The Word Cloud

You know how that need for a sandwich suddenly sneaks up on you? It’s not like it’s a gradual thing; there’s no ‘I may be in need of a sandwich shortly’, it’s just a sudden, violent need to be cramming bread, meat, cheese and whatever else you can find into your gob like a meth-head smoking his first hit of the day. That’s not to say that you cannot enjoy the sandwich making process. Some of my finest moments have been during a particularly good period of sandwich artistry. I even named one of my incredible creations ‘The Jeremy Clarkson’ as it was the best sandwich in the world…

   I felt that this may be one of those moments that I would look back on fondly as an epic sarnie of our time. During that ever so long and arduous trek from the sofa to the kitchen, I was already mentally digging through the fridge and grabbing any and all ingredients that could assist in creating this beautiful monstrosity. With shaking hands, I grasped the cold, hard handle of the great white beast, the keeper of all things nom and good, and yanked its jaws wide open with wild abandon. The holy light clicked on, revealing the beast’s succulent innards that I had eagerly procured from Tesco not so long ago. My dilated pupils scanned the heaving shelves with the eagerness of a horny boy at a strip club and landed on the first essential ingredient; a virginal packet of mouth-watering cheese, wrapped tenderly in its plastic clothing. I extracted it and place it on the gleaming breadboard that rested upon my kitchen counter.

   The next part is the meat, the juicy guts of any worthy sandwich. I was no neophyte when it came to meat selection, no naïve purchaser of inferior products. There would be no mottled wafer thin ham or stringy reformed chicken in Valhalla and neither would there be in my art. Only the thickest, most tender cuts of supple flesh would do. I selected some oak smoked ham and roast chicken breast and placed them gently beside the cool, firm cheddar. I knew instinctively that this was not a time for greasy mayonnaise, though I had used this white glaze before, no, only locally sourced organic butter would do to softly moisten my creation. I positioned the butter dish besides its worthy comrades.

   For the final layer, I delved into the hard, crisp world of the vegetable drawer and extracted the necessary fruits and greens. Juicy, firm tomatoes, a beautiful shade of blushing red, velvety soft to touch, their outsides giving no hint of the saturated world that hid within. Perfect, lush green leaves of fresh gem lettuce, rustled together as though whispering secrets as I placed them on the counter.

   My bread, no ordinary chemical filled sliced nonsense but whole, crunchy baker’s goods with a light brown crisp shell that protected the yielding white cushion within.

The girl sat on the bed, sighed and closed her eyes. ‘Two words: dismal and shit,’ she said.

The boy followed her inside the room and put down the case. His arms had gone numb and his throat was dry. ‘We’ll make it like home,’ he said. ‘We’ve bought your posters.’ He opened a case, pulled out a pink feather boa and draped it on the back of the chair.  Then he took out a crumpled poster that had been rolled into a tube.  He took off the rubber band and opened it up.  It was Edward Hopper’s Girl at Sewing Machine.

  ‘Stop it, please,’ the girl said.

The boy held the poster against the wall above the desk. ‘Do you have any bluetac?’ he asked. ‘Did you bring any?’

  ‘I said stop it. You’re making me sad.’

The boy put the poster on the desk and looked at her. ‘I’m just trying to make you feel at home. It will be nice, when we’re done.’

The girl twiddled a strand of blonde hair between thumb and finger. Eventually, she said, ‘I don’t want to be here baby. I can’t speak French, I hate Lyon and I hate this room.’ She lifted her head from her hands. ‘Look, there’s no carpet. And this bed is as hard as a rock.’

The boy opened the thick beige curtains and let in the sunshine. It was a warm August evening and the sky was blue.  Outside, a few students sunbathed on the grass. They were drinking beer and listening to hip-hop. ‘It’s only a year,’ he said. ‘It’ll go quickly.’

  ‘You said the same about Exeter.’

 ‘And I was right.’

They went outside, holding hands. It was the ultimate week of the holidays and the corridors were empty. 

  ‘It’s soulless,’ she said.

  ‘It won’t be.  When the other students get here.’

The girl looked like she was about to cry. ‘Let’s get drunk,’ she said.

They walked to the main road that led back into town.  The girl clutched his hand. ‘I’m afraid I’ll lose you,’ she said. ‘You’ll go back to your boys and forget about me.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. We’re a team, remember.’

She smiled. ‘Dan and Jane.’

They found a bar on the outskirts of town.  In one corner, four men played table football.  They were shouting and swearing.  A barman sat on a stall, his pencil poised over a crossword.

Jane said, ‘Est-ce que je peut avoir deux bieres si’il vous plait?’

The man grinned. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Plus de Anglais?’

  ‘Oui, je viens d’arriver. I’m studying French, over at the university,’ Jane said.

  ‘Well you’re very welcome,’ the man said. ‘Lots of English boys and girls come here.  You’ll like it here.’  

They sat at a table by the window and lit cigarettes. Dan took a sip of beer and looked through the window at the passing traffic.  It was starting to get dark.

Jane said, ‘You don’t have to live here. You’ll forget all about it. In fact, I bet you wish you were on the train home.’

Dan said, ‘It’s exciting to live abroad.  Just think how good your French will be when you come back.’

  ‘I don’t want an adventure,’ she said. ‘What you mean is an adventure without you. What you mean…’

  ‘I didn’t mean that at all,’ he snapped. ‘Don’t tell me what I mean.’

  ‘What did you mean?’

Dan said, ‘I’m just jealous, that’s all. You have a new place to explore and new people to meet. I’m going back to Durham. The same old faces, the same old pubs. It’s boring really, doing the same thing every week.’

  ‘Will you visit me?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘No you won’t. You can’t afford it and you can’t be bothered.’

Dan sighed. ‘I’ll use my student loan. I’ll come at Christmas.’

  ‘I’m coming home at Christmas you wally.’  She grabbed a strand of her fringe and twiddled it between her fingers. ‘Can I ask you something Dan? I know you’re not going to get upset and I don’t want you to.  But do you remember last week when I was at yours and you were acting funny and the phone went.’

Dan nodded. He lit a cigarette and looked out the window.

  I picked up the phone downstairs. You know this, don’t you? I wasn’t spying but I picked it up just as you picked it up.’

Dan took a drag on his cigarette and said, ‘It was a girl from my course.  We’re doing a group presentation next month and we need to plan.’

Jane’s fingers trembled a little and she took her hands off the table and put them on her lap.  She said,     ‘She sounded foreign, Dan. What’s her name?’

  ‘Rebecca.’

  ‘Rebecca?’

