John

Have I just been dumped!?

I walked back to the empty cottage and took in the room, perhaps she left something, an excuse to come back ..... nup, nothing, the empty tomatoe sauce bottle doesn't count.

It was nice though, with her here. A woman always tends to make everything lighter, nicer, prettier unless the woman's a bitch of course and then all the above doesn't happen.

Sunshine on a cloudy day she is, was.

A woman that didn't push and prod, nark and nag, she was just equal, on the same page, well on the page I had let her see so far.

I need to plan...

I had a possible plan.

A plan to elicit an idea in her who I am, drop the hints, hope she pounces. But it's just too dumb. 

Sing- that was it, but doing that would be like spotlights glaring full and bright. Ripping the beard away would have the same effect. Both too quick and too deadly to contemplate.

Lennon's voice, the one and only.

I marched back, I'm sick of all this cloak and dagger shit. Well the pleasant feelings while making love to her in 'secret' seem to have us going at it hard and fast but that's not the point.

The point is.... would she shun me when she knows it's me.

The usual cocky bastard side of me is waning and turning into a frightened school girl.

Scared of the consequences, scared of the nasty put down; everyone knows I'm married, everyone knows I'm a prick, so in that vein, surely she knows all the Lennon crap too.

My reputation proceeds me in print, film and even fucking folklore.

So, what to do, light a smoke, count to ten, beg forgiveness before I do the big reveal and play spot the frown when she is let down finding out it's me.

Nah the school girl in me wants to push it away for another day yet again. Just visit today, just a few more minutes in her company.... before the bitter end.

"Knock, knock" I open the door without hesitation but stand on the threshold for her command.

"Entre"

Still at the kitchen table, still leaning over an empty page, still half a muffin in her hand and a whole one sat on the plate in the centre.

Turning the chair around I sit and lean over the back which is now the front. Finally looking up she smiles slightly, cupid's lips purse and ponder me.

"Am I forgiven?"

"Yeah, no problem" I point out the muffin. It smells divine, I'm nodded an ascent to eat. It's surprisingly good "This is ok"

"Yeah, I suck at bread, kick-arse with muffins though, who knew!" The smile creeps up and attacks me, rendering me mute. Slamming the journal shut she sits up and finishes the muffin. Tiny pieces broken off with fingers placing it gingerly in the mouth.

Nope, still mute.

Minutes pass as we eat and stare.

Finally, I grow some balls and a voice box again "Clare, I want to take my beard off but I'm frightened"

"Well that's silly, you know it doesn't hurt"

"But it might hurt you"

"It's just a cover, I know the book pretty well now, don't you think. Or should I read all the way to the end and not skip the boring bits?" There it is again the smile kind, open, untainted, yea untainted she seems untainted by massive heartbreak.

I don't want to be the one that breaks her innocent heart.

I wake up from watching the muffin pass her lips "Was that a metaphor that I'm the book, my beard the cover, the end being the reveal- me?"

"Ahuh"

"I think you still need to read all the way to the end, that way you will know all the crap and all the good bits" Ok I'll be light hearted, she'll be ok.

"Does the good stuff outweigh the crap?" The grin is teasing, flirty and she walks round the table and plonks down on my knee when I swing round to follow her footsteps.

Fingers tugging at the beard lightly then touching my hair and eyebrows. I close my eyes and just feel the sensations.

It's nice- touch, everyone should just touch gently-... Pinch my nose "Ouch!"

"That's for trying to get me to hate you before I know you"

"What!?"

"You think I will hate you"

Well sit me down and pour me tea.

"Have you committed murder?"

"No, don't be daff"

"Are you a wanted man?"

"Can you be more precise?"

"Pardon Cap?"

"Well wanted by police, women, an employer, scientists for experimentation?"

She rolled her eyes "By police"

"Then no"

"By women?" Damnit I had to put that one in her head.

"Maybe"

"Women huh....." she tapped her chin "How many?"

Crap.

"Well the ones I know would be me mate's missus, she has a bit of a thing for me, though she would deny it. You and my soon to be ex wife – she wants me for my bank details. And-"

"Hold on, should I be taking notes here?" She reached for her journal, however she did not refute that she was included in the women who want me.

"No cheeky" I tossed her precious book over my shoulder and it landed with a slap on the floorboards.

"Hey!" Quick smart she was off gathering up the book and placing it beside us, then sitting back down on my lap again, stirring up my libido. "Well someone's happy" She smirked and cuddled me.... innocence, warmth, hope. Leaning back away from me she grinned like she had just thought of eating chocolate.

I could go for more chocolate.

"Oh, Oh! Women you don't know, .. want you? Is that from the movies?"

"Yeah I suppose so" Oh god I'm being thought of as Robert fucking Redford "I'm not Robert Redford"

"No shit, you sound nothing like him. Anyway huny, Robert has got a mole....  righttttt abouttt here" She pointed at the dead centre of my chest and I froze. "Oh, my gawd the look on your face, hilarious"

"So, Bob hasn't a mole right there"

"NoPe..... it's a bit further down" She giggled and jumped up to grab a couple of apples out of the fruit basket to juggle. I lunged- she screamed. Apples rolled everywhere.

I'm glad block out curtains were invented, 99% of the light not passing through, bit hopeless when the sun today is at DEFTCON 9. I'm still able to see everything.

But there are ways around problems, you just have to look. And this afternoon the way around my facial issues is via scarf, folded twice. It was gauzy but not see through, and now, it is tied over her eyes. Feel, touch, the senses heightened. Fever pitch and smoking hot.

I'm experienced but this is different, she blindly succumbs.

Trust is an aphrodisiac, I'm now sure of it.

Her fingers search and struggle at times but when she finds skin she traces, wanders and roams lazily like an explorer discovering new lands.

