by Sam West
“Oh, just ignore him,” his mum said. “I, however, do lots of reading. All Colin reads is The Fishing News. Tell me, Chloe, have you always written?”
“Why don’t you sit down?” his dad said, gesturing to the sofa he had just vacated. “I’ll get the fizz.”
His dad disappeared out the door and Greg could hear him on the other side of the small hallway, clunking around in the kitchen and muttering to himself.
Greg smiled reassuringly at Chloe and they sat down on the chintzy, floral sofa a respectful distance apart. His mum sat down opposite them on one of the two matching armchairs and smiled warmly at Chloe.
“So tell me, Chloe, have you always written? It’s so exciting to have a writer in the family. Colin is a fisherman, as I’m sure you know. It runs in his family and goes back generations. Most of them still are fishermen. I was quite surprised when Greg broke with tradition. My lot are all quite boring. I was an accountant before I retired, and it doesn’t get more boring than that, does it? Still, it was incredibly useful when I was balancing your dad’s books,” she said to Greg.
Chloe opened her mouth to reply, but Greg jumped in there first. “Speaking of family, I asked Chloe to marry me and she said yes.”
“Oh my,” his mum said, her big blue eyes widening in surprise. “When did this happen? Why didn’t you tell us sooner?”
“Because I’m telling you now.”
“Colin, our son is getting married,” Janet announced to her husband when he re-entered the room carrying four champagne flutes upside-down by their stems and a bottle of Sainsbury’s own bubbly.
His dad looked as stunned as his mum had done and he stared at him slack-mouthed for a moment before saying anything.
“Why didn’t you tell us sooner?” he asked.
Greg rolled his eyes, but he did it with a smile. “Because I’m telling you now.”
“Well, then I would say we have much cause to celebrate,” he said, bending over to set the glasses down on the coffee-table.
“Oh, yes, of course we do,” Janet agreed. “Oh darling, I’m so happy for you, truly. Congratulations, both of you.”
His dad poured out the cheap champagne and handed each of them a glass. He rose his glass in a toast. “To the happy couple. Congratulations.”
“Yes, congratulations,” his mum echoed.
As Greg drank, he stole a glance at Chloe. She looked flushed and happy and in that moment he couldn’t have been prouder, all his previous misgivings swept to one side.
“To new beginnings,” she said.
Greg’s glass halted on the way to his lips, his heart suddenly beating uncomfortably hard. New Beginnings. That’s just what she had written in her diary.
“Oh, this is so exciting, have you decided what kind of wedding you want?” his mum asked.
“A small one, I should hope,” grumbled his dad. “But then, I don’t ‘spose it matters seeing as we only have the one child and he happens to be a boy. The father of the bride will have to foot the bill.”
Greg’s toes curled in mortification for Chloe. “Dad,” he said softly. “Chloe’s parents died years ago.”
Colin’s face blanched. “Oh God, I’m so sorry, forgive me.”
“For God’s sake, Colin, you just can’t help yourself, can you?” Janet said.
Greg felt a little bad for his dad – he could be blunt, but ultimately he meant well.
“That’s okay,” Chloe said, waving her hand dismissively. “My parents died when I was little.”
Greg looked at her strangely. “Since when was twenty very little?”
When they had first got together, Chloe had told him that her elderly parents had both died of cancer within a year of each other when she was at University.
Chloe looked at him in wide-eyed innocence. “Oh, you know what I mean.”
As it happened, he really didn’t.
“Well, we’re very sorry to hear that, aren’t we Colin?” his mum said.
“Yes, yes, of course we are.”
An uncomfortable silence filled the room, accompanied by the ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece.
“Why don’t we go through to the dining room?” Janet said, breaking the silence. “We’ll be eating soon.”
“May I use the bathroom first, please?”
“Yes, of course, dear. It’s up the stairs and the first door on your left.”
Chloe disappeared through the living-room door and Greg stared after her, frowning slightly. He still didn’t feel right about… well, about everything.
