Stay

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A slight red warning on this one

“Stay tonight,” Sian said, putting her hand on my naked chest and looking at me with those beautiful brown eyes. I was tempted, I really was. The thought of getting up and going out into the rain was not appealing. But I’d never stayed the night.  Always around this time I’d get out of bed, get dressed and phone a taxi. I knew we were more than friends with benefits now; we were what people might call a proper relationship, except I still didn’t stay over.

There were reasons. I’d lived alone for a long time and kind of liked my own space when I slept. For all of Boris Gardener’s insistence that he wants to wake up with you, I’ve always found sleeping in the same bed with someone a passion killer. Fighting over the duvet, sharing someone’s body heat, not having the freedom to snore, to fart, to toss and turn and then the smelly breath in the morning, mine, hers, it didn’t matter.

I swept a strand of hair off her face with my little finger and smiled.

“I’ve got a long day tomorrow,” I said apologetically.

There was one other reason I didn’t want to stay of course. I was twenty years older than Sian. She laughed and joked to her friends that I might be older but at least I had my own hair and teeth and didn’t need the little blue pill. Two out of three wasn’t bad.

If I stayed, then I would have to reveal that the majority of my teeth weren’t mine. Would Sian still be so enamoured with her older man if the last kiss he gave her before she fell asleep was a gummy slobber? Could I tell her it was a rugby injury, a car accident, me defending a poor woman on the streets leading to the thug knocking my teeth out. Would she believe the lies? Or could I keep the dentures in tonight. One night wouldn’t do any harm would it?

“Please,” she said, and kissed me, her tongue exploring my mouth and then working its way down my body. She wasn’t taking no for an answer today and I knew that if I let her carry out what she had in mind I would never be getting out of this bed. I had to make the decision soon, although Sian was rather taking it out of my hands.

I was drifting off to sleep. A limp smile on my face. Sian had worked her magic and left me to doze while she went and cleaned her teeth. The bed was warm and so much more comfortable than mine. I was aware of Sian coming back into bed and curling up next to me.
“Good night gorgeous,” she said.

“Good night,” I murmured.

It was a horrible dream. My boss was telling me off for the standard of the report I’d written. He was tearing the pages out one by one, and stuffing them into my mouth, until my mouth was full of paper and I couldn’t breath.

“Aiden, Aiden,” I realised it wasn’t my boss’s voice yelling at me or his hands that were shaking me.

“Aiden.” I recognised Sian’s voice as I was coming up from sleep, but I still couldn’t breath.
I felt fingers go into my mouth.

“Aiden.” Sian said. I was aware now it wasn’t paper that was choking me.

“Jesus!” she said, and pulled my dentures from my mouth. I guess my secret was out of the bag.