Part Two

Wednesday arrived at five minute past nine in the shape of Taliesin and Gary. What had possessed his parents to team the name Taliesin up with the surname Pickles, Alan had never quite worked out. In fact possession was something he had considered as a real possibility having met the boy’s father. Taliesin was currently watching intently as Helen made his and Gary’s tea. Gary looked rather bored and was fiddling with his phone, whilst his friend looked Helen directly in the breasts.

“Stop looking at my tits or I’ll set Alan on you, you little pervert. That’s two pounds please.” Taliesin looked nervously over to where Alan was making short work of his Chocolate muffin. “And anyway, why aren’t you in school?”

“We got a free period.” Taliesin mumbled through his black floppy fringe. It seemed as though his voice had been breaking for four years, it could still go either way. He handed over what looked like the result of a brutal murder of a piggy bank and moped over to where Gary was feverishly texting.

The Misses Smith were next. Both absolutely ancient, both all knowing and all interfering, Morgana and Guinevere Smith (another time Alan wondered what the hell the parents had been thinking), sat demurely drinking tea from the china cups Alan kept behind the counter especially for them. They both wore the kind of Heather Mixture Ladies Suits and Brown Sensible Shoes that nowhere sold any more. Presumably because the manufacturers had realised too late they had created an indestructible product and promptly went out of business. Both of them were demurely interested in Alan’s not so private life and wondered why there was not a Mrs Silver and perhaps a small pack of Little Silver’s running around the place. They came in every day. And every day they seemed to take great personal affront to Alan’s lack of marital progress.

“So Mr Silver, did you perhaps meet a young lady whilst you were away on Business?” They were far to genteel to refer to Alan’s lycanthropy, even if it was permanently open season on his relationships.

“I’m afraid not, Miss Smith.” Alan didn’t really know which one was which, they were fairly interchangeable.

“Don’t be so indelicate dear.” The other old bat squeaked. “It might be a young gentleman Mr Silver has his cap set at.” That was a new angle! Somewhere over the back Helen inhaled her drink. Alan sent her a look that could’ve killed, if you went in for the whole pulse/ heartbeat thing.

“Oh how modern!” the other Miss Smith Chirped, and then delved into a handbag the size of shipping container to retrieve a tiny scrap of lace and wipe her nose.

“I’m sorry to disappoint you but no.” Alan found it best to be firm with the Misses Smith, although he sometimes wondered if that wasn’t what they were aiming for in the first place. “It was an uneventful full moon for me I’m afraid.”

“Oh Dear.” Both Smiths chorused. And then they pulled out the knitting. In the arsenal of the old Lady, the Knitting is equivalent to the grenade launcher. At first glance the knitting seemed harmless, slightly pink and a bit fluffy, and looking as though it had aspirations to one day become a shawl for the thin, translucent shoulders of its creator. But the rhythmic movement of the pins had malice in every click, like some terrible insect that ate its husband. Alan swallowed nervously and moved away, lest he get crocheted into a multi coloured, werewolf shaped tea cosy.

“Perhaps.” Said Helen, wiping the counter suggestively and causing a fifteen year old boy to choke on his milkshake. “You should advertise.”

“Advertise? Advertise what?”

“Yourself.”

“Helen, I hardly think anyone will pay to sleep with me, considering no one will when I’m offering it free.”

“No. I meant a lonely hearts ad. But thanks for that image of you as a rent boy. I may have day mares about that for weeks.”

“I’m not that desperate.”

“Alan, yes you are. Now get a pen and some paper and draft out what you want to say.”

“Absolutely not. Go and clean the tables or rearrange the muffins or something.”

An hour later he was sat at a table surrounded by several screwed up balls of paper and a sheet of a4 that had the words “Male, 53.” Written on it in his elegant scrawl.

