Ray turned round at the sound of her voice and realised he had continued walking not noticing that she had stopped outside the gate to his house.  Feeling ridiculous again, he tried to palm it off with a lame, but well used, “Sorry, miles away.”

      He could still hear the ringing, stronger now, and thought that it signified the end of the round, only it didn’t stop, it just kept on ringing and ringing, loud enough now to be annoying; like shop alarms that ring continuously all night.

      Alison opened the gate.  As the spring stretched it emitted a whining squeal which was immediately followed by Jenny trying her damnedest to sound like the Hounds of Hell being unleashed upon the uninvited trespassers.

      “I told you she was on form didn’t I ?”  Alison said as they walked up the short path to the front door.

      The tone of Jenny’s bark changed dramatically when she heard familiar voices approaching.  In an instant, she had gone from savage beast to whimpering pup; Despite her advanced years she still acted like an excited puppy whenever Ray returned home, even when he was gone for just a couple of minutes.  The routine was always the same, running around tail wagging, rolling over onto her back for a belly tickle, giving him a kiss, shaking paws and bringing him her favourite toy before running to the back door to be let out.  A definite creature of habit was Jenny.  Fortunately she had grown out of wetting herself with excitement.

      Ray thought of this as he turned the key in the lock and, rather morbidly, hoped that she wouldn’t over excite herself seeing Alison there with him.

      Jenny went berserk.  Running up and down the stairs barking and whining hysterically, charging from room to room, rolling over, getting up and running around again not allowing them the chance to say hello or stroke and make a fuss of her.

      Eventually, after a couple of minutes amusement at Jenny’s antics, Ray decided for her safety, as well as that of the few ornaments and plants, especially those at wagging tail height, scattered randomly about the house, it was time she calmed down and said hello in a more dignified manner.

      “Have you missed me?”  Alison said to Jenny as she knelt and cuddled the dog now calm and sitting happily in front of her.

      “Not as much as she’d miss her dinner.”  Ray thought to himself as he made his way through the lounge to the kitchen where he retrieved the key from it’s secret hiding place and unlocked the back door.  A few moments later Jenny appeared with what looked like a big smile on her face and her tail still wagging; although, instead of the usual side to side motion her tail had seemed to have become separated  somewhere inside her body and was flapping around with total disregard for direction.

      As she disappeared out through the door and into the garden, Ray heard the ringing once more.  Not that it had actually gone away, he knew that of course, but the distraction caused by Jenny’s over enthusiastic welcome had temporarily muted the monotonous drone; moving it to another part of his brain until things calmed down enough to return it, louder and more urgent, to it’s quietly disturbing, gently distressing former position somewhere just behind his left eye.

      He thought that odd, how he could pin-point that accurately the source of the ringing. He had also established that there were consistently periodic pauses intermingled with the sound and not a constant ringing as he had at first thought.  Using that assumption, he was just about to rule out the possibility of Tinnitus setting in when he felt something sliding around his waist and sensed a presence very close behind him.

      “Close the door, leave her out there for while she’ll be all right,”  Alison whispered into his ear, her lips gently brushing against his skin and her breath sending shivers throughout his body.

      “You were going to tell me what your decision was,”  He said, trying to fight the familiar feelings and desires that Alison had reawakened with the briefest touch.

      “It can wait.”

      The hand that had crept around his waist a moment ago was now frantically tugging at his belt and  fumbling with the buttons on his jeans.  She spun him around with considerable ease, and he found himself powerless to prevent any of this happening;  he was a spectator in his own body, aware of what was going on but unable to control the game.  He wondered, could she be playing some sick game, would she take him to the edge of fulfilment and walk away leaving him teetering precariously on the fine line between satisfaction and frustration?

      “No she wouldn’t do that, it’s not her, anyway she’s got no reason to, has she?”  he thought to himself as he looked straight into Alison’s eyes and saw the passion, the longing, the need.

      She kissed him fully on the mouth, letting her lips sink softly into his before parting them with her tongue which danced delicately into his welcoming mouth.  She encountered very little resistance as her passion enveloped him, just the opposite, he responded to her kiss with as much fervour and enthusiasm as she showed him.

