“Because she’s new?”
“And different from everyone else that I’ve ever gone out with. I mean, my wife and girlfriends have always been traditionalists.”
“But you are, too.”
“I was, but she’s made me think about things differently. She’s sort of New Age but she’s somehow tied it all in with quantum mechanics. It’s fascinating stuff.”
“I was something of a hippy at university,” I said, somewhat desperately. In other words, I’d owned a couple of tie-dye outfits and an Afghan coat.
“She likes all these esoteric things, believes in the supernatural.”
“But you’re an atheist. We both are!”
“I think that I’d consider myself an agnostic nowadays.”
I should end this, I thought, then breathed in his aftershave and faint manly sweat and knew that I couldn’t. I wanted him in my bed and in my life every single day. Surely three days a week was much, much better than nothing? He made me laugh, made me think, made me orgasm twice in one night. She was offering the hurly-burly of the futon whilst I gave him the deep, deep peace of the king-size bed.
I made the next three months so peaceful that it’s a wonder he didn’t die of bliss. We had weekly home-cooked meals at my place, washed down by the finest wines and brandies. We lay in my Jacuzzi and listened to whale music, made love using a vibrating relaxing massager which I’d purchased online. On other nights, we went to see feel-good movies or enjoyed weekend trips to bird sanctuaries and nature reserves.
Would he really enjoy going clubbing with her once the novelty had worn off? Was being the oldest swinger in town truly his preference? Surely he’d tire of her monthly aggression and choose comparatively laid-back me?
“Shall we go to the Eden Project this weekend?” I asked. Eve had tempted Adam with an apple but I was using greenery and pastoral music as my offerings.
“Can’t – Becky’s no longer going to her parents’ at the weekend so I’ll be taking her dancing instead.”
I felt as if I’d been hit.
“What’s changed?”
“They’ve moved abroad.”
“But she’d been seeing them every weekend?” I’d always thought that he mainly saw her straight from work, that he’d made an active choice to spend every Saturday and Sunday with me.
“Uh-huh. They were running a struggling bed and breakfast and she was helping out.”
“So now you’re going to switch between the two of us?”
He looked away then mumbled, “Not sure.”
“What if she has PMS?”
“Oh, she’s switched to a different pill. She’s much better.”
“Is she really?” I said, and a little acid came back up from my stomach and burned my throat.
Have you any idea how difficult it is to fill an entire weekend when you know that the man you love is having fun with your much younger rival? Oh, I resurrected my old social life with the hillwalking club and went for meals out with my neighbour, but nothing brought me pleasure any more. Now I lived for Monday, Wednesday and Friday nights which I spent with Jack, sometimes socializing and sometimes staying in. I tried so hard to please him on these nights – my conversation sweet, my laughter ready, my tongue bionic – but he still went to her every weekend and maybe even saw her on Tuesdays and Thursdays too. Plus they were together all day at work, had hours in which to build up shared jokes. I couldn’t compete.
Eventually, it began to affect my health so badly that I’d lie there in the mornings unable to get out of bed. I felt literally weighted. This was particularly strange as by now I’d lost two stone, looked pale and weak. I also lost concentration when I did finally arrive at work, was called in front of the board of governors and warned that I had to shape up. But he was still touching her, licking her, doing all of the things that he was doing to me but doubtless preferring her silkier and perkier body. It was driving me mad…
After the sacking, I signed on but the Job Centre didn’t offer a new start.
“Once you’re over forty…” one of the other jobseekers said sadly.
“Everything’s aimed at people in their twenties,” I said savagely.
She had it all. I had less and less. We were reaching a showdown. It was then that I realized I had to kill.
It wasn’t difficult. After all, I knew where they worked and lived, their day-to-day movements. I simply aimed my car and watched the body fly through the air. Afterwards, I ran over the cadaver as it lay on the ground, reversed and ran over it again numerous times. I was taking no chances, had to eliminate every breath.
I received a life sentence for his murder, of course. Does that surprise you? I mean, that it was Jack that I killed, my beloved? It surprised the prison psychologist.
“Why didn’t you kill Becky, your rival?” she asked.
“Because there are new female graduates going into engineering all the time nowadays,” I said sadly, remembering my recent research. “There would always be other young women tempting him away.”
“So why not let him go?”
“I loved him too much, he meant everything to me. This way he’s mine for ever. No one else can ever have him now.”
“But you’ve given up everything in the process,” she said sadly.
I was so glad that she cared.
She’s right though – life can be pointless in here unless you have someone to think about all of the time. Fortunately I realized within days that she and I are meant to be together. We talk easily during our sessions and she always looks pained when she admits that our time is up. She, too, used to work in an all-girls school so we share a history. I imagine she’s also had secret crushes on the older girls, just like me. And there’s a synchronicity in our names – she’s Lilian and, if I use my full moniker, I’m Gillian. It’s rhyme and reason. It’s fate.
There’s only one problem: Raisa, who is on the extended privileges programme, likes Lilian too. She has more independence than me as she’s a trusted prisoner, has free rein of the building. She’s probably popping in to see Lilian whilst I’m in the workshop, stuffing soft toys.
Not for much longer, though. I’ve bought a knife from one of the metal-shop workers, had it honed to the sharpest point imaginable. I reckon it’ll only take thirty seconds, during my one-to-one therapy, to cut the psychologist’s throat. Lilian will always endure in my memory, alongside Jack, and neither of them will ever again be unfaithful. It’s the ultimate ownership – I take their lives and they become mine.
LAST TRAIN FROM DESPRIT by Richard Godwin
THE FLAMINGO BAR stood beneath the broken neon glow of a sign that read: “Make Money. Change Your Life Now”. The words flickered outside the unwashed window, while the name of the company that was advertising hope to the desolate remained submerged in blackness. All that was visible were the letters LOSS beneath the slogan.
Joe Murray sat in the Flamingo one Monday when the lights went out in the small town of Desprit, which lay lodged like a thorn in the hungry side of Allen, South Dakota. He was reading an article in the Rapid City Journal entitled “Allen may be poor, but there’s hope”. As he looked at the latest statistics about the few who’d found jobs, the power came back on and the sign flickered into life. Glancing up, Joe deciphered the mystery that was the ad. “LOSS INSURERS NEVILLE TRADE INC, JOB VACANCIES”, it read, “we’re looking for employees. If you’re honest, you’re our man.” It gave a phone number that he hurriedly jotted down on a matchbox with a pen he’d taken from the betting shop. Then he headed out into the yellow morning, found the nearest pay phone and made the call. Someone had scrawled “Wes The Trassh Of America” on the wall and Joe traced the illiterate letters with his eyes as he waited.
“Neville Trade, how may I help you?”
“I saw your ad and I’m ringing up about vacancies,” Joe said.