by Soliman, W.
Title Page
Topspin
W. Soliman
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An imprint of
Musa Publishing
Copyright Information
Topspin, Copyright © W. Soliman, 2012
All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher.
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This e-Book is a work of fiction. While references may be made to actual places or events, the names, characters, incidents, and locations within are from the author’s imagination and are not a resemblance to actual living or dead persons, businesses, or events. Any similarity is coincidental.
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Musa Publishing
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Published by Musa Publishing, August 2012
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This e-Book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of International Copyright Law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines and/or imprisonment. No part of this ebook can be reproduced or sold by any person or business without the express permission of the publisher.
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ISBN: 978-1-61937-340-2
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Editor: E. Schraeder
Cover Design: Kelly Shorten
Interior Book Design: Coreen Montagna
Content Warning
This e-Book contains adult language and scenes. This story is meant only for adults as defined by the laws of the country where you made your purchase. Store your e-Books carefully where they cannot be accessed by younger readers.
Dedication
For Wigmore Tennis Club, Streatham, South London
with fond memories of way back when.
Chapter One
THE WINDOW EXPLODED SO SLOWLY that Jack had time to react. Floundering with no real sense of purpose, he tried to catch the shards of glass before they hit the ground. A guilty conscience rendered his movements clumsy as he shouted a warning that no one heard.
Six years on, and Jack still bitterly regretted waiting in the car and letting it happen. But how was he supposed to know that Kevin would take matters into his own hands? True, the signs had been there if he’d bothered to look. His underling had been flexing his muscles, displaying the arrogant face of invincibility that went hand in hand with youth, muttering about outdated methods and spoiling for a showdown. Jack had seen countless tearaways like Kevin come and go. None of them had the balls to do anything other than whine, so he hadn’t given his attitude a second thought.
Which only served to fuel his feelings of self-recrimination. He hadn’t been as sharp since that business with Tania, which was why he’d left Kevin and Wilf to resolve matters with Patel. He stared morosely at the side street off the Mile End Road where they were parked.
The area was drab, dirty, and unwelcoming in spite of the sunshine’s half-hearted attempts to penetrate the thick pall of pollution that hovered above the city. He watched pedestrians hurrying about their business, a multitude of nationalities communicating in a dozen different languages, none of them English. Drug dealers, whores and their pimps, con artists, girls barely into their teens pushing prams, their faces too worldly-wise for their tender years.
The heart had gone out of the place, but no one seemed to notice or give a toss. There was a time when everyone knew everyone else and looked out for their own. Now it was every man for himself. He watched a drug dealer openly doing business on the corner before looking away in disgust.
“What the hell’s keeping them?” he asked Charlie, his driver.
“Looks like they’ve met with a bit of bother.” Charlie nodded toward the corner shop.
Kevin was visible through the grimy window, remonstrating with the old man, pushing him about a bit and enjoying himself. “Surely the old geezer ain’t stupid enough to be pleading poverty again? You’d think he’d know better by now.”
“Yeah well, nothing about people’s stupidity surprises me anymore.”
Charlie had a point. Everyone on the manor knew you didn’t mess with Jack Regent. Making an honest living round these parts was no picnic but without the kudos of Jack’s professional protection, staying in business long enough to make any sort of living at all just wasn’t going to happen. Patel knew that, so why bother trying to reason with a psychotic thug like Kevin?
Jack sighed. He was tired of all this strong-arm stuff and had been thinking recently about chucking it all in. His heart was no longer in it and he didn’t see the point anymore. He had plenty of money stashed away and no one to think about now except himself. It was tempting, really tempting, to just walk away.
What would he do with himself, though? A year or two ago he wouldn’t have needed to ask that question. He and Tania had always planned to settle in Spain, put all this behind them, start a family, and live like normal people.
He scowled, the bitter taste of betrayal rising up like bile in his throat, annoyed that such thoughts had somehow slipped past his guard. He shifted into a more comfortable position and drummed his fingers on the dashboard. Whatever he eventually decided to do with himself, Spain was now a non-starter. Without Tania to share it with, the dream lost its appeal.
Preoccupied, he didn’t realize Kevin and Wilf were back until they wrenched the car doors open.
“Move it, fast!” Kevin shouted.
Charlie responded like the professional he was, gunning the engine and burning rubber as he floored the accelerator and screeched away from the curb.
“What the—”
Jack’s words were drowned out by the sound of a loud explosion. The explosion. Stupefied, he looked over his shoulder as the front window of Patel’s shop detonated in a spectacular ball of flame. The cold outside air fed the inferno, spewing shattered glass and detritus from the window display clear across the street. Car alarms screamed into life, lights blinked on in nearby windows, and heads poked cautiously out to see what the disturbance was. A shower of sparks landed on people unfortunate enough to be passing by at that moment, setting a girl’s hair alight. Everyone ignored her screams, barging into one another, pushing and shoving in their haste to get clear, all but trampling her underfoot.
