by Limey Lady
What a silly, silly man.
Now, clenching her third glass of wine as she sat at the kitchen table, she forced herself calm. She wasn't going to divorce Geoff over his stupidity. There were the kids to consider and besides, she still loved him and wasn’t going to quit over something as senseless as this. She just wasn't going to love him quite so unreservedly. If he’d been idiot enough to end up in a hospital bed for life that was his own stupid lookout.
What had he said to her? I give you the freedom?
Knowing she was doing it out of anger, knowing she could never really be unfaithful, she raised her glass to her imaginary husband.
‘After reconsidering, I accept,’ she said, drinking to seal the bargain.
Chapter Twenty-Two
(Thursday 21st August 2008)
When she'd finished towelling herself dry Heather pulled on her tatty old red rugby shirt and, otherwise naked, went into the kitchen for wine. After she’d had her first sip she checked her mobile and, instantly recognizing the number on a missed call, dialled back.
‘Hello,’ the familiar voice answered, ‘Victoria Hanson speaking.’
‘Hiya sexy; do you want to hear about my man?’
‘Oh, hiya Hev; we keep missing each other.’
‘I'm missing you like crazy. Why don't we do it while I tell you about last night?’
‘I can't. I'm at Mamma's. We’re just about to go out and eat Italian.’
‘Not even time for a quickie?’
‘I'm late already. In fact I'm talking to you on my way to the car.’
‘Go on, have the quickie. Give Mamma’s neighbours a thrill.’
‘My dad can see me, so I'd better not.’
‘You’re a rotten spoilsport.’
‘You won’t be saying that when I get back.’
All Heather’s sexy instincts perked up at that. ‘Attention after all these barren months,’ she purred. ‘I should be so lucky.’
‘I promise you Hev, I owe you one,’ Vic assured her, chuckling, ‘maybe two or three.’ Then, becoming serious: ‘What was that business with Nina this morning?’
‘She was just being protective.’ Heather laughed. ‘Forget my claims about her fancying me. It’s you she’s got a crush on. You’d better watch yourself now she knows you’re free to be shagged.’
‘She's out of bounds.’
‘Maybe she is in your eyes, but you’re not in hers. She’s had it from you in writing . . . well she’s seen the text you sent me. And I'm not going to blame you if you go for it. I certainly would.’
‘Right, well we're going to have to reconsider our out of bounds rule anyway. Not to mention the rest of our master plan. This Credit Crunch is going to be worse than we thought; a whole lot worse.’
‘Don’t tell me, let me guess. You’ve been talking doom and gloom with your Cockney banking friends.’
‘Too right I have.’ Vic sighed heavily. ‘London Bridge has been well and truly shaken. It’s going to be a relief listening to Mamma complaining about the lasagne for an hour or two. I’ve had enough financial misery for one day.’
‘Okay, we’ll have a chat about that when you get back. You can update me on the global crisis. Then I’ll give you my report on Jack the Hat.’
‘Jack the Hat?’ Vic audibly gasped. ‘Hev, you haven’t!’
‘Oh yes I jolly well have.’
‘I don’t know what to say. I didn’t really mean it when I asked you to give him another go.’
‘Didn’t you?’ Heather laughed again. ‘Too late; I’ve tried him from every angle I could think of. And age has only improved him.’
‘Did you beat my record?’
‘You mean the three hour record?’
‘That’s the one.’
‘He virtually equalled it.’
‘Did he?’
‘Yeah; I was the one who didn’t miss a stroke though. He just lay back and left me to it.’
‘Are you seeing him again?’
‘You bet I am. I’m giving him the full road test over the weekend. I hope you didn’t have any other plans.’
‘I do, but none involving you, Smarty Pants. The most you’re going to get now is a quickie before I go next door to cry on Graham’s shoulder.’
‘I thought you were going to be sporting.’
‘Okay then. Make it two or three quickies. Look, I've got to go. I'll ring you tomorrow. Ciao.’
‘Ciao,’ Heather said. She had a sip of wine and studied the number on her other missed call. Feeling as if she should know it, she rang.
*****
If Lockwood had been unsettled by the gorilla sitting on his car he practically shat himself when a second, slightly smaller gorilla appeared out of nowhere and stuck a gun in his ribs.
Still daylight on a warm Thursday evening, lots of people about outside a bustling store . . .
And here he was with a gun in his ribs. What was the world coming to? Hadn’t Blair promised to put thousands of Bobbies on the beat, maybe ten years ago? Where were they now, when he actually fucking needed them?
‘Steady lads,’ he said, thrusting the cash towards the bigger gorilla. ‘I'm no hero. Here, have it.’
The guy ignored the cash and said, ‘Keys.’
No point in arguing. Lockwood gave him the solitary key and watched him climb into the driver's seat. As he was preparing to wave the Audi goodbye the second gorilla prodded him with the gun. Looking at him more closely he recognized him. There again, who wouldn’t with all the scars. It was one of Swanny's goons from earlier. The one called Moggs.
