Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Julian

My heart was still poundingas I paced around my living room, trying to comprehend the events in apartment three. It had been a long time since I’d felt like a hero, and a much longer time since I’d been in a physical altercation with a criminal.

It had only happened once before, in fact, when some reprobate tried to steal my wallet on a family holiday to Barbados. My kids had watched me battle with the thief, and I’d won. I’d held the wallet over my head like I was Apollo, and we’d had a celebratory round of ice cream sundaes by the pool.

Such a shame I didn’t have anyone left to share my glory with. I’d have loved to tell my brother, Michael, how I’d thrown a violent prick across someone’s living room, but I would be the last person he’d want to be celebrating with. I doubt he’d even believe my words. Not now I was dead to him.

I should have called the police and reported the criminal I’d accosted, but the sad look in poor Rosie’s eyes had spoken volumes. Her mother wouldn’t be telling them the truth. There would be no repercussions for Scottie, and his getting like that sometimes.

Even now, I felt my morals throwing punches, despite being such a huge self-hater that I wanted to rot in hell.

I kept on pacing, but slowed down as the adrenaline burst died off, slow and steady as reality kicked back in. My hero dash downstairs had been a welcome interlude in the events I’d perceived unfolding tonight, but that was all. A few minutes of saving grace before I paid my final dues.

The snakes of self-loathing were still hissing in the shadows, ready to close in and take me. I was hoping I’d finally succumb to them, after several failed attempts on my suicide resume. One would hope I’d have a little more resolve this time around.

I dropped myself back down on my scuffed chesterfield sofa – a second-hand shop throwaway, worth less than the pen in my hand. It was as jaded as I was. A dejected version of the piece it would have been in its prime. Fitting.

I downed a shot of whisky before I resumed my writing with shaking fingers. The paper was lined, which should help me keep the words legible. Should. It hadn’t been working all that well so far. I’d written a variety over the months, some begging forgiveness, some trying to help my wife understand my filth, some practically blank as my sullied brain struggled for reason.

Katreya, this letter began.

But no combination of words would ever cut it.

My pill bottles were already lined up. I’d been stockpiling them for five months, which was more than enough to see me through to the other side. I hoped my anonymity in Worcester meant it would take days if not weeks for someone to find me, by which time I’d be long gone. Nothing but a blue tinged corpse, worthy of my destination.

That’s where I wanted to be. In the ground, not floating around like an outcast in this shitty life.

Katreya,

I looked at the empty page below her name. It should be a confessional booth to regurgitate my soul into, but my words had dried up – a pitiful excuse from a professor of English. Sorry, a former professor, now nothing more than a disgraced man requested to resign his post rather than taint the college’s good name. I still remembered the shock and disgust in my colleagues’ eyes. And now I was nothing more than a minimum wage insurance clerk, filing paperwork and restocking the stationery cupboard for a firm downtown. What a life success.

I downed another whisky and rethought my farewell. Why go into the minutia? What I hadn’t admitted in person would have soon been uncovered in the aftermath.

I forced my pen to move, opting to spell out the obvious.

Katreya,

Sorry I was a sick cunt.

I deserved this.

Yours, Julian.

What a hypocritical sentiment. I hadn’t been Katreya’s in heart for well over a decade. She’d known it, too. Both me and her were lost to each other, regardless of the public façade. What did that matter, though? I was still perverse enough that she despised the very sight of me and always would.

I ripped the sheet of paper off and tossed it aside along with the others. Half written letters to Grace and Ryan, my daughter and son. An attempt for Michael, asking him to manage my probate affairs and arrange a barren funeral. My parents were both dead, which was a small mercy. They hadn’t had to live through my disgrace.

I recalled the hurt in Katreya’s eyes as she spat her hate at me, jabbing a finger towards the laptop that had finally seen me exposed. She’d been pointing at a full screen camera shot of one of Grace’s best friends with her legs spread wide and a thick dildo stretching her open, gazing up at the camera like a whore. She had the word slut scrawled above her pussy in marker pen, which was another piece of damning evidence. Katreya recognised my handwriting from a mile off. That’s what twenty-six years of marriage does for you. She knew me inside out. Or so she thought…

Funny how such a great therapist as her couldn’t see the madness in her own husband’s eyes.

I couldn’t even plead it was a moment of insanity. That photo was one of hundreds. They showed at least three of the girls from Grace’s college circle, seven years previous.

The hurt in Katreya’s eyes had stabbed me far less than the hurt and rage in Grace’s when she found out, so thank the Lord I’d tossed my laptop into my suitcase along with my clothes so that she didn’t have the option of viewing the pictures for herself.

Fuck off and die, Dad, she’d told me through raw tears. I can’t believe you’ve done this. I can’t. I just can’t! It’s sick. It’s absolutely fucking sick!

Pain, heartbreak, disbelief, embarrassment. I wondered how many of her friends had admitted they’d fucked me after Madeline blew the first whistle. Most likely a lot of them.

