And so it began...

Our protagonist woke with a shudder of contempt for his own muddled existence, the taste of last nights revelries lingered in his now discoloured (purple) mouth and the blanket of cigarette smoke, under which he had so comfortably fallen asleep, had now settled. It was morning. As he stared bleary eyed at the ceiling, it quickly became apparent that the boozy romanticism his room and it's various pictures had held the previous evening had left, probably arm in arm with his own drunken confidence and ability to communicate with other human beings.

The first sound Salvador heard was that of his own slow-down-please cough, on executing ‘the bark’ he lunged forward coupling this involuntary lurch with a poor attempt to grasp the half empty bottle of Um Bongo that stood a few feet from the bed. Now realising the subconscious intentions of his somewhat 'aqua' dreams, his second lunge for the receptacle had purpose and was therefore a success. Overwhelmed with anticipation and an out of proportion sense of need as he dragged the bottle towards him Sal gulped back heartily on the vessels hydrating contents. After countless mansize gulps his mind rose out of its early morning stupor, only to realise that the fruity mix of Congo inspired 'jungle juice' was in fact the now stagnant result of an early morning convenience. After the initial retching Sal gave way with his arms and fell back to his bed, still drunk and not sure whether any of this was really happening.

It had been three hours since the milky coming of the day had almost drowned him in uncertainty, he hadn't moved, and although now in some respects more certain about his own uncertainty, he was still unsure. Making almost no noise in the process, Jenny rolled across the bed in the general direction of her Salvador. This was not easy for him, had she just woken? Or been lying there listening to him lie there thinking, breathing, speaking, had he been speaking? He lay there still, frozen by paranoia and thinking about what she had been doing, sleeping? Or listening? Both scenarios filled him with fear, he closed his eyes and rolled towards her.

The two individuals lay physically intertwined, looking at each other but avoiding the eyes. How long this went on for it's hard to say. Jenny removed her hand from Sal's shoulder and placed it upon his hip, with an action not unlike the one most commonly used when stroking feral cats abroad. Sal flinched; he had been suffering from what can only be described as a 'lazy lob on' all morning, and for the time being at least, could not abide human contact. Jenny knew her time was up, did last night mean nothing? Finally making eye contact she looked to him in desperation, the kind of desperation only love provides, urging him subtly yet uncontrollably to display his feelings for her physically, preferably through 'the act'. But he couldn't, not now, not ever. Why…because he, he didn't love her and she, she wasn't a man.