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Brian breathed a huge sigh of relief. He’d thought for a while that Sue would never leave. Just being around her had made him horny as hell, and he was thinking about things which weren’t healthy for a married man. He put his hand to his head, and wiped away the small line of sweat that had started to collect there. The sweat was as cold as ice. He shook his head involuntarily and tried to push the girl from his mind.
“Are you alright, Brian?” Carter asked.
“I’m fine,” Brian replied, thinking quickly to come up with some sort of excuse “it’s just that…”
“Say no more, I know exactly what you mean.”
“Excuse me?”
“Ha, you don’t have to worry. She has that effect on almost everyone. Any man whose head doesn’t turn when Sue walks into the room is either gay or blind, that much I can say with 100% certainty.” The doctor had nailed it, but at least he offered some comfort. At least he wasn’t the only person who fell apart in the presence of the nymph in reception. “But God-damn,” he continued “How a man is supposed to work with something like that in the building is beyond me.” Brian laughed nervously, but he needed to clear his throat, and the laugh came out as a gargled “hur hur” which made him sound to himself like a dirty voyeur, who had taken an inordinate amount of pleasure from being in the presence of a beautiful young woman.
“In the interests of an efficient work environment, I really should insist that we get rid of her. But what man could justifiably say he didn’t want to look at something like that everyday. Moreover, I have no justification for asking her to leave that doesn’t make me out to be some irrepressible pervert.” The Doctor was walking back over to his desk now, and Brian followed. He needed to sit down. Sue may no longer be in the same room, but his legs still felt like jelly, and he feared that his knees would give way any moment and leave him sprawled on the floor, prostrating himself in front of the doctor, begging forgiveness for thinking elicit thoughts about an enchantingly attractive receptionist.
Carter reached his desk, and sat down in his expensive looking leather chair. It was no match for the one Brian had in his lounge, more a scaled up office chair designed to keep someone comfortable should they need to sit in it for an entire day, which probably wasn’t unlikely in Carter’s line of work. As the Doctor sat, he indicated with a wave of his hand a less elegant chair for Brian to sit in.
“The truth is though, she is just incredible. I’d sleep with her at a moments notice if I ever got the chance, wouldn’t you?” Carter seemed to be pushing the subject a little too far. Brian had come here for a medical assessment to see how long he was likely to live, not to discuss fanciable women.
“No, I’m married.” Brian raised his left hand to make his ring finger viewable.
“Damn, so am I” replied the Doctor, doing the same “But Christ, an opportunity like that transcends the marital vows. To me, Sue is living proof that there is a God, and if God is going to flaunt her in front of me, then I'm sure he won’t object to me tasting the fruits of his labour.” Brian wasn’t sure what to say in reply to that, and so he said nothing. After a few moments, Carter got down to business.
What followed was an hour long conversation about the effects of the cancer Brian had been diagnosed as having. Brian drew up a mental list of what he could expect from the next few months of his life – Carter was slightly less optimistic than Dogra had been, and only gave Brian four months, unless he took some medication of sorts. Random muscular pains, nose bleeds, loss of weight, lack of energy, intense headaches, vomiting, death. The good news was that his cold/flu like symptoms could easily be countered by taking a simple drug prescription that would otherwise be overkill on the average flu sufferer. But since Brian didn’t really have to worry about long-term damage, it wasn’t a problem.
Then followed some friendly advice. Don’t bother to eat healthily, no need for exercise, smoke if you want to, drink if you want to. All the care and attention that people are conditioned to give themselves, Brian was told to cast away. There was no time for it.
The whole episode was finally concluded with Carter giving Brian a list of contact numbers for Doctors he could contact if and when he chose to leave the country. Other than that, and a few words about the possibility of another checkup sometime, the two shook hands and the Doctor showed Brian out of his office.
As the door to the Doctor’s office closed, Brian remembered he was now back in receptionist territory. He remembered the way back out of the building, but that route meant that he would have to pass Sue on his way. He shrugged off the ludicrous idea of fumbling around the building looking for an alternative exit. It was just a girl, and he could handle walking past her for Christ’s sake. So he made his way down this corridor and that, and finally came to reception. He was immediately relieved to find that Sue was not there. Instead, a very conservative looking woman some 30 years her senior was sitting at the desk.
Brian had no trouble walking past her and out of the building, to his car. He sat in is car for a while without starting the engine. Even now he was a little shaken by his experience with Sue, and he had to admit to himself that he had almost wanted to see her again in reception, and had been a little disappointed that he hadn’t. Even thinking about her now brought back that urging feeling in his groin. He had wanted her so badly when he had been around her. It was as if she were emitting some form of mystical, hypnotic aura that commanded him to have feelings for her. Of course, this was not a clever way for a married man to be thinking, and so he tried to dismiss the feelings, which was easy enough to do, since he would likely never see this woman again in his lifetime.
He turned the ignition, and started to make his way out of the carpark. He got out of the visitors bay, and started down the little lane that led out of the hospital complex. He was just about to put his foot down and race out, when he noticed a woman stood by the bus stop just by the end of the lane, she was waving him down. He was going to ignore her, but then he recognised her. It was Sue.
DON’T STOP! Don’t you bloody well dare!
He heard his own voice in his head, but his feet were ignoring him. Even as he told himself that stopping for Sue was the most incredibly stupid thing he could do, his car drew to a stop by the curb next to the bus stop. He still wasn’t quite aware of why he was doing this as his passenger window wound down and Sue’s far too appealing face appeared there. He forced himself to look her in the eye, and his heart almost exploded like a pound of C4 in his chest.
“Hi there” She began
“Uh.. Hi.”
“I know this is strange, but, I missed my bus, and there isn’t another one for another hour…”
YOU ARE NOT GETTING IN MY CAR YOU JEZEBEL!!!
“You need a lift somewhere?” Brian was taken aback. Had he actually said that? He needed to tell her to go away, now, but the words that were coming out of his mouth didn’t fit with what he was thinking.
“Please, I could pay you, if you like.”
“No need. Hop in.” Was this actually happening? Another dream? Brian’s last hope of this situation going well faded to nothing as instead of getting into the back of the car, she opened the front passenger door and Brian stared intently at the windscreen, and not Sue’s legs, as she stepped in and sat down.
Panic buttons were being pressed all over the inside of Brian’s head. This girl, who seemed fully able to control his desires, was now shut in an enclosed space with him. Brian knew that if she asked him now to do something that violated his marital vows, he would do it without a moments hesitation. She had him wrapped around her little finger, and there was nothing he could do about it.
She strapped herself in, and looked over at Brian, a huge grateful beam on her face. Brian resisted the urge to vomit.
“So where are you going?” He managed to ask instead.
“You know Pennyhill Way?” She asked.
“It’s on that new estate isn’t it?”
“Well, not far from it. I’ll show you the way” Not if I bloody well have anything to do with it you won’t, Brian thought. And with that, he pulled off and began an extremely uncomfortable drive with the most beautiful woman in the world sat in the passenger seat.
Part 12
Brian’s heart was hammering in his chest. A crescendo of rhythmic thumping that threatened to break out of his torso and throw itself and an accompanying pint or two of blood all over his legs and feet. Brian was irrationally terrified. He was driving along an empty road with the personification of temptation sat in the passenger seat next to him. As he tried desperately to keep his eyes on the road, and do everything in his power not to look at her, he knew that his emotions were already splitting apart over her.
He knew beyond doubt that he would never willingly cheat on his wife. He loved Jane, had ever since the two of them had been at College together. He had a happy marriage, and was perfectly at ease with the idea of spending the rest of his life with her. He did not want to jeapordise that. On the other hand, his lifespan had been reduced to a matter of months, and the good Doctor back at the clinic had told him to forget all the crap his life was built around. It wouldn’t harm anyone at this point to pitch himself into a little indiscretion…
But that was a very colourful interpretation of what the Doctor had advised, and he knew it.
