Myfanwy Price plopped in the armchair, sipped at her drink, gazed at the ceiling with a slight squint; spotted a drawing pin that broke up the off-white space like a boil on the buttocks. If Joshua Jones thinks he can drop me like a hot coal he can think again, she moaned to the room in her alto voice that clung to the air around her dark-haired head like a bad smell. Thinks he can do that to me, does he? I’ll show him, she mused darkly, holding the glass above her head, peering down at her slippered feet that lay there like sleeping puppies. After all I’ve done for him, the po-faced prat, she muttered, bringing the glass down to her lips, taking a sip as though it were poison. Just like her dad, dreary as dripping, chapel bred born and dead, at least in the head, she mused, crossing her legs disturbing the puppies, peering through the glass, imagining Dai Davies coming through the door of her bed-sit with an armful of flowers and chocolates, a cuddly kiss with a promise of more, as the evening sky grew dim as her brother Bryan, the kiss lingered in her mind and over her fantasy lips. Mum was right about men, she groaned, wondering if poison was too quick for Jones the Bones or whether she could smother him with a pillow as he laid sleeping in that squat flat of his, where she’d slept once in the single bed that smelt of onions and rotting flesh. She scratched her fleshy thigh, gave a sigh, pulled a face at her reflection in the darkening window, wanted more than wanton ***, the sight of Jones the Bones hanging from the window with his trousers round his skinny ankles, his buttocks bare for all of Cardiff to see and stare. She stood, poured herself another drink, placed a record on her gramophone. Buddy Holly’s Peggy Sue, a daydream of being in his manly arms, and being squeezed, and adding her alto groan to that of young Buddy’s baritone or tenor or whatever. She waltzed the room with her partnered glass gave it kiss and squeeze. Remembering her dad’s stern face; his sermon voice that rattled timbers, she kicked her leg like a dancer, spun it round and round until it got dizzy; plopped in the armchair with a fit of giggles; spilt drink on her dress that seeped to her drawers; sniffing and sighing she poured it all down in a drunken swallow; watched the evening sky darken like her mood and tangled hair. Jones the Bones would pay, she sighed. He’d not lay her aside like an empty glass; go off for another to kiss and cuddle in his dingy flat with its onions and flesh, rotting and foul, she mused sadly, rubbing her breast, pulling her bra that had slipped in her dancing. Mum was right about men, with their ***** thoughts, their wanton ways, wandering hands over hills and stays. She stared at the glass; with a deep dark sigh, she crossed her legs; let the sleeping slippered puppies lie.