The Coming of Derek (a quirky comedy)

by A. J. Carpenter

  THE COMING OF DEREK

  A.J. Carpenter

  Copyright © 201 2 A.J. Carpenter

  All rights reserved.

  DEDICATION

  To Paul, who has supported me from the very beginning and has given me the love and encouragement that I needed to keep fighting for my dreams.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  With thanks to Dudley and Dan at www.wibblywobblywebsite.com for all their help and hard work on my website. And to all those that have helped and inspired me along the way. With special thanks to the quirky looking man on the tube, who planted the seed from which Derek grew.

  1

  GREETED WITH A HANDSHAKE

  It was another day, another wank for Derek, who was plunging his hand down his yellowed briefs. His arm pressed against his belly like a fat man on an airplane, whilst he positioned his apparatus behind his polyester pants. Derek’s flying machine, however, was far from Jumbo Jet status, nestling around his balls like the runt of the litter sheltering for survival. Despite its peanut proportions, Derek’s hand locked firmly around it as he prepared himself for his daily workout. Unfortunately, this was the only exercise that Derek’s beast ever experienced and this was only done to satisfy the notion that if you have a dog, you walk it. And walk it he did.

  He started with a clumsy jerk, progressing gradually to a fine tuned thwack. Within minutes his groin was moistened with sweat and a weird grimace took over his face as he envisaged the naked curves of Donna Bean from the chip shop downstairs. His mind flashed with all things pink and nipple-like as he imagined her bosom bounding up and down in the heat of the action. Any thoughts of Donna were merely a pipe dream but were hugely beneficial because Derek’s own pipe let off like a dream.

  Minutes passed as Derek lay motionless on his dusty brown sofa with vomit-print-flowers. His hand now lay on his lap and a slight speck of moisture began to show through his beige trousers. He wasn’t a short man, nor was he fat, but his belly protruded over his trousers just enough to give the illusion of roundness. His scalp was adorned with a strange combination of both fluffy and greasy hair that appeared to have been cut with a ruler. This, coupled with a dull array of short-sleeved shirts tucked forcefully into his trousers, meant that Derek looked more like he had been up all night stealing bags from outside Oxfam than the fine figure of a thirty-two year old man that he should have been. But with the amount of guidance Derek had been given in his life it was hard to be shocked.

  Derek’s father had taken the route of whip it in, whip it out and wipe it. Although he should have wiped harder, as along came Derek. Despite a brief visit to the hospital at his birth, Derek had not met him and preferred to think of him as an anonymous sperm donor, which wasn’t that far from the truth. Derek’s mother, Rebecca, had met the ‘sperm and run’ whilst at secretarial college. He was a recruitment consultant and within hours he had recruited Rebecca back to his city apartment. Unfortunately for Rebecca, her new found love had also had a country house, in which his wife lived with his three kids and a Labrador. Needless to say that the relationship had cooled off as soon as Rebecca had realized that she was pregnant and an inadequate sum of money had been handed over in return for her keeping her mouth shut.

  So Rebecca had raised Derek by herself. He was her world. Despite the fact that she had needed to work long hours to support them, she had always managed to find time for him. If she was at work, she wanted to be at home with him. If he was at a music lesson, she would sneak along so she could hear him play. When she was struggling to pay the bills or meet the rent, he was her little ray of sunshine and in every memory Derek had of her she was smiling.

  Rebecca had died when Derek was just ten. He still slept with her picture in a silver frame next to his bed. She was a beautiful woman with piercing green eyes, like Derek, and long, dark, flowing hair. She had worked in the city as a receptionist and had been running late to pick him up from his music lesson, when she had been hit by a courier van. She had died instantly.

  Derek had sat outside the school gates clutching his oboe and waited. Hours had passed but nobody had come to pick him up. Instead he had spent the night curled up like a snail on the bench outside the school, putting his PE clothes on top of his uniform for warmth. All he had been able to think about that night was his mum. He knew that something had been wrong because she never would have left him, she was always thinking of him. A teacher had found him curled up on a bench at eight the next morning, his oboe pressed tightly to his chest. On hearing of his mother’s death he had said nothing.