“She seems nice,” his mum said none too convincingly, snapping him back to himself.
“Yes, isn’t she?” Greg agreed.
If truth be told, he was struggling with the whole, ‘my parents died when I was little’, thing. In fact, after a day alone talking himself out of all the niggling doubts he harboured, now they were resurfacing with a vengeance. He got to his feet and headed for the door, hoping to deflect further questioning from his mother while Chloe was upstairs.
“That must have been hard on her, losing her parents at such a young age,” his mother was saying as she followed him out of the room. “Does she have any brothers or sisters?”
“No, she doesn’t,” Greg said, silently willing Chloe to hurry up.
But then, who the fuck knows?
He had the beginnings of a headache and intended to drink it away as soon as he sat down.
He entered the dining-room which was the next room down the hallway. It was the largest room of the house, complete with a huge, oblong, oak-table that could have easily sat sixteen people. Greg had always loved this room with its wooden floor and large, bay-window overlooking the harbour. In the centre of the table, four places were laid up with his mum’s poshest dinner-plates and crockery.
He went over to the window and gazed out of it, admiring the vast array of sailboats in the distant harbour. To his relief, his mum didn’t follow him in and went through to the kitchen to check on dinner.
His dad joined him at the window. “I never get bored of this view,” he said, gazing out to the horizon.
“Yeah, you must really miss fishing.”
The older man shrugged. “It was time to get out, the EU quotas were becoming an absolute bastard. Do you love her, son?”
The question startled him – his dad wasn’t one for shows of affection or talking about matters of the heart.
“I’ve brought her here to meet you, haven’t I?”
“That’s not what I asked. I know I’m not very good at this kind of thing, but marriage is a big commitment, you have to be one-hundred percent sure. You have to know what you’re getting into, and with who…”
“Gosh, what a lovely view,” Chloe said, effectively interrupting his dad.
Greg wasn’t sorry. He was confused enough without an impromptu, faintly embarrassing lecture from his dad.
His mum burst into the room. “Yes, isn’t it?” she sing-songed. “Dinner won’t be long, shall we sit?”
Greg pulled out a dining-room chair for Chloe and they all sat down, Chloe and Greg on one side and Janet and Colin on the other.
“So tell us a little more about yourself, dear,” Janet said. “Have you always been a writer?”
Chloe looked across at Janet thoughtfully, as if weighing up her options of what to say. Greg squirmed a little in his seat, feeling sorry for Chloe. Her past was her past. Maybe Mum would understand that Chloe’s unusual natural ability had led her down a path she would later come to regret, but at the same time he fully respected Chloe for wanting to keep it secret.
Really? You sure about that? Or would you just be ashamed of her if it ever came out?
He pushed aside the thought, of course he wouldn’t be ashamed of her. He just didn’t want his dad to find out and judge her. He was a proper, working-class type with old-fashioned values and glorified strippers weren’t exactly on his ‘must-meet’ list of people, much less have one as a daughter-in-law.
“I
was a contortionist after I graduated,” Chloe said conversationally. “I did a lot of work for high-end, fetish magazines.”
Greg stared at his fiancée in disbelief.
I can’t believe she just said that…
Janet set down her wineglass on the table that separated them and looked at her in puzzlement. His dad just openly stared at her in obvious distaste.
What the hell is she playing at?
“I’m sorry dear, a what? You were a cartoonist?” his mum asked.
No, contortionist,” she said with mock-patience that positively dripped sarcasm.
Greg cleared his throat, blurting out the first flimsy lie that that came into his mind. “What Chloe meant to say is that she had a brief stint as a contortionist in a family-run circus.”
“No, that’s not what I meant to say at all. I did it for years, professionally, from the ages of nineteen to twenty-five. I only really stopped when my writing took off. I was a fetish contortionist, mainly. I’m so flexible I could do some great bondage shots. I can eat myself out, too. I was very popular.”
