The Sexopaths

  The

  Sexopaths

  by

  Bruce Beckham

  Text copyright © 2012 Bruce Beckham.

  All rights reserved. Bruce Beckham asserts his right always to be identified as the author of this work. No part may be copied or transmitted without written permission from the publisher.

  Kindle edition.

  First published by Lucius 2012.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Late August – Leith, Scotland

  Chapter 2

  Mid-September – Mykonos, Greek Cyclades

  Chapter 3

  Late September – Jurmula, Latvia

  Chapter 4

  End of September – Edinburgh, Scotland

  Chapter 5

  3rd October – Edinburgh, Scotland

  Chapter 6

  5th October – Edinburgh, Scotland

  Chapter 7

  6th October – Edinburgh, Scotland

  Chapter 8

  9th October – Edinburgh, Scotland

  Chapter 9

  Mid-October – Shanghai, China

  Chapter 10

  Mid-October – Edinburgh, Scotland

  CHAPTER 1

  Late August – Leith, Scotland

  ‘Well… did that go according to plan?’

  Adam hears his voice: disembodied it seems, and surprisingly calm. By contrast, within the lunatic asylum that’s taken temporary control of his cranium, manic cries erupt Turette’s-like from an orgy of lurid images. His mind is spinning, but a contest between flight and fight seems to be the gist of it.

  ‘Mmm.’ The woman’s economical reply quells the paranoid throng. It sounds an approving, sated kind of mmm.

  ‘So… what next?’

  ‘I’ll be in touch.’

  She tilts her head and rests it lightly against the door jamb. He detects a polite impatience for him to leave, but risks a lingering glance into her unblinking eyes, as if within those smoky cinematic depths a private screening will reveal the information he desires; though she remains inscrutably on hold.

  ‘I’ll… see you, then?’ Now he can’t prevent the faintest interrogative inflection from hijacking the attempted statement.

  The gentle crescent of her preset smile seems about to deepen, but duty calls: a mobile he hasn’t realised she’s holding shrills with attention-seeking insistence. Beneath her silky façade she hardens perceptibly. Adam, retreats, as if thrust half a step back by an invisible hand, nods his acquiescence.

  ‘Bye.’

  Long lashes flutter a late bonus message – though he recognises the professional farewell – then she’s gone; he hears her voice, recharged, before the softly conspiratorial click of her well-oiled latch seals off sounds from within, and laps unhindered around the bare atrium, returning as an echo.

  ‘Jesus.’

  He sinks back against the wall, eyes cast high as though in search of seraphim. At this moment such an apparition feels plausible, and apposite in more ways than one: the modern apartment occupies a corner position in the basement of a much older red-stone building – he thinks an ex-chapel of sorts; or maybe a church school? Concentric galleries diminish skywards to a lofty Edwardian cupola. Stunned in the crypt-like twilight he’s obliged to watch tiny motes tumble gently down to disappear upon the fibrous grey industrial-gauge carpet that expediently accepts no tracks. The place could be uninhabited: on this level an arid quadrangle, identical modern front doors standing like newly quarried, rudely numbered tombstones awaiting their epitaphs, etchings bearing cryptic clues to each life beyond – the mundane and the scandalous nameless and unwitting neighbours.

