The Chapel

by S. T. Boston

  “What are you, some kinda fucking cop?” Jason asked. His breath smelt sour, a mixture of alcohol and vomit. He swayed a little on his feet and placed a hand on the door jamb for support, something Mike noticed and felt relief at. If things ended up going south then the drunker Jason was the easier he’d be to take down.

  “Used to be,” Mike said earnestly, his voice calm, his insides almost willing Jason to make a move that would give him the excuse to hurt him. “So why don’t you – “

  “No, why don’t you just get the fuck outta my way before I knock you the fuck outta my way,” Jason spat, springing forward and aiming to knock Mike aside.

  Jason probably thought he was faster than he was, probably thought in his mind he was some undefeatable legend that could swat Mike away with sheer will, but he was wrong. Mike saw him spring forward, his drunken movement a good bit slower than that of a sober man, and in response and far before Jason had a chance to react, he punched the hateful son of a bitch square in the gut. As Jason’s body buckled forward, Mike caught him by the throat with his left hand and stepping out into the communal hall, he marched him back, pinning him against the wall opposite. Instinctively Jason began to hit at Mike's arm, the one that held his neck. One blow missed and caught him on the cheek, hot pain exploded through his already pounding head, but he ignored it, the punch had been hard, but not so hard that it would put him out of the game. With his spare hand, Mike punched Jason square in the face and felt his nose explode satisfyingly under his knuckles. Mike released Jason’s neck, took a step back and followed the nose strike up with one more to the gut, a short, hard and sharp jab that forced the wind audibly from his lungs in one foul smelling huff of air. He doubled over, swayed for a second on the balls of his feet, then fell forward onto his knees, his eyes streaming with tears and his right hand clenching his winded gut.

  “Make one more move,” Mike said, still sounding calm yet assertive, “and I’ll throw you down the fucking stairs.”

  “You can’t d – do t -that,” Jason stammered, still on his knees, his left hand now exploring the bloodied mess of his nose. “You broke my fucking nose! I’ll have you arrested.”

  Mike laughed, genuinely amused and Jason looked at him with confusion behind eyes that ran with those inevitable tears which followed a blow to the old hooter. “Can’t take a bit of your own medicine,” Mike chuckled, “Is that what it is?” Jason spat blood onto the thin carpet of the communal hall, and slowly got to his feet. “As for getting arrested, yeah – maybe, but for that to happen you’d have to tell the cops just how you got your nose broken, and then you’d be sharing the cell next to me for just being here. Only long after I get out with a slapped wrist, you’d be serving out the rest of your sentence as someone’s bitch back in prison. So yeah - feel free. I’ll even give you my phone to make the call.”

  Jason eyed him with a dawning realisation that he’d lost, and that Mike was right. There was no way he could call the police. The look on his face changed from pained anger to that of a man who knew he’d been beaten at his own game. “You fucking her? That what this is about?” He sniffed back loudly and spat again. This time a thick, dark red glob of blood and snot hit the floor near to the first one.

  “Just get out,” Mike said firmly trying not to show his disgust whilst using the tone of voice he used to reserve for drunken idiots who thought they would argue the toss. He took a step forward causing Jason to step back. “Get out and we will forget all about you ever being here. Come back again and I’ll call the police, tell them I broke your nose if you like I really couldn’t give a shit. In fact, if you plan to do that I may as well make it worth your while, I mean why stop at a broken nose?”

  Jason looked at him as if weighing up the situation, but he was already edging back. He briefly tried to look around Mike and into Tara’s flat, but Mike’s frame was blocking his view. Now on the edge of the stairs, he ran the back of his hand over his busted nose, sniffed again and said, “You can keep the bitch, you’re welcome to her.” The statement of a man who knew he’d been defeated but was still intent on rescuing some pride.

  “Out!” Mike said raising his voice to a shout and stepping forward, his fists clenched. He pointed at the stairs and much to his surprise, Jason placed a bloodied hand on the banister and without looking back he clumsily made his way down. Maybe Jason thought that if he didn’t go of his own accord a helping shove would follow, and Mike had been tempted, very tempted, but he’d held off. A fall down the metal lipped stairs could kill a man, and he didn’t want one moment of madness to land him in that particular shower of shit.

