Bright Fires Burn Fastest Read online

  “Yes” he said again at his reflection in the mirror. Yes was all he had to say.

  Sarah’s phone buzzed, it was early. She had been up for two hours already, been for a run, had breakfast and expertly manicured her vagina before tonight. Dicky and her, their three-month anniversary.

  Sarah read the message and laughed. Dicky loved that corset. They had bought it in Agent Provocateur on Brewer Street in Soho a week before. Even Sarah had to admit it made her look good.

  She replied, ‘You will have to wait and see’.

  Life was good for Sarah. Her work had never been better, she had pulled in a cocktail party for fifty people all on her own. Dicky had been so impressed he had given her head on the top of his desk.

  Dicky and her were exceptional. Her friends hadn’t forgiven her but she had made new ones, better ones.

  London was getting both bigger and smaller every day. With every sunrise she learnt something new about the great city and promised to do it but with every sunset she found she had gone only to the same places with the same people.

  That was London though, it took time to see it all.

  Sarah had tonight to look forward to. Dinner in Sketch then back to Dicky's where he had ‘surprises for her’.

  Dicky arrived as usual about ten minutes behind Sarah at the restaurant. This was due to ‘the implications for both of us if any colleagues ‘saw’ as Dicky had put it.

  Sarah had ordered a Pouilly Fume, now one of her favorites. Her pallet had improved somewhat. Sarah always premeditated Dicky’s entrance for a split second, she could smell the liberal amounts of aftershave behind her. Not that she would dare say, but she hated it.

  “Baby”, Dicky whispered in her ear, his hand brushing the inside of her thigh.

  Sarah felt herself react.

  “Let’s eat, I’m famished” he said. Sarah let Dicky take her hand and usher her to the table.

  “Barman, bring the drinks”, he said over his shoulder. That was Dicky’s way, always that tone.

  Course followed course and glass followed glass. Dicky liked a drink but he was plying Sarah with wine. She never got below half way before he topped her up. She had light food, aware of the corset she had on underneath her very rippable black dress. Tuna ceviche, sea bream and just an espresso.

  Dicky was the model man and date. Polite, charming and intent on seeing how Sarah was. Perhaps this would be the night they made it ‘official’. She loved being on his arm but it was high time people knew. She had sworn not to mention it to family, friends and certainly not colleagues.

  Three months was long enough for this man to know truly whether he wanted her. That was it. That’s what the surprise was, that’s why he was being so good. He was going to make them official. Dicky and Sarah, who would have thought it. Dreams did come true in London after all.

  After dinner Sarah’s pulse was vibrating against her neck. Partly due to the constant touching of her throughout dinner by Dicky, secondly, the moment was approaching when she and Dicky would be one, to the world.

  The door opened with a smooth creak into Dicky’s apartment. Sarah had been here many times before, countless. It felt different, it felt like they had a future.

  Dicky went through the usual routine of pouring whisky though Sarah couldn’t have cared less. He walked over to her and handed her the glass.

  “Did you wear it?” he said bluntly.

  “Yes…”

  “Good, now I want you to listen to me.”

  “Ok”, Sarah said taking now a gulp not a sip of the drink, this was not how she expected the proposition to go.

  “You have to trust me,” Dicky said.

  Sarah relaxed, this was better.

  “You know I care for you, you know how much I want you”.

  Sarah was almost giggling she felt so happy.

  And then Dicky’s face changed. The left corner of his mouth raised up and his face darkened.

  He stepped towards her and with hands grasping at her dress straps ripped the material down to her waist. It tore in such a way that Sarah’s arms were pinned against her back. The glass fell to the floor, bounced and rolled under the sofa they had fucked on so many times.

  “You are going to beg me,” Dicky said hoisting Sarah over his shoulder.

  Sarah came to her senses, “Dicky, what are you playing at?” She tried to laugh but she wasn’t sure it was all that funny.

  “Lie back”, Dicky spat as he threw her onto the bed.