“Do you mind if I ask what’s wrong?” Sue suddenly interjected into his thoughts.
“Uh?” Brian surprised himself with his utter lack of proper reply.
“I mean, why did you need to see Dr. Carter?”
“It’s complicated.” He didn’t really want to talk about his cancer to some strange girl when he hadn’t even worked up the courage to tell his wife yet.
“I see…” She said, obviously disappointed, and when Brian looked at her and saw the dejection in her face, he thought he heard the sound of his heart breaking. She had the look on her face of someone who had just been told their favourite pet was going to be put down.
“I’ve got cancer” He blurted out without his own consent. “It’s kind of like Leukemia, only they can’t cure me”
“Oh my God. I’m so sorry”
“Don’t be, it’s not your fault.” Brian hoped that he wasn’t physically grimacing at how enchanting Sue’s voice was. He felt like a kid who’d met some nice girl in a club for the first time, and was building conversation up to the point where he might dare to try and kiss her. These thoughts were not helping to ease the pounding ‘THUMP-THUMP’ in his chest.
“So, if you can’t be cured, why were you seeing Jules?”
“Jules?”
“The Doctor.”
“Oh, it was sort of an advisory session. What to do over the next six months sort of thing” Brian was slowly starting to relax. He was doing his damnedest not to look at her as he was talking. While this could be construed as quite rude, that was far preferable to looking at her and probably degenerating into drooling uncontrollably
“Why the six month plan?”
“Because that’s all the time I have left” As he said it, it seemed to really sink in for the first time. He had only six months to live, if that. The rest of his life was being cut shorter than anything that could conceivably be construed as fair. Brian suddenly found himself fighting to stop tears from streaming down his face. A battle he swiftly lost, and he had to pull over to avoid crashing into something.
“Are you OK?” Sue asked, and soon noticed that he wasn’t. Tears were pouring down Brian’s face uncontrollably, and he was desperately trying to wipe them away faster than they were appearing, and he was failing. Brian’s efforts to rub away at the offending tears were interrupted as something pulled his left hand away from his face. His hand was replaced by someone else’s, which gently caressed his cheek, and seemed to have more of an effect than his own frantic rubbing.
The now familiar angelic voice whispered close to him “It’s ok, it’s ok...”. Her hand then moved around to cup the back of his head, and before he knew what was happening, he felt the touch of her lips on his cheek. He sternly resisted the impulse to turn his head and meet the kiss with his own lips, and managed to pull away from her.
He looked over at Sue in the passenger seat, his puffy, tear soaked facade looking into a face full of compassion and sympathy, her big blue eyes looking like divine beacons of tenderness and passion. Brian felt as though every organ in his chest had just melted like a slab of butter in a hot pan. An invisible shiver ran up his spine, and he felt the hairs on his neck stand on end. He’d felt that only once before, and he knew without doubt that he had just fallen completely, totally and utterly in love.
He was too shell-shocked by the feeling that had just ran through his body like a freight train to do anything when Sue leaned forward and kissed him square on the lips. So stunned he was that there was nothing he could do to stop himself from wrapping his arms around Sue and reciprocating the deepest and most passionate kiss he’d given anyone in about 5 years.
Part 13
Brian had to employ every ounce of self-control to keep himself from running back to his car at full sprint. On one hand, he had just had the time of his life with a stunningly gorgeous woman, had fulfilled any number of fantasies, and had a memory that would last a lifetime. On the other hand, he had committed the most heinous form of sin against his marriage and his immortal soul, if such a thing existed. He had been presented to temptation, and had folded like winter leaf. The last hour or so was proof, if ever he needed it, that he was a weak excuse for a human being.
But now was not a time for panic. Now was a time for presentation. As he made his way out of Sue’s home in Pennyhill Way, he knew that running away from her would only worsen the situation by causing him to come across as an ungrateful coward. And while he knew that he had to get out of here as soon as physically possible, he was also aware that speeding his way out of the picture while the woman he had just spent the last two hours sharing the most intimate, passionate and not to mention athletic sex with was watching on was a gaucherie of the highest order.
And so, as a final act of appreciation for the beautiful experience she had just given him, he held his restrain and walked slowly back to his car, looking back twice on his way to smile politely and wave. As he got into his car, he felt a cold shiver run right through him. He ignored it, looked one last time to see Sue still stood in the doorway waving at him, waved back and pulled away.
As he drove, he mentally recounted the events of the last few hours. Somewhere along the line, he had thrown away his marriage and probably his life as well. Promises made to last a lifetime had been thrown away at a moment’s notice. He had unexpectedly become the kind of man that women read about in magazines while shaking their heads and tutting. He could walk into a room of women, tell them what he had done, and be greeted in return by universal opprobrium, distrust and possibly even outright hatred. He was an adulterer, and he had become so not because his wife was in any way insufficient, but instead because he had wanted a little sympathy to make himself feel better. Of course, the fact that walking into a room full of men and telling the same story would likely do little more than raise an eyebrow or two and get a few celebratory slaps on the back was irrelevant. The fact remained that what he had done was wrong.
But with this in mind, he found it strange that the feelings of guilt and regret were not currently consuming him like a fiery blaze of righteousness. He currently felt little other than the elation of having had exciting sex with a woman he barely knew. He couldn’t help but grin as he thought about what they had done together. She was just so incredible. A perfect and athletic body, and by damn she knew how to use it.
Brian was just reflecting on a particularly daring sexual exercise, when something caught his eye as he drove past it. He was driving back to his house down an unfamiliar road, as he had never before had cause to be anywhere near Sue’s area. But he recognised the streetsign as if he’s seen it a thousand times before. He pulled the car over, and reversed a little so he could see it again. There it was, exactly as he had seen it before, a large white sign strutting out of the ground on two black wooden legs. And in bold black lettering were the words “Hastings Drive”.
Brian’s heart began to hammer in his chest. He must be dreaming again – must be! The name of this street had come to him as a bizarre vision from his television set after he had already turned it off. That meant that the vision was not real, which in turn meant that he wasn’t parked outside of Hastings Drive now.
Was he?
There was no clear way to tell. The line between reality and fantasy was stretched to breaking point. Maybe his experience with Sue had been nothing more than an incredibly vivid and highly erotic figment of his imagination. It was impossible to tell either way. It all felt real, but then, so had being eaten alive, and being thrown down a hill with nothing but large, fast moving rocks for company.
Right now, he couldn’t take his eyes off the sign. He was praying for his life that it wasn’t real. Because if the sign was real, then the road actually existed, along with house number 35 and it’s inhabitant, a man he knew only as Micky. The man who was sleeping with his wife. The implications were huge. If the sign and the house and the man and the infidelity were all real, what else was real? What did that imply of Marcus, and how could he have known? Brian’s head started to spin, and he could no longer bear to look at the sign, as if by it even being there it was committing some atrocity against his soul.
He had no idea what he was supposed to believe. The air in the car was suddenly stuffy and restrictive. Brian opened the door and got out of the car. He was parked next to a large park-like area, with hills and trees as far as the eye could see. He stumbled away from the road onto the grass and fell to his knees. A thousand possibilities whirling through his heavily confused mind, Brian convulsed and vomited onto the grass.
Part 14
Brian was down on his hands and knees trying desperately to get his breathing under control. It was all too much, and totally impossible to discern what was supposed to be real, and what was completely false. For a while he wondered if it were all real, but that didn’t make sense. He had died any number of ways, so it couldn’t be. Maybe, then, it was all imaginary; a twisted prevarication conjured up by his own mind. But to what extent? Did he have cancer or didn’t he? Was he dying?
