Last Rites (10 page)

‘I don’t know what’s happening,’ Mason said, curtly. ‘Without enough evidence they’ll walk.That’s our fucking justice system for you.’

There was a moment of awkward silence then the voice asked what he was going to do next.

‘I’ll carry on teaching,’ Mason explained.‘But not here. Not in London. I’m sick of this bloody place. I think I was before the attack. It was as if it took that to make up my mind for me.’

At the other end more words were spoken.

‘I know, I know,’ Mason retorted. ‘I’m sure everyone will be sorry to hear the news.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘They were all so sorry none of them bothered coming to see me in hospital.’ He sucked on his cigarette and blew out a long stream of smoke that dissipated slowly in the air.

The voice apologised again and told him that no one had visited because of his situation.

‘I didn’t expect anyone to come while I was in a coma,’ Mason snapped. ‘It would have been pointless, wouldn’t it?’ He took another drag on his cigarette.

More perfunctory words from the other end of the line.

‘No, I’m not on medication. They offered me tranquillisers but that’s about it,’ Mason explained. ‘Valium.’

Another comment.

‘I know, your wife was on them for about four years, wasn’t she?’ he continued. ‘They say the bloody things are more addictive than heroin. There’s no way I want that.’

At the other end of the phone, the caller assured Mason that he could count on good references for a new job when the time came.

‘Thank you,’ Mason said. ‘With any luck someone will be in touch with you pretty soon.’

Another question.

‘I don’t care where I have to move to,’ Mason went on. ‘The further the better as far as I’m concerned.’

The voice asked what his wife thought.

Mason was quiet for a moment, watching the plumes of smoke curling upwards into the air.

‘It’s not really her problem any more, is it?’ he stated, flatly.

The caller apologised for forgetting that Mason was separated.

‘I forget myself sometimes,’ he offered. He finished his cigarette and stubbed it out in the ashtray on the windowsill, standing there to gaze out once more into the street below.

The caller wished him good luck in his search for a new job.

Mason nodded to himself.

The voice assured him that if he changed his mind then his position was still open.

‘Not in a million years,’ Mason said, flatly.

21

Walston, Buckinghamshire

Amy Coulson sat upright on the bed, her naked body tingling. She gently kissed the blonde girl in front of her on the lips, her own fingers now gliding down her companion’s taut stomach towards the downy triangle of hair between her slender legs.

The blonde girl drew in a sharp breath and cupped Amy’s face with her hands, returning the kiss fiercely. As Amy enjoyed the sensations she felt the other girl move behind her. The second girl, her shoulder-length dark-brown hair brushing Amy’s back, slid both hands onto Amy’s breasts, massaging them gently, pulling tenderly but insistently at the erect nipples. Amy turned to look at the girl long enough to kiss her too.

The brunette responded by squeezing Amy’s breasts more tightly before allowing her fingers to slide between Amy’s legs where they found her slippery cleft and throbbing clitoris easily. Amy moaned under her breath as she felt two of the probing digits slip inside her.

The blonde girl began kissing Amy’s neck, licking below her jaw line and down to the hollow of her throat then back again, occasionally leaving slick trails of saliva on the skin. Amy closed her eyes and surrendered herself to the attentions of the two girls, the unmistakable feelings of orgasm growing swiftly between her legs as the two fingers became three now pushing and rubbing more intently and insistently.

The blonde girl adjusted her position so that her face was level with Amy’s breasts then she ducked forward slowly and began lapping at each erect nipple in turn.

Amy pushed her chest forward slightly, eager to present the swollen buds to the blonde who curled her tongue expertly around each one, leaving them glistening with saliva.

The brunette whispered something in Amy’s ear, her tongue flicking the lobe when she’d finished and Amy nodded eagerly. The other two girls watched as she manoeuvred herself onto all fours, her pert buttocks poking into the air.

There were several appreciative grunts from around the bed, the other figures having moved so close they were virtually within touching distance of the three girls before them.

