Hugo Just Can’t Say No
He gets high and lowdown
Hugo James left his house around midnight on Thursday. He hadn’t slept at all the night before. He pulled the collar of his thick winter jacket close around his ears, hoping to block out the thoughts of passersby.
It didn’t work.
I don’t know how I’ll pay the mortgage this month. This from a man about sixty walking hurriedly in a tweed coat.
If those kids aren’t home by the time I get there will be trouble… A woman in the green raincoat scowling as she walked past him.
Hugo had no need to work; he simply lingered by ATM machines until someone he knew he could overpower came to use it, Then he read their mind for the card number — it was amazing how many people recited their pin number as they entered it — took the card from them and helped himself to however much wanted.
That was how he fed his habit.
Hugo slowed his steps as a vision in a full-length black evening dress and nothing else came toward him. Nothing else; no shoes, no coat.
Her thoughts he to had to hear.
But as the young woman drew parallel then rolled her hips to pass him by, all he picked up was a scent he recognised. Wasn’t it that expensive perfume — Chanel no.9? But no thoughts whatsoever.
Intrigued, Hugo stopped and looked over his shoulder as the woman sashayed away from him down the street. The dress had a lace bustle at the back, trailing down almost to the hem like a tail; so old-fashioned yet so fetching.
He turned and followed her.
Hugo was not a stalker; not usually. He didn’t need to be any more than he needed to work. He had no problems finding people to have sex with.
He walked about the streets of London until he heard the thoughts of someone who was up for it.
And as he was bi, he had double the chances.
The woman in the black evening dress had stopped at the entrance of an alleyway.
Now she turned her face and looked very deliberately at him, before stepping, graceful as a dancer, into the narrow opening
Heart pounding, Hugo walked to the dark entrance and peered inside.
He could just about make out the shape of the woman about halfway down the passage. She was leaning, one knee bent, with her right foot against the wall.
Silhouetted, she looked eerily like Lauren Bacall.
Hugo took a deep breath and stepped into the alleyway. As he came closer to her, he spoke bluntly. “Aren’t you cold with no coat on?”
The woman smiled through her red, red lips and shook her head, causing her voluminous auburn hair to cascade around her shoulders. Up close, he could see smouldering green eyes.
The scent was not Chanel. But it was something he recognised, something from his past, from when he was a little boy… A smell that reminded him of his grandmother.
The woman stepped away from the wall and took hold of Hugo's collar in both her hands, pulling him close and planting a soft kiss on his hungry lips.
“Do you want to go back to my place then?” He asked eagerly. “I don’t live far from here.”
Again without words, the woman smiled and nodded her head slightly, before nuzzling her face against his cheek and kissing him softly once more.
Back his bed-sit, Hugo cleared his bed of the clutter of clothes and papers by taking hold of the duvet and shaking it.
Then he pulled the woman down to the bed on top of him…
As she lowered her lips to his once more, Hugo had two realisations simultaneously.
One, he had not heard a single of this woman’s thoughts, and two, that smell wasn’t perfume — it was catnip.
In a sudden surge of panic, Hugo sat up, pushing the woman off his body and onto the bed. He jumped up and stood to look down in terror at her.
She stretched long and voluptuously, smiled that cat-like grin and flicked her long, black tail before jumping up onto his windowsill.
Dazed, he was sat suddenly at the edge of the bed and watched as the cat looked hard at him, miaowed once then leapt from the window.
He never touched smack again.
Inspired by catnip and this prompt in IdeaStream Funky Funks Aren’t So Fresh: ‘A drug-addled sex addict who can hear people’s thoughts.’
An Unlikely Cast of Characters
Choose these people/objects to create a story around.
- hobbits
- people that protest social distancing
- lemmings that think people are stupid
- the ghost of George Washington
- the ghost of Patrick Swayze playing the Ghost in Ghost.
- Mary Poppins
- a drug-addled sex addict who can hear people’s thoughts
- Someone with schizophrenia
- The Illuminati
- A Nancy that’s really naughty
©️marla bishop 2020
Marla Bishop is a relationship coach and writer: On medium.com she is the creator of Lilith and an editor of The Bad Influence, The Get Fit Gang, and The Narrative. She lives in London UK with her husband and youngest two children. You can follow her here.
