Back to Vanilla

by Jennifer Maschek

  It was rare for anyone to stick around for long in the ephemeral world of cyber-friends, but Luke_-66, a man she’d met just a few weeks previously, had instantly been a fairly obvious kindred spirit. Similar age, married, a grandfather already, there was something about him that made her feel safe and relaxed. And there he was.

  Luke_66: So… Tell me then… How did it go?

  SuzyTD: OMG, Luke. I don’t think I can.

  Luke_66: that good?

  SuzyTD: You have no idea. How could I be sooooo stupid? I genuinely thought… I mean…he seemed perfect. Intelligent, okasy looking… well, not creepy anyway, dirty-dirty-dirty-dude… Aaaargh! What the hell was I thinking?!

  Luke_66: Okaaaaaay. So, tell me his worst crime?

  SuzyTD: If I tell you his pants were riding way too high that’s not enough?… and, aw fuck, I’m embarrassed to say…

  Luke_66: you know you want to… it’s all cathartic, girl, let it all out…

  SuzyTD: He shushed me…

  Luke_66: What? Like, “quiet, shush”?

  SuzyTD: Exactly like quiet shush, except he actually said “hush”. Said my voice was too loud, like I embarrassed him. It was like being out with my teenager!

  Luke_66: I… I genuinely don’t know what to say. Sorry seems to be the only word. But, errrr, I kinda feel like giggling too… don’t hit me Suzy! Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

  SuzyTD: I know. I know, I know, I know. You did. What the hell am I doing, Luke_66… this is nuts. Why the hell haven’t we ever just…?

  Luke_66:… just…?

  SuzyTD: what if I changed my mind, Luke?

  Luke_66: keep talking.

  SuzyTD: You know what I’m saying. You’re enjoying this, right? You want me to spell it out?

  Luke66: You suggesting I haven’t earned that? Hmmm? Yes. Yes, Suzy TurtleDove. Yes, I want you to spell it out. I need you to spell it out, so that even a total simpleton like me can understand. Changed your mind about what?

  SuzyTD: Okay… What, Luke, if I changed my mind about married men? What if everything I’d ever said about never meeting anyone who was attached was a steaming pile of poop, and I admitted I was wrong… that I’m nothing but a hypocrite. What if you and I actually got our sorry arses into gear and our acts together and followed the writing on the wall, which states, loudly and clearly, that of everyone I have ever met online, you – and don’t you dare let that head of yours swell any bigger than it already is! – seem like the sanest. What if I asked you if you’d meet me, please, pretty please, Luke_66… What if I asked if you’d be my first proper meet, because that’s what I’d like – then what would you say?

  ********************

  The late May Saturday evening grew slowly dark around her as she sat on the couch, curtains open; a small string of butterfly fairy lights, garlanding the mirror on the chimney breast, provided the only illumination in the room. Megan noticed none of it. She simply sat and stared unseeing into the space in front of her and thought.

  Her thoughts were, on the surface, possibly mad, she knew, but she also understood that she was way beyond the point of being sure any more. The only thing she felt certain about was what she wanted, and if that was crazy, then so be it.

  It was not the best timing, perhaps, and Rich was bound to be completely shattered after his shift, an early one for him, but Sam was fast asleep and unlikely to wake, Becky was at a friend’s sleepover, and Grace, although she might pop down for the odd snack or glass of water, was ensconced in her room for the night, accompanied by her iPad, which seemed to be all the company she needed at home most of the time lately, and so the house was currently as quiet as it was ever likely to get.

  It was just after 11 when the front door opened into the hall right beside the lounge where she sat, and Rich poked his head round the door into the darkened room.

  “Bit gloomy in here, isn’t it? Lost a bulb?”

  “Hey? Oh, er, no, no, I guess I just drifted off. Let me make you a coffee, Rich. Prefer tea? Long day?”

  They walked into the kitchen together and her plans for a serious discussion began to dissipate as he began slowly and uncharacteristically to open up about his day. Normally, with 23 years of nursing experience, he somehow managed most days to walk out of the hospital grounds and, at least on the surface, leave it all behind.