  Standing century on the landing of the third and top floor, Mike watched until he heard the communal door to the apartment block close, then looking out of one of the hall windows he watched Jason stagger across the road, his fight dirtied clothes now bathed in sickly orange street light. He reached the junction, paused for a second, swayed left and right as if stood on the deck of a listing ship and then staggered off toward Tesco and the town centre.

  Gone from view, Mike took a deep breath and looked down at the fist that had broken Jason’s nose. His hand hurt and as he opened and closed it trying to ease the pain he noticed how badly he was shaking, not from fear, but from a mixture of adrenaline, anger and, okay - maybe a little fear. A fear that had he not been able to better Jason, had Jason have bettered him then he would have gotten to Tara. The beating he could have taken, but not her being hurt again, and not the guilt that would have followed.

  Casting one more look out into the artificially lit street he turned and walked back into the flat opening and closing his throbbing hand as he went. He found Tara half in the lounge, looking out to the hall, fright still in her eyes. Seeing Mike, she stepped out to meet him and he took her into his arms, drawing her trembling body against his. She felt fragile. Not like the Tara he knew. This was a vulnerable version of her, one that he’d never encountered before, one born from the actions of the very man he’d just sent packing. He felt her move her head from his chest and reacting to her movement he met her gaze. It happened fluidly and with no awkwardness they kissed, softly at first, then more urgently, both exploring deeper, giving in to that need they’d both felt for so long, a mutual attraction never acted on, until now.

  Mike ran his hands down her back and in one movement lifted her slight body off the floor and carried her through to the lounge. Sliding her down he felt Tara’s hands working his trousers, he didn’t protest. The guilt was there wanting to surface, but he kept it at bay, his want for her too strong. He felt his trousers fall to the floor followed by his underwear, and then her hands were on him, feeling his need for her. She moaned longingly in his ear before he pulled her down with him and onto the sofa. Kissing more urgently now she unbuttoned his shirt, pulling it off his shoulders and casting it aside. She kissed from his mouth to his cheek, where Jason had caught him with the misaimed punch, he winced as her soft lips found the bruising skin. Her lips moved away, and she allowed him to lift her loose-fitting tee over her head, exposing her breasts to the silvery glow of a moon that would soon be replaced by the first light of a new day.

  Moving his hands down he ran them up her legs, to her thighs where he pulled her panties aside before lifting her up and onto him, their need for each other being felt as one, and there in the unusually warm morning air and greying light of her front room they became one. Mike rode the razor's edge of his climax until he felt her body shiver in her own orgasm before he finally and mercifully let go. For long minutes after, she stayed atop him, he still inside her, both breathing heavily, their bodies coming down from the natural high of sexual climax.

  “Thank you,” Tara finally said, her words a little breathless.

  “I’ve never been thanked before,” Mike chuckled, knowing what she meant, but not being able to resist it.

  She nudged him playfully and slid off to the side where she rested her head on his shoulder, "You know what I mean, for what you did back there, ho
w you handled him."

  “I shouldn’t have hit him,” Mike replied, moving a strand of dark blonde hair from her face.

  “You definitely should have hit him!”

  “Maybe.”

  “No maybe about it.” She propped herself up and looked him in the eye, then said in a breathless Marilyn Monroe voice, “You’re my hero.”

  “Do you always sleep with your heroes?”

  “Well we ain't done much sleepin’,” Tara said. “But no, you’re the first hero I’ve, umm – well you know.”

  Mike did know, she didn’t want to use the word fuck, ‘cos it had been more than that. Somewhere between fuck and make love, he couldn’t think of the right way to put it. Instead, he pulled her back down so her head rested on his shoulder. She stretched her legs out and they lay together on the sofa just enjoying the feeling of being close. He kissed the top of her head and pulled the blanket around them, within minutes he heard her breathing fall into the rhythmic pattern of sleep, and as the first orange tendrils of morning light ignited the sky with a fiery glow, Mike felt his head began to lull.

