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Dream Date

What if the girl of your dreams was a girl in your dream?

By Peter NuttallPublished 3 years ago 9 min read
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After lying flat on the bed and closing his eyes, colours and shapes soon began to form in Sam’s mind. A dark room with blurred neon lights soon fizzled into view. The scene sharpened and a barstool with a purple velvet seat materialised in front of him. Beyond that, a silver counter top with a mirrored front panel in which Sam could see his legs reflected. He backed onto the stool and rested his elbows on the bar, staring at the wall which gradually became lined with various liquors and wine bottles.

The music which had been playing mutedly since the room began to fade into view became apparent for the first time, a mixture of noises that didn’t seem to make any sense. Sam chose not to listen to it and scanned the room for reassurance that he was in the same bar he’d dreamed about the night before. His reason for wishing the same dream as he fell asleep was nowhere to be seen. He supposed she could be one of the indistinct shapes that moved in the darkened corners. Something moved to his right; he only felt as much because of the prickling sensation he detected, a little like the fuzzy static on a television screen pushing at his arm.

‘Not drinking?’

Sam felt a velvet female voice drift into his ears; the feeling was not unlike running his hand over a cat’s back. ‘There’s nobody serving’, Sam replied, somehow sure the voice belonged to the lady who had so captivated his imagination.

‘The barman has probably been arrested’, she replied pragmatically.

Sam found her rationale rather odd; fully aware that he was dreaming, he supposed that her words were actually his words projected. Even with this supposition, he failed to make any more sense of it than he already had.

‘Arrested?’, Sam took the opportunity to turn his head and take a glimpse at the owner of the thus far anonymous voice. Long brown fluffy hair obscured the speaker’s face but he was sure it was her.

‘I got arrested for serving illegal booze once.’

‘How?’, Sam asked, staring at the side of her head, willing her to turn and face him.

‘It was so unfair’, she replied. She suddenly turned and faced Sam, ‘I got caught because they sent in this psycho-looking vice squad bloke’. She smiled slightly, triggering Sam into a reciprocated and overly-toothy smile in return. ‘I didn’t want to serve him because he looked so scary,’ she continued, ‘it took him ten minutes to get to show his warrant because I kept saying ‘in a minute’. I thought he was going to kill me; I would never have thought he was a policeman because he was cross-eyed, had psoriasis and an awful straggly ponytail.’

‘You were in a pub?’

‘No, it was an illegal late-night bar in Soho. Most of the Policemen that came in, you would just laugh at. They’d come in and blatantly say, ‘have you got any drugs?’. I’ve never heard a non-policeman ask for drugs.’

‘So you served him and he arrested you?’

‘No, I kept serving other people. I tried to avoid him because he looked so psycho. He was just squirming about trying to show his little badge and say ‘you’re nicked’ and I was ignoring him’.

‘So how did you get caught then?’, Sam asked, clearly lost in what he assumed was a connection between him and his dream girl. The fact she had a past of late-night illegal bars and associations with people who sold drugs seemed not to have registered with Sam, who was against all forms of narcotics, including cigarettes.

‘He was watching me for ten minutes serving alcohol in an illegal bar. I had no defence really!’

‘So I guess you had to find another job then?’

‘Not at all. I got a £100 bonus off my boss for not mentioning his name when I was interviewed. The Police had his name, address and number anyway.’

‘They kept you in the cells?’

‘Yeah, Vine Street police station. I told them I was claustrophobic and shouted until they let me out. Good times.’

Sam searched his head for something, anything that would sound remotely similar to his new friend’s story. He’d never been in a late-night bar in real life, he’d never been arrested and he definitely hadn’t been asked if he had any drugs to sell. His conversations always centred around old television programs like Chorlton and the wheelies; there was no chance she’d ever find that interesting.

‘Mulled wine is weird isn’t it?’, he said gazing at the wall furthest away from where he sat.

‘Is it?’, she replied.

‘I mean, it’s warm wine isn’t it?’, he continued, turning his head towards her slightly.

‘What’s your point?’ Sam could sense confusion in her voice.

‘So when you mull something, do you just heat it up or is it when you heat it up with twigs and bits of orange peel in it?’

‘I’ve never thought of it before’, she said. Her voice lilted with an agreeable tone; Sam felt relieved she hadn’t thought he was weird and walked off.

‘I mean, serving drinks at temperatures you shouldn’t serve them at. Hot Chocolate; you could have nippy chocolate or mulled Bovril.’ Sam knew he’d taken his point too far although his new female friend was now looking at him, staring with the brown eyes that had filled his day-dreams. He glanced back at her with a slight smirk. ‘There is a moment while sipping your Mulled wine, feeling all Christmassy, when it turns from being a cheeky seasonal beverage into a sickly cataclysm of cinnamon and tooth tincture.’

‘Susi’, she giggled and offered her hand.

‘Sam’, he smiled. He took her hand and gave it a gentle shake; he’d never been sure how to shake a woman’s hand. With men he supposed, you should have a good firm grip and give their hand a quick sharp jerk to assert your masculinity. With women, he assumed a more courteous and gentle grip was required.

