Time to Try

Green Park is a vast park, lush with trimmed lawns and healthy trees casting shadows over tended concrete paths. It's immaculate gates border Picadilly, it is a haven within the busy, beating heart of London chaos. It is not unlike New York's central park; only smaller and less renowned. It suited the purpose Lyndon thought as he sat on a bench, seemingly engrossed in the pages of a book, his reading glasses fitted firmly to his face. The book was one of his favourites, a piece of literature which he had read many times, one he had no need to pay any particular attention to. Of the hundreds of books he owned and had read, one stood out the most. 'To Kill a Mocking Bird' by Harper Lee. He loved the way it was written, the style. the way the words flowed, crafted like art. It was sensational, it was perfect. A book which in everyone should provoke thought. Even for him, with each time he read it a question arose: Why do people discriminate.

This brought the conclusion in Lyndon's head; people care, people fear, people are envious and so they discriminate. They have no choice but to discriminate, it is human weakness in open form. He was immune he knew. It was his one advantage, for all his sins, he had never experienced the simple displeasure of a discriminatory thought. And thankful he was. People could not accept one another, it was their fatal flaw. He shook his head at the thought; his eyes occasionally lifting from the pages and scanned the park. So far he had no sign of the young lady he was meant to be meeting, the young lady he had fallen asleep next to last night, the young lady who had successfully changed his world. The young lady whom without knowing it, had changed his very belief system with a single, pleasurable act.

She had stripped him of his emotionless, it was humiliating, it was demeaning. It was, he knew, dangerous. What was he to do? Matters of the heart were beyond man's control, were they not?

Absent mindedly, he had flicked the ink speckled, crumpled worn pages to chapter ten when the finally he heard her, the sounds of her heels upon the ground. Could that woman never be stealth? Secretive? She had sounded pretty damn eager for a secretive meeting on the phone, yet the whole of London could hear her walk. His eyes rolled with a will of their own, internally he was despairing, She sat herself next to him and kissed his cheek before he'd even attempted to look up. "I had a visitor this morning."

There was no need for introductions, no need for the formal hello's. They both knew that.

"You did?" By all appearances he did not care.

"Indeed." She smiled, shifting toward him a touch. He could smell her perfume, it tingled his senses. The woman was being cruel, she knew well the effect she had on him, knew the desire would be growing inside him. The need arising. A new found need he knew nothing of what to do with. It was a curse. Torture.

Still, as she smiled to him, her attempt to look appealing failing her completely. He could not help but think how her speech annoyed him. There was something uncharacteristic, something fake. Something practised and posed. She could have just said yes, would that not have been the easier thing?

"And why would that be of interest to me? Your social life is not my own." He sounded bored, this time he genuinely did not care. The ability to mask emotions and hide thoughts was not necessary. Truly, she was her own person. Sex did not change that, much. He looked to her, why could he not keep his vision away from her?

"It would not concern you at all, had your name not been brought into it." She sounded surprised, looked it as she saw his reaction, the slight tension in his fingers, soon released, giving way to a new calm. A calm that was surprisingly real.

"Who was your visitor?" His question came with a sigh, his tone completely non committal.

"A police man," She did not mention ex-policeman. Did not think she would be able to explain that. Instead she smiled, feigning innocence. Innocence until the mood changed. Suddenly it seemed cold, suddenly he seemed cold again. As though last night, their bonding had not happened. Had it all been for nothing? Had it meant nothing?

Lyndon said nothing, he looked up from the book, closing it and slipping it into his backpack without so much as an audible breath. Release would have to come. He sighed and stood beginning to walk before he looked back, a look which suggested she should join him in his movement. She followed, the tapping following like an obedient dog. "A police man spoke to you about me?"

"No that is silly, they spoke to me about Pete, your name was mentioned on their radios."

"So they want to speak to me?" For a moment he worried that it had not sounded enough like a question to convince her of his innocence, to avoid questions. Of course it had been his expectation that the police would want to talk to him - after Stephanie. It was not an uncommon inconvenience. He had simply been buying time, time which was now fully expended.

"I think they want to arrest you, I wouldn't want to ask what for because I am sure it is nothing more than a clerical error. They make those you know? Whatever, but I thought a warning might be nice."

"Truly useful." He smiled at his mimicking of her clearly pompous use of English.

"What are you going to do?"

He sighed and ignored her question, it was no right of hers to know what his intentions were. He stopped at the large gates he only glanced at days before, looking through the gilted metal bars. The shadow cast by Buckingham Palace was impressive, somehow imposing even for a modern royal residence. He shuddered at the thought of being so close to royalty.That was something he admired about Britain. Despite it all, and he knew the history well, despite all the wars, the arguments and the revolutions; they still had their royal family. Though he had to a admit, the position they held was not close to what it once had been, in the days of the Plantagenets, the Tudors and the first Stuarts. The Windsors held a rather weak position in society, specifically they were an up-market tourist attraction with religious influence and fancy houses. He knew that when it came to it, he had far more power.

Power few knew about, power he loved to flaunt.

He turned and looked back at the beautiful lady next to him, offering her a small hug, a kiss on the cheek, that perfume, it's aroma was contagious, influential. He smiled. "I will have to go shortly."

"Fine but you never answered." She sounded much like a small child, with the assurance of one who when they ask would receive. How much she had to learn.

"Answered my dear?" Ignorance slipped into his voice.

"What you doing about the police?"

That cold smile emerged, locked on his face. "I shall deal with them, that is all you need to know." with a cold tone and no commitment, no hint of an idea which would point toward his intended actions, they would find him. It would not take long. When they did he would be waiting, ready to embrace their always fine hospitality.