This is what happens when one night stands turn into days-long loveins. The weirdness. The conversations. The thoughts.
Alban and Laura - part 1
“Go, get some more”
She rolls to face him and frowns.
“When you ask so politely how can I refuse?”
Laughing, he reaches up and smooths down her cheek with his thumb. She shivers because he’s smudging her make up, and he hasn’t seen the worst of her yet.
Do you need to be drunk to stay in bed with me?
She slides out and walks into the kitchen - or the sideboard that makes up a kitchen in his little studio. She hasn’t left this room for about three days and actually, she only knows where the bathroom and the liquor is.
How old is this guy anyway?
She absent-mindedly shuffles through his cupboards and drawers, looking for some clues.
No matching cutlery. No matching crockery. No perishables - what does he eat? Protein powder? Oh god, I wonder if he’s a gym head. I doubt it. He seems smart enough.
She turns to his bookshelf and knocks back some of the vodka. The peeling varnish and worn-down wood draws her attention. She knows he’s living in a rental, but...
A lot of history books.
“What are you looking for?” he asks, and she jumps because he has come up right behind her. She turns and is struck by the humour in his eyes, a playful sadness.
“Clues.” and she kisses him. She likes history as well, so the kiss is deeper than usual. It’s amazing what can be communicated with lips and a tongue. Urgency and depth can be toned up and down, and she goes hard. He pulls away for air and looks at her wonderingly. He received the message, but why was it being sent?
He doesn’t know she also likes history.
“What did you find? And anyway, what do you want to know?”
“Nothing in particular. But you have to tell me more, say more. Why all the history books?”
He gives her a long look and takes the vodka away. Falling onto the bed, laughing, “OK I’ll tell you a story. When I was a kid I saw a fight between my friend and some other idiot that really made me think about people deal with each other.”
Hm? What is this?
“So these guys, right, living on a bad part, a neighbourhood next to ours, used to come over to our part to play football, smoke and fight. I was never really big enough to win at the football, smoke the cigarettes or win the fights but you’d give me an A for effort, lets say.”
I understand that more than you’d like me to.
“One day, and remember this is in a really chilly British winter, one of those chavs from neighbourhood B has spanked the ball straight into my friends face. It made this sick slapping sound, and you could see his cheek glow red. It had to hurt, but this is football, you know, so there’s not gonna be any especially bad feeling when that happens, except that other guy started laughing and all of a sudden my friend has jumped on him.”
He stops to take a swig of the vodka, a faraway look in his eyes that really makes her stomach squirm. What is he talking about?
“The special thing is what comes next. My friend isn’t a tough guy, a fighter, but he was obviously embarrassed by this guy laughing at him. Soon enough he finds himself getting hit over, and over, and over, and other guys jump in to stop it. The guy is pulled off and he is pretty calm. It wasn’t really a crime of passion but he had to defend himself, you know, no big deal. My friend on the other hand is hysterical.”
“Hysterical? Like he’s crying and shouting and bleeding?”
“No, this guy is laughing his head off. And everyone just sort of stopped and looked at my friend lying on the frosty ground laughing. I ran over and helped him up and I ask him if hes alright, and he says to me “Is that it? It’s over already?” and suddenly we all start laughing. The chav says sorry, and we go back to playing football. And that’s pretty much why I like history.”
“.... I don’t really see the connection.”
He looks at her and laughs, because he knows he hasn’t really made himself clear. He goes to the bookshelf, looks for a second and slides out a book called “Scipio Africanus - Life, Love and War”. He turns to a certain chapter and reads -
“It is said that on the eve of one of his most difficult battles, against a tribe who had been savaging supply lines and torturing his men for years, Scipio went alone into the enemy camp with a gourd of wine in each hand. He asked for the chief and the two, despite not speaking a word of each others language, drank themselves to sleep. Scipio returned to his camp before daybreak, led his men to battle and slaughtered them to the last man.”
He closes the book and looks at her meaningfully, although understanding is slow in coming.
“The connection?”
“There are two sides to people, to everyone. There are emotional sides and and there are cold, logical sides. They often seem in conflict but probably are so much more connected than we figure them to be. My friend was a quiet guy who in that moment felt so wronged, he needed to fight. Once it was over, he was back to normal and he didn’t quite understand what just happened, the logical side regaining control. Scipio wanted to meet the brilliant tribal leader who had frustrated him for so long, desperate to know him, despite their relative positions, so he went and did just that. That was a curiosity, a desire, emotion. Irrational to us and incredibly risky but at that moment more important to him than anything else. He woke up in the morning and he knew what he had to do, for his army and for Rome, and he did it. But who would remember the battle if it wern’t for this story?”
She feels hot between her legs, because this guy is suddenly more eloquent than she’s seen of him before. That doesn’t mean she agreed, though.
“If the tribe's leader had ordered his death on sight, would history remember him then? I wonder how many people died in this way for one of their story’s to be remembered 2000 years later? The winners in history are normally the most logical, weighing up two sides objectively and coming to the right conclusion, doing the best thing for themselves.”
He hands her the vodka and lies back on the bed.
“No, there’s more to it than that.”