  “What?” Sarah said struggling against the material tying her arms back. The corset slipped loose and one of her breasts was exposed. Dicky leapt onto the bed and attacked it.

  “Dicky stop it!”

  “Shut up”.

  From behind his back he pulled a pair of tights, hers in fact from a previous night and secured them around her mouth. Muffled cries were all that was heard apart from Dicky’s belt being unbuckled.

  Sarah’s eyes widened as the first crack of leather on skin smacked around the apartment.

  Tears filled her eyes as the second strike hit her across her left thigh.

  Dicky pushed Sarah back as she struggled and handcuffed one of her hands to the bed. With his free hand he went to her.

  Sarah had never felt so controlled, so much at someone’s mercy.

  His scent was strong as his chest rubbed against her gagged mouth. Roughly he began to tug at her dress.

  Again the belt hit her, this time across her bottom and she cried into the now wet tights from her saliva.

  Dicky managed to hoist her dress up.

  His trousers were loosely pulled down around his knees when he entered her. Sarah’s arms were going numb tied up behind her and she was struggling to breathe through the tights.

  “Mmmwwm”, she moaned as Dicky began to move faster.

  “Fuck….”, he said.

  Sarah herself felt a tickling which became an overwhelming vibration as her hips bucked against Dicky.

  “Fuck….oh fuck”, Dicky gasped. His hands held her shoulders down and he arched his back up tugging her hips onto him.

  “Fuck…Julie, Julie….fuck”, Dicky spat out with his eyes looking at the ceiling.

  Sarah stopped moving at once as Dicky came to a gradual halt and rolled off her.

  She lay there in the cold, her arms still trussed up. A tear rolled down her face and she hid it from Dicky. He picked up his drink, took a gulp then undid the tights around her mouth.

  “Well fuck me Sarah, fuck me indeed. You were amazing.”

  “Uh-huh”, she said, holding back tears.

  Dicky sat her up and undid her arms that immediately began going numb as the blood rushed back into them.

  “You crying?” Dicky said roughly, standing and finishing his drink.

  “Dicky”, Sarah said, biting her lip to try and hold back tears.

  “Who is Julie?” Sarah said quietly.

  “What was that?” Dicky said, his voice staccato.

  “You said Julie when you came.”

  “Really? Don’t think so”.

  “Dicky I am not a fucking idiot, I know what you said.”

  “Right”.

  Moments passed and silence engrossed.

  “Well?” Sarah eventually said.

  “Look, she was an old flame. To be honest, she was the last girl who let me tie her up…and….well maybe it just came back to me.”

  Sarah nodded.

  “Look, I am so sorry, it wont happen again ok?”

  Sarah nodded again. Something had snapped. She loved this man, or thought she did, but tonight had not turned out at all like she planned. Dark thoughts entered her head, how exactly had their love been consensual?

  Sarah wondered what this Julie girl looked like. Prettier than her? More giving? Was she a better fuck?

  Dicky walked over to her and kissed her on the cheek. It was cold, there was no feeling.

  “Well then, shall I call you a cab?” Dicky said.

  Sarah let the tear rol
l down her cheek for him to see, crossed the room and left the apartment. In the darkness she found a cab and finally let herself succumb to the humiliation she had just endured. She had to find out who this Julie was, she would follow Dicky, she would follow him everywhere.

  Chapter 6

  “What you up to later? X”

  Lucas looked at the screen on his cracked i-phone. There she was. April had the ability to disappear, like he did. Part of the reason no doubt he found her so alluring. They had been on two ‘dates’ if you could call them that.

  Clearly they wanted each other, but something just didn’t make it right. Situations of the like that naturally arose between a young duo just hadn’t.

  Currently Lucas was ‘on a break’ from his new part time work behind one of the many generic bars in London. Bored of sitting at home drinking he thought he would get a job where he was paid and could still drink, for free. Also, he was bored of the pornography he watched. When this happened, it was time to do something different.

