Helen Martins - Fighting Woman.

Part two of three.



“ You’ve seen him, then? Well, saw him…. He took the secret with him as far as I’m concerned. The secret of what happened to him. I’m not sure if something happened to him or he happened to something. He changed in a flash, not even overnight, no, just like a light coming on. Or going off might be more apt, I suppose, if you prefer the metaphorical. I’m not interested in what he might have told you about it all. That’s no concern of mine because, whatever he went through, I can only tell you about me, about how his actions, behaviours, whatever you want to call it, affected me. I can’t read minds, not his at least, so his side of things don’t concern me. Well lets just start off by saying we wouldn’t be having this little chat if he hadn’t started ignoring me, would we? We’d been married for seven years. I was thirty four, he was thirty six. We lived in… well, you know all this, don’t you? Just before the day it started, May the 16th for all the significance that offers, we’d been away for a week. We didn’t have a happy marriage, I suppose, but it was okay most of the time. We didn’t argue often but that was probably more down to him than me. He used to say I goaded him. He always said that. Ever since the wedding. Well if I did it was to get some life in him. Not that I think I did goad him, to be fair to myself. More the other way around, now I come to think about it. His silence and his supposed deference were as loud as I could ever be. Anyway, that’s all that needs to be said about us. We’d had a nice week away, away at my aunt’s on the Isle of Sheppey and we’d only really had one argument that stood out, and even that I’m not sure I remember what it was about. Three days after we got back he’d been to work as usual and we were in the middle of dinner and I asked him if he’d cleared his shed out. Well he didn’t answer because he was staring out of the window like he’d seen an ghost or something. I asked him again, and again, and it carried on like that for ten minutes, because I thought no way are you getting away with this. I was furious. How dare he, when all he ever had to do was get in after work and eat his dinner, and watch the TV and go to bed in clean pyjamas and clean sheets. And who made all that possible? And he treats me like that? No. No he doesn’t. That’s what I thought. Seven bloody years and he finally grows a spine, only when it comes to using it he goes the same way he always has and attacks with his silence. I tried everything. I stood in his way, and he’d walk around me. I sat on his knee when he was watching tv, and he stared at my nose for two hours before standing up and letting me fall to the floor when he went to the loo. After a couple of days I got so angry that I ripped up the only photographs of his mother he had. She died when he was thirteen, you know. Nothing. Not a thing. He sat there like he was on a desert bloody island. What sort of a man would do that? His poor mother. By the third day I’d ran out of options, you see, so I punched him. Well, tried to but he ducked out of the way like a coward and I caught him on the side of the head. I tried a good few times after that as well, in the ribs, the stomach, the face, but he was always wriggling and twisting as if I was some big docker instead of a petite woman. ,Anyway, after that I rang my brothers and they came round to try to talk some sense into him. He completely ignored them as well. My brothers are policemen and they don’t take kindly to being ignored, especially by him. They’ve always said he was no good for me. Well Neville, the youngest, he slapped him a few times around the face, then hit him in the stomach with his fist. He didn’t like that, I reckon, but he didn’t say a word, just kept drying the dishes. Well that set George off, and him and Neville worked him pretty good for a few minutes until I stopped them. Well, he was my husband. I thought he’d wake up the next day and it would be back to how it was but no, he carried on as if nothing had happened the night before. That’s when I decided to leave him. There and then. I had a bath, got ready, got the girl and went. That was the best thing I did, leaving that man. Well, the second best. The best was when I kicked him as hard as I could in his you-know-what’s before walking to the taxi. I think Anne was upset to be leaving the house but what do children understand? Well, we went to stay with my aunt on Sheppey until I got back on my feet, and within a couple of weeks I’d met Ciaran. That was a drama, just on its own. We were coming back on the train from Victoria and the only seats were opposite these tinkers. I know people call them pikeys or gypsies but they’ll always be tinkers to me. I remember I was telling Anne to stop her fussing when the two women who were sat with this man, Ciaran, although I didn’t know that then, started laughing at me and saying things that I couldn’t understand, but you know when someone is laughing at you, no matter what the language. Well I’ve always had my mother’s temper, and it starts off in the soles of my feet like hot pins and needles and goes whoosh up my spine, and that’s when my mouth can turn sharp. I had words with the biggest woman and she got up, this is in front of the whole carriage, and she got up and stood there with her big ham arms crossed and she called me a word that I’ve never allowed to cross my lips but it begins with a ‘c’ and before I know what I’ve done I’ve punched her right in her fat face. Oh she dropped down like a sack of potatoes, fell across the table and slid onto the floor and I thought that’s me, they’ll all turn on me now. Well not if I can help it, so I leant over and grabbed the other woman’s fringe and pulled her face onto the edge of the table hard. Her nose broke, I heard that, and she just slumped over towards the window. I thought about the man and looked over, really expecting to feel a punch of my own at any minute, but he was just leaning back, arms crossed with a bottle in his hand, and a smile on his face and a twinkle in his eye. He was a sight. Not handsome as such, not like Sean Connery. He had a rough, used face but what was underneath shone through like a searchlight. I was stood there, heart thumping, legs shaking from the suddenness of it all and he shone through and wrapped around me without moving once. He motioned me to sit back down and he came and sat with us, bringing his bottle of spirits with him. He asked my name, and gave me the bottle and that was us for the next half an hour, drinking and laughing, even when his then wife - that was the one I punched - came to and sat scowling with her sister, the other one. Not a word from either of them, though, and he never once looked at them for the rest of the journey. They knew what had just happened, you see, while I was blissfully unaware and feeling tipsy and wild and more excited than I had in years. This was living. This was life. They were getting off the train at Gillingham and I got off with them. Well, with him. Anne went to her aunt’s and from what I know she’s done well for herself. She was better off there, to be honest, because for once in my life I decided to concentrate on myself, not catering to the needs of others. That may sound callous to you but I think that people can get so wrapped up in looking out for others that they never get the most out of life, and that’s a very, very sad thing…. And not for me, not after seven long years of first him and then his child. Well, she never took after me, either in spirit or looks. So back to Gillingham. We went in the first pub we saw, with the other two trailing us, and even though I had never been a drinker the magic of the evening kept me lively through every drink he handed me. He told me he was a prize bare-knuckle fighter, and that the woman I’d laid out with a punch, his then wife, was known herself and that they’d fought after each other many a time. He said that when I’d connected with her jaw he’d felt a rush of love, and that rush had deepened when I’d tabled the sister. He had me in a whirl with his words and what with the drink and the way things had turned out I was easily led to bed with him. He had a caravan on a site a taxi ride away and even though his wife and her sister came with us, those three knew that once she been knocked out she was wanted no more. He couldn’t see her out in the dark, though, plus her sister was on holiday with them so they slept in the seated area of the van and of course must have heard us in bed, because he was a man who threw himself into everything, not just fighting and drinking, if you know what I mean. We must have kept them awake for sure because they didn’t look too sleepy when they jumped me when I went to find the toilet. Jesus no. In fact they looked wide awake and angry. Lillian, the wife, hit me in the face with an ornamental tea pot… see this scar, here, over my eyebrow? And they both kicked me when I went down, all over my back because I curled up like this. There’s a reason for doing that, kicking someone in the small of the back when they’re curled up. It hurts like hell, gets the kidneys, and eventually the person on the ground uncurls and you get to go at their front for a bit, maybe their face. How do I know that? Because I beat them both again. Beat them bloody and Ciaran went on to teach me bare-knuckle, with all its art and darkness. That night showed him that I had the spirit and the meanness for it, although god only knows where I’d hidden it for all those years, me who’d never swat a fly before… As they were kicking me, I found a bit of broken tea pot and dragged it over the back of Lillian’s calf. It opened up pretty deep, because even in the light of a couple of lamps you could see it bulge out. Well she yelled and fell into Maureen and they both went over and barefoot though I was I kicked and stamped on them until Ciaran, who’d been watching all along from the bedroom door, the bugger, pulled me off and threw them out into the rain. He didn’t speak a word, even though every van’s window and door had a face to it, and the two bitches were screeching and sobbing and cursing. He came back in and lifted me up and took me to the bed, where he fetched a bowl of water and sponged off my blood from my face and chest, and theirs from my feet. Half my toes were broken, and both ankles came up like marrows by the morning but we stayed in his caravan becoming man and wife for eleven days and when he finally brought me out and told whoever was around that I was his wife now, and the hardest bitch of a wife I was that he’d ever lain eyes on, that’s the golden moment that I experienced true bliss for the first time. For the only time, really, because when you think about it if a moment of true bliss is equalled, it loses its sparkle. I’m not saying that I didn’t enjoy the next eighteen years, though, because I did. Once Ciaran started to train me, and once I’d bloodied a few more of the van women, I was reborn. Everyone called me Hel’, and it suited me to a point. I’ve had twenty six proper fights and only lost two and that was against men. Aside from that I’ve fought with twenty more women who either slighted me or flirted with my man. I’ve been in hospital five times, and put others in there ten or more. I’ve fought in barns, fields, scrap yards and once in a Lord’s flat in Mayfair. I’ve drank like a navvy, and the more battered and ugly I became the more he loved me… How many women can say that, eh? I’m a gypsy queen, and they all know my name, and whether I’m here or there, or on the earth or under it I’ll always be more than I was when I was saddled to that bloody idiot and his weakness and his silences…. I’ve been in prison three times, that’s a total of six years and three months, none of it with parole. The second sentence started with a fight and ended with two. The woman who ran the wing knew who I was and on the afternoon association hour of the first day we got ourselves locked up in an empty cell. She stabbed me with a bic pen sharpened to a point, right here in the shoulder when I was on top of her and punching like mad. I got it and stuck it through her left cheek then stabbed her in the nose. We both got stitched up and put in segregation because we wouldn’t say what happened. There was no more trouble on the wing until my last day when two of her friends tried to push my head into a pan of boiling soup in the dinner queue. Well it was my last day so I didn’t want any trouble so I just wriggled away from them and they ended up in the seg. I played nice all day until I saw the bitch going into the sluice on her own and I went in after her and knocked her into next week. I forced some detergent down her throat for good measure, but she never grassed… she didn’t dare. Of course Ciaran was there to meet me the next morning, in a horse and trap and a big bottle of champagne. Oh you should have seen people stare, we were a sight. And he’ll be outside this place when I get out next week, with that twinkle in his eye and that searchlight grin, wrapping me up and making everything worthwhile….

