I'm guessing because this is where to post all forms of literary creative expression I should dump this in here. But if the mods see different please move it to a more relevant home.

This is different from most of the stuff that I write in that it is contemporary and character based rather than sci-fi/fantasy and plot based. I'd appreciate it if some of you gave it a bit of a read and pass on some feedback. Cheers.

The morning was bright, clear and cold. The winter’s frost clung to every exposed surface of the street giving the otherwise mundane neighborhood a small glimmer of the fantastical. It was like a scene from a diluted, badly told fairy tale.
Llewellyn Fleming stood looking out onto the street from his living room. Even from the sanctuary of the house he could feel the cold start to creep inside. It gently inched its way through the window pane and settled somewhere around his cheeks and finger tips. He shivered, rubbed his hands together and continued to wait. A woman walking a dog passed his house. The dog panted happily in front of its owner, possibly the only creature on the road that enjoyed the experience of winter’s chilly freshness more than it’s not-quite-picturesque visuals. A red Peugeot pulled up in front of Llewellyn’s house and the dog barked excitedly at it. Llewellyn had the exact opposite reaction to the car. He wanted to sink away from it, cower until it had passed and never have to confront it.
The car’s horn sounded impatiently. He reluctantly switched of the radio, put on his gloves, picked up his suitcase and went outside. The cold prickled him as he stepped out of the door. It wasn’t an assault but rather a slow, uncomfortable nibbling, as if the temperature was telling him not to forget about it without making itself explicitly evident.
He made his way to the back of the car, opened the boot and put his suitcase alongside two others and a few boxes filled with various art paraphernalia; drawing boards, sketch books, pencil sets. He then made his way to the passenger side door, opened it and sat down.
The interior of the car was a little warmer than outside. The heating was on, a small whine coming from the dashboard reminding him that the heater was doing its best under difficult circumstances. In the driver seat sat a girl wearing gloves, a scarf, a hat and a sense of dislike disguised as a smile.
“Ready?” Natalie Brickman asked as Llewellyn put his hands next to the heater and rubbed them together furiously.
“Can we stop for a coffee somewhere first?” he asked.
“Why didn’t you make one before you left?”
“Got no milk. Had to eat and drink all the stuff in the fridge last night so it doesn’t go off in the next couple of weeks. Don’t want to return to a kitchen over run with mould.”
“Black coffee?” The smile was failing in its disguise.
“You know I don’t drink black coffee. It irritates my bowls. Makes them do badly executed summersaults.”
“Yeah yeah. And you also believe if you don’t have two spoons of sugar your brain looses its ability to focus,” she said unenthusiastically and with a clear disregard for the accuracy of these two facts. “Ok. We’ll stop for coffee at the first service station.”
Natalie pulled the car out from the curb, made a U-turn and started them on their journey. Within minutes they were on London Road heading east out of Oxford and towards the northern bypass. Feeling the car warming up, Llewellyn removed his gloves and hat and ruffled his hair, which always began to itch after being covered by a hat for more than a few moments. He looked over at Natalie and then behind him in the back seats. They were filled with more boxes and another suitcase. He looked back at Natalie.
“Do you really have to take all this stuff back with you? We’re only going to be away for three weeks?” Llewellyn asked with a half mustered astonishment.
“I’m going to be away for about two months,” she said without taking her eyes of a set of traffic lights that were stubbornly refusing to change. “Christian offered me a small job in Milan at the end of January.”
Questions and bewilderment surged in equal measure into Llewellyn’s mind. Mostly the name bothered him. It sounded very familiar but no matter how much he rummaged through the back catalogue of his social interactions he couldn’t put a face to the name. He knew he couldn’t act too concerned with this information so he tried to subscribe to a much more casual manner than he actually felt.
“Modeling job?” he asked turning to look at her face but trying to keep his voice as monotone as possible.
“Yeah. Just some local magazine or something. But it’ll give me a chance to look around Italy again.” The smile she wore was now disguising the thrill of the upper hand. An upper hand that understood the situation perfectly and knew that it was not going to be the first to break the faux relaxation within the conversation.
“Why didn’t you tell me about this?” He immediately regretted that he had stressed the word “me” more than the others in the sentence.
