Second Chances Box Set

by Jason Ayres

  “Oh Gary, thank you so much for coming,” I blurted out in as dramatic a voice as I dared. “I can’t believe this is happening to me.”

  As soon as he was in the flat, I flung my arms around him and said, “Please, just hold me,” adding a few sobs in for good measure.

  “I’m so sorry Rob’s done this to you, Amy,” said Gary, his face out of view over my shoulder. “You deserve better.”

  I pulled away so I could face him, but made sure he didn’t let go. With his arms still around me and looking at my most needy, I replied. “I do.”

  When I leaned in for the kiss, he didn’t reject me. Ten minutes later, we were in bed.

  What had I been missing all these years? Sex with him was amazing. It wasn’t just that he was fitter or that he was bigger where it mattered – which he was, by a considerable margin. He was just considerate, putting my needs first.

  Not for the first time I cursed that night in the bar back in 2012 when Kelly had got in first. All of this could have been mine, legitimately, without the need to resort to all this subterfuge.

  As we lay in the afterglow, daylight fading outside through the still-open curtains, I glanced across to the clock on the bedside table. It was a little after 4pm. Rob probably wouldn’t be home for a couple of hours yet so I needed to keep Gary here. I wanted Rob to find us in bed together, just as I’d found him and Emma.

  As if he’d read my mind, Gary asked, “Where is Rob, now?”

  “He’s gone,” I lied. “When I found out, he moved in next door with her temporarily. He said I needed to be out of this place by the end of this week, then he and Emma were moving back in. She’s only renting a room next door.”

  There was no reason that Gary should disbelieve this. Rob’s toiletries and things were still all around the room, but since I had said he had only gone temporarily, that wouldn’t seem out of place.

  “That’s good,” said Gary. “I wouldn’t want him finding us in bed together, even if he has been at it with Emma.”

  I felt a pang of guilt about dragging Gary into this. Was I doing the right thing? It was too late to back down now. I had come this far, I had to see it through.

  “It would be no more than he’d deserve,” I said.

  “Is that how you found out?” asked Gary. “Were they at it in here?”

  “Nothing so dramatic,” I said. “I was suspicious because he was always fiddling around on his phone and always locked it before he put it down. Sooner or later I knew he would slip, and, sure enough, he did on Christmas Day when he’d had so much wine at lunchtime he fell asleep in front of The Queen.”

  “So you took the opportunity to look at his phone?” asked Gary.

  “Yes,” I replied. “They had been sending dirty messages to each other on Messenger, including pictures, as well as making plans to meet up. When I confronted him with it a couple of days ago he confessed everything.”

  “Well, if you need somewhere to stay, I’ve got a spare room,” he offered.

  “I may just take you up on that,” I replied.

  I had fabricated the vast majority of this story but the details didn’t matter. The basic fact that Rob was sleeping with Emma still stood, no matter how I had found out. And so far it had all been so worth it. Gary had just satisfied me more than anyone had for as long as I could remember, and now I wanted more.

  When 6pm rolled around, we were at it hard for a third time. Three times in one afternoon! That was going some. I couldn’t remember that last time Rob had managed it three times in a calendar month, not with me anyway. I’m sure Emma next door was getting plenty, though.

  Despite being in the rapturous throes of yet another climax, I was fully aware of the time and keeping half an ear open. When I heard the telltale sound of Rob’s key in the lock, I seriously upped the decibels so that Gary wouldn’t hear him. I’m talking serious porn-star levels of moaning here.

  I’d like to claim it as another string to my recently acquired acting bow but quite honestly, there wasn’t a huge amount of acting required, not with the effect Gary was having on me.

  It worked anyway, because Gary didn’t hear Rob but Rob certainly heard us. Just as my moaning pushed Gary over the edge, the bedroom door was flung open.

  “What the fuck!” exclaimed Rob.

  Ironically, that is exactly what it was. It must have been one of the very few occasions when that phrase was actually uttered in the correct context. It was also the exact same line I had used the first time I had caught him at it with Emma, but the boot was on the other foot this time.

  “I don’t believe this!” shouted Rob. “My girlfriend and my best mate.”

  Gary leapt up, ready to defend himself in case Rob tried anything. “You can’t talk, mate – she’s told me all about you and that Emma next door.”

  “What’s sauce for the goose,” I chipped in, eager to fan the flames. I was interested to see where this was going to go.

  “What are you talking about?” said Rob.

  He was clearly going to try and deny it, but he wasn’t as good at acting as I was. The brief flash of recognition that had crossed his face when Gary had mentioned Emma had already betrayed him and he knew it. Rob was like an open book. It was a good job he didn’t play poker because he would be giving off tells left, right and centre.

  “She’s told me all about it, mate,” replied Gary, quickly pulling on his boxers, and reaching for his shorts.

  Good move, I thought. Being naked in a confrontation is never an advantage.

  “Well even if I was, that’s not as bad as this,” Rob claimed.

  “How do you figure that?” I asked, keen to hear how he was going to try and justify himself.

  “It’s completely different,” argued Rob. “You hardly know Emma but he’s my best mate. That’s a much worse betrayal.”

