“How much did David Hamilton know of your affair with his wife?” I heard the question as soon as the last word of the statement had been completed.  It pierced the silence like a gunshot. The female reporter sat on the end of a row about halfway up in this crowded press room.

Her question proved to be a catalyst, setting off a frenzy of barely comprehensible noise from her colleagues.  Of the few questions that I understood above the free-for-all, none paid even the slightest reference to anything my lawyer had just said with all of them asking for details about either the time I spent with Sally or David Hamilton’s involvement.

The statement had concentrated solely on my affair with my teacher, Mrs Hamilton, staying well clear of what had become the hot topic in the press over the last few weeks, the alleged involvement of various high-profile figures in wild sex and drug parties. God knows how, but many of these accusations were true with some of the detail frighteningly so.

My lawyer John Robinson's strong grip on my forearm, provided a constant reminder of his earlier instruction for me not to rise to their bait, and feel tempted to answer any questions.

“As I informed you all earlier at our briefing,” he said, with a barely contained annoyance, “Mr Potter will not be available to answer any questions.” With that, we shuffled out of our seats and headed for the exit amid a hail of questions, accusations and flashbulbs. That night, I knew that the story was going to be the main headline on the news yet again, and on the front page of tomorrow’s newspapers.

Every day since the story broke, it had been like that. The front-room curtains of our house have remained permanently closed, shutting out the reporters who have camped outside, hoping for a scoop. It felt as if I had been abandoned; Sally hadn’t responded to any of my calls, and I suppose I couldn’t blame her. If I had done as she had asked in the first place and deleted the photos and video, none of this would have happened. The police must have had a field day when they opened the locked photo vault on my phone. It was all there: dates, times, and of course the incontrovertible evidence.

I was just about to pass with the others through the open door into the crowded corridor when I heard her voice. What she said cut through the din making me turn my head towards her. It was unmistakable and she must have known in an instant that I had heard and understood what she was saying.

“Do you have any comment on the death of Katarina Vaskova?” The question came out of nowhere.  At no time during all of this had her name been mentioned. Immediately I felt a hand on my shoulder and shaken, I turned to be confronted by the bulky figure of Sir Gerald Kingsley QC.

“Everything alright Joseph?” he murmured, grabbing my arm and pulling me to one side into a small alcove, a space for which two normal-sized people, and Kingsley was anything but, would be considered tight.  “Nice performance in there; not quite as spectacular as the last time I saw you perform, but passable.” I pulled my arm away, struggling to breathe.

“How’s Sally?” I asked.

“Nasty business my boy, and so unnecessary.” He never once looked me in the face while his gaze roved over my shoulder, continually scanning for eavesdroppers as he spoke. “It’s horrifying to see how lives can be ruined by carelessness. A photograph or a piece of film in the wrong hands can cause so much damage to a person’s reputation.” I knew exactly what he was alluding to; it was a quiet reminder for me to continue playing the game.

The last time I saw him was late one afternoon at Bishop’s Gate police station. It was about two weeks after I was questioned in the headmaster’s office at school, and they were in possession of all the evidence.

I sat alone in the claustrophobic interrogation room, waiting for a solicitor to arrive. Just to the left-hand side of the door was a CCTV camera pointing menacingly from the ceiling at the table.  The camera’s lens with its glowing red light was unsettlingly capturing my movements when suddenly it clicked off.

A moment later the door opened, and Kingsley wheezed into the room, sat down in front of me, and placed an open white envelope on the table. Without uttering a word, he opened the envelope and fanned six colour photographs across the surface of the table facing me. Four of them showing my face, my eyes closed sucking on an anonymous man’s cock.  The fifth and sixth were taken from outside the room, I assumed by David. Sally lay naked beside me, as an equally naked man crouched over the bottom of the bed at my feet, his genitalia clearly hanging down between his legs.  The act was obvious.

Kingsley judged my reaction, scooped the photographs up, and placed them back in the envelope, before speaking for the first and only time.

“Think very carefully about your next move, Joseph. The next few hours may very well influence the direction of the rest of your life. Modern technology, one click of a computer mouse, that’s all it takes. People are so capricious, willing to believe what they are told, and too lazy to seek the truth.”