No Warmth From A Cold Shoulder

Part One of Three


"How did it start? How and why did it start? I'm not a hundred percent, but I rather think it was a joke... No, not joke, more like a... a prank. Helen was serving dinner. We were sat around the table, and she asked me something to which I didn't answer for whatever reason... maybe we'd been a little tetchy that day - it wasn't exactly unusual by then - but anyway she asked me again and I... I ummm decided to ignore her. For the whole meal. I mean, she wasn't happy about it, no, no... but I seem to remember her saying that two could play at that game. Well, it turned out that that was far from true. There was only one player, one champion of this particular contest. Its rather sad I suppose... So, yes, so after the meal I don't know what occurred to me really it just seemed.... I just decided to see exactly how long I could ignore her for. Well ignore them, actually, because you see there was Annie as well. She must have been about three back then. All I'll say is that it was an unfortunate feature of the whole thing that Annie had to have her daddy's attention withdrawn but you see, I could't fully ignore Helen if I allowed Annie to become common ground for us. So if you don't mind I'll say no more about her... I find it quite upsetting, thank you. Where was I? Oh, the beginning... yes... so I remember having seen a bit of an episode of that awful cartoon Beavis and Butthead the week before and they had decided to see how long they could go without urinating... for absolutely no reason that I could fathom. I suppose that that's what I did, in a way. Just decided to see how long I could go without acknowledging her... You see, when I say ignore I mean ignore fully. I acted as if she wasn't there. When she spoke to me I wouldn't look at her, and if I needed to look in her direction, like when she would stand in front of the television for hours over the first few days, well I just looked at where the tv would be if she weren't.... It took three days before she first struck me and, I can tell you, she had quite a punch for such a small woman. That took a lot of determination and resolve to ignore. Luckily I remembered a bit about boxing from my days in the navy so I rolled with the blows, you see, and sort of rode them and then just carried on with whatever I was doing. I think what really surprised me was that she didn't think of really hurting me until the day she finally left. I'm very thankful, actually, because what she did was to kick me in the privates and then she turned on her heel and took off without a second glance. I mean, I'd challenge any man to take a powerful kick there without at the very least curling up a little. Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. Between day three and day eight, when they finally walked out, I developed patterns not of behaviour I don't think,more of adaption, and self-protection. I rose, ate and used the bathroom an hour later than usual allowing myself to live the day as though living alone. It became almost relaxing. I don't recall ever having been so, I'm not sure how to put this, meditative? Yes, the act of denying her my attention was meditative. I felt a different person. Marvellous. Part of me almost thinks it was like the calm before the storm. There have been a lot of storms since. A lot. So, a lot of attendent periods of calm also. And so life goes. She tried hitting me a few times after the initial attack but I always managed to duck or weave out of the way. That used to drive her into an almighty bait and I often wished I could take pleasure in that but one of the conditions, seemingly, of living with that beautiful calm was a curtailing of any extremes of mood. I didn't mind. The first storm that was sent for me to weather came when Helen's two brothers came to visit. How those two joined, then remained, in the force is a mystery to me. Neville, the shorter and younger, had been in the SPG briefly and was no more than a thug. I remember Helen telling me, years before, that he used to set fire to cat's tails when he was about eleven. A borderline psychopath, that one there. George was one of those men who looked like a C.I.D. sergent from the age of two. He was a big raw slab of a man, with unremarkable features and a pair of steady eyes that hid the fact that he was always on the take, always looking for an opportunity to sucker-punch someone. 'Slow to rile, slower to calm down', thats what his family used to say about him, like it made them proud. Well they'd have been proud of him the day he and little Nev came to visit. I know Helen was, she was almost applauding when they gave me a couple of punches. I didn't mind, though, because it was a sign that the end was near. I hadn't even thought that far forward, which is the strange thing. Can you imagine that? I hadn't bothered to think, or to see I should say, that there had to be a consequence to what I was doing. I was so focused on the actuality of each moment that I hadn't considered us splitting up right up until the time she got her brothers to beat me up. The one thing I'll never forgive Helen for is this - she allowed my Annie to watch all of it. The beating. Not like Annie wanted to, but you know how it is with children when they see something shocking or just new or they're scared and can't look away... She saw Annie watching through the hatch and did...... nothing. I hope she dies in misery and squalour and pain for that. My Annie... So. They left. I carried on as before but without the family. I didn't live any differently. I men, I didn't suddenly start going to night clubs or casino's, or let the place get messy, or go on blind dates. I just did what I always did, but did it alone. Did I miss them? I didn't think to. I suppose if I'd let myself think about it I'd get upset so I never thought of it, really. Well, after a while work started to get a bit awkward and I fell out with a few people i'd known for years. People change, don't they? Maybe they changed at the same time because of working there so long. Strange. But I found the process quite soothing, so obviously there was a pattern, but I didn't see that at the time, not until quite recently actually. Anyway, life marches on, and so I ended up leaving the company, quite a decent pay-off I got, but then I'd been there for absolutely ages so... Yes, so I decided to sell the house, and I put half of the money into an account for Annie, well I wouldn't give it to the witch, you see, because she walked out of the house of her own free will, whereas Annie was as much a victim in all of this as myself. Do you know, I felt a real shift in my life when that house was sold. It was freedom, you see, freedom and no responsibility, and no direction, and it was bliss. I moved around, made friends and lost friends, really saw life from the heights to the depths. Actually, this past couple of years more depths than anything else. But thats life, isn't it? Completely random. Purely coincidentally, I've actually been feeling rather low these past two years. I've almost felt alone, and it got to the point where I was really fed up with the damned bad luck I seem to have in choosing who to invest my friendship with. Virtually each and every person to who I've stretched out the hand of friendship has ended up proving to be less than deserving... Not one of them do I still speak to today, as I stand before you. Amazing. Awful luck. And you? Who can tell whether or not we'll remain friends, eh? So, where was I.... So I went into a church one day, as much for a change of scenery than anything else, because I am first and foremost an atheist. Anyway, I got chatting to this man, very quietly of course; it seemed the done thing. He was very interested in my life, and quite sad to hear of my emotional travails. It was he who recommended that I focus on animals because, you see, he said that mans relationship with animals is an altogether simpler thing and might therefore be a good place to start in building up my confidence once more, and help me to see things with fresh eyes. So here I am. I chose the bear because I used to be a keen astronomer as a child, and Ursa major was my favourite constellation. I've been coming down here every day for the past two weeks, and chatting to her whenever no-one is around... And so to today, and the business in hand... Now, if all goes well I should be back in half an hour so see you then

