Lou Wants Lemons

I woke early and couldn’t get back to sleep. It's the trouble with going to bed early. Sam always wants to go to bed early, 10pm and I can see him looking at his watch. It is why I call him Nan. So, I went walking at 6am, just as the sun was coming up. I was just going out to take some sunrise shots, but somehow I kept walking. It rained. It had already started raining, as I was leaving, but I thought, hoped, it would stop. It got heavier. I pulled my hoodie over my head, to keep my headphones dry, more so than anything else.

By the time I got home, it had stopped. And I was freezing. I stood in front of the fire in the lounge. I’d lit it when I first got up. Buddy licked the sweat off my legs. I always wear shorts whenever I go walking, whatever the weather. It tickled, Buddy’s tongue. The walking always warms me up.

I was just drying my hair with a towel when there was a knock at the back door, more of a rattle of the door handle than a knock, it was my neighbour Lou. Loopy Lou. Oh, I shouldn’t say that, I am an awful person. She has a heart of gold. She means well. But, she calls herself Loopy Lou.

“You been walking in the rain, again?”

“Again?” I asked. “Yeah, well, gotta do what ya gotta do.”

“It will lead to no good,” said Lou. “I’ve told you before. Pneumonia and death quickly after.”

“And I was thinking it sounded romantic…”

“It is a recipe for sickness and death…”

“Good morning to you too, Lou.”

“And a jolly good morning it is too.”

“I’ve got to keep it all trim,” I said. “I never know when I’m gonna catch sight of it.” I smiled for Lou’s benefit. “In a shop window.”

“Meditation,” said Lou. “I’ve told you before. Too much emphasis on,” she looked at my crotch, “ya thing…”

“Lou!” I laughed.

“Empty vessel, Chriso boy, empty vessel. You just end up chasing it around and your never ending wants leave you unfulfilled.” Lou’s right eye ticked, like she was winking at me. “Ends up driving you nuts. Driving you nuts, Christian.” She ticked uncontrollably for a few seconds.

She somehow had the wrong idea of me, something that was maybe true sometime in my inglorious past. “Walking is my meditation…”

“False god, Christian my boy, false god.” She pointed at the ceiling rocking her hand as if to some beat.

“It is when I relax…”

Lou held her hands out in front of her like she was holding the entire world in her hands. “You think,” emphasis on the think, as she pulled the world towards herself, “you are relaxing, Christian, but you’re not…

“But, I am…”

“No Christian, no Christian. No. Christian. No! You are still feeding your ego. You are doing it all for the wrong reasons. Vanity is never going to lead you to nirvana.”

“The wrong reasons?” I pretty much knew what the answer to this was, why I asked I don’t know.

“You want to be discovering inner peace, not outward beauty.” Lou’s shoulder rotated quite unexpectedly. Her fingers twitched. “Inner peace, Christian, not outward beauty.” She flattened her palms and slid them threw the air in front of her, out to each side. “Sanctuary is inside everyone of us.” She grabbed her chest. “We just have to take the time to look for it.”

There was a strange frozen moment where Lou continued to grab her chest, making big eyes, but she glazed over as though she was remembering some long forgotten memory.

“Would you like a coffee, Lou?”

She returned to behind of her ‘big eyes,’ as though the puppeteer had taken up the strings again. “The devils brew, Christian, the dev…il’s…brew.” She nodded her head on each syllable.

“Well, I was just about to have one.”

“Lemons,” Lou suddenly said. “I want lemons. I came in for lemons. Do you have lemons?”

I glanced over at the fruit bowl to see a number of the yellow fruit hiding amongst the mandarins. I swept my hand through the air in a big gesture. “Help yourself.”

“You are a prince, Christian, a prince,” said Lou. “What would I do without you?”

“What would I do without you, Lou?”

She stepped with one foot, and kind of slid the other one behind the first, like an awkward Tango, right up next to me. “You are not moving, are you Christian?” she asked almost conspiratorially.

“No,” I said, dropping my voice in mock fear that someone else might hear me. “What have you heard?”

Lou pulled back. “Nothing,” she said, as if she’d suddenly come to her senses, as if my words were accusatory.

“Good, because… I’m… not,” I tried to say with a slightly mysterious air.

“You wouldn’t move on me,” Lou glanced in either direction of the room, left and right, “would you Christian?”

“No plans to, Lou.” I looked one way in the room. “No plans to.” I looked in the other direction.

She glanced around, then looked back at me. “Good.” She looked at the fruit bowl and talked while still gazing at it. “I’m not sure if I could cope if you moved, Christian. Gordon and Joe and Douglas moved.” She looked at me. “You still banging that boy?”

I’m sure I opened and closed my mouth in surprise. “Um… Douglas?”

“Douglas.”

“No,” I said. I shook my head. “Not for a long time.”

“Not Rob and Sally, either.” Lou reached out to the fruit bowl and picked out three lemons, one by one. “Rob and Sally aren’t moving, are they?” Lou smelt the lemons.

“Not that I know of, Lou,” I said. “What have you heard?”

“I don’t want Rob and Sally to move either,” said Lou. “Um, er, I haven’t heard anything.”

I can’t wait for summer to see Rob in those small running shorts, his thick, hairy thighs are a sight to behold.

“I haven’t heard anything about them moving.”

Sally tells me how big her husband, Rob’s dick is and how much she likes it

"If you don't want me to picture your husbands cock, stop talking about it," I said to Sally.

"I don't mind you picturing Rob's cock," said Sally. "It is worth picturing. I'd get him to show it to you, if I thought he would." She shook her head. "But I don't think he would."

“Men,” I said.

Sally made big eyes and smiled.

Rob is allowed to fuck other girl's, but the deal is if he does Sally will fuck other guys and Rob couldn't handle Sally fucking other guys, so he doesn't.

"I don't see the big deal," said Sally. "It is just his cock, it isn't his heart or his head for Christ sake. I don’t want to fuck anyone else, anyway.”

Lou had investigated the lemons as we spoke and she put one of them back in the fruit bowl and chose another. She looked at me. She grimaced. “It had a blemish, you don’t mind, do you?”

“Whatever lemons you like, Lou.”

“You’re kind, Christian, very kind,” said Lou. “You will always be alright because you are kind.”

“Thanks, Lou.”

“Gotta go. I’ll find that mediation book, for beginners,” she laughed. She took hold of the back door knob. “For dummies.” She cackled. She disappeared through the door. I turned towards the coffee machine and pushed the button to turn it on.

“Ah Christian…”

I turned to see Lou in the doorway again. “I didn’t mean you were a dummy, Christian. I didn’t mean that at all.”

The coffee machine whirred. “No problem, Lou.”

“You’re not a dummy, Christian.” She smiled. She twitched. Then she was gone.