With those words, he pulled back the chair, walked across the room, knocked on the door, and left.  A second later, the red light clicked back on. So that was it, the warning had been delivered: one step out of line and those photographs would be made public. I couldn’t let that happen; I knew the people around here and how they would react.  It would destroy me and, more importantly, it would also destroy my family.

“So, what will happen to her?” I asked as Kingsley went to step back out into the crowded corridor of the police headquarters.

“I don’t know, Joseph,” he replied, his mouth leaning in so close to my ear that I could almost taste the bacon and egg that he’d had for breakfast, “a custodial sentence is possible, if not probable. She will also be placed on the sex offenders’ register. As for the fellowship, I fear she may be thrown to the dogs.”

“Who?”

“There are partners who are far less compassionate than me.  Shall we say licentious? I envisage her receiving a punishment if she isn’t behind bars, that is. Some will relish the opportunity.”

“What will they do?”

“Use your imagination and then add some. I understand they are quite imaginative.” He slapped me on the face with a full hand, then crossed the corridor to join a group of colleagues. I watched the backslapping and laughing, and I could see the sly, secret handshakes and imagine the deals done behind closed doors. Sally, a commoner like me, never stood a chance when pitted against the might of Eton, Harrow, Oxford, and Cambridge. ‘Thrown to the dogs’ he had said, and I shuddered to think what that entailed. There had to be a fall guy or girl from all this, and despite all that I knew or assumed, Sally was the easy target.

The journey home was relativity uneventful.  Dad talked at a hundred miles an hour about anything and everything. They were relieved that it was over, and I could see that, and it felt good.  The last few weeks had been a strain on everyone, and I wasn’t going to ruin it by bringing up my own concerns.

There were three messages and one missed call on my phone but disappointingly none of them from Sally. The phone call was from Max. We had talked a number of times about his proposal, and I have to say it sounded good. He was becoming a little impatient with me, but I was in and had decided to give it a go.  Who knows where it will lead, and if it doesn’t work out it’s not the end of the world?  The text from Tracy Burrows was predictably cryptic.

Tracy: So, I was right all along.

I ignored it for the time being and scrolled on to the next one.

Robert: Bet you’re glad that’s all over.

Robert: Any chance you can help out tonight?

Robert ran the Hope and Anchor pub on Liberty Street, and I occasionally helped out at the weekend collecting glasses and clearing tables. I really didn’t fancy the thought of going in there that night, facing all the questions and the piss-taking, but on the other hand, staying in and moping around the house didn’t sound like much fun either.

Me: What time?

Robert: Seven?

Robert: £50

Me: Ok.

The third was from a number that I didn’t recognise. That, in itself, wasn't unusual as over the last few weeks I have received numerous texts and phone calls from the press. This, though, was more direct and ominous.

07777 321456: I know.

Me: Who’s this?

The message didn’t send, instead, it sat on my screen undelivered. I scrolled back to Tracy’s message.

Me: ???

Tracy: lol

Tracy: Looks like teacher was getting more than just an apple from Joey.

Me: What are people saying.

Tracy: That Joey’s been getting gold stars for extra-curricular activities.

Me: It wasn’t like that.

Tracy: So, you weren’t shagging Mrs Hamilton?

Tracy: Did you make her big titties bounce, Joey?

Tracy: The story is she’s gone a bit mad.

I turned the phone off and put it in my pocket. I knew what the reaction was going to be.  People around here don’t miss an opportunity to have a dig. Dad spotted me looking out of the cab window.

“You okay?”

“Yeah.”

“It’ll blow over, son. In a couple of days, they’ll be after someone else, mark my words. That Hamilton bloke is making a statement later and the clever money is on him quitting. What do you say we put a tenner on it?” And we did. Dad asked the taxi driver to drop us by the market and we all walked into O’Brian’s, the bookies, and put our money down. Three o’clock that afternoon the Home Secretary David Hamilton stood up before a packed House of Commons, resigned and we all won forty pounds each.

********

It was just before seven o’clock that evening when I pushed open the black door that led to the back entrance of the Hope and Anchor. I was having deep, second thoughts about coming; an evening spent chilling at home didn’t feel like such a bad idea after all.

Dad was the first person I saw or heard, to be perfectly honest, standing at the bar, pint of Guinness in hand. He insisted on coming in for moral support, armed with a lifetime’s worth of cutting retorts up his sleeve if needed. Little did any of us know at the time how the day was going to end and how past misdemeanours were going to come back to haunt me.

