Bright Fires Burn Fastest Read online

  ‘Today is just the best day. Got my big promotion! Few drinkies with the girlies later on if any of ‘yoose’ is about. Bell me. S x’.

  No likes as yet.

  Sarah put the phone down and got back to her work. Like all moments feared Sarah looked back after her meeting with an air of nonchalance. She had fielded all the questions posed to her and in her score rated one to five, one being in need of help and five consistently exceeding expectations, she had scored fours across the board.

  ‘Ping’. April had liked her comment and written ‘dickhead’ underneath, charming.

  The phone vibrated again. Sarah looked and immediately shot her eyes up to the desks of her colleagues, not what she had expected.

  ‘Sarah’ it read, ‘Very impressed after today, please come and see me in my office to discuss a pay-rise’.

  Only Dicky Denton, the man himself. Sarah instantly blushed and slammed the phone back under the papers on her desk. Dicky hadn’t been in the meeting, she never saw him. Apparently he spent his time either at home in Surrey or aboard his yacht, now he wanted to see Sarah. Dicky Denton moved like the Scarlet Pimpernel, she should go now. How did he get her number? She rummaged in her handbag and pulled out her compact. She looked good but added a bit more gloss and a secret squirt of perfume below her desk.

  Sarah stood and felt dizzy. She could hear her heels click across the wooden floor and colleagues began to look up as they realised which door she was heading to.

  “Come in”, Dicky boomed from behind the thick mahogany door.

  Sarah took one last breath and stepped inside, the door easing to a shut on its own accord.

  “Well if it isn’t our own queen of the events world”, Dicky said.

  Sarah fought back the blush, “Thank you”

  Dicky wore a loud pinstripe jacket and faded jeans, his muscular frame making the pink shirt around his neck crease. His swept back hair glinted through the half cocked blinds and the green eyes measured Sarah from tit to toe, then back to her tits, oddly she didn’t mind.

  “Did you want to talk about my job?” Sarah squeaked.

  “No, no, not at all. Here”.

  Sarah took the glass full of whisky.

  “Have a drink Sarah, it’s a special day”. Dicky took a long pull and raised his hand in a gesture to say ‘its bloody rude if you don’t now’.

  Sarah felt the tumbler against her lips and took a long swig.

  “Now come on Sarah, lets have a seat’.

  Sarah aimed for the desk chair but he ushered her over to the sofa by the window. The whisky was already half gone, she liked it.

  They sat at the same time and Sarah felt tiny in this great mans presence.

  “Now Sarah”, Dicky began but he never finished.

  Sarah felt his hot breath upon her lips as he kissed her roughly, his stubble grazing. He tasted bitter, like the whisky. Her head snapped back with the force of the kiss.

  She thought at first no, she had been warned never to do this, not in London. But this was Dicky Denton. The glass fell with a bump onto the faux zebra skin rug as she raised her hand to his slicked hair and kissed him back. This was London after all.

  *

  David knew it was coming. General unpleasantness, questioning of all expense claims and finally, refusal of the last doughnut in the canteen as his food pass was no longer valid.

  “Step right this way please David”, said the secretary as she sent him towards the guillotine.

  David could not even feel the usual stab of arousal she brought with even the most fleeting of glimpses and the loose shirts she wore exposing more than a modicum of bra strap. The door shut and David pushed his glasses up on his nose.

  “David my man, please have a seat”.

  David edged forwards into the room feeling his way with his chubby hands. He located the back of the chair and sat into its hard cushions. He coughed, merely because there was nothing else to do apart from ignore the huge sense of inevitability rising in his throat.

  “Now David”, Gregory began. Greg, 32 years old and good looking in a simple kind of way with big features, like a simian. Hands like paddles, all the better for counting money and swinging a sword towards the hot dog shaped roll at the back of David’s neck. One of the new school, no school like it if that meant how easy it was to spot one of them in a crowd.

  “Its not that we don’t need you”.