  Peremptorily abandoned he feels curiously unwilling to depart, when once he’d hurry through hunched and hoping to be unseen: inbound, door seven magically opening upon approach, saving him from the need to knock or even to break stride, and absorbing him silently into scented tropical darkness; outbound, he’d scurry lightly away, skirting the walls mouse-fashion, should salacious voyeurs lurk hawkishly on a balcony above. Now – as… what?… an initiate? – former visits have abruptly time-warped, concertinaed into a sense of erroneous familiarity, of misplaced tenure. Thus reluctant to accept his dismissal, he loiters uncertainly, like one of Count Dracula’s vampirettes that failed to make it back into the tomb before daybreak, cut off from its life-blood and about to be painfully exposed to the withering rays of dawn. As he begins to acknowledge the irreversible nature of his redundancy, the sudden amplified crack of a key springing a mortise somewhere overhead triggers a reflex and tips the mental transition in favour of flight. Instantaneously he’s marching light-headed to the lift, for now at least a one-way conduit from underworld fantasy to high street banality. Via a small ground-level lobby it disgorges him efficiently into the mid-afternoon heat and desiccated litter and badly driven buggies bearing milk-drunk mini-passengers, wearily pushed by unqualified tracksuited teenagers. He feels out of place; Leith might be up-and-coming, but it’s known for its underclass and daytime drunks and not-always-night-time violence. And while he feels a small sense of relief as he moves away from the immediate vicinity of the condo, where his presence could not easily be accounted for, he remains on alert should he be recognised. Why is he here? What would he say to someone? He wishes for anonymity, but accusatory sunbeams with disconcerting accuracy winkle out shiny angles on shop windows and passing vehicles; he squints and fumbles for the illusory designer shade of his sunglasses.

  His waxed convertible shimmers in the haze of an adjacent supermarket parking lot. But there’s a Hibernian FC-green corner bar opposite and he diverts on foot into its shadowy gloom, sidestepping the glowering smokers loitering conspiratorially at the entrance, patently unwilling to accommodate a stranger. Waiting at the long counter, his head still thumps with confused thoughts like an impatient youth’s souped-up hatchback, straining, overloaded with writhing mates and pulsating primeval bass. He can barely hear himself order the Scotch and water.

  He’s conscious of eyes falling upon him – not that anyone would know him – and then he feels a tap against his calf. He turns to find a small sad-eyed mongrel, roped to a lank-haired down-and-out, standing in hopeful anticipation, fixing him with their respective stares of hunger and desire. Thus outnumbered, he downs his drink and casts his change upon the bar-top, surrendering his station to the more needy.

  The heat inside his hooded black roadster is stifling. He drops the canopy and pulls out into the traffic that’s shunting city-bound along Leith Walk’s crazy-emporia-lined carriageway. Hallucinatory outtakes persist in flashing real across his mind’s retina. Billboards advertising blockbusters and broadband assume x-rated scenes invisible to pedestrians. Disconcerting mirages occupy lorry-sides and bus ads. He watches replays of reflected vignettes captured in mirrored wardrobe doors, images of the past hour that had slipped tantalisingly beneath his blindfold. Tanned limbs entwined. In the semi-darkness long black tresses, unnaturally straightened, a little unforgiving, familiar… and others, soft, natural… blonde?

  ***

  ‘Daddy, why can’t we all die together?’

  ‘Camille – what are you talking about?’ The question rouses him from the persistently invasive psychedelic daydream. He glances sideways but fair windblown curls veil her face. ‘Camille?’ He eases off the accelerator and her ringlets respond to gravity. She’s biting her lower lip.

  ‘You said you and mummy would die before me.’

  He’s reminded of last night’s bathtime conversation, brought on by a tragic accident on the patio when a tricycle failed to give way to a ‘baby’ snail. ‘Camille… I was just saying that, usually, older people die before younger people.’

  ‘But you said I’m old ‘cause I’m four a
nd I can’t have a dummy.’

  ‘Well, you’re kind of old – I mean you’re a big girl now, not a baby any more.’

  ‘So why can’t I die when you and mummy die?’

  ‘Oh, Camille… look – I’m really old, I’m thirty-four, positively prehistoric – but my mummy and daddy are still alive aren’t they – gran and grandpa? And so are mum’s mummy and daddy in France. Maybe one day a long time off they might die… but I’ll feel okay and so will mum because we’re grown-ups now…’

  ‘But I want us to die together!’ Suddenly she breaks out into heaving sobs. ‘I don’t want… to be left… on my own!’

