Perceptions (3) "Alone now." Within minutes, I was no longer alone. Teri arrived, infected by the same sex-charged intoxication as myself. She was smiling and talking as she approached, but it was unmistakably a cover for passion overload. I was nodding and responding, but all I was really doing was regarding her in her tight blue jeans and white-buttoned blouse, trying not to imagine her without them. It was a heady quarter of an hour, and I could feel the adrenalin rising. It was no secret - her body language betrayed her - that this woman, unknown to me until yesterday, wanted exactly the same thing as me: to get into my pants. Yet, social pre-requisite dictated this chitchat ritual that simply served as a blazing catalyst for the inevitable. It took just fifteen minutes of idle talk before the look in her eyes spoke enough volumes to make me reach out and invite her to straddle my lap and, with all the nervousness of an adolescent, bring our burning crotches into contact. No sooner had she felt the probe of my erect penis within my trousers, the fervent kissing began. My splayed fingers danced up and down her back as she drove me wild with the desire to touch her. Feel her. Press her to me. Teri was on fire, and I was the leading mechanism, hardly able or willing to douse her flame. She cradled my face as her hot lips smothered mine, stirring me to rapture with her soft and heavenly body; the first time in more than ten long years since I’d held a woman, other than Lizzie, in such lust. I wanted her to go further, to strip me, mount me and have me as she pleased, but simultaneously at the back of my mind, I felt a pang of guilt and, worse than this, the fear she maybe some even more demented cousin of Alex Forrest, the crazy woman in Fatal Attraction. After all, what did I really know about Teri Linden other than she worked in the same Bank as myself and was married to an Irishman, who could be an axe-murderer? This last thought remained with me, inhibiting my ardour somewhat. Yet I didn’t transmit it to Teri who, having eaten my mouth, released me and drew back, while remaining with intent on my lap stroking my chest with her palms. I resisted the temptation, at this time, to do likewise, for fear of re-igniting her inferno. Instead we sat there looking at each other, trying to gauge the other ones’ thoughts, not knowing exactly what to say now. ‘I feel like tying you up, taking your shirt off, my bra, and tormenting you.’ She said it with a smile, and I didn’t know whether to take it seriously or not, but she was rocking on my swollen genitals and they grew harder than I thought possible. ‘Um, I don’t think it’s a good idea…not here.’ Teri watched me squirm, but she was blushing, too. ‘So, you like this sort of thing?’ ‘What sort of thing?’ I replied, deliberately evasive. She pursed her lips. ‘You know - bondage. Do you try it at home with your wife?’ My balls were at bursting point already, and now this - what was she trying to do to me? Undoubtedly she could feel me even through her jeans, and she wasn’t about to get off. Maybe she was enjoying the ride. The thought had hardly occurred, when one of her hands entered the narrow gap between two buttons of my white shirt. The pleasure she derived was evident not only on her face, but her nipples were also on stalks beneath the soft cups of her padded bra. ‘Yes,’ I said, guardedly. ‘We’ve played.’ ‘Naked, of course.’ ‘I can’t tell you that! I think you know too much about me already!’ She laughed. ‘Certainly - from where I’m sitting. You might be a naughty boy, but you’re not a little boy.’ ‘Perhaps not before you came in.’ Teri laughed, and glanced at her watch. ‘I have to leave now. What a pity. Will you be here tomorrow?’ My heart sank as she rose, but I knew it was for the best. The temptation to take her over the table was overwhelming. ‘My last evening before Lizzie returns from the conference.’ ‘On va voir, alors. A demain, chérie.’ My heart was beating like a bongo, and as the stiffy between my legs began to deflate I felt a damp patch materialize. I felt young and reckless all over again. I wanted more. I needed it. So did Teri. I watched her depart and she didn’t look back. It would have been fatal. Knowing it was my last evening - like the final wishes of a condemned man - our talk was less and our action central. Torrid, with our ravenous mouths grinding away and our probing hands fervently craving every intimate and erotic contact. Again she took seat on my lap, this time wearing a skirt that was short and easily pushed up her waist. She loosened my shirt and removed my tie. I parted her blouse to the shoulder and exposed her cleavage to the full. We kissed and groped and did all the things that two people do in an illicit encounter, wanting to strip and denying ourselves the joy of it. Half-way there but half-way decent, that was how I thought it - although our married counter-parts wouldn’t have seen it quite that way. That was how we managed to keep from having full-blown intercourse. Loyalty to our other halves was the mental block. Our security. We even talked about them, guiltlessly, without embarrassment. What they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them. Nor us. During the following months, we continued to see each other whenever possible: the Bank car park, the local park, morning or evening, making