"Clare" I whisper in her ear, close, terribly close, so close she has me shackled "I don't want this to stop"

Clare moans, and wants, hips tipping upwards as I wander fingers along her side, squirming closer for the touch I give, what I offer.

"Cap..."

"Why do you call me Cap still?"

"Because I don't know the real you yet. Cap you have to introduce me, I won't run from him, I promise" Sealed with a kiss she pouts as I move away and kiss her again.. elsewhere.

"He's a prick Clare, you will run" The third person arises and I am floundering, she will be disappointed, shocked, running miles.

"I like big pricks" She laughed and I caught her shoulder still with my hand, finding contact she accepted all of me, I take her away, all the way from nirvana toward oblivion "Ohhh, hot damn we are sooo good"

The meander of descent brought us home, comfortable in a pocket of blankets in her bed, the sunset I think giving way to the night. Beard in place, I slipped the scarf down her cheeks, settling it around her neck. Eyes ever watching, knowing and whip smart.

"John"

She spoke a dream of mine, hands threaded round my neck, fingers kneading my shoulders I leaned over her, the beard falling on her chest, tickling.

"I once knew a John, well I've known a few" She smiled up at me "This one, I know quite well, no, that's a lie. I met him one morning, I served him tea"

I grumbled, she knows about my feelings on men and tea.

The laughter was contagious, beautiful.

She moved the scarf, picking it up and laying it lower, the scarf now covering her chest. I pouted, she poked her tongue out "He was witty, clever, a bit on an arse. He looked at me like- oh there she is, another fat one. I was intimidated and crawled out the window to the fire escape and lumbered to the roof. I sat watching the sun rise and neighbouring windows open to his newest masterpiece"

"Did he follow"

She scoffed "Not bloody likely. I didn't like him like him, wouldn't have had a chance anyway. I admired him. I wanted to be in the same room as him. I wanted to learn from him or just suck all the damn creativity from him like a vacuum cleaner"

"So, did you suck him?" She hit me! "The creativity, Clare, the creativity.."

"I listened and made my own. Kicked it out of the park to if I do say so myself!"

"Way to go Clare"

"You're a nut ..... it disappears, doesn't it. As soon as you grasp it, it shrivels. Pages of blank nothingness looking back at you like a vast salt lake, smooth and unmarked. Desolate and silent" She stood and slipped bra and panties on, watching me closely as I watch her.

"It gets better- highs lows quiet loud peace noise"

'Don't I know it. You have made it better, Cap; my eyes open a touch more now. I've actually got it down on paper I just need to breathe life into its lungs......Do you want to hear it?"

I sat up. This was revelation. This was her, not the blurry edges. I get to glimpse her.

I should give of myself.

I thought she was going to read, she had the journal but the tome lay beside her and the guitar was fetched from the floor beside the bed. She crossed her legs on the sheets, bra and panties, tapping the page in a worrisome manner.

She writes music, I'm done for.

No wonder she knows Specttor.

She held her lip with her teeth and steadied herself, wanting to get it out in one piece perfectly, for the only other person to hear- me.

I knew the routine. Paul and I would follow the same road, sometimes daily in the beginning. Wanting the song to come from our lips as near perfection as it could be so the other party would commend, comment, rip apart and/ or only have to add a word or two.

She went to start and I held her arm still.

"Are you sure you want me to be the one to hear this.... first" I watched her fidget with the journal, seconds passing.

"Sure"

I still held her "Clare, I do this too"

"What?"

"This- music, write. I write music"

"Are you scared mines gonna be better?!" The lips rose twitching to a grin and her eyes twinkled mischievously.

"NO"

"Oh, big bragger! So I can't be better than you, hmmmm"

"I didn't mean it that way"

"Well what did you mean mister big shot?" Clare, pushed the journal aside, guitar dropped into her lap , arms crossed.

"I meant I did song-writing too and didn't want you to waste the first performance on me, that's all"

"It won't be the very first performance, I played bits of it to a friend the other afternoon for his opinion"

"The same friend that drove you home late that night"

"One in the same"

"Friend?"

"Friend"

"Well you know what I think of this friend already"

"Yes, well I'm beginning to think you're an arse but let's not split hairs"

"I can't believe you're that naïve to think a man has no intentions when he drives you home in the middle of the bloody night and stays for tea" I spat nastily.

Why am I here, at this very moment, saying these words. She was going to share herself, now I'm being a twat, grumbling about some arse she brought round for tea. Tea!

I have a problem.

I'm using TEA as a euphemism for sex.

"Bloody hell, get out you dimwit, what type of person do you think you are to say that. I know what it is, it's  bloody jealousy or some sort of perverted powerplay, one of the two. How can you be jealous when I just let you shag me .... He's not the one sitting on my bed leering at my bra and knickers, you are! You're a dumb arse" She pushed me and I fell to the side then she tossed the guitar in the case and sat on me.

Just sat there ignoring me.

"What are you doing?"

"I don't know"

"Weren't you kicking me out?"

"I. Yes, I was..... But I don't want to, you dimwitted, dumbo weirdo" Crossed legs, back to me, facing my feet, she sat.

"Well why don't you just kick me out then"

"Are you hard of hearing. I don't want to."

"Why Clare?" Push it, push it hard.

"Because I like you you dimwitted, weirdo, dumbo, jerk"

"Oh"

"Oh" She scoffed again "That's it- Oh. Have I made a mistake telling you that?" Veneer cracked as she tried to stay strong.

"No. I really like you too but I am all what you said and yes, I was jealous" Might as well go for broke and say the 'S' word  "Sorry"

The head turned slightly, long dark chocolate brown and caramel soft locks brushing her shoulders as she did so. "Sorry?"

"Sorry"