  Not tonight. His voice cracked and his shoulders began to shake as he spoke about the parents he’d watched a few hours previously when the news was broken to them that their four-year-old boy, knocked down on a zebra crossing while out for a weekend stroll with his granddad, hadn’t made it.

  “I was there, Meg, I was there when he was brought in, and the paramedics, you could see it written in their faces that he wasn’t going to make it, we all knew it… and, hell, you know me… I’m an old pro. But… but... all I could see as he lay there was our Sam, and all I could think of was how they must feel. Can you imagine…?”

  By now he was sobbing in her arms as the kettle steamed beside them.

  At this moment, Grace, with her uncanny instinct for this kind of timing, appeared and Megan gestured to her to finish making the tea, while she led her dad back into the lounge.

  “It’s all right. Work stuff,” Megan mouthed to her as they left the room.

  “The granddad was fine. Seriously, no injury. Untouched. A few bruises, I mean, but fine. But it was all absolutely meaningless. Nothing could… nothing will… take that pain away ever. How could it? It’s just so fucking unfair. So. Fucking. Unfair.”

  Grace came into the room with two brimming mugs, which Megan took and placed on a table. Gesturing Grace to follow her out of the lounge, she explained to her daughter what had happened, before hugging her and sending her back upstairs with a bowl of cornflakes and four dried apricots.

  “I’ll pop up later, sweetheart, if you’re awake. Your dad’ll be okay, don’t worry. Love you.”

  In the lounge, Rich was by now considerably calmer, his hands cupped tightly around the mug, staring vacantly into it.

  No words spoken, she lifted the cushion on the armchair in front of the TV and picked up the Sunday Times Magazine that lay beneath it and placed it on the sofa next to him. Walking into the hallway, she opened the door to the cupboard under the stairs and pulled out an old metal biscuit tin from the top shelf, too high for even Grace, as yet, to reach.

  She put the tin on top of the glossy-fronted magazine, sat down by his feet, and watched while he began the ritualistic crushing of the green buds and used two large papers to roll up. None of it ultimately mattered, she sensed that, and tonight was not the night to say what she wanted to say.

  They sat together covered by the duvet that Rich would later use to sleep on the couch, and stared blankly at reruns of The Fast Show on TV, huddled close, smoke from a steady flow of joints mingling with incense and dancing gracefully from above their heads towards the two open windows.

  Upstairs, slUtty-fUckgal’s phone twinkled in her empty bedroom, buzzing with messages. Sitting with her head in what seemed like its right place on his shoulder, downstairs, both starting to relax into sniggering at familiar jokes, she simply couldn’t have cared less.

  11. Luke_66

  If I don’t warn the lost, who will?

  “And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none.” (Ezekiel 22:30)

  You’ve all heard the story. You know the truth, you just refuse to listen – when Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, God called them to account saying, “Adam, where are you?” as they hid from Him knowing what they had done was a sin against His name.

  You? Arrogant and vain, you do not hide. You, the 21st-century Adam and Eves, you are proud to be naked, be boastful in your nakedness and to mock the Lord your saviour, and yet still he stands ready to welcome you back. It is not too late. I am here to tell you that it is never too late to throw away the sinful trappings of your foul existe
nce and enjoy in total the filling of the Holy Spirit.

  Using me as His mouthpiece, right here, right now, He invites you back into His holy light and bids you, throw away the trappings of your filthy sodomite lives. Give up the drink and drug-fuelled insanity, throw away the nipple-sucking clamp of your wide-screen HD TVs and join me in the everlasting one true kingdom of the Lord our God.

  In Luke 14:23 we are commanded to “go out into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled”.

  Each day I stand before myself, look myself straight in the eye and ask myself, if I don’t warn the lost, who will? And this, my friends, is my commitment to Him, to myself and to you all.

  Didn’t Paul, a street preacher himself, say: “Wherefore I take you to record this day, that I am pure from the blood of all men. For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God.”?