And who the hell was Marcus?
Brian’s thoughts were interrupted when he heard someone call his name behind him. He had just thrown up and had a line of yellow drool hanging out of his mouth. He took the time to wipe this on his sleeve before turning to see who was calling him. At first he couldn’t see anyone, The voice called again, definitely a man, and it seemed to be coming from the entrance to Hastings Drive, which he couldn’t see, as his car was in the way. He got to his feet, and immediately regretting doing so. He was still feeling dizzy, and struggled to upright as the blood rushed from his head to his toes. Then the person calling him came around his car, and if Brian had any blood left in his face, it drained away then and there with expeditious swiftness. It was Micky.
Brian reeled in horror at the sight of him. His very dreams were impossibly coming to life. He turned to run away from the vision of Micky striding towards him like a sentinel of doom, but as he turned, his dizziness got the better of him and he tripped on his own feet to find himself lying flat on his face on the grass. He tried to get up while running forward at the same time, which only resulted in him jerkily hopping forward with his legs flapping about in a manner that would have been hilarious were he not completely terrified. While still trying to get upright, he looked back to see where Micky was, and suddenly slammed into something hard and unrelenting. He was sent spinning back to the floor gritting his teeth against a sudden spur of pain shooting through his skull.
After finally settling on his stomach, Brian risked a glance upward to see what he had just ran into, but all he could see was Marcus stalking toward him. He was clad in all black and looked more than a little unhappy. Brian tried to stand, but as he did so, Marcus reached him and stood all his weight on Brian’s left hand, pinning him in position.
Brian was left to look up into Marcus’ face, and noticed that his hair seemed to be longer now, and was flowing freely in the wind.
“Let me tell you something, Brian.” He began, and Brian was in no condition to do anything but listen “Fate is a very interesting concept. The idea that your life is pre-ordained by some higher power, that you are little more than a pawn I a grander scheme and that in actuality, you have no influence over the decisions you make in your life, where it goes, and ultimately, where it ends.
“You see, if fate applied to you, for example, then it was written from the day you were born that you would marry an adulterous cow, that you would work a job you can’t stand for a bank whose policies you disagree with, and of course, that you would get cancer and die before you live to be a father. Put that way, your life is pretty appalling, and has always been meant to be that way.
“A lot of people believe in fate, because their lives already lack meaning, and the idea that they might be meant for something is something they clutch to like squirrels would do to an acorn during the onset of winter. It is precious, the concept of being a part of a plan they can neither see nor understand. It is also folly.
“Look at the evidence. Children that are born into a loving family, but die only weeks later when a car piles into their pram at 50 miles an hour. Women in regions of Asia born or sold into slavery, where they become the unwilling sex objects of fat, sexually deviant international businessmen. Healthy men leading their lives, struck down by vicious and lethal diseases with no hope of cure or redemption.” As Marcus said this, Brian felt something tug at his feet from behind, and Marcus lifted his boot. Brian swung his head around to see what was happening in time to see Micky grabbing his ankles and yanking them. He was dragged for several metres along the floor before Micky threw his legs aside. The strength with which Micky did so was enough to turn Brian onto his right side, and was then greeted with a sharp kick into his back.
He tried to scream, but no sound came out of his mouth. He was flipped over again onto his back now, and Micky pinned his arms down with his knees. Marcus continued.
“Personally, I like to believe that our lives are our own. No-one controls our destiny. We write the story which is our lives, and nothing is pre-determined. Life is a blank piece of paper, and you need but imprint your own grand scheme upon it. It’s better that way, I think, and certainly better for you. Imagine if, on this piece of paper, you could erase the line that says you have cancer. Erase the terminal illness which threatens to snuff out a life that could otherwise be second to none.
“With that view there is hope. Your prognosis now is nothing short of tragic. But maybe it could change.” Brian had had enough, and had to speak up.
“You’re insane!” he shouted “There is no cure. No blasted cure. Any idea that I can just wish it away is just plain stupid.” As he said this, Micky got up off him, digging his knees into Brian’s arms as he did so, leaving him in too much pain to try to get up while he had the chance. Micky then grabbed Brian by the hair and lifted him up roughly.
“I can see,” Marcus said “that you’re not going to come around to my way of thinking without a little persuasion” and with that, Micky punched Brian in the stomach with inhuman strength. The wind was knocked out of his lungs so hard he couldn’t breath anything back in. The pain was overwhelming and he fell to the floor gasping raggedly and convulsing as though he were having a fit.
“I’ll tell you this straight Brian” Marcus continued “Your life does NOT have to end like this. You can be cured, if only you’ll co-operate.” Brian tried to sum up a retort but could do nothing other than mouth the word “impossible”. He was picked up by his shirt this time, and Micky greeted him face to face with a headbutt which broke his nose and sent blood streaming down his face. Again he was dropped to the floor like a rag doll.
“Nothing is impossible. This is something I’ve learned over the years, and something I will prove to you in time. But I can do nothing unless you help me do it. I’m in no position to take anything into my own hands. I need you Brian, and you need me. Only together can we make this work.” Brian was lying face down, and made no effort to reply. Micky grabbed him by the hair and pulled him up so he was sitting on his knees. His face was covered with blood now, and he was struggling to open his eyes.
After a few moments, he managed to gasp out “I just… want you… to leave me… alone.” The reply came in the form of another boot in the spine, hard enough to make something break with an audible snap sending waves of pain up through his entire body. This time, he wasn’t left to lie down for long. Micky picked him up again and physically threw him several metres through the air until a large tree was kind enough to bring an end to his flight. He hit it with a dull thud and bounced down onto the floor. He had felt several of his ribs break as he had made contact, and was now little more than a sobbing lump on the grass, showered with his own blood.
Marcus continued, and somehow Brian heard everything he said clearly “Think about it logically, Brian. Think about the dreams you’ve had over the last few days. In every one, you’ve died, and in every one, you’ve tried to escape death to the last. You tried to get away from it because you’re not ready to die. Because you don’t WANT to die. Given that, would it not make sense to accept the offer of the one person who can save you?”
Micky had walked up to Brian again now, and proceeded to pick him up yet again and pin him against the tree which had just broken his ribs. Micky then went about hitting him time and again in the face, in the chest, in the stomach and in the groin. Pain rattled Brian’s entire body in waves of increasing vehemence. He had never thought it possible to experience pain on this level, or anything near it. But even now, he resisted Marcus, and refused to believe that he was even real. Any minute now, he though, Micky would kill him completely, and he would wake up in his car, driving home, or already there.
“Still you don’t understand.” Marcus went on “Consider it this way. You can resist, perhaps, for the final six months of your mortal life. Do you think you could manage that? Six months of pain and suffering? Well, Here in your mind I can stretch a single second to feel that long. I can make you suffer for what will feel like CENTURIES! If you give me six months, I’ll torture you for millennia. Thousands upon thousands of years of unending agony and torment.
“Or you can relent, now, and the pain will go away. We will work together to bring about change the likes of which this world hasn’t seen since the dawn of civilisation itself. The choice is yours, Brian, and I suggest you choose wisely.” Brian listened as best he could while Micky beat him as though he were merely dusting a rug with rolling pin. There was no choice. If what Marcus said was true, there was no way he could hold out for so long. There was no way he could think of to shut Marcus out and leave him free to live what was left of his life. He had to give in to his demands, despite knowing that in doing so, he was essentially welcoming insanity.
He couldn’t even say to Marcus that he had given in. His jaw was shattered now, and his throat broken and useless. He should, by rights be dead by now, but somehow he lived on. Only his left eye functioned well enough to look back into Micky’s mocking face. But Marcus somehow sensed the change of heart, because Micky suddenly ceased his assault and let Brian drop to the floor. As he dropped, he found that he was completely unharmed. The pain disappeared instantly and there were no longer any cuts, bruises, swellings or breakages of any kind anywhere.
