SIPS, SLIPS AND SNIPPETS OF LOVE 38

Sunday 11th June

The very next morning Harriet noticed a pinned up flyer in the Students Union, there were a few bands playing but the one that caught her eye was Amen Corner.  They had just had a big hit with “Bend Me, Shape Me” and here they were playing at Leeds University, she couldn’t believe it, no-one ever played at Ipswich, well no-one anyone had ever heard of, so she decided to go, it was next Friday night and she couldn’t wait.   The band was playing in one of the student canteens, hastily converted with a raised stage at one end and a bar which was little more than a table and a few boxes at the other.  The lights were dimmed with a single spotlight on the bleak stage.  Black cloth was hung over the windows, the room was really quite small and was crammed with students all sweating and drinking and smoking.  The familiar smell of dope hung in the air, and Harriet was beginning to crave a drag, the wisps swilling around simply heightening her need.  She used to smoke it quite regular back home; someone always seemed to have some but she had no idea how to get hold of it up here.

The band were actually pretty crap; apart from the single which they played three times they hardly seemed to know how to play, or how to hold our attention and people were beginning to drift out of the back of the hall and onto the stairs and outside.  Harriet wandered out and was sitting on the stairs when this really long-haired guy approached her.

‘Mind if I join you?’ he said, tilting the beer bottle in his hand.

‘Be my guest.’  she said and shifted her bum along the narrow step to give him room to wedge himself in next to her.

‘Shit band’ he said as he handed her the bottle and reached into a cloth bag slung around his chest.

‘Yeah’ Harriet replied, taking a swig of his quite disgusting tasting pale ale. ‘I was expecting something better, what with the single and everything.’

‘But they didn’t really have anything else did they?’ he finished off the sentence for her.  ‘Typical pop band if you ask me.  One-hit wonders, you wait and see.’

He started rolling a joint and leaned back, lit it and took a deep drag, sighed and then handed it to her.  It was great, really strong and with that familiar smack on the roof of her mouth as the drug hit home, she relaxed.  ‘God, I really needed that, thanks.’

She handed him back the joint, and he was smiling at her with laughing eyes.  ‘Where the hell did you get that accent man, that’s the craziest accent I heard in my life.’

‘Suffolk, actually.  Is it that bad?’ Harriet asked, feeling quite embarrassed.  She had always thought she had no accent at all, well not compared to most of the country bumpkins you usually met in Suffolk.

‘It’s not bad, it’s just different.  You don’t get many people from Suffolk up here in Leeds. This must be your first year, what are you studying?’

And that was it, the ice broken for her and with the gentlest of sledgehammers.  Jim was from Liverpool and a couple of years older than her.  He invited Harriet back to his flat but half stoned as she was, she just smiled and said, ‘Maybe another time, Jim.  I only got here last week; I don’t really know anyone up here yet.  Still finding my feet.’

‘No big deal babe, but let’s have another drink and maybe I can see you tomorrow.’

So, only here a week and already being picked up, not that had ever been a problem for her.

‘Yeah, that’d be cool, let’s meet tomorrow.’  And they sealed their deal with a long and lingering blissed-out kiss, Harriet let their mouths stay together for a few minutes, gently sliding over each other, just enough to keep him interested, a promise of pleasures to come without losing her own self-control.