  After a few arduous weeks spent bouncing around social services, Derek had been taken in by his grandmother. She was a cold, stern, Catholic lady who had disowned Rebecca when she had become pregnant out of wedlock. Despite her so-called religion, she did very little ‘good’ for the world.

  Derek was lovely boy. He was well mannered, caring, sensitive and studious. But, despite this, his grandmother had always managed to manipulate a way of making him look naughty. She was horrified by any modern ways of thinking and living and expected Derek to abide by her Victorian ideals. If he did not, then he was guaranteed to be punished. Derek’s grandmother was not a fan of frills either. She saw no need for TV as it corrupted minds, food was cooked as if on basic rations and socializing was a swear word and the dangerous descent to undoubted promiscuity.

  So Derek’s friends had gradually decreased and he had begun not to notice that he was never invited to any parties. He didn’t seem to miss his music lessons either, his oboe remaining locked in its box under his bed. In fact, he adjusted rather well to a solitary life.

  As a teenager Derek had spent much of his time in his room reading. The content of which had dirtily developed as time progressed, much to the dismay of his grandmother who had caught him purple handed enjoying one particular article. She had given him five-hundred pounds there and then and told him that he was no longer welcome and that he ought to find somewhere else to live. So he had. He had found himself a small one-bedroom flat above a chip shop, in the coastal town of Crackerley, fifteen minutes down the road. It was heaven, his own kitchenette, his own bathroom and his very own stash of porn. For many sixteen year old boys getting your own place would be a chance to let rip and go off the rails but Derek was just happy to have his privacy and to not be in anyone’s way.

  Sixteen years later and Derek was still sat on the same musty sofa and living in the same run-down flat. The porn stash had grown of course, along with the addition of a TV and DVD player. But any live events, with Derek as the co-star, were yet to be had. His mum still looked down on him, dreading the sight of her son performing the sad man’s handshake and longing for the day when she could look down from heaven and see him pounding a woman. Only then would his life really start.

  2

  A BIT OF A BATTERING

  Donna Bean had not always had a fetish for batter. In fact, as a child, she remembered spitting a battered sausage in her mother’s face and crying with outrage until she took the sausage away.

  Now though, froth oozed from the corner of her mouth at the very thought of locking her lips around the long, greasy stick; imagining pushing it deep down her throat as she chewed through the crispy coating, running the congealed meat sensuously around her cavern. To others being trapped inside Donna’s mouth would be enough to kill them but to Donna the sweet combination of grease, meat and the taste of cigarettes on her saliva was her drug. Which is why, a few years after leaving the army, Donna had taken over the ownership of ‘Batter my Fish’, her very own chip shop.

  She was a tall woman, five-foot eleven in stature, an inch of six-foot and possibly an inch from being a man as well if it w
asn’t for her truly, truly humongous breasts. They hung off her rugby player frame like a defense mechanism in war, protecting the troops from the dangers ahead. Very few got passed them and of those that did none would ever be the same again. With a decent bra they sat high and huge like the finest Japanese air bags. Without, however, it was possible to hide a hamster in her belly button and no one would ever know it was there.

  ‘We need more chips. Donna? Donna!’

  ‘What!’ Donna shouted, startled as she awoke from her fantasy.

  ‘We need more chips, alright,’ Wesley replied impatiently.

  Wesley was a drowned rat of a boy, so scrawny that he looked as if he had been on heroin since birth. His acne added some weight to him, however, with huge mountains of puss protruding from his face and neck. He wore the obligatory hoody, designed to make sure that he had a clear walk of the pavement and his Burberry cap had been removed and replaced with a hair net. But, despite the fact that he looked like the sort of boy that would rob an old woman for her pension, Donna was very fond of him.

  ‘You get ‘em!’ she barked, shoveling some grease soaked potatoes into some paper. ‘One-fifty, ta,’ she said as she handed over the chips. ‘Next!’

