Em, they’re bringing you out in a rash,” he yelled after her. I made a mental note to put a new blade in my razor.
He talked of the difficulty in identifying Alice, the woman who had led his wife into danger and I advised him on steps he might take to find her.
“She may have been a visitor to our apartments. People come from other blocks to use our pool, you know.”
“I don’t suppose it really matters. No harm done, but I would have liked to give her a word or two of advice on how to treat a vulnerable woman. I make no apology for being a caring and considerate husband!”
Frank is an accountant who works very hard to keep ‘the little woman’ and he relaxes in the evening with a couple of drinks. Emily keeps the home and cooks at midnight when he wakes up from his little nap. On holiday he starts earlier and goes on longer. He sees nothing odd in falling into a drunken stupor every night of his life.
That evening Emily arrived just after four, slipping through my door before it was properly opened. She apologised for running away, explaining her actions by saying that she could not commit adultery. I was more than a little surprised since we had spent four hours in adulterous embraces the previous evening.
“Frank and I are fundamentalist Christians – Creationists - who believe that every word in the Bible is absolutely true.”
She felt herself to be free to enjoy any and every sort of sexual gratification so long as it did not involve penetration because that was the only sort of sexual activity mentioned in the Bible. (Except for onanism, of course, and we had no need to even consider indulging in that way!)
Not being allowed to reach the natural fulfilment of our activities in bed is not as frustrating as you might think. Over the week we spent together we became extremely inventive and I had time to explore some interesting byways of the sexual path that I had disregarded in the past.
From a few things she said during our hours in bed, I suspect that the guy that delivers her groceries is going to be made a tempting offer. Frank and I still spent the mornings together and I have to admit that added a certain piquancy to the evenings!
When Emily and Frank went home at the end of the week, I would have been happy to have sworn off coition for life, but then I bumped into a new arrival on the stairs who changed my mind again. Her name, believe it or not, is Alice!
About the Author
Originally from Dalmuir, Alasdair McPherson is now retired and living in exile in Lincolnshire.
He says he has always wanted to write, but life got in the way until recently. He has already penned eight novels and many short stories. His five latest novels, The Island, Pilgrimage of Grace, Desert Ark, Swordsmiths and Loyalty, are McStorytellers publications.
You can read Alasdair's full profile on McVoices.
He says he has always wanted to write, but life got in the way until recently. He has already penned eight novels and many short stories. His five latest novels, The Island, Pilgrimage of Grace, Desert Ark, Swordsmiths and Loyalty, are McStorytellers publications.
You can read Alasdair's full profile on McVoices.