Seas of Snow

by Kerensa Jennings

  He was possibly the vilest, most irritating person Joe had ever come across.

  He would wipe that smile off his wretched face.

  At the thought of it, a dart of pleasure-pain would push into his groin, forcing a stiffening of anticipation. He would feel his breath draw deeper, and he would picture the way the runty wretch would squeal like a girl when he finally made him his.

  He would allow himself just one, urgent grip of his hand through his trousers, only to release slowly, tasting the fear on his tongue, feeling his need surge through his whole body.

  After three weeks, the plan was set. He’d selected a good location – a quiet alleyway the politician would pass by on his way to and from the pub. Joe had decided to spring his surprise when he was on his way back. The downside was that he would have to listen to him drone on for a while. The upside was that it would be darker and the tyke would have had a few.

  It was a Thursday night. The stage was set. The contract was issued. The accomplice would begin the slow journey to submission.

  Joe eyed his quarry in disgust. There he was as usual, twittering on to anyone who would listen. He generally held court with three or four votaries and tonight was no exception.

  They would share a convivial pint and humour him, few having the inclination to actually take in what he was blethering on about and fewer still preparing to act on it.

  Unlike the others, Joe was prepared to act. He would shut that whining up. For good.

  He thought back to the smashed jaw laying in bloody spatters across Finnegan’s thigh, and he remembered that other whinging piece of shit he’d dealt with. Brain damaged, they’d said. Good.

  The memories pulsed through him, building on the electrical throbbing deep inside. Intensifying that pleasure-pain sweetness as the anticipation of this new contract entwined with the thoughts of what had gone before.

  He took in the skinny wretch reaching for his coat and smiling jovially at the other drinkers.

  He sipped one last sip and slipped out into the darkening evening behind his new accomplice.

  Their footsteps quickened in unison, the politician blissfully unaware that he was in the sights of the other man.

  Blissfully unaware of what was about to happen.

  Joe watched him approach the entrance to the alley and made his move. By now he was just one pace behind him, so it was easy to swiftly move forward and pounce. Digging his claws in, rigidly.

  Saying nothing, but shoving him into the blackness of the narrow street. Pushing him further down, preventing that whiny voice from making any sounds by clamping his mouth shut with a gnarled, dirty hand.

  Feeling his arousal throbbing to distraction, coursing in excitement from that hot, damp place to the rest of his being.

  He moved him to the perfect spot, roughly 70 feet down the alley. It was quiet and calm. And there was a soft pool of light, cast from a lamp on the next street.

  In the background, the bustle of vehicles and people making their ways home. A murmur of burbling but nothing distinct.

  The light allowed him to peer into the eyes of his prey.

  Startled, angered, almost indignant, for fuck’s sake, the acne-dappled bugger was cocking his head at him, a confidence and a swagger Joe hadn’t expected.

  He caught himself wondering what kind of person starts preaching to strangers about things like power and fighting and – that insult – the ‘common man’.

  Who did he think he was? And anyway, what kind of arrogant, no-hoper idiot would waste their time, day after day, trudging around factories and estuaries and streets trying to make an issue about rights. Pointless.

  The young man was struggling, hard. He clearly knew his way around a wrestling match – wriggled here and tried to secure a grip there. He was one of those public school tossers who’d learned a few tricks but didn’t know their arse from their elbow.

  And this accomplice’s eyes were aflame with anger.

  Well, this was a first.

  Usually, they were full of fear at this point, petrified, lacking any sense of comprehension. Terrified eyes begging him to explain.

  This was usually the moment where he strung out the watching and waiting, amusement tickling around his lips, as the accomplice slowly conceded the situation, recognising there was no escape.

  Usually, the struggling would subside, overtaken by that peculiar desire-submission where Joe would succumb to their silent, hot-eyed request for vanquishment.