CANNONS TO THE LEFT OF THEM, CANNONS TO THE RIGHT.

*these are a couple of characters from a book I've started so any feedback on this page would be appreciated*



Parting her with his now slippery nose he slid his face upwards, moving it from side to side by an inch, breathing in her scent while trailing his flattened tongue over her silky flesh. She tensed as her hot button of a clitoris felt his lips seal around it, then he gently began to suck as, at the same time, he slid two fingers into her. She grunted from under the pillow that she held tight against her face, and her pelvis twitched upwards in response to his rhythm.

“ANOTHER ANNOYING RING TONE! ANOTHER ANNOYING RING TONE! ANOTHER….”

Dave’s hand left her buttock and, like a blinded snake, moved through the pile of their clothes next to the futon. As they both desperately tried to stay locked into the moment, his search became more frantic.

“ANOTHER ANNOYING RING TONE!”

“For fuck’s sake what the fucking fuck is that?” Jess shouted from under the pillow.
“Nathan Barley. Cunt. Fuckin’ Vaughn.” Dave gave up the moment, and rolled into a sitting position on the mattress. He began picking up items of clothing and shaking them. The phone abruptly stopped ringing.

“Thank god for that. Back in the saddle, you sexy Geordie bastard, before I completely dry up.” She stretched out lusciously on the rumpled sheet, pillow still clenched over her head. Dave found the mobile and flipped it open. “I can’t, pet. It’s the batphone and anyway, he’ll just keep ringing.”
“What….” She rose up, pillow yanked down as she pivoted from the waist “…the fuck do you mean you can’t and what the fuck is the batphone?”
“Vaughn’s got two mobiles; one for work and one for home. If it’s a work day and he rings me with his home phone, that’s the batphone. If it’s a home day and…”

“ANOTHER ANNOYING RING TONE! ANOTHER ANNOYING RING TONE! ANOTHER….”

Shrugging in apology and pointing dramatically at the mobile, Dave turned away.
“Aye mate, what’s up?”

The line was silent, then Dave heard a tinny cheer. “Aw Vaughn man, you’re fuckin’ joking…”
“The Raj. You have thirty minutes. Bring your helmet. I have gin.” Vaughn’s voice was slurring slightly. In the background Dave could hear Jess getting dressed loudly.
“Aye, thirty minutes” He hung up. “Twat.”

“Jess…” The door of his studio flat slammed shut. “Aw fuck….”




It was just gone 8am as he walked up the five steps to the red, peeling front door. Looking up and down the road, he pulled the pith helmet out of his back-pack and balanced it on his dreads. Strains of martial music came from Vaughn’s open window and he decided to wait for a break in the CD before banging on the door. He didn’t want to draw undue attention to himself. Vaughn’s neighbours were doubtless extremely pissed off by now. Dave did the maths. 7.30a.m plus slur plus the Raj equalled a six o’clock start at the latest. Abruptly the music stopped, and Dave banged on the door three times.

“You tell that fucking racist to keep fucking noise down.”

Dave swore silently and peered over the low wall into the basement’s stairwell.

“Will do Mr Ahmat. Sorry, like…”

Ahmat’s dark eyes fixed on the pith helmet. “You encourage him. You maybe racist as well?”



“Ten….. HUT!” Dave turned to see Vaughn, standing to attention so hard he appeared to be quivering, dressed in a red Victorian battledress complete with white webbing, a pith helmet with a small Union Jack on a cocktail stick sticking out of the crown, and a gleaming monocle screwed firmly into his left eye socket. Camouflage shorts and dirty work boots completed the outfit. Sighing, he turned to say something to Mr Ahmat, but he was gone. He followed Vaughn into the house.





“So is Tina away for weekend then?”
They sat on the balcony on pale blue loungers, looking out over the drop of roof-tops and the rich green of the field covering the reservoir. The sea sparkled in the distance. The raw cries of the seagulls could be heard above the music and, further in the background, the TV. A Man Who Would Be King was nearing its conclusion and the drum and bass playing in the kitchen was underscoring the clamour of battle.
“She’s bloody deserted. Can you believe it? A man of her rank? Fucking disgrace.”
Dave swilled the ice around in his glass. Not enough quinine in there to drown a gnat. “Ehm, can you pass us the tonic Vaughn? It’s a little gin-heavy for this time of day.” Vaughn screwed the monocle into his eye again and leant towards Dave. “Of course, old chap. No worries about supplies. I got the sepoy fella on Lewes Road to parcel up some vittals and send them via tuk-tuk. At four thirty! They never sleep, d’you know that? Amazed we beat them, bearing that in mind… Kettle Chip?”

“What about Lexy and Connor? Have they all gone to their nana’s?”

“They saw fit to accompany the General on her flight from the front line. Well, I expect she pulled rank, the bitch.” Lexy was eight months and Connor, two and a half.
“What did you do this time, you fuckin’ idiot?” Dave squinted. The sun had climbed high enough to start to heat up the balcony for the next five hours. “Can we go indoors, mate?” Vaughn sprang up. “Never fear old boy, I have recently acquisitioned some of the new fangled camouflage netting. You get the door and I’ll start work on strengthening our position.” Dave hadn’t heard the door. He looked baffled.
“The door, man, the door… I sent to headquarters for more medical supplies. I was hoping the greasy Greek quartermaster would send a lackey but judging by the flabby nature of the knock I’ll warrant the cunt has brought it in person. Avanti, you slack swine…”




Dave opened the front door. “Arkle.”

“Dave.” He held out a cigarette packet.

“You coming in?”

“You fucking joking? I’m off to the marina for breakfast, then I might drive up to Ashdown forest and take Gabriel for a walk. Got the money?”

“Eh? Nope, have you not sorted it with Vaughn?”

“He said you’d… ah fuck it, seventy five each on Monday.”

“Arkle, can I come with you and the dog? Please mate?”

“Hahahahaha, you mug. Batphone? Pith helmet? You shit in the bed, Dave, so you get to cuddle up to the turd. Laters.”