The Hope and Anchor is an old-fashioned, no-frills boozer run by a lovely Irishman called Robert, or Bob Collins, who had a thick, lyrical Dublin accent. Forty years ago, this would have been one of a number of pubs in the area, full of dock workers swilling ale after work. I imagine that it hasn’t changed much over the years and certainly hasn’t kept pace with the swankier bars and restaurants that have sprung up in the area recently.

For me, that is part of its charm.  Every time I walk through its doors, I’m transported back in time, half expecting the Krays or maybe Bill Sykes to be sitting in a dark corner.

That night, it was Archie Cooke sitting there with his cronies. His eyes were unsettling as they followed me walking past to start work. He had a menacing air about him, which I think he enjoyed.  I can’t remember ever seeing him laugh or smile.

I had grown to like the attention that my recent notoriety had given me and freely admit to playing up to it. I think that half the reason Robert employed me was the female clientele that I attracted. A tight white T-shirt and an equally tight pair of black jeans being my uniform of choice as I clear the tables, watching as the inevitable happens and the gaze lowers from my face to my groin.

The place was beginning to fill out, which was great. Time moves fast when you’re busy, and soon I’d been there for over an hour collecting the empty glasses and stacking them in the glasswasher housed in a small room behind the bar.

l had spotted Alison May early on, sitting on her own at a table by the window checking her phone, a half glass of Pinot Grigio in her hand, and three empty glasses on the table. I was aware that she was watching me, and I would catch her with a feigned disinterest in her eyes as they followed me around the room, while her husband Peter chatted with a small group at the bar.

They were only occasional visitors.  Peter is a local boy made good; his public face is as a businessman owning a successful fleet of garages selling used cars, but he also has another not-so-secret persona as a fence, recycling getaway cars and using his premises for laundering drug money, of which he takes a nice cut.

As for Alison, although she was born not far from there and certainly not into anything as grand as she purports, she treated the locals with a barely hidden disdain, judging the women who drank too much or laughed too loud as somehow beneath her. I loved the atmosphere that these women created with their bawdy humour.  It’s amazing some of the things I’ve heard and seen in here when they’ve had one or two too many.

“How long have you been doing this then, Joey?” Alison asked, as I collected the empty glasses and wiped down her table. I’m always aware that she only speaks to me, or anyone else for that matter, if she is either going to talk about herself or impart unwanted advice.

“Couple of months now Alison, it’s only pin money, but you know, it all helps.”

“On the market with Paddy tomorrow morning as well?”

“Yep.”

“You’ll soon be the richest kid in town,” she sniggered.  Do you see what I mean? She has this ability, whether she means it or not, to make every comment sound condescending. She looked me up and down and sizing me up as I waited for her next remark. When it came it, it surprised me a little, not because of what she said, I had been expecting that to come up at some point, but I wasn’t expecting it from her.

“I hear you’ve been a naughty boy.”

“Don’t believe all you hear Alison,” I shot back, making her smile.

“A small piece of advice; never deny or confirm, just keep them guessing. I know what these people say about me; they think I can’t hear them and how they talk, but I can.”

Alison, or Ali as most call her, is fifty. I’m basing that, not on some clever Sherlockian deduction, but purely on the fact that her fiftieth birthday last summer caused quite a stir. She disappeared for six weeks, starting rumours that the pair had split up, only for her to return, much to the amusement of the local females, with a deep tan and a size or two larger in the breast department.

There’s a song that the old man sings when he’s had a couple of pints, “You wear it well,” and she does, if only she could tone it down, curb this unattractive habit that she has of rubbing it in your face and bragging about how much a dress or a pair of shoes had cost, something that is way off the pay scale of most of the people around here.

That night’s apparel was an expensive-looking powder-blue dress with a plunging neckline. As she leaned forward, her breasts spilt into the gap in between. I couldn’t help but look; well, you would, wouldn’t you.

“You like?” she smirked, pushing her tousled black hair behind her ears. There was no denying the fact that they were indeed impressive, and I imagine expensive. A year ago, being caught in this situation with a comment like that would have made me blush, but now I fully understood and even enjoyed it.

“Very nice Alison. And how much did they set him back?”

“No idea. It was a birthday present,” she said, judging my reaction as she took a sip from her drink.  I could read her like a book. Her husband may have shelled out for those beauties, but it was on a purely look but don’t touch basis. Her breasts were there for others to admire and envy.

