It's About Obsession (Cont'd)

Watchman & Cath UK

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1: After Dark

Passing time was easy for Christopher. He was used to jogging anonymously through city streets, or driving his car in random patterns through the traffic. He could put his mind on standby, a pale red light waiting to be activated at the appropriate moment. It paid to be that way if you wanted to remain unnoticed, to blend with crowd. This last was literal: it was part of his job.

Right now, it was time to switch back on. He pulled the car into a vacant parking bay outside the Atlantic restaurant. The air was clear; it was a frosty mid-February evening. Inside the restaurant’s bay windows, he could see couples laughing and talking. He smiled to himself; by this stage of the contract, everything was in place. He was only there to see that everything passed off smoothly. 

Tie up the loose ends. Dot the I’s and cross the T’s. 

He shifted in his seat as he watched a young couple leave the restaurant. The man, dressed smartly in a pale suit, shepherded a statuesque redhead towards a waiting taxi. They passed by his car and, just for a split second, the man seemed to register his presence. There was a flicker of annoyance, a small creasing of the forehead, as though the man did not like to be reminded he was not operating on his own. It troubled the vanity and the ego, needing assistance to capture a partner. Christopher suppressed a wry smile. He wondered if the woman had noticed the brief exchange. He doubted it; she appeared halfway towards being drunk. As if confirming his suspicion, she stumbled slightly on the edge of the kerb and then slid gratefully into the backseat of the cab. The man in the suit squeezed in beside her and closed the door.

Twenty minutes later, the taxi had deposited its two occupants at a house in the suburbs of north London. Christopher had followed them and was waiting in a side road, watching the black cab reverse and then drive off to search out another fare. He timed sixty seconds on his watch and then gently manoeuvred his own car into a space a few doors down the street from where the couple had alighted. The road was empty, but there were lights still on in about half the houses. Opposite where he’d parked, a cat sat watching from an empty driveway. Its eyes glowed in the dark as they passed in his direction and then moved on.

From the glove compartment, Christopher pulled out what looked like a standard mobile phone. He peeled off the leather cover and pulled out a thin metal aerial. A simple keypad code activated the device. In place of the standard mouthpiece, there was a tiny speaker system. He thumbed a dial on the back until he could pick up a clear signal. 

Suddenly, voices filled out the silence.

‘I still wonder about the mentality of people like that. I suppose it must’ve been kids. Honestly, it makes you wonder...’

‘There are some bad people in this city.’

‘God, tell me about it. I think I’ve dated most of them.’

‘A beautiful woman like you needs someone to protect them.’

‘Hmm, I’ve always fantasized about finding a knight in shinning armour.’

‘Well I guess it was lucky for both of us that I was there to help you out that day.’

‘And you brought orchids along for our first date. My absolute favourites! I can’t imagine how you could’ve known.’

‘Ah, just call it male intuition...’

Christopher stifled a yawn, and allowed the conversation to wash over him. He felt relaxed; a satisfactory conclusion had been reached. Outside, the cat was moving down the street, searching out new prey. He felt an odd affinity with the feline population; they seemed to have a lot in common. Watchful, alert, taking everything in but generally passing by unnoticed... natural skills for them, skills he’d had to practice and hone over time.

He sat back in the car, listening now to the sound of two young people making love. All around him the London skyline glistened in the night. His work here was over. He reached out to switch off the scanner, his hand hovering reluctantly above the dial. For the last two months he’d been a pivotal, if unseen, part of this relationship. Now his role was finished. They would precede to develop from friends to lovers, maybe even to marry and have children, all without him.

And then he held back for a moment. He wanted to share in their intimacy for just a few more seconds.


2: Only the Lonely

A Sunday night, or rather Monday morning, 1 a.m. Somewhere in the city, a young woman was kissing her lover passionately, telling herself that perhaps he might have been The One she'd been waiting for her whole life, had he not been married. A small boy was pulling the covers on his bed tighter, memories of the strange nightmare that had woken him still vivid in his head. Somewhere in Battersea, a cat in heat was yowling in a window, oblivious to its owner's groans and the pillows chucked in its general direction.

The sky was clear, not a single filet of grey obscuring the smiling crescent of the moon as it looked down on London's ever buzzing, ever living expanse.

Vanessa was finishing a glass of Chardonnay, giggling over the true confessions section of Cosmo. She was wearing a cucumber, rosehip and apricot mask and had to keep it on for fifteen more minutes before she could wash it off and go to bed.

Christopher was sleeping soundly. It had been a long workday; he had spent most of it diligently tracking the whereabouts of one Nicola Ramsbottom through Chelsea in the hopes of learning more about her in order to please an affected older man who desperately wanted to get her into bed. He was dreaming about eating cherries, something he hadn't done for years, and the sweet juice he imagined beneath his closed lids tasted of cherished memories of childhood summers spent abroad.

And Guy... Guy was indulging in one of the few pleasures he allowed himself in the tight confines of his rather drab, grey existence. He was reading way past his bedtime- something he'd done since he was a young boy, his eyes flitting between the page and the door even now, as if his long-gone mother might walk in at any moment and tell him to turn out the light because he'd be tired for school the next day unless he got some rest.

Guy knew he'd be tired, but he didn't care. He was enjoying his book, something he had picked up haphazardly on the 3-for-2 tablet in Waterstone's- "Chocolat," by Joanne Harris. He'd heard about the movie, but hadn't been to see it despite being very fond of Juliette Binoche. This book- which he had been surprised into liking- combined with the illicit feeling associated to his quasi-rebellion in staying up so late was making him feel happy and good inside.

He couldn't quite make out why he should feel so content at that precise moment. It was a dark, velvety pleasure, the type other men would get from a secretive but most satisfying affair. It was the way the author strung words together, perfect creations of diary-clusters and images. It was the way feelings were drawn out of him despite his efforts to remain impassive. Everything in him seemed to vibrate in response as he lay, naked under the covers, reading on and on.

And then, suddenly, it was like a wave crashing over him. All the emotion, all the hurt a fleur de peau, it became too much and, like the proverbial drop that made the glass overflow, a tear escaped that soon turned into a torrent. Only for a reason Guy couldn't quite understand, it wasn't the character's hurt he was feeling but a blinding pain of his own. It surprised him the way cars coming at him out of nowhere off side streets sometimes did: with unexpected, dizzying speed. His chest was heaving and the sobs were tearing at his throat, loud, ungainly rasps of a humanity too real to be reviled. His face closed like a fist, and he let the book drop to the floor as he cradled his head in his hands. 

"Lonely," he whispered. "Going nowhere. I can't, I can't- why can I never ...”

Senseless, incoherent babbling that would have made no sense to anyone but Guy, had he not been swept away in this sudden, overwhelming rush of self-pity. Yes, he was lonely, but he usually fooled himself into thinking he wasn't. There was his work, which was going nowhere fast. There was his novel, which never ran much further than a few lines, and even those remained locked in a secret place inside his mind. There were his friends, a handful, but with whom he remained so aloof that they had never had any real sense of intimacy. And then, there was love. Or rather, there wasn't.

He knew that had been the key, setting his inner demons loose. The novel he'd been reading had been filled with it, and despite appearances, Guy had always been an old-style romantic at heart. He genuinely did long for love, but then he really had no idea how to go about it. He had fantasies sometimes, a sense of how his life might progress, of people he longed to meet. Recently, there’d been a captivating blonde woman he often watched walking past his office window. He’d wasted many an hour daydreaming over who she might be, in what circumstances their lives might intersect. But that was all she was – a dream, a figure no more real than those in the book he’d been reading. If only he could’ve touched her now, held her in his arms...

Guy shivered and tried to marshal his thoughts again. The miasma of feelings was best set aside if he was to function and be an upstanding, productive member of society. But in the evenings, when the bright glare of artificial office lighting was left behind and he was cradled in the comfortable, soothing shadows of his flat, it seemed there was nowhere to hide. The three starkly furnished rooms, with their white paint and expensive rugs, seemed to be as devoid of personality as he felt to be. He liked the place, but he didn't love it. For how can you love, how can you feel for something that looks respectable and filled with promise on the outside, but whose interior is empty and generic?

Guy doubled over again with a fresh wave of bitter, stinging tears. His head was pounding and his throat was clenched so tightly that he had trouble breathing. A sharp cry of anguish passed from his lips only to be swallowed by the silence of the empty flat.

After a while, his pain ebbed. He stopped fighting, exhausted, and at last he regained a semblance of control as the sorrow began to fade like a bad dream that had caught him unaware. His face felt hot and flushed, his nose congested, leaving him feeling hollow as he gasped in air through his mouth. He reached over to his night table for a tissue, and when he had wiped away the humidity and cleared his passages, he felt better. He felt cleansed.

He picked up the book again, flipping rapidly through several pages as though they’d been written in a foreign language. “How strange,” he mused. “I can’t imagine why I ever bought the thing.”

He pushed the covers back and got up, walking naked through his flat to the bathroom. He emptied his bladder and brushed his teeth, staring in surprised incomprehension at his reddened eyes and puffy lids. He splashed cold water onto his face, and was delighted at how good it felt.

Quickly making his way back to bed, he snuck under the warm covers and turned off his light. Seven minutes later, he was asleep.

2:00 a.m. The cat in Battersea hopped off the windowsill, the crazed, almost kinetic charge it felt flowing through it leaving it restless and unfulfilled. The little boy was hidden under his covers, breathing softly now, as he finally found himself submerged in pleasant dreams. The young woman was crying, hunched on a lonely strip of pavement, her mind awash with dashed hopes as she shivered in the cold, crisp night air.

When Guy woke up the next morning, startled by his alarm clock's unrelenting buzzing, he genuinely didn't understand why his pillow was damp.


3: Manic Monday

Vanessa groaned. She wasn’t getting any work done, though in all fairness, it wasn’t exactly her fault. There were these sounds drifting through her door, keeping her on pins and needles. Explosive sounds. Delicious sounds. 

Sneeze sounds.

Though partially obstructed by the door, they were still extremely lush. Whoever the afflicted woman was, she was making a production out of them, letting them crash and roll like thundering waves. They always came in threes, and then there would be a four or five minute pause between each series.

In short, it was driving her up a wall.

Vanessa forced herself to try and concentrate. Her boss, Mr Thomas, had asked her to prepare a series of forms for a standard customer mailing. There were lots of staples to be removed, lots of pages to be photocopied, and then lots of staples to be inserted anew. She’d be losing at least two thousand brain cells before the day was over. And if that woman didn’t stop sneezing anytime soon, she just might lose two thousand extra.

She picked up a document, forcing herself to look at its pages and translate them from PR-speak to English in her mind. She’d just gotten through an entire paragraph when outside her office, the soft sounds started again.

