Sweetpea

by C. J. Skuse

  I hate Joy. I REALLY REALLY REALLY HATE Joy. But then, I guess you’ve already realised that.

  *

  BIG fat news – police have arrested two FIFTEEN-YEAR-OLD BOYS for Derek Scudd’s murder. Daisy Chan took me out for lunch and told me over tapas.

  ‘How do you know?’ I said.

  ‘Ron got it from the chief super and told us all in the editorial last night. These kids have been harassing him for months, on and off.’

  ‘Oh I didn’t know about that.’

  ‘Yeah, quite nasty. They began with small stuff like putting notes through his letterbox and spraying stuff on his front wall. Then it was dog poo through the letterbox and crank calls. Last year they put a lit firework through but it didn’t go off. He was expecting it and had a bucket of water ready all through November.’

  ‘So it’s definitely them then?’

  ‘Well, they think so. The chief fire officer said it wasn’t arson beyond all reasonable doubt but they aren’t looking at anyone else. Except…’

  ‘Except?’

  Daisy was chewing on a particularly gristly piece of chorizo and kept rolling her eyes as though it was really annoying and apologising with her hand. Then she choked on it and had to have a drink and I had to slap her bony back (urgh) and ask her if she was all right. Eventually, the chorizo shifted.

  ‘OK?’

  ‘Yeah, think it’s shifted now. God, that was horrible.’ Her voice was all husky. She galloped down a few more glugs of water and went back to her meal, seemingly done with the conversation.

  ‘Sorry, you were saying they might be looking at someone else?’

  ‘Oh, yeah, there’s a private-care company that visited Scudd a few times a day. You know, making his meals, getting him washed. I don’t think they’re looking too hard at them – it’s a well-established firm. Strange he didn’t bolt the door though. The care company said he always dead-bolted after their staff left. When he was found, the door wasn’t bolted.’

  ‘So… what does that mean?’

  ‘Well, it could mean he forgot. Or that he let someone else in after the last carer left at six o’clock. He wouldn’t have let those two boys in, would he? No signs of forced entry anywhere else.’

  ‘What about family members? Anyone else have a key?’

  ‘No, his family haven’t spoken to him in years. There’s a son in Ireland but it’s been decades. No, so the teenagers are the best bet. I’m a bit disappointed I have to say. I thought maybe The Reaper might have struck again, you know.’

  ‘Oh, your sex offender/serial killer theory?’

  ‘Yeah,’ she sighed. ‘But he seems to have stopped for the time being. I’d say those kids did the area a favour anyway, just between you, me and the gatepost. If anyone touched my kids I’d…’

  ‘You’d what?’

  She looked at me. Stared hard. ‘I don’t know what I’d do. I really don’t.’

  ‘Send the boys round maybe?’ I suggested.

  And we shared a smile – a small, insignificant little moment to anyone else, but to me, it was actually a chink of light in an otherwise sunless afternoon.

  Lynette came round with the payslips after lunch then I spent an hour up in the Cunts Department because she’d taken two student loan repayments off. Again.

  MrSizzler48 has now blocked me on Snap Wank too. He sent me a message to say he’s heard from another guy that I’m ‘full of shit’ and that I ‘won’t meet up because I’m having a laugh’. He thinks I’m actually ‘a woman in disguise’. That’s why I ‘won’t send live pix’.

  He’s not as stupid as I first thought. Amazingly.

  Friday, 17 May

  1.Cyclists

  2.People who bang on about Steven Avery/Making a Murderer – the guy once doused a cat in gasoline. They should have fried the bastard in oil.

  3.‘Hazel’ the nurse, who carried out my smear test this morning and banged on and on about the Nifty Fifties Tap and Ballroom Dance class she was in. If there’s anything sadder than watching old people dance, it’s being over fifty and dancing. She even handed me a leaflet when she’d finished swilling surgical instruments around in my lady chamber. Bloody cheek.

  Joy’s trying to organise a bonding weekend in the Lake District – the campaign of practical jokes aimed at Linus is now her top priority and she thinks it’s ‘driving a fissure down the middle of the team’. She’s on a mission to promote harmony and stamp out nastiness in the Gazette offices (she’s been on a course). Yeah, good luck with that with me around, babe.

