It’s probably fair to say that most people’s love life takes a bit of a dip now and then, it’s also fair to say that mine has taken a bit of a nose dive just lately. That is why, when the opportunity came, that weekend, I took it. Normally I would of thought twice about taking Beatrice away for the weekend, she’s a nice enough woman and keen as mustard but sadly she does nothing for me. You could say it was unfair of me to take her but she insisted and my resistance was at a low ebb so Friday evening she settled her ample rump on the seat of my little car and away we went.

Our destination was Nottingham where a friend of mine resides, I had telephoned him before hand and asked if I could bring a friend and whether the sleeping arrangements would be adequate. He assured me there was no problem on both points.

The journey proved fairly eventless and we arrived around about 10.30 in the evening, tired and hungry. Stella our hostess made us some supper while Big Joe our host led us upstairs to our rooms, well our rooms proved to be a room in the singular. Big Joe’s adequate sleeping arrangements being two single beds separated by a small table sporting a fancy looking table lamp. Beatrice was completely undaunted and settled herself upon one of the beds. I however was not so impressed, after all I hardly knew this woman and further more I knew our hosts little better, I was overcome by a feeling of dread.

I find feelings of dread have but one cure, whiskey and lots of it, so after supper I persuaded Big Joe to break out the old ‘dread feeling’ numbaliser.

By the time I sneaked into our room I was well tanked up and past caring too much what Beatrice was doing. Perhaps I should have taken more notice since I had hardly negotiated half the distance to my tiny looking bed when she jumped me. The next half hour is just a blur and frankly it really should remain so.. This rather meek, round dumpling of a woman had turned into a wild animal unfortunately my intake of whiskey rather put a dampener on any input to the liaison I may have been attempting.

Eventually night manoeuvres were over and I manoeuvred myself into my own bed, it soon became evident which type of wild animal Beatrice had mutated into, a warthog judging from the noises emanating from her side of the room. Consequently sleep never came quickly indeed it never came at all. After a period that seemed like 10 hours but was probably about 2 a serious problem struck, I needed to have a pee. Okay I thought I’ll just put the light on and go to the toilet, well the first problem soon presented itself, turning on the light, the little table lamp refused to give up the secret of turning it on. I fiddled with the obstinate so and so for ten minutes then gave up. I thought about turning the main light on but after my experience earlier, the one thing I did not want to do was wake the warthog. Anyway I had no idea where the switch was. It was now that the second problem occurred to me, clothes, or the lack of them, as far as I could remember they must have been lying under the warthog. This minor problem was rapidly growing in status. It then occurred to me that I had no idea where the loo was anyway. Now the idea of stumbling around a strange house full of people I hardly knew with the risk of bursting in on them stark naked was not one I wanted to contemplate.

For a while I lay pondering, the thing with needing the loo is that it only gets more urgent with time. I was now bursting with no solution coming to me.

I decided to have another go at the table lamp, at least I might be able to find some of my clothes. Again I found myself fiddling with that dam light without success. I was just about giving up and decided to wake the warthog so I could recover my clothes when my hand alighted upon something else on the table. It was a large jar, in these particular circumstances helped by the mind numbing effect of the whiskey it never occurred to me to wonder what a jar was doing on the table I was just grateful for the potential solution to my problem.

Five minutes later I was asleep despite the bestial booming rocking the room. As far as I was concerned the booming was immediately replaced by a kind of half shriek half whimpering sort of noise followed by a series of flapping gummy noises. In fact the two must have been several hours apart as I woke to find it was full daylight. My companion was sitting up in bed with a look of absolute horror upon her face her mouth opening and closing slowly. The whimpering noise had turned into a kind of gurgling hiss and was streaming from her mouth. My gaze wandered up her raised arm to her right hand grasping the glass jar that had been my saviour in the night. My eyes fell upon her face and I noticed that her eyes were fixed upon the contents of the jar. I looked again at the jar and there they were resting on the bottom surrounded by yellow liquid, a set of gleaming false teeth. If Beatrice has any sort of temper or is capable of outbursts of foul language she was unable to demonstrate them at this time, all she could do was make a kind of whistling hiss punctuated by flapping lip noises.