“Ihhiiitchoo!... Hiiitchh!... Iiiaatcchhooo!”

Vanessa snapped. She threw the papers down on her desk, pushed her chair back roughly and stalked out of her office. She was a woman on a mission: to find that sneezing person, march right up to her, and... well, she’d figure the latter part when she got there.

Vanessa’s eyes scoured the rows of cubicles and the doors to the other shut offices. A couple of people waved at her, but she pretended to be too absorbed to see them. Her eyes were flitting back and forth, picking out boxes of Kleenexes on table surfaces, slightly reddened noses, telltale signs that some woman out there was suffering through a cold or an allergy attack.

Nothing. All Kleenex boxes seemed to belong to perfectly healthy people. The only red nose was on David Burt- the sad git from accounts- and everyone knew he only had one because he was a close chum of Johnnie Walker’s. As for an allergy attack- how could anyone suffer one of those in one of Kensington’s most meticulously clean, sterile offices? 

She was about to cry out from sheer frustration when all of a sudden, the sneezing started up again.

“Hiiaatch!”

Vanessa almost felt her ears prickle and rotate towards the sound. It was coming from her left.

“Aaatsshoooo!”

There, from about ten metres down. She walked very fast, hoping for another sneeze. Who’s office was it coming from? “Oh please God,” she prayed, “just one more sneeze...”

Someone up above heard her.

“Hhiiiisssshooo!”

Vanessa stopped dead in front of a shut door. There was no mistaking it- that was where the sounds were coming from. That last sneeze had been so loud it had almost made the door rattle.

She looked at the plaque: “Sally Blake, P.A. to Mr Gerald Vaughn”.

Vanessa licked her lips and smiled. It had been a long time since she’d sat down for a chat with Sally. She slowly raised her hand and knocked on the door.

“C’m’in!” a voice said on the other side.

Vanessa entered, and any residual doubts remaining about the sneezes’ origin promptly dissolved. There were wadded up tissues everywhere, and  a faint aroma of sickness and throat lozenges hung in the air. Sally herself looked dreadful- whereas she was normally a pretty, pixyish blonde that could have given Vanessa a run for her money in terms of attracting glances from the company’s males, she was clearly very much under the weather.

Sally’s normally bright blue eyes seemed dull and glazed, red veins standing out in sharp contrast to the dark, bruised looking flesh underneath. The unnatural flush of her cheeks was brought out further by her swollen, raw-looking nose. Clearly, she’d been doing a lot of sneezing and blowing over the weekend, and Vanessa couldn’t help feeling sorry for her.

Almost.

“Hey Sally, you all right?”

“Oh gawd!” Sally rolled her eyes. “I’m so ill... I’d have stayed home today, but Vaughn said he wanted me to have all the data from the Solestra account prepared for his afternoon meeting. I don’t know what I’m going to do- I can’t even seem to think!”

As if to illustrate her point, Sally grabbed a tissue out of the nearly empty box of mansized in front of her and blew her nose. Her entire face looked pinched as she delivered wave after wave of gurgling blows. By the sound of it, Vanessa guessed there was probably a good half-pint of snot being poured in there, and she couldn’t help a shudder.

When she was done at last, Sally looked up and gave a congested sniffle. Her nose, bright red before, was now positively glowing. Vanessa couldn’t help but think it was a wonder Sally hadn’t blown it straight off.

“Ugh,” Sally groaned. “I don’t know what I’m going to do... But yeah Vee, it’s been a while since I’ve seen you. What can I do for you? Does Thomas need anything off Vaughn?”

Vanessa shrugged. She wasn’t sure what Sally could do for her either. 

“I... uh...”

Fortunately, at that second, Sally’s earnest expression dissolved and seemed to fold in on itself. In a flash, she plucked another mansized from the box and brought it to her face. She did it just in time, too.

“HhhiiiIIITTSSH!... Iiiitssh!... IiiiaaaTTSHOOO!”

When she was done, Sally looked like she was about to faint. Vanessa blessed her, but the other could do little more than nod in acknowledgement as she- incredibly enough- expelled another wave of mucus into her tissue.

Vanessa used the interruption to come up with a plausible reason for barging in on her colleague. “Sally dear, I was really just popping in to, um, ask you a quick question about this account Mr Thomas asked me to file some stuff on, but... Look, tell you what- I’ve really not got that much to do today, so...” Vanessa gave herself a mental kick- she was already overloaded, and would have to stay after hours to make up for what she was about to do. “Well, if it’s okay with you, maybe I could stay here for a couple of hours and help you with your work. I know the Solestra account fairly well; Thomas had asked me to help him with parts of it. I’m sure between the two of us, we could get your work done fairly quickly, and then if you like, you might be able to go home early.”

Sally’s eyes were shining, and she was looking at Vanessa as though the other woman were an angel descended from Heaven.

“Oh, would you?” Sally asked in a tone of almost ridiculous relief. “Vee, that would be wonderful. Yes, I could really use some help. You’re such a sweetheart to be offering to do this. A true star.”

“Yes, well,” Vanessa shrugged. “My pleasure.”

Sally’s gratitude made Vanessa feel a surge of guilt. She really wasn’t as altruistic as all that- in fact, if Sally hadn’t been sneezing her head off all morning, Vanessa would never have offered to share her workload. But then, the prospect of being locked in a room with her for hours, hearing her sneezes over and over again, was just too appealing to pass up. She wouldn’t have said she was really into women ‘that way’, but a sneeze was a sneeze, and Sally’s were definitely nothing to- pardon the horrible but accurate pun- sneeze at.

“So, shall we get started?” Vanessa asked.

Sally set about showing her what she was trying to achieve, and Vanessa took everything in. It was amazing how now that she had a purpose, it was incredibly easy to focus. Far from being a distraction, Sally’s frequent sneezes only got her more keyed up. In fact, after an hour’s effort, Vanessa had almost completed her half of the work.

Fortunately, Sally was having more trouble getting into it than she was. Her cold was really dragging her down, making her brain slow and sluggish, and so Vanessa had full leisure to observe and enjoy. Hearing Sally release sneeze after sneeze at regular intervals was getting her so hot and bothered that she could hardly stand it. 

Her labia felt thick and swollen, and she could feel the rich moisture gathering in her knickers like sweet, sticky honey. She wondered whether Sally would notice, but then thought it was really highly improbable. She was so out of it because of her cold that Vanessa thought it was a wonder she was able to function well enough to do anything besides cough, blow and sneeze.

Oh, but she did the last so well... It was a delight to watch her sweet little face crinkle, her eyes shutting tightly as she pursed her lips in a tight “oh” shape. She’d often grab tissues but didn’t always have time, and the sneezes that snuck up on her always bent her double. Though she felt vaguely guilty for enjoying Sally’s misery so much, it was getting her unbelievably excited. If only there was some way she could stick her hand down the front of her skirt without the other woman noticing... but of course, there wasn’t.

Her sex felt so hot, so heavy. She could feel her lower lips, plump and pouting, rubbing against the silky fabric of her underwear, and it was all she could do not to moan as she watched Sally pause on the way to the filing cabinet, raising her hands in front of her face before letting loose with three harsh, wet sneezes.

“HhhiiAASHooo!... Haasssshhhoo!... HiiiaaTSHH!”

Vanessa felt a low clench down below, something akin to the hard grinding of a difficult gear change. She’d never experienced something this intense before- it was as if hot lava was coursing through her veins, making every inch of her feel alive and throbbing. In her heightened state of arousal, she couldn’t stop her hands trembling as she knelt on the floor, sorting through stacks of dull manila files. She prayed Sally would only think her cheeks were flushed because it was hot in the room, and wouldn’t realise just how excited all the sneezing was getting her. Really, she was being ridiculous, but oh! Vanessa couldn’t remember the last time she’d been this aroused.

And then, with Vanessa still trembling from her previous sneezes, Sally turned towards her colleague and gave a strangled little, “ooh, shit!”

Her eyelids fluttered, her lips trembled, and she looked dreadfully uncomfortable as she clutched a pile of folders. The urgent need to sneeze again was plastered across her features, but with her hands full, Sally couldn’t even begin to reach for the tissue she so desperately needed.

 Fascinated, Vanessa watched a small bubble of snot form in Sally’s left nostril as the other tipped her head back in preparation. She felt her sex give another slow, definitive clench. How hot the room was; Vanessa didn’t want to look down to check, but she suddenly felt as if she were coated in an oily sheen of sweat.

And that’s when it happened. Sally’s trembling lips froze in an almost panicked grimace as her chin rose up higher. Her fingers dug into the folders as, still facing Vanessa, she snapped forward with a loud,

“HiiiiIISHH!”

Sally’s blonde hair swung forward, some of it sticking to her nose. She didn’t even have time to push it out of the way before the next powerful sneeze came.

“HhhaaaaiiIIISSSH!”

Vanessa could do no more than stay where she was, completely entranced. From somewhere far away inside her, she felt a low-grade rush, as if some sort of internal floodgates had opened. She felt as if she were poised on the brink of a precipice and there was nothing she could do about it as in front of her, Sally sneezed again, a vision of desperate need rooted in almost torturous discomfort.

“AaaaiiIIISSSHOOO!”

Vanessa’s mouth dropped as she felt her orgasm beginning. All the mounting tension, all the pent-up desire, all of it exploded in time with Sally’s third sneeze. She felt it rush out of her, a tightly wound coil suddenly coming undone and spinning loose, radiating pleasure through every fibre of her being. It was so intense she was afraid of collapsing in front of Sally. Fortunately, the other was still caught up in delivering a fourth and final sneeze:

“HhiiiIIISSHOO!”

Vanessa had to hold onto the ground so as not to fall over as Sally tossed the folders she’d been holding onto her desk. She watched, as if in a dream, while Sally plucked the last tissue out of the box and pressed it to her bright red nose. She blew for seemingly hours, snot burbling out as she rubbed at the chapped skin of her nose, giving pitiful little groans until at last her sinuses were once again cleared.

“Oh God, sorry Vee... That was just the worst tickle!”

Vanessa blinked and forced herself to get a grip. “Don’t be. You’re ill; it’s not your fault.” Then, looking down at the neatly stacked piles of paper before her, she smiled and said, “Well, it looks like I’m all done here. I think you’ll be able to get home pretty soon now, and Vaughn will have everything he needs.”

“Oh, goodness, you’re a fast one!” Sally said, giving a grateful. “Thanks so much, Vee- I don’t know what I’d’ve done without you. I’d probably have been stuck in this office all day, sneezing my head off until I passed out or something.”

“Perish the thought,” Vanessa mused. “You’ll be fine, Sally. Now, I order you to get that finished up, go home, and take good care of yourself.”

