Monday, January 7, 2013

The Brace


Richard really did fancy himself. He wasn’t a bad-looking bloke, but he
reckoned that women found him irresistible and, on the whole, they did. This
meant he often found himself seeing two women at the same time, with the
current ‘lucky’ ladies being Paula and Beverly.
“It’ll just be for a short while, until I get the courage up to tell Paula it’s over.”
He told himself, confidently. “Then Beverly need never know, and only one of
‘em gets hurt. Simple.”
If only it was that simple. He’d been seeing Paula for about six weeks now but
during the last two had found his mind, amongst other things, wandering
somewhat. He fancied her, alright, but the amount of dental work that she was
having done - including the appearance of an unsightly brace across her front
teeth - was playing havoc with their social life, as she was always crying off at
the last minute. This had allowed Beverly to step in to fill the void just over two
weeks ago and, during that time, he had been seeing them both on alternate
nights. As a result, Richard’s powers of deception were being pushed to the
limit, but with Paula recovering from another trip to the dentist the opportunity
for two evenings in a row with Beverly presented itself. Fortunately, Beverly’s
parents had gone to the pictures this particular evening, enabling Richard and
Beverly to get comfortable on the back-room settee. Richard felt something
was different about Beverly and, just as they were about to kiss again, he
asked.
“What’s happened to your brace?”
 “What brace?” Beverly replied. “I haven’t got a fuckin’ brace!”

H. J. Lawrence

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