There was supposed to be a sense of beauty or at least preciousness in the perfumery, but something kept intruding, like a fart at a wedding.

All I wanted to do was eat a borrowed sandwich in a well-chosen cacophany of tintanibululations and incancantation, filled with the expectation of a few stolen hours of unneeded sleep with a woman that I didn't even like.

Rosy Flush pulled her touseled head from under the engine hatch lid of an ancient VW Kombi and wiped her hands on her almost naked thighs. She considered sex to be as necessary as the washing up, which was why she did both about twice a year. Her first coition of the year was coming up and it looked like it was going to coincide with my presence. I didn't relish that much, but I would try to mustard my way through as best as I could.