For Want of a Cuddle

Seeing as I've got to the low point of procrastinating on the sorting out of my own life, here's a little thing I thought I'd share with my reader. It's an extract from a (much too big) story I'm working on. It's unlikely to make its way into the final draft (if such a thing will ever fart itself into existence) so consider it a 'deleted scene' as it were. It highlights the awkward and rather abusive relationship between two characters, Alan is an assassin who accidentally began WW3 and Susanne is an office worker who cares about nothing but her career. In the full version the idea of power in a relationship is subverted and plays on attempting to win the affections of someone seemingly incapable of feeling anything.

The tone in her voice made him snap his neck up instantly like a dog to a whistle, he gazed at her dumbly across the table. “Don’t be so pathetic” she said in a cutting manner. Instantaneously he sat up, a puppet to her strings. She gave him a cold stare, which chilled and frightened him slightly. It wasn’t a hateful look, or one of disappointment. It was much worse. Indifference, the lovesick puppies worst nightmare. It put him in his place; it made him inconsequential to her. A painful thought. Her eyes dived back in her Sylvia Plath poetry book. His rough finger trailed delicately round a hard stain on the table, possibly beans he wasn’t sure. It ran round the congealed tomato sauce like a hyperactive child round a table, every fibre in that digit aching for her attention, trying to tear her eyes and mind away from the symbolic poetry and onto him.

He contemplated the pros and cons of initiating footsie, after much deliberation he gave it a pass. To him the canteen was silent and empty, only her and him sat in a painful silence. In actual fact it was abuzz with the 2pm snackers escaping their work for 15 minutes of glutteral bliss. Impending war made it hard on them, maybe somewhere there was a patriotic flourish, a sense of duty and honour, to help defend their country from the attackers. However nothing got in the way of coffee and Maltesers time.

Finally “I hate this” Alan announced, not sure why or where it had come from. Susanne glared, sucked on her bottom lip then said “you’re the one who chose to start a war with twosuperpowers for a stupid lizard. So I have no sympathy”. He glanced down at the stain on the table. Defeated. How was a well paid killer with zero social skills supposed to win true affection from a woman? Kill her ex? No. Buy her something? Maybe, but she was both awkward and fiercely independent. Apparently even offering her money for a vending machine was an offence. A meal! It was perfect! No one would turn free food down! And to show her how much he loved her it’d be expensive and classy. A donut from Harrods! Nooo, he’d take her to a restaurant. The best in town. It was perfect on every level. What little guilt and self pity he’d felt due to his accidental triggering of the apocalypse flew out the window singing and dancing. War or no war he was going to have a productive relationship! And she might even cuddle him after sex.

“Want to go for a meal?” He asked like a condemned man just noticing the axe about to cut off his head is made out of rubber. “No” she said into her book without a seconds thought.