“Right,” Sally said. “Sounds great to me. I’d give you a thank you hug-” she spread out her arms- “but I’m afraid you might catch this bug I have. If breathing in all my germs hasn’t done you in already, I think I’ll try and spare you.”

Vanessa nodded and smiled again, easing her way out of Sally’s office. Her breathing was still irregular, and she really needed to visit the loo to clean herself up. That had been absolutely amazing- for the first time in her life, she’d had an orgasm without any kind of outside help. Well, almost- but then, Sally hadn’t been touching her.

Taking the steps down to the second floor bathroom, Vanessa couldn’t help but wonder whether Sally would be in again the next day, and whether she’d need any help with... anything at all. And then, she shook her head ruefully, making her long blonde hair swirl about her shoulders- if she were really so desperate as to be able to take on someone else’s job just for a bit of satisfaction, then that really said a lot about her. She needed to find herself a steady boyfriend, and quickly.

4: Chance Meeting

If Guy’s hands had been trembling when he’d first made the phone call to contact Chance Meeting, it was nothing compared to the near-palpitations he was now experiencing. He could hardly believe he was sat here, in an office that was the Bizarro mirror image of what he’d been hoping for.

Low ceiling. Dingy walls that used to be white but had darkened and cracked with age. The industrial brown carpeting could be seen through in some places, and there were cigarette burns around his waiting room-style chair. In fact, the only thing that looked spotless, fresh and stately was the man sat in front of him. Clean-cut, magnetic and with a mellow Cornish accent, Christopher Galen seemed very solid, very real in contrast to this makeshift, hastily-put-together office. His expression was almost a caricature of serious professionalism, complimented by what Guy recognised as a genuine Armani business suit. 

Christopher could almost read the man’s thoughts. Leaning forward on his desk, he said,

“Sorry about the look of the place. We’re between offices at the moment, and our receptionist called in sick.”

Guy didn’t believe him for a moment, especially about the receptionist. All he had seem was this single room, and there wasn’t even a second desk. Being British though, all he said was,

“Oh, right. I’m terribly sorry. I know what that’s like, no need to apologise.”

Christopher didn’t miss a beat. In fact, his company was between offices- but that wasn’t the point. “Despite appearances, I want to assure you that our company operates with almost surgical precision and professionalism. You have nothing to worry about on that score. Besides, we don’t operate from an office- it’s all about fieldwork.”

Then, he launched into an obviously well practiced explanation of the company’s policies and their impressive success rate (a breathtaking 100%). He could have recited this little speech, with pre-planned interruptions where he looked for notes and allowed Guy to sneak in predictable questions, in his sleep. But authenticity was important- and indeed Chance Meeting was authentic. It was important that clients feel at ease and, more importantly, that they had faith in the company and in him.

After all, a sum of around one hundred grand was at stake.

Guy sat through Christopher’s introduction spell-bound. In a matter of minutes, he’d forgotten all about the office’s squalor. He asked all the right questions- “Do you guarantee success?” “Do I get a refund if it doesn’t work?” “How long does this usually take?” “Is there any catch?”- and Christopher told him everything he needed to hear. Guy didn’t quite seem to realise that this was an interview as much for him as it was for Chance Meeting until Christopher came right out and told him.

“Of course, this is all assuming that we agree to take on your case.”

“Pardon, assuming...”

“Yes. Of course, we have to determine whether the candidate,” he gave Guy an appraising look, “is suitable. Not just for us, but for romance. There are a lot of, shall we say, unorthodox individuals out there”- both Guy and Christopher’s eyes flickered towards the bay window, where an ominous view of a small London street was afforded- “and we need to make sure that no harm will come to either ourselves or the prospective woman. Nothing out of the ordinary, I assure you, in the type of business we run.”

Guy took in Christopher’s knowing smile and swallowed dryly. This was a turn he hadn’t been expecting! Somehow, he’d imagined you could throw money in at one end and end up with happiness at the other. Obviously he was being far too naïve. He thought about what Christopher had just said. Suitable? Unorthodox individual? Harm?

“Oy vey!”

“We’ve got a form here for you to fill out. It’s a fairly standard set of questions designed to come up with a psychological profile for you. If we take you on, it’ll also provide guidelines to see how well you match up to your prospective date, so I assure you it’s not wasted time. Oh, and there’s also a few questions in there about your background-“ Christopher’s voice dropped as he turned around to rummage in a large file cabinet, so low as to become only a whisper which Guy nonetheless caught- “and your solvability.”

Presented with the impressive-looking form, Guy sighed and accepted the pen Christopher handed him. He noticed it was a Cross, and this small detail for some reason quelled the lone alarm bell that had begun ringing in the back of his mind.


5: Searching For Clues

It was well past midnight and Christopher Galen couldn’t sleep. A storm had been brewing all night and had finally arrived, preceded by two enormous claps of thunder. Wind whipped noisily through the trees outside his house. He watched raindrops smear against the window, fracturing the orange streetlights into a jagged amber honeycomb. A lone car sped up the road, tyres spraying great jets of water from the puddles that had sprung up in seconds, and he tried to make out whether it was a man or a woman driving. 

Christopher had always been fascinated by other people’s lives.

There were over seven million people living in the city. When he felt lonely, he would sometimes switch on one of his scanning devices and just tune the dial at random. Often there’d be a voice or a snatch of conversation he could tap into, a drama he could briefly become a part of. He needed to feel connected to something, and tonight it was the storm that comforted him. The one thing he hated above all else was silence. Throughout his life, there’d always been too much of it.

Christopher often spent time brooding about his own rather unfulfilled love life. The irony was not lost on him. Why didn’t he just engineer a chance meeting for himself? Perhaps it was pride, a vanity that told him he was a cut above the clients he worked for, the Guy Collins of this world. But it was something more than that, a nagging feeling that his 100% success rate couldn’t last forever. 

He had an unshakable faith in the information he collected. It filled up numerous shelves of his home and his office. Taped conversations, video images and data diligently tracked down from the Internet. Facts were hard currency – they could be coded into binary data and stored onto disks. But people were different; they did unpredictable things. All it took was a random blip, a simple 0 turning to 1 and everything could be changed beyond recognition. Somehow he didn’t fear failing his clients, but he feared failing himself.

Drawing back from the window, he fixed himself a coffee and switched on his laptop. If he couldn’t sleep, he might as well be working. The machine chugged grudgingly to life while outside the rain continued to pound against the window. He hunted through a neatly ordered list of files and called up the one he was currently working on. 

Vanessa Russell. 

He began scrolling down the page, reading methodically until the words started to blur in front of his eyes. He shook his head. Whichever way you looked at it there was nothing there. Just names, dates and a list of random facts. It was all so bland, so unrevealing.

At least she didn’t have any criminal convictions or a history of mental illness. Then again something like that might give her some character, he thought darkly. He looked again at the picture he’d scanned in earlier that day. There was no doubting her beauty. He felt a brief yearning himself as he studied her perfect features. Then, he stopped. There was a frustrating itch at the back of his nose. A need to sneeze that try as he might, he couldn’t contain. He buckled forward and let it out.

“Huh-umshhooo!”

Damn. The slightest hint of arousal and he couldn’t help himself. It was a small but irritating foible he’d been saddled with throughout his life. He shook his head and his mind cleared again. He forced himself to look dispassionately at the photograph. He needed more than this to work with; peripheral searching had produced little information, and nothing of any real value. Scratching the surface had left him feeling as though he was staring into a void. 

Perhaps he should go undercover and meet Vanessa firsthand. It was a risky strategy, but one he’d pulled off successfully in the past. Christopher frowned; it would take longer than he’d expected when preparing Guy Collins’ file, but he would work the details out later.

For the moment, he had more information to collate. He rescued the dictaphone from his coat pocket and rewound the tape he’d secretly recorded earlier that night. Stephanie Sawyer, an old school friend of Vanessa’s, had been last on the list of people he’d managed to track down. She had agreed to meet him on the understanding that he was a close friend of her cousin, a fellow foreign language teacher at Westminster College. None of this was true, naturally, but a quick trawl of selected Internet sites had furnished him with enough background information to play the part convincingly. 

It amazed him sometimes, how effortlessly he could take on these roles. Ply someone with a few drinks and it became easy to manipulate the conversation any way you wanted to. He smiled to himself and switched on the tape. Stephanie’s bright voice was nice and clear above the general background noise of the bar.

“Vanessa was always a bit what you might call vague. She never really excelled at any of the academic stuff. Of course all the boys used to love her. Though I’m not sure there were any serious boyfriends. She had the looks alright, but a lot of people get intimidated by that you know...”

Christopher yawned, then finished the last of the coffee. He was no longer taking in what was being said, instead just listening to the rhythm of the words. He could picture Stephanie sat in the bar, her bright smile and her trim figure. He had her number stored somewhere amongst all his files. Of course it was completely unprofessional to start dating anyone connected with an ongoing assignment. Still, maybe once the assignment was over...

God knew he needed to find someone.


6: Casual Friday

Vanessa loved Fridays. Low key, relaxed, and most especially, casual dress. She was very much pleased with herself, for her new faux-suede mini-skirt and funky tights had earned her an impressive number of appreciative looks from her male colleagues. Even Amanda was noticing.

“You know, Vee, you ought to be more careful. One of these days, I swear, one of the guys is just going to lose control and stick it to you!”

Vanessa laughed and flipped her hair. “Well, so long as his stick is good...”

“You tease,” Amanda giggled, “what would your boyfriend say?”

Vanessa giggled right back. “Which one?”

“Ooh, you’re bad,” Amanda shot her an amused-cum-jealous look. “Guys are always after you. Wish I could be so lucky!”

Predictably, Vanessa’s laughter died down. “But they’re always the wrong guys,” she stated, with the kind of affected self-pity only beautiful women who know they’re beautiful can successfully manage. “I’m still looking for Mr Right, Amanda. A single girl. Just like you.”

“Sure, you’re so like me,” Amanda said, rolling her eyes. “I know who my Mr Right is- he just doesn’t want to make me his Mrs.”

Vanessa put a sympathetic hand on her friend’s arm. “You’re not still seeing Steve, are you? Oh, Amanda, you know you’re just torturing yourself. You deserve so much better! He’ll never leave his wife- he’s only keeping you on the shelf, and that’s not right.”

“I know,” Amanda sighed, “but I keep thinking if I just hang in there a little bit longer, he’ll come around.”

She said it with the required failing note of conviction laced with the lightest edge of self-pity, in that moment honestly believing she was the only woman in the world to have ever uttered that sentence. Vanessa tsked.

“Well, at least you’ve got someone in sight,” she said. “I’m still looking.”

“You’re always looking,” Amanda shot back. “And you’ve had how many dates in the past month?”

Vanessa thought about this for a moment. “Eight...y six thousand.” And then, laughing at her friend’s comical expression of surprise, she added, “I’m kidding you silly cow, I’ve only had eleven. I’m not a slag you know!”