  AJ and I went out for a foot-long sausage baguette at lunchtime (no, that’s not a euphemism and, yeah, sod the cellulite). We were in public for the most part but he sneaked a kiss behind the tree in the graveyard while we were walking back to the office. The lilies from a recent funeral smelled magnificent. I looked over to the tree where the tramp lay. He was sitting outside his tree home, surrounded by all his mouldering carrier bags and clutter, rolling a cigarette. He waved when he saw me. I didn’t wave back.

  Saturday, 18 May

  1.People who chat with the cashier in the supermarket, even though there’s a queue behind them – I’m all for being pleasant when you’re packing your bag, but when the card’s been pulled out or the change has been given, kindly fuck off. Don’t linger and talk about your kid’s Easter play or your operation. AND DON’T THANK ME FOR WAITING. I DIDN’T HAVE A CHOICE!

  2.Litterbugs

  3.AJ – for forcing me to have sex with him. Well, not forcing me in the usual sense but backing me into a corner where it’s my only option. It’s just annoying.

  To the sex mobile, Batman…

  *

  AJ has just left. I lied and said Craig had texted to say he was coming back early, having missed his train to London. He seemed genuinely upset that he couldn’t stay around for a cuddle (he really likes just cuddling for some reason) but at least now me and Tink have the flat to ourselves for the night so we can watch that Denis Nilsen documentary I’ve circled in the Radio Times.

  Anyway the sex, if you could call it that. He was so revved up when he arrived – tenting even as I opened the door – that we had just enough time to uncork the wine he’d brought before he was on me like pondweed. There was a lot of tongue and a lot of dry humping on the sofa, until he said…

  ‘I’m gonna cum right here if I’m not careful.’

  At which point, I moved events into the bedroom. I’d go right off that sofa if it got even one drip of his spunk on it.

  And then I timed it. The time it took to get from sofa to actual spunk-off – 104 seconds. That was it. He collapsed, I lay there, sans-gasm, Tink barked and shrieked outside the bedroom door, as always, and then I pushed him off and went to clean up.

  ‘God, that was incredible,’ he said from the bed. ‘Did you cum?’

  ‘Yeah, it was lovely,’ I said from the bathroom, then I crawled back over to him and nuzzled under his outstretched arm like he seemed to be beckoning me to. ‘You’re a lot better at it than Craig.’

  ‘Aww don’t talk about him.’ He kissed me and started taking off my clothes. ‘I don’t wanna talk about him.’

  ‘Why? You jealous?’

  He nodded, kissing me again. ‘I don’t want him inside you. I want to be inside you. All the time.’ He climbed on-board again and kissed all around my face and neck, one hand going south.

  ‘God, you’re so wet.’

  ‘Well, yeah, you’ve just unloaded your fun pump in there, darling.’

  He laughed, moving back to kiss my mouth again. ‘You’re gorgeous.’

  I wriggled out of my knickers and wrapped my legs around him. ‘Thank you.’

  He pulled off his shirt. I unclicked my bra and threw it to the same heap on the carpet.

  ‘Do you want me to eat you out?’

  ‘No, let’s just have sex again, yeah?’

  ‘I don’t know if I can get hard again yet.’

  ‘I’ll get you hard.’ I wrestled him onto his bac
k and kissed him all over, spending a decent amount of time on his cock, using every available method at my disposal – hands, mouth, tits – the full works. Normally, when I did the full works on Craig, I’d expect a lot in return – a foot massage, a shelf putting up or a mixed grill at the very least.

  ‘God, girl, you’ve got some moves,’ he panted, as I climbed astride him.

  ‘I watch a lot of porn.’

  ‘Seriously?!’ he shrieked, hands behind his head. ‘I don’t know any girls who watch porn.’

  ‘We all watch it. We just lie about it to you guys. And trust me, if you have a boyfriend like Craig, you need porn.’

  ‘Why do you stay with him? You don’t have a good word to say about him.’

  ‘I kind of hate him, in a way, but I’m used to him now. It’s complicated.’ I hoped he would leave it at that, and he did.

