Report on Sample 717 Continued (Part 3)

Following on from here:

In the morning, Edrig awakened feeling very alone and suddenly wracked with doubts about his escape. He had a lot of money in his rucksack, which he bad set down below the television, and he had the credit card for a week or so, but what then? Was this a very foolish move? And his mind began to fill with the type of thoughts that surely fill the minds of many young teenage runaways, which is what he was, really, even though to the people of Earth he looked like a somewhat squat and balding man in his fifties.

He felt no hunger, and so to distract himself from his concerns he decided to do something about the issue of clothes. He stuffed a bundle of money into his pocket and wandered back down the stairs, past the nice lady again, who gave him a weak smile, and then he proceeded outside and soon noticed a sign that declared, South Street. It seemed logical therefore, that he should head north, which he could discern from the direction he had taken from the station the night before, and soon he discovered High Street and a wide selection of shops.

He ended up on the first floor of a place called Marks & Spencer, surveying the clothes and watching the procedure as other people looked and selected and tried on and purchased. Soon he was heading back on the short walk to his hotel clutching bags that contained a grey suit, two shirts with ties, some underwear and socks and a fine new pair of black shoes.

'Are you a health inspector?' one of the other residents asked as Edrig left his room again just a short while later, now resplendent in his suit and shirt and tie and new shoes.

'No,' he replied uncertainly, noting that this first fellow resident that he had encountered looked extremely shabby indeed, and with a face bearing many days of stubble but nothing so neat as could possibly be called a beard.

He began to wander back towards the High Street in his new clothes, and noticed with satisfaction that the outfit did not seem to be attracting any particular attention, allowing him to feel comfortably anonymous.

To try to shake off his glum mood, he resolved to explore the town in search of food and coffee and to research the issue of pole dancing locations in Perth.

The first bit of information he was able to gain was not encouraging. He had selected a place called The Ormond Bar, because through its window he could see many men inside, all looking about the same age as he looked. So he ordered some food and a coffee, and wondered why the request for coffee was greeted with a somewhat puzzled look from the barman.

'Yeah OK, we can do you a coffee with that,' said the barman eventually and a mug of rather poor quality coffee soon arrived alongside his bacon and egg roll. As he began to eat, becoming very pleased with the taste of what he had chosen, he steeled himself to make an enquiry of the scruffy man sitting nearby him, explaining in as few words and as low a voice as possible that he was an Arab man who had just arrived in town.

'Arab? Ye dinnae look like an Arab mate.'

But Edrig persisted with, 'Where are there pole dancers in this town please? Lady pole dancers?'

'Ha ha. A dirty old Arab eh? Ha ha. Well sorry pal, but there are no pole dancers in Perth as far as I know. It's a boring wee town you know.'

'Oh...'

Edrig was very disappointed.

'Mind you,' his new companion continued, 'There's a place that does pole dancing classes. I saw a bit about it on the local news. It's become a bit of a craze apparently.'

'Classes? They teach it?'

'Aye. Classes. Why? You thinking of taking it up? Ha ha!'

'What street?' asked  Edrig, and his chuckling new companion obliged with some basic directions.

And so some time later, in the early afternoon, Edrig had navigated his way to the relevant back street, having made several queries for further directions to passers by.

He was looking at a long and fairly high brick building with a simple board above the doorway declaring that it was a Dance Studio.

He wandered in but found the front desk deserted. Loud music was coming from the second floor, and above his head he could hear the intermittent patter of feet. So he quietly climbed the stairs and arrived at an open doorway where a sight of great wonders was displayed before him.

Pole dancing ladies.

Ten pole dancing ladies in very flimsy costumes that revealed their bare midriffs and their long legs.

They were following the moves of a lovely lady instructor who was gyrating around a pole on a stage in front of them, and the walls of the room were covered in polished mirrors from floor to ceiling, giving the sight that greeted Edrig's mesmerised gaze the appearance of a vast army of pole dancers swinging and swirling to the music, while the instructor called out, 'Now swing, then lift, then down, legs wide, now wiggle that ass! Now swing, then, lift, then down, and legs wide, and wiggle that ass... Now...'

Then he was noticed by some of the girls, and then by the instructor who stopped her dance, leaned back to flick a switch that stopped the music, after which she walked over to Edrig.

Her face looked stern, but to Edrig her slim body looked wonderful as she approached. He could not shift his gaze from her bare midriff and long striding legs that were perched on pink high-heeled sandals.

She had such smooth soft skin...

'Can I help you?' she demanded.

'Eh... You do classes here?'

'What? I can't hear you. What's wrong with your voice?'

Soft laughter from the clients rippled across the room as everyone stood and looked and listened, while Edrig pulled out his notebook and offered the explanation of his voice problem.

.Oh, I'm sorry,' the lovely lady said, as her long blonde hair swung around and Edrig breathed in its wonderful heady perfume. 'I'm sorry,' she continued, 'but what do you want? This is a private class.'

'You do classes?' Edrig repeated, managing to get his voice lower than before.

'Yes. That's what this is. A private class.'

He could see that the lady was somewhat bemused, and he felt somewhat bemused himself.

'Are you an official of some sort?' the gorgeous glowing vision before him finally asked.

'No... I'm sorry...' Edrig said with slow hesitation. 'Do you allow spectators?'

All the women laughed some more at this while the lady announced, 'No. We do not allow spectators!'

'Oh... I should go?'

'Yes sir. I think you should just go.'

And so, with a long last look at them all, at all those wonderful young bodies, he turned and went, while the instructor lady advanced to the doorway and watched his slow progress down the stairs and out to the street.

Once outside he could hear the music starting up again, and he looked longingly up at the first floor windows, and shook his head, before slowly walking back towards town, with the intention to return to his television set for another long session of listening to the language.

As he walked back to his hotel he looked into the windows of some other small hotels and guest houses and saw much cleaner and more tidy accommodation than his place offered, and recalling the hotel lady's words about people with 'problems' he began to appreciate what type of accommodation he had ended up in. When she had mentioned drugs he had thought of illnesses, people with problems due to illnesses, but if they were illnesses he was beginning to realise what kind of illnesses, and he resolved to find himself somewhere better soon.

As he approached the hotel, however, his attention was diverted from these thoughts by the sight of a police car parked outside. This concerned him slightly, although he persuaded himself that it shouldn't, and as he walked past the vehicle its occupants – a policeman and a policewoman – glanced at him but seemed uninterested.

The lady behind the reception desk appeared to look at him rather strangely however, and she just nodded quickly in return to his squeaky 'hello.' And when he reached his corridor he found it cluttered with several empty bottles of Buckfast Tonic Wine, and there was a resident lying slumped against the wall at the far end, seemingly sleeping.

He entered his room, switched on the television, and lay back on his bed with a pillow propped up to support him.

That was when he noticed that his rucksack was missing from its spot on the floor near the television, and just as panic about that was rising in him there was a knock on the door, and the police officers entered.

They made it clear to Edrig that they wished to speak to him 'at the station'. At the station? He wondered. Why would they take him back to the train station?

As he meekly followed them out of his room they watched him close the door and the lady officer said, 'Not locking it eh? Perhaps you should have locked it last time as well.'

This immediately made Edrig sense a connection between the arrival of the police and the disappearance of his rucksack.

Perhaps they had retrieved it for him? Perhaps they were there to help him?

But once at the police station the attitude of everybody made it clear that they were not on a mission to help him.

'OK. Some questions for you,' an officer in civilian clothes asked Edrig across a desk, after some formalities had been completed. Formalities that he did not understand.