The Fish Kisser

by James Hawkins

  Yolanda smiled, “I thought all English detectives studied poetry, or classical music, or psychology.”

  “Only on television, Yolanda. Most of the ones I work with study beer, soccer and women—probably in that order.”

  The question, “Are you married?” slipped out as she tried to bite it back and she snapped, “Don’t tell me.” Her fingers flew to his mouth and pinched his lips tightly together. She studied him earnestly, her fingers digging into the flesh around his mouth, making his eyes water. “Promise you won’t tell me.”

  “Um, um,” he hummed trying to make it sound like “O.K.”

  “Promise,” she demanded seriously, and slowly backed off without taking her fingers away.

  “I promise,” he mumbled as best as he could. “I promise.”

  She took her hand away a little, but left it hovering. “Promise again,” she said, “Please promise you won’t tell me.”

  “I will promise,” he began, “but …” she fiercely clamped his lips together again.

  “You promised.”

  Wrenching her fingers away he gasped, “Alright, I promised, but what if I said I was …” She tried to stop him but he caught her hand. “I’m not saying I am, and I am not saying I am not. I’m just saying what if you knew I wasn’t married. How would you feel?”

  She sat back. “It would be difficult for me to fall in love with a foreigner.”

  His head jerked up—a foreigner? He’d never considered himself a foreigner and was startled to realize that was exactly what he was.

  She continued, “It would be too complicated—imagine the wedding, nobody would know what to say, what to wear, or where to have it. Then it would be a problem to know where to live. And the poor children—seeing only half of their relatives most of the time.” She carried on with numerous other objections: religion, customs, education. “Food,” she added, poking him in the ribs accusingly. “You don’t like herrings.”

  “Neither do you,” he reminded her, poking her back.

  “Then there’s sex,” she concluded, giving a little smile.

  “What do you mean—sex ?”

  “Well, you might do it differently to us.”

  “We could always find out beforehand.”

  Her look was mischievous. “We could?”

  “But what if I were married?”

  “Oh, that would be exciting. Sort of thrilling and dangerous.”

  “Like flying?” he suggested.

  “Yes,” she agreed happily, “like flying,” then paused to rearrange her face. “But afterwards I would feel guilty and feel sorry for your poor wife, or I would try to take you away from her and that would be bad as well.”

  The voice of experience, he thought noticing her pensive expression. “What about you,” he enquired, “Have you ever been married?”

  She thought intently, as if the answer required calculation. “I tried it once but it wasn’t much fun.”

  Almost as if on some pre-arranged cue, Anne arrived with the main course—Beef Bordelaise strewn with plump white asparagus spears—and lifted Yolanda’s mood. She teased him unmercifully, taking each juicy stalk of asparagus and sliding it slowly through her pursed lips with her head back, exposing the length of her slender neck.

  “Witch,” smirked Bliss knowing exactly what she was doing. Then her hand slipped into his lap under the table and brushed lightly over the bump of his erection.

  “You are a naughty boy, Dave.” she said demurely, and he closed his eyes and willed her to keep going but she stopped. A few moments later she slid out of her seat. “Bathroom,” she said.

  Ten minutes later, when she hadn’t returned, concern clouded Bliss’ face and irrational thoughts spun in his mind. What if something awful had happened to her—maybe she’s fainted. Feeling slightly foolish he found his way to the solitary cubicle behind the curtain and tapped lightly on the door. “Yolanda,” he whispered, “are you in there?”

  “Yes,” she sang out, opening the tiny door.

  Dancing to the rhythm of their own music they manoeuvred into the minute washroom, their mouths fastened together. He saw what was coming and hesitated a fraction, a jumble of excuses racing through his mind: There wouldn’t be enough room; other people might be waiting; someone might miss them; it wasn’t professional. Bugger, he thought, slamming the door with his foot, it’s not as though there’s anyone else in my life at the moment. That’s sleazy Dave, he chided himself, then relented. Alright then, if you must know, I think she’s bloody gorgeous and maybe I’m not too old to try again.