He got to his feet as Marcus walked over to him. As he approached, he leaned over and whispered into Brian’s ear “The man who was just beating you is the father of your wife’s child”. Brian turned to point a stunned expression at Marcus, but he wasn’t there any more. A feeling of pure cold ran through Brian’s body like wave of arctic shock. He fell to his knees and put his head in his hands. Somehow, he didn’t know how, but somehow he knew that Marcus was telling the truth.
His entire marriage was a preposterous lie. He had been utterly betrayed in every conceivable sense. The cold wave was replaced by another wave, this time the wave ran hot through his veins like molten steel. Rage curled his fingers into fists and ground his teeth in fury. He glanced up to see Micky, still standing there. The sight filled him with disgust and fueled the growing sense of pure outrage even more. He got to his feet and strode over to Micky to meet him face to face. He wasn’t as large now, and Brian could look him in the eye with only the slightest of upward angles. He stood there in front of him for a few moments as the sense of black hatred continued its crescendo. He vaguely heard a sound similar to that of rushing water in the back of his head.
Then the sound stopped. There was no noise, only Micky and Brian standing face to face. Brian felt an epiphany. Micky, his wife’s lover and father of her child, the man who had torn apart the family of a man doomed to an untimely death, had to die.
With that, Brian hurled himself at an unprepared Micky and proceeded, over the next few minutes, to tear him apart with his bear hands.
Part 15
Brian opened his eyes to find himself on his hands and knees on a patch of grass. His own vomit lay in a small, unruly puddle in front of him. He regarded it for a moment, noticing blankly that he hadn’t really eaten anything today, and the majority of what lay before him was a thick bile that was set off by the contrast of the bright green healthy grass. He could still taste the acidity of it in his mouth, and that tang combined with the smell burning into his nostrils almost made him heave again. He managed to resist the sensation, but couldn’t help but drool as his mouth filled with saliva. He spat it all out and made an effort to get to his feet.
He tried not to think about what had just happened. Regardless of Marcus’ insistence to the contrary, his outlook was bleak. He was a few months away from unjust death at the hands of cancer, he was slowly convincing himself that his wife was cheating on him – had been for long enough for his future daughter not to be his at all – and of course, he was very quickly going completely and irrevocably insane.
Not that he could claim the righteous moral highground. He had recently spent a few hours doing the wild thing with a stunning blonde he had only just met in a hospital reception. There was too much happening too fast, and he needed time to think it over. But not now. He felt like crap, and needed to get home and have a shower. He dragged himself into his car, took one last look at the sign that read “Hastings Drive” and he pulled away.
…
Mikael Aubert sat up with a start. His heart was pounding in his chest as though it were trying to find a way out. He looked around the room quickly, and was relieved to see that he was alone. It had been just a dream. Apparently he had fallen asleep in front of the TV, which was no surprise itself, as English TV was generally boring and repetitive rubbish. But the dream he’d had was like something out of a horror movie. He’d been stood on the patch of grass just down the end of the road and some lunatic had jumped on him and beaten the living crap out of him.
What made it stranger still was that he recognised the man who’d attacked him. It was Brian Wainwright. He knew the face because he had seen the picture of him in his wife’s purse any number of times. This was altogether freaky. He wasn’t easily scared, hell, he had been his college kickboxing champion, but having weird dreams about the husband of the woman you’re sleeping with was just not a good sign. He switched off the TV set, which had been till now pumping some senseless rubbish that the general Engish public seemed to lap up, despite its complete lack of content.
He’d known Jane for a while now, and they’d been sleeping together for months. Mikael wasn’t the sort of person who regularly imposed himself on another person’s marriage, but Jane was a lovely person, and, he had to admit, a great lover. And so, being the man he was, he had found it very difficult to say no to her, even when he had found out that she was married. He had sought constant assurances that “he won’t find out” and “he doesn’t know you’re here” etc, and it had been enough to keep his mind at ease. But obviously something had changed.
Mikael certainly didn’t like the idea of sleeping with Jane if it was going to cause him this sort of grief. He didn’t like bad dreams at the best of times, and dreaming of being brutally attacked by your lover’s husband was more than he was prepared to deal with. He leaned over and pulled a cigar out of his tin, and lit up. Sat there in the quiet of his lounge he decided that it was the best for all concerned that he ended his relationship with Jane Wainwright. He sat back and took a pull on the cigar, then blew a smoke ring that seemed to carry a weight of troubles from is mind.
…
Sue-Ellen Cornick was lying on her bed, with her hands behind her head and her feet crossed at the end of her outstretched legs just staring at the ceiling. Today had been a strange and wonderful day. She’d liked Brian from the second she’d laid eyes on him. He wasn’t the most incredible looking man in the world, but he was still very handsome, and there was just something about him that was just unthinkably sexy. She could tell that Brian had liked her too. It was fairly obvious, though he managed to control himself a little better than a lot of other men did when they met her. Too many men just stared blankly at her, or worse, at her breasts, and let out low whistles that they thought she couldn’t hear. Sue-Ellen had long ago learned that being beautiful was an absolute curse, and while any man in the room would hang on to her every word, few people actually listened to her.
Then she had missed her bus by only seconds, and who should turn up but Brian. It was like fate. Before either of them knew what was happening they were back at her apartment tearing each others clothes off, and what followed, well, that was just something else. Sue-Ellen had learned through experience that sex was not as great or clever as everyone had made out during the teen years. Perhaps it was just her experiences, but the whole thing was generally over very quickly, maybe a minute or two, followed by a hurried apology and then the guy falling asleep on the pillow. But Brian was something completely new. They’d gone for hours – HOURS! And it had been absolutely mind-blowing. She’d felt highs that she hadn’t thought possible before today.
She didn’t have to convince herself that she wanted, nay, needed to see Brian again, but he hadn’t left any means by which she could contact him. So she decided that when she went into work next, she would make a one-off abuse of her secretarial powers and look up Brian’s number on the computer. It was while thinking this that she remembered Brian’s condition. He had six months to live. She thought about that for a while, and concluded that she just couldn’t do without experiencing again what he had given her, and so had to see him anyway. But with only six months to live – not to mention the fact that he was married – meant that she wouldn’t be able to see him very much, especially since she had to work as well.
But she didn’t have to work. In fact it would be better if she didn’t. Her parents hated the idea of her working, and still threw a considerable amount of money in her direction on a monthly basis. Her job had just been a way to distance herself from them and their overbearing demands on her lifestyle. She could leave her job, and still afford her apartment, and have more time to see Brian while she could.
And so at last, the decision was made. Sue-Ellen Cornick would go into work and take Brian’s number before handing in her immediate resignation – much to the probable grief of Dr. Carter, pervert extraordinaire – and then go about hunting down the one person who had made her feel happy in the last 10 years. She allowed herself a smile, she hadn’t been this excited about anything for a long time, and it felt damn good.
“Are you alright, Brian?” Carter asked.
“I’m fine,” Brian replied, thinking quickly to come up with some sort of excuse “it’s just that…”
“Say no more, I know exactly what you mean.”
“Excuse me?”
“Ha, you don’t have to worry. She has that effect on almost everyone. Any man whose head doesn’t turn when Sue walks into the room is either gay or blind, that much I can say with 100% certainty.” The doctor had nailed it, but at least he offered some comfort. At least he wasn’t the only person who fell apart in the presence of the nymph in reception. “But God-damn,” he continued “How a man is supposed to work with something like that in the building is beyond me.” Brian laughed nervously, but he needed to clear his throat, and the laugh came out as a gargled “hur hur” which made him sound to himself like a dirty voyeur, who had taken an inordinate amount of pleasure from being in the presence of a beautiful young woman.