  For some moments David thought his constant daydreams had taken him away for perhaps ten minutes, even a meagre five would have sufficed to sum his career up. But no, it was that direct.

  Reasons being he was no longer a real ‘ball breaker’. David wondered why breaking someone’s balls ‘literally’ could ever help. The worst thing of all was that he said nothing. Instead, David nodded like a parakeet. Yes why not fire me. Remuneration? Why bother. He had nothing.

  David remembered one thing from that conversation. He had cried and Gregory, man amongst men, had the audacity to stand up, tuck his tie into his trousers and offer David a hug. Gregory came forward from behind his desk and pretended that his phone had lost signal, holding it up facing David. David heard the camera lens click and knew that his humiliation was complete.

  David walked out of the building under the charcoal skies of yet another late September day. There was a second thing he thought but only then and truly then did he think it. He would show them, he would show them all.

  Chapter 2

  It took Lucas too long to leave, he should have gone already. Akin to his taste though, there was little point in returning home tipsy. One had already invested too much in the process of getting drunk.

  “It really is so good to meet you, how’s business?”

  ‘I don’t care’, he wanted to reply but managed a meagre nod and a grunt.

  Lucas finished what was left of his gin and tonic, the last remnants refusing to budge from under the everest of ice cubes barmen insisted on putting in drinks. He looked for her but couldn’t see her. That was a little perturbing. It wasn’t her he didn’t trust, not that he had the right to call her trust into question, it was the others.

  She was noticeable, beautiful in fact, as lame as that sounded. For someone with the habits of himself and remaining relatively distant to ‘romance’ whatever the fuck that was it had come as a shock.

  “I’m Emma”.

  “Lucas”.

  Strangely that had almost been enough, god, it read like a fucking screenplay. Of course Lucas wasn’t blind enough to think it was ‘love’ at first sight. He certainly wanted to fuck her but that was the problem, so did everyone else.

  Emma appeared to handle it though. Confident, as noted by Lucas but just that half step down from arrogant. Depending on her next long term affair though that balance could easily tip if she went out with a sheep not a wolf.

  Just his type really being naturally brunette, petit and with a look that reeked of ‘I know how you are looking at me and there is the slightest chance we might fuck like rabbits, and I am damn good at it’.

  Lucas scanned the room again as tonight she had seemed amiable. They bought each other drinks and in a matter of fact way went through the process of flirting. Perhaps both were just too long in the tooth but formality prevailed.

  Lucas hadn’t felt anything for anyone, if at all, since his ex girlfriend’s immortal last line, “You are fucking poison”.

  Confident as Lucas was, that didn’t do much for the self esteem.

  Sound advice from a friend had said ‘Some women were never meant to sleep in a bed alone.’ He hoped Emma wasn’t quite as easy, to anyone else at least.

  “Have you seen Emma?” Lucas shouted over the awfully generic and mindless R&B music blaring.

  “Thanks, thanks very much”, Lucas said in his most viperish tongue only for the barman to politely smile and bid him some kind of an evening. Embargo’s, Lots Road, what in fucks name was he doing here.

  Her absence was beginning to annoy Lucas. He was bloody horny an
d only now for her. From the moment he had thought about her last week at about 4.00am and been unable to sleep again he knew he was in trouble.

  “Oh Fuck”, had been the words to announce his great lust for the lovely Emma. Women had come, become involved and then buggered off. Not always on their terms but they were not here now and Lucas wanted somebody.

  Succumbing Lucas went topside for a cigarette. He pushed the heavy wooden door and stepped out into the night, chilly for September. His suit jacket whipped around him but he stood stock-still. He knew it was him but every nerve and sense hoped it wasn’t.

  Their kiss broke but the embrace remained. She turned that brunette head towards him.

  “Lucas?” she said shocked and surprised, unsurprisingly.

  Lucas took a deep inhale on his cigarette and let the smoke come slowly out like mist. His boss Murray stood there in his long coat with his arms locked around the shoulders of what should have been his prize, the other hand cupping that perfect arse.

  Fuck.

