Читать книгу Forward Slash - Mark Edwards, Mark Edwards - Страница 13

Thinking about Katherine gives me a strange taste in my mouth – metallic, like blood, and my head throbs when I picture her. She makes me want to defile someone.

She thought she was so special but she was ordinary in every way, from her shoulder-length hair to her size-twelve body, from her average wage to her median IQ. True, her appetites were stronger than most women’s – to an unseemly degree. Cock-hungry, mum would have said. A slut. I’ve trawled the profiles of so many just like her.

All of which made it infuriating when I realized she was going to be a problem. That she could spoil things by poking her pointy nose in where it wasn’t wanted and asking for it to be bitten off.

I decided I had to remove the risk and deal with her.

I kept an eye on her Twitter feed in order to see what she was up to. She was quiet for most of the day, then bingo. Got a big date tonight. V excited. Soho here I come!

It was 19.29. According to the geo-location of the update, she was at Herne Hill station when she updated her status, so I wouldn’t have time to intercept her. But that was fine. I could wait. Patience is a virtue. Another thing Mum used to say.

Who was the date? That’s what I wanted to know. I didn’t know her password to the dating site she used, and had no quick way of finding it. That meant I was going to have to go to Soho and find out for myself.

I took the train, sat in first class so I didn’t have to mingle with any of the scum who frequent the normal carriages: fat-arsed mums with buggies, maggots scoffing fast food with a stench like greased death, slack-trousered teenagers speaking in that fake patois they all use – a noise that makes me wish the knife-crime problem was far, far worse.

Soho was buzzing. I walked past the Admiral Nelson and smiled to myself, imagining nails piercing soft flesh, and grimaced at the sight of men walking hand in hand, at all the bitches with loose morals strutting about, drinking in the street and screeching. I had a wonderful fantasy in which I drove down the street in a limo with blackened windows, a machine-gun protruding through the window, pumping bullets into the skulls of passers-by. I sometimes think that if I’m ever diagnosed with something fatal, like cancer, I’ll do just that. Take as many of the happy, smiling maggots with me as I can.

Maybe I should do it anyway.

Seeing all the pond life, all the girls with their tits on show and the couples eating each other’s faces in broad daylight between puffs on their cigarettes, made me wonder if anyone – anyone but me – has ever really understood love, about the magic of two pure souls uniting as one, a person and another person coming together to create the perfect union, driven by an all-consuming desire for each other, willing to do anything for the one they love.

Anything.

Like some of the great couples in history.

Romeo and Juliet. They died for one another, so consumed by love they would rather swallow poison than spend another day apart. The fearful passage of their death-marked love. Beautiful.

Fred and Rose. Another couple devoted to one another. I love to picture the tender scenes of them torturing and killing girls together, perhaps making love with the young, fresh blood still on their skin. Like Romeo, poor Fred was unable to take the prospect of a life spent apart from his beloved. I wonder if he whispered her name as he hanged himself in his cell?

He was stronger than her though. More devoted. Because she’s still alive. Do you think Fred would see that as a betrayal? I would. I’d see it as proof that she didn’t love me as much as I loved her.

Armin Meiwes and Bernd Juergen Brandes understood love too. About utter devotion and sacrifice, even though they only knew one another for a short time.

Meiwes advertised on a website called the Cannibal Café for someone willing to be ‘slaughtered and consumed’. Yes, yes, this is all true. It’s a touching tale. Meiwes found Brandes and the two quickly discovered they were a perfect match. They attempted to eat Brandes’s severed penis for dinner. Then Brandes gave up his life to his new-found love, and after Brandes was dead, Meiwes gobbled him up.

Of course, most people don’t understand. Most people go through their lives never knowing that wonderful, painful, all-consuming emotion. They don’t know what it’s like to love and be loved. So they punish people like Meiwes and Fred West.

It’s why I do everything possible to ensure I never get caught.

I methodically made my way through Soho’s grid of streets, looking into each bar I came to, checking to see if the Slut was in there. I didn’t bother with pubs – I didn’t think she would go to a scummy, crowded pub on a hot Sunday night. If she had a date, it would be somewhere a little more upmarket, though not too upmarket, unless she was punching considerably above her weight.

Unable to stop myself, I popped into Agent Provocateur and picked up a few pieces. The girls in there are so different to the tramps walking around outside. Classy, educated. They are always welcoming, and whenever I go in there, I think I must look one or two of them up online. There is a young lady in there called Coco, who I at one point thought could be the love of my life, but she doesn’t appear to be on any social networks. I bought some double cuffs, a patent-leather paddle, some nipple pasties, a lovely Fifi slip and a white corset from the bridal range that gave me a hard-on just looking at it. I think Coco noticed. Her eyes were full of admiration.