Amy arched her back as she felt the brunette licking along her spine down towards her buttocks. At the same time, the blonde girl swung herself around so that her head was beneath Amy’s slick vaginal lips. Simultaneously, as if it was part of a well-rehearsed routine, the blonde and the brunette began to use their tongues on her. One on her sensitive clitoris, the other on her puckered anus.

‘Oh, fuck,’ Amy hissed, gripping the sheet with both hands as fresh waves of pleasure cascaded over her. Her head was spinning again and she wondered if it was possible to pass out from sheer ecstasy. Another few moments of such incredible treatment and she was sure she would find out. She stiffened as the feelings grew in intensity. The tongue that had been circling her anus now pushed inside it, stimulating nerves that were as yet untouched. At the same time, her clitoris was bathed in moisture as the blonde girl flailed tirelessly at it, sliding two fingers into her vagina as far as the second knuckle. Amy prepared for her next climax.

‘All right, that’s enough.’

The voice that lanced through the gloom was unmistakably male.

‘No, not now,’ Amy panted, in frustration, looking around in the direction from which it had come. ‘Don’t stop now.’

The two girls sat up on either side of the bed. Amy turned to look at the watching figures, lowering her buttocks as she did.

‘No, stay like that,’ the male voice told her, sharply.

‘If you say so,’ Amy giggled. ‘Like it this way, do you?’

‘How do you like it?’ the voice breathed and Amy felt the bed move as its owner climbed on behind her.

‘I like it every way,’ Amy told him, breathlessly. ‘But they were doing fine.’

‘Hold her down,’ the young man snapped.

‘You don’t have to hold me,’ Amy assured him, pushing her naked bottom towards him. ‘Come on.’

She felt his penis push against her slippery vaginal lips, felt something warm dripping onto her anus and realised that the blonde girl was drooling her mucus onto the tight ring. Using two fingers, she began to massage Amy’s sphincter.

‘So that’s what you want?’ Amy breathed.‘Go on then.’ She looked back over her shoulder. ‘But stop if it hurts,’ she added, a note of caution in her voice.

Someone laughed.

Amy laughed too but there was no humour or joy in her exhalation. However, as she felt the blonde’s fingers push gently inside her anus, she relaxed once again, allowing the sensations to envelop her.

‘Stop if it hurts,’ another male voice, this time with an American accent echoed. ‘Yeah, right.’

There was more laughter.

Robbie Parker

Robbie Parker didn’t want his dad to die.

However, no matter how many times people reassured him that everything was going to be all right, when Robbie heard words like cancer and malignant he couldn’t believe. Even at the age of seventeen, Robbie had heard the words enough times to know that they carried an awful and unedifying weight.

He dared not believe that his father was going to recover from the bowel cancer he had, despite the fact that his operation was going ahead the following morning. What if he convinced himself that his dad was going to be fine and then everything went wrong and he died? He wasn’t a young man after all, he was well into his fifties.

Robbie took another cigarette from the packet he held and lit it, puffing away for a moment, watching the smoke curl slowly up into the still night sky. From his position on the top of the multi-storey car park in the centre of Walston, Robbie could see the pub where his dad drank most nights. It was called the Four Emblems. It was more like a club than a pub. The same old faces met up there almost every night and many lunchtimes as well. Robbie had been in there with his dad a few times and sat sipping lemonade and watching his dad playing dominoes.

All that, Robbie told himself, would be over soon. If his dad died.

His parents had been separated for the last three years. Robbie lived with his mum and two sisters in a house on one side of town while his dad had a small, one-bedroom flat. This made it a little uncomfortable when Robbie stayed with his dad at selected weekends but he slept on the sofa and gladly gave up his bed for Robbie.

His sisters never saw their father. They preferred not to. Or rather Robbie’s mum preferred them not to. He still wasn’t sure why. He wasn’t one hundred per cent certain why his parents had even split up. All he knew for sure was that his dad was ill and, as far as Robbie was concerned, he might not be getting better.

He took another drag on his cigarette and turned as he heard movement behind him.

Someone was returning to their car. A tall man in a suit who glanced warily in Robbie’s direction as he pushed his laptop onto the back seat, pulled off his jacket and then slid behind the steering wheel. Robbie could see his chubby face through the windscreen as he drove past.