“In the interests of an efficient work environment, I really should insist that we get rid of her. But what man could justifiably say he didn’t want to look at something like that everyday. Moreover, I have no justification for asking her to leave that doesn’t make me out to be some irrepressible pervert.” The Doctor was walking back over to his desk now, and Brian followed. He needed to sit down. Sue may no longer be in the same room, but his legs still felt like jelly, and he feared that his knees would give way any moment and leave him sprawled on the floor, prostrating himself in front of the doctor, begging forgiveness for thinking elicit thoughts about an enchantingly attractive receptionist.
Carter reached his desk, and sat down in his expensive looking leather chair. It was no match for the one Brian had in his lounge, more a scaled up office chair designed to keep someone comfortable should they need to sit in it for an entire day, which probably wasn’t unlikely in Carter’s line of work. As the Doctor sat, he indicated with a wave of his hand a less elegant chair for Brian to sit in.
“The truth is though, she is just incredible. I’d sleep with her at a moments notice if I ever got the chance, wouldn’t you?” Carter seemed to be pushing the subject a little too far. Brian had come here for a medical assessment to see how long he was likely to live, not to discuss fanciable women.
“No, I’m married.” Brian raised his left hand to make his ring finger viewable.
“Damn, so am I” replied the Doctor, doing the same “But Christ, an opportunity like that transcends the marital vows. To me, Sue is living proof that there is a God, and if God is going to flaunt her in front of me, then I'm sure he won’t object to me tasting the fruits of his labour.” Brian wasn’t sure what to say in reply to that, and so he said nothing. After a few moments, Carter got down to business.
What followed was an hour long conversation about the effects of the cancer Brian had been diagnosed as having. Brian drew up a mental list of what he could expect from the next few months of his life – Carter was slightly less optimistic than Dogra had been, and only gave Brian four months, unless he took some medication of sorts. Random muscular pains, nose bleeds, loss of weight, lack of energy, intense headaches, vomiting, death. The good news was that his cold/flu like symptoms could easily be countered by taking a simple drug prescription that would otherwise be overkill on the average flu sufferer. But since Brian didn’t really have to worry about long-term damage, it wasn’t a problem.
Then followed some friendly advice. Don’t bother to eat healthily, no need for exercise, smoke if you want to, drink if you want to. All the care and attention that people are conditioned to give themselves, Brian was told to cast away. There was no time for it.
The whole episode was finally concluded with Carter giving Brian a list of contact numbers for Doctors he could contact if and when he chose to leave the country. Other than that, and a few words about the possibility of another checkup sometime, the two shook hands and the Doctor showed Brian out of his office.
As the door to the Doctor’s office closed, Brian remembered he was now back in receptionist territory. He remembered the way back out of the building, but that route meant that he would have to pass Sue on his way. He shrugged off the ludicrous idea of fumbling around the building looking for an alternative exit. It was just a girl, and he could handle walking past her for Christ’s sake. So he made his way down this corridor and that, and finally came to reception. He was immediately relieved to find that Sue was not there. Instead, a very conservative looking woman some 30 years her senior was sitting at the desk.
Brian had no trouble walking past her and out of the building, to his car. He sat in is car for a while without starting the engine. Even now he was a little shaken by his experience with Sue, and he had to admit to himself that he had almost wanted to see her again in reception, and had been a little disappointed that he hadn’t. Even thinking about her now brought back that urging feeling in his groin. He had wanted her so badly when he had been around her. It was as if she were emitting some form of mystical, hypnotic aura that commanded him to have feelings for her. Of course, this was not a clever way for a married man to be thinking, and so he tried to dismiss the feelings, which was easy enough to do, since he would likely never see this woman again in his lifetime.
He turned the ignition, and started to make his way out of the carpark. He got out of the visitors bay, and started down the little lane that led out of the hospital complex. He was just about to put his foot down and race out, when he noticed a woman stood by the bus stop just by the end of the lane, she was waving him down. He was going to ignore her, but then he recognised her. It was Sue.
DON’T STOP! Don’t you bloody well dare!
He heard his own voice in his head, but his feet were ignoring him. Even as he told himself that stopping for Sue was the most incredibly stupid thing he could do, his car drew to a stop by the curb next to the bus stop. He still wasn’t quite aware of why he was doing this as his passenger window wound down and Sue’s far too appealing face appeared there. He forced himself to look her in the eye, and his heart almost exploded like a pound of C4 in his chest.
“Hi there” She began
“Uh.. Hi.”
“I know this is strange, but, I missed my bus, and there isn’t another one for another hour…”
YOU ARE NOT GETTING IN MY CAR YOU JEZEBEL!!!
“You need a lift somewhere?” Brian was taken aback. Had he actually said that? He needed to tell her to go away, now, but the words that were coming out of his mouth didn’t fit with what he was thinking.
“Please, I could pay you, if you like.”
“No need. Hop in.” Was this actually happening? Another dream? Brian’s last hope of this situation going well faded to nothing as instead of getting into the back of the car, she opened the front passenger door and Brian stared intently at the windscreen, and not Sue’s legs, as she stepped in and sat down.
Panic buttons were being pressed all over the inside of Brian’s head. This girl, who seemed fully able to control his desires, was now shut in an enclosed space with him. Brian knew that if she asked him now to do something that violated his marital vows, he would do it without a moments hesitation. She had him wrapped around her little finger, and there was nothing he could do about it.
She strapped herself in, and looked over at Brian, a huge grateful beam on her face. Brian resisted the urge to vomit.
“So where are you going?” He managed to ask instead.
“You know Pennyhill Way?” She asked.
“It’s on that new estate isn’t it?”
“Well, not far from it. I’ll show you the way” Not if I bloody well have anything to do with it you won’t, Brian thought. And with that, he pulled off and began an extremely uncomfortable drive with the most beautiful woman in the world sat in the passenger seat.
Part 12
Brian’s heart was hammering in his chest. A crescendo of rhythmic thumping that threatened to break out of his torso and throw itself and an accompanying pint or two of blood all over his legs and feet. Brian was irrationally terrified. He was driving along an empty road with the personification of temptation sat in the passenger seat next to him. As he tried desperately to keep his eyes on the road, and do everything in his power not to look at her, he knew that his emotions were already splitting apart over her.
He knew beyond doubt that he would never willingly cheat on his wife. He loved Jane, had ever since the two of them had been at College together. He had a happy marriage, and was perfectly at ease with the idea of spending the rest of his life with her. He did not want to jeapordise that. On the other hand, his lifespan had been reduced to a matter of months, and the good Doctor back at the clinic had told him to forget all the crap his life was built around. It wouldn’t harm anyone at this point to pitch himself into a little indiscretion…
But that was a very colourful interpretation of what the Doctor had advised, and he knew it.
“Do you mind if I ask what’s wrong?” Sue suddenly interjected into his thoughts.
“Uh?” Brian surprised himself with his utter lack of proper reply.
“I mean, why did you need to see Dr. Carter?”
“It’s complicated.” He didn’t really want to talk about his cancer to some strange girl when he hadn’t even worked up the courage to tell his wife yet.
“I see…” She said, obviously disappointed, and when Brian looked at her and saw the dejection in her face, he thought he heard the sound of his heart breaking. She had the look on her face of someone who had just been told their favourite pet was going to be put down.
“I’ve got cancer” He blurted out without his own consent. “It’s kind of like Leukemia, only they can’t cure me”
“Oh my God. I’m so sorry”
“Don’t be, it’s not your fault.” Brian hoped that he wasn’t physically grimacing at how enchanting Sue’s voice was. He felt like a kid who’d met some nice girl in a club for the first time, and was building conversation up to the point where he might dare to try and kiss her. These thoughts were not helping to ease the pounding ‘THUMP-THUMP’ in his chest.
