Glove Love

You got to like glove love, in this day and age, when it pours from above and all falls to the ground. It's what's saved the world, the human race, from boring itself to death, well, kind of. Pull the rain coat from wardrobe, vacuum seal it on with the buttons up the front, slide your finger through the fur collar, black on the yellow, and off you go. You feel you’re protected from the rain, being wrapped up, gripped, resisted, you know, all the good things.

Seth and I have been doing it without, but gloves are best. Leather with buttons on the wrist, woollen in prime colours that shout. It feels nice in there, on your skin and the rain doesn’t get in. All that gripping and resisting, skin on skin, feels so much more real. Maybe gumboots with buckles. Warm and smooth. I can actually feel my pulse. I think I can even feel my breath. In, out of the rain. I love it when it pours down, grab an umbrella, push the button on the handle, release, fffffft, bop. I can feel it all the way along, in the wind, feel every centimetre as I give it a twirl, opening like a flower bud in Spring, opening like a baby bird about to feed. I have all of my regurgitated love to give.

Seth and I give ours a twirl. He’d be Gene Kelly – I don’t want to be him when he turned out to be such a cunt, who knew – I’m Donny O’Connor, of course. Let’s dance.

That's just a bit, of course. In and out, test the water. Just a tease, just a taste. Yes, no. Feels good. Should we? We should. When we really get going you can’t even see our feet. Not sure how much safer that is? I guess not a lot? You could still tumble and fall and hit your bonce. I never have in the past, except with boyfriends, post deluge. I'm guessing just the two of us ain't bad.

That's not, actually, true. Rome, was it? When it was three. We'd smoked all the hash we'd got in Santorini. No, it was London, back in my old London town, after how many years? We'd been to heaven, and we were on our way back again, we were high on many things, ring a ding, ding. Let the rain fall from the sky. Galoshes at dawn.

Nuggety Louis used to tap in his mack, stomping in puddles until we were all covered in wet. Sometimes I used to let him have his way, and we’d all be dancing in the rain, gloves, hats, in a choreographed threeway, before we could pull out our brollies and twirl cartwheels of drips away. Louis used to very much like having his face full of rain. He was our Debbie Reynolds, but, you know, still a man.