A Traitor to Memory

She'd been ready.

He made the suggestion that he always made when his cyberlovers requested a meeting: drinks at the Valley of Kings, easy enough to find, just a few steps away from Sainsbury's on Cromwell Road. She could come by car, by taxi, by bus, or by tube. And if upon first sight they found they didn't actually appeal to each other … just a quick martini in the bar and no regrets, okay?

The Valley of Kings possessed the same priceless quality as the Comfort Inn. Like the vast majority of service-oriented businesses in London, its waiters spoke virtually no English and to them every English person looked alike. He'd taken all twenty-seven of his cy-berencounters to the Valley of Kings without the ma?tre d', the waiters, or the bartender so much as blinking an eyelash in recognition of him, so he was confident that he could take CreamPants there as well without any of its employees betraying him.

He'd known who she was the moment she walked into the restaurant's saffron-scented bar. And he was gratified to see that yet again he'd somehow instinctively known who and what she would be. Fifty-five years old if she was a day, well-scrubbed, and wearing just the right amount of scent, she wasn't some slag out on the pull. She wasn't a Mile End shag bag trying to better herself or a Scouse-come-south in the hope of finding a bloke who'd raise her standard of living. She was instead exactly what he'd assumed that she'd be: a lonely divorcée whose kids were grown up and who was facing the prospect of being called Gran about ten years sooner than she wanted. She was eager to prove to herself that she still had a modicum of sex appeal despite the lines on her face and her incipient jowls. And never mind that he had his own reasons for choosing her despite the dozen years of difference between their ages. He was happy enough to supply her with the validation that she required.

Such validation took place in Room 109, first floor, perhaps ten yards away from the roar of traffic. Being on the street—a request he always made sotto voce prior to securing the room key—obviated the necessity of staying the night. It would be impossible for anyone in possession of normal hearing actually to sleep in any of the rooms that faced Cromwell Road. And since spending the night with a cyberlover was the last activity on his mind, being able to say “God, what a din” at one point or another usually sufficed as prelude to a gentlemanly exit.

So everything had gone according to plan: drinks had segued into a confession of physical attraction which had led to a stroll to the Comfort Inn, where vigorous coupling had resulted in mutual satisfaction. In person CreamPants—whose real name she coyly refused to reveal—was only slightly less imaginative than she was on the keyboard. Once all the sexual permutations, positions, and possibilities had been thoroughly explored between them, they fell away from each other, slick with sweat and other bodily fluids, and listened to the roar of lorries grinding up and down the A4.

“God, what a din,” he groaned. “I should have thought of a better spot than this. We'll never sleep.”

“Oh.” She took her cue. “Not to worry. I can't stay anyway.”

“You can't?” Pained.

A smile. “I hadn't actually planned on it. After all, there was always the chance that you and I wouldn't have made the same sort of connection in person as we did on the net. You know.”

How he did. The only question now as he drove home was, What next? They'd gone at it like beavers for two solid hours, and they'd both enjoyed themselves immensely. They'd parted with promises made on both sides of “staying in touch” but there had been ever so slight an undercurrent in CreamPants' farewell embrace that belied her casual words and suggested to him that the course of wisdom called for steering clear of her for a time.

Which was ultimately, after a long, aimless drive in the rain for sexual decompression, what he decided to do.

He yawned as he turned into his street. He'd have an excellent night's doss after his exertions of the evening. There was nothing like spirited sex with a relative stranger of advancing years to set one up for slumber.

He squinted through the windscreen as the wipers lulled him with their steady rhythm. He cruised up the incline and flicked on the indicator for his driveway—more out of habit than necessity—and was thinking about how much longer it would be before LadyFire and EatMe each suggested a meeting, when he saw the heap of sodden garments lying next to a late-model Calibra.

He sighed. Wasn't society crumbling round his ears? Beneath a thin protection of their epidermis, people were becoming little more than pigs. After all, why on earth should anyone drop his jumble at Oxfam when he could just as easily toss it into the street? It was pathetic.