  ‘Yes.’ Dan finished his cigarette and stubbed it out in the ashtray.

Jane took a sip of beer. ‘Why did she sound foreign?’

  ‘Because she’s Dutch.’

  ‘Dutch?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She’s called Rebecca and she’s Dutch.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And she’s on your course, this Rebecca.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘You’ve never mentioned her.’

  ‘There are hundreds of people on my course.’ He looked at his fingers and began to count. ‘Have I told you about Jess? She’s in my language class. Then there’s Rob. He’s a nice guy. He’s in my modernism class. Did I tell you we went for a beer the other week? It was after a lecture. We got quite smashed actually.  I could go on.’

Jane waited for him to finish. ‘Don’t be clever.’

  ‘Don’t be paranoid.’

  ‘That’s not fair, Dan. You know it’s not.’ She met his eyes and he looked away. ‘I put the phone down straight away. I wasn’t spying on you. But Rebecca sounded really excited. And the reason I don’t know her name is because…’ Her voice caught a little and she stopped.

Dan said, ‘I don’t think we should spend the evening like this. Do you want another drink?’

Jane took a deep breath, downed the rest of her beer and lit another cigarette. ‘No, you’re right. Let’s stop. I know I’m being paranoid. I know you don’t like me when I’m like this. I can’t help it really, not when you’re so far away.’ She blew smoke in his direction and smiled. ‘Your course is such bullshit. So much waffle.’

The sky had darkened with  black clouds and it had started to rain.  On the pavement, an old lady lifted an upturned palm to the sky. Dan said, ‘You’re not being paranoid. I should have explained last week. I knew you’d picked up the phone and I should have explained.’

  ‘Forget about it.’

  ‘It’s going to be fine,’

  ‘We have been good together, haven’t we?’ she went on. ‘And I want it to be good again.’

  ‘We’ll be fine. We always are.’

  ‘I’m terrible, I know. I’m horribly jealous.’ She laughed despite herself and tears filled her eyes.

  ‘Let’s go. We always fight when we’re drunk.’

They went outside. The rain bounced off the cobbled streets and into their shoes. It dripped from their hair and into their eyes. ‘Isn’t it wonderful?’ Jane said. She twirled about in front of him, her face lifted to the sky.  Dan took hold of her waist and pulled her towards him.  Her hair smelt of peaches and cigarettes.  A fork of lightning, then a low peal of thunder. The rain came heavier. They could barely see where they were going. ‘We’re going to drown,’ squealed Jane. She pulled herself free from his arm and ran towards the centre of the small square.  Dan watched her dance and twirl. She looked very young and small.

When they got back to the room, they were tired and hungry and their clothes were soaked through. The two suitcases stood in the middle of the room.  The crumpled poster lay on the desk, the feather boa was draped over the chair.  There was the bed, the basin, a cupboard and a chest of drawers.    

Jane opened the largest case. ‘I’ve of a bottle of Pimms in here,’ she said. ‘Grandma gave it to me as a leaving present. Can you believe it? I’ve never drunk Pimms in my life.’

They stripped out of their clothes and sat in their underwear on the bed.  Jane made a makeshift ashtray out of a toothbrush holder they found by the sink.  The rain had stopped and the dormitory was silent.  They passed the bottle of Pimms between them until they felt sick.

Jane said, ‘It feels bloody lonely here, doesn’t it? Like we’re the only people on the planet.’  Dan nodded. He was circling his fingers over her cold feet.  ‘It’s like the setting of a serial killer film. There’s probably some nutter stalking the hallway.’

  ‘Stop it.’

She flexed her foot and poked his bare stomach. ‘You’re getting fat.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘You are, just a little. How are your arms? You were whinging about them all the way here.’

  ‘Those suitcases killed me. When you stood at the top of the stairs, shouting at me, my forearms unfurled like plasticine.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ She laughed, put a hand to her mouth. ‘I can be so horrid, can’t I? But I thought we’d miss the train.’

He leaned forward and kissed her. She opened her mouth, then pulled away. ‘Do you want to finish this?’ She picked up the bottle. Some of the pink liquid spilled onto the mattress. ‘It’s gross, isn’t it?’

He took the bottle off her and took a swig. It made him gag. ‘Let’s go to bed,’ he said.

  ‘I want to talk.’

  ‘We’ve done too much talking.’

  ‘There’s one more thing, Dan. I’m only saying this because I’m drunk. Don’t think I’m being paranoid, but there’s one more thing.’

Dan put his fingers to her lips, kissed her again and rolled on top of her.  She fell backwards with a squeal.

  ‘Wait,’ she said. ‘There is one more thing.  When I picked up the phone…’

He was pushing down on her and trying to undo the clasp of her bra. ‘We’ll talk ourselves mad,’ he said. ‘No more tonight.’ Her bra came loose and he tossed it to the floor. She was very pale and cold.

  ‘It’s just what she said.  When you picked up the phone and said hello, she said, ‘It’s me.’ Why would she say that Dan?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He was looking at her sad eyes. ‘I don’t know why she’d say that.’

  ‘She’s just on your course right. You’re just doing a project together.  So why should she announce herself as ‘me’.’

They slipped under the sheets. It had got so cold they shook in each other’s arms for a while.  After a little while, Dan said, ‘I don’t know why she’d say that, Jane,’ but she had begun to snore. He stared at the peeling ceiling until he fell asleep.

When they woke, it was almost midday. Dan’s arm had gone numb under her weight. He pulled himself free and got out of bed. He splashed his face with water from the basin and pulled on a pair of jeans and a  T shirt.

Jane sat up and twiddled her fringe between her fingers. She was naked and bleary-eyed. ‘Come back to bed,’ she said.

  ‘I’ve got a train to catch. I have to be there in an hour.’

  ‘Oh Dan, you’re so sensible. I’ll get dressed. God knows where the showers are in this prison.’ 

They caught the bus to the centre of town and walked to the station.  It was a Monday and the streets were busy, the cafes were full. It was sunny but pools of water remained from the night’s downpour. They passed the little bar and the square where Jane had danced. Inside, they could see the barman, doing his crossword.

Near the station, they stopped for a coffee. Jane looked around her. The café was full of students, gossiping and eating and drinking. A man in one corner turned the pages of an enormous hardback novel. ‘I think I’ll be alright here,’ she said. ‘It’s not so bad in the day.’

‘You’ll be fine. You’ll make lots of friends.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, I think I will.’

At the station, Dan stood by the train carriage, his rucksack by his side.  Jane smoked a cigarette and looked up at the station clock. ‘Tick, tock,’ she said. ‘I can really feel it this time.’