  I see your looks as you shuffle past me. Sneers. Denial. Avoidance. I understand them. Believe me, I truly do. I was you. I was. I was you.

  Not any more.

  I was that man walking past, bags bulging with sugary treats, baubles, mind-numbing alcohol, fags, whatever it takes to ease that nagging pain that will continue to consume you for eternity, hiding yourself from the Truth. There is, look deep inside yourselves and you know it, there is a better path.

  I stand here now and I tell you, leave this world behind. “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?” That’s Corinthians! I tell it to you as it is. “Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revellers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”

  And Hebrews! “Let marriage be held in honour among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.” The truth is plain, my friends.

  The peace you seek is all around you if you just open those consumerist eyes, for He is love and his mercy is everlasting. I speak from the heart, because I know you, I was you, until I allowed the tale of God’s boundless love to reach me; until, like I pray you will, I threw away those trinkets ensuring my future in Hell and heard the Truth.

  My friends, I know, I know this truth hurts, I know my words offend you, but more than that I know what I must do.

  Be offended, it does not concern me in the least, because my purpose in life is not to tread softly around your feelings, but to warn you, and to save you. If I risk offending you along that way, so be it. Your soul is worth it.

  My goal, and I will shout it loud from the rooftops as long as I have breath in these lungs, is to not offend my holy God and to share the message he has given me.

  If I don’t warn the lost, who will?

  12. slUtty-fUckgal

  It was Sunday morning in the O’Hare household. Her children having been fed, washed and bundled into the family car with a remarkably minimal amount of protest, even from Grace, who ordinarily railed against anything that hinted at being seen with her parents in public, Megan contemplated the next few hours alone.

  After last night and the events of the whole weekend, she found herself consumed by a contradictory but increasingly familiar heady mix of denial, shame and excitement. She focused on the banalities of her daily routine, washing dishes, putting clothes into the machine, emptying and pushing around a vacuum cleaner.

  When her mind strayed from this path, she reeled it back in. It was an hour and a half later when she took a cup of tea up to her room and flopped down on to the bed, underneath which was the phone she had ignored, like an endurance test, for more than 23 hours.

  The locked screen was, as she’d hoped, alight with colours, a surge of adrenaline coursing through her system, much as she tried to damp it down. Each message medium shone in a different hue, but Kik, their system of choice, was the dominant one, with its monotone words filling up the small space of the front of her iPhone 5.

  Luke_66: But how are you, babe, and how did it go?

  She read backwards from this, the last of his texts, which had begun with his urgent delight at the way their meeting that Friday afternoon, just over 40 hours ago, had gone, leading into a series of assumptions about her level of busyness, before eventually fading into the concern he expressed in the last few messages and then into a total silence.

  She knew he would be watching for the “R” that showed she had read what he’d sent, and sat there wondering where her replies should start. The beginning seemed like a logical place.

  SuzyTD: Hey.

  His response was immediate.

  Luke_66: Hey, hey, hey, disappeary girl. You okay?

  SuzyTD: I’m okay. I’m okay. Sorry to vanish on you. You good?

  Luke_66: All the better for hearing from you. I’ve been worried. You okay? How’d it go?

  SuzyTD: No need, no need. I… I didn’t do it. Couldn’t.

  Luke_66: Need to talk? I’m home, but we always need milk… I can pop out and call you in ten, 15 maybe?

  SuzyTD: Honestly? Thanks. I hate to be a pain in the arse, but today I think I’d like that. I don’t feel like typing this out.

  The call that followed was a purely functional exchange of information, but the tone had undeniably changed, softened maybe; they were now players in a fantasy that had extended its fingers firmly into the real world. Fucking undeniably changes things.

  No, she hadn’t gone through with it, not yet; she hadn’t told Rich about what she’d done, what she wanted; yes, she still intended to, as anything else would be a lie and that was unacceptable. She was doing things in her own way and at a pace that felt comfortable, she told him; she wanted to be sure that she could handle whatever reaction got. Somehow she would make things work, she would fix them.

