Now is the winter of my discounted- my Rodger’s creative juices flow for another; he is so busy with his Sheila and her whip that my flower of Scotland has wilted like a soufflé and my chandelier hangs dormant – it now, only swings, to the rumble of the bin lorry.
So I decided to ‘get’ political – went to visit the Edinburgh Parliament with a gaggle of woman whose idea of intellectual stimulation was the price of fish.
‘To breadcrumb or batter’ says Mavis a women who uses cookery books to roll her roll ups on.
Well my fish comes from Waitrose and as long as it’s microwavable and moist (to quote the bin man) ‘I’m no carin’. Mind you, I never said that...The wine was free as was the women’s opinions; give a woman cheap Chablis and the idea of listening for her, is as foreign to as a foreskin in Palestine.
So I kept my council so to speak and pondered what was going on in my Rodgers forelocks.
‘Give a man a whip’ I shouted ‘and his any bodies. Give a woman a whip and she cleaning her corners.’
‘My corners are fine as they are’ came a voice from the bar.
I looked over and there was my Rodger standing with his tackle slung over his shoulder like a comatose albatross... he and Shifty had been fishing and had caught 2 roll mops and a herring enough to celebrate with a double; so they said.
Truth was he had completed another creation ... and wanted his little cup cake to share in the celebration another chapter of the dyslexic Scfi he shouted for your blogging mates...
CHAPTER TWO
At half past three in the morning ‘She of the Iron Gusset’ arrived in Glasgow. With a small bump, she landed in a bus shelter two feet away from Woody, a midget peeing in the corner.
‘What the fuck,’ he said as he staggered, slipped and fell into the corner. He looked up at the vision and decided to lay off his mother’s anti depressants for a while. She was sleek, blond and dressed in a leather outfit which made even Cat Woman look like a dinner lady. She towered over him like a six foot gothic praying mantis.
‘Are you for real?’ Woody muttered, wiping some sort of dribble off his chin; he tried to stand but skidded on his pee and fell again.
She eyed him coldly; ‘Do you have nothing better to do than slip on your piss?’
He stared at her breasts cascading over the top of her bodice. She tutted, drew herself up to her full 6’.5’ height and waited for an answer. When none came, she pulled out a whip from her side belt, cracked it around his waist and hoisted him up.
‘Oh my god!’ he muttered not sure if the sensation was pleasant or not. The whip placed him gently on the ground, zipped up his fly and with a playful tap led him away from the pee.
‘On your way, good sir, and next time use a latrine like everyone else.’
Woody left stunned or stoned, he couldn’t work out which but as he wandered through the grey streets home, a sick feeling hit the pit of his stomach; he knew he’d see her again.
****
As instructed by Maxim, She of the Iron Gusset headed towards the West End. She had a B&B guide under her arm, a traveller’s backpack meticulously packed by her cleaner/assistant Pete on her shoulders and a list of orders a mile long and in triplicate.
‘Look for a reputable B&B,’ Maxim had said, ‘I hear the breakfasts are something else.’
She of the Iron Gusset had been summoned at six o’clock in the morning by the Council and handed one of Maxim’s ‘top secret’ envelopes along with the promise of up to date technology and a ‘there’s more in it for you’ speech. Once back at her upwardly mobile pad, she handed the envelope to Pete.
‘Tell me; your thoughts’ she said, while pulling out her spare leather apparatus.
Pete read the list of orders out loud, and then looked at his boss, ‘It’s simple, you just intercept those Paramours, find that Legless thingy, propose (whatever that means), then come back here where a promotion and that nice villa on the coast awaits.’
She of the Iron Gusset pulled the list from her assistant ‘It’s more complicated than that. Look, your Mission is top secret…’
‘My lips are sealed,’ said Pete.
‘You need to establish control over the Paramours, they must be kept illiterate at all costs and we want Rebel silenced?’
Pete sighed ‘I told you a piece of cake.’
‘And’ she pointed to the list ‘It says dispose not propose.’
Pete however had lost interested he was still smarting from the forgotten anniversary. Three years he had been with her good self and not even a card…He was a robot of the highest order and had worked his hydroponics Teflon not to mention nuts for her leathership and for what. He sniffed and pulled out a tub of ‘Betty’s best oil for leather’ and began to rub her spare suit with vigour.
‘I’m not ready for this Pete!’
‘Mam’
‘I mean I was born to be leader and…’ she watched Pete polish her leather …. ‘Pete have you taken your lubrication today? You know how you get when…’
‘You don’t care who you hurt do you? Just as long as you get you leather oiled and you packing done. You know what they call you at the council.’
‘Yes I am aware and it not of the accurate variety.’
****
She of the Iron Gusset opened her B&B guide book at the top of Great Western Road and started walking. By the time she was standing on the Byers Road corner she was well and truly confused. Few places were open and those that were took one look at her and slammed the door. Maxim and his ideas she thought when would she ever learn?