“So, if you can’t be cured, why were you seeing Jules?”
“Jules?”
“The Doctor.”
“Oh, it was sort of an advisory session. What to do over the next six months sort of thing” Brian was slowly starting to relax. He was doing his damnedest not to look at her as he was talking. While this could be construed as quite rude, that was far preferable to looking at her and probably degenerating into drooling uncontrollably
“Why the six month plan?”
“Because that’s all the time I have left” As he said it, it seemed to really sink in for the first time. He had only six months to live, if that. The rest of his life was being cut shorter than anything that could conceivably be construed as fair. Brian suddenly found himself fighting to stop tears from streaming down his face. A battle he swiftly lost, and he had to pull over to avoid crashing into something.
“Are you OK?” Sue asked, and soon noticed that he wasn’t. Tears were pouring down Brian’s face uncontrollably, and he was desperately trying to wipe them away faster than they were appearing, and he was failing. Brian’s efforts to rub away at the offending tears were interrupted as something pulled his left hand away from his face. His hand was replaced by someone else’s, which gently caressed his cheek, and seemed to have more of an effect than his own frantic rubbing.
The now familiar angelic voice whispered close to him “It’s ok, it’s ok...”. Her hand then moved around to cup the back of his head, and before he knew what was happening, he felt the touch of her lips on his cheek. He sternly resisted the impulse to turn his head and meet the kiss with his own lips, and managed to pull away from her.
He looked over at Sue in the passenger seat, his puffy, tear soaked facade looking into a face full of compassion and sympathy, her big blue eyes looking like divine beacons of tenderness and passion. Brian felt as though every organ in his chest had just melted like a slab of butter in a hot pan. An invisible shiver ran up his spine, and he felt the hairs on his neck stand on end. He’d felt that only once before, and he knew without doubt that he had just fallen completely, totally and utterly in love.
He was too shell-shocked by the feeling that had just ran through his body like a freight train to do anything when Sue leaned forward and kissed him square on the lips. So stunned he was that there was nothing he could do to stop himself from wrapping his arms around Sue and reciprocating the deepest and most passionate kiss he’d given anyone in about 5 years.
Part 13
Brian had to employ every ounce of self-control to keep himself from running back to his car at full sprint. On one hand, he had just had the time of his life with a stunningly gorgeous woman, had fulfilled any number of fantasies, and had a memory that would last a lifetime. On the other hand, he had committed the most heinous form of sin against his marriage and his immortal soul, if such a thing existed. He had been presented to temptation, and had folded like winter leaf. The last hour or so was proof, if ever he needed it, that he was a weak excuse for a human being.
But now was not a time for panic. Now was a time for presentation. As he made his way out of Sue’s home in Pennyhill Way, he knew that running away from her would only worsen the situation by causing him to come across as an ungrateful coward. And while he knew that he had to get out of here as soon as physically possible, he was also aware that speeding his way out of the picture while the woman he had just spent the last two hours sharing the most intimate, passionate and not to mention athletic sex with was watching on was a gaucherie of the highest order.
And so, as a final act of appreciation for the beautiful experience she had just given him, he held his restrain and walked slowly back to his car, looking back twice on his way to smile politely and wave. As he got into his car, he felt a cold shiver run right through him. He ignored it, looked one last time to see Sue still stood in the doorway waving at him, waved back and pulled away.
As he drove, he mentally recounted the events of the last few hours. Somewhere along the line, he had thrown away his marriage and probably his life as well. Promises made to last a lifetime had been thrown away at a moment’s notice. He had unexpectedly become the kind of man that women read about in magazines while shaking their heads and tutting. He could walk into a room of women, tell them what he had done, and be greeted in return by universal opprobrium, distrust and possibly even outright hatred. He was an adulterer, and he had become so not because his wife was in any way insufficient, but instead because he had wanted a little sympathy to make himself feel better. Of course, the fact that walking into a room full of men and telling the same story would likely do little more than raise an eyebrow or two and get a few celebratory slaps on the back was irrelevant. The fact remained that what he had done was wrong.
But with this in mind, he found it strange that the feelings of guilt and regret were not currently consuming him like a fiery blaze of righteousness. He currently felt little other than the elation of having had exciting sex with a woman he barely knew. He couldn’t help but grin as he thought about what they had done together. She was just so incredible. A perfect and athletic body, and by damn she knew how to use it.
Brian was just reflecting on a particularly daring sexual exercise, when something caught his eye as he drove past it. He was driving back to his house down an unfamiliar road, as he had never before had cause to be anywhere near Sue’s area. But he recognised the streetsign as if he’s seen it a thousand times before. He pulled the car over, and reversed a little so he could see it again. There it was, exactly as he had seen it before, a large white sign strutting out of the ground on two black wooden legs. And in bold black lettering were the words “Hastings Drive”.
Brian’s heart began to hammer in his chest. He must be dreaming again – must be! The name of this street had come to him as a bizarre vision from his television set after he had already turned it off. That meant that the vision was not real, which in turn meant that he wasn’t parked outside of Hastings Drive now.
Was he?
There was no clear way to tell. The line between reality and fantasy was stretched to breaking point. Maybe his experience with Sue had been nothing more than an incredibly vivid and highly erotic figment of his imagination. It was impossible to tell either way. It all felt real, but then, so had being eaten alive, and being thrown down a hill with nothing but large, fast moving rocks for company.
Right now, he couldn’t take his eyes off the sign. He was praying for his life that it wasn’t real. Because if the sign was real, then the road actually existed, along with house number 35 and it’s inhabitant, a man he knew only as Micky. The man who was sleeping with his wife. The implications were huge. If the sign and the house and the man and the infidelity were all real, what else was real? What did that imply of Marcus, and how could he have known? Brian’s head started to spin, and he could no longer bear to look at the sign, as if by it even being there it was committing some atrocity against his soul.
He had no idea what he was supposed to believe. The air in the car was suddenly stuffy and restrictive. Brian opened the door and got out of the car. He was parked next to a large park-like area, with hills and trees as far as the eye could see. He stumbled away from the road onto the grass and fell to his knees. A thousand possibilities whirling through his heavily confused mind, Brian convulsed and vomited onto the grass.
Part 14
Brian was down on his hands and knees trying desperately to get his breathing under control. It was all too much, and totally impossible to discern what was supposed to be real, and what was completely false. For a while he wondered if it were all real, but that didn’t make sense. He had died any number of ways, so it couldn’t be. Maybe, then, it was all imaginary; a twisted prevarication conjured up by his own mind. But to what extent? Did he have cancer or didn’t he? Was he dying?
And who the hell was Marcus?
Brian’s thoughts were interrupted when he heard someone call his name behind him. He had just thrown up and had a line of yellow drool hanging out of his mouth. He took the time to wipe this on his sleeve before turning to see who was calling him. At first he couldn’t see anyone, The voice called again, definitely a man, and it seemed to be coming from the entrance to Hastings Drive, which he couldn’t see, as his car was in the way. He got to his feet, and immediately regretting doing so. He was still feeling dizzy, and struggled to upright as the blood rushed from his head to his toes. Then the person calling him came around his car, and if Brian had any blood left in his face, it drained away then and there with expeditious swiftness. It was Micky.
Brian reeled in horror at the sight of him. His very dreams were impossibly coming to life. He turned to run away from the vision of Micky striding towards him like a sentinel of doom, but as he turned, his dizziness got the better of him and he tripped on his own feet to find himself lying flat on his face on the grass. He tried to get up while running forward at the same time, which only resulted in him jerkily hopping forward with his legs flapping about in a manner that would have been hilarious were he not completely terrified. While still trying to get upright, he looked back to see where Micky was, and suddenly slammed into something hard and unrelenting. He was sent spinning back to the floor gritting his teeth against a sudden spur of pain shooting through his skull.