  Red sky in the morning, shepherds warning, he thought as he drifted off, too.

  Chapter 14

  By nine PM on that Friday evening, Ellie, her mother, father and Hand-Me-Down-Henry had said their goodbyes to Lucinda and her guests and were walking back to The Old Chapel, along the faded tarmac road that ran like an old worn ribbon through the village.

  Her father had only consumed two glasses of Lucinda’s Bollinger Champagne and one glass of her homemade punch, as had her mother, but her parents had unanimously decided it better to leave the car on Lucinda’s forecourt and collect it in the morning.

  The sun was still a half hour off setting and clung to the remains of the day as if reluctant to slide back below the westerly horizon and pass it's watch to the moon. Orange light, defused by the trees, filtered through the dusky sky, giving any driver on his way through enough visibility to see them as they walked in single file, hugging the grass verge as closely as possible.

  Henry rode on their father’s back for the walk, having proclaimed his legs too tired to walk any further by the time he reached the end of Lucinda’s drive. As it turned out he’d been the centre of everyone’s attention at the gathering, attention that he’d lapped up, and come leaving time protested that he wanted to stay just a bit longer. The array of guests, whose names Ellie had been told, yet had zero chance of remembering, had doted on him. He was a cute kid, sure, but it had struck her as a little odd how despite none of them having kids of their own, well not that they brought along anyway, they’d been so keen to entertain him. Now away from the excitement of kicking a ball and throwing a frisbee around Lucinda’s ample garden with anyone who was game to play, and plenty were, he looked sleepy, his eyes drooping occasionally as did his head.

  Ellie had gone a glass further than her parents on the expensive bubbly and had also partaken in the punch. She felt the warm fuzzy glow of tipsiness and hoped it would help her sleep that night and that she’d awaken on Saturday morning without any further horrors. Despite the earliness of the hour, she felt unusually tired. Had she been at home and at her bestie’s nineteenth she had no doubt that she'd have partied well into the small hours of the morning with ease, likely waking the next day on the sofa or lounge floor with the hope that; one - you’d not done something with some guy who would take to bragging about his conquest on every platform of social media he could; and two - you’d not made a general fool of yourself. But now she just felt drained.

  Walking in front of her mother, and behind her father, she kept a wary eye on the fields opposite. She had no idea when they’d last been farmed, they lay fallow and overgrown and in the slowly fading light, she could see bees and other flying insects busying themselves around the wildflowers, eager to gather the last pollen of the day before heading home to their hives. Small swarms of midges swam hectically in the air, attracted by the four warm bodies. Elle found herself at their mercy and swatted tirelessly at them, more than a few meeting their demise on her arms and legs. She wasn’t sure if any of the little vampire-like bloodsuckers had managed to breach her skin, but she itched, nonetheless.

  “It wasn’t that bad, was it?” her father asked, turning his head as much as he could with Henry riding on his back. “I mean, they were okay. And Henry had a good time, he’s properly tuckered out.”

  “Not as awkward as I thought,” her mother commented as Ellie wondered who the hell still used the phrase tuckered out, outside the pages of a Famous Five novel. “You’ll have to go and get the car first thing, we want to head into Charlestown early on, otherwise we will never get parked.”

  “Are we going to the beach?” Henry asked, his voice sleepy.

  “We most certainly are,” her father replied, sounding upbeat. “It’s not a sandy beach though, so no sandcastles, kiddo.”

  Henry made that little whining noise that seemed to come naturally to kids his age. If they'd handed out badges for that noise, as they do for knots and photography at Scouts, Henry would have earned it and then some. Sounding instantly more chipper he then said, “But I can go in the water, right?”

  “Of course, but not too far out, just paddling. Make sure you take your Crocs.”

