Mr Plod

Had to stop writing the last post and leave it – I seem to get whacked easily these days. But for the sake of making my life into something REAL I’ll carry on now.
I went in, didn’t I?

‘Sit down,’ he says, with a sort of throwaway movement of the hand. So I dropped into the nearest chair, half wasted, but all the time I’m thinking fast, wondering why he didn’t tell me to get lost, wondering how the hell I’d managed to press his bell instead of one of the others. The flat itself was OK in a basic sort of way. Tidy, a bit Ikea but no sign of a girly hand anywhere.

‘Tea or coffee?’ I jumped at that – not jumped in the sense of saying OOOH! Yes Please, but more outta my skin.

‘Could I just have a glass of water?’ I said.

He gave me a funny look, nodded and went into the little kitchen. I could see him running the tap to make the water cold then filling the kettle. I reckoned he must need a cuppa himself. He came back in a bit carrying a tray with two cups and a teapot and choccy biks as well as the water. Milk-choccy ones.

‘Well,’ he says, settling in the chair, more like my granny – if I had one – than a guy in his twenties. ‘You’d better tell me what all this is about. But let me give it to you now, straight, that you shouldn’t have come here. It’s not ethical for me to entertain people I’ve met through work.’

‘Entertain?’ I said, seeing him in his police get-up coming on all official then morphing into a strippogram. ‘I didn’t know you were a performer.’

‘Don’t try to be clever with me, ‘ he says, ‘I’ve seen and heard too much of it, and it doesn’t impress me one iota.’

‘Iota?’ I said.

‘You’re beginning to sound like an echo,’ he says, ‘just tell me why you came and then go. But if you need help you should have gone to the station.’

Pictures of the railway station flickered briefly, but I resisted the temptation to repeat the word.

I told him about Pete, how he keeps turning up, how I reckon he’s following me about, how I don’t want him to know where I live.
Afterwards he sat back in the chair, nibbled on a choccy bik. I took one too.

‘Good story,’ he says, ‘But it doesn’t add up. How come you happened to be passing? How come you knew where I live?’

‘I didn’t,’ I said, ‘it was just coincidence.’

He looked at me, disbelief written all over him.

‘Do you know what sort of trouble I could get into if anyone knew you’d come here? They’d think one thing and one thing only. I can’t have any sort of relationship with you outside of the station and Official Police Business, and the sooner you get that into your head the better.’

I nearly fell off the bloody chair. Why do guys, no matter how young or old they are always think you fancy them? Why? Danny was the only one who never thought that till I told him I did.

‘Fuck off,’ I said. ‘I don’t fancy you, and what I told you was straight-up. And if I get murdered it’ll be your fault. I’m outta here.’
And then I was, but luckily Pete was nowhere around and I got home OK.
That was the other day. Today I did some reading and changed all the dolls’ clothes around. Wish I was a doll.