Peter was sitting on the barstool against the wall facing us; he doted on her.  Their holiday home in Marbella and her flashy, red Porsche 911 Convertible were all bought, not only to keep up appearances, but to keep her happy, and from what I had noticed, she never was.

Although we were across the other side of the room and he couldn’t possibly hear what was being said, I knew that he was aware of what was happening in front of him. The dilemma for me was, do I walk away, or play along and wait to see how long it takes for him to react. He didn’t.

He didn’t react as her hand lingered just that little bit too long on the back of mine, drawing invisible circles on my skin with her middle finger. He didn’t react as she took out a pen from her handbag and scrawled a message on the back of a beer mat, sliding it towards me across the smooth surface of the tabletop. And he didn’t react as she made direct and unmistakable eye contact with me before standing and heading for the exit.

I watched her slice a passage across the barroom floor as she headed towards the toilets, her hips swaying playfully as I scanned the room for any snooping onlookers. The only person in the room that noticed her leave was Peter, his sorrowful gaze didn’t leave her for an instant. I flipped the beer mat over and read the words written on it in clear bold black type.

FOLLOW ME.

I collected the empty glasses and carried them precariously across the room, making my way back towards the bar, depositing them in the glass washer, then pressed the illuminated green button that set the cleaning cycle in motion.  All the time I was weighing up the risk, the available time, and was it worth it.

“Ten minutes!” I hollered, grabbing Robert’s attention, emphasising my point by holding up the ten fingers on my spread hands. He gave me the thumbs-up, and I turned to walk down the narrow passage that leads to the back exit. I took one last glance to where Peter sat staring blankly into his glass of gin and tonic.

I felt nothing for what was about to happen. I felt no sorrow for him and certainly no affection for her.  This just was an opportunity, no more and no less, the moment too delicious and way too tempting to pass up.

A chilly breeze hit me as I left the humidity of the pub, making me shiver in my t-shirt as I dodged the empty beer barrels that lined the back alley. I headed towards a private side entrance that led to a small storeroom. On the other side of the room stood a locked door that brought me out into a narrow corridor. Two highly varnished, solid wood doors stood before me; one had a drawing of a man the other a woman. I took a deep breath and entered the latter.

The white-tiled room was empty and quiet. Only the metronomic drip of a faulty ballcock broke the eerie stillness. I guessed that the decor hadn’t changed much in decades and was more functional than elegant.

On my right were two washbasins, while above hung a large oval mirror framed in dark wood. To my left were three toilet cubicles, their scuffed, wooden doors closed. Stepping forward, I began a mini game of Russian roulette by pushing open the nearest door. Empty. This gave me the straight choice of two. I choose the furthest one against the wall, prodding the door open with my foot. Alison sat on the closed lid of the toilet seat, her hands resting on her chin, her dark hair hanging in strands over her eyes.

“I’d almost given up on you,” she said, with a discernible agitation, “I began to wonder whether you had the intelligence to pick up on my advances.” See what I mean?  She just can’t help herself.

“I suppose I could have just followed right behind you, passing your husband and attracting the attention of all the pub.”

“You think he doesn’t know?” she said with a pitying grin which annoyed me.  It was the kind of expression which said, ‘you poor young thing, you have no idea what is happening here do you?’

“Of course he knows,” she sneered, deriding my confused expression, “and do you really think I care about those Neanderthals’ opinions of me. I gave up caring about them long ago.” She leaned back against the cold steel water pipe that connected the toilet to an old-fashioned style box cistern.

Raising her stockinged leg and rubbing the bulge between my legs with her foot, I watched the hem of her dress ride slowly up her thigh, providing me with a slow-motion reveal, until eventually, I had an unobscured view of fleshy thigh above the dark blue stocking tops. “What have we got here?” she cooed, biting her lower lip while her foot ran a line, up and down the fly of my jeans.

Our silent solitude was abruptly disturbed as the toilet door opened, filling the constricted space with the hum of boozy chatter from the barroom, and then, just as quickly as it had begun, the door slammed shut smothering the din. The sound of shuffling footsteps moved towards us and into the middle cubicle next door.  The latch snapped and the person coughed. Showing little concern, Alison continued to press her foot on my now hard and trapped erection, the black pupils of her eyes wide and daring.