  ‘Feel what?’

  ‘That we’re done.’

Dan looked at her feet and said nothing.  She gripped his arm, pushed her head into his chest and closed her eyes. He held her but they did not speak. ‘We were 14,’ she eventually said.

  ‘Six years ago.’

  ‘Six years seems an awfully long time, doesn’t it?’ She pushed herself closer, clasped him with both hands.

  ‘In some ways.’

She pulled free from his chest and kissed him briefly on the lips. She said, ‘When I came to Durham last Easter, it was so strange. I hardly recognized you. You were so different. Not in a bad way, not at all in a bad way. But I left feeling very lonely.’

  ‘I haven’t changed,’ Dan said. He looked at his watch. ‘I have to go.’

  ‘There was nothing we could have done about it really, is there?’

  ‘We’re working at it Jane.’

  ‘I’m not sure there was anything we could have done.  It just happens all the bloody time. It’s quite mundane really.’

Dan picked up his rucksack. ‘I wish you wouldn’t talk like this.’

Jane planted a kiss on his cheek and stepped back. ‘Get on the train, Dan, before I start blubbing.’

They embraced on the platform until the whistle blew.

  ‘Don’t forget, Dan,’ she said, as he opened the automatic door and stepped into the carriage. She touched his hand just before the doors closed. ‘Not even when you’re old and impotent.’

Dan waved as the train pulled away. He watched the small figure in a pink leather jacket recede into the distance, waving back.

He saw her throw her cigarette to the floor and immediately scrabble for another. He saw her struggling to light it in the wind.

 

 

 

 

The wild grass beneath us was only a little damp now after the scorching hot day we’d had. A couple of days ago there had been a huge super cell storm and apparently there’d been some tornadoes out by Castor. Near as I could tell, the storms had passed on but it was tornado season and you could never be too careful. We weren’t technically in tornado alley but twisters were fickle things and could appear anywhere. Eris said that tornados and hurricanes were nature’s way of showing us that she (Eris called nature ‘she’ because of it being called Mother Nature, I guessed) was still the most powerful force on this planet. With all the wars and folks chopping down rainforests and global warming, Eris says that nature is fighting back. It sure made sense to me, especially after I saw how Katrina had destroyed so much of New Orleans.

   We were lying in the clearing between the woods and the Gum Pond bayou in Bienville Parish. Hundreds, probably thousands, of insects hovered and swooped across the water, their wings buzzing and whining as they flew, occasionally getting eaten by frogs and other reptiles that leapt like slimy green missiles out of the water. The air smelled rich and cloying, a mixture of the moist earth, rotting vegetation and animals that made up these thick swamps. The sky was clear above us and the moon was big, low in the sky and golden coloured, like syrup. It was the day after the full moon, when the moon began its waning phase. That was something else Eris taught me. I never realised until she came along how ignorant I’d been all my life. She opened my mind up something crazy. Nowadays I was looking at the world in a whole new light because she’d made me see and understand everything that much better. Eris was a miracle, a true gift from God.

    I never said that to her though; she was kinda anti religion. ‘Because of how it warps people’s minds,’ she said. I’d been brought up to be a good Christian boy by my parents and I still was, I just didn’t need to go to church no more. My God was everywhere. He showed me His existence by bringing Eris into my world. I truly believed that. Some would say I was blinded by love but if I was, well then, that was just fine by me.

   I’d brought a cooler full of beer for the celebration later and we were sipping from a bottle each. We sat in companionable silence and I thought over a conversation Eris and I had in bed that morning, about how and why people do such goddamn nasty things to each other.

   ‘You know, the thing I’ve realised, that most people don’t understand, can’t even comprehend, is that we’re all the same. We’re all capable of doing great stuff and shit stuff and all the other colours in between black and white. But people are scared and they let other scared people get to them and warp their thinking, change their path, until they could be thrown into a pit of rattlesnakes and be as clueless as you can be, become one even. You have to look out for the rattlesnakes. That’s all I’m sayin’. Eris looked at me, dubiously, out of the corner of her eye and said ‘Ok, I get what you’re saying, Marcus, except the rattlesnake part. That was straight out of the left field.’

   She lifted her head so she could sip her beer and winked at me. I laughed and coughed as I sat up, grass stuck to my bare back and all messed up in my hair. Her hair, which was darkest brown and long enough for her to sit on, was splayed out around her head, looking like dark water with its dips and waves. Her skin was pale and completely without marks and her eyes, a deeper, more complex green than even the Louisiana swamps held. Sometimes I thought they flickered, danced, the way the shine on a dragonfly ripples as it flies past.

    Off somewhere in the woods, crickets chirruped at each other while foxes slunk around, their small paws barely ruffling the leaf littered floor. Bats fluttered through the leaves and wolves howled in the distance. They never came here though, into the clearing. I wasn’t sure why; maybe they were scared of the ‘gators that sometimes sunned themselves here.

   ‘You know, I think you‘ve turned me into some sort of hippie.’ She looked at me with that raised eyebrows face she got when she thought I was full of shit. ’I mean it! You got me thinking about Mother Nature and how to change humanity and all types of stuff I ain’t never thought about before.’ I smiled my huge, dumb ass grin at her and she rolled her eyes back at me, flicking a bug off her long dress and wiggling her bare toes in the grass.

    ‘As for what we were saying earlier, I don’t believe none of this end-of-the-world fear mongering they keep going on about on the news and in the papers, though I get why they’re doing it. If scaring the shit out of all the idiots and rednecks means these assholes clean up after themselves, I’m good with that. Aren’t you?’ I grabbed another beer out of the cooler and twisted it open. I offered her one but she held hers up to show me she had some left.

   ‘But if we’re all capable of good then surely we should be given a chance to prove that by being told the truth about what’s going on in the world, not the governments spin on it. At least that way, there’ll be more well informed assholes.’

   ‘Erm…’ She had me there. My debating skills weren’t up to much and she was way too smart for me. ‘Well, uhm, maybe I'm just full of shit.’

   She laughed and said, ‘I think that’s most likely, don’t you?’ then turned her face towards the woods. We could hear the others approaching.

   There were shouts and rustling as our friends stormed their way through the trees to find us. I called out to them and soon torch beams were cutting through the darkness around us. There were six of them, just like we planned, eight of us in total, four men and four women. The sacred number, it represented infinity; the never ending cycle of life.

   ‘What took y’all so long? We’ve been waiting for your slow asses for nearly two damn hours.’ I got to my feet and gave Eris my hand so she could stand up. ‘Well, we didn’t wanna interrupt your little love session now did we? Though I can hardly account for the other hour and fifty five minutes,’ my friend Ben called out to me; a big shit-eating grin on his face.

