She Called Herself Misty - A Very Short Story

I was twenty-one, or twenty-two. I had gone clubbing with friends, and I had met a girl. It did not happen a lot. Girls did not dislike me entirely, but I was what they did when nothing better was on the cards.

So this girl, she called herself Misty, brought me back home with her. She lived in a squat (it was the time of the last squats in Camden) with ten other people and a few cats, or this is what she said. I didn’t see anybody - no people, ho cats - while we got to her room. It was small, with a battered Thai mattress thrown on the floor, and those cheap black magic books which seem impressive to teenagers. She kept it  clean.

I sat down on the Thai mattress, and that was when she grabbed a box of matches and lit the candle. A sudden shift occurred. If we were at sea, I would say the wind had turned, but we were not at sea, we were in a small room in a squat in Camden, and there was no wind, there couldn’t be. I looked at the candle. Did it give off a strange scent? Yes; but I couldn’t quite place it.

Misty had come next to me now. She kissed my neck. Her skin gave off this delightful scent of cinnamon with a trace of sweat, but it did not cover the scent of the candle.

Misty was taking off her top now, and I knew I had to look at her, give her my attention. I did, but the corner of my eye was still on the candle. It was of a dark shade of white. The candle-holder was a a wrought iron spiral going upwards. The scent was getting stronger than Misty’s. I could place it now. It was the scent of fat, sizzling.

I jumped on my feet, I mumbled an apology, and said I had to leave. I think I invented a girlfriend waiting for me at home, but I am not sure (this was more than twenty years ago, and what I remember is mixed with what I made up after). I left in a hurry, and got on the first night bus I found, and only when I was far from Camden I started feeling safe again. I told myself that I’d had no reason to leave, and that I had squandered a night of sex. I kicked myself, but without conviction.

I never saw Misty anymore. I don’t often go back to that part of town.