A cab pulled up beside her. It was early Sunday morning and he was on his way home. The cabbie was a sympathetic man with a fondness for damsels in leather. He wound down his window and wondered if his luck was in.
‘You wanting a lift?’ he said.
She nodded.
‘Beryl’s?’ he said.
She of the Iron the Gusset went with her hunch and said yes. She jumped into the cab as the cabbie put his car into first gear. She staggered onto the seat and fumbled with her backpack.
‘Graveyard shift huh?’ he said ‘Not much on a Sunday morning and the rain don’t help.’
Graveyard? She thought, dumping her back pack on the floor. Shifting?
‘What’s your name, sweetheart?’
She looked at the cards attached to the back of the cabbie’s seat. Sheila’s Wheels was the first she noticed.
‘Australian huh? What you doing over here then Sheila? Doesn’t the rain piss you off?’
‘I have a job to do,’ said Sheila. ‘Once that’s done good sir, I’ll be off faster
than a cat with his tail on fire!’
The cabbie stared at the road ahead. He’d never met a working girl who talked like she read books before.
He pulled up by a shabby side street. On the corner was a rundown Church, beside that was a rubber clothes shop and beside that was Beryl’s Establishment. Within one inhale Sheila knew her instincts had been right. She could smell the remains of a Paramour’s night out anywhere; she had been trained and although she had no idea where Jimmy’s Arabic Tea Shop’s was, she reckoned, judging by the potency of the smell that the tea shop was just a few minutes jog away.
Sheila left the Cabbie with some money and just the smallest whiff of something unfamiliar yet sweet lingering in the car. The cabbie looked down at the fifty pound note ‘Your change?’ he yelled. Sheila dismissed him with a wave of her hand and walked down a side alley that led to the entrance to Beryl’s Establishment.
The cabbie watched the rain splatter off her leathers and then looked down at the fifty pound note again; ‘she must be something else,’ he muttered before pulling out a smoke, ‘aye, never met a working woman with a fifty before.’
****
Beryl’s Establishment was the sort of establishment where leather and whips didn’t look out of place. It was the sort of establishment, which was open all night and looked shut during the day. It was sort of establishment where someone looking like Sheila could earn a lot of money; if she knew what she was doing. But Sheila had no idea about that sort of thing. No one on Planet Hy-man had done ‘it’ for years and any name for ‘it’ had been erased from the dictionary years ago.
Sheila walked into the side entrance and past a glass cabinet with instruments not unlike those hanging from her belt.
A small woman in tight clothes appeared from nowhere and stood by the glass cabinet. She had a cleavage that almost stopped cars and enough pancake makeup to hide the soft down of hair underneath. In her time Beryl had been a catch and had earned a fortune, but thanks to a bad choice in men and a love of small dogs with a flatulence problem, she had lost most of it.
‘A room good woman,’ said Sheila ‘if you please’.
Beryl threw her a long hard look ‘Where you from, never seen you before?’
Sheila stared at the Tarsmarhal Carry out Menu on the wall and thought on her feet. Something she knew she was good at.
Beryl threw her another look ‘Fifty quid and I ask no questions.’
‘And breakfast?’
‘You takin the piss?’
‘I never take piss...I am hungry.’
Beryl pushed a key across the desk ‘Look Sheila from Bombay! You keep clean and I don’t ask no questions!’
‘And breakfast?’
Beryl let out a sighed.
Sheila sat on the bed. It was six in the morning and she was starving. She opened her back pack and pulled out her T/C (transporter/communicator). It was bleeping furiously; five messages from you know who.
Pete had made a complete balls up of the operation, at the last minute the Council had decided that Pete should operate the recording apparatus from earth and was ordered to accompany her with a ‘your capabilities exceeding your post’ letter.
Sheila had landed 5 miles from her destination a day early and was yet to discover where or when Pete would arrive. She unfolded her T/C
‘Pete?’
‘Mam…’
‘Is that coffee I see…’
‘Mam it’s what known as a Skinny latté.’
‘Where are you Pete we need to reconvene?’
‘I am at a superb coffee establishment shown to me by a nice young but small man by the name of Woody…he’s coming back to….’
A small tingly shot up Sheila’s spine; Woody; it rang to quote Maxim the ‘preverbal bell’?
She watched Pete face fade from view and cursed the Council’s save money at all cost policy; a higher quality T/C would never need recharging.
She pressed her T/C to charge, hung it on her belt and headed for the streets. She walked past the glass cabinet, Beryl peered from a door marked private.
‘You headin out?’ She said over the barking of a dog. Sheila stared at Beryl’s round face. ‘Cause I’ve made you a piece.’
‘A piece of what?’
‘Bacon, you wanting sauce?’ Beryl opened the door some more and a squirrel of a dog raced out to sniff Sheila.
****