   ‘Better than your three minutes, you drunk redneck.’ I threw him a beer which he caught, gleefully.

   ‘That’s enough boys, we don’t have much time.’ Eris said, her tone ringing with authority. Her being the only one of us without a Louisiana accent immediately made her sound the most intelligent, something that maybe should bother me, born and raised here like I was, but it didn’t. I’d do anything for her, even if that meant walking into the gates of Hell.

   ‘Do we have everything?’ She looked around at all of us and we held up our hallowed objects. Mine was a vial of snake venom on a black leather strap. I’d squeezed the venom out of the snakes myself, just like she asked, and she’d been real pleased about it.

   Ben held up his silver athame, a knife used in rituals, with the black onyx decorated handle and different runes carved into the sharp, tarnished blade. I recognised some of them as ones that Eris had taught me but not all of them.

   Jacob rattled his dirty cloth bag of bones, seven from different animals and one human rib he stole from the coroner’s office where his daddy worked.

   Adam held a bottle of red wine that we had all added drops of our own blood to. I wasn’t sure if we were supposed to drink it later or not. Eris just said she’d tell us when the time was right.

   Jessica had a bundle of long reeds tucked under one arm and a large zip lock bag filled with smaller bags of different herbs and flowers in her hand. I didn’t know what was in there but Eris helped Jessica pick them herself which made Jessica as pleased as punch.

   Ava had a vial, very similar to mine, filled with her own menstrual blood. That kinda grossed me out if I was honest, though I’d never be so rude as to say anything about it. Eris explained to me that it symbolised the fertility cycle, one of the most important functions of life and was therefore a necessity.

   Mary clutched a bag of sea salt, a grimy looking compass and five black candles, infused with the scent of jasmine. Because it was night blooming which Eris said was very important.

   Eris and I brought the most crucial element, the piece that pulled the whole thing together. He was a known paedophile. The cops had been trying to lock him up for years but he was a devious son of a bitch and kept managing to get away with his nasty shit. We were gonna put a stop to that tonight. Of course none of us wanted to pick someone good, we weren’t evil or nothing, so this guy, Horace, had been the logical choice. Eris and I knocked him out with chloroform, stripped him of his clothes and brought him here.

      ‘Prepare the pentacle,’ she told Mary who got to work straight away. Eris told us we needed a pentacle for this instead of a pentagram (a pentacle has a circle around the five pointed star, a pentagram doesn’t) because the circle made out of sea salt would protect us in case anything went wrong. I didn’t really like the sound of that but I trusted her. She wouldn’t let anything happen to us, especially not to me. Eris loved me, I knew she did. I mean, she didn’t say it back when I said it to her, which kinda hurt, but maybe it was just the wrong time. She’d say it to me eventually, I knew that she would.

   Mary began placing the candles using the compass until they formed the points of the star then linked them up with the reeds Jessica handed her so that the centre of the pentacle was visible. After that, she surrounded the formation with the sea salt circle. Eris smiled at her and nodded, acknowledging a job well done. Mary blushed, a deep pink colour, and fluttered her eyelashes at Eris. I was pretty sure she wasn’t a lesbian (I’d heard rumours of her fooling around with Jason Redditch in high school), Eris just dazzled everyone that way.

   ‘Jessica, it’s your turn. Do you remember what I told you to do?’ Jessica nodded vigorously and began to organise the herbs. She started to burn a different one at each candle, filling the air with oddly colourful and fragrant smoke that made my nose tickle and my eyes water.

   Eris shut her eyes and said quietly, ‘Move the sacrifice to the middle of the pentacle.’ I looked at the other men and nodded towards Horace. We each grabbed a limb and carefully laid him out in the centre of the star, his legs apart and arms spread wide out, palms up. Now it was my turn. Eris had instructed me to dribble the venom on his forehead, over his heart, on his upturned palms and the tops of his feet. Jessica scattered flowers over his body and Jacob placed the bones around him, evenly spaced with the human rib bone above his head.

   Ben was just handing Eris the athame when Horace started to stir. His eyelids fluttered as he fought to open his eyes but soon they were wide open, taking in the scene around him.

    ‘Hey… Hey, what’s going on here?! What the Hell are you kids doing to me? Where the fuck are my clothes and what’s this shit on me?’ He tried to get up but we moved in to hold him down while Eris approached with the athame. Horace struggled beneath our hands, terror in his eyes, clear as day. I looked away and tried to ignore him. I knew there was no turning back now, even though his pleads for release twanged at my heart strings. Misgivings or not, we had to finish. For her, we had to complete the ritual.

   Eris started the chant she’d taught us and we joined in, our low voices uninterrupted by Horace’s shouts for help.

    ‘Abaddon, nos dico in vos. Baphomet, nos es vestri vernula. Belial, nos cultus vestri atrum vox. Asael, nos dedi vos is vitualamen. Lucifer, capimus vos in nos.’

   Our chanting voices slowly got louder as wind began to churn up the woods around us. The air was hot, even for a Louisiana night in spring and we were all sweating profusely. Even Eris looked warm as she stepped inside the pentacle, athame raised high above her head. Horace took one look at it and started screaming, struggling so fiercely that it was getting close to impossible to hold him in place. The air started to smell, like electric and rotting meat, sulphur maybe. I gagged as I chanted. The wind was howling now, whipping us with leaves, branches slapping against each other, animals crying out in fright. Everything around us was moving violently; all except the flames of the candles which remained perfectly still, as did the flowers and bones within the pentacle.

    Quick as a snake, Eris plunged the athame right into Horace’s heart. He howled with pain and blood poured out of the wound as she pulled the knife back out. He died with his eyes wide open, staring pitifully up at the sky, a silent prayer on his lips. ‘Ava, pour the blood into the wound. Adam, pour all the wine around him. Don’t stop the chant. He’s almost here.’ They quickly did as they were told while Eris began to dance inside the pentacle, the soles of her feet picking up grass as she danced through the wine and the blood. As she picked up the pace, so did our chanting, faster and louder until we were screaming it at her, at each other, at the world around us. Her whole body was shaking, her eyes closed and her mouth hanging open in what looked like purest ecstasy.

   Suddenly she stopped, and then everything stopped. The wind died down, our chant was hushed, like something had come along and snatched the words from right out of our mouths. It was eerily quiet now and the air thrummed with power. Eris’ eyes fluttered open and we all took a scared step back. Her beautiful green eyes had been transformed. They were coal black, the whites were gone, and reflected no light, not even from the candles. Dark voids that held us transfixed. Chuckling menacingly, she turned from us and reached her arms up towards the stars.