Women and children first? Not a chance!
“Christ!” Jack said. “The whole bloody street’s gonna go up. What the fuck have you done?”
“Jack, Jack, are you all right?”
Jack forced his eyes open and immediately regretted it, wincing as a vicious pain attacked the top of his skull. The clammy sheet twisted round his naked body felt like a straitjacket. Harsh sunlight joined in the attack by squeezing between a gap in the curtains and burning savagely into his eyelids. He was drenched in sweat, his throat parched, his swollen tongue coated in fur and glued to the roof of his mouth. Matters didn’t improve when his stomach lurched, protesting at the damage he’d obviously inflicted upon it the night before.
A hand tugged at his arm and Jack, still in the grip of his nightmare, shook it off with considerable force. A feminine squeal of protest slowly restored his senses, along with awareness. He was in his own bed in his penthouse apartment on Cowes seafront, not sitting in a car off the Mile End Road, freezing his nuts off on a drab November afternoon.
Gradually his heartbeat returned to normal. The hand pulling at his arm tried again, more insistently this time. He sat up and cast bleary eyes to the space on his left—a space which ought to have been empty. Instead it was occupied by a naked woman. She hadn’t removed her make-up properly and with the
dark smudges trailing down her pale face she resembled an oversized panda. Her hair was long and just a little too blonde. Dark roots emerged at her hairline and a quick assessment of the evidence lower down confirmed that his nameless companion was a natural brunette. She had the lithe body of a dancer, legs that went on forever and, when he finally got round to examining it, an averagely pretty face.
But who the hell was she, and how had she ended up in his bed?
“Jack, darling, you were talking in your sleep and thrashing about. Are you all right? You frightened me.”
“Just a dream. Sorry if I woke you.” He sat up and rubbed his face in both of his hands. Christ, he felt like shit! The dream, when it came, left him with a headache at the best of times. Add to that the skin-full he’d obviously had the night before and he wouldn’t be much use to anyone today. “Get me a glass of water, will you, love?”
“I’m not your servant.”
“Okay, don’t worry about it. I need to use the can anyway.”
Jack wandered naked toward the bathroom, downed two glasses of water in quick succession and felt marginally better. Through the open door to the lounge he noticed the girl’s bag on the coffee table and took a quick peek inside.
He was right. She was a dancer, and her name was Irena Boscover. Slowly, last night’s activities came back to him. He and some of the blokes had gone out on the town last night. They’d finished up, pissed and raring for action, at a club on the outskirts of Ryde where second-rate East European girls, almost certainly illegals, danced for the edification of their discerning clientele. This one had displayed a little more talent than the others. Egged on by his mates’ salacious comments, he’d called her over and tucked a fifty quid note in her g-string, whereupon she’d taken up residence on his knee and refused to budge.
He wandered back into the bedroom and flashed a quick smile, feeling more in control.
“Fancy some breakfast, Irena?”
“Ah, so you do remember who I am then. I was starting to wonder.”
“Course I do, love!”
“Come back to bed then, and I will reward you.”
Jack, pleased that he was able to rise to the occasion in spite of his debilitation, felt it would be rude to decline. He settled himself comfortably on his back, hands propped behind his head, content for Irena to take the lead. She was almost purring as she ran her hand down the length of his prick.
“You are very virile, Jack, that is good. I like that in a man.”
Jack let her go to work on him but even the touch of her lips, expertly exhorting him to even greater heights, couldn’t rid him of the remnants of his dream. Kevin’s indifferent tones rang in his ears as he explained that Patel had been getting lippy, trying to wriggle out of his commitments and needed to be taught a lesson. It was at this point that Jack should be telling him he hadn’t authorized the fire-bombing, but in the slow motion of his dream the words stuck to his tongue and never got past his lips.
“Mmm, that’s so good, baby. Do it some more.”
On autopilot, Jack took one of the girl’s nipples in his mouth as she hovered above him on all fours, but his mind was still stuck on the disaster on the Mile End Road. Had Patel’s family been in the flat above the shop when Kevin took away their livelihood?
The dream had stalled. He couldn’t remember.
“Jack, I’m so hot! I can’t wait. I want you now.”
Jack continued to arouse the girl, hearing not her wheedling voice but Wilf’s and Kevin’s, gloating. Something changed inside him as they bantered. The feeling was so alien to him that it took him a while to identify it as remorse.
He’d been appalled. Appalled and ashamed of what he’d become. Perhaps he had a heart after all. He had a reputation in those days as a hard man, which afforded him some respect. He’d had to crack a few heads to earn that reputation but, unlike this latest generation who all fancied themselves as bloody Rambo, he hadn’t gone about it by beating up old men and setting fire to their premises.
“Jack? Jack, I really can’t wait much longer.”
But in one respect they’d done him a favor. If he’d been dithering about getting out before, now his mind was made up. The shit had well and truly hit the fan and he doubted he’d be able to bribe his way out of this one.