9 a.m. They sat, skin dappled with small shadows, under a large and new-smelling camouflage net that Vaughn had secured with a scattering of masonry nails. He sat back in his lounger, brow beaded with sweat, rime of white powder around one nostril and a look of contentment on the rest of his face. Dave mixed them both a large drink, then sat back and put his feet up on the rail. He’d turned the TV off, and changed the music to The Blue Album after Arkle had left. “It’s that or I fuck off back home. I’m serious, man, This Raj thing isn’t funny any more. I’m an ethnic minority; where would I have fit in with your fantasy, mate?” Vaughn had giggled, dribbling slightly. “Sorry mate. Thanks for coming. Seriously. I was going to let you be white in my fantasy, honest.” He'd ducked and Dave’s hand slapped his helmet off. “Joke, mate, JOKE!”



They drank, and chatted, and dipped into Arkle’s delivery, and drank some more. Occasionally Ahmat appeared in the concrete yard below to direct hard stares at them, but that stopped when Vaughn shouted “Ahmat, mate, have a lager!” and lobbed an unopened Heineken over the railing. Dave found himself chuckling, and not caring at that.





“She’s getting very boring, mate. She hasn’t had a new accusation in years. And she’s developed this face… it’s like this facial development is what it is. Unbidden by the anthropological community, she’s married several looks into one. It’s the sort of face fuckin’ Betterware’d put on the front of their catalogue. ‘Need seven looks? Only got one face? Try new Tina’s Face’. It a mix of pity, despair, boredom, sneer, shock, revulsion and, I don’t know, fuckin’ purpose. It’s replaced the period of time between clocking that she’s miffed, and kicking off. She goes from A to D like that,” he snapped his fingers, “and B and C don’t get a look in. We’ve lost some time, there.” He squinted “Is that shortening or lengthening my life?”
“I failed maths CSE mate. What’s the accusation? That you’ve not grown up? You’re irresponsible and immature? Selfish, unreliable, drink too much, do too many drugs, look at other women, look at porn, fart, fiddle your tax, never do the housework and still bleach your hair?” Vaughn frowned around his monocle “You’ve been speaking to her?” Then, smiling sadly “Yeah, same old same old. Never mentions that I’m fucking great with the kids, or that she’s never eaten so well….” Dave took a long swig from his glass, lit a cigarette, and turned to Vaughn. “Yeah, but it is fair to say that you’ve not exactly grown into your new roles as husband and father, though, isn’t it?”
“Fuck off. Christ, you sound like her, and you’re meant to be here for me you cunt… Fuckin’ hell, I am what and who I am and what and who I always was, and if that’s who she fell in love with then what’s the fucking problem? This is me – I don’t change, I’ve done my growing up and that’s that. She’s the one who’s changed, mate, she’s not the one I fell for, the funny one, the fit one…”

“The rebound one…” Dave muttered under his breathe.

“Wha’ was that? Anyway, I’m a constant and she’s, fuckin’….”

“Evolving?” Dave was feeling agitated now, Vaughn’s bolshie tone and finger-wagging swagger was digging into his gut. “Mate, being a raver back in the day doesn’t equip you for the rest of your fuckin’ life, just the bit where pills and trainers and Dj’s count for everything. Life grows, man. You have to grow with it. It doesn’t mean changing your fuckin’ self completely – you adapt. You advance. All she wants i…”
“You live in a fucking bedsit, you twat!” Vaughn’s face moulded into exaggerated disbelief. His voice raised an octave. “You’re still in the fuckin’ primordial soup of bedsit-land, and you’re telling me about getting on in life?”
“What, and a mortgage means you’re a rounded fuckin’ individual like?” Dave flicked his hand at Vaughn. “You understand less than a man with your brains should, mate. You’re a fuckin’ bottler, man, not sure of your worth, scared of fuckin’ up and getting laughed at so you take the easy option and aim low…”
“RIGHT. I’m going for a shit, and when I get back you’d better either be gone, or have a couple of fatties racked up, you uppity fuck.” Vaughn stood up unsteadily and, accompanied by the sounds of bottles and cans being knocked over, stalked into the kitchen.







It had finally got dark. The cloudless evening, still and fragrant, seemed full of promise. Brighton sometimes seemed to have been built for summer nights.



“Tell your friend to wait for you outside and I’ll serve you.” The assistant was clearly agitated, even stood behind the floor-to-ceiling security glass in the Off Licence at the top of Vaughn’s street. Dave sighed and turned around. “Vaughn, man…..” Vaughn was leaning back against the glass by the door, pointing at the three people queued up behind Dave in turn and repeating “A homo-boy, a hippy and a fucky dread.” Laughing uproariously after each intonation, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the three were stiffly and nervously ignoring him. “A homo-boy, a…”

“VAUGHN, MAN!”

Vaughn’s head lolled around, chin scraping the collar of the stained and reeking red jacket which was now open to reveal his pale belly. “Yes David?”

“Wait outside.”

“Ok mate. Should’ve just said…”

Dave bent right down towards the hole where money and goods were passed, by the counter. The pith helmet tapped the Perspex. “So, like I was saying, forty Marlboro Lights, a litre of your cheapest vodka, two litres of orange juice, and a bag of ice….”





They sat on a bench at the top of Queen’s Park, arms around each others shoulders, and legs outstretched. Vaughn took a pinch of powder from the open wrap on his thigh, careful not to upset it, then, almost delicately, brought it round under Dave’s nose. Dave snorted, loudly and wetly, then snuffled three or four times. He gave himself a pinch, then clumsily folded the wrap up with one hand, and shoved it into his breast pocket, white granules tipping down his front. “Cheers mate.” They clunked the tankards that Vaughn had insisted on bringing out.



“Cheers old boy. Here’s to the eventual return of the General Staff.” He took a deep draft from the tankard, ice rattling deeply against the pewter. “You’ve seen the Bad Lieutenant?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“You know that bit near the end where he’s naked, with whores dressed like nuns, and he’s fucked off his head, and walking towards an alter with his arms held out, saying ‘I’m weak! I’m weak!’?”

“Aye”

Ten seconds of silence passed. Dave turned to look at his friend. Vaughn’s eyes were wet and he was staring off into the distance. He gave a rather sad smile, then looked at Dave. “I’d fuckin’ love to shag a nun….”

Sammy and Sausages.

Our Sammy used to love sausages.... LOVED them, more than anything else in his world. Notice I used the past tense. Unfortunately Sammy had to be put to sleep last week. He was a high, grey wooly lurcher and even when he was a stupid giddy puppy he had a lurchers look of absolute knowing. Knowing how to get sausages, mainly. You could put a roast chicken in front of him, and a chipolata in a puddle under a bush three miles away, with a series of cunningly hidden IED's dotted around it not to mention a moat and a dog-eating ogre and the chicken wouldn't get a second glance. Well, it'd barely get a first but thats dogs' noses for you. Sausages, everytime.

He was only eight, when the vet came a-calling, but in those eight years we've paid out a lot of good money to every butchers, greasy spoon, trendy pub and scout hut in a ten mile radius. He stole, pilfered, happened across, found, wolfed, guzzled slooped and slurped pounds of the things, from chubby rings of cumberlands to dinky cocktail sausagettes from Iceland. You could have put shit in a sausage skin and he would corner you and howl and howl until he got his teeth round it.

As crafty as he was for nicking them, me and the wife were just as crafty when it came to cooking them up and eating them because, lets face facts, bangers and mash is the finest meal known to man. Our kitchen was Sammy-proof, and had been for some time, although it took trial and error over the years to stop the thieving little gorgeous begger. So, the other week Maggy was on patrol, planting the rubber sausages in places he might just stumble on them, tipping a bit of cold Oxo behind the shed where he couldn't squeeze through but might sit, pining, for long enough for us to eat in peace... the usual. I'd just popped the pink and pudgy row of pork and leek bangers into the oven, shut the padlock on the oven door, swiped the lino with aniseed, turned on the high-pitch distractor - amazing what you can buy on the internet - and checked the windows were tightly shut before double-locking the kitchen door. I almost bumped into Maggy in the hall. She said she couldn't find Sammy anywhere, not in his basket or the garage or either of the gardens, nothing. 'He'll be thieving I reckon' Thats what I said, and even though it'd no doubt turn into a packet of trouble with someone who'd recognise him as ours, this being a small village, the silver lining of that particular cloud was we'd get to eat in peace for sure.