“I like an audience, don’t you?” she asked, judging the confused reaction on my face while leaning forward and eagerly popping the buttons of my jeans. “Show me,” she ordered, “show me this cock that I’ve read so much about.” Over the gap between the cubicles thin wall and the paint flaked ceiling, wafted the choking smog of cigar smoke, singeing my nostrils and leaving the penny to eventually drop in my head.

Reaching my hand into the open fly, I exposed myself, letting my cock hang temptingly in front of her face. The ball was now completely in her court and I was amused by her reaction. Gone was the brash bravado of only moments earlier, leaving a worried tension for me to exploit. This wouldn’t be the first time that a woman had got cold feet when confronted with the task ahead.

“Well?” I questioned, waiting for her to make a move. After all, we were both here because of her and I was running out of time; soon my ten-minute break would be up, and they would begin calling my name.

Deep down, I don’t think she expected me to follow her but was secretly hoping and looking forward to the prospect of having this schoolboy as her amusement for the evening, hoping a flash of thigh and a glimpse of exposed cleavage would be enough to keep me on a leash.

“Didn’t you want to see what the fuss has been about?” I asked, taking pleasure from the gloriously overwhelmed expression on her face, while all the time my cock hung barely an inch from her mouth, easily within reach.

I began slowly to rub myself, taking delight in her discomfort as I grew before her eyes, slowly drawing the foreskin back over the dark pink head. I wanted a fuck, a fuck where there would be no feeling and no love; I wanted it to be hard and heartless. And I wanted her to remember it every time she saw me. This was a game for them, I had already figured out that much.  I didn’t understand it or even want to, but I was happy to play along.

“How does Peter compare?” I asked, as the burr of a zip being lowered echoed from the space beside us, then the chink of a belt buckle landing sharply on the tiled floor. She looked up, a little lost as I pulled her up from the black plastic seat and turned her to face the wall. Raising the soft blue dress above her waist to reveal her delicate, and I imagine expensive black knickers underneath. The thin waistband of material snapped easily in my fist before gliding, ruined, down her right leg and onto the floor.

“Joseph,” she said, her voice trembling, and for a moment I thought she was going to call for her husband to put an end to it.

“What?” I replied, waiting for a reply that didn’t come, the only sound in the room being her heavy, fervent breathing and the annoying noise of the drip from the cistern above us. “This is what you want isn’t it?” I breathed in her ear, only a whisper, but just loud enough for him to hear it next door, “you want to feel it inside you, don’t you?”

She nodded her head meekly, and with her hands wrapped tightly around the water pipe, I entered her, slowly at first, feeling only the slightest resistance before pushing in my entire length, relishing the deep guttural moan that followed.  This was the first time that I felt absolutely nothing for the person with me, I didn’t care for her or her enjoyment of the act; it was animal.

“Say it, say it so your husband can hear.”

“Fuck me.”

“How does it feel.”

“Big.”

“Bigger than your husband?”

“Mmm.”

“How much?” I could feel her response gathering on my cock as she shivered. I loved this moment; I knew it well, the moment where she crossed over and all logical thoughts were cleared from her mind. At this juncture, I knew that she would do pretty much anything I asked.

“Oh god,” she moaned, “much bigger, so much bigger.” This drew a groan from our neighbour as I imagined him wanking his impotent dick. Alison’s head dropped down as she came.  I could feel the contractions as her body shook, clinging desperately onto the steel pipe in case she fell.

“How deep am I inside you?”

“Deep.”

“How does it feel?”

“Good.”

“Do you want me to cum inside you?” I teased.

“Mmm.”

“Or do you want me to cum in your mouth?”

“Mmm.”

“Or over your face and then lead you like a slut through the bar so everyone could see what you’re really like?”

“Mmm,” she gasped, as her cunt contracted for the second time. I wasn’t sure if anyone had ever spoken to her like this before, or maybe I was wrong, maybe this was her thing, perhaps being treated this way turned her on. Either way, her response was clear, and I flaunted it.

“What are you?” I taunted, feeling her body twitch.  She was like a fish caught on a line, slowly losing her mind.

“A slut,” she sighed.

“That’s right Alison, a slut. Tell him what you are, tell him what you want me to do to you.”