  Yolanda reached behind him and slipped the catch. His fingers fumbled with the buttons of her blouse while her hands played in his hair. “Quickly Dave,” she said, without breaking the kiss, and helped him with the last button.

  “I’ve never done this before,” he breathed, as his fingers fought with the clasp of her brassiere.

  “What?” she questioned laughingly.

  “Had sex in an airplane,” he whispered, his eyes eagerly seeking a glimpse of the pale fleshy mounds.

  “You said you liked to try everything once.”

  Full, yet firm, her breasts yielded only slightly when he set them free from the lace trimmed half-cups of her bra. With a breast fitting perfectly into the palm of each hand, he massaged and moulded them, squeezing and teasing until she could wait no longer. Giving the inside of his mouth a parting wash with her tongue, her hands urged his face toward her chest. His head dipped and his lips brushed her nipples; his saliva lubricated them; his tongue traced their outline. Then he tweaked the hard pink erections between his teeth and felt her whole body quiver. His mind swam, this wasn’t happening, this couldn’t be happening.

  Seized by a sudden urgency, her hands flew to his groin and she tugged insistently at the zipper of his trousers.

  “Please, Dave, please,” she urged.

  He experienced again the sensation approaching take-off. The jet engines revving faster and faster; the vibration; the tension running through his body; the pent up excitement. Then the thrill of the rapid acceleration as the plane bounded toward the far end of the runway with more power than ten thousand horses. Then he felt the powerful thrust of take-off as her legs swooped around him and drew him in, both her hands pulling, insisting, guiding.

  Absorbed entirely in their emotions, neither saw the sign on the wall flashing impatiently. “Fasten your seat belts.”

  Free as an eagle, but faster than a bullet, the giant flying phallus slipped through the air, its cargo of humanity hurtling toward a higher altitude. Bliss felt himself recklessly flying fast. Climbing higher and higher. Penetrating deeper and deeper into the warm, humid atmosphere. His body trembling with the thrust from the mighty engines of the plane; his excitement enhanced by the fear of crashing. Now his powerful upward thrusts were matched by hers. Eyes closed they raced together, higher and higher, faster and faster, piercing through the earth’s envelope, penetrating the dark, mysterious, humid clouds. All thought of Edwards and LeClarc swept from their minds. Then, together, they burst jubilantly out into the bright clear blue sky and floated and soared above the clouds.

  An insistent banging brought them down to earth. “Yolanda, Yolanda,” Anne shouted through the door, “we’re coming in to land.”

  “So are we,” mumbled Bliss.

  “Vienna?” queried Yolanda a minute later as they stepped out of the washroom, hot, sweaty, and hastily dressed.

  “Thirty minute re-fuelling stop,” answered Anne with a broad smirk that said she not only knew what they were doing, but would enjoy in gossiping about it to lots of other people. “Quick get in your seats.”

  Emerging from behind the curtain into the cabin, the weight of thirty eyes fell upon them with such force that Bliss almost staggered back. Everyone was staring, many with knowing grins. Yolanda giggled, but Bliss’ face turned an even deeper shade of pink. Carefully avoiding eye contact, he kept his head down, scuttled to his seat with Yolanda in tow, and wouldn’t
have been surprised to hear a round of applause.

  chapter twelve

  Anoisy seagull dive-bombed Roger’s raft, mistaking it for a fishing boat in the swirling mist, hoping to snatch some offal from the deck, and his thoughts of Trudy were interrupted as he fended it off with a lazy swipe.

  “Clear off.”

  Returning to his daydreams, Trudy’s aesthetically improved likeness appeared again and again in selectively recreated memories: The heart-pounding thrill of their first meeting in the railway refreshment room; the stolen glimpse of her vagina as she lay unconscious on his bed; her pink breast flopping out of the torn white top when he caught her trying to escape; her neat little body squatting over the bucket to pee.

  From out of the swirling mist he conjured other images of Trudy—a vision of whatever and whoever he wanted her to be—before her spectre had transmogrified into a very solid, snivelling, sixteen year-old: The times he had sat in front of his computer with her loveliness, her innocence, her whole being, flooding through the Internet and appearing as words on his screen. And his face warmed at the way he had sat naked in his little room, his hand in his groin, as he read and re-read her often misspelled, and frequently misused, words.

