More of me BUKE!

Pal lay on the bed in a haze of smoke. He thought this was unusual since he gave up the fags ten years ago. But he had the wrong end of the matchstick, since it was the Gunship, cuddling close beside him that was sending up that fog of desire he hadn't seen since before the honeymoon.

That was the problem with getting' married: it took all the urgency out of lovemakin'. Before: when he was being encouraged to “hurry up before Mefadder finds us in the hayfield”, he could perform at a speed that was natural for him.

Later when all those cosmopolitan ideas got into her head, about slowing down, having before play, and dressin' up to please, and she brought them into the bedroom: he was lost entirely.

His days of slap bang thank ya mam were gone forever. And his days of two in a bath had arrived. 

God almighty! He felt like a cork in a tight bottleneck beside her in the tub, waiting for the slippery soap being applied to his body to fire him up, up and away, towards the ceiling.

And later the massages: her pummelling him almost to death, him wondering would he buy a jack hammer to knead her muscles like she wanted, since she kept shouting – harder, harder put yer shoulders inta yer work.

So to disperse the fog, he revved up, put on his fog lights, took a very deep breath and dived once more into the fray that was her massive bosoms.

So Pal imagined he was with Polly His Squeeze, but he wasn't so he started, once again, on his unfinished novel as he tried to live up to expectations he didn't expect to have, when he inspected the lovely Martina nee Haveahooley, for the first time.

In the town, people went about their business: they looked cold or hot natured, individualistic,or communal, uncaring or caring, lonely or attached as they kept searching for life's meanings.

He could see them now: moving, skulking away from even the dim street light, back into the tavern glare; seeking solace, those creatures of the brown black midland bogs, dark prairies under the night sky, scurrying back into the bright illumination squeezed by turbines from its heart-turf.