The Shopper

Chapter 1

My head felt like it was going around on a waltzer, and there was a cheesy Blackpool organist playing ‘Oh I do like to be beside the seaside’, being accompanied by the banging of the door that disturbed my alcohol induced coma.
‘Alright, alright’ I yelled, covering my head with my hands and tearing myself off the leather sofa. Tins clattered across the wooden floor as I kicked them and some cold pizza squished its way between my toes as I stumbled blearily towards the door. I fumbled at the keys and jingled it open. There was a blonde in my doorway, and it wasn’t the wife.
‘Ah, awake at last, I’ve been banging on the door for like fifteen minutes you dafty, I left my bloody jacket didn’t I’, she sang, barging passed me. I was a bit unsteady at this point and would have toppled like a diseased tree if she hadn’t returned so quickly on her way out. She held me up against the door frame.
‘Oh you don’t look at all well darling’, she purred, and with that she planted a hot lipstick-sticky kiss, and then gently rubbed it in with a well manicured finger. I blinked my eyes several times. She looked about twenty-something and smelled of vanilla and wine with a hint of fake Dior. I looked at her blankly.
‘Erm, who are you?’
‘Oh, don’t be silly tiger, and put some clothes on or you’ll get cold. Bye darling, super evening’, she blew me a kiss, winked and skipped off. It was then I saw the curtains twitch. Shite; Old June next door had been watching. I slammed the door and my heart punched at my chest.
Morning had broken and I had to think quickly, or I was next. I rushed to the sink. The cold tap squeaked and the water gurgled down the plug hole as I put my head under it, I caught my breath, I gasped, choked, then started to breathe deeply, and relax, five, four, three, two, and one. I threw the kitten-soft fluffy towel over my head, I shivered, I could still smell Susan’s perfume on it, and I missed her so much. Oh my god, she was due back in four hours!
‘Good morning, maestro; any coffee going?’
I spun round and managed to knock an empty wine bottle off the counter. Davie, owner of the klaxon voice, jelly belly, and generally looking like a bag of shite, was standing in the kitchen wearing a pair of Susan’s pyjamas.
‘What the hell happened’ I asked, waving my hands frantically around the room. ‘And why are you wearing those…Who, the hell, was that girl? And, more importantly,’ I stabbed a finger at Davie’s chest, ‘Who brought her back here?’
My face was always a bit of a giveaway; Davie started grinning as he saw the fear, and he narrowed his eyes.
‘You don’t remember a thing, do you?
The git; He was right, not a clue.
I started hyperventilating as I wagged my finger at Davie; the words were struggling to come out.
I was innocent, of course. Davie assured me. Old June didn’t know that though. That was the question. What would she do? It was bad enough that she was a nosey old bitch, it was even worse that she was Susan’s aunt.
‘Davie, listen to me, we’re dead. We’re both dead. Susan’s back in, like, four hours, this place looks like a toilet and the old bitch next door saw that blonde bint kiss me!’
Davie laughed. This was no time for levity. I changed tack.
‘I’ll have to explain to Susan that this was all your fault and you’ve made a stain in the front of her best pyjamas’ I put on my scowling face, ‘And when she finds out you’ve slept with that bimbo in our bed you know what she’ll do don’t you?’
It was Davies turn to look scared. Ha! Got him. He knew very well that Susan was more than capable of removing his manhood; God knows she’s tried to remove mine on more than one occasion and it was usually Davies fault. It’s like he’s never really grown up, like we were still in our early twenties, not knocking on forty. Susan often told me that I was very easily led. You can take a horse to water but you can’t make it drink but if you lead it to beer, well, that’s a different story.