The landlady

The estate agent warned me that the owner was a bit of a battle axe but nothing could have prepared me for the formidable woman with whom I was shaking hands on the threshold of my possible future home.

It was impossible to say how old she was or even what she looked like. All I knew for sure was that when the advert said 'after reconstruction' I didn't know if she meant her flat or her face. Her flat was lovely the work done on it was ver y professional but her face looked like a mad ventriloquist's dummy from the fifties but when she talked it was her not moving her lips. She was dressed in a figure hugging dress that showed off her ample curves just a little too much.   But it wasn’t just the look that was unnerving, it was the attitude, she grilled me like the bad cop in a bad cop movie. She wanted to know everything about me and the way she looked at me as she was talking was quite unsettling but that might have been her botox fixed face more than anything.

I must have been mad, crazy, stupid but despite the crazed owner I still took the flat. It was everything I was looking for, bright, big, great location, good heating, good price. All the flats had downsides, too small, no lift, poor area etc. Here the downside was the landlady but as she had told me she was a busy surgeon, (I wondered if she’d done her own face) who didn't want to be disturbed by problems in the flat at least I wouldn’t have to live with the downside of this one.

And I made the right decision, a month passed smoothly, I was loving the flat. I’d not seen hide nor hair of the landlady and life was good. Until that is one Thursday night - 2.37am to be precise - when a noise woke me from a strange dream about tattoos. I fumbled for the light switch, my heart beating ten to the dozen. I couldn’t believe my blurry eyes. It was my landlady, naked, smiling, little finger in the corner of her mouth making her intentions plain.