  “You arsehole,” said Gary, and thumped him square in the jaw with a clean right hook. Rob sprawled backwards in surprise onto the bed. Gary turned away and pulled on his shirt.

  For the first time I started to worry that this could potentially start getting out of hand, “That’s enough,” I said. With Gary now fully dressed, I shepherded him out of the room, just as Rob was getting to his feet, blood trickling from a cut on his lower lip.

  “You haven’t heard the last of this!” shouted Rob furiously.

  I hadn’t expected him to be this angry, bearing in mind what he and Emma had been doing. Perhaps it was more down to being humiliated by his mate than my infidelity. Being thumped probably hadn’t helped either. I hadn’t expected Gary to do that. Things had gone far enough.

  “You’d better go,” I said, ushering Gary quickly down the stairs and into the kitchen where he had taken off his shoes. But it wasn’t over yet. Rob was hot on our heels. This wasn’t funny and the situation was about to escalate rapidly.

  “Oh no, you don’t get away that easily!” he screamed hysterically, bursting into the kitchen as Gary was putting on his shoes. The blood was congealing in his beard now.

  “For fuck’s sake, mate, do you want some more?” said Gary aggressively. “You know I could have you, anytime.”

  He was right. Rob was puny in comparison – his five-foot-nine paunchy frame was a complete mismatch against six-foot muscle-man Gary, but Rob’s blood was up and he wasn’t thinking straight. He lunged forward, making an amateurish swing at Gary which the stronger man easily avoided.

  Gary could and should have walked out then, but he couldn’t resist punching Rob again. He caught him less squarely on the side of the face this time, causing Rob to reel back against the counter where I had been chopping onions earlier.

  “You’re a wanker and she’s a slag,” hissed Rob.

  Gary could be quite violent when riled. I knew he had been involved in quite a few brawls in his younger days and had heard rumours of a GBH charge long before I met him. Now he advanced on his mate, anger in his eyes.

  “Gary, don’t!” I cried. “You’ve made your point, now
just leave it.”

  As Gary went to punch Rob again, his quarry leaned back onto the counter, right hand alighting on the knife I had been using earlier. I don’t think he even knew it was there until he touched it, but, desperate to defend himself, he instinctively thrust it forward and upwards, taking Gary by surprise.

  Whether Rob’s intention had been to make him back off, or actually stab him, I wasn’t sure. The puny vegetable knife wouldn’t have been enough to do serious damage in most circumstances. It was only about three inches long and not even that sharp, but on this occasion Rob got lucky – or you could say unlucky, depending on how you looked at it.

  The knife didn’t plunge into Gary, it caught him with more of a glancing blow, but it was where it struck that did the damage. Most places on the body would have been just a flesh wound, but this caught him right on the neck, instantly causing blood to spurt out all over the place.

  “Oh my God, what have you done!?” I shouted, as Gary just stood there, motionless for a moment, a look of disbelief on his face, before slumping slowly to the floor, blood gushing out of him at an alarming rate. As a trained health professional I knew this could mean only one thing.

  “You’ve severed an artery,” I added as Rob just stood there, frozen in shock, blood draining from his face almost as fast as it was draining out of Gary’s neck.

  My first thought was to call an ambulance, but knew it would be too late. Rob had slashed him in such a way they wouldn’t be in time. I doubted that we alone could stem the flow even if we tried. The blood was everywhere, pouring out of Gary all over the white ceramic kitchen tiles.

  “What…what are we going to do?” bleated Rob pathetically. He clearly wasn’t going to be any use.

  There was nothing we could do. The shock of the situation had hit me just as much as it had him, but I had to stay strong. Trying to assuage feelings of guilt I told myself that this wasn’t real and in two more days it would never have happened. I would safely a year in the past then and Gary would be alive and kicking.

  As for the here and now Rob could deal with it. He had done it, after all.

  “Don’t you mean what are you going to do?” I responded. “I’m out of here.”

  I ran out of the kitchen, unable to bear looking at Gary’s now motionless body any longer. If he wasn’t dead already, he very soon would be. As I grabbed my coat and bag, desperate to be out of there, Rob called after me.

  “What do you mean, you’re out of here? You can’t just leave me.”

  “I can and I will. Watch me,” I replied.

  “I’ll say you did it,” he threatened. “Your fingerprints will be on this knife.”

  “Whatever,” I replied, pulling on my coat and heading straight for the front door. “You’re on your own now. Have fun explaining it all to the police, unless your lady friend next door is willing to help you dispose of the body. Best of luck!”

  And with that parting shot I slammed the front door behind me and made good my escape.

  It was only when I was safely away down the road that the full horror of what had just happened struck me.

  Chapter Ten

  2020

  The following morning I was holed up in a room above a pub in Evesham, sick with worry and guilt. I had hardly slept all night with all the turmoil going through my mind.

  How had I ended up here? My destination had been dictated by a random choice of train after I had realised I had to get out of Oxford fast.

  Was I running away? Possibly and that didn’t make me feel great. Everyone always said that was the coward’s way out. It probably wasn’t the wisest move either. Simply by fleeing the scene I was making myself look guilty.