Moggs made Lockwood get in the passenger seat before clambering into the back himself. Meanwhile people outside Tesco continued to come and go, nobody seeming to notice anything amiss.
The guy behind the wheel drove them away, heading over the canal swing bridge then steeply uphill, across a mini roundabout and uphill again. When the road began to flatten out on the hilltops they came to a crossroads and turned right. Lockwood saw an old fashioned, rusting metal road sign that read:
KEIGHLEY GATE
That meant nothing to him. He kept quiet while they drove past a handful of isolated houses, went down a dip and over a low stone bridge, passed a farm and then headed uphill into seemingly nowhere. The road had already narrowed to just one lane and he was surprised as it went on and on, cutting a thin swathe through long, straw-like grasses and patches of purple heather.
At last they pulled up on a rough parking patch, close to what looked like radio masts standing on slightly higher ground. Not that they could be much higher. This might not be the Roof of the World but, to Lockwood at least, it felt like the Roof of Yorkshire.
The driver switched off the engine, pocketed the key and turned to him. ‘I'm Kyle,’ he said. ‘You don't owe Swanny anymore, you owe me. We're here to discuss your repayment plan.’
‘Okay,’ Lockwood said politely. ‘I gave Swanny some alternatives . . .’
‘They weren't any fucking good,’ Kyle snarled. ‘That's why I've taken over. Now, here's how it's going to be. I've changed the way you pay interest. No more adding on weekly. Your ten grand has just become twelve grand. It's not going to go up again, as long as you stick to the plan.’
Lockwood's mouth was dry. ‘What, then?’ he managed.
Kyle pointed out of the window at the slowly darkening wilderness around them. ‘That is Ilkley Moor. And this here is Keighley Gate. Every woman I've ever met has been fucked up here at least once. That means it's dead easy to find. So there's no reason you can't find your way up here every Thursday from now on. That's to see me and Moggs and give us five hundred quid before you pay your interest.’
‘But you said . . .’
‘I said the interest had changed, not gone away. Now, convince me you'll turn up this time every week, until you've paid the twelve grand.’
Lockwood's brain had been racing. ‘I should be able to. I'll have to pay you and let everyone else go hang, but . . . yes, I could do that. What
. . . what about this interest?’
‘Take your shoes off,’ Kyle ordered.
Again, there seemed no point in arguing. Following Moggs' instructions now, Lockwood got out of the car, wincing as gravel bit through his socks. Moggs made him walk to the back of the Audi then suddenly unfastened Lockwood’s trousers, letting them fall around his ankles. Lockwood had a really bad feeling about that, even before Moggs made him drop his boxers as well. He stood shivering although it wasn't at all cold, watching as Kyle placed a large pot of hand salve on the car boot.
Kyle's cock was, like the rest of him, enormous. Lockwood shook his head in disbelief as the big man coated himself with white cream. He had never felt so helpless in all his life. At least he hadn't until Moggs put the gun into his mouth and told him to bend over the boot.
‘Inside you'd be a bike,’ Kyle growled from behind him. ‘Now you're going to get ridden every week until you've paid up.’
Lockwood could feel something monstrous and hard pressing against him. To his horror he realized it was slightly into him already. He could feel a burning, tearing sensation and couldn't stop himself trying to wriggle away. Then Moggs did something that made the gun CLICK loudly between his teeth and that was enough. He froze and let Kyle rape him.
And it definitely was rape. There was nothing remotely tender about this; it wasn't even a good, firm fucking like some girls preferred. This was an all-out assault. Kyle hammered away as hard as he could, doing his best to inflict pain. His cock ripped and tore at Lockwood as it thumped in and out. Everything about the experience hurt: the agony inside; the heavy sandwiching as Kyle's weight slammed him again and again into the metal of the car; the gun grinding against his fillings.
At last Kyle finished but even then it wasn't over.
‘Your turn,’ the gorilla commanded.
‘I think I’ll give it a miss,’ said Moggs.
‘I think you’ll fucking get on with it, unless you want you-know-who to find out you-know-what.’
Moggs stopped complaining and took Kyle’s place, every bit as vigorous and uncaring; and twice as painful. Moggs must have had either an even bigger cock or a very wickedly shaped one; maybe both. Or perhaps Lockwood's insides were already ruptured and getting rapidly worse.
Back in the car Lockwood couldn't stop crying. As well as the pain and humiliation, it was the sense of having been violated. He desperately tried not to think about the blood-tinged fluid that had run down his legs after Moggs had done with him.
‘You're our bike for the next twenty-four weeks,’ Kyle told him, ignoring the tears. ‘You're going to come here every Thursday, give us at least five hundred quid, and then get shafted. If you want to pay is more, you can, but you're still to come back the next week. Anything you extra pay comes off the end; you can't buy a week out in the middle. The best you can do is pay up twelve grand next Thursday, take a last fucking and that's it, game over player one. Do you understand me?’