  It was Derek. Derek had lived above the chip shop for years and had been a customer long before Donna had taken over ownership. But since she had arrived, he had become a much more frequent visitor, in fact, he came down about four times a week. She had often wondered what he ate on the days that he did not come down but could only presume that he had a cupboard full of noodles and baked beans.

  ‘Same as usual, Derek?’ she asked, putting on a husky voice and resting her boobs suggestively on the counter whilst leaning over to take his order.

  There had always been something intriguing about Derek; he had a sort of child-like innocence that needed to be corrupted. He was at least five years her junior but he dressed like an eighty year old and because he was a quiet man, she had deduced that he must be an animal in bed.

  ‘Yep, same,’ Derek mumbled, shuffling awkwardly, trying to disguise the fact that he had just spanked the beast over her, worried it would show on his face.

  ‘Least it’s not raining tonight, eh?’ Donna commented, kicking herself for raising the weather. All she wanted was a nice man to have some fun with, to rip all her clothes off and then…

  ‘Batter! We need batter, Donna!’ Wesley pressed.

  ‘Yes we do, Wes. Yes we do,’ Donna agreed, winking at Derek. ‘I tell you what, Derek, as its Friday I’ll throw in a battered sausage, how’s that?’

  ‘Thanks, Donna,’ he said, barely looking up.

  As she handed him his supper, he gave her a half smile, the exact change and walked out holding the chips close to his pelvis, just in case anything decided to pop up.

  Donna licked the dribble from the side of her mouth and pushed up her boobs before shouting, ‘Next!’

  ‘Batter, Donna, you need to get some batter in,’ Wesley repeated.

  And he was right.

  3

  WHERE’S MUMMY?

  It was Saturday morning and Derek was heading back from the corner shop with an egg and cress sandwich, a packet of Space Raiders and a banana milkshake for his lunch. He was being bothered by a small fragment of bogey disguising itself niftily up his nose, when he saw an exceptionally small child at the other side of the street. She was about two-foot tall and her feet were so tiny it was hard to imagine how she was supporting herself. She was dressed in a powder pink tracksuit and her straggly blonde hair was scrunched up on the top of her head and tied with a bright pink, feather clad, sparkly elastic. Derek stopped and stared as though he was a visitor at the zoo. The girl stared back, tears streaming down her chubby cheeks.

  ‘Are you okay?’ he shouted from across the road.

  This made the girl cry louder, panicking Derek.

  Carefully avoiding any oncoming vehicles, he crossed the road and stood uncomfortably next to her.

  ‘Are you okay?’ he tried again but with the same effect. ‘Did you hurt yourself?’ he asked, thinking that this could be the only possible explanation for anyone crying so hard.

  The girl shook her head, her eyes now blotchy and swollen. Derek felt completely incompetent and had no idea how to handle the situation, so he desperately looked around for a parent.

  ‘Where’s your mummy?’ he asked, unable to see anyone.

  Her mouth then opened even wider and let out an almighty howl.

  ‘Shh…Shh…Shh,’ he attempted to calm. ‘Uh...uh...it’s okay. Um…I just need to know where your mummy is.’

  The girl continued crying, grabbing hold of Derek’s leg and swinging on it like a lamp post. She was hysterical.

  ‘Where’s your mum? Do you know where she is?’ he tried again, for the last time.

  The girl took a violent gasp for air, before pouting her lips and shaking her head.

  Seeing a nearby bench, Derek took her hand and led her slowly towards it. Her stride was a fair adjustment and he was arched over so much that she looked like his walking stick. Nearing the bench, he had no idea what he was going to do with her. He wondered whether he ought to call the police but he couldn’t imagine her mum could have gone far. So instead he decided to wait.

  Much to the little girl’s amazement, Derek lifted her up and placed her clumsily on the bench. She was beginning to calm down now and had become intrigued by Derek and his funny little ways. He was like a clown without a costume and he shook about funnily when he didn’t know what to say. His voice was deep and wobbly and he had really fat hands.

