LOVE AND DEATH COMBINED

Let me tell you about a turning point in my life. I was six years old and spent five hours on a roundabout before collapsing in a state of nervous exhaustion. Let me tell you about another turning point in my life. It was an unspecified time ago, and as the situation called for, I entered the bedroom. There on the bed was one of the many (two, give or take one) women that I ever loved. She was enveloped in pure clean white sheets. I think. It wouldn't be sufficiently romantic for me to remember her in grubby stained sheets. I think my subconscious may have warped the facts.

She was lying like an archer's bow, as opposed to an actor's bow. I suppose if this was being spoken I would change it to Donatello the Ninja Turtle's bo, but so few people know that a ninja's stick is called a bo, so I may not be able to impart the kind of knowledge that I intend to. I got into bed opposite her and mirrored her position, gazing into her eyes all the time, as I believe you are supposed to. I reached over to stroke her cheek and it was cold.

I moved her into the position of an actor's bow before having a turn of conscience: if I took too long (hey, it might happen) then rigor mortis would set in. How could I explain that to her 104 year old dead grandmother? Where would they find a suitably shaped coffin? Did I really want to have sex with a dead body? In such an impersonal position? I placed her in the position of Donatello's bo, considered briefly having her blow me, but she didn't look as if she'd really get into it. The time had come to play detective. Someone (possibly her, definitely not me) had spiked her gin and tonic with a substance we now know to be lemon. The cruel, cruel bastards. Tears stream down my cheeks every time I think of the pain she must have been in. Sparks are shooting out of my keyboard now, even though I am writing this first draft by hand on the train to London with two Daily Mail-reading retards opposite me and a semi-ugly woman in a leather jacket beside me. She's probably got low self-esteem. Perhaps I should pretend to fall in love with her.

Later.

The police said her death (not the woman in the leather jacket; they haven't found her yet) was down to so called 'natural causes' and that she died in her sleep. I knew otherwise: my deceased love was an insomniac. Dun dun derrrr. Foul play had to be the answer. Dun dun derrrr. The goddamn feds didn't listen to a word I had to say. Dun dun derrrr. I rang them and rang them complaining that they were doing nothing, before the costs of the international phone calls to the Good Ol' USA of America mounted up and penetrated me painfully. I would have to go it alone. Even my trusty sidekick Tampon Girl (don't even ask what her special powers were) would be unable to help me. I don't want to give away her secret identity, but she 'too' was dead.

I put on my crime-fighting costume, took off my glasses, let my hair out of its pigtails and put on lipstick. It was just like that episode of Saved By The Bell where Screech falls in love with a geek who turns out to be gorgeous. Except I was no longer in love, and in Saved By The Bell no-one wore crime-fighting costumes. I did touch Kelly's boob once though (fake - well, it is Cali after all). Misguided Arrogance Man was ready to spring into action.

Sweeping the area for clues, I found only dust, hair and (arf arf) a bloodstained knife. Nothing. Curses. It seems that baddies are much more fiendishly clever that usual. I bet it's one of my arch-rivals and immortal enemies, The Scrotum Piercing Kid, or Llandudno Joe. ...Or both of them in cahoots. Fiendish. You've gotta respect that kinda moxie; evil moxie, but moxie nonetheless.

I suppose I could have captured them, killing all their henchmen in the process, but I wasn't really getting the kind of job satisfaction that I used to in the good ol' days. All the wet behind the ears whippersnappers had drained the job of its erotic danger. Everywhere you turned there was another fat man in tights. If I didn't save the world, I knew someone else would. I needed a holiday.