“Of course not,” said Amanda with a knowing look. “You just make the most of what you’ve got.”

“Exactly,” Vanessa replied. “And the difference between me and most is that I know what I’ve got. And more importantly, what I want. And I know that I haven’t found it yet.”

Amanda shrugged. “What’s a girl to do, eh? In the meantime, I suggest you watch out next time you walk past that water cooler with that skirt. Who knows who might decide he’s Mr Right?”

Both women were still laughing when they parted ways.

Five minutes later, Vanessa was back at her desk, idly flipping through a stack of documents, not really seeing them at all. She was mentally planning what she was going to wear next Friday, and thinking whose gaze she might succeed in attracting, when all of a sudden her door opened.

“Oh, sorry, I got the wrong door,” a man said.

Vanessa looked up, startled. “Sorry?”

“No, I’m sorry- I meant to go into the office next door, I just- excuse me, I’ll just go.”

Vanessa took him in at a glance. Tall, well-built. Shiny dark hair, striking blue eyes. Pale skin that suggested he should get out more. A shy smile as his eyes darted from her face to the floor and back again. She thought, “Ooh, he’s well fit! Who is he?” Her conversation with Amanda still fresh in her mind, an additional question filtered through- “Mr Right?”- and then, laughing at herself, she mentally added, “Don’t know, but I’d sure have him as Mr Right Now...”

She pushed her chair away from her desk and crossed her legs primly. Twirling a lock of golden hair between her fingers, she said, “No, that’s fine, happens to me all the time.”

“Oh,” the man said, hesitating, as if wondering what to say next.

It didn’t even occur to Vanessa to wonder what he was waiting for. Instead, she flipped her hair over her shoulder and leant forward, flirtation becoming automation. Not only was he a doll, but she also found his West Country accent absolutely delightful.

“I’m Vanessa Russell, personal assistant to Mr Thomas,” she said, giving a throaty laugh that was only mildly suggestive. And yet her eyes locked onto his, holding them. “And you would be...?”

Carefully and deliberately, he gave a non-committal smile. “Christopher. Chris Galen. I’m new. Bottom of the ladder at the moment, I’m afraid. Trainee.”

“Well, you’ve got to start somewhere, right?” Vanessa replied, suddenly conscious of the fact that she really had nothing to say to this handsome stranger. There was no denying it, she found him very attractive, but he had only gotten the wrong door and this obviously wasn’t going to go anywhere. Yet. 

Before she could stop it, images of laughable porn flicks she had watched on countless girls’ nights out raced through her mind. “Excuse me, did someone order a pizza?” “I have come to fix your refrigerator.” “Please, let me get my broomstick out, I need to deliver a thorough cleaning of your premises.” And then, she nearly lost it, thinking about a hot horny stud bent over a pneumatic Pam Anderson clone saying, “Oh, sorry, I got the wrong door,” as the woman let out an outraged squawk. Then again, there was something kind of sexy about that image... especially as the ‘hot horny stud’ looked a lot like Christopher Galen in her mind’s eye.

Christopher smiled with practised ease, taking in the sudden dilating of her pupils and the quick dart of her tongue as Vanessa moistened her lips. He would turn and leave before anything else could take place. He wasn’t there to do any sort of pick-up job, but rather was on a reconnaissance mission. To linger here too long would only jeopardise that; besides, he had already accomplished what he had set out to do. 

Contact had been established. Groundwork laid, he was now ready for Phase II - infiltration.

“Right then, I’ll just, um...” he cocked his finger towards the next office over, gave Vanessa a parting smile, careful to avoid all trace of flirtation, and added, “It was a pleasure meeting you, Vanessa. See you!” 

Vanessa nodded and gave a small, jaunty wave.

“Yes, I certainly hope so,” she whispered to the door as it eased shut.


7: The Philosophy Of Fate

It was the first day of spring, and the sun was shining brightly by way of acknowledgement. The first real hints of warmth filtered into the breeze, putting a barely noticeable spring in the step of the crowd coursing along London’s maze of pavements.

Guy was amidst a trickle of people walking into work, staring up at the sky in wonder. The light, so long absent, seemed almost blinding. Maybe during his two-week vacation that summer, he could go down to Torquay and rent a little house by the seashore to spend quality time with a certain lucky lady named Vanessa Russell. Dreaming of walks along the beach and the smell of suntan oil, Guy caught himself pursing his lips to whistle a tune.

Suddenly, he frowned, and pressed his mouth into a thin line. This couldn’t be right; he was getting lost in mirages. He was going into work, and it would start raining at some point during the day, like it always did. This was London, on a Wednesday- a bit of sun did not imply any kind of relaxation. Whistling was completely out of line; he was a serious man going into a serious meeting!But then, his shoulders slumped, and he thought... why not? As if to encourage him, the sun’s rays shone down on his tweed-clad back, warmer than ever. 

It was spring. Love was in the air. And hopefully, he’d soon see a return on the large investment he’d made with Chance Meeting. Mr Galen was certainly very emphatic in his reassurances that things were progressing smoothly. Guy thought it was only a matter of time before Vanessa was delivered into his waiting arms, and the thought made an anticipatory shiver course through him. Yes indeed, Guy had every reason to feel happy. 

Instinctively, his lips pursed again, and he started to whistle. He swung his arms a bit more, putting a bit of a spring in his gait. He was thinking of Vanessa- her long golden hair, her mesmerising, luminous eyes, her sensuous lips... He was completely absorbed, when all of a sudden he heard a loud squawk. 

“What are you doooing?” 

Startled, Guy stopped. He looked down, and gasped. His arm was caught in a strap, which in turn was latched onto an old woman’s bag. 

“Oh dear!” he said, quickly disengaging. 

“You thief!” the woman howled. People nearby frowned and walked a little bit faster. 

“No, no, I’m sorry- I was miles away. I’m terribly sorry. It was an accident.” 

The woman’s lips were trembling, her eyes shooting daggers. “You tried to steal my bag, I saw you!” She raised her voice, crying out, “Police! Help! This scoundrel just tried to rob me!” 

Guy tried again, placing a maladroit hand on her forearm. “No, there’s a mistake, I was just-“ 

The woman shrank away from him, slapping his hand. “Don’t touch me- help! Po-liiiiice!” 

Guy was so shaken, he could do nothing but cringe as seemingly all of London turned to stare at the outraged old woman and the furiously blushing young man standing not two feet away from her, a look of misbegotten guilt plastered on his features. And then, seeing a nearby bobby turn to try and locate the source of the cries for help, Guy snapped and did the only thing he could think of: he started running away, like a... well, like a thief. 

He ran on and on, pushing past people, leaving the livid old woman behind as his heart jackhammered in his chest. He could still hear her screeching behind him, 

“You’re a good for nothing bum- I saw you, I know! You’re a lousy, good for nothing bum!” 

Guy was relieved when he was far enough away for the old bag’s words to be drowned out by the bustle and the traffic. His happy reverie had dissolved, leaving only resentful embarrassment. A good for nothing bum, she’d said. Why did these ridiculous things always happen to him?  

By the time Guy turned the corner onto Farringdon Street, his heart had sunk until it was somewhere near his ankles. What a great way to start off his day. 

In front of him, the brickwork building loomed, jutting out from its neighbours. The very sight of it was enough to make him forget his supposedly attempted theft, replacing it with a worse kind of inner chaos. He was only a few hundred metres from the office, and he could feel all the usual work stresses flooding over him in a kind of viscous black wave.  

Images flooded his mind, turning his heady thoughts to ice- research papers that needed to be filed, deadlines that had to be met, the daily trip to the university’s library... But worst of all, Guy had a conference call scheduled with the head of the Department of Philosophy first thing that morning. Somehow, speaking to him over the telephone was even worse than facing him; there was a reason Professor Burns’ acerbic tongue was famous all over the country. 

Indeed, Burns was a grim and unforgiving man. Guy had learnt over time that the man possessed no sense of humour whatsoever. He sometimes felt tempted to give him an exposé on the relaxing and entertaining properties of hashish- from a purely philosophical standpoint, of course- but he knew better than to go down that path. Guy wasn’t one to commit professional hara-kiri; there was no way he could afford to lose his job. Not only had he been lucky enough to be granted both his research assistant post and the privilege of pursuing a post-doctoral degree, but it could be months before he found anything else. Not to mention something that paid even half as well- as much as it pained him to admit it, there weren’t that many jobs for those fascinated by (and overqualified in) philosophy in these soporific days of intellectual devolution.  

To boot, his finances were currently stretched so thin they would snap if he needed to spend so much as a tenner he hadn’t budgeted for. . 

Guy sighed as he neared the red brick building, wondering for the hundredth time if he hadn’t made his life’s biggest mistake when he’d signed the contract with Chance Meeting. A more down-to-earth man than himself might have thought it ludicrous; so much money invested in a woman he knew so little about... Really, it was madness! Like taking out a mortgage on his heart. And as soon as he’d finished that thought, Guy felt as if a cloud of pessimistic gloom had occluded every last sparkle of springtime joy.  

The office was busy. As always, there was an aura of calm efficiency about the way Guy’s fellow academics beavered away at their work. Conversations were held in muted whispers. People moved circumspectly from reference rooms to workstations. Feeling obligated, Guy stopped off briefly to exchange a few pleasantries before retreating to the office he’d reserved for just this occasion.  

The telephone- equipped with a loudspeaker- had already been set up for him. He took a seat in front of it and glanced awkwardly at his watch. Yes, it was time- he reached out and dialled the 0-800 number, allotted reference number, and finally his pin code. A few beeps and buzzes later, a soothing recording instructed Guy to wait until a musical note indicated the arrival of the other party. 

He leaned back in his chair, trying to relax but failing miserably. He hated meetings like this; every time, he couldn’t help feeling like a naughty schoolboy being summoned before the headmaster. It wasn’t anything of the sort, of course; this was more along the lines of a progress report, but...  

Guy sighed. For once, he wasn’t the problem. Professor Burns was not only a dour old man who was rigorous in his pursuit of academic excellence, he also seemed to believe that everything else in life was pointless frippery. His grasp of arcane philosophical points could put even Guy’s to shame- and that was saying a lot. In short, Wilbraham Burns was one of those bad things that happened to good people. 

Glancing at his watch again, Guy comforted himself by thinking about how his day could only improve once this was over. He tried to relax by looking out the window, which afforded him a fairly interesting ground floor view of the street outside. A steady stream of passers by were filtering past the building, each with their own gait and rhythm. It would be so easy to just allow himself to drift off, and fall into a dreamy trance as he followed the movements of a gaggle of short-skirted women... 