Maggy had a funny look in her eye when I pointed all this out and asked how long the sausages'd be. Twenty minutes or so, I told her. She took my hand and said well how about I get a bit of your sausage while the coast is clear... Well that doesn't happen everyday so up we went to our room, and stripped off quick... Maggy knelt down as I firmed up... Go on, I said, open your mouth for my sausage of love.... and thats when Sammy jumped.

The doctor says its because I was engorged with blood that I lost so much of it, nearly died apparently. I know the whole room needed redecorating, even the ceiling. He says I wouldn't have lost so much if it hadn't been so hard. Doctor, I told him, if it had been soft I wouldn't be here. Sammy loves sausages, not walnuts.

Who Loves You, And Who Do You Love?

With the utmost care. With hands covered in the reddened and shiny skin of a manual worker of considerable age. With slightly trembling, sausage-like fingers Arthur placed the twentieth snail on the stem with the rest. He lent slowly back and squinted at his work. It looked, he thought, almost disturbing. It looked like nothing more than a hellish stalk of sprouts.



“Nate honey, give your dad’s door another knock please. Tell him it’s almost ready.”
The ten year old boy slid from the chair by the table where he’d been making spirals out of spilled salt, barely stopped to yank a roasted carrot from the oven tray in his mother’s hand, and darted through the low doorway which led to his father’s study. Genine heard his quick staccato knocks bounce off the rather heavy door that sometimes seemed to form a line of demarcation between Peter and the rest of the household. Nate’s voice, still a distance away from breaking, came to her, followed by unintelligible and deeper sounds. Peter no doubt saying he wouldn’t be long. Busying her hands amongst the trays and pans in front of her, transferring steaming vegetables and arranging thick slashes of meat just so, Genine worked to soothe the kernel of frustration which was making itself known in her abdomen. This is just how it, how he, is and it’s a waste of time and energy getting worked up about it. He was always five or ten minutes late whenever he was locked up in his study, which was virtually everyday since he’d gone freelance. By concentrating on making sure everyone got the same amount of sprouts she managed to control the brief fizz of annoyance.


SinBad4SickJerk looked up into the tiny camera set above the screen of his laptop. He ripped the black electrical tape with his teeth, allowed the small matt roll to drop to the bed and patted the end flat. He wondered how many were watching today. It could just be the five anonymous day-pass surfers and the three fulltime members who had identified themselves to him. It could be thirty, fifty, a thousand for all he knew. XtreamViews.NU allowed members to watch unseen. You knew the rules when you joined. If you go live you can’t choose who see’s you. This ignorance went some way to keeping him incredibly aroused whenever he was in front of the camera. The ignorance and the poppers. The electric butt plug set to a random timer. The heaviness of his cock and the odd sensation between his thighs. The tape that he’d patiently wound around his chest flab as he’d knelt on all fours. These things combined had him tuned to a keening ache of arousal. He turned and looked at himself in the mirror on the back of his door. Two purpley red globes the size of golf balls sat above an inch and a half of black tape. His nipples looked to be swollen to three times their usual size, standing proud like the sacs of near-gorged ticks. Greying chest hair frilled out from the tape, like a pair of halos. A garish Mexican wrestlers mask, all red, white and black sequins forming fat zigzags, hid his face, Above this sat an old blonde wig he’d taken from his wife’s belongings three years ago, and which she’d never seemed to notice having gone. It had taken him an hour to comb, tease and bind it into two identical pig tails. Both arms were tightly bound in cling film either side of the elbow, which allowed movement, and each had a scattering of dress-making pins pressed against his skin. They worked in tandem with the butt plug, delivering him unpredictable spikes of beautifully bearable pain.



Nate walked back into the kitchen with the exaggerated air of defeat that only ten year olds can truly master – shoulders forced down, feet dragging and a heavily downturned mouth swayed side to side by the metronome movements of his head.
“Mum, if Dad stays in his study for another five thousand years, and I knock on it like that twice a day and my knuckles get quite big because I’ll be a man then, do you think I’ll wear that door out?”
Genine decided to smile when she saw Nate’s slightly challenging expression. He was frustrated at his usual lack of success – perhaps once a month his dad opened the door when he knocked, seemingly just to surprise him. He was now trying to entice her into an utterly pointless debate which he would eventually win by a combination of childish logic and cold, relentless attrition.
“What I think is that if your father hasn’t made an appearance in five minutes, you can go and try your luck with your granddad instead. Guaranteed win, there. Back of the net.” Genine instantly despised herself. Back of the net? Jesus…
“Granddad’s room smells funny.”
“Don’t be horrible, Nate.” It did, though. It smelled damp and mossy, which was impossible because they’d just had the whole house damp-proofed and re-pointed.
“Anyway granddad’s weird and boring and he smells as well.”
His mother drew in a workable amount of air sharply through her nostrils. Nate didn’t look at Genine but his change of posture said he realised this might be pushing it a little too far. He flinched, or tensed, somehow seemed smaller to her. She exhaled as gently as she could.
“Your granddad is the same as everyone else in the world. He’s been brilliant, he’s been awful, he’s had years of happy boredom and moments of terrible pain. He’s lived his life mainly alongside your granny and now he’s living without her.”
“I miss her, mum.”
“So do I, poppet, but neither of us miss her in the same way that he does. He doesn’t smell, but his pipe does. He isn’t boring; he just doesn’t understand a lot about today’s world. And he’s certainly not weird. He’s just coping with everything getting weird on him. So come over here and give your mum a cuddle, eh?”



‘Stufffucker UK40 has entered the room’

He liked Stufffucker. He’d watched him sat in his cheap computer chair, wearing a tight, shiny mask of black latex. A modest six inch dildo protruded from both the forehead and the chin, and he’d seen both used, as well as the man’s own long and slender penis. He’d once seem him use all three, in turn, to penetrate what looked like a dead cat. On one occasion he’d seen him fuck a handful of his own shit.



Genine finished folding the cotton napkin and placed it on the table in front of Nate. His face was fixed in concentration.
“So do me four more, as close to that as you can and I’ll go and tell May to come down in a bit.”
Nate was going to fold the napkins in the way a robot would. His movements would be precise and minimal. He would fold them all identically and would take exactly the same amount of time on each. Like a machine.



SinBad4SickJerk’s laptop beeped and a video box appeared in the top right corner of the screen. Stufffucker UK40 was privating him with a request. Instead of sound, a text box at the bottom of the link relayed the question. He reached over to the box at the other end of his desk and picked out a blood red lipstick. Facing the mirror he clumsily wrote, in stacked letters starting at his throat, the words ‘slut hole’. The letters ended a little way above his tunnel of a navel, so he added a downward facing arrow to fill the space.



Genine was having an argument of sorts with May, their eldest. The argument was being held in slow and quiet words but they managed somehow to suggest both volume and vehemence, although neither quality was actually present. Genine, having performed a knock-and-enter-all-in-one-go, was wondering what May had been looking at on her laptop that made her pull an almost pantomime face of shock before closing down the page. May was trying to engage her mother philosophically, arguing that the absence of a reason for an action does not, in fact, render the act questionable. Mid-forties meets mid-teens. Genine was feeling old and tired as it was and really should, she thought, just let it go. More tiring was the argument raging in her own mind, where noise and anger had never seemed an issue.