“I guess I just forgot to mention it. It’s not a huge deal.” Llewellyn’s body simmered. He was pretty sure both of those things were untrue. Modeling was a huge deal to Natalie. She had been doing it since they had met and he rarely saw her happier than when she felt her progress within the business was escalating somehow. Modeling in Milan, no matter how small the publication, was definitely a step forward for her. He was never really sure why people hired her in a model. It wasn’t in a malice or cruel way and it certainly wasn’t because he found her unattractive, because he was very much attracted to her. But ever since he had met her, he had always thought her attractiveness was much more subdued than most models. He face was soft and her cheeks low. Her lips weren’t voluptuous or enticing, just comforting. She had long brown hair that slightly curled into a bob around the shoulders but, even under the right lights and lens, never gave of that shimmering flow that some girl’s hair does. She wasn’t tall and slender. She was slim but her curves couldn’t captivate a room of group of inebriated males on a dance floor like some girls he knew could. Her legs certainly didn’t go all the way up, as the saying goes. Instead, Llewellyn always thought, they paced themselves to a comfortable position that you would be neither overwhelmed nor uninterested in. Not that he’d ever tell her any of this. He continued on his casual course.
“So which one was Christian?” This was the biggest mistake he had made so far. It implied that Christian was a cog in a series of events, not individually worthy of recognition, but some how belonging to a world different, and inferior, to himself.
“He was the tall French guy. Long blonde hair. Remember?” It was the spark of victory needed to end to calm stalemate.
“That fucking metrosexual, arrogant twat?” Llewellyn blurted out in disbelief. “The one that held himself like he was goddamn royalty and would sell his own grandmother into slavery if it meant he could get in your pants?”
“No he wouldn’t because he’s gay.”
“That’s just an excuse so he could watch you while you change.” He was running on an empty tank. He had unleashed his anger with such a striking force that had left himself unexposed and was now clawing in vain to possess some sort of an advantage.
“Here’s a service station,” Natalie said pulling off the duel carriage way. She parked the car. “And no, he never saw me getting changed.” She got out of the car as Llewellyn scurried to put on his gloves and hat. He got out of the car and had to do a small hop-dash move to keep up with Natalie who was marching fairly forcefully towards the café.
“Well why does he want to see you know?”
“Because he’s a photographer and thinks I make a good model.”
“Because he thinks you’d make a good lay.”
“Well maybe he does. Maybe in the few months that he hasn’t seen me he’s given up on his boyfriend of seven years, given up his life style as a homosexual man, decided he’s in love with me and invited me over so he can have his wicked way with me. Maybe all that is true.
“But even if it is I still don’t see how it concerns you anymore. I don’t see why you should have any voice of objection when it comes to my relationships that I would even consider.” Checkmate.
Llewellyn slouched as he ordered his white coffee, despondent and hardly acknowledging the gentle small talk that the girl serving him was making.
“Is that to stay or take away?” the girl asked.
Llewellyn was about to answer when Natalie interrupted. “To take away.”
“Wait, no. To stay,” insisted Llewellyn. He knew it was childish but he persevered stubbornly. The girl shrugged and went to make the coffee.
“You can’t drink it in the car? Would that upset your bowls too?” Her voice was that of patronizing, sneering victor.
“Perhaps.”
“I think coffee is like the Japanese blowfish for you. If it’s not prepared in exactly the right way it’s poisonous.” She wore a little goading smile. Llewellyn grunted in response. She had him and he knew it. When she had asked what her relationship with Christian had to do with him was when it all finally hit home. Like a bowling ball it struck him; that they were now independent of each other. Even though their relationship had finished over three months ago, and it had been finished by him, it was only then that he fully came to realize what their separation meant; that she was free to date or sleep with anyone she chose to. It seemed obvious and he knew logically that it had been true for the past three months but it was only now that the emotional impact hit home. He had ended it because he thought that he wanted himself to be autonomous but now he realized that he couldn’t stand the thought of Natalie’s own independence.
As he took the cup from the counter and went to a seat a rush of panic suddenly came to him in an unforgiving wave. What if there had been others? What if they were sleazier than Christian? How many had there been? Two months was a long time. A girl could sleep with a lot of sleazy men in three months. He looked up at her as she sat down, his eyes twitching.
She sat down and reached over to him, placing her gloved hands around his which in turn hugged his mug. Her face changed from a self satisfied sense of triumph to a lighter openness. “Look, I know you’re feeling protective.”
How many guys?
“Especially because I’ll be in Italy alone.”
Three months.
“And because you think all Italians are walking penises.”
How many guys?”
“And you generally dislike the fashion industry and think everyone in it is villainous slime.”
Three months. How many guys?