  The manager had been surprised to read that someone who had ‘worked’ at La Gavroche and run The Viper Rooms in L.A would want a simple bar job. All lies of course but the manager who seemed to drink even more than Lucas, quite a feat, was left unaware.

  Work was easy, shifts started at 4.00pm every day and he was done after a hashed attempt at cleaning by midnight. This work, as well as paying a whopping £9.00 an hour allowed him to surround himself with his two favorite substances. Booze and women.

  Conversations he could also bend to his will just to pass the time. Subjects ranged from telling people he was an illegal immigrant and paid for his job in sexual favors to the boss to how he was once an astronaut but had gotten bored of the whole ‘space’ thing. He chuckled when they told their friends then were gobsmacked there was no mention of this on Google. People, so self obsessed they believed anything.

  It had been over a week since he had gotten properly drunk, merely heavily tipsy which allowed him some kind of functionality and besides, the smell of stale beer made his stomach flip at work if he was properly hung-over. April’s text couldn’t have come at a better time. Tomorrow was Sunday, the day off.

  “Looking for trouble”, he replied.

  “Good, as am I. You should know now that I charge for my company so bring your wallet”, she had replied almost instantly.

  “Not with how good I am at certain things,” he had duly responded.

  “Is that because your so needy?”

  “Find out for yourself. Tonight, Gordon’s wine bar. 8pm”

  “Fine”.

  Lucas laughed as the last inhale of cigarette burnt both his finger and his lungs. Why did some of them do that? That was a good text conversation. Tonight, surely, would be the night.

  Back inside with an hour on his shift left to go Lucas filled up his Diet Coke can with rye whisky and some Cointreau, a poor mans old fashioned.

  Three down and he felt light headed by the time he got home. He trimmed his pubic hair with some nail scissors, which was not neat but satisfactory. No girl wanted to go down on wolverine. Lighting a cigarette and opening a piss weak Peroni, only because he had nothing else, he called The Hat, his drug dealer.

  “Sup”, The Hat answered, his accent somewhere between Harlem, Compton and Croydon.

  “Sup homes”, Lucas said back trying not to laugh.

  “Allll’s good, what you after?”

  “Two tickets to the show. A-level shit please, got someone to impress. My house, here within 40.”

  “Dat be tough man. Can do an hour.”

  “Fine but no later”.

  “Sure, sure” and The Hat hung up.

  Lucas smiled and toasted the painting he was almost complete with. The white marching powder was marching its way to him and hopefully, if they did enough, the gateway to April.

  Reaching behind him he pressed play on his oversized sound system, Lynrd Skinner ‘Free Bird’ for four minutes until the crescendo then skipped to Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Black Magic Woman’. As the base line got going he put on a clean shirt, two tones deliberately to piss April off, a smoking jacket and loose fitting jeans.

  After another two beers and two fags The Hat arrived and their deal was struck. Within seconds of the door closing behind The Hat, Lucas unwrapped the bent up lottery ticket.

  The Charlie was heavily granulated but his Oyster Card made light work of any issues and after a quick shotgun he was out the door.

  The noise of Gordon’s hit him as he went downstairs into its caves. The smell of wine filled him and he saw April waiting.

  “Late fucker”, she said turning.

  “Sorry” Lucas shouted, deliberately loudly to wake up the tourists, “I was picking up some drugs”.

  A few of them reacted, one Japanese couple making a woof of disregard.

  Lucas bought two bottles of Fat Bastard red, took April’s hand and made his way to a table at the very back of the bunker where water dripped off the stone ceilings. It was damn busy so he squeezed onto the table with three middle aged men comparing how fucked they were if there was a ‘triple dip recession’.

  Lucas whispered to April, “Word of advice, if we use the word cunt enough they will leave”.

  “Fine cunt”, April nearly shouted.

  She really was stunning, her blonde hair half tied up behind her slender neck. She wore a lot of eye shadow and mascara but pulled it off. It was purple and green and shimmered under the candlelight. At the corners she had flicked it up, letting the make up overrun that made her look like a Sphinx, a sphinx he didn’t want to be silent.

