Yung Kat

There was this mosquito. I called him Bert. He was sitting there on my right arm one arm leaning against a hair and his sharp little nose dug deep into my skin drinking my blood. I suppose I should have swatted him but I knew that if I tried that he's simply fly off and be whining around my ear all night keeping me up. At least if he finished drinking my blood right here right now he could go away and get some sleep.

The phone rang and Bert, sensing my movement, disappeared. I picked it up and it was one of the apartment's junkie whores.

"Hellooo... I see you in the lift yesterday. Can I come to your room ?"

"Sorry. I've got a lot on tomorrow. I need to get some sleep."

"Is okay. I come sleep with you. I very tired."

"No. Sorry."

"I lonely. I not want to sleep alone every night. I know you stay alone. I come stay with you now okay ?"

"No. Not okay. I'm very busy."

"But you say you want go to sleep."

"Yeah. But I want go to sleep with my friend Bert."

The phone went dead.

I took a slow shower enjoying the tepid water while singing the theme tune from Bonanza. I knew there was a cockroach lurking about in my apartment somewhere and I should have gone on a search and destroy mission but it had been a long day and I just wanted to hit the sack and sleep. If cockroaches or mosquitoes or any other wildlife wanted to crawl over me in the dead of night they were welcome just as long as they didn't wake me up.

I hit the sack and then it came.... Knock knock knock. "Hellooo ?"

The same woman as the woman on the phone. I kind of remembered her. I kind of remembered what she looked like. In the bar she probably looked great. She had a slim figure and a face that with a bit of make up might have looked beautiful. But in the morning, in the lift, she looked like the junkie she was. She'd said something about how lonely she sometimes got and how she'd like to come and talk to me. I didn't tell her not to. I kind of thought that she might make a useful cunt in a glass case. Break in case of emergency. But she wasn't someone I really wanted in my life. As I got out the lift she did look to see what door I went to. That's how she knew which room to phone.

The door opened and I cursed my habit of never locking it. I pulled the thin sheet over me as she walked in. She was wearing an a pale blue nylon dressing gown that reached her ankles. "I like your room." She said. "Is much better than my room."

"You don't say."

"Where your friend ?"

"He had to fly but I'm sure he'll be back any second."

"I can talk with you til him come back."

"Yeah... Well... The thing is... I'm kind of sleepy." I yawned as if to emphasise just how sleepy I was.

"Me too. But I don't like sleep alone. Sleep alone is no good."

"Normally I'd agree but..."

But there was no point in saying but. She slipped out of her dresssing gown and slipped nakedly into bed beside me.

"What are you doing ?" I asked.

"I come to bed. Sleep with you."

"No you don't."

"Yes I do." And she laughed. And it was a sweet wilful little laugh.

"I don't have any money."

"Is okay." And she lay her sweet junkie head on my chest and went to sleep. I didn't sleep myself. I had a naked woman lying on me and it had been at least forty eight hours. But then I didn't want to do anything because... Well... Because of AIDS and because of that thing where you fuck a Thai woman without paying them straight away and they think you now belong to them. So I lay there passively while she drifting into a deep deep sleep dribbling a small blob of saliva on to my chest as she was off in dreamland.

And I noticed that Bert the mosquito had found a new friend.