      ‘Excuse me, what are you doing?’

      “Don’t bother me now, it’s been a long time,” Ray pleaded, “I might not get another offer like this for ages!”

      ‘So, for all your self-righteous bull-shit accusing me of being one of those that would treat a woman like dog turd, you turn out to be no better.  You’d rather listen to your bollocks then your head when it suited you just like anyone else!’

      The ringing was even louder now, pulsating, and had taken on a demanding tone, Ray thought he could hear Jenny barking.

      The thought that he could be using Alison as an outlet for his own sexual gratification unsettled Ray causing him to push her away and reluctantly relinquish the sweet warmth of her hungry mouth.

      “Can’t you do something about this ringing?”  Ray asked, almost begged, anyone who might be listening inside his head, “it’s driving me mad!”

      ‘Having trouble concentrating?’ the voice enquired sardonically.

      “No, I’m managing quite well thank you very much, just turn it off, please!”

      The ringing was definitely much louder and a lot clearer now, as if someone had removed a wad of cotton wool from his ears.  He could hear a dog barking, an urgent, something’s happening sort of bark and instantly recognised it as being Jenny.

      ‘Can’t, it’s beyond my capabilities’

      Alison was feverishly kissing him again, seemingly unaware that he had pushed her away.  He couldn’t help but respond unable to move very far as he was pinned up against the wall by Alison’s advances.

      “This isn’t right, I’ve known her to be passionate before but this is…oh Jesus!” he moaned with unrestrained pleasure as Alison, who had finally managed to tackle the problem of undoing the buttons on his jeans, slid her hand under the waist band of his boxer shorts and firmly gripped him moving her hand up and down,very slowly at first, but gaining speed with every stroke.

      Ring, Ring, Ring, Ring.

      It was becoming annoyingly unbearable, the ringing and the barking merging to become one cacophonous noise in stark contrast to the waves of sensual ecstasy that flooded through his body with every movement of Alison’s hand.

      Ring, Ring, Ring, Ring.

      Strangely, instead of the warm, comforting feeling he normally experienced during sex, he felt a shiver run through him leaving behind it a coldness he could only associate with that of a frosty winters day.

      Jenny was still barking as Alison pulled her mouth away from his and knelt down in front of him, pulling his jeans and boxer shorts down as she went.  A moment later an explosion of intense pleasure the like of which he had never felt before shot through him causing a near premature lose of all control and his legs to give way.

      Ring, Ring, Ring, Ring.

      Stopping himself from crumpling in a heap on the floor by grabbing hold of the shelf on the end of the cupboard next to the back door, through which he could here Jenny barking, demanding to be answered, he fought desperately to focus on anything that wasn’t in the slightest bit related to what Alison was doing.  Trying to halt the rising feeling in his groin, prolonging the pleasure for as long as possible, he concentrated on the ringing in his head and the coldness that surrounded him; a cold that moved with him as his body began to writhe and shake as Alison’s efforts grew more intense.

      Ring, Ring, Ring, Ring.

      Louder and louder, calling him, taunting him, wanting him.

      Everything around him, the kitchen with everything in it’s place, the lounge through the door to his right, Alison, everything he looked at became a blurred haze, out of focus, as the first surging rush of his climax began to rise.  Closing his eyes only made the incessant ringing and barking get louder and louder. He was cold, very cold now and he felt his head hitting something even though he knew there was nothing in the immediate vicinity that he could have made contact with.

      The second rush was on it’s way being closely followed by the third and he knew there was no way he could stop the impending explosion no matter what he tried to think of.

      Ring, Ring.

      Ring, Ring.

      It was no good fighting, Alison was performing too well for any resistance to be effective, so he decided to just let it happen and enjoy the moment.

      Ring, Ring.

      How could he enjoy it with all this ringing, the barking, the cold.  And the wet.

      “Wet!”

      Ray opened his eyes.           

      “How can I be wet, nothings happened yet!”  he thought, confused at how he could have missed the magic moment, and at the same time alarmed at the extent of the water surrounding him.

      “Water?”  he said aloud, still unable to focus properly on the things around him, “what the hells going on?”