And then there was Cyril’s reaction to consider. Telling him that Kevin had gone against his instructions wouldn’t cut any ice with Cyril. So he’d face his responsibilities, square things with Cyril, and then chuck it all in. Kevin and Wilf couldn’t be allowed to get away with taking such an arbitrary action and their punishment would be swift and very public.
“Jack!”
“Okay, baby.” Returning his mind to the present, Jack was reaching for the drawer where he kept the condoms when an unpalatable thought filtered its way into his brain. “Irena, last night, did we…er…”
“Oh yes, baby, twice. You’re very virile.”
“And, er, did I use a…” He picked up a condom packet and waved it under her nose, dreading her response, which was an agonizingly long time in coming. How could he have been such an idiot as to risk unprotected sex with a dancer from that bloody club?
“Of course. I never do it without.”
Relieved, Jack concentrated upon the business in hand, which had just become rather urgent from his point of view as well.
Emerging from the shower a short time later, Jack was ravenous. A severe case of hangover hunger if ever he’d known one. The girl was still in the bathroom. If experience was anything to go by, she’d be in there for a lot longer yet. Jack pulled the ingredients for a massive fry-up from the fridge and put the kettle on, staring out at the unusually calm waters of the Solent as he waited for it to boil. The heat wave looked set to continue, the sun highlighting a dozen different shades of turquoise on the surface of a sea that was normally uniformly grey. His attention was drawn to a couple of sailing boats set on a collision course for dangerous rocks, their inexperienced crews oblivious to the signs on a buoy warning them to steer clear of the area.
The first of the day’s tourists, decked out in brightly colored clothes, were strolling along the famous promenade. Some, clutching miscellaneous clutter, were clearly destined for the beach. Others, apparently surprised by the warm weather, ambled about without any obvious purpose, watching the marina come to life and working up a thirst as they waited for the pubs to open.
The kettle clicked off, and Jack poured water into his French press, glancing at the calendar on the wall as he did so and groaning aloud. Fuck it! Today was the first Wednesday in the month, the day of the country club’s monthly tennis tournament. In his debilitated state he wouldn’t be much use to anyone but couldn’t let his partner down, so he’d have to at least show up. And he was already late.
Regretfully abandoning the fry-up, Jack changed into tennis clothes.
Angela Shah, Jack’s current tennis partner, called to the kids for the third time.
“Come on, you two. Breakfast’s on the table. You’ll be late for school.”
Angela examined her appearance in the kitchen mirror as she waited for the twins to respond. A couple of corkscrew curls had escaped from her ponytail, and she tucked them back into place. She had mirrors everywhere. She claimed the mirrors were a cheap way to cheer up their dreary terraced house. In reality, they ensured that she’d never be caught looking anything other than her best if anyone dropped by unannounced.
Angela was on a mission. She needed to attract a man who would look after all her needs, both personal and fiscal, shoulder some of her responsibilities, and soothe the aching loneliness.
And the man who ticked every one of those boxes was Jack.
“Morning, Mum.” Malik dropped a kiss on her cheek and set about demolishing the mountain of toast she’d made for him. “You look nice. New gear?”
Angela preened. She ought to feel the same degree of affection for both her children—she knew that—but in reality Malik occupied a special place
in her heart. Perhaps it had something to do with her being a man’s woman. Or could it just be that Malik’s temperate disposition—an oasis of calm in the midst of this otherwise dysfunctional family—made it virtually impossible for her not to favor him?
Sheba’s personality was as prickly as Angela’s; they were too much alike to get along without clashing. Her daughter seldom showed affection, threw tantrums if she didn’t get her way, and breezed through life doing precisely as she pleased. Malik was the only one who could influence her when she set her heart on some unrealistic path. Sheba was headstrong, thought she had all the answers, and hankered after the sort of excitement which could only get her into trouble.
“Thank you, darling.” Angela pulled down the vivid pink top of her new tennis outfit and admired the way that the skirt flirted with the tops of her slim thighs as she moved. Jack wouldn’t be able to help noticing when she was darting about at the net in front of him. Perhaps that would finally galvanize him into action. Hell, she’d tried just about everything else.
Sheba drifted into the kitchen, stretching the concept of school uniform to the limit with an indecently short skirt and tie artistically arranged at half mast. The top buttons on the shirt beneath it were undone to reveal a glimpse of her lacy Wonderbra. A belt almost the same length as the skirt cinched the whole lot in so tightly that Angela was surprised Sheba could still breathe. It would be a waste of energy trying to point out the potential dangers of her get-up, so Angela didn’t bother trying. Besides, if it came to a confrontation between Sheba and a pervert, she’d put her money on her daughter coming out on the winning side any day of the week.
Sheba stuck a spoon into a pot of yoghurt and hitched a slim leg onto the corner of the kitchen table as she ate.
“You won’t get anywhere with Jack dressed like that,” she said. “That top’s too tight and shows all your bulges. Makes you look like a tart, and Jack prefers a bit of class.”