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Shorts
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| Sugar and Spice | |
| By Snodlander | ||||||||||||||||
| 18 May 2007 | ||||||||||||||||
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They say history is written by the victors. Crap! It’s written by Hollywood, by the TV companies and by the tabloids. John Wayne single-handedly won the Second World War. It must be true, because I saw it on the screen. You tell the public anything you like, and someone will believe it. You tell the public enough times, everyone will believe it. So here’s my version of what happened. This is my truth. It’s not what the public believe, but then I’m not a Hollywood movie-maker. You believe it or not. What do I care? I’m beyond caring now. I’m just an ordinary guy. Nothing special. I’m no saint, but I’m not the monster they made me out to be. Or maybe I am, but if so then we can all be monsters. It just needs that one thing to tip the balance. They said I was a sneak thief and a mugger, that that day I was hanging around waiting to mug some defenceless victim. Bullshit! Listen, before all this happened, I had a life. Not much of one, maybe, but it was mine. I had a wife, kids, somewhere to sleep. There are millionaires that can’t say as much. But it was tough. So, yeah, I bent the rules. I had mouths to feed. You think I should let my kids go hungry out of principle? Can you live off of morals? So I was out in the woods seeing if I could liberate a pheasant or two. Maybe catch a rabbit. Technically it was poaching. In reality it was just a family guy trying to look out for his own. I’m not going to apologise for that. I’m not proud of it. But I was down on my luck, and had been for a long time, but what I was doing that day, well, any guy that does less for his family is lower than a dog. So, I was sitting very still, by a tree on the edge of the forest, waiting to see if dinner would trot up and say hello. She came up the path from the village, MP3 playing so loud I could hear the tinny beat from yards and yards away. So I stood up. I didn’t want her to stumble on me and scream the place down, did I? And she would have already scared off any game. It was only afterwards I found out she was fourteen. Trust me, she didn’t look it that morning. I swear she looked eighteen, maybe older. She had a micro skirt, and she used her legs and hips to show it off. A white lacy blouse, because it was the middle of summer. And that stupid red hat, the one she wore in all the newspaper photos. And you know what they say: ‘red hat, no drawers’. She saw me stand up, and she looked me straight in the eyes, and she smiled. One of those smiles, you know? The sort you only see in porn films or TV commercials. That smile that doesn’t actually promise anything specific, but you know that you want what she’s offering anyway. I know what I look like. People think I’m trouble, just because I look rough. They look away. If they don’t make eye contact, they don’t have to acknowledge you exist. And if you don’t exist you can’t hurt them. I can’t tell you what it was like to have a pretty girl look you straight in the eyes, all unafraid. The smile, well, that was just the icing on the cake. So I nodded to her, you know, by way of being all friendly and that, and she stopped. She took out her earphones and said, “hello,” like I was Brad Pitt or someone. “Hi,” I said, acting all cool and right-on, even though my heart was beating louder than her MP3, even though my knees were like water, even though it took all my willpower not to jump up and wag my tail like a lap-dog. She was close enough for me to smell, and she smelled good enough to eat. “Watchya doing?” I shrugged. “Waiting for my luck to change,” I said, because it was the cleverest thing I could think of to say on the spur of the moment. My chat-up skills were a little rusty, what with me being spoken for. And yes, I did think of the little woman back home, and the litter of brats, blah-de-blah. But she was all woman. She was any red-blooded guy’s fantasy. And she was talking to me, smiling and smelling and wiggling and everything. I defy anyone to think straight in those circumstances, with the woods to your back and the air full of bees buzzing and the scent of summer flowers and her. Her, standing so close and smiling and talking and willing. She smiled again, all innocent-but-not-really, and said, “So, has it changed yet?” And I was thinking “Oh thank you God. Oh thank-you-thank-you-thank-you.” It was like He had decided that this was my reward for catching all the bad breaks, for putting up with all the shit that had been dumped on me all my life. So we started to chat, just standing there on the path, in the shade of the trees. Nothing serious, no meaning. It was all sub-text. It was like we both knew what was going to happen, but we were just playing with each other, making small talk, until it did. She was off to see her Granny in the old gatehouse that used to be part of the estate. Granny was half out her wits, and when she went round there Granny would get confused. She laughed about the little tricks she would play sometimes, swapping the sugar for the salt and stuff. And how Granny kept all her cash in a drawer in her bedroom, and never missed the odd few notes. And I laughed with her, because when you are lusting after a girl, that’s what you do. You’d think I’d throw away an opportunity like that, a poor sap like me? And then she said she was going to the shops to buy some cheap cakes for Granny, then con her for more cash than they were worth. Did I want to walk her there? Did I! So we