My Galway Girl

This week's writing prompt was to turn on the radio and take note of the first thing mentioned. 

No way was the radio was going to inspire me to write a 500-word story. I turned it on to the strains of Ed Sheeran’s Galway Girl. I wiggled in my chair to the rhythm and tapped my feet to the tune. It was going to be a long wait.

The audacious blank page lay on the table as Ed rapped and crooned.

Then, an unexpected image of my Galway girl formed, raven-haired with eyes green as spring leaves, tapping her foot as she played her fiddle with a frenzied passion.

~ ~ ~

Bridget is a bonnie girl, raven-haired and eyes green as spring leaves. Her bracelets jingle as she plays her fiddle, her body possessed by a frenzied passion as her favourite purple skirt flows and billows around her slender legs, her foot tapping a frantic jig to the melody.

It’s early doors, but the bar fills, the reeling tune side-tracking passers-by who feel the inexplicable need to join in the raucous dance. Mesmerised, I stare, tapping my foot in time with hers, helpless against the whirling music and the squeal of her fiddle.

She lifts her eyes. Sparkling and feverish they seek me out, holding my gaze for a rapturous moment before a curtain of dark hair obscures her face and the rhythm slows and fades to deafening applause and whoops of appreciation.

I watch as she adjusts the waistband of her twisted skirt, then lowers her fiddle to its case, her long pale fingers caressing the gleaming wood, like stroking the face of a dear old friend.

Her eyes search for mine and she comes across, leaning against me, her musky scent mingled with the smell of beer and smoke, and strawberry shampoo, cloying and familiar.

Her thumb strokes my fingers as she lifts the beer glass from my hand and takes it to her mouth, swallowing the golden liquid as she watches me. She smiles then leans close, pressing her full warm wet lips against the corner of mine with a kiss full of promise

“I finish at eleven, you know,” she says, her voice husky with desire.

I smile and slide a finger under a strand of her hair, pushing it behind her ear as I tug her closer. She tilts her head to my hand and l can feel her hot breath caress the flesh of my neck, raising goose bumps on my arms and down my back.

The band reassemble, sending Bridget anxious glances as they take up their instruments. She slides her hand into mine and squeezes as the pianist taps out a ditty. The anticipation of the audience is like static electricity before a thunderstorm. I squeeze back and let go.

“I love you, Englishman,” she says across her shoulder as she pushes herself away from me and takes up her fiddle, her eyes gleaming with delight. For all her cockiness, my Bridget is just a Galway girl with a fiddle, a long way from home.