After finally settling on his stomach, Brian risked a glance upward to see what he had just ran into, but all he could see was Marcus stalking toward him. He was clad in all black and looked more than a little unhappy. Brian tried to stand, but as he did so, Marcus reached him and stood all his weight on Brian’s left hand, pinning him in position.
Brian was left to look up into Marcus’ face, and noticed that his hair seemed to be longer now, and was flowing freely in the wind.
“Let me tell you something, Brian.” He began, and Brian was in no condition to do anything but listen “Fate is a very interesting concept. The idea that your life is pre-ordained by some higher power, that you are little more than a pawn I a grander scheme and that in actuality, you have no influence over the decisions you make in your life, where it goes, and ultimately, where it ends.
“You see, if fate applied to you, for example, then it was written from the day you were born that you would marry an adulterous cow, that you would work a job you can’t stand for a bank whose policies you disagree with, and of course, that you would get cancer and die before you live to be a father. Put that way, your life is pretty appalling, and has always been meant to be that way.
“A lot of people believe in fate, because their lives already lack meaning, and the idea that they might be meant for something is something they clutch to like squirrels would do to an acorn during the onset of winter. It is precious, the concept of being a part of a plan they can neither see nor understand. It is also folly.
“Look at the evidence. Children that are born into a loving family, but die only weeks later when a car piles into their pram at 50 miles an hour. Women in regions of Asia born or sold into slavery, where they become the unwilling sex objects of fat, sexually deviant international businessmen. Healthy men leading their lives, struck down by vicious and lethal diseases with no hope of cure or redemption.” As Marcus said this, Brian felt something tug at his feet from behind, and Marcus lifted his boot. Brian swung his head around to see what was happening in time to see Micky grabbing his ankles and yanking them. He was dragged for several metres along the floor before Micky threw his legs aside. The strength with which Micky did so was enough to turn Brian onto his right side, and was then greeted with a sharp kick into his back.
He tried to scream, but no sound came out of his mouth. He was flipped over again onto his back now, and Micky pinned his arms down with his knees. Marcus continued.
“Personally, I like to believe that our lives are our own. No-one controls our destiny. We write the story which is our lives, and nothing is pre-determined. Life is a blank piece of paper, and you need but imprint your own grand scheme upon it. It’s better that way, I think, and certainly better for you. Imagine if, on this piece of paper, you could erase the line that says you have cancer. Erase the terminal illness which threatens to snuff out a life that could otherwise be second to none.
“With that view there is hope. Your prognosis now is nothing short of tragic. But maybe it could change.” Brian had had enough, and had to speak up.
“You’re insane!” he shouted “There is no cure. No blasted cure. Any idea that I can just wish it away is just plain stupid.” As he said this, Micky got up off him, digging his knees into Brian’s arms as he did so, leaving him in too much pain to try to get up while he had the chance. Micky then grabbed Brian by the hair and lifted him up roughly.
“I can see,” Marcus said “that you’re not going to come around to my way of thinking without a little persuasion” and with that, Micky punched Brian in the stomach with inhuman strength. The wind was knocked out of his lungs so hard he couldn’t breath anything back in. The pain was overwhelming and he fell to the floor gasping raggedly and convulsing as though he were having a fit.
“I’ll tell you this straight Brian” Marcus continued “Your life does NOT have to end like this. You can be cured, if only you’ll co-operate.” Brian tried to sum up a retort but could do nothing other than mouth the word “impossible”. He was picked up by his shirt this time, and Micky greeted him face to face with a headbutt which broke his nose and sent blood streaming down his face. Again he was dropped to the floor like a rag doll.
“Nothing is impossible. This is something I’ve learned over the years, and something I will prove to you in time. But I can do nothing unless you help me do it. I’m in no position to take anything into my own hands. I need you Brian, and you need me. Only together can we make this work.” Brian was lying face down, and made no effort to reply. Micky grabbed him by the hair and pulled him up so he was sitting on his knees. His face was covered with blood now, and he was struggling to open his eyes.
After a few moments, he managed to gasp out “I just… want you… to leave me… alone.” The reply came in the form of another boot in the spine, hard enough to make something break with an audible snap sending waves of pain up through his entire body. This time, he wasn’t left to lie down for long. Micky picked him up again and physically threw him several metres through the air until a large tree was kind enough to bring an end to his flight. He hit it with a dull thud and bounced down onto the floor. He had felt several of his ribs break as he had made contact, and was now little more than a sobbing lump on the grass, showered with his own blood.
Marcus continued, and somehow Brian heard everything he said clearly “Think about it logically, Brian. Think about the dreams you’ve had over the last few days. In every one, you’ve died, and in every one, you’ve tried to escape death to the last. You tried to get away from it because you’re not ready to die. Because you don’t WANT to die. Given that, would it not make sense to accept the offer of the one person who can save you?”
Micky had walked up to Brian again now, and proceeded to pick him up yet again and pin him against the tree which had just broken his ribs. Micky then went about hitting him time and again in the face, in the chest, in the stomach and in the groin. Pain rattled Brian’s entire body in waves of increasing vehemence. He had never thought it possible to experience pain on this level, or anything near it. But even now, he resisted Marcus, and refused to believe that he was even real. Any minute now, he though, Micky would kill him completely, and he would wake up in his car, driving home, or already there.
“Still you don’t understand.” Marcus went on “Consider it this way. You can resist, perhaps, for the final six months of your mortal life. Do you think you could manage that? Six months of pain and suffering? Well, Here in your mind I can stretch a single second to feel that long. I can make you suffer for what will feel like CENTURIES! If you give me six months, I’ll torture you for millennia. Thousands upon thousands of years of unending agony and torment.
“Or you can relent, now, and the pain will go away. We will work together to bring about change the likes of which this world hasn’t seen since the dawn of civilisation itself. The choice is yours, Brian, and I suggest you choose wisely.” Brian listened as best he could while Micky beat him as though he were merely dusting a rug with rolling pin. There was no choice. If what Marcus said was true, there was no way he could hold out for so long. There was no way he could think of to shut Marcus out and leave him free to live what was left of his life. He had to give in to his demands, despite knowing that in doing so, he was essentially welcoming insanity.
He couldn’t even say to Marcus that he had given in. His jaw was shattered now, and his throat broken and useless. He should, by rights be dead by now, but somehow he lived on. Only his left eye functioned well enough to look back into Micky’s mocking face. But Marcus somehow sensed the change of heart, because Micky suddenly ceased his assault and let Brian drop to the floor. As he dropped, he found that he was completely unharmed. The pain disappeared instantly and there were no longer any cuts, bruises, swellings or breakages of any kind anywhere.
He got to his feet as Marcus walked over to him. As he approached, he leaned over and whispered into Brian’s ear “The man who was just beating you is the father of your wife’s child”. Brian turned to point a stunned expression at Marcus, but he wasn’t there any more. A feeling of pure cold ran through Brian’s body like wave of arctic shock. He fell to his knees and put his head in his hands. Somehow, he didn’t know how, but somehow he knew that Marcus was telling the truth.
His entire marriage was a preposterous lie. He had been utterly betrayed in every conceivable sense. The cold wave was replaced by another wave, this time the wave ran hot through his veins like molten steel. Rage curled his fingers into fists and ground his teeth in fury. He glanced up to see Micky, still standing there. The sight filled him with disgust and fueled the growing sense of pure outrage even more. He got to his feet and strode over to Micky to meet him face to face. He wasn’t as large now, and Brian could look him in the eye with only the slightest of upward angles. He stood there in front of him for a few moments as the sense of black hatred continued its crescendo. He vaguely heard a sound similar to that of rushing water in the back of his head.