walked along the path, arms around each other’s waist. I didn’t redirect her down the wrong path, like they said afterwards. She was leading me down the path, if you get my drift. And as my hand bounced on her waist, like it does, you know, when you’re walking with someone smaller than you. Well, my hand sort of bounced a little, and through her skirt I could tell they were wrong about ‘red hat, no drawers’, but not by much. And I wanted her so much it actually ached, down in the pit of my stomach. When we got near the little parade of shops she asked if I had any cash, and of course I didn’t. I patted myself down, and made like I had left my wallet in my other coat, but I don’t think she believed me. Looking back, that may have been one of the reasons she chose me. Then she did the damnedest thing. She pushed me up against a tree and kissed me. A deep, long one. And yeah, there was tongue, hers pushing into my mouth, but it was weird. I wasn’t thinking of that. All I could think about was her smell, and the closeness of her, and how lean and hard her young body was, and how she wanted me. Me! And then after a time, I don’t know, a minute? Five? Anyway, I sort of came to and I started to react. You know, grabbing her arse and then trying to slide my hand up over her boob, that sort of think. And she pushed me away. Not all upset, or anything. But playful, sort of. “Later,” she said. “Cake first.” “But I’ve got no money,” I said. Stupid. I mean, that’s the main crime I committed here. I was just so stupid from the moment I saw her. But she just giggled. “Just keep him busy at the counter. It’ll be a laugh.” And she was so excited and giggly and high it just turned me on like you have no idea. So we went into the bakers. I asked the shopkeeper about various pies, pretending I was allergic to this or didn’t like that. I could tell he didn’t believe me for a moment. He never took his eyes off me, suspicion all over him. Which of course was what she wanted. After I heard her leave the shop I had a sneezing fit and left, blaming the flour in the air. Which, as it happens, was not faked. She was crazy. She was laughing and jumping up and down as though she had gotten away with the crown jewels or something. And she ran off into the woods, with me following, trying to keep up and hoping to God that all that bottled-up energy would release itself through her hips. But she wouldn’t let me get anywhere. Each time I made a grab for her, or tried to get her to come off the path into the trees, she’d just laugh and push me off. There’s only so much of that any guy can take, so in the end I just lost my temper and shouted at her. Called her a pricktease, a bitch. And instead of her giving me the finger, she got all serious, walked up close, so close her breasts where just touching my ribs, and gave me a little peck on the neck, all contrite. And you know what? That was the single most erotic moment of my entire life. It was even better than the Frenching she had given me earlier. “Later, lover. Later. Let me sort out my Gran, yeah, and then we’ll sort you out. I’ll sort you out good and proper.” And that was that. I followed her like a lamb to the slaughter. Granny was just as senile as she had said she would be. But not so senile that she trusted me. She didn’t like the look of me from the outset, I could tell. But she was all sweetness and light towards her granddaughter. She oohed and ahhed over the cakes, then said, “You are silly to spend your pocket money on me. Let me pay for them.” As Granny went into the bedroom, my little temptress followed, looking over her shoulder at me and winking. Moments later there was a crash. I upped and ran into the bedroom. There was Granny, lying full stretch on the floor at the foot of the bed, her head hard up against the radiator. The girl was sitting on the bed. A drawer in the chest was pulled open. “She tripped,” she said. Later I realised how cold she sounded, how unemotional. I went over to the old woman. The open drawer was in my way, so I closed it to get to her. Leaving my fingerprints behind. I knelt down and felt for the pulse in her neck. There was blood on the floor. It wasn’t flowing from her head any more. Dead people don’t bleed. I stood up, using the chest of drawers as support. Leaving bloody fingerprints this time. I turned to the bed. She smiled and started to unbutton her blouse. “A bed is much better than the woods, isn’t it?” I walked up to her, panic rising. “What? How can you say that? Now? With her… She’s dead, you know.” She shoved a couple of notes in my hand. “Tell you what. You can be the male prostitute and I’m the horny rich woman that’s hired you.” I felt sick. I took the notes out of reflex, but suddenly I wasn’t randy any more. She wasn’t a sex siren. She was just a monster. I had got to the door of the cottage when she started screaming. Coming down the path was a big guy with an axe. He started running and I didn’t hang around to explain things. I was sick when I saw her on TV. All sugar and spice, the hem of her skirt down to her knees and her wide eyes brimming with tears. Telling how I had tricked her, killed her Gran, robbed her then waited for the little schoolgirl to arrive so I could try and rape her. I was sick, then angry. Furious. At her, and at me. Now, I don’t care. I’ve lost everything. My wife, my kids, my freedom. They say I’m going to spend the rest of my life behind bars. Her? She’ll skip through life as free as a bluebird. She’s sold her story to the tabloids and to Hollywood. So of course, her’s is the truth that everyone will believe. Bitch!
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