  Derek was astounded by the speed with which the little girl had been able to transform herself from a horrifying crying mess to gazing around in wonderment. Derek had not had much contact with children of any kind. The earliest age he had ever really encountered were the sixteen year old work experience kids who had been temporarily exploited by the council. This girl couldn’t have been more than three, so he was finding the ordeal somewhat challenging.

  He looked at his watch, conscious of getting to the library before closing. The girl was still puffing a bit from all her wailing, so Derek reluctantly pulled out his banana milkshake, tugged the foil cap off and passed it to her. She took it eagerly, over pouring it into her mouth so that her lips became rimmed in a creamy yellow line. Derek tried to make her aware of this by pointing to his own mouth but she didn’t take the hint. Instead she started giggling and pointing back. Sensing that this might be a good opportunity to find out where her mother was, Derek tried again.

  ‘Where did your mum go? Where’s Mummy?’

  The girl pointed back up the road.

  ‘Is Mummy up there?’

  The girl shook her head.

  ‘Oh,’ Derek said disappointed, ‘where’s Mummy then?’

  She turned around and pointed in the opposite direction, before venturing her first word, ‘Gone.’

  ‘Is Mummy over there?’ Derek checked, copying her pointing, pleased with the success of his tactics.

  The girl then turned again and pointed into the housing-estate on the other side of the street, repeating, ‘Gone,’ in a high, squeaky voice.

  It was then that Derek realized that what he thought to be a successful line of questioning had actually been a misguided stab in the dark. The little girl didn’t seem to have a clue where she was pointing or, in fact, where her mother was.

  At that moment, a tracksuit bottom clad, baseball cap wearing, wrinkly lipped woman casually emerged from the housing-estate scowling at Derek. It was like waiting for a snail to crawl a half marathon as Derek watched her strolling towards him. The little girl hadn’t noticed, she was too busy with the milkshake. But Derek was starting to feel awkward, so he lifted his hand and waved gawkily. The woman did not wave back but she hastened her pace, which was something to be grateful for. No sooner had she crossed the road than the screaming ensued.

  ‘Where the fuck have you been?’ she shouted delightfully, clapping the
little girl over the head.

  This frustrated Derek enormously as he had just got her to stop crying.

  ‘And you!’ she accused, pointing at Derek, clearly a family trait. ‘What the fuck are you doing with my daughter?’

  ‘Uh…uh…uh, I was just waiting with her, um…yes…until a responsible adult turned up, um…that was all…yes…’ Derek stammered, shying away from any confrontation.

  ‘Are you saying I’m not a responsible adult? You’d better fucking not be.’

  ‘Well, no I…I wasn’t. But you…well, you can’t let your children out on their own like that.’

  ‘Are you her fucking dad?’

  ‘Er…no, no…I don’t think so, no.’

  ‘Then what the fuck has it got to do with you? Come on, Raquel!’

  The little girl didn’t move.

  ‘Raquel!’

  Raquel reluctantly wiggled off the bench, clutching her milkshake and crying again. She looked at Derek, her eyes soaked through. The mother had already crossed the road and little Raquel was left to negotiate the traffic on her own. Derek watched cautiously as she made it to the other side. Just as she did, her mother swung around and shouted, ‘Now fuck off!’

  ‘Charming,’ Derek thought as he hurried home to get his library books. Travelling home by a cross between walking and skipping, Derek was contemplating which books he might get. He had a secret fetish for Jane Austen’s love stories, but he never took out more than one of her books at a time, to avoid embarrassment. Today he fancied a bit of ‘Pride and Prejudice’. He would like to think that he had the potential to be Mr Darcy but deep down he knew that he was a horrible combination of Mr Collins and Mary Bennett.

  Approaching his flat, he caught site of Donna covering fish in the chip shop. She saw him too, waved and flashed him a toothy grin. Derek looked at her in wonderment, she was a real heroine. Before he knew it, he had been gawping at her for ages, so he shut his mouth, gave her a floppy wave and hurried back up to his flat.