  He reaches across to locate a small hand; despite its tiny tenderness it fails to conduct away his sudden guilt. He’d been late collecting her from holiday club. She was last kid standing, alone in the great echoing school hall, a diminutive figure, head down, studiously colouring-in at an elf-sized desk, while the sole surviving member of staff loitered handbag at the ready, poised for departure. At the creak of the door, Camille had flashed him a furtive glance, returning focus to her work as if deciding how to react, then a tornado of emotions had picked her up and whirled her across the parquet floor; she’d crashed into his thighs and squeezed him tight even before the spinning crayons had settled in her wake. She’d thought they’d forgotten her. Correction: that he’d forgotten her.

  ‘Hey, hey! Come on, baby. This stuff’s a long… long… long way off. You don’t need to think about it.’

  ‘When we get home can I have a dummy?’

  He smiles at her characteristic brightening; his little April shower. ‘Alright then, just this once before bedtime… but hide it under a cushion when mummy comes in, okay?’

  ‘Okay. And can I watch a dbd?’

  ‘Any dbd you like.’

  ‘And will you sit with me and watch it, too?’

  He chuckles. ‘Who do you take after, Little Miss Negotiator! Alright then – but first I’ll need to check my mail, okay?’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Nearly home, look – here’s your Christening church.’

  ‘Daddy?’

  ‘Aha?’

  ‘And can I stay with you and mummy for ever and ever?’

  ‘You can stay as long as you want.’

  ***

  Standing in the ensuite bathroom Adam grips the sides of the washbasin and stares into nothingness beyond the mirror. What does he feel? Desire? Distaste? For once he’s not sure, though the balance is inexorably shifting towards the latter. He presses his fingertips to his nose and inhales. Despite his best efforts with a nailbrush the garlicky smell of sex still lingers. It must be inside his nostrils, he reasons, recalling the drowning melting honeyed contact, pressed audaciously upon him. He inspects his reflection: his lips feel a little raw, but they look normal. He checks his wrists, and then his ankles too, where pressure still has a ghost of a grip, but they are unmarked; the vinyl self-cling tape evidently performed as advertised. He thinks about applying some after-shave to camouflage his anxiety, but settles for an abridged squirt of deodorant; it’s less obvious. From below he can hear Camille calling him, frustrated – something about the ‘dbd’. He shouts back an appeasing reply, and pads to the bedroom to change into a blue sports vest and matching cargo shorts. He locates his wristwatch: it’s a quarter past six – Monique should be back any minute. He gathers up his discarded clothes and drops them into the washing basket, then has second thoughts and pulls them all out. As he descends the stairs he hears the crunch of Monique’s tyres on the driveway. Quickly he takes his laundry bundle to the utility room where Ela their cleaner will deal with it when she arrives in the morning, then he slips into the playroom and kneels beside Camille, who is now patiently sorting out multicoloured beads, her ‘dbd’-watching plans defeated by a combination of technology and her father’s non-appearance.

  ‘Hello my darlings!’ Preceded by the slightest of Gallic accents, Monique breezes in, wrestling a slippery bouquet of cellophane-wrapped lilies. Adam can’t help appraising her looks, comparing: she’s not so classically French looking, he always thinks more Bardot than Tautou, blonde… thus attractive; medium height, quite slim yet perfectly curved… seriously attractive, in fact.

  ‘Ca va, ma petite?’

  He watches Camille gather herself, pleased that Monique is speaking French.

  ‘Ca va bien, Maman!’

  ‘Tres bien!’

  ‘Jolies fleurs.’ Adam makes the observation as if for Camille’s benefit, but Monique seems to detect a note of inquiry in his tone.

  ‘Today,’ she shrugs, as if the flowers are unimportant, ‘we averted a crisis.’

  Adam doesn’t comment, and instead – as if in some child’s game of opposites – rises exactly as Monique sinks beside him to plant a kiss upon Camille’s glossy crown and admire her efforts with the beads. ‘Here – let me stick them in some water.’

