Erotic Refugees Read online

  Erotic Refugees

  By Paddy Kelly

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright 2012 Paddy Kelly

  Cover art by Seamus Flanagan

  This book may not be reproduced, transmitted or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic, electronic, or mechanical without express written consent of the author except for brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Praise, support, marriage proposals, death threats can be sent to:

  [email protected]

  And some random scribblings can be found here:

  http://paddyk.wordpress.com

  Chapter 1

  Eoin held his breath as he eased the bedroom door towards the wall. When it closed with the barest of clicks he sighed with relief. He stood there for a moment, just breathing. Then he turned and guided himself along in the dark by running the back of his hand along the wall. At the top of the stairs he paused and looked back.

  He pictured the occupants of the bedroom. Jenny would be sleeping, sprawled as usual across the whole width of their monster double bed. Little Damien would be in the cot beside her, coiled up in a rope of bedding with limbs sticking out at unlikely angles. They'd both been sound asleep for hours now. In fact, it felt like all of Stockholm was sleeping, the whole city safe and warm and bereft of thoughts.

  But not him. Eoin had spent the evening fighting with Jenny. First was the fight itself, about something diffuse as usual. After that came the pleading and promises and temporary reconciliation. It had all taken hours but Eoin really couldn't remember what the whole thing had been about. They were never about very much, these arguments, but the energy that got poured into each one, more and more every time, seemed to suggest they were hugely important. That they were fixing something.

  For the life of him Eoin couldn't work out what was being fixed, or exactly how it had been broken.

  He closed the kitchen door, fumbled for the light switch and sat down at the spotless oak table. The oversized ceiling lamp flickered a few times and he covered his eyes until it had settled down to a steady glow. He slid his fingers from his face and dared to look around.

  On the table in front of him were six square coasters, all set at different angles to each other. He frowned and reached out to straighten them up. He hated square things where round things would have been better. Round things were always the right way up, always symmetrical, while square things demanded to be parallel to other lines and edges, to be constantly poked and adjusted and squinted at until they matched their surroundings.

  Eoin liked things to be ordered but he never saw the point of coasters. Why on earth had he allowed Jenny to choose a table that required twenty-four hour care and vigilance, and then position it in a room where people were supposed to be relaxing? Surely a table that tolerated a little wear and tear would have made for a smoother day-to-day existence? Not to mention a better marriage, a fuller, happier life, and a contented rosy glide into gibbering senility and death?

  Eoin looked around the well-built, top-quality kitchen with a stranger’s gaze. The sparkling tiled walls were hung with all manner of pots and appliances that he had always planned to use but had never got around to. Everything was scrupulously clean, and in its proper place, but it was all ultimately as flat and pointless as the argument of that evening, and of the previous evening, and the echoes of all previous arguments that came before. Like the pages of a book they lay piled upon each other, reaching back into the weeks and months before, and stretching out into all the numb years ahead.

  He gazed out the window and across the garden. He could make out the house on the other side and the strip of sky behind it. He had no idea what the time was, but that distant sky was already brightening to a dull grey. There was a lively wind bending the tops of the larch trees, and it looked like a storm might be on its way.

  Eoin sighed. He should probably get to bed just so he could get up again and do everything that was expected of him. He'd get Damien ready, take him to day-care, go to work, call Jenny for a shopping list, buy food, come home, put his best foot forward, and his nose to the grindstone, and shoulder his responsibilities, and all the rest of it.

  But no. An unexpected feeling had taken hold of him. He couldn't even move from his chair. He flexed his fingers and stared at them. He studied his feet that were pressed against the cold floor. Everything was the same, but something was not right. He could feel it. Something was very different indeed.

  It came as a shock to Eoin when he realised what it was. He felt calm, completely and utterly at peace. He considered this sensation with deep suspicion. Why would he be calm? Was it because of the rare silence around him, or the lack of sleep? Maybe he was coming down with another bout of flu?