  From the victim’s point of view, it may have been more like an urgent need to get whatever their fate was going to be over as quickly as possible, once they recognised that they were in the presence of a madman who had no intention of letting them go. It was human nature to fight as long as physically possible, but not to compromise one’s possibility of survival.

  That was what Joe counted on, although he didn’t interpret it this way. From his point of view, time and time again, the accomplice would be begging him to conquer them. He knew only he could satisfy them, which is why the symphony harmonised so beautifully.

  He thought back to Polly. Pure Polly, in her bright white dress and sugar pink cardie. He had felt how hot and wet she was. There was no doubting the swelling hardness of her nipple. That look in her eye, overcome by desire for him, needing him, wanting him.

  It had given him perverse pleasure to leave her wanting more, satiating instead his own desperate impulse.

  Of course, he couldn’t see the truth, that this was a woman at the point of collapse, fear stopping the blood to her brain, eyes sparkling into unseeingness from the horror of the moment.

  What Joe saw was a woman, breathing hard for him, hankering for his touch, his roughness, his cock.

  He knew her husband, Mr Businessman, would never have driven her to such passion. What a limp, pathetic bastard. He had stood there, proud, tugging himself, safe in the knowledge that all she wanted was him. And for the rest of her life she would long for him.

  The reality may have been different.

  Poor Polly had been left in disarray, navy wool straggling across the floor, hair straggling across her face. Splodges of semen dampening her dress. Her candyfloss cardigan sullied forever. Constrictions in her chest as she struggled to breathe. A sense of abject horror at the nightmare that had just unfolded in her house.

  She struggled to rearrange herself, tidied her bodice and ­neatened up the knitting needles. Then, with a lioness roar, she suddenly thought of her son.

  ‘Charlie!’ she had called, dashing upstairs to the nursery. Gentle duck-egg-blue light pooling through the bottom of the door. She opened up, frantically, desperately, fearing the worst.

  But to her joy and amazement, there he was, slumbering softly, buzzy light breathing filling the air in sniffles and ­snuffles.

  She scooped him up and held him to her, tightly.

  At least he was safe.

  As Joe had sauntered out into the sunlight, he had been left with a different perspective. He knew that sweet, dear Polly had been wet and hard for him. Knew that she had at least 15 minutes before the boy would stir.

  He had no doubt in his mind what she would be doing right now. There she would be, on the sofa where he had left her, coyly glancing at the nets on the windows to see if there was any possibility of anyone seeing in.

  Satisfied that there was enough privacy, she would have pulled the fabric of her dress up her thighs, slowly, enjoying the sensation of slightly coarse linen playing at her skin.

  She would have retraced where he had been touching, underwear discarded on the floor. And she would have reimagined every soft stroke, every intense exploration of his fingers.

  She would have been thinking of that exquisite touch he had, and would be wishing, silently, that he would come back and finish what he had started.

  She would picture him, standing over her, an imposing silhouette. Doing what he did, for her, because of her.

  The idea of it would overwhelm her, and she would try to imagine w
hat he was seeing – her, sat small but sprawling willingly beneath him.

  Her right breast exposed, lusciously.

  She took her left hand and slowly palmed her nipple, hard, like he did.

  Hard, hard, hard. Then she took her thumb and fingers and squeezed it tightly, until she gasped. She rotated the pertness of it roundly, and couldn’t resist looking at what she was doing, her own arousal washing over every part of her.

  Her right hand was still slowly feeling the folds of her damp pinkness, tracing the wetness over the different aspects of her private place. It felt electric.

  And then, something magical happened. Her finger alighted on a rigid, hard place which was bathed in hot wetness. He had caressed it earlier, and now she had found it again. The sensation flooded her inside, and she used her third finger, like he did, to trace its shape. It was agonising, and felt connected by a current to the nipple she was twisting, hard.

  She resisted the urge to rub that aching place hard and instead slowly luxuriated in soft, aching strokes. Up and down, up and down, all the while wrenching her nipple into a pain she had never felt.