  “You know what they say about Crocs?” Ellie said, smiling and slapping her hand down on another pesky gnat that decided she was dinner. She removed her open palm and felt a mixture of satisfaction and revulsion at the tiny squashed body now mashed onto her skin. She picked it off, rolled it between thumb and forefinger then flicked it, the way a nose picker might launch a good booger. “The holes are where your self-respect leaks out.”

  “What’s self-respect?” Henry asked.

  “She is teasing you, Hun,” her mother cut in. “There is nothing wrong with them.”

  Ellie caught up with her father and reaching up she gave her brother a playful tap on the arm, “You’re Crocs are cool, Hen. I just don’t think they make good adult footwear. I’ve never seen anyone over the age of ten able to rock the Croc and look good, ya know.”

  "We can browse the shops," her mother began, as Henry whined once again at the mere mention of something as mundane as shopping. "You can spend some of the holiday money that gramps gave you."

  “All of it?” he asked brightening a little. His moods could change faster than you could flick a switch.

  “Some of it, and no useless tat.”

  “What’s tat?” He was at that age where almost every conversation resulted in a question, it was kind of endearing and annoying at the same time.

  “Pointless,” Ellie was about to say shit but stopped herself, “stuff,” she quickly opted for instead. She wanted to point out that the souvenir shops in a place such as Charlestown likely sold nothing but pointless tat, but she didn’t. She also had no doubt that many would have colourful buckets and spades hung on dangling strings outside despite the lack of sandy beach. Those kinds of places were all a carbon copy of each other, and it was a wonder they all managed to turn enough trade to stay in business.

  “We might be able to get some crab lines and go crabbing,” her father said. “We went once, a long time ago and before you’d remember, on a weekend trip to Dorset. I think you were about two.”

  “Did the crabs bite my fingers off?”

  "Yep, but lucky for you they grew right back the next day," Ellie laughed. Henry giggled and wiggled the fingers of his right hand as if to check they really were there. She could remember that weekend away because she'd been about sixteen at the time. It was the last holiday they'd taken as a family staying in a large and fairly luxurious static caravan in a little place called Mudeford, not too far from Bournemouth and right next to the New Forest where she’d gone horse riding. The beaches there had been sandy and the caravan far less spooky than The Old Chapel. Why her parents hadn’t opted for something similar was beyond her, it would probably have been a damn sight cheaper, too. She’d not asked how much they we
re being charged for the five-day stay, but a place as large and lavish as The Old Chapel couldn’t have been cheap. She was in no doubt the price had been inflated by a few hundred pounds because it was summer holiday time, a time where every purveyor of tourism hiked their prices up and rubbed their greedy hands together.

  "Crab fishing and fish and chips on the harbour," her father said as if cementing the plan.

  Henry yawned again and said, “But paddling first.”

  “You bet,” her father took a hand from Henry’s leg and faced the palm up, Henry slapped his small hand against it in a kind of high five. “Will you come in the water, too, Ells?”

  “Try and stop me,” Ellie said as they reached the drive. The Old Chapel wasn’t as set back as the other homes of Trellen, partly because its drive was a straight carved line through the trees. It looked as if a giant had cleaved it out of the woodland with a massive axe. When level with the drive you could just see the large double front doors and the dormant bell tower that loomed over the slate roof. The sun, now halfway below the green canopy of oaks and falling fast, silhouetted the silenced bell that looked black against the fiery orange glow.

  “Home sweet home,” her mother commented. “This country air has me beat. We might have to play Go Fish tomorrow, Hen. I think we could all use an early night.”

  “You promised,” Henry whined, but his voice said that even if they played a single game he’d be nodding off before the end of the first hand.

  “I said if we don’t get back too late, and it’s late. If we were at home, you’d have been in bed over an hour ago.”

  “Pleeasseee.”

  “Tomorrow,” her mother said firmly and in a voice that said the matter was closed and not open for negotiation. “You don’t want to be tired at the beach tomorrow, do you?” He shook his head and rubbed his eyes. The backs of his hands came away wet and she noticed the first hint of tears wetting his dark blonde eyelashes, tears he’d no doubt tried to conceal.