  But no, it wasn't any of those things. Eoin was calm because a decision had been reached. Some part of his mind had been spinning away all this time and had only now returned with its final analysis. Eoin considered that perfectly obvious solution, and nodded slowly.

  Everything had suddenly become very simple.

  He took a deep breath and pushed himself back from the table. He replaced the chair neatly in its position, adjusted the coasters once more and turned his back on the window. Then he strode across the spotless floor, feeling the delicious bite of the tiles on his bare feet with every step.

  At the kitchen door he turned around and took one final look at the life he now recognised as somebody else's. He switched off the light, pulled the door closed and headed upstairs to finally face the coming storm.

  Chapter 2

  The first thing Rob did after he got fired was to take a very long lunch break and pay a visit to Kajsa. When he came on her stomach with a heart-clenching “ungn!” he collapsed onto the bed beside her, feeling, for just a moment, totally fine. It didn’t take long, however, for his mind to pull its post-coital fingers out of its ears and start reminding him about the three dreary but inescapable facts of the moment.

  Fact one was that he was out of work in a country that wasn't his own. Fact two was that he had neither the education, experience nor inclination to locate a replacement job any time soon.

  And fact number three was that he was in bed with a girl he was acutely embarrassed to be seen with.

  Kajsa lay still with her broad back facing him. He knew she wasn’t asleep, she just liked to lie there for a minute in the after-glow, breathing slowly and giving the occasional shiver. “Bra jobbat,” she muttered in her native Swedish, and reached back to pat his naked thigh.

  “Yeah, well, good job yerself,” Rob said, already beginning to feel the guilt stirring. The thing was, he wasn’t together with Kajsa, and he didn’t want to be. He just popped over occasionally for a bit of the other, an agreement that seemed to suit the both of them just fine. But he suspected she might want more than that. She never really indicated it, but he just assumed that she did. Women generally did want more, didn’t they? Like husbands and houses and kids and all?

  Then there was the other thing, the thing that was the major problem with Kajsa. She was a rather large girl. Not large enough to merit a spread in a specialist magazine, but large enough that Rob didn’t want to be seen with her in public. And definitely not in front of his friends, who’d go on about it forever and start calling him “Big Mamma” or “Rodeo Rob” or something equally witty and cutting.

  Kajsa was kind and smart and funny, but Rob didn’t want to put her (or more importantly, himself) in that position. Any other position involving the two of them was, however, fine by him. As long as the positioning took place on her sofa, or across the kitchen table, or on the rug with the net curtains firmly drawn.

  “So you are fired? You are sure?”

  “Damn right I’m sure,” Ro
b said. “Old Hans called me in and gave me the good news himself. They kept bloody Erik, even though I’m miles better than him. But of course he was hired like one whole week before me—”

  “Last in, first out,” Kajsa said. She gave a mighty stretch before she rolled over on her back and smiled. “You signed up for this country, you know the rules.”

  A few strands of brown hair were sweat-glued to the left side of her face. Rob resisted the temptation to reach out and pluck them free. That would be far too relationshippy, and he didn’t want to venture anywhere in that direction.

  “But you’ll get another job, right?”

  Rob sat up in the bed and grabbed a couple of pillows. Kajsa watched with amusement as he twisted and punched them into the correct shape before sinking into them. “I don’t want another bloody job. I’m tired of bein’ a code-monkey, doin’ meaningless crap for other people. I was tellin’ Brian—”

  “Brian the Australian?”

  “Yeah, I went round his café for a cappuccino as soon as they told me. Didn’t think he’d make me pay for it, since I’m on the dole now, But he did, the tight bastard.”

  “And you told him what?”

  “That there’s only one thing to do, isn’t there? I’ll have to dream up some idea and start my own Internet company. Make a fortune, then retire and never do a proper day’s work again.” He clasped his hands behind his head. “And Brian bet me I couldn’t.”

