THE DOORMAN HAD the night off.  So far, the only customer was a ratty little man nursing a beer in the corner.  Two silky ladies wandered in, throwing laughter over their shoulders.  He perked up.

‘Oh, aye,’ said one.  ‘No sae far fae the dock to the gravel, here.’

‘Nae too uncomfortable, either!’ said the other.

They laughed again, took their drinks to a dim alcove.

Silence closed over the bar like a wave.

*

‘Ladies.’

They looked up, light rimming their deep black eyes.  He stood, brandishing bottle-and-glasses, diffident but snout quivering, all the same.

‘Wondered if I could offer yous some fizz?’

The first took a glass, as did the second.  They chimed and nodded his way, then slipped back into conversation.

His nose twitched, tongue flicking over one longish tooth, but stepped back and said nothing.

*

Towards midnight, the ladies pealed out their final bells of merriment and turned for the door.  The ratty man sidled up behind, hands cupping each elbow.

‘To the car?’

It had begun to rain.  Fat drops thrummed on corrugated-iron toilets, bonged car roofs, rustled the gravel.  The taller one shook her head; the smaller sighed.

‘We’re roond th’back.’

In the feeble light of the carpark’s single, pressed tin lamp, he broke open a shucked-oyster grin.

‘Sure – sure.’

*

Back here, the ladies were more at home: gravel, dark, the tide riding the dock with its perpetual bumps and gurgles.  They turned to him.

‘Wha’s yer geme, boy?’

‘Me?’

‘Aye – you.’

‘Nothin’!  Honest.  Just lookin’.  More, mebbes, if yer game.’

Both sighed.  The rain drummed on senselessly.

‘Morag?’

‘Elspeth.’

‘Micht get riddae im.’

‘That it micht.’

*

Ratboy stood, eyes roving.  They backed into the black overhang of the bar.  A nod, then gone.  Now the gravel sizzled like lard hitting a grill.  The dock sang, slap-happy, with the oily currents of the tide.

‘Goin’ somewheres?’ he said.

From the blackness came a low sound – two wet thumps – then ratcheting, a zip run backwards, the flash of two sequined dresses fired out into the drink.  An elbow emerged, bone-white; a thigh bending to fullness; for a second, one irritated black eye.  He waited, hot current jumping through his fingers.

Then the pole-light wavered, came fizzing back to full strength.

Into its oval of light flopped two huge, plump seals, skin grave-grey and oily with righteousness, tails lifted for a congratulatory slap.  In the drowning pools of their eyes was dark purpose.  They hauled up, out and across the shallow bay of gravel to push the ratty little man to the edge of the dock.  Their curvy, silken bulk was bulbous with victory.  They reared up for the final press-and-clutch to the eldritch depths.

But the tiny man reared himself – onto nimble toes – and spread wide his hands into a pair of rounded mitts, a net for dropping succulence.

‘Ladies,’ he said, ‘I thought yous would never ask.’

James Roderick Burns is the author of one flash fiction collection, To Say Nothing of the Dog (Cyberwit, 2023) and five collections of short-form poetry, most recently Crows at Dusk (Red Moon Press, 2023).  His stories have twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.  He can be found on Twitter @JamesRoderickB and his newsletter offers one free, published story a fortnight at abunchoffives.substack.com.