    ‘He’s here.’

He knew they would come today. The estate looked regular and dull, like nothing out of the ordinary could possibly happen, but Sam knew different. The signs, hidden from casual view, stood out when he focused on them. He shook the evidence away with a toss of his head, an unsettled horse scared without blinkers. He didn't want to see. He didn't want to know.

No precautions had been taken by his neighbours. Their paths were cleared of snow, almost an invitation to the horror that would come. Sam knew it was pointless to try and warn them, to make them see the vulnerability in the open-curtain rooms at the front of their homes. To see how the light and colour would draw the visitors straight to them.

A twitching at the corner of his vision. Margaret looked through a slanted crack between the defensive drapes in their front room. He'd told her to go inside, to see to some blankets and quilts to let them both hide in one room, with no heating or lights to reveal their presence. He flicked his hand at her and she disappeared into the gloom of the house.

Flurries of snow circled around him, and he pulled the wool of his hat further down his forehead, anything to stop the flakes landing on his eyelashes and slowing him down. With the back of his hand he dashed away the moisture on his face, then stared down the close to the road at the bottom. Empty.

Sam shook his head. There should be at least one policeman. He knew they couldn't be everywhere, but the estate was a sitting duck, the first residential area the visitors would come to. They would be drawn straight to the warm glow of the houses.

He spun back to the garage door and kicked snow up against the bottom of it. He'd covered over all their footprints, and now it was time to make it look like no one had been in or out. He reached the end of the door and stood surveying his work, hands on hips as he breathed smoke into the freezing air. To his critical eye, the white humps looked staged, but another dusting and his tread marks would fade. He hoped the visitors wouldn't come this close, that they'd just move on to richer pickings.

Sam moved backwards to the front door, his boots making soft arcs as they rubbed out his retreating footprints. He let out a long sigh as he felt the thick wood against his back. Margaret had left it unlocked for him even though he'd told her not to, and he clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth and rolled his eyes as he stepped inside.

The air was still after the wind that circled the white flakes into small eddies. It was only punctuated by Sam's decisive bolting of the main lock, then the safety one. He tapped a finger against his bottom lip as he studied the hallway. With a lunge, he reached out for the short bench where they sat to pull their boots off. It fit under the door handle snugly.

Leaving the evidence of damp shapes on the carpet, he went first to the bedroom window, then after checking it was locked, he moved to the bay that looked from the front room over the garden. It was secure too, but he watched for a moment, knowing that the pure covering of white would soon be impacted by the horde, the peace of the close broken.

A huddled shape behind the sofa caught his attention and he turned to see Margaret already in place. She held up a thermos and he gave a weak smile at the idea of tea. He took a pace towards her but paused with his foot in mid-stride. The sound of crunching snow and frost cut into their space.

In swift movements, Sam joined Margaret and covered himself with the quilt. The visitors made no effort in hiding their presence, and their calls to each other could be heard as their bulk moved closer.

Sounds at the bottom of the garden.

Then at the front door. An interested dog snuffling out a rabbit's burrow.

Sam shrank down further as if they could see through the wall.

Then the sounds began, the ones the visitors used to try and entice their prey out.

'Good King Wenceslas looked out, On the feast of Stephen... '

The Idea
I am proposing to put together a collection of short stories, with contributions from different authors. I will firstly explain what I aim to achieve, then the benefits and then further details on how to get involved.

The Aim

The overall aim is to produce a self-published e-book that will be available for download on Amazon for free. This book will contain short stories by a number of different authors. The target is to break into the top 100 books available for free download.

I will be doing all the reviewing and editing on the submitted stories and will also be doing the compiling, formatting and publication work for the book, as well as getting involved in the marketing afterwards. So the admin side of things is taken care of, all you have to do is write a publishable short story.

All authors will retain the copyright for their respective stories and this will be stated within the book itself.

If this is successful I would like to make it a regular thing and build up a reputation for showcasing some of the best new emerging talent in fiction writing, that might otherwise have remained undiscovered.

All contributing authors will be able to submit their own bio to go along with their story and will receive a final draft copy to review before I upload it as a published book.

The Benefits

1) You get your work published in a book for free.

2) Even if your work is not selected to for the final book, all authors will receive some feedback on their work.

3) All stories will be preceded by an author bio. This is free advertising of you as an author and is also a place to advertise any other publications you may have.

4) There will be an opportunity for you to include contact details so that agents and/or publishers can contact you directly if they like your work.

5) Instead of just one author trying to market their book, there will be an entire team of us marketing the same book.

There are other benefits and experience that I can provide:

I teach classes on academic writing and have also been involved with the editing of publications, as well as having my own book chapter published within book.

I have expertise within the field of the psychology of marketing and sales. I will use this knowledge to help promote this book and give tips in general on the marketing side of things.

If you do not yet have your own author website then I can set one up for you and simply email you the password to access it, which you can then change and be the proud new owner of your own website complete with blog.

I have an excellent network for marketing the book, as well as friends who can provide high quality photos for the front cover.

The Details

1) The deadline for submission is 15th January 2012

2) Short stories must be between 2000 and 5000 words in length

3) Stories can be from any genre, but must be high quality fiction

4) Only 1 short story per author

5) Author bio must be one paragraph. Suggested inclusions are your name, location, other publications, a few facts about yourself, writing interests/genres and any contact details or links to websites that you would like to include.

6) No pictures or illustrations

7) You keep full copyright and ownership of your work, but by submitting it to me then you agree to have your work published in this book

8) The work must not have been published, or part published, anywhere else before. It must be entirely original. Plagiarism checks will be carried out, as it is only fair to the other contributing authors.

9) Please submit your work as a Microsoft word document, with no page numbers

If you are interested then please send me a message and I will send you the email address to which you should send your work.

If you have any questions then please feel free to ask. This will hopefully be a fun way of helping a few of us get published :)

Further Details

For those of you who are interested, then some further details are as follows.

The title of the book will be ‘Mullins Collection of Best New Fiction’. Using my surname as the title of the collection ensures that there will be no copyright issues with other similarly named collections, as well as making it is distinctive enough for readers to find future collections.

The layout of each story will be as follows:

TITLE

Author Name

Author Bio

Short Story

I will be writing a short introduction for the book, as well as formatting page numbers and creating a contents page and author contact page for the back of the book.