“I want you to fuck me. I want you to fuck me with your big hard cock and fill me with your cum.” I was in my element now, enjoying the performance because that is what it was, a show, and I wanted to see how far I could push her.

“What about here?” I said, rubbing my thumb over the tight rosebud of her arse.

“Too big,” she answered shaking her bottom to push me away, but I could sense that there was little conviction in her voice.

“Do you allow him to fuck your arse?”

“No.”

“Has anyone?” I asked, caught up in the moment, savouring the anxiety.

“No.”

“And me?” I asked, placing my engorged tip against her closed orifice, letting a mouthful of spit slide down my tongue, and drip onto the fleshy crevice of her behind, “do you think your husband would approve?”

“No, he wouldn’t.”

“Are you sure? Don’t you think he would enjoy listening to his wife lose her anal virginity?” Her pause was perfect; it couldn’t have been better timed if it had been scripted.

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, he would.” This was greeted by a dull thump from our invisible associate, which I took to be his knees landing on the solid floor.

“Well?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, you can fuck me there.”

“Where Alison, tell me what you want me to do.” I knew exactly what I was doing, and also suspected the devastating effect it would have on Peter as she submitted.

“My arse. Do it. Fuck my arse.” I pushed my hips forward, feeling first the stubborn barrier, then hearing her tortured yelp as the head of my cock broke though, helped by the combination of her secretions and my saliva.

“My God, you really are a slut aren’t you,” I spat, “coming in here wearing your Versace dress, or whatever it is, and then fucking the pot-boy in the toilets like a cheap whore. And to make it worse, you’re enjoying it, aren’t you, Ali?”

“It hurts.” I don’t know why, but the thrill of hearing this turned me on. I hadn’t moved and only the head remained buried inside her arse, but it was enough, I had signalled her surrender.

“What hurts?”

“You’re too big, it hurts.”

“What’s too big.”

“Your cock. My god, your fucking big cock.”

“Bigger than you thought?”

“Yes.” I pulled out, slapped her arse, and then reached down between her legs, feeling through the trimmed bush of pubic hair towards her engorged clitoris, flicking the swollen bean with my fingers, Christ she was dripping.

“Do you want everyone to know? Do you want all those women who you look down on to know what you really are?” The head of my cock rested on the soft wet folds of her cunt, waiting for one of her cutting replies. Instead, she backed into me until her bottom was caressing my pelvis.

“You bastard.”

“Pardon?”

“Fuck me you bastard,” she pleaded, urgently pushing herself on to me, “fuck meee.” I grabbed her hips, filling the room with the sound of her soft skin slapping against my thighs. I was close and could feel the tingle under my skin, travelling over my buttocks.

I ploughed into her with an aggression that I didn’t know I had. All of the pent-up negative energy and stress, releasing itself as I fucked her with abandon. In my mind I saw Sally and Kingsley, the house by the river, and Katarina, cursing the way that I had allowed them to manipulate me.

Somewhere in the room I could hear an anguished cry and realised it was Alison. Her body shook like she was having a seizure, her legs buckling from underneath her.

“Where?” I grimaced.

“Inside me, cum inside,” she breathlessly barked, pushing franticly onto me, coating my cock in a white foam, “do it,” she cried, “do it now, do it nooowww.” Again, I felt her climax but this time I joined her, holding her tight and grabbing a hand full of her black hair, pulling her head back so I could glimpse the distorted rapture on her face as I spewed my spunk inside her.

In the cubicle next to us I heard the defeated whine of a man whose wife has succumbed to another. In my mind’s eye, I pictured him leaning over the toilet bowl, his cum dribbling into the pan below and mixing with the cold water. This was a new experience for me; a man getting off on hearing his wife being fucked.  A whole new world was opening up, the world of the subservient cuckold.

Outside in the courtyard, I heard my name being called. I had no idea how long I had been in there, but my ten minutes must be well and truly up. I hurriedly pulled my jeans up as Alison bent to retrieve her shredded knickers from the floor, her face a rosy-red glow. I departed just when the realisation that the garment was beyond repair was clear, and she instead began to wipe herself between the legs with them, gathering up the seeping cum that was running down the inside of her thighs, then secreting the ruined black knickers in her handbag.

********

Soon the day was ending, and apart from a few stragglers at the bar, the pub was now empty.

“So did your disappearance earlier have anything to do with Ali May?” Robert asked with a grin, opening the till and handing me two twenty-pound notes and a tenner.