He was yawning outright, a sleepy “oouuuarrrrr” sound escaping him, when he suddenly realised that the telltale notes had escaped the telephone’s loudspeaker. Professor Burns had joined the conference call! 

“Good morning, Mr... Collins.”  

That subtle pause was just long enough to make Guy feel incredibly valuable in his supervisor’s eyes. He resisted the urge to greet him in a similar manner, and instead said, 

“Good morning Professor.”  

Burns wasted no time with the usual niceties employed by members of the human race in the beginning of conversations, and simply dived right into the heart of the matter. For someone who had an exceptional knowledge of all things philosophical and metaphysical, he had all the sparkle and warmth of a wet wick on bonfire night. 

“Well then, Collins, my diary says it’s been three months since you and I last had a chat. I’ve been looking very closely at some of your recent work in the past couple of weeks, and... I have to say...” 

There was an agonisingly long pause before Guy decided he could stand the silence no longer. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he gave a dry swallow. 

“Erm... yes?” 

The pause stretched, and then over the loudspeaker, a garbled “Hurrressshah!” sound was heard. Guy nearly jumped out of his skin- this was the last thing he’d been expecting. 

“Um, bless you,” he said. 

“Yes,” Burns said, “Thank you, ‘fraid I’ve got a bit of a cold a the moment.” Guy suppressed the urge to laugh- he hadn’t been sure Professor Burns was a human being before, let alone capable of falling ill. “But what I wanted to say was...” 

All urge to laugh promptly dissolved. Professor Burns let the awkward pause hang in the air like a knife, compounding Guy’s furiously mounting discomfort before eventually saying, “I have to say, Mr Collins, that I’m a bit concerned.” 

“You are? Oh. Er, about what?” Guy did his best to sound nonchalant. Asides of the slight cracking of his voice on the last syllable, he told himself that he managed it quite well. 

Another short pause was followed by a venomous, “Hrressshuh!” followed by a sniffle. This time, Guy didn’t bother blessing him. “I’ve been reading your study on the importance of Plato in the integration of the Ephesians into eighth century Syria.” 

“Ah yes,” Guy said, clearing his throat. “It’s a fascinating topic, don’t you think? I like to feel I’m throwing new light on a well-worn subject. I’m really polishing it, and revealing new angles to it- I feel there’s great rewards in the making! I’ve sent off an abstract to the Middle-Eastern Neo-Classical Platonic Researchers’ conference in Hyngderabanmahad, and they’ve shown some interest.”  

Professor Burns gave another thoughtful pause. “Hm... yes. Yes, well done then, Collins. It’s not altogether bad ... it’s just I’ve noticed that your vocabulary seems to have regressed somewhat in your more recent writings. You seem to have an over-reliance on the subjunctive clause. Also, if I may say, there are rather too many one and two syllable words for my liking. We at this university pride ourselves on producing text that is not for junior school children, you understand.” 

Guy nodded and made an agreeable noise. He was well aware that it was pointless trying to argue with the professor. You just had to sit back and take it if you valued your job, which he did. It was really curious, how this conference call provided a kind of metaphorical bookend to his encounter with the handbag woman. At least, Guy had to concede she had been able to convince him that he was a good for nothing bum without boring him until he lost all will to live. Surely, Guy thought, there had to be a more pleasant way of dashing his delusions of adequacy? 

Burns had fallen silent again, and Guy could distinctly hear a few laboured inhales coming through the loudspeaker. He braced himself as another roaring “Hurreesssshah!” blasted through the office, and decided that all things considered, it was just as well this wasn’t a face-to-face meeting. Judging by the messy sound of those enormous sneezes, he and the table in front of him would probably be covered in germs by then. 

He slipped in a quick, whispered “Ghesundheit” before Burns resumed his tirade.  

“I also discovered two double negatives in your last drafted paper, and this simply will not do. Your standards are slipping, Mr Collins, and we do have a reputation to keep up. Shoddy work like this is simply unacceptable.” 

Guy found himself wondering whether Burns always spoke in the same tone by choice, or whether his vocal chords had somehow gotten damaged at some point in his life. Maybe they’d atrophied through the years for lack of anything even remotely interesting to recount. He had to fight the urge to burst out laughing again as he tried to picture Burns singing. 

“You do understand what I’m explaining to you, Mr Collins? I don’t feel the need to indulge in patronising circumlocutions with one of my fellow academics, but... Hah-rrresshhh! I think it is essential for us to come to an agreement.” 

“Granted,” Guy replied mechanically.  

And then, suddenly, he felt his heart skip a beat. His eyes had been focussed on the window, taking in the movements of passer bys, when all of a sudden he’d seen someone he hadn’t expected at all. Bizarrely enough, the divine Vanessa was walking past the conference room window, looking fabulous as her long hair swirled in the breeze and the pale flesh of her thigh flashed through a slit in her skirt that was a voyeur’s wet dream come true.  

All that remained of Guy’s waning concentration shattered in a million pieces. Every fibre of his being strained to look at her, to take in every detail. She appeared to have dropped something, because she stopped right in front of where he was sitting, and then bent down out of his sight. 

Meanwhile Burns gave another ferocious sneeze- “Huuueeessshuh!”- again startling Guy. He felt his thoughts becoming frazzled as he struggled to see what Vanessa was up to and keep up with what the Professor was saying. The monster sneezes his superior kept delivering at random intervals did little to help steady his train of thought.  

“Now I think we should look ahead at some of your upcoming workload. What news of your next project? Remind me again, what it is you’ll be casting your beady eye over in the coming weeks?” 

Guy blinked. At that precise moment, the girl of his dreams stood up again, blissfully unaware that one of her breasts had popped out from her low cut top. 
“Vanessa!” Guy exclaimed before he could stop himself. 

Professor Burns’ voice seemed to momentarily rise by half an octave. “Sorry, what? Did you say ‘Vanessa’?” 

Oh lord! Guy suddenly realised what he’d just done. He fidgeted uncomfortably in his seat, his skin turning a bright red. “Um, no. I said Venes-strum. You know, the old Roman oligarchy of philosophers and noblemen.” 

Outside the building, Vanessa glanced at her reflection in the window and her comical look of shocked embarrassment made Guy want to leap out of his seat and run out to give her a comforting hug. He could almost hear her thinking, “Ooh dear, how embarrassing. Why do things like this always seem to happen to me?” He couldn’t quite help thinking that maybe this was the female equivalent of being mistaken for a handbag-grabbing, good-for-nothing thief.

In the background, Wilbraham Burns took a few deep breaths and exploded again- “Hrreeesshhuh!” This time, Guy didn’t even notice. 

Vanessa hastily adjusted her top, looking around to see whether anyone had noticed her little faux pas. And then, seeing that there was someone in the room watching her, she flinched and gave a sheepish wave of acknowledgement before hurriedly moving on. Guy was blushing just as furiously as she- had she seen him? Did she know who he was? And... had she noticed how he’d immediately gotten the world’s biggest hard-on? 

Professor Burns was still talking. “I could’ve sworn I heard you say ‘Vanessa’...” 

Guy fought desperately to keep his voice calm. “No, honestly. It must be the connection, or maybe it’s this loudspeaker malfunctioning again. You know what these things are like.” 

The professor did not appear at all convinced by this explanation. “I’d hate to think you might be polluting that fine analytical mind of yours with some sort of romantic trivia, Mr Collins.” 

Guy was suddenly angry. He thought, “Oh for fuck’s sake- do they ever shut up on your planet?” but out loud, he forced himself to remain calm. He said, 
“Of course not. Nothing could be further from the truth. A chapter of Proust before I go to bed. Two Greek tragedies before breakfast. All helps to keep the brain ticking over.” 

Professor Burns’ tone indicated he was sporting a very deep scowl. “Flippancy doesn’t suit you Mr Collins. Please bear that in mind or we may have to review your position with us.” To punctuate this, he let out a final, angry-sounding “Hurrressshuh!” 

Guy blessed him again before solemnly voicing his agreement, striving to convince the head of department of his commitment to Academia. Really, why was it that people with closed minds were always the ones who opened their mouths for such great lengths of time? He did his best to placate Professor Burns, and succeeded well enough, for the old man gave Guy a few encouraging words after having set the date for their next meeting. He even sounded pleased when Guy wished him a prompt recovery from his terrible cold, a most unusual occurrence. 

When he’d pressed the ‘disconnect’ button, Guy flopped back into his chair, completely exhausted. He would have liked nothing better than to just go outside and walk back to his apartment to spend the day huddled away with a good book. Really, there was nothing he enjoyed so much as hiding from life’s harsh realities. 

There was no help for it- an entire day’s work awaited. Guy left the room and made his way to his desk, running his hands over the familiar piles of paper dotted about. He picked up an article and stared at it with a look of intense concentration- if anyone were looking his way, they would see a dedicated young research assistant hard at work unravelling the mysteries of modern-day sophisms.

Perhaps the old woman he’d bumped into that morning had been right; in a sense, he was a thief. Stealing handbags, no, but then he’d stolen an undeserved reprieve from Professor Burns, and he’d definitely stolen glances at Vanessa’s forbidden flesh. Guy couldn’t help but hope this wouldn’t be the last he saw of it- and then, he at last allowed himself to smile, thinking that he’d get to see a whole lot more of her fairly soon. And this time, unless one was so pedantic as to stumble upon the irrelevance of honesty and respect for privacy, there would be not the least bit of subterfuge involved.


8: The Next Best Thing

Vanessa held her breath. “There he is!” she thought, eyeing Christopher’s broad shoulders as he stood with her back to her, talking to a petite, non-descript woman she had never taken any notice of before. Seeing that she was clad in a Marks & Spencer’s blouse, Vanessa decided she probably wouldn’t take any notice of her in the future either. “Christopher Galen, sexy beast...”

She sashayed down the aisle until she was a few feet past them- carefully taking no notice of either Christopher or the woman- and then deliberately let slip each and every sheet from the folder she was holding onto the floor.

“Oh no,” she wailed. “I’m such a klutz!”

Christopher turned, predictably, and apologised to the woman he was with. Within seconds, his gentleman’s instincts had warmed Vanessa’s heart as he crouched down next to her and helped her pick up the documents. Yes, she decided, he could definitely be her Knight in Shining Armani.

“Hullo Vanessa,” he said. “Nice to see you.”

“And you,” she purred, giving a winsome smile. “I’m sorry- butterfingers, that’s me.”

“Happens to everyone,” Christopher said.

Picking up the last sheet and handing it to her, they both stood up. There was a small, uneasy silence where both of them wondered what to say next, until Vanessa broke it off.

“It’s just one of those days, I’ve been running around like a mad thing,” she lied.

“Sounds like someone needs a cup of coffee,” Christopher commented.