Take care and happy writing,

Aaron

This is a short story I wrote a few years ago that I just unearthed... Originally written as part of a GCSE course (I did it when I was 38 to get my english up to standard for another course cos my CSE in english was... let's just say pants...).

thought I'd see what you thought...  

 

Jump!

“ONE THOUSAND! TWO THOUSAND! THREE THOUSAND! FOUR THOUSAND! CHECK CANOPY!” he bellowed.

 

He signed up for it and began thinking of ways to raise the money. He could
of course ask the other people on his courses, his lecturers and family, but that wouldn’t raise much. However, he had been using Usenet for well over a year. He'd made friends online, so why not ask on the newsgroups too?

* * *

 

He decided to test the grips and gave the left one a slight pull. He slowly
began turning to the left. He pulled the right while relaxing on the left and
rotated clockwise, deciding to do a full 360 to see everything. The Humber  bridge drifted into view.

“Hmm, I didn’t even know that was so close”, he thought to himself “But wow, what a RUSH! That was amazing and this view is  just beautiful!”

* * *

 

He relaxed, relishing the very odd and unique blend of helplessness and freedom. The ground was definitely getting closer now, though it seemed to be taking longer than he expected. Time in this situation would be very subjective. Someone standing on the ground wouldn’t have all these feelings and sights to experience. They say time flies when you’re having fun, but that wasn’t the case here, it seemed to have slowed to a snail’s pace, if anything.

* * *

 

Finally, the jump was going ahead, the weather was fine and calm. As the
plane was only a small Cesna, only five could go up at a time. He stood by the field, looking up at the first batch of parachutes as they deployed and drifted slowly to the ground, wondering what it would feel like. He’d been scheduled for the fifth flight of the day, which would be in about two hours so he had plenty of time to enjoy watching the others.

 

 

Safety checks over, the first jumper moved to the doorway. Her rip cord was attached to a cable connected to a bar above the doorway, she seated herself on the ledge and faced forward. On the command of the instructor, she pushed herself out and was gone. Then it was his turn. He moved to the doorway,  still feeling no fear. His ripcord was connected, he placed his hand over his emergency cord, put his legs over the ledge.

“No”, the instructor said “You need to face forward”.
“Oops, sorry”, said Andrew, turning to face the front.
“GO GO GO!”, yelled the instructor.

He pushed himself out and was away...

“ONE THOUSAND! TWO THOUSAND! THREE THOUSAND! FOUR THOUSAND! CHECK CANOPY!” he bellowed.

“It’s time to go…”

 

Thaddeus blinked a few times as he sat up, his eyes adjusting to the dim light, “But it’s still-“

 

“I know.” Levi was a man of many words, the curse of a philosopher’s mind, but his bluntness held a note of caution. There was small glimmer in the darkness as Levi shifted, the faint stars casting their light on the metal of his rifle.

 

Thaddeus rose to his feet, keeping in a low crouch as he reached for his own weapon, a small pistol. It was then that he noticed it: A light shifting in the night, the faint rustle of a footstep, the deep-throated rumble of some bizarre creature.

 

Levi made a swift motion and began to creep along the cliff’s ledge. They had taken refuge among the numerous cliff ledges for the night, their bodies having been pushed to the point of exhaustion. They had been running. What they had been running from they didn’t know, but they could feel its presence the day they started their journey. Now, the presence was back, its movements silent and swift, but none-the-less there.

 

So here they were once more, running. For one moment, Thaddeus desperately wanted to confront the creature and end this pursuit once and for all, but deep down he knew the fate that would befall that decision.

 

As they crept along the cliff side, the faint sound of the waves crashing along the rocks below brought them to the realization of the predicament they were in. It would only take one misplaced foot, one slip of the hand to plummet the many feet to their deaths.

 

“We need to move faster…” Levi’s voice was laden with worry as he picked his way along. He could sense as the creature began to close in, this was its territory. It had no fear of heights, or danger. The only thing that held it at bay night to night was the gleaming fire, and now…

 

There! The top ledge was just out of reach as they climbed their way along the ledges.

 

“It’s up there. Boost me up, I’ll pull you next.”

 

Thaddeus disliked the idea of being last, but complied as he realized the lesser option of stalling time. It was not long before the both of them scrambled onto the sparsely vegetated flats overlooking the ocean, but they could not rest long. The creature was continuing to close in.

 

Already exhausted, they scrambled away from the groaning rumbles of the creature, hoping to put some distance between it and themselves. They had a mission to complete, now wouldn’t be the time to fail. They were so close…

 

Thaddeus stopped in his tracks, “You have to be kidding me!” Levi stopped and turned in the direction Thaddeus was pointing. There in the distance were torch lights. The torch lights of the very castle they were looking for.

 

“We were this close all this time?!” Thaddeus looked furious now as be continued to plod through the loose dirt and rocks.

 

“Will you be quiet? We aren’t safe yet…” Levi was right, that creature could be anywhere near them now.

 

The light was just being to show as the sun rose over the ocean’s horizon. It was then that Thaddeus looked behind to see if they were still being pursued.

 

“HEL-“ His cry was cut short as the creature leapt on him, tearing out his throat with its menacing jaws. Levi yelled out and shot at the creature with his rifle, just missing the creatures head and striking its arm. They had always imagined the creature to be hideous, but he had never imagined something so vile.

 

It looked like something out of a horror story. Its body was horribly disfigured with numerous human and animal parts. Five arms protruded from a disfigured chest, giving the creature a spider-like appearance. Each arm held different implements of animals, beaks, talons, bear claws, each tinged red with blood. Its face was hideous beyond reckoning. An elongated and horribly disfigured skull of a human with a mouth lined with many types of teeth rested on what was supposed to be the neck of the beast. As it finished its swift feast, the rumbling turned into maniacal laughter and speech.

 

“Finally…” The creature chuckled, “I am nearly complete…”

 

Levi didn’t waste another moment. In an instant the creature was bounding toward him, jaws wide open. It was in this mouth that Levi shot and a horrid gurgling sound followed.

 

Its eyes turned toward hatred as it leapt at Levi, snapping at his throat and limbs, slashing with claws and talons to break the defensive hold that Levi held. But Levi proved exceptional strong for his size, throwing the creature from himself and drawing a long-bladed knife. This time when the creature leapt, Levi was ready. With a swift motion, Levi severed the head of the beast, knife passing through the thin neck that held it together.

 

It fell in a crumpled heap and Levi tumbled to the ground, panting. It was over…  Now it was time to deal with the creator… Levi stood once more, the message pouring from his lips as he recited the well memorized code, “Darkness begins, magic abounds, evil corrupts, time’s clock sounds.” It was time to end this cult, these necromantic fanatics, once and for all.

