So, I had woken up, in the dark, in a warm place, lying on my right side with my left hand resting on a warm, moist vagina.

Now, don’t get me wrong – in my still-fairly-inconsiderable lifetime I’ve had several vaginas (vaginae?) under my hand and even woken this way before; one girlfriend use to berate me reasonably frequently for waking her up like that – I used to fiddle with her in my sleep – and what I like (one of the things I like) about my current lover is that that kind of thing is perfectly appreciated and frequently reciprocated, but the trouble was that nowadays I should be waking up with a penis under my hand so what the hell was going on?

I opened my eyes. No information to be had there – it was pitch fucking black. I mean really. Bugger. I closed my eyes again, partly in a display of dramatic self-pity. Idiot. Now, the automatic thing a body does in the dark when confronted with something strange (strange in that the species is known but the individual identity of the entity is a mystery) is to feel around carefully to aid identification. This, I felt, wasn’t an option. In fact, so many complications could arise from that simple action that it didn’t bear thinking about. Unfortunately, my treacherous brain commands (barely) a libido the size of a planet, so the immediate consequences of trying to determine the ownership of an unseen vagina by touch alone came clanging hot, fast and vivid into my brain. Luckily, my inner adult cut in swiftly with images of the long-term consequences (curse that pesky superego); both sets of sensations brought me out in a rush of adrenaline which woke up some parts of my brain hitherto dormant.

I opened my eyes. Still nothing. I closed them again stealthily – in case overt eyelash-brushing might attract attention.

If you can’t use touch or sight, said my lateral-thinking cortex, why not use other senses? Does she smell familiar? Good thinking, I told my lateral brain. While you’re up, can you go see if my memory’s awake yet because I’d dearly love to remember what the fuck’s going on here. Okay, said lateral thinking and tiptoed off. Thanks, I whispered and got on with the job in hand. No, not the job in hand!

Well, here was a relief, I thought as I stealthily sniffed. Of all the complicated emotional connotations this incident already had, at least I wasn’t in bed with an ex-lover. I have a ridiculously acute sense of smell, and have catalogued in particular the scents of various lovers. Women have more evocative, varied and individualistic body scents than men (even forgetting artificial scents). Contained within the body of one woman are a riot of different smells (and textures, tastes and sighs, murmured the part of me thoroughly turned-on now by all this – I didn’t find that particularly helpful and struggled not to panic or kiss the woman). Anyway. God, pull yourself together! And I could rule out any smokers I knew.

She shifted suddenly and turned onto her right side, away from me, rolling her hips and belly under my lightly-brushing hand, too startled and libidinous to move. My fingertips carried a trail of her across her hip, but she settled into sleep again. I lifted my hand off her stealthily and wiped it on my leg, registering support for my original suspicion: damn, I was naked.

There was no real chance here of pretending that we’d shared a bed for practical, platonic purposes and had shifted together accidentally overnight and I could go back to sleep and never mention this to her. We were both extremely naked and the room smelled of burned-out candles (among other things). Bugger, bugger, bugger, bugger, bugger.

Oh, this was bad, this was very bad (I still had no idea how bad – if I had, I might have given up altogether at this stage).

So, I was in bed with a strange woman, or at least a woman I’d never been to bed with before. A non-smoking woman I’d never been to bed with before. A non-smoking, short-haired, slim young woman I’d never been to bed with before who owned a double bed. This knocked out... hold on a second... about fifteen to twenty women I knew off the top of my head straight away. It also precluded my flatmate, for which I was profoundly grateful. Although, if I was in my own flat I could sneak out now, back to my own bed and pretend with heroic fervour that this never happened. Positive side to everything, right?

And then the truly weird thing about all this finally gave up knocking politely and occurred to me by kicking the door in (so to speak). Here I was, meticulously piecing together scanty clues and non-clues; why couldn’t I remember what had happened? Okay, you spotted that already, but I’d like to see you do better in a similar situation, I really would. For me, it was such an alien concept that it either just hadn’t occurred or I’d been wilfully ignoring it. I mean, I’m renowned for my memory. In a way. Aren’t I? I think. Maybe I had amnesia...

Okay, who are you then? You know your name? Absolutely. Occupation? Currently undecided. Next? Age? 27. Address? The slightly less reputable end of the park in the boho part of the city. Marital status? Unmarried and likely to become extremely single unless I can find a way of not letting my current boyfriend know about this. Unless...? I let my left hand sweep back gently behind me, but found no bodies (with penis or otherwise) between me and a wallpapered wall. I lay on my back and thought up some new swearwords. That didn’t help so I decided to try to get out of the bed and reconnoitre without waking my companion. Maybe I’d find some other clues outside this room.

*

“So you had no idea who this woman was?”

“Didn’t I just say that several times?”

“Don’t get snippy, I’m just trying to get things straight. As it were.”

“Ha, bloody ha.”

“Go on, then.”

“If you don’t mind...”

*

(Next chapter currently available at http://uk.geocities.com/faithhope69/jj2.htm.)