      Ring, Ring.

      “Where’s Alison gone?”

      The water swirling around him ran into his eyes as his head sagged, helping to clear some of the fog that intruded on his vision.  Blinking furiously, he opened his eyes fully and came face to face with an excited Jenny who was still barking, striving to gain his attention.

      Ring, Ring, Ring, Ring.

      The phone continued it’s strident ring competing with Jenny’s persistent bark to see who would get the first response from Ray; who himself was preoccupied with the task of deciding which emotion to feel first.  Should he choose terror at having suddenly found himself transported to a different place?  How about unparalleled frustration and anger at having been taken so near to fulfilment only to be plucked away at the vital moment?  He felt annoyed at Alison as his earlier thought that she was playing a sick game with him resurfaced.  Logical thinking would have made him realise that that wasn’t possible, but logic and rationalisation were still a long way down the road trying to catch up with the rest of him.

      Ring, Ring, Ri……….

      The phone stopped mid-ring, silenced by an unseen assassin.  Jenny’s last bark a second or two later, had that ‘I tried to tell you, honest I did’ tone.  She stared down at her master from her elevated position at the side of the bath, her front paws in constant motion as she sought a firm grip on the slippery surface.  There was a bemused expression on her face as she surveyed him lying there, his skin distorted by a myriad of wrinkles and tinged a delicate shade of blue.

      “I wonder who that was.” He said to her, his senses and perception of his whereabouts finally working as one, “what am I asking you for, if you had any brains you would have answered it wouldn’t you scraggy?”

      He joked with the dog as the blocks of realization were being slid into place;  wracking his shriveling body as each one hit home.

    “What the hell….?”

     His sense of touch began to kick in and reminded him how cold the water was, which was further confirmed to him when he saw the colour and condition of his skin.

      Ray sat up in the bath, ignoring the icy chill of the water and the art-deco designs it had etched on his body, and stared around at the familiar, simple but homely, contents of his bathroom.  He looked at the tiles covering two of the four walls, fuchsia pink interspersed with lightly patterned, pale pink and white.  ‘I must get around to doing the other walls before the summer’ he thought absently to himself.  He saw the sink with it’s Hippo shaped soap dish, the empty towel rail above the radiator, Jenny sitting patiently by the door like a soldier awaiting orders.  Last of all he looked at the phone lying on top of the towels he had placed within easy reach and again wondered who it was that could have been phoning, thinking it might of been Alison, but hoping at the same time that it wasn’t; Sub-consciously he was still angry with her for disappearing at the height of his passion.

      With the dream quickly receding from his mind leaving behind only snippets and vague images, Ray at last began to fully comprehend and accept what had happened.  But now the questions started to creep into the slots vacated by the dream; ‘When did I fall asleep?’  ‘Why dream of Alison?’  ‘What did the old woman mean ‘Let it go’?’  ‘Let what go?’  ‘How could it have felt so real, as if it were really happening?’  ‘What is the time?’

      The answers started to form, some quickly, some not at all.  Alison had been on his mind all evening so, if the philosophers and psychologists are to be believed when they say that the majority of dreams consist of or involve events, thoughts and people who have figured prominently in the dreamers mind prior to the dream itself, it would be quite logical for him to dream of her, but what puzzled him was the way in which the dream carried on from ‘real life’ without pause or interruption.  He couldn’t recall there being the usual blank spot between the transition into sleep and the commencement of the nights ‘mind movies’, as he preferred to call his ordinary everyday dreams; he’d failed as yet to find a suitable title for the nightmares.  If the likes of Stephen King and James Herbert, whose books filled his shelves, couldn’t come up with an apt description, then what chance had he?

      As he reached for his watch, which was also on top of the towels but obscured by the phone, he received a harsh reminder through the whole of his lower body that he was sitting in water the temperature of which was more suited to Penguins and Polar Bears than warm-blooded humans.  Sitting still had caused a wafer thin, probably only a millimetre thick, protective coating which insulated his body from what was now bitterly cold bath water.  Any movement, however slight, shattered this fragile barrier letting reality flood in.  Deciding that a few more seconds wouldn’t hurt him, he remained in the bath and picked up the watch.