Vanessa jumped on the bait without a second’s hesitation. “That’s a great idea,” she said. “That’s exactly what I need.” And then, skipping a beat, she looked him right in the eye and said, “Care to join me?”

“Sure, I’ve got a few spare minutes,” Christopher smiled. He couldn’t have done any better himself.

And so they wound up at the small coffee area on the first floor, sitting at a table for two, laughing companionably as Vanessa made a few quips about her boss’ short temper and Christopher told the (completely fictitious) details of how he had come to be a PR trainee after a stint in British Gas’ marketing department.

“You,” Vanessa breathed, “are amazing. I mean, the job you had, why would you ever come to work here?”

“I don’t know,” Christopher rolled his eyes. “Thing is, some people just act stupid and others are the real thing. Believe it or not, that can get wearing after a while.”

A comfortable pause ensued as both of them sipped their coffee. Vanessa felt the ice to be broken, and knew it was safe to advance to more interesting subjects.

“So what do you do outside of work?” she inquired, arching a perfectly plucked eyebrow.

“Mm,” Christopher smiled, wondering what he ought to tell her. Something to get her interest up, but not too much. “Well, outside from my part-time jobs as dog-walker for the Royal Family and managing Westlife, I’m really not that much of an exciting guy. I go clubbing with my mates, go to the gym, but then I also like the theatre and the cinema.”

Vanessa’s eyes were bright and alert, a smile playing on her lips. Her pupils were dilating again, he noticed, and ever the expert, he knew this was not a good sign. Immediately, a flick of her gorgeous blond hair and not-so-subtle moistening of lush lips that were already slightly parted confirmed this. Just looking at her, he was suddenly surprised to find that he had been so absorbed in manipulating events that he hadn’t thus far noticed quite how attractive she was. He found himself getting a hard-on, and this just wouldn’t do. He had to think of something quickly, before things got out of hand.

He blurted out the first thing that leapt into his mind.

“And of course, there’s my boyfriend, and that takes up a lot of time...”

He watched her face fall and then quickly compose itself. Of course, just as Christopher had been noticing the extent of Vanessa’s beauty, she had been eagerly taking in his- and his bare third finger. And then, as he spoke, she had found him to be intelligent and funny- and when she found out that he was a man who enjoyed both clubbing and culture, she hadn’t been able to believe her luck.

“It’s true!” she though miserably. “The good ones really are either married or gay!”

And then, remembering that having a gay male friend was almost as in vogue as Manolo Blahnik sandals and Fendi handbags, she perked up again. Right, so she couldn’t ‘have him’, but then he was very good looking- and he didn’t clash with her shoes.

“Boyfriends really are time-consuming aren’t they?” she said, only a second’s hesitation betraying her disappointment and subsequent cover-up. “More trouble than they’re worth, if you ask me,” she added, giving Christopher another winning smile.

Looking at her perfectly aligned teeth, Christopher felt something inside him twinge- no, not that- and wondered why he’d said what he had. Sternly, he told himself, “Stop it- she’s not yours; you’re here on business.”

“Oh, yes, definitely. But what about you?” he inquired. “Have you got someone?"

As soon as he’d asked the question, he saw that his spur of the moment copout had perhaps been a stroke of genius. A woman like Vanessa would like nothing better than a good-looking gay friend to go shopping with and tell secrets to.

“Oh no,” she said, giving a dismissive wave. “Well, you know how it is, kind of but not really. There’s men, but not the right men. It’s like they don’t know what to do with a woman, how to give that extra little something that will sweep me off my feet and make me fall madly in love with them, you know?”

Christopher gave her an easy grin, assuming his newly acquired confidante role with ease. “And what would that be?”

Vanessa’s laughter was like ice cubes tinkling against crystal as she shook her head. “That, Christopher darling, is for me to know and all the gorgeous straight men in this city to find out.”

Christopher’s expression became serious for a moment as something rather unexpected occurred. It only took a second- like a crack of lightening, there and gone. He brought a hand to his nose and stifled a sneeze that had crept up on him. He did it silently, with only his shoulders contracting and a slight bob of the head to indicate anything was happening. When he opened his eyes, Vanessa gave him a perfunctory “Bless.”

She paused then, her eyes going glassy for a second, as if she were suddenly miles away and focussing on something that was just sitting in the back of her throat, waiting to be uttered. Christopher, who wondered just what that would be, assumed an interested expression as he stared into the depths of her dark brown eyes. But then the dreamy look vanished and she moved on to talk about something else.

“It’s not too hard to please a woman, Christopher. I mean, of course you know that already, gay blokes are so good at pleasing women, which is a bit daft I’ve always thought, but you know what we’re like, don’t you? Candles, soft music, just someone making an effort to take you out somewhere classy and remembering not to wear trainers or white socks. And that’s another thing, a sense of style... of course, you guys have it all figured out, but most men can’t tell orange from brown and plaids from stripes, and oh, if you could get one who’d...”

She went on, listing banalities that he had heard dozens of times before, revealing that for all her posh exterior and perfectly manicured nails, Vanessa was really just like most women he had encountered. Except more beautiful, and with a spark in her that was hard to pin down- he only knew that she made anything she spoke of sound exciting and breathless, and he liked that.

Though her list would have made most men’s heads spin around twice, it was fairly standard; in essence, she was craving a bit of romance. But something was gnawing at him- that look she had gotten earlier, that faraway, dreamy look. What had she been thinking of, what had she suppressed? His instincts told him that everything she was saying now was just periphery, and that it had been that moment- that precise moment- that had held the key to successfully sweeping Vanessa Russell off her feet.

As he listened to her going on, he brought out her mental checklist and began ticking off items pertaining to Vanessa’s Perfect Date. It was almost a reflex now, the automated recording of information to be stored away and analysed later.

And yet even as he did it, he realised he would have been content just sitting across for her as a friend, someone who was not out to draw information out of her for business purposes. Indeed, he could very easily have lapsed into a fantasy of keeping her for his own as he watched her gorgeous lips part and come together, that pink cat’s tongue flicking against her white teeth, her eyes sparkling with the dream of the perfect man.

Behind his open, eager smile, Christopher felt bitterness rise as a small pang of self-loathing wormed its way into his heart. And then, as if he were chanting a mantra, he thought, “100% success rate, one hundred grand, 100% success rate, one hundred grand...”

After five or six repetitions, the smile on his face was genuine once again.


9: The Terrible Thing

When he was honest with himself, Christopher had to admit he was a rather peculiar creature.  A loner, but at the same time, a professional people-watcher. Other individuals exerted a strange fascination on him; for all that he felt a large portion of humanity had the personality of a dial tone, everyone had little quirks, strange particularities that defined their self-absorbed identities. Sometimes, the sea of humanity around him frightened him, but more often than not he found it fascinating.

How strange, then, that he spent so much of his time isolated, always keeping an arm’s length between him and the rest of the world. He found himself quite content to remain thus, and yet at the same time, he couldn’t help but feel there was something missing. Especially on nights like this, when he was sat alone in his lounge, staring at a magazine but not really seeing it. The air outside was crisp and cold, London surrounding him like a frenzied, glittering galaxy. He knew himself to be a part of it- the lights of his flat joining into the urban glow- and yet he felt like he was a star placed just that little bit too far apart to truly fit into the natural order of things. At that moment, he would have loved the comfort of a soft touch, a body pressed against his to warm him up, someone with whom to discuss the intricacies of life, the universe, and everything else. Or maybe just to quietly sit next to.

He sighed and scratched his head, putting his magazine aside. He’d had it for a month already and always found himself drifting off whenever he flipped through its pages; he was never going to read it. He was faced with the banality of his everyday existence again. Outside the fulfilment of other people’s dreams, what else was there? Perhaps he’d let himself become too aloof; maybe he should stop romanticising everything and just grow up once and for all. Get that testosterone pumping. Go out and get drunk, do press-ups, shop at Ben Sherman’s. Really, he was way too fragile sometimes, but then even when he’d been younger, Christopher had never been one to laugh and hoot with the boys whilst running grubby hands over the pages of Playboy in the bathroom during recess.

Instead, his younger self had thought about cutting class, wandering out in the streets near the school and bumping into a fellow runaway who would take him with her on her discovery of remote areas surrounding the village where he’d grown up. He’d daydreamed about rescuing a classmate from a group of bullies and tending to her emotional bruises until she couldn’t stand it any longer and melted into him, the heat of her anger and subsequent gratitude merging with his longing. He’d fantasised about walking alone at night in the streets near his house and encountering a sleepwalking girl who would tell him all about her dreams as the stars made her hair glow like silver fire.

All of a sudden, Christopher brought a hand to his nose and stifled a sneeze. He knew what it meant; this was for him a standard occurrence. He was getting turned on. It was the reminiscing, the replaying of fantasies of old in his mind. He’d perfected them during his teen years, made them into gilded Hollywood-style productions in his mind. Oh, the hours he had spent in his bed, hidden in the darkness, his head pressed into his pillow, hoping his parents wouldn’t hear him jacking off, wouldn’t hear him sneezing over and over again as his arousal grew more intense.

His groin, gaining heat and weight, whispered- go for it.

His mind, the epicentre of his self-control, replied- I hate this.

Christopher sneezed again, not bothering to stifle it this time, reminding himself that no one could hear him, that no one could look over and laugh. He’d made many a girl giggle with this little peccadillo; some had found it amusing, some weren’t bothered... and then he forced himself to forget about those few that had found it exasperating, or worse yet, off-putting. Because really, he’d tried to stop, to hold the sneezes back... Still, no matter how much it irritated him, he couldn’t do a thing about it.

A third sneeze crept up on him, tingling around for a while before deciding to come out. Christopher snuck his hands down to his lap and undid his fly. He already had a semi, and it felt pleasingly warm in his cool, dry palm. Slowly, he stroked it until he was fully erect, dragging the sleepwalking girl fantasy out of his mind with the same care and delight as one would when going through a favourite album of old family pictures.

He sniffed dryly as he pictured the anonymous girl in his mind- in all those years, he’d never even given her a name, and the thought saddened him for a second. Her hair was down to her waist, so pale as to be almost white, glimmering in the moonlight. Her skin was nearly translucent, shining softly, smooth and tantalising. She walked on serenely, her eyes half-shut, trusting the Gods not to bring harm upon her. Christopher’s hand was delivering long, slow strokes in time to her imaginary footsteps.

Just as in real life, he sneezed again, he saw her turn towards him in his mind’s eye. She walked his way until they were stood only inches apart. Her lips were thin, almost unnaturally red, and her eyes were the same deep blue as the ocean. Her hair fluttered in the soft wind, fanning out behind her, swirling about her waist in ivory waves he couldn’t resist reaching out and touching.

Another sneeze. A flicker of annoyance. He concentrated on his fantasy, and stroked himself a bit faster.