“Big deal, she’s looking at porn you fucking hypocrite…”
This howled by a slimmer, younger her complete with an asymmetric bob, a T-shirt dress that barely covered her arse, and someone else’s boyfriend.

“For all I know she’s buying industrial strength laxatives and branded razor blades!”
A fatter, drabber and clearly addicted to Marie Claire her was bellowing, simultaneously managing to cross her ham-like arms and thump the table at the same time.



SinBad4SickJerk hisses~ ‘We’ve chatted before. You like it really nasty, don’t you?’

Stufffucker UK40 whispers~ ‘We have, and I do. Never seen anyone as disgusting as you, you fucking hole. You get me so hot. What’s under the arrow, you filthy shit?’

SinBad4SickJerk hisses~ ‘I can see I get you hot… You love rubbing it to me don’t you? You need help, my friend ’

Stufffucker UK40 whispers~ ‘Stop typing, man-whore, and show me your diseased cock…’

SinBad4SickJerk hisses~ ‘I’ve never gone this far before… what I’ve done to it… makes me gag just thinking about it, let alone looking at it….’

Stufffucker UK40 whispers~ ‘STOP FLIRTING, YOU PIECE OF SHIT, AND SHOW ME YOUR FUCKING COCK! I’M FIT TO FUCKING BURST!’



“So what exactly is it you think I was looking at? When you crashed into my room?”
“MY room – it’s my name on the mortgage. Water glasses to the left, May, for god’s sake.”
“Sex? Porno? Is that it mum? Or pro-ana sites? That’s it isn’t it? My god – I’m a size fourteen for god’s sake.”
“May I’m not having this discussion now. If you still feel exercised…”
“Exerci…”
“Enough. Enough. Cutlery out now. Nate, where’s granddad? No answer? Ok, try dad one more…”
“No need, I’m here. What’s on? I’m starving.”



Genine thought her smile would grind into powder but it held as she turned to Peter. Behind her Nate swivelled in his chair to face his dad. Just like a robot would.
“Roast pork with all the trimmings. You go and get dad and I’ll open some wine. Frascati alright?”



Five minutes later Nate was seeing if he could hold his hands, palms at 90 degrees, either side of the rim of his plate without shaking, and exactly the same amount of micrometres apart. Pretending that the plate was a swirling, burning comet aiming at Dorchester helped. As did imagining that his hands were a quickly jerry-rigged cross between tractor beams and electro magnets. Opposite him May was muttering a conveyor-belt litany of potentially scandalous websites.
“Swan rape? Jihadi bomb making made easy? Patricide? Badger baiting?”



Genine could feel, in her forehead, that she was drinking the wine too quickly but was just in the process of deciding that she didn’t give a flying fuck when Peter jogged down the stairs and into the large flag-stoned kitchen.
“No answer, hon. Been knocking for an age, called his name. Nothing. Couldn’t hear anything through the door either, but with I’m not surprised. Heavy bloody things…”
Genine felt nothing as she stared at Peter. He shot a quick look at their children.
“You don’t think…… Ahh, do you think I ought to, y’know, kick it in? Just… in case.”



They followed him up the stairs in order of age, Genine wondering where the bleachy odour had appeared from, May fleetingly imagining in which way she’d portray her grief at school tomorrow, and finally Nate, who had just thwarted his Dalek pursuers by using his superior robotic limb technology.




Genine was just thinking about how unlikely it was that a desk-bound fellow like Peter could kick in any sort of door when his foot flashed past her and, with a depressingly mundane thud, made the heavy oak to swing inwards.


Somehow they all rushed into the room at the same time. Equally in unison, May screamed in unadulterated shock, Peter retched, yelled ‘Sin…’, stumbled forward and fell flat on his face, and both Genine and Nate yelled ‘DAD!’


On the bed, semen coated snails fell one by one into the nest of grey pubic hair as Arthur’s sizeable but shrinking penis denied them further purchase. There was no lifting and falling of the chest and, unseen under the grotesque mask, his lips were turning an unpleasant shade of blue. On the desk opposite, in the top left corner of the laptop’s screen, a figure with a small jute sack over his head, eye holes torn in the fabric, and appearing to be wearing a wedding dress, silently bucked and swore his way through an orgasm as, on the carpet below him, the delicate spool of the Glenridge family slowly unwound

Something Deep Inside.

The muffled bang of the front door closing downstairs tugged Graham from the on and off snoozing he’d been indulging in since Katie had got up, two hours before. He opened his gummy eyes with exaggerated care, looked left and right without moving hid head, then congratulated himself for avoiding a morning spent fighting the Saturday crowds in town. He replayed the bang of the door, filtering it through gossamer layers of guilt, trying to match Katie’s possible mood to it. Maybe it was a slightly petulant bang? Definitely not an angry slam. No. Not that. Maybe, he thought brightly, it was a ‘ho ho, this’ll learn him, the cheeky scamp’ sort of bang? Mentally he lapsed back to near comatose, while relaxing the muscles around his neck and shoulders and sinking once more into the warm pillows. ‘It doesn’t matter really, she’ll either be ‘made up cause of a token tat of clothing, or she’ll be pissed off at getting back empty-handed.’ No matter what went on between them on a Saturday morning, it would be forgotten after the coin toss of her obsessive shopping. He reached over and turned off the lamp that Katie had, rather hopefully, left on.

He must have dozed off again. It was nearing eleven when he finally mustered the energy to lift his shaven head up and look at the clock. He flicked the lamp back on. Groaning into a lazy grin, he fell back heavily onto the pillows, rubbing his scalp vigorously and turning the movement into a hugely satisfying stretch. “Right”, he said, swinging his legs out from under the quilt and standing up in front of the full length mirror. He took up a body builders pose and sucked in his generous belly. ‘Hah, only need to shift a few pounds and I’ll be fit as you like’ he thought and, like every week, almost believed it. Lowering his arms he shoved a hand into his boxer shorts and rummaged around the clammy flesh inside. On a whim he pulled the shorts down and kicked them off with his feet. He gave himself a couple of rough squeezes and flapped his cock from side to side for a bit, to encourage some blood flow then, sucking his belly in again, earnestly studied his genitals. ‘Not bloody bad.’ He cupped his balls in the palm of his hand and lifted them, jiggling as though weighing a bag of sweets, cock bouncing on top. He let it all fall back into its natural position then laid his palm flat over the bristly hair above his groin. He moved his palm up half an inch and inspected the result – the base of his cock was visible, although seemingly ringed with a black line where the pubes were pulled taut. It did though, he had to admit, make his length seem slightly more generous. Maybe he should trim the area. What would Katie say on seeing it, though? Dicey. Not the sort of thing he’d want to mention first, but then again was it worth the risk of surprising her and watching her lip curl in distaste or, even worse, hilarity? ‘Maybe next week’ he thought morosely. Losing interest in the mirror he turned the lamp off and then walked towards the shower room, grabbing his towel as he past the banister. It was slightly damp from the previous evening, and gave off a stale odour but he couldn’t be bothered rummaging through the cupboard right now.