  ‘OK, keep talking about dirty stuff now. What kind of porn do you like?’

  ‘Anything,’ I said. ‘Interracial’s always good. Sometimes bondage. Hentai.’

  ‘You watch hentai?’

  ‘I watch all of them. Gay is awesome. I can see why guys like it. There’s a funny Scooby Doo one where he’s bumming Shaggy. Although, technically, that’s bestiality, which I don’t endorse at all.’

  ‘You ever watch lesbian?’

  ‘Not really. Women don’t do much for me, sexually speaking,’ I said. Unless I’m stabbing them at the time, I thought.

  ‘You ever been with another woman?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How about anal? You ever try that?’

  I stopped rocking on him for a moment and looked down at his face. For a second he morphed into Craig. ‘I’m not into pain unless I’m the one inflicting it.’ And I tweaked both his nipples, hard.

  ‘Ahh! OK, OK.’ He laughed. ‘No worries.’

  I rocked back on forth on his pole for ages until I came – I had to trawl up some dark, dark memories to get that one out of my system and finally, with my eyes closed and thinking about lying underneath Julia as her blood ran down the sides of my neck, I came all down his cock.

  ‘God, you look hot when you come,’ he breathed, holding my tits as I caught my breath and flumped down so we were chest to chest, stuck onto each other like two slugs.

  ‘Mmm,’ I said, not opening my eyes.

  ‘Keep going, baby. Don’t stop. Help me come again.’

  I climbed off and sucked him to fruition. He was quite the growler.

  Spooning in bed naked with his flaccid wet cock pressed in between my buttocks and his right hand kneading my boob, he said, ‘I know we haven’t known each other long but… I think I’m falling in love with you, Rhiannon. Rhee? Did you hear what I said?’

  I pretended to be asleep.

  Sunday, 19 May

  Me and Craig went over to his mum and dad’s house for lunch – roast pork, crunchy crackling and all the trimmings – though Elaine is on Weight Watchers and her portion was so tiny it belonged in my doll’s house. She also refrained from having chocolate sponge and custard for pudding, preferring a bowl of cold strawberries and eulogising about how ‘lovely and local’ they were.

  AJ has been texting me non-stop since our night of wild passion. Most of the time I can’t be bothered to text much back except Mmm, me too and Yeah, cum hard for me, baby, ooh I like that while I’m doing the washing up or vacuuming the spare bedroom. It was quite hot when he started texting me at Jim and Elaine’s though. Risky, see? Me likes the risky cos Me’s a risky pixie.

  During the afternoon snoozefest on the sofas, I was reading their local newspaper trying to spot errors in their editorial, when I came across a story – a former nursery nurse, jailed for six years ago for abusing children in her care, is due for parole this month – Sandra Huggins. Her mugshot was about as ugly as you could imagine – somewhere between Rose West and a lard drip on an oven door. Jim looked over my shoulder.

  ‘Yeah, parents round here are up in arms about that. Elaine’s friend Mandy, works at the Co-op, she knows her sister. Family want nothing to do with her. She’ll be hard-pressed to find any friends round these parts.’

  ‘I didn’t know women could be paedophiles,’ I said, closing the paper. ‘What do they call them, feedophiles?’

  ‘Monsters,’ said Jim as Tink jumped up onto his lap and curled herself around like an Arctic fox. ‘And that lad who disturbed the pony in that field out Hazelford way – Elaine couldn’t sleep for weeks after that. Sick in the head some people.’

  ‘What do you think should happen to her, Jim? When she comes out?’

  ‘Shouldn’t be let out, should she?’ he replied. ‘Should be left to rot there like Hindley and that other one. But no, they’ll probably give her a false name and a job, all at taxpayers’ expense. Elaine’s sick with nerves that she’ll try and join the WI.’

  ‘What would you do if you met her in the street?’

  He shook his head. ‘I’d kill her. Most people round here would. She’s a freak of nature in’t she? Should be put down.’

  Correct answer, ding ding ding! Give that man a speedboat!