  He lifts the spray from her and carries it gingerly through the hall into the kitchen. While he runs the cold tap to fill the plastic basin he checks for a tag or a message, but there’s nothing. He supposes if there had been a card or similar she probably would have opened it in the office and then discarded it. He berates himself for his unwanted suspicion. Yet, still feeling under surveillance himself, has he detected subconsciously some tiny aberration in her explanation? Do crises merit flowers? Maybe they do. Yet he’d sensed a hint of evasiveness – perhaps her abridged explanation. Before he can speculate further Monique joins him, and he feels again the awkwardness of her proximity. He remains leaning over the splashing sink, balancing the blooms while the water rises.

  ‘Had an okay day?’ She threads an arm round him from one side and puts pressure on his waist to turn him to face her.

  He tries to think how to act normally and realises it’s impossible – when you’re acting normally you’re not thinking about it. On her arrival home the bouquet was a convenient barrier and an excuse not to indulge in their customary embrace. Now he knows he has to grasp the nettle, to make that first reluctant contact and risk whatever inflamed reaction results. He kisses her, conscious his lips are more puckered than usual, maintaining a ridiculously inadequate sanitary distance. He holds his breath and any clues it might reveal.

  ‘I was pretty tied up.’

  ‘You smell good.’

  ‘I just had a bit of a wash when I got home – this heat, you know?’

  ‘Some like it hot.’ She giggles, and wriggles against him. Far from detecting anything untoward about him, she seems driven by a superior force.

  ‘Whoops - the tap.’ He breaks away, and winds it methodically, taking longer than absolutely necessary. ‘I think there’s some wine left from last night.’ He reaches down to the dishwasher and fishes out two chiming glasses and passes them to her, sidetracking her hands; then he crosses to the fridge. ‘Sit on the veranda?’

  ‘Lovely.’ She drifts out into the resonant birdsong that filters through the already-open double doors, then calls back: ‘You must be stressed if you need a drink now.’

  He tries to think of something pass-remarkable that had happened during the time he spent at the office, but his mind is obstinately blank. He assumes she hadn’t tried to contact him while he was out, as there was nothing on his mobile. He replies after a moment:

  ‘Maybe the humidity.’

  ‘Remember we agreed we would not complain if it ever becomes tropical in this country.’

  ‘True.’ He joins her and splashes a generous gurgling measure from the bottle into each glass.

  ‘Cheers.’ She smiles broadly, her even white teeth flashing between full lips.

  ‘Salut. To global warming.’

  Adam realises he’s not yet asked about her day – the flowers got in the way of that, too – but he still feels a niggling inclination to have one more shot at confirming their origin. While he wrestles with the words that might phrase the question, she pre-empts him with a new subject:

  ‘Anyway, that reminds
me – talking of hot places. I have some good news.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Would you like to go to Mykonos?’

  ‘What do you mean – for a holiday?’

  ‘No – I have to go for work.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘You know I was proposed for the AMIE Board – for the European agencies’ committee, based in Brussels?’

  ‘Er… I think so.’ He’s economical with his recall: the idea has been nagging at him since she first mentioned it. He wants to feel supportive, but small waves of discomfort ripple outwards from his midriff.

  ‘Well, I got my election confirmed today and they sent me all the information, with the calendar for the meetings – the first is in Brussels next week, but after that it’s the Greeks’ turn to be hosts and they’ve booked a small hotel in Mykonos – it’s timed so people can stay over for a long weekend.’

  ‘Wouldn’t I be rather like a spare you-know-what at a wedding?’ A distant voice points out to Adam he should be saying congratulations..

  ‘No – I emailed Simone – she is the AMIE Secretary – and she replied that it is quite usual for partners to go with Board members. It is part of the attraction of the job. She says the Irish representative always takes his sister! Usually it is in Brussels, but every few months they rotate and hold it in one of the member countries. It is a good chance to travel.’

  ‘What about Camille? She seemed a bit upset today. She was talking about not being left on her own – when we go to heaven, I mean. I think the death of the snail’s been preying on her mind.’ He doesn’t mention his lateness in collecting her.

  ‘We can take her… if you don’t mind looking after her while I am in meetings. There is a family-friendly pool and a spa and a beach nearby. And the best restaurant on the island is in the hotel. It is just three weeks’ time, mid-September – the weather will be perfect.’