  Trudy’s captivity had altered everything and, as he rushed home from work on the Monday evening, he missed the expectant thrill of meeting his true love—his computer bearing Trudy’s E-mail message. It wasn’t that he wanted to communicate with her, he wanted to really communicate with her, and would have been hard pushed to explain the difference.

  “Come on Trude. It’s just a game,” he said enthusiastically, trying to pretend nothing had changed by her capture. “We can play it together. I’ll leave a message for you, then you can send a message back to me.”

  Pouting, “No,” she turned her back and sat cross-legged on his bed in the dungeon.

  “Oh come on,” he implored, his hand worming toward his groin.

  “Sod off.”

  He begged … “Please, Trude.”

  “Fat slob.”

  … insisted, “Come here.”

  “Asshole.”

  … ordered, “Get over here.”

  “Bollocks.”

  Losing control, he grabbed her long ponytail, dragged her to the stool beside him, and started to type. “I love Trudy McK …” then a pang of remorse swept through him and his fingers shook as they wrote “I’m sorry, Trude. I didn’t hurt you, did I ?”

  “Screw you,” she had typed valiantly in response, determined he should not see her weaken.

  Just twenty feet above the water, the fog thinned and the seagull glided gracefully in the brilliant sunshine, searching for greener pastures. A trace of sunlight stole through the mist and Roger instinctively held his face up to bask in its grudging warmth. Staring at the inside of his eyelids, he formed a picture of Trudy which bore no resemblance to the bruised and battered body now lying on the rough flagstone floor beneath the house in Junction Road. His mind’s eye could never have imagined the pathetic comatose figure with knotted hair, bloated eyes, and diarrhoea encrusted legs, though a sudden dark thought sent a shiver down his spine and shook his eyes wide open. Trudy’s sleek image evaporated in the haze. “Trudy,” he called softly, his lips hardly moving. But she was gone.

  The dark memory clouded his mind with darker thoughts: Trudy’s first morning in the little room under his house, the previous Saturday.

  “Why are you keeping me here?” she had blubbered, as soon as he unlocked the door and let himself in. She was curled on the edge of the bed, head buried in hands, tears dripping uncontrollably off her chin onto the swell of her breasts.

  “’Cos I love you, Trude.”

  “You lied to me.”

  “You lied to me too,” he retorted, in a “tit for tat” voice.

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “White lies,” she conceded, in between wet sniffles. “I never sent you Marge’s photo or nothing like that. And you said you had a big house.”

  “It is Trude. It is a big house,” he shot back, deluding himself.

  “Show me,” she said, uncurling herself and starting toward the door, looking for a way out.

  Ignoring her request, he blocked her path. “And I’ve got a car.”

  “A poxy Renault,” she taunted, stabbing him with her finger and feeling the flabby flesh give way. “A poxy little Renault. What sort of car is that? You said you had a Jag.”

  He blushed. “I’ll get one.”

  She poked him again, taunting, goading. “Like hell you will.” Another poke. “You’re just a fat slob with a poxy little Renault.”

  “Don’t make fun of me,” he cried, sticking his hands over his ears.

  “Fat slob, fat slob, fat slob,” she yelled.

  The smack sent her reeling as she took a fall for a thousand previous tormentors, and her cheek stung as a torrent of blood gushed from her left nostril, but she didn’t give up. “Bloody monster,” she shouted, then scuttled into a corner and huddled into a miserable ball awaiting a further attack. Nothing happened. Her whimpers subsided, her breathing slowed, and she carefully raised her head, anticipating the thump that didn’t come. Roger sat on the edge of the bed, his whole body heaving as he silently cried.

  The deluded seagull swooped again, its battle cry piercing the haze long before its mottled grey plumage shot out of the murk and lunged. Perfectly camouflaged in the mist, the turkey-size bird buzzed the raft repeatedly, appearing from nowhere, screeching ferociously, then disappearing—only to re-appear a few seconds later from an entirely different direction. After a dozen or more fruitless passes, the bird showed its contempt with a badly aimed dollop of shit and vanished.