“Chloe? What the hell are you playing at?” he asked.
“I’m not playing at anything, darling.”
His dad, visibly shaken, scraped back his chair across the wooden floor and stood up, his eyes like chips of ice. “I think you should leave.”
“Leave? But don’t you want to see me eat my own cunt?”
“Chloe!” Greg barked, his heart racing. “What is this?”
Chloe turned her head to look at him and he shrivelled inside. It was still his Chloe, with her big, baby-blue eyes, wide, generous mouth and the cutest snub nose, but she was different. There was no other way he could describe it, she looked the same, but the expression behind her eyes and the set of her mouth was completely alien.
She smirked at him. “This, darling Greg, is all of us properly getting to know each other.”
In that moment he knew that his darling fiancée had gone stark raving bonkers.
CHAPTER TEN
Greg pushed back his dining-chair and got to his feet, glaring down at Chloe who remained sitting where she was. “We need to go, now. Mum, Dad, I’m sorry, I don’t know what’s going on. I’ll call you, okay?”
For once, his mother was silent. His father glared at him.
“You can see yourself out,” his dad said gruffly.
Greg just nodded.
“But I don’t want to go, not yet. Oh, come on, will everyone just please chill the fuck out? I know what’ll cheer you all up…”
She jumped to her feet and Greg flinched.
“Come on, Chloe, it’s time to go.”
“No, Greg,” she said in carefully modulated tones, “it is not time to go.”
“Chloe? What the hell are you doing?”
She giggled. “My favourite party trick.”
None of it felt real. Greg was rooted to the spot in complete and utter disbelief as he watched Chloe disrobe. In a matter of seconds she had pulled the flowery, knee-length dress over her head and unclipped her bra. Just as she was bending over to slide her knickers down her legs, his paralysis broke.
“Chloe, for the love of God, will you stop?”
He lunged for her, grabbing at her arms to physically drag her away but she was too fast for him. She danced out of reach, simultaneously kicking off her knickers like a cross between Anna Pavlova and Bruce Lee. The knickers hit him in the face and she giggled, running round the other side of the table to where his parents where. All she wore were her shoes, a pair of low-heeled, cork sandals.
“Why, you little…” his dad shouted, making a grab for her while his mother sat there stunned.
She easily dodged him and ducked under his arm. In the next second she jumped on the table, crouching there like a big cat. Greg stared at her in confusion – he was already at the spot where she had just stood and he ground to a halt next to his dad. She was ten times faster than he was.
Yeah, cos she’s a fucking contortionist, she’s like a fucking athlete.
The truth of his situation, of everything, danced on the peripherals of his mind.
Oh God, Chloe, that diary was complete bollocks, wasn’t it? What the fuck did you do to the Jones family?
He pushed aside the terrifying revelation, this was hardly the time, he had to stop her before…
Before what? Before she kills me and my family too?
“Chloe?” he said in what he hoped was a reasonable manner despite the fact he was dying of terror inside. “Please get down off the table and put your clothes back on. Let’s just go home and talk about this.”
“Fuck you, Greg, I don’t think so.”
Slowly, she unfurled her beautiful body. For the first time Greg fully appreciated how sinewy she was; how slim and tightly packed with muscle her body was. Her muscles didn’t bulge like a female body-builder’s but she looked like she was carved out of stone. Why hadn’t he ever noticed before how much lean body mass she had? Every ridge and contour seemed to throb, like she was flexing each and every muscle, like she was warming up. It was almost like she had kept it hidden from him, like she had somehow made herself softer for him. Yes, she had always been super-toned, but he was sure she had never been this ripped.
“What are you staring at, Greg? It’s not like you’ve never seen me naked before.”
“Just get down off the table,” he said through gritted teeth.
She laughed and her body gave the impression of rippling, of undulating, making him think of a snake digesting its prey.