excuses to our partners, our work colleagues. Lying to anyone that presented a threat or barrier to our secret rendezvous. Sometimes we even exchanged words in French, to the surprise of some around us. But rarely were we seen together in public, except in the Bank’s cafeteria, where we deemed it safe and practical during the day. But, gradually, and without external pressure, the heat of our fling began to cool. A cup of tea seemed to be the solution to everything. In fact it was a private joke between us, Lizzie and I. We’d noted that whenever there was a tragedy or a crisis, on telly or even in real life, somebody would always ask if anyone would like a cup of tea, as if that would make everything all right again. The act of making it would somehow cure all problems; take away the misery or the pain. We stood in the kitchen, our collective anxiety almost tangible. Lizzie made tea while Teri and I peered out of the windows at the neighbouring houses for signs of life. The whole situation was unnatural, unreal, like a sci-fi film in which all the people had vanished except for a small group around which the story revolved. Normally these movies developed into a living nightmare as, one by one, the cast would inexplicably disappear, until the final scene when, inevitably, the hero and heroine discovered the source, the plot of the drama. And like those people, the three of us, without saying it, chose to keep each other within eyesight. ‘I’ve phoned dozens of people,’ Lizzie was telling us, her voice noticeably grave, stirring each of the three mugs slowly with a teaspoon. She was seriously frightened. ‘I’ve repeatedly tried the office, my mum, your mum, my brother, my uncle, our neighbours…. the police.’ Teri and I looked round at that piece of information. ‘And nobody answered. Nobody. There’s still snow on the TV. The radio is dead -’ ‘Why don’t you try some of the people you know, Teri?’ I interrupted, getting the gist. ‘Maybe somebody will be there.’ Teri moved away from the window, and Lizzie handed her a mug. There was that scene. The people. The tea. Everything was going to be okay. Wasn’t it? I was holding the portable phone and I glanced at it again, wondering if there was any use in my calling the police one more time. Or the Town Hall. The hospital. 999. I dialled it. I heard it ring, and continue to ring. Even if an answer phone were to respond it would be something. Teri and Lizzie were watching me apprehensively, the tension mounting one more time, as it did with each of the four subsequent numbers I dialled. I put the phone down hard on the kitchen counter next to me in frustration. ‘Drink your tea while it’s hot,’ Lizzie recommended. Again that scene with the tea. But it was no longer funny. ‘Our families are gone. Our neighbours. The authorities and the community. So what do we do?’ I was searching with hope for advice. ‘We can go out in the car and see if anyone is around. At the very least we might attract some attention…if anyone is there.’ It was an idea, the only idea left open to us. Lizzie was right. ‘Drink up,’ I said. While there was still daylight we had a chance. It was the night time I feared. In those movies it was during the night when the dead started walking. Teri tried Len once more, without success, before we left our house in my car. She was in the back seat and Lizzie was in the passenger seat next to me, as we drove slowly down our road and out into the main road towards town 4 kilometres away. The sun was still shining and there was a slight breeze, a few clouds, but overall it was a beautiful day. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, Teri,’ Lizzie said, with an opening line that implied she should, ‘but how come you’re the only person left in existence other than us? I mean, what were you doing this morning before you got to work? Did you see anything out of the ordinary?’ I glanced at Teri through the rear-view mirror as she shuffled forward in her seat, her eyes darting at me before she spoke. ‘I woke up this morning at 8 o’clock as usual. Lenny, my husband, made breakfast for us. We had that and we both left for work, as usual.’ ‘What about traffic? Other people?’ ‘Yes. There were cars and buses. People. Everything was normal. I mean, normal at the time. I got to the Bank and parked.’ ‘Did you see other parked cars there?’ ‘A few, but they might have been there all night, I don’t know. But I didn’t see anybody in the car park, and, strangely, the guys at security were absent. Normally, somebody is always there. And I’m never the first person in the office. I work at Accounts, maybe Mark told you.’ Lizzie flashed a scowl at me. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Did you know Mark before today?’ Again, Teri gave me a fleeting look before answering. She didn’t need to lie. ‘Yes, through work.’ I stopped the car in the middle of what should have been a busy road. The street was full of houses, and I blasted the car horn several times, the suddenness of my action startling both women in the middle of their analyses. It hadn’t meant to be a diversionary tactic, merely the sum of my frustration. ‘What is it?’ Lizzie asked, a little ruffled. ‘I’m trying to get people out of their houses.’ Lizzie’s frown was unmistakably tinged with irritation, but we all looked around, scanning for the faintest movement of a curtain or even the sight of a cat. ‘Go to the town centre, the High Street,’ Lizzie said after an interval of total silence. ‘If there’s no one there, then we really are alone.’ I’d never been spoilt for parking choice like this before. Ever. Up and down the street, there was not a single vehicle in sight, nor one human being we could question. Under ordinary circumstances I loved a mystery, but one that made sense. I was a logical man. Everything had to have a reason for being. Every action resulted in reaction. Nothing happened without cause, and cause equalled effect. So, the emptiness, the stillness, in which we found ourselves in the middle of the street with the motor running and nobody to hoot me with derision from behind, bewildered me and made me more than just a little bit afraid. Individuals vanished, yes. Whole towns: definitely not. ‘I think we can safely say, now, that we are the only people in the country,’ Lizzie stated. ‘What about other countries?’ Teri piped up. She whipped out her mobile and pressed several keys. ‘Who are you calling?’ Lizzie asked. ‘My parents in Lyon. Both my parents have mobile phones. One of them should answer.’ Her ear was to the phone. ‘I’ll try my mother now.’ Evidently her father hadn’t responded. ‘Is it actually ringing?’ Lizzie queried. ‘Yes, yes.’ Teri’s retort came across somewhere between worry and fear. Her eyes spelled it out even clearer. ‘I have some contacts in the U.S,’ I said, hastily grabbing my own mobile from the glove compartment. There was to be disappointment on both counts. Certainly - impossibly - the World population had disappeared without trace. Except for we three. Back at our house, Lizzie made us another tea. It was all that was left to cheer us up. Lizzie knew how to make a decent cup of tea. She was the World’s expert, I always thought. Now, I was certain. I chose to discuss our situation while Teri went off to the toilet. Any decision required her utmost support, and the very least I could do, before asking Teri, was talk it through with Lizzie. The subject was obvious. There were three of us, not four: one man and two women. One married couple; and two into three didn’t go, unless the two wanted it to. So what did Lizzie have to say? ‘We have no other choice. We can’t send her home to live alone, and we can’t live knowing that, either. So Teri has to stay, so long as she wants to. In fact, we can live anywhere on the planet we choose to. You’ve always wanted that. No borders, no laws, just common sense, and people that get on with one another. You’ve always said you wished people would leave us alone, and now they have. Totally.’ I glared at her, staggered at the blunt reality of those words. My own enunciation had come back to me. Often, I’d say such things when I was tired and run-down and basically fed up with the way of the world. When things were going against me and going wrong, I’d blow up with such fancy. Now? ‘Am I to blame for everyone vanishing?’ I asked, feeling suddenly culpable. ‘Do you have the power to make them? Did I marry a God?’ ‘No!’ I said sharply. ‘I am not a God. Nor do I want to be.’ ‘You love science fiction, Mr Mulder. But I’m not Dana Scully. But we have what you’ve always wanted. Almost.’ ‘So you’re saying they all clambered on a spacecraft because of me.’ Lizzie laughed, catching me off guard. ‘I didn’t say that. But we’re alone, aren’t we? Except for your friend Teri out there. Teri - now, is that short for Extra-Teristriel?’ My turn to laugh. ‘I barely know her,’ I lied. ‘But you have a point.’ ‘Which is?’ ‘Maybe God finally heard me and decided to get up off his big fat arse and do something for me for a change.’ ‘Oh, right. Adam and Eve. And Eve 2. Now there’s something. Is He making up for an earlier error, do you think?’ My grin urged her on. ‘You men, you all love a three-some, a little bit of lesbian, and the world totally at your command complete with clear roads and unfettered supermarkets; no queues anywhere. Have what you want or need without care for money; do what you want without fear of criticism. And two women to feed your belly, wash and iron your clothes. Only one thing wrong with that, however - twice the nagging!’ Teri returned as Lizzie and I were laughing. She looked at us quizzically, perhaps wondering if she was the butt of some joke or prank. In spite of everything, she seemed upbeat. ‘So what now?’ she inquired, looking at both of us in turn. ‘Are we staying here?’ ‘We were discussing just that,’ I said, catching Lizzie’s eyes. ‘We’re alone, us three. We think you should stay with us, Lizzie and I decided. It’s up to you, too, of course, or else -’ ‘Move in, you mean? With you both?’ ‘If you want to,’ Lizzie reiterated. Teri was looking at her directly. The other woman. My wife. ‘Go and get what you need from home: come back. There’s plenty enough room here.’ Unless you prefer to live alone? Lizzie didn’t say it, but I thought it, as if I could read her mind. ‘You know, they could all come back. Tomorrow we might wake up and find everyone is home and everything is normal.’ She shrugged. ‘It could happen.’ Teri’s power of positive thinking never ceased to amaze me. Throughout the time I’d known her, she’d always managed to present a chirpy, happy image, whatever she felt. Even during our brief fling, when she’d told me about her failing relationship with Len (the drive behind her need for alternative fulfilment), Teri had always sounded - behaved - buoyant. Somehow she never let things get her down, or at least she hid it very effectively. She was right, though. Whatever this strange event was, it could right itself tomorrow or in the next five minutes. Perhaps we’d entered one of those paranormal fourth-dimensional portholes I was always going on about in my more professorial moments. Okay, so it was only the three of us and from three separate locations, but what the heck! I’d often criticised acclaimed Sci-Fi’s for their dubious implausibility. I could fantasize, couldn’t I? ‘Maybe we should all go to bed now,’ I suggested, ‘See what happens.’ ‘Mark!’ Lizzie wailed. ‘The three of us?’ And she burst into laughter, joined by Teri. I realised, on reflection, how that sounded, and laughed with them, tapering my embarrassment. But Teri needed sex as much as Lizzie. She needed, or would need, a hug, a kiss, sexual human contact; and I was the only guy this side of Pluto. So maybe it wasn’t so funny, this thought, going to bed together. Who knows, maybe Lizzie had blindly hit the nail square on the head earlier. Maybe this was an essential conversation for the near future. We ate some food a little later. My two women fed me. Somehow, the notion seemed amusing. But at least the fear had been sufficiently repelled to allow us to relax, get to know each other within our three-some. Lizzie and Teri were talking, almost like old friends, and it began to enter my mind that maybe, just maybe, this isolation might work out, and a contented ménage à trios might develop. Supposing, of course, the rest of planet earth remained incarcerated on this imaginary spacecraft my desires had created. The question of children, naturally, arose. Teri knew that Lizzie and I were childless, and I knew that Teri and Len were similarly disposed, or blessed - this being from our point of view, of course. But Lizzie didn’t know it, and when she asked, the reply was as I’d expected. Teri and hubby never fancied any kids. They liked it okay just the way it was, and Teri could never see herself as a mum, charging around with nappies and baby food, and having to handle distressing and stressful infant hollering. The same words Lizzie and I had exchanged in the past. Such bliss. But that would have to change. If we were truly all that was left of human kind, then our survival depended on procreation. We had to have babies. Or else humanity would die out with us - with me. I, the last man; Adam, and his two Eves. There was, in addition, another consideration. Perhaps Lizzie or I couldn’t conceive. For a couple that most certainly didn’t want children, we took the most amazing risks. On call, I would always pull out at the last minute, and sometimes we were left wondering whether - God forbid - this time we’d really done it! Always, with relief, it was no. So, to the point: could we have children? Neither of us was certain. Was it merely good luck, skill, or the fates outside of our control? In other words: genetic inheritance. We both had siblings, but that didn’t amount to much. Nature was as inconsistent as human thinking, and couldn’t be relied upon. Sure, we’d find out the truth sooner or later, given the ultimate test, but if Lizzie was the one, then Teri would have to carry the burden - no pun intended. If it was me, then humanity was as good as finished already. And, to be frank, it didn’t really bother me, either! We’d had our shot. Mankind had had long enough to evolve, advance - get things right. After everything we’d said and done, where had it got us? As far as I was concerned, the continuation of the species would only further the lunacy and bloodshed on planet Earth in the future, away from our profound influences. Mankind carried ill will buried in his instincts, directly from his descendents: ape-man. It was an inherent genetic flaw within us; and there was very little we could do about it. Alternatively, a staunch atheist such as myself might argue that, if God did exist, a big if, and the Word of the Bible could be trusted, then murdering humans had arrived in society right from the beginning, in spite of the Big Guy, with Cain and Able demonstrating the early warning signs. So much for the teachings of God and his disciples. Mankind never really had a chance from the start, and it was all Gods’ fault. I wasn’t impressed. He’d messed up real bad! I was alone in the living room, staring out into the back garden and the tree-bordered fields beyond, when I heard the squealing grind of metal in the distance. At first I dismissed it as imagination, but when it sounded again, I became alarmed. Determining its direction was difficult enough, but as to its origins? Lizzie and Teri, I thought. What are they doing? They were in the cellar, checking our food supplies, or something. I hurried to see them, wondering if they’d knocked over a rack or dropped a box, maybe. When I found them they were kneeling in front of some small boxes. Noticing me, they paused, turned and smiled. ‘Did either of you hear something?’ ‘When?’ queried Lizzie, and Teri shook her head. ‘A moment ago. Sounded like metal being dragged or broken.’ ‘No,’ Lizzie answered, firmly. ‘Sure it was metal?’ ‘Not really. But neither of you heard it?’ ‘Nope.’ ‘Not me,’ Teri responded.
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