“A gentleman never divulges Robert, you know that,” I replied with a wink. Peter and Alison never did return to the bar.  I guess she didn’t want to sully her expensive dress or risk embarrassment by being discovered, sitting in a pub with a leaking vagina.

“A gentleman he says; fuck me, I’ve heard it all now. The boy who’s banging his teacher is now a gentleman. Did you hear that guys?”  I took the money and listened to the loiterers’ roar with laughter while I walked out through the back entrance to get my bike.

A fine rain was falling, catching in the orange glow of the streetlights, as I began the five-minute journey from the pub to my home. The streets were quiet and empty, and apart from a few lights shining from the windows as I passed, the world was going to sleep.

What happened next occurred so fast that I didn’t stand a chance. I was cycling under the railway arches when I saw a shadow and then a flash of pipe being rammed through the spokes of my bicycle wheels causing me to somersault over the handlebars and onto the unforgiving concrete.

Dazed, I was pulled to my feet by two men.  My hands and knees stung, and I assumed they were muggers and went to reach for my pocket to offer up my wages when a fist caught me square on the jaw.

“Did you think I wouldn’t find out?” I lifted my head to see the outline of a man in front of me, I recognised his gruff voice immediately as that of Archie Cooke. “Did you seriously think you’d get away with it?” He grabbed my hair in his fist, pulling my head back. “I guess you’re wondering how I found out, which one of the slags that you’ve been shagging, grassed you up.”

It wasn’t.  The only thought going through my head at this particular moment was how far this psycho was prepared to go, and how much was it going to hurt. “I got a message from a friend of yours, some lawyer, Henson. He sent me these.” He held his phone up to my face and started scrolling through a small album of photographs of his wife Zoe. I squinted into the phone’s bright light and recognised them immediately.  I had taken them and knew I was in trouble.

“I...”

“If I were you,” he scowled, leaning in so his mouth was next to my left ear. I could feel his hot breath pricking the hairs and tiny bullets of his spit landing inside. “I wouldn’t say a fucking word. There is nothing, no excuse, no explanation, nothing, that is going to make this any easier. You’ve been fucking my wife, Joey, end of. Hold him up.”

He shouted to his mates who grabbed me by the shoulders and kicked my legs apart. The first blow lifted me off the ground.  He had taken a step back and launched his boot at me, hitting me between the legs. The second doubled me over in pain as the two thugs let me go and I fell in a heap on the floor. Archie leaned over me, his head bowed as he talked.

“You won’t be using that dick of yours for a while, if ever. Oh, while I remember, this one’s from Peter May,” he said kicking me on the back of my head. Then they all laid into me. Boots and fists rained down and all I could do was crawl into a ball on the ground and keep my head tucked in close to my chest.

Blackout. It’s a strange way of describing the sensation. You may think it would be from one single blow, but it’s not., it’s the relentless combination of several. The world goes first yellow, then orange, and red. Pins and needles attack the brain, as everything turns blue, then grey which slides into black.

“Joey?” I hear it, “fuck, Joey!” I opened my eyes.  Well, to be exact, one eye, my right. The left one felt pressured and swollen. I moved my head in the direction of the voice, the female voice.  It was familiar. I recognised it. I heard her talking to someone.

“Yes. Ambulance. I think he’s dying. Under the railway. Butcher’s Lane. Hurry.” She knelt beside me and I caught a glimpse of a gold crucifix under her blouse, between her breasts, and a dog nuzzling up to my neck.

“Benny, stop it!” she said, and I recognised the voice and the dog’s name.

“Tracy?” I say, but it came out wrong; mumbled.

“Don’t speak, Joey, try and relax.  The ambulance is coming.” In the distance, I heard the siren and closed my eyes. “Don’t, Joey, stay awake, they’re coming.” Her voice was panicked and emotional. Her hand gripped mine tight and I knew it was bad. My head hurt and so did my arms, legs, and back.  I could taste blood in my mouth and forced my tongue to feel for broken teeth. Flashes of blue light illuminated the underpass, its brilliance slicing through the soft autumn rain.

“What’s your name, son.” the man asked urgently, kneeling in front of me. I heard her answer for me as I begin to slip away, I heard her choking back the tears, her voice breaking as she spoke.

“Joseph Potter.”