      “4.28!” he shrieked in utter disbelief at the digits staring up at him from the LCD set in the middle of the watch face.  “That’s…,” picturing a clock in his mind he counted the hours and minutes from the last time he remembered looking at his watch, which was probably when he took it off and placed it next to the phone, to the time it showed now, “…over three and a half hours!”

      ‘No wonder the bloody waters cold, are you thinking of sitting here all night or what?’

      Not for the first time tonight the voice startled Ray with it’s unannounced arrival causing him to drop his watch into the bath.  Remembering that the watch wasn’t waterproof, Ray plunged his hand into the water catching it before it hit the bottom, “Great!” he spat as the display faded and died before his eyes, “that’s that buggered, thanks!”

      ‘Don’t mention it’ replied the voice, insensitive as ever, ‘it was only a cheapo one anyway.’

      “That’s besides the point,” Ray argued, “Alison brought it.”

      ‘That should give you a good reason to be thanking me properly instead of having a go, don’t you think?’

      Ray sat and pondered this for a few moments.  Maybe it was time once and for all to sever the cord that bound him to Alison and the past.  New year, New life, New beginning, he thought.  No, he wouldn’t make it his number one New Years resolution.  Not number 2, 3, 4 or 5 either; According to Ray, resolutions were only made with one purpose in mind, to be broken without guilt or second thought, rendering the whole process a time wasting charade.

      This was different, something not to be taken lightly.  He’d made his mind up, Hadn’t he? Is this what the old woman meant by ‘Let it go?’  Was Alison ‘It?’

      Yes he had made his mind up.  Stop grieving for the death of the relationship.  Stop wishing for something that’s never going to happen.  Stop wanting something you don’t really want.  Stop thinking ab…

      ‘Excuse me Moses,’ interrupted a very bored sounding voice, ‘I’m sorry to interrupt your rewriting of the Ten Commandments, but could you stop babbling and start moving your arse out of this bath, don’t get me wrong, I’m behind you 100% on this and it’s about time you let go, but if it gets any colder in here you’ll be….’

      Just then the phone started to ring again.  Ray stared at it unmoving.  Jenny, startled by the sudden noise, let out an involuntary fart and barked as if trying to cover the noise she made; much in the same way as humans cough to disguise the sound of their escaping wind.

      The phone continued to ring.

      ‘Well?’ enquired the voice, hoping to stir Ray into motion.

      “Well what?”

      ‘Are you going to answer it?’

      “I don’t know.  What if it’s Alison?”

      ‘What if it isn’t?’

      Jenny barked again, not to hide the noise of a fart this time, but as if in agreement with the voice and urging Ray to answer the phone.

      ‘I can make you move if you want, but you wont like it’

      Ray recalled the moment when he was coerced rather sharply out of a trance whilst talking to his mother on the phone, this very same phone, and began to slowly reach for the handset hoping that it would stop ringing before he had to pick it up.

      It didn’t stop.  Whoever was on the other end was being stubbornly persistent. 

      Jenny barked.

      He thought, wished, begged that, with his hand just a couple of inches away, the ringing would die, as it did before, mid ring, and leave the bathroom bathed in glorious silence.

      He was imploring it, willing it, almost wanting to scream ‘Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!’ as he raised the slightly off-white plastic telephone up off the towel and moved it towards his face.  He was shivering, shaking would be a better description, both through cold and fear. ‘Surely it’s going to stop now’ he hoped, knowing that it wasn’t.  It was just going to keep on ringing and ringing and ringing until he found the courage to press the ‘answer’ button.

      The index finger on his free hand was just about to do that very thing.  Without noticing, Ray had lifted his other hand out of the water, towards the phone and the answer button upon which he now rested his finger awaiting the message to come from his brain telling him to push.

      He tried to swallow but half gagged as his throat completely dried up leaving that sandpaper where once was skin feeling.  

      Jenny barked again as the phone continued to ring.

      He waited for the ringing to be mid way through its cycle before silencing it and, with a hand that was now shaking uncontrollably, he raised the phone to his ear.

      “Hello?”