  “How much money did he bet you?”

  “It wasn’t money, it was a sandwich.”

  This caused Kajsa to sit up. She was naked and spotted with sweat and crispy patches of semen, but she didn’t seem to care in the slightest.

  “Did you say a sandwich? What kind of bet is that?”

  “He’s got this board on the wall. Ye know, that big menu with all the sandwiches. Named after musicians like Sagan and Dirac and Dyson and all.”

  Kajsa gave an amused look but said nothing.

  “And he’ll let me design my own sandwich and put it up there if I win. I can just see it now—the Maher, a sandwich masterpiece! And I'll pull it off too, no problem. I mean, I've got one more month to work, and then six months with extra unemployment pay from the union. So that’s a whole seven months with a steady income. More than enough time to get some idea off the ground.”

  Kajsa looked sweetly unconvinced. “And if you lose?”

  “Well I don’t plan to lose, do I? But if I do, I’ll have to work in his café for a whole weekend. Probably wearing a dress or something, knowin’ Brian.”

  Kajsa nodded. “A dress would probably suit you Rob. I’m getting some water, you want some?”

  “Tea would be deadly.”

  “I’m sure it would, but I don’t have any of your strange Irish tea. And you won’t drink the tea that I have.”

  “That stuff’s not tea,” Rob said as Kajsa swung her legs out of the bed and padded to the kitchen. “Tea doesn’t have fruit and flowers and all that mystery crap in it. Tea’s made from black leaves, and only black leaves. Anything else is a crime against nature.”

  “Mmm,” she said as she returned to the bed holding two glasses of water. She put one down and Rob took the other with a nod and sipped at it. He glanced at her as she adjusted the sheets. For a big lady, her breasts were very shapely. And her thighs were firm and gripping. And then there was her...

  Rob swallowed his water with a gulp and tried not to stare, since that could lead to unexpected consequences, and then even more guilt.

  She swung onto the bed again and turned to him. Her brown-eyed gaze was level and there was a coy smile on her lips. “And what kind of sandwich will it be?”

  “Umm,” Rob said, unable to look away from those eyes. “Oh the sandwich, right. I’m thinking tuna, and mayo, and these little green balls. You know the ones.”

  She shifted closer to him. “You mean capers?”

  “Sure, millions of those little bastards. Every café needs a tuna and mayo and caper combo, don’t they?”

  She nodded as she reached for her glass and took a slow sip. She returned it to the bedside table and then, in the same flowing movement, shifted her hand to Rob’s stomach where she began to trace out a lazy circle with the tips of her fingers.

  “So you will need to develop a successful Internet idea in … how long was it again?”

  Rob swallowed. “Before the unemployment insurance runs out. End of the year, pretty much.”

  “Well then you’ll just have to get to work. I’m sure you have lots of ideas.” She leaned closer and bit his ear. “It can’t be that hard, can it?”

  “Hard?” Rob said helplessly. “No, no, it’s not hard at all…”

  Those delicious circles on his belly shifted downwards and began to decrease in diameter. Soon they were barely circles any more and her hand came to a halt. She gave a sound of happy surprise when she found something there and eased her fingers around her discovery. Rob gave a groan and tensed his whole body in helpless anticipation.

  Her voice was a harsh whisper. “Not in a hurry Rob?”

  “Fuck no,” he said as he shifted closer to her, giving her enthusiastic fingers more to play with. “Not goin’ anywhere near that office today. It’ll be a nightmare, with the cryin’ and the worry and then someone will try and hug me, I just fuckin’ know it. Oh crap, yeah, just like that…”

  Kajsa got to her knees, her fingers not loosening their grip. She swung her right leg over Rob and straddled his thighs. Rob wasn’t sure he could have moved even if he'd wanted to. He moved his hands behind her and shifted her hungrily forward. She was more than happy to comply.