  See, I’m not so strange in wanting to kill the lusus naturae of our community, am I? I just do the things people only ever talk about doing. If only they knew, I’d be so popular, I really would. Everyone would love me, even the Daily Mail. They might start a petition to get me released or a Crowdfunding campaign to get some T-shirts printed or something.

  I knew about Elaine’s sundry neuroses, of course. I knew she had problems sleeping when the house down the street had been broken into. She couldn’t even handle firework night – every Fifth of November, she was one Roman candle away from a nervous breakdown so nowadays when the locals had a firework party planned, she’d take a few Valium and go straight up to bed. Many a time I’d helped myself to a few from her medicine cabinet. You never know when extra-strong sleeping tablets might come in handy.

  And I was happy to see she had just recently replenished her stocks when I went up to use the loo.

  Monday, 20 May

  Had the day off today. I didn’t do anything really. I just wanted to do anything other than work. I googled Sandra Huggins to see what the status was of her parole application – nothing to see. I’d like to take my time with that one. I’d like to do a Julia on her. Maybe bring in a little electricity, like I’d seen Dad do once through a crack in the window of a dusty warehouse.

  But where would I put her now I don’t have access to Mum and Dad’s? Hmm, that’s a poser.

  Talking of which, the FOR SALE sign has gone up on the front lawn. Jamie from Redman & Finch called me to say there had been two viewings already – one was by the Pembrokes – the couple with the four big dogs who’d looked at it when it was off the market – and that one was ‘very promising’. So it looks like the biggest part of my childhood is going to leave me soon. I will miss it. Well, I’ll miss the garden. And the peace. And Henry.

  AJ came round to the flat for a quickie at lunchtime.

  ‘Do you feel guilty?’ he asked, lying on me, my legs wrapped around him, my foot soles rubbing along his thighs.

  ‘No,’ I said, as his full heaviness pressed down on me. ‘I like it. It’s hot, being an adulterer. Do you feel guilty? About your auntie?’

  ‘No way. I’ve wanted to fuck you since I first got here. This has totally been worth it. God, I love you.’

  ‘Kiss me,’ I said. He kissed me. ‘Fuck me again.’

  And he did, using his middle finger to tease my clit as his cock did the hard work. I came pretty hard myself the second time. The kid might only be nineteen but give him his due, he knew his way around a vagina. He must have been watching some YouTube tutorials in the interim, I surmised. When we were done and he was limp but still on top of me, I said…

  ‘Stay there for a moment.’

  ‘Why?’ He smiled, kissing my neck again.

  ‘Just lie on me for a second. No, don’t fidget. Stay right there. Still.’

&nbs
p; ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Just lie on me, like you’re dead.’

  And he did. He completely relaxed himself so he lay dead on me. And I came again, gripping on to him, with him just lying there, doing nothing at all. I bit down on his shoulder. It was almost rhapsodic in its ecstasy.

  ‘Woah!’ he said. ‘You had some more left in the tank then, did ya?’

  I nodded and held him to me and silently, holding on to him, I began to cry into his warm neck. Ten thousand porn vids with hard-core in-and-out close-ups didn’t come close to the intensity of that one single moment.

  ‘Hey, you all right?’

  I sobbed. Actually sobbed. ‘Yeah. I just love it so much.’

  ‘Aww, baby, I love you too. I really do.’

  Thursday, 23 May

  I’ve just realised, I haven’t had the Dad dream in over a month. It has died with Derek Scudd. Maybe he was put on his earth for something useful after all.

  Also, they’re planning this year’s Christmas party already in work.

  It’s May.

  Joy wants to get the rugby club booked up ‘nice and early because they were fully booked last year’ so she’s asked for the deposits by tomorrow. She’s also talking about ordering a dress she’s seen in the Simply Be catalogue. How small is a person’s life that they get excited by shit like that over six months beforehand? I don’t know whether to laugh, cry or punch her in the non-melty part of her face.

  Wrote up my Marvel movie review – I gave it a 1* rating, and that was for the usherette who said he liked my shoes. Paul Spurdog said ‘You do realise you’re going to get emails from all the fan boys, don’ you?’ I said, ‘Yeah. Bring it.’