‘I have to say, I prefer a glass of Merlot; not warm either’, Susi giggled.

Sam gazed for a while at the green glow that bled through the darkness between the clock and his retinas. The digital display stared back at him, emotionless but somehow sinister. ‘Half one?’, he muttered. A loud noise from the street below his bedroom window caused Sam to spasm into an upright position on his bed; he hot up, walked to the window and pulled the tatty curtain to one side. Two men, clearly influenced by what they’d been pouring into their mouths all evening were staggering up the street, singing. Glass from a broken beer bottle lay shattered on the pavement behind them. Irritated, Sam climbed back into the warm inviting bed and closed his eyes.

‘Where have you been?’

Sam turned his head towards the familiar voice and flinched slightly as Susi’s brown eyes were less than six inches from his.

‘Gentleman’s room’, Sam replied with a hint of confusion in his voice. Susi emitted a contrite sigh, seemingly infused with everything that troubled her. Desire to discover the emotional ingredients of her exhaled lament stabbed briefly at Sam’s throat for the briefest of moments as Susi’s previously jovial tone returned with her next sentence.

‘I work in a record shop. You?’

‘Call centre’, Sam replied, ‘Record shop?’, he continued, intent on encouraging the conversation, ‘I bet you have to deal with nutters all day do you?’

Susi chuckled, ‘All day! The other day a woman came in and asked if we had anything by Postman Pat. I just stared back at her until she walked away.’

‘Postman Pat sings the blues’, Sam said softly, unaware he’d verbalised what he thought was an inner monologue.

‘No, he’s the happiest man in Greendale. He’d never sing the blues unless his cat got run over. Mrs Goggins would sing the blues.’

Sam let Susi’s words trickle into his ears like auditory honey, making him feel happier than he thought he’d ever felt.

‘They should duet. It would go down a storm!’

‘Yeah, with crazy old ladies’, Susi added, taking a sip from her drink. ‘They come in and they’re like ‘I want that song. I don’t know what it’s called and I don’t know who it’s by’. I make them sing it and then say, ‘Naa, sorry. Haven’t got a clue’, even if I totally know what it is.’

Sam smiled to himself until he could feel the intruding silence between them becoming uncomfortable. ‘You work in a call centre?’, Susi asked, just before Sam said anything to break the muteness between them.

‘Yeah, it’s awful. Customers screaming at you all the time for the most trivial of reasons. The only entertainment I get is from the transvestite who sits in the corner.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah, he comes in dressed in short dresses and what have you. We all think he does it on purpose to see what he can get away with and annoy management. I’m not sure he’s a real transvestite because I saw him out shopping once and he was just wearing jeans and a shirt.’

‘When I worked in that illegal bar it was filled with transvestites. It was brilliant.’ Sam threw a confused glance in Susi’s direction. ‘There was a fight at least twice a night; wigs, stilettoes and glitter flying everywhere. It was like an indoor firework display. I got arrested with one once.’

Sam played with the fact his new attractive female friend had been arrested at least twice in her life for a moment, deciding eventually that this information was trivial compared to the air of unpredictability she gave off which only served to intrigue him further. ‘His name was Linda,’ she continued, ‘well, Lyndon really but it was a natural progression. He was smashing loads of glasses in a café on Old Compton Street. It wasn’t even my fault.’

‘So what happened?’

‘I cut my hand and this Scottish guy, one of the waiters, bandaged it for me. He gave me his number and stupidly I rang him to pick me up from the Police station later on.’

‘Stupidly?’, Sam asked, absorbed by the story.

‘Yeah, we started going out and I moved in with him but my friends all hated him. One day he said ‘Let’s go to Scotland and work in a Hotel, it’ll be great’, just out of the blue. I later found out he was on the run from the Police. He turned out to be an alcoholic and an absolute nutter and everyone told me to get away from him. Took me a while to come to my senses.’

Sam sat with a fixed expression of uncertainty, unsure whether to speak or not and unsure of what to say should he decide that speaking was the best option after all.

‘You’re like a one-person episode of Eastenders’, Sam said eventually, wincing slightly as he realised what had come out of his mouth, hoping Susi would realise he was joking.

‘Oh God, that doesn’t sound good does it?’

‘Experience is the one thing you keep’, Sam said philosophically.

‘Damn right,’ she said forcefully, ‘stay away from Scottish men.’

‘And illegal jobs?’

‘Yeah, and Transvestites.’

They both chuckled lightly until the background music filled the silence between them once more.

‘What time does this place close?’ Sam glanced at the space on his wrist where he hoped his watch would be, to no avail.

‘Well, it hasn’t since I’ve been here.’

‘When did you – ’

‘I’ll never forget you. I’ll never let you out of my heart. You will always be here with me. I’ll hold on to the memories – ’. Sam reached up a hand to silence the honeyed tones of Mariah Carey which wafted out of his aged clock radio by slamming his palm onto the Snooze button…

fantasy
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About the Creator

Peter Nuttall

I love reading stories which contain elements that couldn't happen in real life. Ghosts, time travel, super heroes - so that's also what I write. That and various genres of humorous non-fiction.

I've got more going on at www.peternuttall.net

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