The other girls on my laptop were more recent examples. Students from my own classroom. Some as recent as last September.

Who really gave a toss about goodbye letters after all that? And who really gave a toss about living without their family? I was truly done for.

I opened the first bottle of pills and started the pile. Bottles two and three helped it grow. Four and five made it look lethal. Six, seven, eight. The stash was high. The end result a certainty. I’d need at least a litre of whisky to wash them down. Luckily, I had one to the side of me.

I got the bottle ready and took hold of a fistful of pills, heart thumping to a different tune as I prepared myself. I’d been stalling for another few months again, backing out at the last minute every fucking time. But not this time. Not. This. Time.

Fuck earning credit by being a hero this evening. I’d been a villain a thousand times over back at home, and I deserved to pay for it. I deserved this.

I pictured Katreya’s face, tears streaming. I remembered Grace and Ryan’s horror as they realised what a perverted piece of shit their father was. I imagined Michael’s shock as he realised what a fuck up his brother had become. My mother-in-law, Kristelle, cursing my name.

I recalled the sneers of my disgusted co-workers. I even pictured our stuck-up neighbours, shaking their heads and judging what a lowlife human being I was.

Then I remembered the beauty of our perfect Oxford life, and our Labrador Barney in the garden. Our oak floors, and our huge windows. Our kids running through the living room when they were young. When they still believed in their father.

My hand was trembling, but I kept hold of the pills. I closed my eyes, and tried to accept my fate, tried to push myself to follow through with it, tried to FUCKING DO IT. But I couldn’t. I was still too selfish to rid the world of my betrayals. Still clinging on to the ridiculous notion that one day, somehow, people would find a way to forgive me. But they wouldn’t. I knew that. They’d told me so with crystal clarity.

I threw the fistful of pills across the room. Damn my pitiful existence.

I scraped my nails across my scalp, tugging at my grown-out hair. I silent screamed and rocked back and forth, hating myself for the fucked-up filth I’d been addicted to behind my family’s back. I should have stood right up and made my confession over Sunday roast, or sought out therapy from a professional who wasn’t my fucking wife.

I, Julian Lockley, am a sex addict, who likes the degradation of barely legal girls.

And the saddest thing of all? The God’s honest truth of it?

If I could go back in time, I wouldn’t change my ways. I wouldn’t have the restraint to keep my filthy dick in my pants and not take advantage of the pretty little princesses on offer.

Even now, on the edge of taking my life, I could feel my sexuality bubbling away under the surface, like a pool of filth brought back to life.

Rosie.

The girl downstairs.

I’d seen her plenty of times in passing. I’d written her off as out of bounds and kept the hell away. I’d ignored the nervous drop of her eyes whenever I crossed her path, and the way she pushed her glasses up her cute little nose. I could live with that.

I could handle how pretty she looked on her way back from her late shifts at the pizza house after college. I could pretend I wasn’t watching her when I lit up a cigarette at the window as she was due home.

But it was different now. I’d seen her in a whole new light tonight. Far more up close and personal.

Desperate. Innocent.

Tiny hands to convey her thanks. A soft voice with a nervous thank you. Trembling fingers as she checked her mother was ok.

I imagined my cock buried deep inside her innocence. Imagined scrawling filth all over her pale skin. Imagined punishing her with slaps to her little tits. Imagined her begging for more.

Fuck it. I deserved a beating, just like the assailant I’d wrestled away.

At least I could thank God for the fact that my perversions were all of legal age or older. I’d seen a celebratory 18th birthday banner on Rosie’s apartment door less than three weeks after I’d moved in here. I’d frowned at the misfortune of its grotty wooden backdrop – such a contrast against the pretty glitter pink.

Fucking hell, I couldn’t help myself, even now, after playing the hero. I loosened my belt and took my cock in my hand, wondering just how sweetly a girl like her would show her gratitude. Would she hitch up her legs and offer her tender little pussy, subject to every fucked-up demand I made?

My addiction would never fade. That much was clear.

I worked my dick in a frenzy, a high after a low, milking myself to a stream of seedy thoughts, imagining her naked, whimpering at my touch, begging for more, until I blew my fucking load all over the coffee table, managing to aim away from my pill stash, at least. My fountain pen was splattered with cum when I was done, though. So much for the farewell letters.

I lit up a cigarette at the window in the aftermath, staring out at the Crenham Drive misery as my senses came back to me. Both a blessing and a curse.

I knew myself well enough to know where my needs would lead when it came to an innocent little damsel in distress, and I couldn’t let it happen. Not here, in the hovel I’d run to. Rosie didn’t deserve any more demons, so mine had to be tamed, until I had the courage to kill them along with myself.

So, I gave myself one final demand to hold true to.

Whatever I did, whatever I thought, no matter how fucking hard my dick got, it wouldn’t matter. It couldn’t matter. THAT’S what I promised myself.

No matter what, I would stay the fuck away from the girl downstairs.