Listening to the radio above the shoshhh of the shower, Graham spent a good fifteen minutes soaping and rubbing his body. It was his only ritual, cleansing himself of the week’s boredom, irritations and arguments. Not until this was done could he feel the weekend had properly started, regardless of the quality of the occasional lie-in. He shampooed his stubbly head with eyes shut tight, using his thumbs to push out the tiredness and stress from the nape of his neck. Leaning with his back against the tiles he lost himself first to the precision flossing of his teeth, then the soothing hum and fuzz of the toothbrush, fresh toothpaste applied three times, each tooth methodically and lovingly tended. Finally, the ears. Once out of the shower, and wearing a towel around his waist, Graham would start with the first of four ear buds per ear but he always started while under the spraying water by gently probing the external crannies with his forefinger, searching for a rare but oh so satisfying bleb of wax. It was just as his right forefinger began feeling its way into the opening to the ear that Graham stood on the lid from Katie’s conditioner, left there earlier in her haste and somehow not seen or stumbled upon by him as he luxuriated his way through his cleansing routine. He yelped as the hard plastic bit into the ball of his foot, jerked his leg up, sending the other foot skidding, and felt too many sensations at once as he dropped. Did he bang his head on the tiled wall? Too late, a split second of concussion, muffled but loud noise exploding in his ears, sparks behind his eyes and… nothing. Just the sound of the hot water stotting off his skin.

Lights seemed to come on in the fug of his mind. Nerves groggily joining in a roll-call, some fine but stunned, others beginning a low-level moan. Eyes still closed, Graham realised what had happened. Nothing felt like it was seriously hurt, there was no creeping agony of a body part realising it was broken. He didn’t feel great, but then his six foot frame was curled unceremoniously in the tray of a small shower cubicle, so no surprises there. He took in a deep, dewy, breath to prepare for the effort of standing up. That was when he noticed sounds and sensations emanating from his right ear. The sounds, similar to when someone’s phone calls you from the depths of their trouser pocket, seemed to have a solidity while the sensations appeared to be partly made up of… sounds. Graham screwed his eyes up tightly then tried to open them, his only way of trying to force his brain to engage clearly. It sent a message to his right arm, telling it to investigate. Nothing happened. ‘It’s broken! My bloody arm’s broken so badly it’s paralysed!’ Fear bent and pushed its way through Graham’s scrunched-up body, finally settling in his throat where it seemed to clench his windpipe. ‘Calm down, mate… calm down… that’s it… use the left arm…’ Hesitantly he began to move his left hand to his head. It reached his left ear, then slid over his scalp an inch at a time, Graham’s body seemingly afraid of what it might find at its destination. He ignored thoughts of paralysis, forced his reluctant hand closer to where his head seemed to rest on his (‘Dear god, not paralysed, please no…’) right hand. Which was, on inspection, curled up under his ear. In fact (his tremulous fingers told him) it seemed to have entered his ear somewhat. At least, the tips of two fingers and his thumb had. Stricken with horror and disgust, fear and fascination, Graham tried desperately to think this through… no, impossible, his mind was a whirl, should he pull the digits out? Would that make bleeding out more likely? Did the emergency services prefer foreign objects left in the wound? What did they do on CSI? ‘They’re not foreign objects; they’re my bloody fingers…’ He let out a shivering sob.

His right hand twitched. His left hand recoiled, and Graham himself twitched considerably. He moved his left hand to the ear again; it recoiled yet again as it felt the fingers that were pressed into his ear squirm and shudder. Jesus wept, he was going into shock. He was spasming in shock and it was going to hurt like hell and where the bloody hell was Katie… The strangest sensation halted the flow of tumbling thoughts. In his ear. The one with half his bloody hand in it. There it was again, something that felt heavy and strong and alien, something that felt like it ought to hurt, ought to be doing damage but… but could hardly be called a sensation at all, now Graham thought about it. He felt he had a sense of something simultaneously in his ear, yet the ear being far away at the same time. At that moment he heard the broken call of a seagull on a nearby rooftop, and the shouts and clashes of next doors’ children in their garden. What he wouldn’t give to be in the garden with them instead of lying, dripping wet in this most unwanted of predicaments. The predicament caught his attention again; more squirming from the fingers that felt at least an inch within his auditory canal. Again his left hand gave the distinct impression that it wanted away from its rebellious twin but again he made it make contact. The squirming was spasmodic, pauses of up to three seconds separated brief bouts of frenzied activity. If he wasn’t mistaken… oh god. The panic that was lodged in his throat increased slightly. It felt to him that the movements of the offending hand were driving the fingers and thumb further into his ear. With a new-found sense of urgency Graham gripped right hand with left and began to tug, furiously. He surprised himself with his efforts, felt his face redden with exertion, his weight shift, and his breath come in short desperate bursts only one step away from groans. His body slid within its own tangle on the hard and wet porcelain underneath it but the right hand remained resolutely stuck fast. He sensed his strength was about to run out and made one last effort, gripping so hard he fancied his wrist would crack. Teeth bared, hot water running into his eyes and mouth he….. yelled as his left hand lost its hold, sending his temple cracking against the rim of the shower tray, dizzying him slightly but not enough to miss the swell of sensation, the decrease in hearing that told him the digits had been forced into his ear by another good half inch. Crying with confusion he made to grip the wrist once more with his left hand but his left hand was petulantly refusing to involve itself for the moment.

The letterbox in the front door clacked and deposited three bills and a pizza delivery leaflet on the doormat below. The children in the garden outside were arguing over possession of a snail, and the seagull had given up its plaintive cries and had thrust an inquisitive head under its wing and started rummaging for mites. Inside the shower room, steam was building up heavily and fat drips were shivering on the rim of the mirror and the handle on the window. Ten minutes passed. Graham lay still, breathing shallowly as he faced the wall. The base of his spine ached as it protested its unnatural curve. His legs, knees close enough to his face for him to see the fading scars left by a tumble from his Chopper thirty years before, felt swollen and numb. His lips were slightly pouting, the best way he could find to limit the amount of shower water that entered his mouth. His eyes were glazed with an inner horror, a horror that had near-paralysed him as he had come to fancy that his right hand had turned against him, and was burrowing into his ear with purpose. Nonsense, of course, but what else could he think? None of this made sense, things were happening that he could barely bring himself to consider. It was only with great effort that he stopped his mind pulling him into a screaming freefall of full-blown, screeching hysteria. And so he lay there, staring. And his right hand continued burrowing. Unknown to Graham, as his left hand had solidly refused any more scouting missions, the last two fingers had joined the others and all were now working together, coming together at the tips, then extending forwards, spasming and jostling. Behind them came the strength of the hand, and the wrist, pushing methodically and propelling the digits onwards. Twisting slightly on every third push. Meat and gristle gave way millimetrically, forced aside. The sound inside the inner ear was nightmarish. Minute creaks and rips coruscated against the backdrop roar of a tidal wave drawn, like a slow saw, over wet bone. It was the noise of this inner horror that was constantly threatening to tip Graham over the edge.

Without intending or even noticing, Graham had begun to shunt himself, inch by inch, from the bottom of the shower using his left arm. He almost shouted with joy when he realised but then began to wonder exactly how concussed he was to have already forgotten his movements of the past five minutes. It must be pretty bad because when he tried to tense his arm further, it struck him that he had no control over his muscles, feeling instead like his arm had gone dead on him. Without warning his left hand slipped; a shout was cut short as his head thudded, right side down, back onto the shower tray. His mouth formed itself for a shout of agony but there was none, just the atrocious and bewildering sounds of amplified tearing and snapping. Of absurdly distant shuffling. And above it all a fuzzy, somehow morose, yet perfectly absent tone, like the hum of an amplifier after it’s just been turned on. He realised, rather than felt, that the fingers were deeper than ever. A low groan escaped his lips, and rose like a kettle’s whistle until all that could be heard was a cracked keening from the back of his throat, not loud enough to cover the sounds of movement made as his left arm, once again, began to lever him upwards. Again and again his head thudded into the ceramic. Again and again he felt, or was it heard, the breach widening, more and more of his right hand invading his increasingly stretched and distorted ear.