I found Katherine in a cocktail bar. I went in and sat with my back to her, watching her and her date in a mirror. He looked like a money man, a City idiot. He was loud, pawing at her, buying champagne and tipping it down his thick neck like there was no tomorrow. She kept throwing back her head and laughing, running her hands through her hair. I wondered if she genuinely liked him or was making these gestures because she knew that’s what men expect women to do.

Between glasses of bubbly, the two of them also kept going off to the toilets and coming back sniffing and rubbing their noses, as subtle as two dogs fucking in the street. After I’d watched them do this a couple of times, I got up and went into the Gents’, and was washing my hands as City Boy was coming out of a cubicle.

‘Got a little powder showing,’ I said, touching the skin below my nose.

He scowled at me and I thought how nice it would feel to smash his chubby face against the mirror. He had a scar cutting through his eyebrow and I wondered how he’d like a whole map of scars on his face. I said, ‘Don’t suppose you’ve got any spare?’

He looked me up and down.

‘Don’t worry, I’m not a cop.’

His lip curled. ‘Sorry, mate, only got my personal supply, you know what I mean? But come back tomorrow night and maybe I can sort you out.’

‘OK, thanks,’ I said, all smiles. ‘Who should I ask for?’

‘Fuck off,’ he replied.

So he was a dealer. That was interesting, and useful.

I finished my drink and went out. The disgusting party was still raging in the street. A girl was being sick in a shop doorway. I walked to Leicester Square and got a cab to visit an old acquaintance – let’s call him Joe – who deals coke. I told him I wanted the best stuff he had and he was happy to oblige.

Joe had a flat in Chelsea. Nice pad, overlooking the river. He and I did some business together once. He’s an idiot but he had a reputation for being able to get hold of any drug ever snorted or injected by man, woman or beast.

‘I’m looking for some china white, too,’ I said.

He gave me a surprised look. ‘What do you want that shit for?’ he asked.

‘It’s for a friend,’ I said. ‘A girlfriend.’

‘You know china white is, like, really fucking strong?’ he said. ‘I don’t sell that shit.’

‘But I bet you know a man who does, right? I’ll give you a referral fee, of course.’

That persuaded him. He made a couple of calls, and next thing I knew it was being delivered like a takeaway pizza. Fentanyl. It’s like a synthetic form of heroin, a hundred times as potent. Joe looked at me like I was a cockroach as I left, but I was buzzing so much I forgave him.

Then I booked into a hotel and watched porn for a few hours. I took the bridal corset out of the pretty Agent Provocateur bag and masturbated over it. The porn wasn’t as strong as my usual tastes but it had to do. I pictured her – not slutty Katherine, of course, I mean my new Number One girl, wearing the corset on our big night, bending over and telling me I was a good boy, the best boy, all grown-up and so big …

Part of me wants to take her now. Grab her and carry her home, across the threshold and into the darkness. Knowing she’s out there now, living her life, unaware of my plans for us to be together, is a kind of delicious torture. But the time is not quite right. For now, I will have to continue to keep an eye on her. Everything about her ticks my boxes. She has the blonde hair, the blue eyes, the right proportions. As important as that, is the way she carries herself, the words she chooses to use. She is not coarse or tacky or trivial. She is intelligent and sensitive. She feels things strongly. I also sense that she has been wounded in the past, although by whom or what I don’t know. I picture her lying on my bed, happily secured, gazing up at me with respect and love, telling me all her secrets. I can’t wait to share my secrets with her too.

To whisper in her ear as she exhales her final breath, to bathe in her blood and kiss her silent mouth.

Sitting in the hotel room, aroused by this lovely fantasy that will soon be reality, I reminisced about my first Internet date, turning the corset over to its clean side and imagining it splashed with blood along with my come.

I started using the Internet in the mid-nineties. Online dating already existed then but it was primitive and there was hardly anybody using it. There were very slim pickings. But I met a beautiful girl through one of those early sites.

Her name was Diane. She was a northerner living in London in a pathetic bedsit. Lonely. Trying to make it as an actress. Extraordinarily pretty. Incredible tits – the ideal shape and size. In the perfect woman, her nipples should sit at 45 degrees from the top and point skywards. Plus, she should have a curvy hip-to-waist ratio of 0.7 and the distance between her eyes and mouth should be 36 per cent of the overall length of her face.

Luckily, I’m not quite so fussy. I only want the perfect woman for me. But Diane could have been put in a museum as an example of physical perfection.

She had a lovely vagina too. I still have it somewhere.

I was Diane’s first Internet date, she said. I told her we were pioneers. She liked that. She had this chiming laugh that I’ve read can be highly appealing, so I ticked that off as a positive even though the sound made my brain throb.

I took her out on a couple of dates. Traditional. I wined and dined her. I dazzled her with treats. She was a poor actress, living off Cup-a-Soup and thin white bread. Over dinner, I could tell she really liked me. She ticked all the boxes. She played with her hair, twirling it between her fingers, stroked the rim of her glass with her fingertips, pushed items on the table towards me, fiddled with the cheap necklace she was wearing. She looked at me then looked away before returning her gaze to me.