  There was nothing to stop Rob carrying out his threat to tell the police I did it, and who would look the more likely suspect? The man on the scene who had called the police or the woman who had fled?

  Things certainly looked bad, and there was no way I would have taken this course of action if I was leading any sort of normal life. But I knew I didn’t need to evade capture forever, just for a day and a half until I could escape back into a past.

  It had crossed my mind that I might be storing up trouble for the theoretical other me, the one who might be left here to pick up the pieces after my mind had left this body. If she existed, what would happen to her? But then she wasn’t guilty, was she? So she had nothing to worry about, right?

  If I don’t sound convinced, it’s because I’m not. Who am I kidding? I may not have held the blade as it plunged into Gary’s neck, but there was no denying I was responsible for all of this.

  I had acted like a vengeful little slag, and I didn’t like what I had become. I had been desperate for revenge and lustful for sex which I had acquired under false pretences. Gary hadn’t asked to be dragged into my little games and had paid the ultimate price.

  Why couldn’t I have been satisfied with humiliating Rob with the video and left it at that? Why had I had to go in for a second bite of the cherry? Talk about abusing my powers. I was no better than those megalomaniac B-movie villains. Things needed to change and they needed to start changing right now.

  With thirty-plus hours to kill I needed to decide what to do with them. I thought about handing myself into the police, but what would be the point? It would be best to just get out of town, run down the clock and then head back to 2018 for a fresh start.

  It was unlikely anybody would be looking for me in Evesham, which was a quiet and pleasant little town across the Cotswolds from Oxford. I had only ended up here by chance and perhaps that was the best way. No clever detective would be able to follow my thought-processes to deduct where I had gone, as there hadn’t been any thought put into it.

  After leaving the house I had first toyed with the idea of fleeing the country but quickly realised I didn’t have my passport, so that was a non-starter. There was no way I was going back to get it. Booking flights would have involved using a bank card anyway which was the equivalent to putting a large flashing neon sign over my head saying “Here she is”.

  I couldn’t afford to leave any sort of paper trail as to where I was going so I needed to deal strictly in cash from here onwards.

  Stopping at the cashpoint in Headington, I took out the maximum allowed. If the police did try and track me down, that’s where the trail would go cold. As soon as I had my cash, I walked to the bus stop, pausing along the way to dump my mobile phone in a bin. I wasn’t having that giving away my location either.

  I caught a bus into town which was packed with revellers heading out to celebrate New Year. This was one year I certainly wouldn’t be celebrating.

  My biggest worry now was CCTV. I had seen plenty of TV dramas where people had been tracked by it and I was in the centre of a big city, after all. My best bet was to change outfits so I headed into Debenhams, went up and down in the lift a couple of times, wandered around all over the shop and then bought a hat, scarf and new hoodie.

  I took these into the toilets and changed, stuffing my old clothes into a bag with the intention of disposing of them later. Emerging from the toilets, head bowed, I hoped I had done enough to evade any attempts to track me.

  Suitably disguised, I now headed straight for Oxford station, stuffing the carrier bag that now contained my old clothes into a litter bin en route. I really hoped that there would still be some trains running, bearing in mind it was almost 7pm now on New Year’s Eve. Thanks to it being a normal working weekday there were still a few.

  Scanning the boards I decided to avoid London and the obvious big cities and instead bought a ticket for the next train departing, bound for Hereford. That sounded like a suitably anonymous sort of place to hide out for a day or two.

  I sat alone on the quiet train, as far away from other people as possible. I must have had a guilty conscience because I kept imagining that everybody who walked past was looking at me accusingly, branding me a murderer with their eyes. I kept my head down, keen to hide my face, not even looking up when
the guard came to clip my ticket.

  What if they had managed to track me on CCTV all the way to Oxford station and had seen me getting on the train? Would they be waiting to arrest me at Hereford station?

  I was getting a bit paranoid. I clearly wasn’t thinking straight, as it was highly unlikely anyone would be looking for me so soon. Even so, I convinced myself that going to Hereford was too risky so I decided to get off the train at the next stop, which was at Evesham.

  It was dark, wet and cold and all I wanted was a room for the night. With no phone, I had no way of finding out what was available, so just had to walk through the town until I found somewhere.

  There was a large hotel opposite the station but I ignored that. My experience was that these sorts of places rarely took bookings in cash, and even if they did would want some sort of ID.

  I needed something more anonymous like a small family B&B or a pub. I didn’t rate my chances of finding either at this time of night and at this time of the year. It was hardly tourist season. But if I didn’t find something soon I might face the unwelcome prospect of spending the night outside.

  I ran through the options in my head. If I had been totally desperate, I could have gone to a pub, pulled some random bloke and then let him take me home for the night. But there was no way I was going to do that. In my mind, it was bordering on prostitution.

  The mere fact I had even considered it as a possibility was bad enough. Had I really sunk that low – sex just to get a bed for the night? Hadn’t I slagged about enough already today? What the hell was I turning into?

  No, there was no way I was lowering myself to that level. I would rather freeze outside. Was it to come to that? Was I about to experience what it was like to be a homeless person in the middle of winter? Well, if I was, it was no more than I deserved, quite frankly.