  She thought that Luke_66 seemed more interested in her sharing her misgivings with him than she was in offering the information. Perhaps it was a genuine interest, perhaps a mere curiosity, a natural gathering of information about a woman he was involved with on whatever level, but his questions made her more possessive about her family life than she might otherwise have been.

  The fact was that her plan had not come together; she had not yet informed her husband that the get-out-of-jail-free card that she’d earned 12 years ago, shortly after Grace was born, when she found a midweek hotel receipt in the pocket of her idiot husband’s jeans, had been well and truly cashed in.

  It was, however, a conversation she undeniably needed to have with Rich. She was regretting the fact that the issue had formed part of their pillow talk, hers and Luke_66’s, in those three-and-a-half hours they spent in the hotel he’d booked specifically on the 365 route.

  For now, she walked alongside Luke_66, on the phone, as he wandered around Asda, hunting for eggs, bread, fruit, rice and the “something special” his wife had added to the milk list, and breathed a sigh of relief when he eventually lost connection in the frozen-fish aisle.

  She drifted off to sleep, there on her bed in the daytime, a luxury so great that she didn’t even begrudge the loss of that precious alone time, and awoke with a smile to the beep of a message 42 minutes later.

  Somehow, nothing quite compared with the written words, appearing right there in front of her.

  Luke_66: Hey Sister Suzy. How’s it going?

  SuzyTD: Hey, you caught me having a crafty snooze… How’s life? You jerking off again, naughty boy?

  Luke_66: Oh my! You keep walking in and catching me. I feel, I feel so bad for letting you down like this. But when I think of you… Oh, Sister, it brings part of me to life that I’ve never really noticed before. And I keep wanting to touch it. I know it’s wrong, isn’t it?

  SuzyTD: Such a naughty, naughty, naughty boy…

  Luke_66: Don’t be cross with me, Sister. I try so hard to please you. I hate it when you get angry with me.

  SuzyTD: Jesus teaches us to show mercy… you know that. Would you like me to help you? I mean, I thin
k I know what the problem might be. I think we could maybe fix it together… I could use my crucifix...

  Luke_66: Could you? Could you really, Sister? I do so love to make you happy. You know I do… I hate it when I disappoint you.

  SuzyTD: I know, baby boy. I know you don’t mean to be bad. Close your eyes. I want to try something that might help you out. Do you trust me?

  Luke_66: You know I do… You’ve been like a mother to me, Sister. My eyes are shut. Tight. I won’t look. Promise. x

  SuzyTD: Okay… so how does it feel if I do this…? I think you might remember it, dirty boy, from Friday… You seemed to like it then…

  Luke_66: Oh, I did. I truly, truly, did. You have a gift there, Sister, a natural talent. Seriously though. That was amazing.

  SuzyTD: You think?

  Luke_66: I know. Oh, yes, I do know. So warm and so, so wet. You have a very clever tongue.

  SuzyTD: You care to show me how good that feels, what happens when you remember, when you think about me doing that to you, naughty boy? I’d really like to see. It would help me think… of a suitable punishment.

  Luke_66: Does this help, Sister? I tried not to make it look too big. I didn’t want to scare you.

  SuzyTD: Thank you, baby boy. That really helps me out a lot. That looks swollen. Does it hurt? I think I know of a place I could maybe put it until it feels slightly… better?

  Luke_66: You rubbing right now, dirty, dirty lady? A special place? That sounds… intriguing. I wonder where it could be. Can I… May I please be permitted to see, Sister_Suzy?

  SuzyTD: This is the place, Luke. You like? I know how innocent you are. I’d so hate to scare you. Do tell me if I am.

  Luke_66: Oh, Miss. I love. So smooth and pink. It glistens. You’re saying that if I put my… special thing… inside there, it might feel better?

  SuzyTD: No might about it, sweet thing, I know it would. Aw Luke, I’m so close now that if you’d let me I could just… tip… on… over that edge… Can I?