Lockwood nodded mutely.
‘That's your carrot,’ Moggs put in, ‘now here's the stick. If you are as much as five minutes late, even once, we're going to collect double interest off your lovely wife.’
‘Does Judith like it up the arse?’ asked Kyle.
‘It gets worse,’ Moggs went on. ‘If you miss a week or turn up late a second time, we’re going to go and collect from that cute daughter of yours.’
The words slipped out before Lockwood could stop them. ‘You bastards,’ he said.
‘I'm worse than a bastard,’ Kyle replied. ‘I'm a murderous bastard. And you're not going to get to play silly cunts. Piss about with me and that daughter is going to disappear. They'll find her a month later with maggots crawling out of her hole. By then we'll have fucked your wife to death. And then it's going to be your turn. Understand?’
Lockwood sniffled and nodded again, not trusting himself to speak.
‘Good.’ Kyle nodded back, grinning unpleasantly. ‘Do yourself a favour. No police. No tooling up and thinking you're Johnny Rambo. Just pay your dues as soon as you can and it'll be over. Your lovely little lady won't ever know you've had two new boyfriends.’
*****
‘Hi, it's Nina.’
‘Oh, hi Nina, it's Heather. You called me.’
‘Yes. I wanted to make up for being such an ass this dinnertime.’
‘An “ass” . . . I haven't heard it used like that in years. I thought only us private school girls innocently said “ass” . . . us and the Famous Five.’
‘You absolute ass, Julian,’ said Nina, and they both had a good titter.
‘Consider me to be made up,’ Heather resumed, ‘even if I am going to spend the rest of the evening thinking about nothing but Georgina’s boyishness.’
‘You’re not seeing your new stud then?’
‘Not tonight, no. I’m saving him for Saturday, like I said.’
‘In that case will you let me buy you a drink? To make up properly, I mean.’
Something in the other girl’s tone wasn’t quite right. She didn’t sound anxious, not exactly, but she did seem nervous . . . that in itself being very much a first.
’There’s really no need,’ said Heather. ‘Just get me a can of Lilt in the morning. Then I'll be your friend for life.’
‘I wasn't thinking about Lilt. I was thinking more about getting tipsy and being a bit naughty while my boyfriend's away.’
‘Naughty? You mean like going out, getting tipsy and pulling a couple of blokes?’
‘No. Blokes didn't come into my plans at all.’
Heather's heartbeat picked up speed, and dramatically so.
‘Okay then,’ she said. ‘If blokes don't come into it, how do you propose being naughty?’
‘Oh, I don't know, specifically. I thought we'd decide that after we'd got to the tipsy stage.’
‘So getting tipsy isn’t the naughty bit?’
‘No, it is absolutely not.’
‘Nina, this is very sudden.’
‘I’m feeling impulsive. Aren’t you? You’re always claiming to be impulsive . . . and impetuous.’
‘I was actually feeling quite thoughtful for once, until just a moment ago.’
‘So you’re impetuous again now?’
‘I suppose so, enough to go out and get to the tipsy stage, anyway.’
‘How about staying in and getting tipsy? Wouldn’t that be even more of a thrill?’
Heather looked at her mobile, a little stunned by the speed of all this.
‘I don’t know about being impulsive and impetuous,’ she said. ‘But it might be dangerous on the being naughty front. I’m not to be trusted indoors and tipsy.’
‘That’s sort of what I hoped.’
Heather decided that, as a senior colleague, she should at least try to inject a note of caution. ‘What about tomorrow,’ she said. ‘When you’re back in Victoria’s outer office, facing off God knows who asking God knows what. Mightn't you regret it then?’
‘I'll only regret it if you turn me down. Honestly Heather, I'm a big girl now; I'm nearly twenty-five. I’d never propose anything if I didn't want it to happen.’
Heather considered a moment. She’d only been twenty-four when she’d met Vic. And by the time she was twenty-four she’d been a black-belt at proposals.
Eleventh dan . . . could have probably shown Bruce Lee a thing or two.
And talking about Vic, hadn’t they just abolished the out of bounds rule? Well, as good as abolished it?
She quickly ran through her limited options. She’d encouraged Nina all along. So much so that saying no would be ungracious . . . and extremely ungrateful. And not the answer she wanted to give her in any case. Whereas saying yes . . .
Her only reservation was Vic. Or rather: Nina’s obvious feelings for Vic. The sexy blonde really had been fuming this dinnertime. Never mind her junior grade; she’d been ready to go to war for her number one boss. There had been fire in her eyes.
She’d looked utterly wonderful.
And in reality Nina wasn’t even on Vic’s would-be lover list. Vic had never shown any interest in her at all, apart from admiring her bum. Nina was too soft and cuddly for the ruthless lady banker, who probably had never seen that fire in her, probably never even suspected it might be there.