“It’s no good. I’m just not doing this. It’s not dignified at my age. I’m going out for some fresh air.” He grabbed his Leather jacket from where it hung on the coat stand and strode out of the front door. Oblivious to the three women, two men and a Cyclops and the eleven eyes that stared lustfully after him. Helen shook her head.

“Okay Miss Smith and Miss Smith? It looks like we need to take matters into our own hands.”
The Knitting was put down and two pairs of bright black eyes glittered like beetles, behind their pince nez.

“Oh how exciting dear.” And Morgana Smith pulled out an elegant quill and a bottle of blood red ink.

The Full Moon Coffee Shop

Alan Silver always felt a little queasy after the full moon. He dragged himself out of bed, trying to recall what exactly he had been doing for three days. He found himself to be naked and mercifully in his own apartment, he was getting a little too old to be waking up in random public places. He gazed at himself in the mirror, pushing his sandy hair out of his eyes. He squinted at the blurred image before him and then looked around blindly for his glasses. The fact he actually needed glasses in order to be able to see sufficiently in order to find his glasses was rather annoying. Once the wire rimmed spectacles were perched on his nose he tried again. He had the usual collection of scratches and cuts on his face, his nose and cheekbones bearing the brunt of it. He had quite a nasty bruise on his left hip and a set of parallel gouges on his stomach that felt like they started somewhere round the back of everything. And he smelt like an old carpet.

Once he had showered and the slightly distressing smell of mouldy shagpile had been replaced with the scent of Rainforest and he had shaved the four day growth of beard off he felt slightly more presentable. And yes that gouge went all the way round, as he had discovered once the soap hit it. He towelled himself dry, surveying the half eaten Kebab on the radiator in his bedroom and wondering what he’d done with his phone this time.

“Alan, what on earth are you wearing?” He felt slightly put out. He’d always fancied he looked rather dashing in red velvet. The flowing cut of his shirt gave him a rather rakish, romantic air and he didn’t have to suck his gut in.

“What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?” He squinted over the top of his glasses at Helen, who looked like an Ink blot with piercings.

“Nothing, if you don’t mind attracting the wrong kind of attention.” In all honesty Alan would have been grateful to have attracted any sort of attention, Right or Wrong. He was supposed to have irresistible animal magnetism; instead he had a bad back, flat feet and had been without sex for at least 18 months (and that had been a very drunken encounter in which he wasn’t entirely sure who had done what to whom, or if it actually counted as sex when you still had your trousers on). He went back up the stairs to his apartment and put on his plain black cotton shirt, sighed loudly and went back down to the Coffee shop.

“So how was it?” Helen asked a she counted the float in the cash register.

“How was what?” Alan helped himself to two Bagels and a chocolate muffin, poured himself a cup of Earl Gray and sat down on a squashy sofa near the counter. The sofa promptly tried to eat him, and it was only his full moon enhanced reflexes that prevented him from getting a groin full of tea. It was going to be one of those days, you could always tell when the furniture turned cannibal you might as well have not got out of bed. He switched from the carnivorous sofa to a table for two.

“How was your time of the month?”

“I really wished you wouldn’t call it that Helen. “

“Did you meet anyone nice? Did you eat anyone?”

“No. Or at least I don’t remember if I did. To either question.”

“Never mind Alan, I’m sure there’s someone out there just waiting for a big hunk like you to gnaw them off of their feet.”

“You are really funny. And very close to being fired.” He shoved half a bagel in his mouth and chewed in what he hoped was a menacing- you-have-been-warned kind of way. Helen smiled sweetly, displaying her pointed teeth to full effect.

“You wouldn’t fire me. I’m the only one that knows how to change the till rolls.” Alan narrowed his eyes into a scowl, the effect spoiled by the mouthful of bagel. “I know you’re just grumpy because you didn’t get any last night. Any way- isn’t it time you unlocked the door?”

Alan reached up above the door and flicked the dead bolts back. He switched on the Open sign in the window and wondered what Wednesday was going to bring.