  Both Emma and Murray looked at each other and then back at Lucas. Lucas himself had said nothing and still done nothing but detect a look of something akin to regret on the eyes of the face of Emma that no longer looked so beautiful. Outside the club it had become a battleground not another nameless chewing gum spattered pavement in Central London.

  “Cunt”, Lucas spat.

  Both Murray and Emma reeled back.

  “Steady there”, Murray said, his pale hands only good for typing still around her neck.

  “Lucas look…” Emma began but never finished. ‘That feeling’ had gone too far. Realisation dawned on the bitch and whatever ‘might have been’ slipped away.

  “No I don’t think I will ‘steady’ Murray you prick”.

  That broke their embrace pretty quickly.

  “Take it easy Lucas. Don’t forget who you are talking to”.

  Emma stared and for a moment Lucas hoped, realised, what she had done. She had ruined everything.

  “Why, are you looking for a fight?” Murray offered, hoping that by saying the word ‘fight’ out loud Lucas would realise what he was about to do and not do it.

  “Sure.”

  “What?”

  “Fuck it, if you don’t fight me now someone else will tonight.”

  “You want to fight?”

  “Funny I used to say I didn’t give a shit if it ended. And I don’t”.

  Murray stepped forward as if to challenge.

  Quickly Lucas was on him, his right fist catching the grey haired snake just below the right eye. Murray fell back with the weight of Lucas on top of him. Lucas drew back his right fist and put two more blows into the shell shocked and splitting face.

  Emma was screaming stop and when Lucas finally did all that remained below was a mass of coat and blood. She squirmed like her clothes had shrunk.

  Lucas stumbled back his hand beginning to hurt. He looked at Emma and her cartoon tears.

  Murray got to his feet, the gash under his eye dripping claret.

  “You are fucking finished!” he yelled.

  Lucas concentrated on not shaking and reached into his pocket for a cigarette and lighter that thankfully sparked on first strike. He inhaled deeply looked at Emma then back at Murray.

  “Good”, Lucas said. “You can take your job and go fuck yourself”.

  Lucas left the scene and headed for the tube, that was now it, his path had been chosen for him.

  He turned to get a last glimpse of the not so happy couple and Murray furiously trying to get Emma into a cab with him. Roughly she shoved him off and got in a cab by herself. That made Lucas smile and that smile carried him all the way home.

  *

  Sarah let the music wash over her almost cuddling the gigantic speaker it was so busy. April and Kate were no-where to be seen but she didn’t mind, she couldn’t look them in the eye. They would know. Not exactly what had happened but they would know something had for sure.

  Friday nights with the girls were everything, her last bastion of remembering home. Sarah had moved down south after they had all graduated from the University of Birmingham, Sarah scoring the only first honours degree, April having left two years prior claiming University was one step closer to a job, therefore marriage and eventually death.

  “Sarah”, April shouted from about a foot away.

  She almost told her about Dicky Denton but stopped herself. Seconds later she was joined by Kate who had come accompanied by two men, neither of who were exactly subtle in what they had on their minds.

  “Sarah, this is…” but Kate never finished.

  “Look, I am going to head off. I have a big day tomorrow.”

  “But it’s a Saturday”, Kate slurred.

  “I know, I know but I have got lots to do”.

  Both Kate and April looked put out, not nearly as much as the taller of the two men wearing a black shirt with his gold chain visible beneath his open buttons. Infernos in Clapham never failed to deliver a pic n’ mix.

  “Look, have fun”, Sarah said with pleading eyes, she wasn’t in the mood. In fact she hadn’t been in the mood since her afternoon encounter with Dicky Denton. That had been a week ago now and he had not so much as looked at her since. Walking past her desk every day he had not even glanced down let alone tried to repeat any of the dizzying feats of passion. Every time he walked past, her heart lurched but to no avail, he had ignored her.

  Outside it was bitter, autumn had the country in its grip. Sarah felt Dicky’s hold on her was slipping, it had only been about the fuck, how London.

