OLD FLAME (PART TWO)

The train slows to a halt and she's out and walking along the platform. I launch myself forward and stagger through the doors just before they snap their jaws shut. She's already about to disappear round the corner and up the stairs when I call after her. My voice sounds strange, not like me.
'Hey, Star, aren't you even going to say hello?'
'Don't call me that.'
I've caught up with her now and we're both a bit breathless and disorientated. It's draughty down here on the platform and our breath pours out in clouds.
'Where are you going, Star?'
She doesn't reply and heads up the steps. Her legs are wrapped up tightly in dark leggings, revealing the sexy shape I suddenly remember. Then she relents. 'I'm meeting someone.'
'Who?'
'None of your business!'
'Sorry. I mean, can't you...er...un-meet them? Tell 'em your busy.'
'God, you've got a cheek!' She stops on the landing now, turning around so that I can see her burning cheeks.
'OK.' She lowers her guard a little. 'I lied. I'm not really meeting anybody... I just didn't want you to get off first. From that look on your face, I thought that's what you were gonna do...just leave me sitting there feeling foolish.'
'Oh Star, let's go for a drink, for God's sake.'

We nestle over a couple of pints at a table in the corner of the pub and slowly catch up on the events of the last decade. I can't get it out of my head that the whole thing is like some kind of silly BBC drama unfolding on the box except for the fact that I'm in the middle of it like some fucking witless leading man!
'Married?'
'Was. Divorced.'
'I'm sorry.' I genuinely am. 'Any kids?'
She looks away and shakes her head.
'What about you?' I laugh, but it sounds awfully hollow.
'Where did it all go wrong for us, Star?' I'm surprised at the emotion in my voice, and I'm expecting some kind of 90's record to start playing on the jukebox - Don't Look Back In Anger or Girls & Boys or something, but it doesn't. In fact, I don't think they even have a jukebox.
'So what are you up to these days - the great animal rights campaigner?' she asks skittishly. 'Director of some NGO, I'll bet. 'Save the Piglets'?'
I chuckle, but something resembling a pang of regret cuts through me and the chuckle quickly dries up.
'Flattered by your high expectations of me, Star, I really am,' I manage. 'Sorry to disappoint you, but I'm still teaching people who don't really want to be taught.'
'Oh, right...' I'm quite taken aback both by her tone and the genuine look of disappointment on her face.
'What about you, Star?' I ask quickly, not wanting to dwell. 'Let me see. Manager for Tescos?'
She smiles, looking suspiciously pleased with herself and silently pulls out a name card. My heart misses a beat, much as it did half an hour before when I sat down opposite her on the train. Then it plunges into my stomach.
'You? Greenpeace? Fuck!'
'It's a bit ironic, isn't it?'
'Shit!'
'Fancy another one?'

I really need to get my head round this. I mean, talk about role reversal. This is a lot more than I'd bargained for. But too quickly she's heading back from the bar with some more drinks.
'I mean, it's not like I agree with everything they do, but it's a kind of activists' pinnacle, isn't it?' I mumble. Star doesn't reply.

We knock back a couple more drinks rather too quickly and the alcohol starts to do its work. Suddenly, we find ourselves both laughing hysterically, an infectious kind of laugh that's impossible to supress. Both of us have tears running down our faces.
'Star, it's getting late. Can we go back to your place?'

No sooner are we through the door than we fuck greedily, crudely, impatiently, with the exhilaration of new lovers on the edge of a precipice. Afterwards, we collapse on the bed, drunk twice over.
'Star, let's go and do something crazy?' I hear myself murmur. 'Something we'd never have dared to do when we were younger.'
She sweeps a swathe of chestnut hair out of her eyes. As she lies there in a daze, half-dressed in the half-light, she looks dreamily gorgeous. 'We've already done something crazy, that we'll probably regret in the morning.'
'No, Star,' I say, pulling her face around to look her in the eyes. 'How often do you get to relight an old flame? Let's do something really mad and crazy, something neither of us will ever forget!'
And now she's looking at me more seriously and more intently with those big brown eyes.
'Go on then. Try me.'