  The shifting brightness of the early afternoon caught Roger’s attention. A hint of movement in the water suggested a breeze. A slight lulling motion stirred the raft and one edge lost its grip on the water and dropped back with a little “plop.” Balancing himself precariously, he raised himself as high as possible and strained his eyes into the surrounding sphere of mist. Then a stab of pain doubled him over and he sank back into the raft clutching his belly. Another cramp hit him as his stomach fought with the contents of the emergency ration box—three days provisions for ten, devoured by one person in five hours.

  The thought of food reminded him of Trudy, but everything reminded him of Trudy. Warm, fuzzy memories of their evenings together swam into view but were bent beyond recognition. Candlelit dinners followed by sessions of passionate lovemaking were as fictional as the Barbie he’d fallen for. Most evenings he had munched a mountain of junk food while transfixed by the computer screen, watching it as if it were television.

  “Do you want some chips, Trude?” he had offered one evening, without taking his eyes off the screen. She picked a few from his outstretched newspaper bundle but had little appetite.

  “Happy families,” he mused with the briefest glance and the thought of a smile. And he meant it.

  It was Tuesday evening, the day before his departure to Holland. “It’s nice having you here,” he continued, still concentrating on the moving picture in front of him.

  She mumbled, saying nothing.

  “I’m glad, Trude.”

  “Ummh,” she hummed and could have meant absolutely anything.

  “It’s nice having my own family.”

  “I’m not your family, Roger,” she said reproachfully.

  “You are now, Trude.”

  Her fight was gone. “Alright, Roger.”

  “I love you, Trude,” he said, not taking his eyes of the screen.

  “I love you, too,” she responded mechanically.

  Just like Mum and Dad, he thought, and wasn’t so very wrong.

  Following supper, he had a few minutes while a computer program downloaded and turned his attention to her. “I’ll brush your hair, Trude.” The brushing led to stroking, stroking to licking, then he made a clumsy stab at her ear with his tongue.

&nb
sp; “Get off,” she screeched. His sad round face turned back to the computer and he ignored her until a little after midnight when he rose to leave. Scared of being alone, frightened of waking, choking for breath, she pleaded, “Please don’t go, Roger.”

  His face lit up. “I’ll stay if you let me …”

  She sat quietly for a few seconds deep in thought then shook her head.

  Roger locked the door on his way out.

  Detective Constable Jackson, together with his partner from Watford police station, returned to Roger’s house mid-afternoon to check on the glazier’s handiwork, and surprised Edwards’ staff sergeant as he was letting himself in.

  “What the hell d’ye think you’re doing?” enquired Jackson without subtlety, catching the man with the key in the lock.

  “And who the hell do you think you are sonny?” sneered the sergeant drawing his warrant card and holding it up to Jackson’s nose.

  Jackson miffed, but outranked, introduced himself, “We’ve already searched the place Serg. There’s nothing in there.”

  Unconvinced, the sergeant shoved the door and they piled into the familiar hallway. “I looked myself yesterday,” he admitted. “But we may have missed something.”

  “Something about the girl?” enquired Jackson.

  “What girl?” queried the sergeant. He’d not seen the newspaper and knew nothing of Trudy. Jackson briefed him while his partner idly sleuthed around, kicking the thick layer of dust into a cloud that split the shafts of afternoon sunlight into a million glittering motes.

  Trudy lay beneath them, her breathless body now in a coma. Her frantic efforts of the morning had finally exhausted her dehydrated body, and she no longer had the energy, or the will, to keep her mouth glued to the keyhole. The computer screen in the corner still gave out its faint rays of hope and still bore her final entreaty to her mother.

  “MUM, MUM, MUM,” it flashed repeatedly and was programmed to do so until eternity.

  The brief wartime diary of the Nazi sympathiser who had dug the shelter, together with his family’s little silver Swastikas, remained in the OXO tin in a corner of the dim, damp chamber. The underground cell, abandoned for nearly sixty years, had failed to preserve the lives of the family who built it, and was now preparing to become the permanent resting place of Trudy Jane McKenzie, aged sixteen years and a couple of months.