Robbie wondered if he was going home to his family. He wondered why that man couldn’t have cancer instead of his dad. Taking a last drag from his cigarette he tossed the butt over the parapet and watched the car as it made the descent from the top storey of the car park down to the street below. Robbie could see it pulling out into the road and moving away.

Most of the shops in the town centre were shut now and the offices had emptied hours earlier. Robbie could smell the pleasing aroma of baked bread rising from the back of the Cottage Loaf and he could hear the periodic crashing and clanging as the bakers inside prepared the rolls, loaves, sausage rolls and cakes that would be on sale the following day.The centre of Walston seemed deserted on this particular night. Robbie wondered about getting a bus out to the hospital to visit his dad but then remembered how furious his mother had been the last time he’d undertaken such a selfless act without consulting her first. Miserable bitch. Robbie was sure she didn’t care if his dad died or not.

He decided to have one more cigarette before walking home. Better make sure that his mum couldn’t smell it on him. That was something else she hated. She said his dad had got cancer because he smoked but Robbie didn’t want to believe that. Besides, people got lung cancer from smoking, he told himself, not bowel cancer. The cigarettes were the only escape he had apart from the internet porn.

For hours every night he would trawl websites, masturbating endlessly over the images that flickered before him. It helped him to forget about his dad. It gave him the only pleasure he got in life. For two or three hours he escaped from his own thoughts.

He lit himself another cigarette and took a drag. The fresh air would remove any traces of his secret habit, he told himself. It would take him a good half hour to walk home from here. Then he’d go straight up to his room, keep away from his mum until the next day. He had two new websites to check out. One of them was just lesbian sex, the other dealt exclusively with threesomes. Robbie couldn’t wait. He had the beginnings of an erection merely thinking about it.

Robbie looked over the parapet down at the deserted town centre. Then, almost wearily, he lifted himself up onto the concrete barrier, standing with his legs splayed, balancing effortlessly on the narrow ledge.

He stepped forward into empty air.

Two seconds later, his body hit the concrete fifty feet below.

22

North London

The attack came upon him suddenly and Mason wasn’t ready for it.

One minute he was standing in the aisle of the supermarket leaning on the trolley and peering intently at the shelves of pasta, the next, he thought he was going to faint.

It was as if someone had suddenly pumped his head full of compressed air. His heart began pounding hard against his ribs, as if he’d just finished a long and gruelling race. He felt a sheen of sweat on his face and the palms of his hands. His legs began to shake. Mason found that he was breathing quickly through his mouth, his tongue dry and chalky.

‘What the fuck,’ he murmured to himself, gripping the handle of the shopping trolley more tightly for fear that he might collapse.

A woman in her forties looked accusingly at him as he uttered the words then she hurried past him, pausing at the end of the aisle to look back in his direction, perhaps afraid that he might be following her. In his current state, Mason couldn’t have even described the woman let alone registered the expression on her face.

As far as he was concerned, his head was still inflating. Perhaps, he thought, it actually was. Growing in size, filling with air until the climax of this episode would come when his skull exploded. He tried to swallow but his mouth and throat were too dry. He blinked hard and attempted to control his breathing but still he took deep, almost racking breaths.

That’s why your head’s inflating.You’re breathing too hard. Ha ha fucking ha . . .

‘Stop,’Mason said under his breath as if voicing his concern would end the panic attack. It had no such effect. He stumbled forward a couple of steps, wondering perhaps if he started moving whether or not the feeling would pass.

He could barely lift his foot. It was like trying to raise a dead weight. He looked down, his vision swimming for terrifying seconds. His foot hadn’t left the floor. Mason felt as if he was rooted to the spot, magnetised to this piece of supermarket floor.

Go on. Fucking move. Walk. Get out of here. Leave the fucking trolley and move.

He daren’t take his hands off the trolley, fearing it was the only thing keeping him upright. Again he tried to slow his breathing and again it was useless. His chest was beginning to hurt, to tighten.