  She would think of his face, contorted in desire, and she would think of his erection, pulsing before her. And she would bring herself to a pleasure point she had never before experienced, with him and for him. Spasms of ecstasy would flood her. And it would be because of him.

  That’s what Joe was thinking, as he sauntered off down the street, more pulses of arousal pushing through him as he made his way home. Once he got there, he locked himself in the bathroom and indulged in another round; the memory of what he had imagined her to have done, buzzing in his brain.

  Today was different. Usually, he got his kicks with the men by beating them into weak submission, seeing their terror morph into acquiescence.

  But this angry tyke was writhing and fighting and refusing to accept defeat.

  This was not the plan.

  And inevitably, this intensified the violent hatred he was already feeling. He roared in fury, incensed that this weasel could be refusing to comply.

  And he landed a blow with his right hand which smashed into the side of his face, a loud crack singing out into the night air.

  The politician collapsed onto the floor, and Joe pulled him up slightly, to tighten his grip around his neck and shoulders. Then he flung his head backwards, repeatedly, crashing the pock marked lumpiness down with dull thuds, again and again.

  He watched as the lad’s eyes rolled backwards and a froth of blood foamed at his mouth.

  There was the slightest murmuring, followed by silence.

  Joe’s rage flooded through him, as he saw the prone shape on the floor. Completely still now, not even a breath escaping his scarlet, unnatural lips.

  Slumped into awkwardness, the politician lay there, undignified, the distant glow of a light illuminating his silhouette.

  Joe looked at him, satisfied, and the realisation dawned on him that this was the first human life he had extinguished.

  Exaltation surged through him, and that familiar feeling pulsed deep in his core.

  He allowed himself the rapture of release, there and then in the alley.

  And Joe being Joe, had his wits about him and when it was all over, took care to rub the evidence into the ground with his shoe and kick leaves over it.

  Then he turned his back on the lumpen outline and meandered, slowly, back onto the main street.

  What he hadn’t realised was that the bellowing roar he had howled in anger earlier had been heard by a number of people, who had raised the alarm. The police had been summoned, apparently, and three young bobbies were out looking for an explanation.

  Joe emerged onto the main thoroughfare into a throng of activity and his senses immediately alerted him that something was wrong. He wondered if it was connected to what he had just been doing, or something else. He decided caution would be the best way forward.

  So he continued his slow meander, through the people-treacle.

  Then, a shout, a shriek.

  ‘Look, he’s covered in blood!’ someone yelled, and someone else added, ‘Catch him!’

  He began to take off but had scarcely gone three paces before the crowd closed in.

  ‘Where have you been?’ a hefty, bearded man in dungarees demanded. ‘What have you done? Why are you running? Why are you covered in blood?’

  Others in the crowd weighed in, four or five of them baying for an answer.

  At this stage, the bearded man was simply interrogating him, not sure if he was victim or witness or perpetrator.

  But the mob has a will and when he refused to speak, they closed in further, jostling and pushing and forming a human chain which could not be broken.

  It wasn’t long before the police arrived.

  The rest of the evening passed in a bit of a blur, but he woke up in a dark, dank cell. Just a piss bucket in the corner and the whole place stinking of shit.

  His memory came flooding back, and all he could think of was that this had been the politician’s fault. If only he had just played the game, given into desire and submission, allowed himself the fear.

  Instead, he had fought back like a runty fox caught in a trap, desperate to escape and desperate to live.

  Well, Joe put paid to that particular ambition.

  Now he was alone in a cell, the blackness crowding in.

  He wondered how much the coppers knew, wondered whether there was any chance the body hadn’t been found, that they would think this was some terrible mistake.

  For now, a sense of foreboding told him this was irrational. He’d only just stepped out from the alley, for fuck’s sake, it was obvious that people would retrace his steps to find out where he had come from.

  All he could think of was that he needed to come up with a plan. He would need to watch. And wait.