A short story

Some days it can hit you completely out of the blue.  There is no apparent reason for it, today is no different from yesterday but you feel it; the black cloud hovering above you, the threat of a storm.  I slowly open my eyes and flinch at the glorious sunshine bursting through a gap in the curtains.  It catches the dust floating in the air, thousands of tiny specks lighting up the room.  I suddenly become very aware of my breathing, the dust filling my lungs with each breath.

‘Mummy, mummy, it’s in the morning!’  Gracie shouts as she jumps and thumps trying to wake me.  Her joy is overflowing at the prospect of another day.  Oh to have that wonder, that enthusiasm for life.  To be filled with so much energy and vitality.  When do we lose it?  At which point do we start to feel more tired upon waking than when we went to bed.  When do our days begin with aching joints and tight muscles?  Is it the loss of Father Christmas, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny that seals our fate?  Does the reality of life take away our childhood wonder and excitement?

Gracie jumps on me again and I feel her warm hands cling to me for a cuddle. ‘I love you mummy.’ a big kiss landing on my cheek.  I smile in spite of myself.  So precious, so wonderful and then she is gone and rushing off to find her father.  I feel the guilt flow over me as I wonder how I can feel so miserable when I am surrounded by such love.  The black cloud is still hovering above my head.  Tears sting my eyes and I bury myself under the duvet.  ‘Five more minutes’ I tell myself and try to find the cheerful thoughts at the back of my head.

Eventually I drag my tired body out of bed.  Stiff muscles fight against the movement but I try and stretch the pain away; my head heavy as I bend to touch my toes.  Rubbing my lower back I walk into the bathroom resisting the urge to go back to bed and hide from the day.  A surge of morning activity carries me through.  With the routine of breakfast, dressing and the gathering of school bags I can work on automatic pilot.  The body seems to carry itself along without too much help from the mind. 

Before long I am alone though, alone with my black cloud.  I stand for a few minutes feeling slightly lost and bewildered.  I shake my head in an effort to bring myself back and start to tidy the breakfast things away.  As always I am gripped by the sense of being slightly behind, always trying to catch up; chugging along like some old steam engine trying to reach the top of a never-ending hill.  With a sense of déjà vu I begin washing the dishes.  Eventually I sit down at the computer with a cup of tea.  ‘I must get some work done!’  I tell myself, all the while I’m aware of the time slipping away.  So much to do and soon it will be time to collect Gracie from school.  The blank screen stares back at me, taunting me with the crisp whiteness, the cursor winking its invitation.  I sit and stare and sit and stare.  Nothing comes, just the weight of the back cloud bearing down on me. 

Abruptly I turn away from the screen, dizziness hits me and I feel the air heavy in my lungs.  Outside the sun shines and I walk out into the garden.  It is hard to see.  Within the anxiety my world becomes smaller, blurred around the edges.  The brightness of the sun is subdued as though a filter has been placed in front of it.  The flowers in my garden, chosen for their bright colours and rich scent appear less dazzling.  Everything is muted and shrouded in grey.  Tears find my eyes again and I stumble back into the house. 

I sit and allow myself to cry.  Maybe it will help; maybe it will exorcize the demons in my head, voices of misery, pain and self doubt.  Guilt engulfs me again; why should I feel such misery?  I have been blessed with so many wonderful things.  Even with my depression I belittle myself; make it unimportant.  ‘Oh I suffer from a little depression.  Yes I feel a bit blue sometimes.  It comes and goes; nothing too bad.  It’s not as though I can’t get out of bed in the morning!’  Always playing it down, never allowing myself to admit that it’s important, that I’m important.  The truth is at times it can be crippling.  It can make the simplest things a constant struggle.  It is of course self destructive.  I beat myself up about these feeling that I just can’t control.  ‘Pull yourself together girl!’  ‘JUST STOP!’

I pick up a book I’ve been reading of Virginia’s letters.  I’m curious about her and her demons.  When Upon finding the book in the library I wondered if it could give me some clues.  So many people are tormented by their own thoughts.  Some manage to survive and carry on regardless; others disappear into the madness within.  I flick through and read at random.  Is the secret within?  How can we avoid the sad, lonely end that she experienced?  When is death the only option?  I ponder the occupation of writing.  Can it be good to delve too deeply into your own mind if you suffer from depression?    Goodness knows what you might find there in the darkest depths.  Then again maybe it can be an ideal way to transfer those demons onto paper. 

My neck and shoulders are sore, my stomach churns.  I wonder how long my black cloud will be with me this time.   My thoughts are interrupted by the sound of the telephone ringing.  ‘Vanessa my darling, how are you?  Is this a good time?  I hate to interrupt you when you’re working; I just thought I’d phone for a quick chat.’  I smile and sit back in my chair.  ‘Hi mum, I’m fine thanks, a chat would be lovely.  How are things?’  I begin to relax as I listen to the familiar, comforting voice at the end of the line.  Slowly I feel my black cloud lifting.  I look out of the window and admire the rainbow of colours that fill my garden.  Today at least is going to be OK after all. 

The Town was a quiet place.

It hadn’t always seemed quiet to me. When I had first arrived here when I was young, I had struggled to come to terms with how large everything was. It had given me a feeling of insignificance, of being small and almost invisible. But now those feelings were gone. Now I walked through the streets and found it difficult to believe that this place was even a Town. After the sprawling toxic streets of the City this clean lush pace seemed very small.

The Town was celebrating. The streets were full to bursting with the young, and the old, the drunk and the drugged, many of which seemed perfectly content with their state of intoxication. I smiled watching the people’s folly and only just managed to sidestep as a young girl, no older than thirteen, threw herself at me. I struggled not to laugh as she staggered but did not fall. Shaking my head, I turned and walked into another woman, this one older. The woman smiled at me and held up a simple wooden bead necklace which was dropped over my head. She spoke to me in words I did not understand before twirling away. I watched her briefly as she disappeared into the crowd.

After the poisonous air of the City, this place was almost Eden to my long suffering senses. The city had been rank, the air had burned my nose and throat, the people were lifeless and the streets were bitter. The constant jostling did not anger me as it usually would have, but actually had the opposite effect. I was calm; a strange sense of contentment had washed over me, strange only because of its rarity. I felt suddenly safe here in a way I never had when in the City. It was impossible to be safe in City, to many eyes always watching. It had been impossible to indulge myself the way I planned to here.

The lust for blood had been rising slowly all evening and the fact I was now surrounded by unaware innocents only fuelled my hunger.