He imagined the girl gazing at him, cocking her head to one side. Her lips parted and she whispered,

“The water’s so warm... won’t you come and swim with me?”

In his fantasy, they were in the middle of a quiet street, with buildings all around them where unknown individuals were lost in dreams of their own. There wasn’t a drop of water in sight.

“Sure. I’ll come and swim with you.”

She leaned into him then- “Doesn’t the water feel wonderful against your skin?”- and kissed him. She tasted like toothpaste and fairy dust. Even in his fantasy, Christopher was getting a hard-on, but fortunately he didn’t imagine his nose tickling. The girl didn’t seem to mind; she just kissed him, deeper, hungrier, as he held her tightly to him.

Christopher’s breathing was coming hot and heavy. The itch in his nose was building in time, and he sneezed twice in quick succession. He squeezed his erection tighter as his hand went up and down, up and down, and made a small, pleased sound until another sneeze interrupted him. It had been a long time, and it felt magnificent... if only the bloody sneezing could stop!

She was such a beautiful girl. As she kissed him, her eyes remained half-open, and Christopher couldn’t help wondering whether she was even aware of what she was doing. He’d heard it was dangerous to wake sleepwalkers, and didn’t feel the least urge to try and find out whether it was true, even in fantasy. Her hands snaked around his back, drawing broad shapes that perhaps held some sort of deeper significance. It felt wonderful; he could almost feel the warmth of her palms through his shirt, and he shivered.

And sneezed. Again and again.

He was so close to climaxing now; he hated the distraction. His thoughts were frazzled, the girl’s image wavering in his mind as his body tried to make him to re-enter reality; he kept delivering one harsh sneeze after the other. He shut his eyes tightly, cursing himself, nose tingling fiercely as he struggled to keep up the movement of his right hand.

The girl, he thought, concentrate on the girl... and he saw her, he saw himself holding her, and she was so beautiful and lovely that he felt the universe tilt for one magical second as he felt the touch of her warm lips against his, deepening into that ultimate synchronicity he so desperately craved. The stars overhead brightened until the entire world was washed away and nothing remained except the two of them, locked in that exquisite twilight embrace.

His dream self opened his eyes then, wanting to thank the sleepwalking girl for everything, for making him feel so warm inside despite the chill of the night, only to find that she was no longer there, that it was no longer her. He was holding a female form, but the face kept blurring, melting, changing- it flowed and became the face of every girl he’d ever gone out with, every girl who’d ever made him feel inadequate, every girl that had helped to make him what he’d become. They were all there in turn, just for a split second, long enough to bring with them pain he’d thought he’d forgotten through the years. All their eyes focused on him in turn, their lips drawn in a mocking grimace, all of them laughing, laughing at him, watching him sneeze ferociously over and over as he sat alone in his apartment with his dick softening in his glistening palm.

He shut his eyes tightly, flicking his hand so that a thick glob of semen splattered against the wooden floor. He forced their screeching laughter from his mind, telling himself he was being an idiot. Those women didn’t matter. They hadn’t meant to hurt him; in fact, most of them probably weren’t even aware they had. He shook away the resentment, the helplessness, the anger, and flopped back on the couch.

He felt tired out, faintly feverish. Out of nowhere, a final sneeze snuck up on him, sounding like an exhausted whisper. Really, he shouldn’t let himself be bothered by it. Such a small little foible, so inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.

“Yes,” Christopher said to the cover of his discarded magazine. “It’s not some terrible thing...”


10: Girl-talk

Vanessa, like any self-respecting shopoholic, hadn’t been able to resist wearing her new shoes upon leaving the shop. Christopher had been wonderful- it felt like they had done all of Central London in about two hours, entering every shop she had wanted, and he hadn’t complained once. This alone placed him a cut above every man she knew.

Decidedly, becoming friends with Christopher had been the best thing to happen to her in ages. If he could just introduce her to a few more charming, handsome gay blokes, she could forget all about straight men and live happily ever after.

And thus, feeling fit to burst with that happy post-successful-shopping-trip glow, she had invited Christopher back to hers. It was a rather standard flat in Battersea, but she had decorated it in a funky, bohemian kind of way (thank you, Monsoon!) and always kept it tidy in case she wanted to invite someone over to spend... the evening.

They’d had a lovely dinner, with Vanessa turning her kitchenette cupboards upside-down muttering how she hadn’t had time to go to Sainsbury’s, until Christopher had gently placed his hands on her hips and pushed her aside. Peering into her- granted, rather bare- shelves, he had immediately exclaimed,

“I don’t see what you’re fretting about- allow me!”

And without further ado, he had dug up an econo-pack of spaghetti, a jar of sauce, and her packets of Herb Medley and hot pepper flakes. Turning to the refrigerator, he had tsked at her low-fat yoghurt and cottage cheese (“Don’t you have anything healthy to eat?”) before pulling out an onion, a half-finished brick of Wexley Cheddar, two waning carrots... and, wincing, a pot of plain, low-fat yoghurt.

“Most people don’t know this, but the secret to a great spag sauce is a dash of sour cream. Of course, this’ll have to do, my favourite health freak, but in the future I advise you to get some calories in there.”

Vanessa had laughed, companionably joining him in grating, slicing, fricasseeing, simmering, boiling and, finally, in enjoying the hot rush of immediate gratification that came from eating a delicious, home-cooked meal. Accompanied by one of the many bottles of red wine she kept stored in the cool space under the sink, it was divine.

“Mmm!” she cried, mouth full. “Christopher, this is excellent!”

“Of course,” he said. “Everyone knows gay men not only have excellent taste in clothes and home decoration, but we’re good cooks as well. Also, we make great pets – did I mention I’m fully house trained?”

She choked on her pasta as she struggled not to laugh, and Christopher couldn’t help thinking how lovely this all was. Had it been permissible, he would gladly have cooked pasta for her every night. And then, he noticed something amiss as Vanessa hastily swallowed her mouthful, coughed, and then brought her hands up to her face prayer-style in order to catch a moderately loud, “eck-ssshoo!”

“Bless you,” he said, watching her struggle to regain her composure.

She did it quickly. “Don’t you ever, ever make me laugh while I’m eating!”

“You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, sorry, I got a hot pepper flake up my nose or something. I’m fine. Oh, this is so good, I’m really glad to have some sauce left over...”

She seemed oddly perturbed by the incident, though Christopher couldn’t quite fathom why. Picking up their easy conversation again, he slowly steered it onto first the shopping they’d done,- “I can’t wait to wear my new clothes at the office!”- then onto the reactions she would get,- “What you picked out for me just looks so polished. Think I’ll get promoted?”- and finally onto what he really wanted to talk about, the men she could attract. Or should attract.

By that point, they had finished both the washing up and the compulsory flicking at each other playfully with the wet dishtowels. Vanessa eyed the spotless kitchen, stooped to reach under the sink for another wine bottle, and then casually said,

“I haven’t had a great girl-talk session like this in yonks. Let’s do something silly- want to go to my room, sit on the bed, and drink this with me?”

Christopher eyed her up and down, amazed. He couldn’t believe this woman, made even more beautiful by the mischievous sparkle in her eyes and the fun-filled flush of her cheeks, trusted him enough to invite him for a casual chat in her bedroom. Things like this just didn’t happen to him. And then, like a sharp needle stab in the back of his mind, came that urge again to yell, “Warning: I’m a heterosexual man!” Of course, he didn’t say a thing, mutely nodding and following her to her sanctuary.

It was the biggest room in the flat, softly lit, and while it was obvious that she had done an effort to make it seem grown up, he noted small details that somehow charmed him more than all the carefully chosen, glitzy accessories. It was the “Grease” poster on the back of the door, the pile of singles CD’s overturned in one corner, the hastily made and still-rumpled bed. All of it made her seem more human, more- and he had to laugh at himself over this one- a girl at heart. In that moment, he surprised even himself by feeling a brilliant bloom of affection for her.

This lapse into tenderness was immediately cut short by a familiar tingle in his nose, and he could only curse himself as the urge swelled within seconds into a full-fledged sneeze. He stifled it silently, hand gripping his nose painfully hard as his shoulders hunched forward. He hoped Vanessa hadn’t noticed, but his had luck betrayed him for she turned to look in his direction right at that very second.

“Bless you!” she said, with a triumphant smile.

Christopher couldn't help thinking the gleeful way in which she was staring at him was a bit out of place. Did she think she was getting him back for making her laugh in the kitchen or something? There were few things Christopher hated more than feeling like he was being made fun of. He did his best to head off further sneezing by thinking of things that were light-years away from being sexy. Hirsute rugby players in the shower. Getting his tongue stuck on a cold telephone pole as a child. Auto-amputating his foot with a spoon.

“Thanks,” he muttered, embarrassed.

They settled on the bed, with Christopher quietly amazed at the surrealism of the situation, and immediately Vanessa asked,

“Tell me about your boyfriend!”

He was more grateful than ever for his exceptional self-control and ability to instantly make up wholly believable lies. He assumed a bright smile and started listing off “Gareth’s” qualities- his vivaciousness, light-hearted self-confidence, and street-smart optimism... and then suddenly realised he was throwing Vanessa’s own qualities right back at her.

Thankfully, she didn’t seem to notice.

“He sounds like such a doll,” she sighed. “Does he have a straight brother exactly like him?”

“Umm... I’ll have to check,” Christopher laughed.

Vanessa smiled at him. Then, spotting an opportune break in conversation, she said, “S’cuse me- I need to pop to the loo. All that wine, you know what I’m like...”

And she was gone, by some stroke of luck shutting the door behind her. This was it- the moment he had been hoping for all evening... or was it?

Christopher didn’t lose a single second. As soon as he heard the door to the bathroom shut down the hall, he was up and off the bed, pulling miniature wireless microphones out of his trousers’ pocket. He carefully stuck one under the bottom drawer of Vanessa’s night table, and another under the radiator shelf near the window where her telephone rested. They were small enough to go unnoticed forever. Then, mission accomplished, he sat back on the bed quick as a cat, and started sipping at his wine again as if nothing out of the ordinary had taken place.

“Sorry, I’m afraid I’m like a sieve, me,” Vanessa said as she returned.

“No problem, I understand,” he said, and then turned more serious. “You know, while you were gone, I got thinking about what you were saying the other day. Remember, about how you were asking where all the decent guys were hiding?”

“Oh God,” Vanessa breathed, sitting down again in front of Christopher and leaning back on her bed’s headboard. “I keep asking everyone I know, but it seems like none of my girlfriends know the answer either.”

Christopher suddenly had to fight not to reach out and shake her. Instead, he adopted a gentle, soothing tone and said, “I know what you mean. But then just now I was thinking, there are lots of great guys out there if you know how to keep your eyes open.”