Then the sound stopped. There was no noise, only Micky and Brian standing face to face. Brian felt an epiphany. Micky, his wife’s lover and father of her child, the man who had torn apart the family of a man doomed to an untimely death, had to die.
With that, Brian hurled himself at an unprepared Micky and proceeded, over the next few minutes, to tear him apart with his bear hands.
Part 15
Brian opened his eyes to find himself on his hands and knees on a patch of grass. His own vomit lay in a small, unruly puddle in front of him. He regarded it for a moment, noticing blankly that he hadn’t really eaten anything today, and the majority of what lay before him was a thick bile that was set off by the contrast of the bright green healthy grass. He could still taste the acidity of it in his mouth, and that tang combined with the smell burning into his nostrils almost made him heave again. He managed to resist the sensation, but couldn’t help but drool as his mouth filled with saliva. He spat it all out and made an effort to get to his feet.
He tried not to think about what had just happened. Regardless of Marcus’ insistence to the contrary, his outlook was bleak. He was a few months away from unjust death at the hands of cancer, he was slowly convincing himself that his wife was cheating on him – had been for long enough for his future daughter not to be his at all – and of course, he was very quickly going completely and irrevocably insane.
Not that he could claim the righteous moral highground. He had recently spent a few hours doing the wild thing with a stunning blonde he had only just met in a hospital reception. There was too much happening too fast, and he needed time to think it over. But not now. He felt like crap, and needed to get home and have a shower. He dragged himself into his car, took one last look at the sign that read “Hastings Drive” and he pulled away.
…
Mikael Aubert sat up with a start. His heart was pounding in his chest as though it were trying to find a way out. He looked around the room quickly, and was relieved to see that he was alone. It had been just a dream. Apparently he had fallen asleep in front of the TV, which was no surprise itself, as English TV was generally boring and repetitive rubbish. But the dream he’d had was like something out of a horror movie. He’d been stood on the patch of grass just down the end of the road and some lunatic had jumped on him and beaten the living crap out of him.
What made it stranger still was that he recognised the man who’d attacked him. It was Brian Wainwright. He knew the face because he had seen the picture of him in his wife’s purse any number of times. This was altogether freaky. He wasn’t easily scared, hell, he had been his college kickboxing champion, but having weird dreams about the husband of the woman you’re sleeping with was just not a good sign. He switched off the TV set, which had been till now pumping some senseless rubbish that the general Engish public seemed to lap up, despite its complete lack of content.
He’d known Jane for a while now, and they’d been sleeping together for months. Mikael wasn’t the sort of person who regularly imposed himself on another person’s marriage, but Jane was a lovely person, and, he had to admit, a great lover. And so, being the man he was, he had found it very difficult to say no to her, even when he had found out that she was married. He had sought constant assurances that “he won’t find out” and “he doesn’t know you’re here” etc, and it had been enough to keep his mind at ease. But obviously something had changed.
Mikael certainly didn’t like the idea of sleeping with Jane if it was going to cause him this sort of grief. He didn’t like bad dreams at the best of times, and dreaming of being brutally attacked by your lover’s husband was more than he was prepared to deal with. He leaned over and pulled a cigar out of his tin, and lit up. Sat there in the quiet of his lounge he decided that it was the best for all concerned that he ended his relationship with Jane Wainwright. He sat back and took a pull on the cigar, then blew a smoke ring that seemed to carry a weight of troubles from is mind.
…
Sue-Ellen Cornick was lying on her bed, with her hands behind her head and her feet crossed at the end of her outstretched legs just staring at the ceiling. Today had been a strange and wonderful day. She’d liked Brian from the second she’d laid eyes on him. He wasn’t the most incredible looking man in the world, but he was still very handsome, and there was just something about him that was just unthinkably sexy. She could tell that Brian had liked her too. It was fairly obvious, though he managed to control himself a little better than a lot of other men did when they met her. Too many men just stared blankly at her, or worse, at her breasts, and let out low whistles that they thought she couldn’t hear. Sue-Ellen had long ago learned that being beautiful was an absolute curse, and while any man in the room would hang on to her every word, few people actually listened to her.
Then she had missed her bus by only seconds, and who should turn up but Brian. It was like fate. Before either of them knew what was happening they were back at her apartment tearing each others clothes off, and what followed, well, that was just something else. Sue-Ellen had learned through experience that sex was not as great or clever as everyone had made out during the teen years. Perhaps it was just her experiences, but the whole thing was generally over very quickly, maybe a minute or two, followed by a hurried apology and then the guy falling asleep on the pillow. But Brian was something completely new. They’d gone for hours – HOURS! And it had been absolutely mind-blowing. She’d felt highs that she hadn’t thought possible before today.
She didn’t have to convince herself that she wanted, nay, needed to see Brian again, but he hadn’t left any means by which she could contact him. So she decided that when she went into work next, she would make a one-off abuse of her secretarial powers and look up Brian’s number on the computer. It was while thinking this that she remembered Brian’s condition. He had six months to live. She thought about that for a while, and concluded that she just couldn’t do without experiencing again what he had given her, and so had to see him anyway. But with only six months to live – not to mention the fact that he was married – meant that she wouldn’t be able to see him very much, especially since she had to work as well.
But she didn’t have to work. In fact it would be better if she didn’t. Her parents hated the idea of her working, and still threw a considerable amount of money in her direction on a monthly basis. Her job had just been a way to distance herself from them and their overbearing demands on her lifestyle. She could leave her job, and still afford her apartment, and have more time to see Brian while she could.
And so at last, the decision was made. Sue-Ellen Cornick would go into work and take Brian’s number before handing in her immediate resignation – much to the probable grief of Dr. Carter, pervert extraordinaire – and then go about hunting down the one person who had made her feel happy in the last 10 years. She allowed herself a smile, she hadn’t been this excited about anything for a long time, and it felt damn good.
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I've been writing these in small episodes since the turn of the year, so I'm both mentally and physically intact, if you can get past the contradiction of my forum nick.
Still worth a read though. I'll print it off and read it when this migrane leaves.
Did you type that all in one go because if you did - 1)you're mad and 2)I'll be guessing your eyes have been critically poisoned with gamma radiation.
Foreman wrote:
> Is there any chance you could give me the web pages of all the
> half-life parts, as I'm thinking of printing it all off for work.
the other parts are all listed in this thread:
http://ukchatforums.reserve.co.uk/display_messages.php? [space] threadid=69869&forumid=416
IB
> Is there any chance you could give me the web pages of all the
> half-life parts, as I'm thinking of printing it all off for work.
the other parts are all listed in this thread:
http://ukchatforums.reserve.co.uk/display_messages.php? [space] threadid=69869&forumid=416
IB
Another brilliant add on to the series, well done - it was an enthralling read. Liked the bit about the "boring and repetive" British television - very true.
Is there any chance you could give me the web pages of all the half-life parts, as I'm thinking of printing it all off for work.
I get so bored at dinnertimes and have nothing to do. The people that I normally talk to are always on a different dinner break.
Thanks
I get so bored at dinnertimes and have nothing to do. The people that I normally talk to are always on a different dinner break.
Thanks
Cheers lads.
I'm considering not posting this on the forums after the story reaches a certain point which is not too far off. I'll then re-write the first five or six chapters and continue writing it to its completion...
I'm considering not posting this on the forums after the story reaches a certain point which is not too far off. I'll then re-write the first five or six chapters and continue writing it to its completion...
Yeah, I agree. Excellent stuff!
The plot thickens .....
Damn good reading IB.
Damn good reading IB.
I suppose your'e word count has been suffering a bit of late you old spammer.......
Just printed it off - will have a good read now.
Just printed it off - will have a good read now.
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