Fingering the delicate wooden beads that had been dropped around my neck, I moved on. The dancing woman and her cohorts would not fall prey to me tonight. My usual targets were not charming innocents but creatures of a more masculine nature.

Slipping silently back into the flow of people, I marveled at the strange smells of unfamiliar food and the brightly coloured candles that littered the rooftops. The smell was pleasant but overwhelming and so I slipped into the first tavern I came to. The expanses of dark wood along with tarnished brass spoke of an age which had long ago slowly slipped away. It survived now only in remnant places like these.

For the look of things, I placed coins on the bar, and in return received a glass full of wine I would never touch. Settling myself in the corner of the bar, I waited. Tonight I wore simple black, nothing eye-catching and beautiful but nothing to sneer at either. Black I have learned is always good for hiding both bloodstains and myself in crowds. With my hair pulled back, I appeared like any other young man. No one would guess I had killed dozens, fought dozens more and that I had every intention of killing tonight. But then that was the whole point.

To my relief it did not take long for my prey to become apparent. He stood a little way down the bar from me and ordered something I did not recognize. He then sat alone, drinking. Our eyes met more than once, but each time he broke our gaze, looking down at his drink. I tired quickly of this game. I am not famed for my patience, and make no attempts to deny this. I usually prefer to allow my prey to approach me, but that was not a luxury I needed this night as I had been denied my pleasure for far too long. Besides there was much to be had and I did not want to spend all night with this one. So I allowed my impatience to win and  moved to him. I watched silently as he ordered another of whatever it was he was drinking.

“You realize that that stuff will kill you.” I smirked at him. His eyes lit with pleasure when he realised I was addressing him.

I gave my name as Aaron and in a flash of inspiration I told him I was a painter from the south. He spoke to me in slow careful words. I learned that he was from the west and he’d come to see the Towns festival. Poor creature, he was a kind soul who didn’t seem to want to harm anything. I felt my fingers wrap around the wire in my pocket.

Ten minutes later we were leaning against the cold stone at the back of the tavern, my wires buried across his throat.

The sound he made was liquid silk and warmed me inside. It had been too long since I had taken someone who was free from the City’s toxins, someone clean, and I enjoyed it immensely. I pressed myself against him as he died and fancied I could feel it when the heat from him began to diminish. His eyes blinked blindly at me once, questioningly, and I sighed. I wasn’t doing this out of hatred, far from it. In the last moments of his life, I could have loved him.

With that thought sinking deep inside my mind I dropped him and turned back out onto the streets. My hunger would not be so easily satisfied.

Warm.

That was my first thought as my mind slowly returned to consciousness. It was so comfortable here. I was wrapped in one of the blankets with a comfortable soft weight sprawled over me. Both of which were responsible for the warmth and for the first time in weeks I finally felt rested and peaceful.

I felt myself waking up slowly and enjoyed it. Then the weight on me shifted and my eyes opened to watch her, Madeline. She had, it seemed, tired to cover me completely with herself, one of her legs was thrown over both of mine, and one of her arms was slung equally haphazardly across my chest. The hand attached to the arm was resting against my chin. And somehow, she had managed to push us both to the left side of the bed and wedge us up against the wall. My own arm had not moved from her waist were it had settled last night. I smiled and closed my eyes shifting us both back towards the centre of the bed, then settled once again I yawned and tried to go back to sleep.

But my movement disturbed her.

She made a small sleepy happy sound and I felt her squirm, obviously waking slowly as I had moments before.

It has been far too long since I had woken with another in my bed, and having said girl squirm was not helping my situation in any sense. Thinking if I remained still she would go back to sleep I did not move, unfortunately my masterful plan failed miserably when she moved to sit on me and shook me vigorously.

“Vincent.” I could hear the smirk in her voice, and wondered why she was so happy so early, no one should be this happy this early. I opened my moth to tell her firmly to go back to sleep but all that came out was a groan.

“NNnnnnn Madi.” Not my most eloquent speech, but it made her go very still. I’m unsure if her stillness was caused by the fact I had groaned or if it was because she was remembering the affairs which had led to us waking like this.

She went still for a few moments and curiosity got the better of me, I cracked open an eye to watch her, only to find she was watching me from her new position in my lap. The look on her face was confused as if she didn’t quiet know what to do, or as if she was expecting me to ask her something.

I wanted to ask her something, something important. But I am a coward; I kept my silence and looked away.

My father once told me never to doubt myself. It was perhaps the only thing he ever said to me that I care to remember. He was talking to me about another of the local business owners. This man owned a slightly more fanciful restaurant than we did and had been given a large contract. A contract my father had wanted.

 

I had taken his words for jealous mumblings but he explained himself and his explanation forever stuck with me. He spoke of the contract he and this other man had been in competition for and had said how he easily met the criteria required. This other man apparently had more money than we did and a higher social standing but he was, at least in my father’s opinion, not as adequately skilled for the contract as my father would have been.

 

“The right man for the right job.” My father had said to me in the car, on the way home. “Never doubt yourself my son, but always ask yourself are you the right man for the job at hand?” his breath had reeked of alcohol -his consolation for not winning- but his words had been profound and ever since hearing them I always asked myself, was I the right man for this job.  I asked myself that question before any undertaking and almost always answered myself truthfully. Usually I was right.

I had asked myself this question many times concerning Madeline and each time i had gotten cold feet.

I wanted to marry her.

But was I the right man.

I leaned up and brushed my mouth across hers and let myself fall back to the bed, she followed me and her mouth closing over mine. I smirked into the kiss; I had meant the gesture only as one of comfort and had not expected such a pleasant reaction. Her short nails bit into my arms, I wrapped my arms around her, moulding her to me. She was supple and warm. I felt her trembling against me as I took control of the kiss, making small sounds of desperation, her demeanour changed ever so subtly in a manner I had only half been expecting. She shifted on top of me squirming against me, making a slightly louder and greatly more pleased sound when her hips moved lower coming into sharp contact with my own.

Her movements after that were slow and curious, her hands were soft and slowly gaining in assurance but still teasing. She found places that had since last night forgotten the feel of her soft hands; and in turn I made her shiver, my own hands lacking the shyness of hers.

“Vincent.” She smiled against my skin. I smirked back at her

“Yes?” I asked

“What do you want for breakfast?” she asked. I blinked at her for a moment before my smirk became a grin. I closed my eyes for a moment, and red throbbed behind the lids. It was . . . this was . . . perfect.

“Bacon.” I whispered,

“Me too.”

I loved her; maybe I would ask her over breakfast?