With that, Christopher launched into the small spiel he had prepared. Vanessa listened, rapt, as if it was the first time someone had thought to tell her these things... though he guessed it probably wasn’t. Maybe being told by an actual bloke made all the difference, but she only nodded, her mouth slightly open, as he explained to her the importance of keeping an open mind, of noticing small details or attentions, and of not to immediately rejecting someone upon noticing he wasn’t a self-absorbed Brad Pitt clone.

When he was done, Vanessa exclaimed, “Goodness, Chris! You should be one of those sex therapists they hire on telly!”

“Surely not,” he said, breaking out in a smile again. “What I’m saying is pretty basic. Just stuff you already knew but tend to forget. We all do, of course.”

“No, I mean, it’s brilliant! Maybe I’ve gone the wrong way about it all along, you know, thinking that if a guy was really worthwhile, then he was going to shower me with attention to prove he was serious. I never thought that maybe the nice guys, since they don’t... well, since they don’t have that kind of ego, that they get discouraged more easily.”

“Sad but true,” Christopher said, giving her a smile of what he hoped was infinite wisdom. “You never know when or where love could come calling next. I mean, crazy things happen all the time- you could be walking down the street and bump into someone, or someone could call in with a wrong number on the phone, or you could be stuck in a lift with the man of your dreams and not even realise it unless you stopped to think...”


11: Home Alone

“I never thought I’d find true love, and then one day from out of nowhere you walked straight into my life... You’ve made me so happy I could cry!”

A silicone-stuffed redhead peered out from the screen and then reached out to embrace a tall Brad Pitt clone who looked on the verge of a fake tan OD. They kissed, and the mandatory canned and syrupy string music played behind them, mercifully smothering the sound of their overdone passion.

Vanessa reached for the remote and switched off the TV. She had a fairly high tolerance for trashy dramas, but the man onscreen reminded her of at least a dozen of her exes, and she didn’t quite have the stomach to sit through the remainder of the programme.

Besides, she already knew how it would end; the tanned hunk would have an affair with the redhead’s best mate (an equally silico-pneumatic blonde), they’d be found out, and then the redhead would develop breast cancer, or something equally tragic- like cellulite. The blonde guy would then see the error of his way, and the two would live in smarmy bliss until the unfortunate redhead passed away in a grand virago of violins and tearful relatives.

Vanessa wasn’t in the mood for tears. If she’d been the one writing the script, the inflated redhead would have taken a page out of Lorena Bobbit’s book and given Blondie exactly what he deserved before performing ancient voodoo rituals of some sort against her bitchy best friend. Just thinking about it, Vanessa giggled to herself. TV producers had such narrow imaginations.

She sat staring at the blank screen for a while, sipping wine and letting her thoughts drift at random. She fleetingly thought of calling Christopher up just to chat, but he was probably spending the evening with his boyfriend and she didn’t really have a reason to call him in the first place. Still, he’d become such a close friend so quickly that she’d grown used to his presence and laid-back company. It was a revelation to her, just to be able to spend time with a man without having to worry about what he might be thinking, whether she was looking pretty enough, or what compromises she might have to make to sustain a relationship. Being around him was just so... simple.

She walked to the kitchen and poured herself a fresh glass of wine. Forget Christopher; forget the telephone. What she deserved right now was a bit of personal quality time; no pressure, no thinking about men she couldn’t have. Vanessa carried her glass up with her to the bedroom, carefully closing the curtains and shutting the lights. She switched on her laptop, placing it delicately on the bed, and flittered around the room lighting her collection of candles while the system booted up. The wine had already taken the edge off her rather dull workday, and the flickering flames were the icing on the cake. Now, she felt ready to let the idiom “relax and unwind” take on a whole new meaning.

Who needed men when one owned a battery operated device?

With practiced ease, she scrolled through to an innocuously named folder among her personal documents. Double clicking on a familiar icon took her straight to a collection of sound files she’d downloaded from the Internet.

Vanessa moistened her lips. All those people, faceless men and women waiting to give her pleasure whenever she so desired... Vanessa knew none of them, but loved them all fiercely. She could never quite quantify the excitement they offered, but then, that was part of the beauty of it.

What she was about to do felt sinful in a way that ordinary sex never did.

She sat in the half-lit room, turning to face her computer, feeling like Carrie from Sex in the City. It was like an audio buffet- what was she in the mood for? Men or women, loud or soft, wet or dry... The possibilities were endless. Her eyes flicked across the screen and at last, she made her selection: a series of files by a stranger named Angelina. Yes, Vanessa thought, the softness of the female touch- so to speak- was just what she needed.

She lay back on her bed, removed her shoes, tights and skirt, and let herself be rocked by the sounds of a woman she’d never met sneezing for her. It felt so good to close her eyes and to imagine, to dream of Angelina’s face and the expressions of torment that would’ve played across it. It made her quiver just to think of it- a moment’s vulnerability captured forever in sound.

She purred with excitement, slowly letting Angelina’s allergies and severe colds moisten her velvet underground. Each sneeze was getting her progressively more keyed up, until her sex fairly ached with desire. It was like magic, each explosion accompanied by a heavy throb, pulling at her, making her writhe. Her hips bucked suddenly, and Vanessa let a vast wave of need flow through her, making her feel hot and tingling as she gave a low moan. Whoever she was, Angelina had a rare talent, and Vanessa doubted anyone in the universe appreciated it more than she did at that moment.

She pressed her right hand firmly between her thighs, surprised at how wet she was. Blindly, her left hand fumbled with her night table’s drawer, opened it, ferreted about until she found what she was searching for: an absolutely wonderful creation of pink latex and multicolour beads, upon which sat an attachment shaped like a smiling little animal. In a moment of whimsy months ago, she’d named the thing “Eager Beaver”- it was appropriate enough, in every possible sense.

Angelina was launching into a new allergy attack, harsh enough to leave her gasping in between sneezes that were so powerful as to be almost screamed out. Vanessa couldn’t control her excitement. She flicked the switch that brought the Beaver to life, and then quickly lowered it between her legs. Angelina inhaled sharply; so did Vanessa. Angelina let loose a massive sneeze; Vanessa gave a loud moan. The Beaver only whirred obediently as it thrust in and out, powered by its owner’s hand, the tongue of its little attachment flicking quickly across her clit.

Vanessa arched her back, her mouth open, her neck stretched taut. This was so good! The sounds of Angelina’s sneezing looped round in her head, setting off sparks deep inside her that were quickly turning into a forest fire. The real world was melting away like a mess of wet cobwebs, and Vanessa was happy to leave it behind.

And then, her mounting enjoyment focussed on a single short clip that she kept returning to. Angelina’s reaction to cat hair was too luscious to be true, and she’d recorded thirty seconds of it seemingly just for Vanessa. It began with a desperate, almost pleading intake of breath and then came an infinitesimal, tightly-coiled pause before the sneeze was released, a throaty explosion that sent shivers down Vanessa’s spine and made her sex contract so tightly as to make her vibrator buzz in protest.

Vanessa leaned over and rocked her hand on her laptop’s controls, playing those few seconds of audio over and over again.

 Gasp-pause-sneeze! Gasp-pause-sneeze! Oh, Angelina!

The sound grew more desperate. Vanessa grew more desperate. Her own breath was now ragged and uneven. The muscles of her thighs were shaking, the back of her knees slick with sweat. She pushed the vibrator in deeper, pressing the Beaver up hard against her clit, feeling the vibration rocking her very core, bringing with it a rising tide of powerful crimson pleasure. Her eyes were shut, and she couldn’t help but moan when at last, the universe contracted to a single point, the entire world poised on its axis, on the verge of exploding outward.

Vanessa held on to the moment for as long as she was able, feeling her body spinning loose and her muscles becoming liquid fire. For a few seconds she was nothing, just blackness spreading from the margins of a photographic negative, and then everything became bright, blinding light. A fierce wave of pleasure rolled over her. She gasped aloud at the rapturous intensity of feeling, holding the vibrator still. Her entire body bucked and twisted; blood hummed through her veins. Then, a further wave rippled through her like a brilliant aftershock, forcing out all the air from her lungs.

Eventually she flicked off both the Beaver and the laptop and lay back on the bed, every last ounce of energy spent. Every object in the room seemed a bit too sharp, standing out preternaturally bright against the softness of the candle-lit shadows. A cool sense of contentment flowed through Vanessa’s body as she felt every single muscle in her body relax at last. She sighed and rolled over, wanting to give something back in return... before remembering that she was very much alone.

*

Christopher couldn’t believe what he had just heard. He’d tapped the equipment in his car, shaken it even, but it hadn’t changed a thing. There was no mistaking the sounds that had filtered through the speakers; a strange woman’s sneezing, and some of the most lustful moaning he’d ever heard in all the years he’d been privy to such intimate sessions.

It had taken him a few minutes to get his head around it. Sneezing? Vanessa was listening to someone sneeze as she masturbated? A few minutes convinced him the sneezes had the same pattern and rhythm, and were thus nothing more than a recording. When he’d realised this, he couldn’t help but giggle in the darkness like a schoolboy that had peeped into a room where a lady was doing a naughty thing he couldn’t quite understand.

So that was it: Vanessa’s well-guarded secret. The little thing that made all he had observed come together and make sense; her curious embarrassment at being blessed, the faraway look she’d gotten when she’d first heard Christopher sneeze. He blushed, now, remembering it, but was somehow also perversely pleased. What an interesting peccadillo. What an unusual little inclination. When he thought of it, one could easily think it was quite... sweet.

All these thoughts had flown through his mind lightening-fast as he’d concentrated on picking up every single element that was filtering through the speakers. This was amazing! Though she hadn’t said a word, Christopher couldn’t help but see Vanessa in an entirely different light. For someone who seemed to cultivate superficiality, this didn’t sound like any kind of random wanking. In fact, from the sound of it, this had been act of momentous passion, a monument to individual sexual expression, as close to self-induced rapture as he’d ever heard. It had blown him away. So much so, in fact, that as Vanessa reached her climax, Christopher couldn’t help himself and let out three soft little sneezes, moist lover’s whispers that seemed to bounce off the darkened interior of his car.

And right then, a part of him had wondered whether there was any way she could hear him do it, and what kind of effect it would have on her if that were the case. Would she... could she actually find it sexy? But... it was just so odd! He’d sneezed again then, involuntarily, and the old shame had returned like a familiar friend, clapping a cold arm around his shoulder, telling him he was being ridiculously stupid.

And then, as suddenly as it had come, the feeling passed, and he lowered his hands away from his face with a dry sniffle. As he listened to Vanessa’s soft post-orgasmic breathing, he couldn’t help but wonder. If all of this was purely data collection and nothing more than routine reconnaissance, why did he feel like he and Vanessa had just made love?

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