Susie looked at herself in the bathroom mirror.

Looks like someone had a good night last night, she thought to herself.

She quite liked thinking to herself, much easier than thinking to other people, who often wouldn’t receive her thoughts at all. She was trying to work out just what had happened last night, Iain obviously had some sort of near-traumatic experience, but he just wasn’t talking about it. What could have happened in there to make him so scared of children? Although Iain kept saying that it wasn’t children, she could tell that they were making him jumpy, and he was refusing, at least for now, to say what it was all about. Physically Iain seemed fine, however, and this morning seemed to be carrying on as though nothing happened. But last night, Iain suddenly had a very urgent need to get very drunk, and naturally Susie felt obliged to join him. As she forgot to take off he makeup, it now looked very smudged. She resembled some sort of abstract art.

Looking closely at her facial features, she started playing with her ears. She always swore that her ears were too pointy, joking that she was half Vulcan. But in truth, she was actually quite an attractive woman, and she had an almost cat like appearance to face, with large emerald green eyes and a mischievous smile. But she couldn’t see that, all she saw were pointy ears and wrinkles setting in too soon. Iain would always say that she had spent far too many years staring at them, and that in fact they were just right. Susie knew that she could be highly self critical of herself when she wanted to be.

The bathroom door started banging. This startled Susie, as normally bathroom doors don’t do that sort of thing. Then the door did something entirely unexpected. It began talking to her.

"C’mon Suze, hurry up. I’ve got to get to the office soon" came the voice.

"All right babe, hold on"

The voice belonged to Iain. His morning routine was getting disrupted by Susie’s gazing. She couldn’t even tell how long she had been inspecting her face. She always found it quite cute that Iain could get so upset if his system got hindered. Get up, drink coffee, use toilet, eat breakfast, have shower, brush teeth, don clothing, check bag read paper then leave. In that order. Or did he eat breakfast after his shower? Whatever it was, he probably had a timetable written somewhere, so he could keep himself to schedule. She opened the door. Iain rushed in and started brushing his teeth.

"Why do you lock the door anyway, it’s not like anyone else lives here, and it’s not like there’s a part of you that I’ve not seen before."

"Force of habit," replied Susie "I used to live with four guys remember? You’ve just dribbled toothpaste down your tie by the way"

"Shit!" exclaimed Iain, "that was my last one. Fuck, I’m going to be late now"

"Calm down Iain. Here."

Susie rinsed it under a tap, and wiped it with her top.

"Look, all better." She said patronisingly

"Thanks"

Iain wandered off to carry on with his morning routine. He was a very different thinker to Susie, always a planner, systematic, the organiser in everything they did. Even sex with him seemed to have a set order. But in some ways this was what she found attractive in him. like a yin to her yang. Or should that be the other way around? She quickly finished sort out her makeup and hair, then went downstairs to grab a coffee

In the kitchen, Iain was sat at the table checking his briefcase. Susie walked in, gave him a kiss on the cheek and put the kettle on

"What’s your plan for your days off then?" asked Iain

"Don’t know really." I need to do a few boring jobs in town, and give my old boss a call to see if I can start work again. He said I could have it back whenever, so it should be fine. But to be honest I’m quite enjoying being back at the moment, so I might just have a walk, and give some friends a call, you know?"

Mike looked up at the clock.

"Shit, I’m two minutes behind schedule! I have to go!"

He jumped up, closed his briefcase, kissed Susie and ran off.

"two minutes behind schedule?" pondered Susie after he had left, "Now there’s a sentence I’ve never used before, or will use in the future I suppose."

She put on some toast and looked about her kitchen. She never did like the kitchen in this house, but because it was only a rental there was nothing the two of them could do about it. It was a good size, but the nicotine yellow walls just didn’t seem to match the bright green floral curtains. It had to be said, however, that her favourite bit of furniture in the entire house was the huge oak kitchen table.

There was a knock at the door.

"Hang on" shouted Susie,

She figured that it was probably Iain, having forgotten something in his rush to catch up his schedule. As she walked towards the door, however, she realised that that can’t be right, Iain had his own keys. When Susie opened the door, she knew something was wrong instantly. A hairy, dirty wild eyed creature of a man was staring at her. He wore a thick Parker Jacket that was covered in a variety of dried in stains, crusty goo and chunks of food. The man made a move towards her, she gasped and shut the door. He slammed his hand against the closing door to hold it open with, what looked like at least, all his strength, and managed to stop the door before it closed. He gazed deeply into her eyes with a look of desperation.

"Susie …" he croaked before falling over through the doorway.

Susie froze for a second before looking at the unconscious man on her floor. She moved closer to his face, and tried to look beyond his hair, the bruising and the blood, not to mention the odour of rotting fish. She looked carefully.

"Danny!?" she asked.