  Her hair hung in Rob's face as she moved him about, trying to direct him into just the right position. When she found it she hovered there for a moment, making the tiniest of excruciating movements, before sinking down onto him with a hard grunt of satisfaction. Rob closed his eyes and sucked in a chestful of sour indoor air. He pushed a hand around the back of her head and gripped her hair. She grinned at that and arched her neck back before starting to move with a rhythm that matched his hammering heart.

  Guilt be damned, Rob wasn’t missing this for anything. As his logical mind began to reach for its cigarettes and put its feet up for a while, he realised there really weren’t any problems. All he had to do was look at it the right way.

  This thing with Kajsa was just fucking, pure and simple, and he was probably imagining that she wanted more. And sure, he was unemployed, but he was determined to get this project off the ground—for the sandwich, if nothing else. Yeah, everything would get sorted out, no worries.

  With his free hand he shifted Kajsa slightly and then started to set the pace himself. Her breath came fast, interspersed with small urgent sounds, and he squeezed her hair harder. She pushed a thumb into his mouth and moaned as he bit on it. Rob sighed and closed his eyes.

  Tomorrow he’d start working on his new life. He had, after all, eight months to play with, and eight months of tomorrows should be enough for anybody.

  Right?

  Chapter 3

  “So she's making it difficult for you?”

  Eoin nodded. He had one eye on the kids as they bounced around happily inside a playground jeep that was suspended on springs, and the other on the swarm of thirty-something mothers in their immediate vicinity.

  “She's threatening to take custody. And she's coming up with all sorts of weird things, like she'll report me for child abuse, or drugs.”

  Alice spluttered into her coffee. She placed the plastic mug carefully on the park bench and tried to regain her composure. “Drugs? Eoin, you get a guilt complex about breathing other people's cigarette smoke. Is she really planning to paint you as a junkie?”

  “Yeah. Maybe. Crap, I don’t know.”

  Alice patted him on the arm, shaking her head in amusement. Eoin, despite wallowing in his own misery, could not help being distracted by the fruity scent of her perfume and the way the sun caught her streaky blonde hair.

&nbs
p; No, he had to remind himself sternly, Alice was out of bounds! Female friend good, but shag that moves friendship with female friend to a new and complicated level, most definitely bad. Even if there was a shag possibility there, which he very much doubted.

  Eoin so needed sex. Just a nip, just to perk him up for the summer and make him feel that he still remembered how. Things with Jenny had been bad for quite a while before the end, and the last real sex (not involving a reconciliation of some kind) had probably happened some time before Christmas. It had probably involved alcohol. And had probably been rubbish.

  Just not with Alice. She was tall and dramatic even for Sweden, where a good many of the women were already too tall and dramatic for an average-sized Irishman. She worked with him and had impeccable English thanks to her years at an American university. In fact she always made a point of using it even when Eoin was doing his best to speak Swedish with her. She had also been divorced for a year and her youngest child, Nils, was only a few months older than Damien, which made hanging out during their kid weeks a lot easier.

  Plus—and a rather big plus too—she was the best female friend he had. There were a few other women he'd once been able to count as friends but they'd all been claimed by Jenny after the separation. Along with the furniture, the stereo, the car, the house and the moral bloody high ground.

  He watched as Alice broke open a Tupperware box and handed him a sandwich without asking if he had his own (which he hadn't). He accepted it with a nod, dropped his sunglasses back down over his eyes and munched quietly.

  Nytorget was awash with Stockholmers on this unexpected spring afternoon. Any serious appearance of the sun early in May was cause for celebration and half the city had shed their jackets and piled into the parks and outdoor bars. There was a chilly edge to the air but they were cheerfully defying it by showing off their bare shoulders, and wearing their summer shoes, and eating picnics wherever there was a patch of green big enough to sit on. After being largely indoors since the previous October, the Swedes were again living at full speed, as if they had to pack a whole lifetime into this single delirious afternoon.