Yes, she definitely liked me.

She wanted to sleep with me on the second date. I was disappointed. The perfect woman waits until the third date. She was too easy. I was almost willing to give her another chance, as she was clearly overpowered by my masculinity, but I refuse to settle for anything less than perfection.

It was a shame.

But we were never meant to be. Every time I eliminate a girl, I see it as progress. One fewer possibility. Another step closer to The One.

At first light, I checked out of the hotel and went in search of a minicab. I’d been checking Katherine’s Twitter feed and Facebook page through the night, taking a little bump or two of coke to keep me awake, not that I really needed it as the adrenaline was keeping my heart pounding, even after my second orgasm. She hadn’t updated it, so I didn’t know if she had stayed over with City Boy or whether he’d chucked her out once he’d finished having his fun with her. But it didn’t matter too much.

I found a minicab office, said I wanted a cab to Herne Hill and was accompanied outside by the weary Middle Eastern driver to a heap of junk on four wheels.

‘Where in Herne Hill?’ he asked. When he got in, I held open his driver door and leaned down to him through the gap.

‘How would you like to earn a hundred pounds?’

He looked up at me with disgust.

‘No, no – not that. I’m not a fucking homo. I want you to deliver something for me.’ I showed him the slim box with the Agent Provocateur logo scripted across its pink lid. ‘This needs to go to a young lady in SE24. If she’s not in, please put it through the letter box.’

‘You pay up front,’ he said.

‘Sure, of course. Here’s the address. And if I hear it didn’t get there, I’ll be back looking for you.’ I smiled, man to man. ‘This is for a very special lady. It’s very important.’

I winked.

‘OK, no problem,’ he said. And with that, he drove off, audibly crunching into second gear as he turned the corner and disappeared.

Katherine was going to be thrilled to pieces with her gift. I just wish I could be there to see it.

Bang bang bang.

Katherine had been dreaming about her ex again – though not Clive. Funnily enough, she didn’t miss Clive at all; the early times, back when it was all so thrilling and the bed – and the carpet and the sofa and the toilets on the 22.37 out of London Bridge – drew them like magnets. Sexy magnets. She giggled in the dream, her laughter drowned out by loud banging. She pulled the pillow over her head, but the banging was insistent. Someone was knocking at the door.

She opened one eye and lifted her phone from the bedside table. Eight a.m. She’d only been asleep for ninety minutes. She’d made a sharp exit just before dawn when Fraser started pawing at her bum and asking her if she liked anal sex, and got back just as the birds were waking up in Brockwell Park.

Ordinarily, she would have ignored the banging and gone back to sleep, but she was expecting a delivery from Asos and she didn’t want to miss it. Knowing she could come straight back to bed – God bless the summer holidays – she got up, pulled on a long T-shirt and made her way to the front door.

The man on her doorstep didn’t look like a delivery man. He held up a little pink box. His eyes widened when he saw her and she realized what she must look like, with her hair sticking up like a fright wig and mascara all round her eyes.

‘It won’t fit through the letter box,’ he said.

She took it, perplexed. ‘What is it?’

‘A man asked me to deliver it to you. He said it was very important.’ He turned to go.

She scrutinized the box. Agent Provocateur. Much too expensive for her with her teacher’s wages. She’d tried to get something in the sale once but everything sold out within seconds. ‘Who’s it from?’

He shrugged. ‘He didn’t tell me his name.’

After he’d gone, she went inside and sat on the bed. She opened the box and gasped. Inside was a lovely pink-and-black slip, in a size 12, just right, and a couple of naughty little items: some black discs with little tassels, which she realized were meant for her nipples, and a small black patent-leather paddle. And beneath the slip, a special little present. A bag of coke.

She squealed with delight and grabbed her phone, finding Fraser in her contacts.

Hi Fraser – I just got your gift. Thanks so much! You naughty boy;) See you soon – if you’re lucky … xxxxxxxx

She stripped and held the slip against her. It was beautiful, but she didn’t want to make it dirty by putting it on her smelly body. The tassels looked fun, though, and after working out how to attach them, she stuck them over her nipples and admired them in the mirror, laughing. What silly things. She peeled them off and put them back into the box.

She was wide awake now – well, not wide awake. She could do with a lift. Her eyes fell on the bag of coke on the bed. It was a ridiculous hour to snort coke, but it wasn’t like she had any plans for the day. She felt like taking a couple of bumps and having a bath.

She went into the bathroom – it needed redecorating, but she couldn’t be bothered with such mundane things these days, not with Clive gone. He used to take care of all that boring stuff. She turned on the taps and sat on the closed toilet, grabbing a hand mirror, which she balanced on her lap. She shook a couple of lines out of the bag. Then shook out a little more to make two fat lines.

What a star Fraser was. Maybe she’d go back and shag him again.