By now, Grahams consciousness had shrunk. He could see, but he couldn’t move his eyes. His torso, from the shoulders down, was numb. More than that; it was as if it had been painlessly removed from him, although it filled his vision. He saw that his chest was no longer rising and falling. Saw, but couldn’t bring any emotion to bear. His legs; they hadn’t moved for some time now. He had lost the ability to feel, it seemed. The connection with himself, and with his surroundings, had disappeared and been replaced with the sounds and vibrations within his skull as the right hand spastically and determinedly continued its path. The hot water continued to spray down, and to pool under him, and to gurgle its way down the drain.

The moment that the base of his palm finally popped through the grotesquely swollen and bruised entrance to his ear, Graham felt a degree of sensation return to the hand. Rather than understanding this via a cogent thought process, the information was placed into what was left of his mind, like a half-swilled drink set on a bar. Even to what remained of him, having already gone through so much, it didn’t feel right. The tips of his fingers, which seemed to be at best resting, were immense and tiny at the same time. They inhabited no space that was discernable, and they seemed to be swaying like anemones in a sluggish pacific tide. Brushing against them and adding another dimension to Grahams now limited experience of the moment were contradictory tubes; dusty and inconsequential forms with the weight of barely anything. They slid and danced away from the fingers, feeling wet yet powder-dry and each encounter bringing a dull sensation somewhere near the top of the skull. Not pleasant, not unpleasant, just existing and being and, at a huge remove, more terrifying than…. what? Nothing… Polymer-solid and electrifyingly blue tubes leading from the skull, downwards. Shivering like flab, but thinner than a thought.

Grahams left hand, dragging a dead-weight arm behind it, sought out his left ear.

This one took longer to penetrate, mainly because there was now no way to lever the head up and allow gravity to help with the burrowing hand. Not that Graham was aware of time or, in fact, of much anything beyond the sounds and vague sensations that started at the ruined ear holes and ended somewhere in the void that his skull had apparently become. His mind, or what was left of it, was merely a fixed-position camera with a stream of extraordinary and incomprehensible information, both sensory and visual. Currently, though, the visual imagery was somewhat unexceptional as his face remained by his knee. Echoes of a mind unravelling and releasing any hold on sanity occasionally surfaced, weaker and more distant each time and during these moments his awareness sputtered and fluctuated like a guttering candle grasping for last motes of air in an almost-vacuum.

Once the fingers of his left hand finally breached the entrance to the skull, those of the right stiffened, until tips touched tips through the gangle of gossamer tubes. More wriggling, more pushing until the opposing fingers could hook each other by crooking their top knuckles. The work speeded as one hand helped the other, gripping and tugging and hooking and pulling. Graham saw, from an out of body window cracked and filthy with numb and inconsequential horror, the moment when the breach was complete and both arms were wrist-deep in his head. Within, in mirrored movement, the hands met in the midst of the tubes, held them gently and looped, wrapping some slack around their wrists. They relaxed down, grasped and slowly, with obvious effort, pulled up towards the roof of the skull. Looping again they caught up more slack, pulled and relaxed. Looped, pulled, relaxed. Over and over and measured with purpose.

The view from Graham’s eyes changed slightly. The knee, reddening from the lengthy exposure to hot and dashing water, twitched. A few seconds later it twitched again. Again and again, each twitch imperceptibly stronger than the one before it. Under the cascading shower, amid the hiss and shosh of it all, dimples appeared in the tips of Grahams toes. Every few seconds the dimples grew and the toes shrank. Soon the toes were half-length, each with a pucker at the end, only the end kept retracting. First the toes, then the feet, folding in on themselves in strict cadence with the activity of the hands buried deep in his skull. Pulling, pulling, tugging, reducing inch by inch the shins and after that the knees, the thighs in a bewildering manner witnessed by Graham only in that his view moved and slid as his balance altered and his centre of gravity shifted higher up his body. Inside his head, the hands continued their symmetry. Loop, pull relax. Loop, pull, relax. Each pull disappearing another few millimetres of hairy white skin.

The skull, now stuffed with dark and appalling matter, stopped at the upper jaw. From within, and behind the few teeth that hadn’t popped during the cannibalising change in form, pallid fingers and thumbs splayed out, supporting it. The skull swayed ever so gently, then what was left of Graham moved forward towards the lip of the shower, digits working like the legs of some foul spider. Bracing itself, with four fingers on the lip, it jumped over and onto the tiled floor, then trotted to the stairs leading to the bedroom, sounding like a typewriter made of bones and flesh. It leapt, nimbly, onto the first stair.

The front door slammed shut some time later.

“Graham. I’m ba-ack!”

Katie walked into the front room and, after dumping the five bulging carrier bags onto the sofa, carried on through to the kitchen where she boiled the kettle and made two cups of instant coffee. She hummed along to the radio, happy with her purchases and therefore inclined to treat Graham’s inability to be up, showered and ready for the day as a cute eccentricity, not the ignorant and typically offensive selfishness it would have been if the shopping had been less fruitful. Carrying both cups in one hand, she went up the stairs to the landing, tutted, and went into the bathroom and turned off the shower. Not looking down as she did so, she failed to notice the scattering of teeth and Graham’s silver chain lying near the plug hole. One of the coffee cups was burning her knuckle so she transferred it to her free hand and turned to mount the last stairs. The bedroom door was wide open, the heavy curtains still drawn, leaving the room in darkness. She tip-toed to the door then stopped, stifling a grin with a twist of her lips. ‘Well, he always makes me ju…’ A slight, scuffling sound above and behind her made Katie turn around. Her head continued round to look up to the top of the wardrobe that sat to her left. A strange shape leapt at her. Landed on her face as she fell backwards, its odd heaviness adding to her shock to propel her through the door. The press of two cruel hands cut off the shriek that hurt her throat even as it was trapped. Scalding coffee wet both legs.

Katie’s fall was checked momentarily when she landed back-first in a coarse, thick-roped and sticky web, a rough rectangle stretching from floor to ceiling and set back at an angle. After a few moments, this gave and she toppled the last couple of feet onto the carpet, web folding in on her and sticking to her exposed skin like cold marmalade. As she landed the form on her face began to move frantically in the darkness. The two smallest fingers worked to spool out and attach finer strands of web, first to her mouth and then, with the strands growing thicker it moved slowly back down her struggling body, connecting the flaps of the original web that stuck to her sides. Katie’s heels drummed on the bedroom floor, her head shook violently from side to side and, unseen, her eyes screamed a wet and wild terror as revulsion, snot and sweat drenched her skin. Her movements slowed and lessened with the methodical progress that saw the creature reach her thighs. Within minutes it was finished and Katie lay wrapped from nose to feet, the only movement coming from her still-twitching head, and her chest that stuttered and spasmed with unuttered sobs. Against the dim light from the beyond the bedroom door Katie registered a shape moving slowly towards her, up her bound body. The grotesque and arachnid shadow stopped on her chest and seemed to lean in, whether to see or scent her, and deep beyond the scarred glass that encased what remained of Graham’s being, a final and almost silent howl grew and then died as his useless and drying eyes faced her indignity. Rocking back somewhat, the creature raised one finger. Splitting at the tip, the nail and flesh began to peel back until two inches of ghostly white bone shone gently in the gloom. Katie’s swollen eyes briefly registered a light shape, and then it was striking down, breaking the skin of her neck and crunching through the muscles and gristle. Her last breaths whistled and burped around the wound and her movements slowed to nothing.

Several hours later, as the sky darkened to evening and the street lights came on in sullen orange, the door to number thirty eight opened. A woman stepped out, hunched slightly, then pulled the door closed. Hefting a small valise, she looked first up, then down the empty street. She scuttled three or four steps, then looked up and down once more. Twitches racked her shoulders, then she scuttled forward once more. Twitches became shrugging, she darted forward two steps, then tentatively at first walked off towards the main road, her footsteps becoming more assured as she went.