“But don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”
Llewellyn took a sip from his coffee and tried to calm his swaying mind. He hopelessly tried to prevent his imagination running away with him and instead focused on the little company insignia on his coffee mug. “Look, I’ll get this put in a take away cup and we’ll stop wasting time sitting here.”

Natalie took of her hat and gloves when they were back in the gloves. The outside temperature was just crawling around the freezing mark but inside the car was starting to hum with warmth. She looked at Llewellyn as he placed himself in the passenger seat grumpily. As she pulled the car out of the service station she felt bad and regretful for everything she had said in the café. She had wished she hadn’t made it so abruptly clear that he wasn’t involved in her life anymore. And then she had regretted trying to reach out to him at the table. She had misgivings about her lack in convictions or directions with her emotional outbursts. It was like she was a coin that endlessly spun on its side but never fell for heads or tails. As soon as she mustered up energy to be clinically cruel she did a U-turn and had to some how be apologetic and understanding.
Why did she have to show anything but malice towards Llewellyn anyway? He had just insulted a good friend of hers and disregarded a skill she had worked hard towards. She had had every right to bite him and should have forced him to apologies. Instead they had an awkward situation in the car now where she didn’t know what stance she was taking towards him and he had retreated into a cantankerous heap.
She looked over to him again. He had his eyes purposely fixed on an imaginary pin somewhere in the middle of the road. His left hand was firmly attached to the handle above the door window. He had once told her that he felt more secure when riding shotgun in a car if he was holding onto the handle. If he was aware that he had once told her this was not apparent on his face.
They were going past the small town of Bicester when Llewellyn next spoke, breaking an increasingly uncomfortable silence. “So how is your course going?” It was from the stand point of neutrality with perhaps a hint of appeasement. “Still got to worry about the curse of Tutankhamen?” Natalie gave a sincere smile remembering an old joke that Llewellyn had made when they were together.
In her first year at Pembroke she had to work with gollomesque creature named Clive as part of an ancient civilizations module. He was small, unhealthily and skinny with long, lank hair that creped around his face with a mind of its own. His skin was cracked around the edges with haphazard blotches of black stubble oozing through. And he was desperately obsessed with Natalie. The project was on the excavations of ancient Egyptian burial chambers. After working on the project he would follow her around campus or town trying to engage her in conversation.
When she told Llewellyn about the pest he had given him the nickname King Tutankhamen’s curse. Clive had persevered with his quest of pursuing Natalie for months. At first she was polite but distant, hoping he would pick up the hint. Then she made it explicitly clear she had a boyfriend and that she wasn’t interested. However this still didn’t discourage him. It was only when Natalie asked Llewellyn to intervene directly that Clive backed off. Llewellyn never made clear to Natalie what it was that he had said or done to Clive but he revealed it was somewhere between a stern talking to and a severe ass kicking.
“Clive left University when we were together. I told you about it about half a year ago,” Natalie said, slightly annoyed that he didn’t remember the conversations they had had but didn’t let it show.
“Oh right,” he said, his arm releasing its grip of the handle and settling by his side. “Any other admires?”
“Yeah but they were never in Clive’s league.” They both gave a small, uneasy laugh. “How about you?”
“Not really. Well sort of. Do you remember Helen?” She said she did. “Well we sort of had a thing for a little bit but it ran its course fairly quickly.”
Natalie scanned her mind for how she felt about this. She decided she was neither jealous or enthusiastic. She realized that Llewellyn sleeping with someone else provided her with very little emotional response. She took the information, processed it and stored it just like she would if she found out he had bought a new pair of jeans or that he’s finished reading a book.
“What sort of thing?” she said. “A sexy thing?”
He smiled and shook his head and looked with wide, honest eyes at the dashboard. “No not really.” The words came with a slightly strained laugh that had an undercurrent of regret. “It was awkward and weird. She wanted more but I clearly didn’t. I think I upset her.”
“She wanted a relationship?”
“Yeah.” Still it was the dashboard that occupied his vision.
“Helen and Llewellyn. Ha. Would have made a great couple.” Llewellyn laughed and Natalie was glad she had taken his joke lightly. He seemed to be making a relaxed recovery from the blow she had dealt him earlier.
The Peugeot had passed through Bicester now. The sun was gradually getting higher and stronger ahead of them as they travelled on a small A road, endless fields surrounding them on both sides. In front of them a family estate with two children grinning out the rear window slowed down. Llewellyn gave a small wave to the children and both of them waves eagerly back. Natalie felt a stream of sadness flow through her. She looked to Llewellyn and knew he felt it as well.


Thanks for any feedback.