“It’s a bit crowded in here tonight,” he shouted above the din. “Fancy a tipple back at my place?”
The lingo still sometimes made her giggle, but like all the other American women she worked with in the London office, her knees went weak at the sound of a British accent, especially one as deep and smoky as his. He was sexy, dark-eyed and lean-bodied, and she’d enjoyed flirting with him as they teamed together during the pub quiz.
“That’d be lovely. Let me get my coat.”
Leaving the crowded pub, he linked his arm with hers and guided her through the misty night. As they ambled down the narrow streets of the village, he warned, “My place is nothing fancy.”
She’d been invited home by enough Englishmen in the last four years that she no longer batted an eye at those cautionary words. It was usually code for, “Please excuse my ancient musty, dusty cottage, with its sloping floors, low-hanging beams, icy cold drafts, and primitive plumbing.” She didn’t mind a cottage with a little character…it wasn’t like she was moving in. A quick romp, and she’d be back in her warm, modern London flat before sunrise.
“Here we are,” his warm voice informed her as they neared the end of the lane.
Shock stopped her dead in her tracks. In all of her dating life, she’d never been invited to such a crude abode. Thin tendrils of smoke climbed skyward, winding around poles that reached toward the hazy brightness of a moon that could not quite escape the veil of clouds. He stood beside the taut hide which formed a perfect cone around the poles and raised a flap, waiting with an outstretched hand to usher her into the softly lit interior.
Desire ignited when she spied a pallet of thick furs on the floor. The fire they were about to kindle in this wigwam would burn away all thoughts of the usual hasty wee-hours escape to a lonely London flat.
This is my response to Trifecta’s Week Eighty-four challenge, using the third definition of “crude” in a story of 33 to 333 words. I just made it, with 333 words exactly!
CRUDE
1: existing in a natural state and unaltered by cooking or processing <crude oil>
2 archaic : unripe, immature
3: marked by the primitive, gross, or elemental or by uncultivated simplicity or vulgarity <a crude stereotype>
4: rough or inexpert in plan or execution <a crude shelter>
5: lacking a covering, glossing, or concealing element; obvious <crude facts>
6: tabulated without being broken down into classes <the crude death rate>
Things I See and Know 