  Her scarf did little against the gusts and she looked up at the hazy red sign that read ’11 minutes’. Night busses were the epitome of the saying about busses.

  “Hello?” Sarah answered carefully, it was an unknown number.

  There was a pause, “Sarah, its Dicky”.

  The wind seemed not so strong, the wait for the bus irrelevant.

  “Sarah?” Dicky’s strong tone commanded on the line.

  “Hi”, Sarah whispered.

  “Look, sorry I have been so distant. Work you know, gossipers and everything.”

  “Its fine, its fine”, Sarah replied too hurriedly.

  There was a pause in which Sarah could swear she heard Dicky smile though that seemed impossible.

  “Look, Sarah, I want to make it up to you. Where are you?”

  Sarah thought for a few moments. Countless times she had heard the phrase ‘booty call’, but this was Dicky. He had called her and he didn’t sound that drunk. Perhaps he really was that cautious at work, he was the boss after all. And she had missed him.

  “I am in Clapham, by the common”.

  “Let me guess”, Dicky laughed, “Infernos?”

  “Yes but I didn’t choose it”, Sarah said defensively.

  “I’m sure, I’m sure. Look I should be there in about ten minutes. Go and find somewhere warm to wait”.

  “Oh…ok”, Sarah said timidly. He hadn’t even offered her a choice. Maybe he knew that there was little point, she would have waited all night.

  “Excellent. Will be in touch”, and he hung up.

  Sarah took a deep breath It was that time of approaching winter when winter didn’t seem that bad. There was Halloween, fireworks night and of course Christmas.

  It actually took Dicky about eleven minutes to reach her and the bus remained nowhere to be seen. Sarah heard him before she saw him. The roar of the sports car boomed through the fast deserting streets. The yellow streetlight reflected off the bonnet of the silver bullet and there he sat at the wheel.

  “Sorry I am late”, Dicky said tossing a cigarette from between his teeth to the pavement. He let the smoke slowly curl up his strong jaw and past his inspecting eyes.

  “Don’t be silly, thank you so much for coming to get me”. Coming to get me? Sarah regretted that. On the one hand she sounded like a schoolgirl being picked up from geography and on the other it implied she would be dropped off at the ot
her end, which she really didn’t want.

  “Well get in!” Dicky said.

  She hopped round to the other side of the car and opened the heavy door. Before she had even closed it the car sped away into the night.

  “Where are we heading?” Sarah said feeling the warmth of the seats and the general tension in the air. She looked across at his muscular profile and felt a tingle run through her. Booty call or not this seemed to be exactly what she wanted right now.

  “Mine silly”, Dicky replied.

  Dicky’s house was in Wandsworth but the posh side. There was a little parade of shops spanning either side of where his flat was. A few doors down drunkards lingered around a vast pub called The Alma.

  Sarah was ushered inside to the sparse but beautifully decorated house, it was like a spread from a catalogue. There was the obligatory Nespresso machine in the kitchen but not much else, the rest being hidden behind stainless steel cabinets.

  “Here”, Dicky said handing her a glass.

  She was left wondering around the room, Dicky was somewhere in the vast labyrinth of the apartment. Huey Lewis and the News blared out as she hit play on the Bose sound system by mistake.

  “Guess I am a bit hip to be square”, Dicky said from not a foot away from Sarah’s left ear. Within a second he had swung her round and kissed her roughly on the mouth. He tasted as always, like last time, of ash and whisky.

  Clothes tumbled to the polished floor and with ease Dicky popped Sarah’s bra exposing her hard nipples. Eagerly he began to lick and bite, his erection pressing her inside leg. Sarah closed her eyes and let the music and his wet mouth engulf her. He moved down and she dug her nails into the back of his long hair pulling him into her.

  She returned the favour and they fucked on the floor. She came just as his powerful shoulders engulfed her and he shuddered with a final groan.

  “If you want to stay over you have to be gone early” Dicky said quickly lighting a cigarette.

  “Ok”, Sarah said meekly.