“Are you aware that I have total control over every muscle of my body? I’m not like other people, like normal people. My body and mind are in perfect harmony. I’ve always downplayed my skills to you, Greg, ordinary people could never understand.”
“What the fuck is she talking about?” came his dad’s voice. “Just get her the fuck out of my house.”
Greg turned to look at his father, who was holding his wife close to his chest over by the wall. He had temporarily forgotten about his parents and felt a sickening rush of shame that they were seeing this too.
Oh God, this is beyond fucking sick…
His mum sobbed into his dad’s chest, refusing to look at the madness.
“Come on, love, let’s go, you shouldn’t be seeing this. Greg, for fuck’s sake, will you sort this out?”
Greg could count on one hand the amount of times he had heard his dad swear in front of Mum; for all his working-class bravado, rough friends and even rougher south-east accent, his dad believed that a man should never swear in front of a woman.
“Just get Mum out of here, Dad,” Greg said.
His dad nodded, and there was no mistaking the fear in his eyes. Greg understood; looking at Chloe was like staring into an abyss of insanity – if one were to stare long enough, one would be sucked in and never come out again.
“Er, excuse me? And where do you think you’re going?”
In the few seconds Greg’s attention had been on his parents, Chloe had jumped off of the table and had retrieved her shoulder bag which had been draped over the back of her chair. The room lurched when he saw what she was pulling out of it.
A gun? She’s got a gun? What the hell? And now he thought about it, he began to wonder what the hell else she had in there, because her bag was bulging to full capacity. Because he had a horrible feeling it wasn’t lipstick and a hairbrush…
“I always carry a pistol, for self-defence, of course. A girl has to look after herself, doesn’t she?”
Greg simply could not believe it. This was England, for Christ’s sake, not America. People didn’t carry guns, especially not his darling Chloe. None of this made a dot of sense and he felt his mind spiralling dangerously out of control. He eyed the offending object, thinking how long it looked.
It’s a silencer, he thought in horror.
“So I strongly suggest that you sit back down, Mr and Mrs Larson, just there where you are on the floor will be fine.” With that she l
eapt back up on the table, pointing the gun at each of them in turn. “You too, Greg. Sit down next to your mummy and daddy like a good little boy. I think we all need to have a little talk.”
Greg’s gaze drifted from the muzzle of the gun pointing at him, over to his parents, then back again. On numb legs, he sat down next to his dad, who was cradling his mum. She sobbed against her husband’s chest and the sound was like a knife in Greg’s heart.
“Why?” was all he could think to ask.
“Why? Because you’re a cunt, Greg Larson. Because you can’t keep it in your fucking knickers.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he stammered.
Although, of course, he did.
“I saw you, you stupid cunt. I saw you kiss that fucking slag.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he repeated, the memory of kissing Susan blazing in his mind.
“You did hear something under the moulding-machine, you two-timing cunt. It was me.”
“What? But that’s impossible,” he blurted out, momentarily forgetting his plans to deny everything.
“No, it’s not impossible, it’s called enterology. I am an enterologist, you cunt-brained, dick-face. That means I can fold myself up like a fucking deckchair and I can also get into teeny-tiny, fucking spaces under moulding-machines.”
Greg stared at the monster on the table, utterly stunned.
How can this be happening?
“Please stop,” he whispered.
She threw back her head and laughed and just like that, all of Greg’s hopes and dreams shattered into a million pieces. “I mean, come on, how could you cheat on this?”
In one fluid motion, she lowered herself onto her backside and hooked her hands behind her thighs, her legs splayed wide. She didn’t stop there and leaned backwards so that she was lying on her back with her knees round her ears, the position making the inner lips of pussy pout out. She raised her arms in the air and flipped her legs all the way back until the backs of her shins cradled the back of her head. She craned her neck forward and stuck out her tongue, licking her exposed, pink clitoris. The fingers of one hand help open the lips of her swollen, wet vagina while the other hand kept the gun trained on them.