  “I have something to show you when we get back to mine”, Lucas said. They were on the second bottle.

  “Oh really? What’s that?”

  “A painting”.

  “Christ you’re cheesy. Is it of me? It had better be.”

  Lucas remembered who he was dealing with and only laughed into his glass, “Maybe”.

  “Soppy twat”.

  Lucas straightened his leg out and brushed April’s. She let her leg press against his and ran her heel up the back of his calf before laughing lightly and licking her lips.

  April took a long time in the bathroom and when Lucas went upstairs after he saw why. The girl was a damn hoover. Her eyes had widened, as had her flirtation.

  “So what have you been up to?” Lucas asked.

  “Oh, being an escort”.

  Something pinged in Lucas at that. He had no right to, but that annoyed him. Someone else had been looking at her exactly as he was looking at her now.

  “You want to be careful with that,” he said bluntly.

  “I can take care of myself”.

  Something though still nagged at Lucas. He didn’t like it, not one bit.

  He finished his wine in one gulp, “Shall we get out of here?”

  “Very forward of you”.

  “Come on, I want to show you the painting.”

  April took a last sip of her wine and looked at Lucas square in the eye. She knew he liked her, he liked her too but hardened by others she certainly wasn’t going to make it easy. Lucas checked his phone and saw he had four missed calls from David, he could wait.

  “Ok” she said and picked up her bag, “Let’s see this masterpiece.”

  Lucas stood and let her walk past taking in her scent. Perfume, shampoo, wine and cigarettes. She was a goddess.

  *

  There once was a man called David who started going to the gym. He became insane, turned anorexic and starved himself to death.

  That’s what he was thinking when he donned his old tuxedo and looked at his skeletal face in the mirror of his front room. A version of something that once was, a faded broken version.

  For the first time since this began he started to see what others had. Muscle definition had gone, he was now a bones. Skin stretched over his features and he looked ill, seriously ill.

  Today he had to face the music, which now was harder than it ever had been before
. Previously, being fat, unloved and average he could disappear into the crowd. No one spoke to him unless they happened to bump into him in a doorway.

  Now though people stared, people pointed and he couldn’t disappear. Apart from the gym, the Sainsbury’s low fat food section and his house he didn’t go out. Ever.

  Today he had to go to the black tie ‘official’ engagement party for his cousin whom he had hoped he had been so rude to previously would have uninvited him. Him being the only living relative of her made it unavoidable.

  If he retained the energy to cry he would have. He mustn’t cry.

  “Here he comes”, Gloria said with little tact.

  David held his head high as at least six people surrounding the warthog stood and stared.

  “Davvviiid”, she proclaimed loudly. “Come and say hello”.

  “Hello”, he said coming to a stop and fighting back a head rush.

  “This is ‘the gang’, the tennis gang of sexy south west.”

  “They have been dying to meet you, to learn your little secret you skinny rascal.”

  David sighed, nearly cried but instead decided to finish his champagne in one long swallow. “Run more, eat less”.

  The girls all giggled until they realized that wasn’t the beginning of a tale, it was the sum total. One of them shifted uncomfortably and actually let out an ‘errr’ noise.

  Gloria scowled and had David not been scared she would eat him decided to move on into the melee. He passed countless people in tight bunches guffawing, slurping drinks and devouring canapés which would have to have at least 175 calories in each one, possibly even 200, not to mention the saturates.

  Pulling out his phone his eyes glazed over and David realized something was wrong. He called Lucas, he could have done with a friend more than ever. The general din was making David feel woozy. His heart started beating quickly and he leaned against a mushroom heater to support himself. His eyes flickered and all he saw was black spots. Shaking his head he focused again. He wanted to cry so much. He mustn’t cry. He spotted one girl who looked as alone as him and he made his way towards her. He circulated around the outside of the pool and chanced to look down.