  Surprises

  Billy and Aidan had just finished up a delicious home-made lasagne. The béchamel sauce had been just so, and the bolognaise unctuous and rich.

  Plates and dishes cleared into the dishwasher, they settled into their usual evening routine.

  A bottle of red was slowly relieved of its cork with a satisfying ‘pop’.

  The wine glugged softly into two crystal glasses and clinked together in a warm toast.

  ‘To the end of the week,’ Aidan smiled at Billy. Billy winked back. ‘Thank goodness,’ he agreed.

  They each took a sip and reached back into the squishiness of their chosen seating. Aidan on the Tom Dixon as normal and Billy sinking into the Chesterfield.

  Mahler was playing gently in the background.

  ‘I’ve decided to go and talk to Ma,’ said Billy, seriously.

  Aidan looked at him, thoughtfully.

  ‘Are you going to tell her?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t think it’s my place to tell her. But with a few carefully worded questions, I may be able to find out how much she knew …’

  Billy knew it was a long shot. His Ma had never said anything so far, and if she had known something, she had clearly made the decision to bury it. It wasn’t his job to rake up bad memories, or ruin lovely ones.

  But he felt compelled to do something, anything.

  ‘I’ll come with you. Let’s make an outing of it. We can take some ingredients around and make a lovely meal to share with her. You don’t visit often enough …’ he let the words trail.

  Aidan knew that Billy hadn’t explained the full nature of their friendship to his Ma. But at the same time, he couldn’t bear the idea of him having to face this conversation on his own. He’d been through such torment over the years. At least he should be able to give him some comfort and support through this.

  ‘I’m not sure, Aidan, whether it’s a good idea …’ Billy’s mind was racing, wondering what his Ma would think if he turned up with a male companion and they made supper for her together.

  ‘I think you’ve spent too many years trying to fight your demons and find your answers on your own. T
his is why I am here. To share your hardships and help you take the burden. Let me come with you. We don’t need to explicitly say anything, Billy, we can keep it nice and light. I’m your friend, I’m coming over to help you cook. That’s it.’

  Billy looked at Aidan gratefully. He’d put it so simply, so logically, how could he find fault with the argument? There’s no reason why it wouldn’t feel natural, normal even.

  ‘You’re right, I’m sorry. I’ve tried for too long to carry all this alone. But there’s nothing wrong with two friends visiting a mother. Nothing wrong at all. Let’s plan the trip. What shall we cook?’

  They plotted together and whiled away a happy hour discussing recipes and possibilities. It was the perfect distraction for Billy, who had felt deeply uneasy since discovering the locket. So far, he hadn’t been back to the hospice.

  They decided there was no time like the present, so made the decision to call Billy’s Ma tomorrow and see if they could go over Saturday night.

  She, of course, was delighted to hear that her son was coming to visit. Like most parents, she adored seeing her children, and felt these days as grown-ups she didn’t see nearly enough of them. John and Simon had both given her grandchildren, so it was a special pleasure when their families came to stay, but the whole clan had scattered widely and she was the only one left in Tyneside.

  She was still in the old house in May Close. Billy visited rarely. He’d been too wrapped up in the memories of what had happened.

  So it was a wonderful surprise to hear that he was coming up, and bringing a pal. So she was going to meet him at last, she smiled to herself. She’d guessed Billy’s secret long ago – the whole family knew, she thought – it was one of those unspoken truths. But until he wanted to talk about it, that was up to him. No one was going to make him feel uncomfortable.

  She thought it was rather sweet actually. For getting on 15 years he’s been mentioning Aidan this, Aidan that. It didn’t take the brains of Solomon to work it out.

  The main thing from her point of view is that her youngest son had clearly found happiness. What price that?

  Lord knows she understood the value of love. Had lived and breathed through its sweet infancy, early friendship and deep, mature trust. Nothing in the world was more precious than love.