The Sexopaths
Authors: Bruce Beckham
The
Sexopaths
by
Bruce Beckham
Text
copyright
©
2012 Bruce Beckham.
All
rights reserved. Bruce Beckham asserts his right always to be identified
as the author of this work. No part may be copied or transmitted without written
permission from the publisher.
Kindle
edition.
First published by
Lucius 2012.
Mid-September – Mykonos, Greek Cyclades
Late September – Jurmula, Latvia
End of September – Edinburgh, Scotland
3
rd
October – Edinburgh, Scotland
5
th
October – Edinburgh, Scotland
6
th
October – Edinburgh, Scotland
9
th
October – Edinburgh, Scotland
Mid-October – Edinburgh, Scotland
Late August – Leith, Scotland
‘Well… did that go according to
plan?’
Adam hears his voice: disembodied
it seems, and surprisingly calm. By contrast, within the lunatic asylum
that’s taken temporary control of his cranium, manic cries erupt Turette’s-like
from an orgy of lurid images. His mind is spinning, but a contest between
flight and fight seems to be the gist of it.
‘Mmm.’ The woman’s economical
reply quells the paranoid throng. It sounds an approving, sated kind of
mmm
.
‘So… what next?’
‘I’ll be in touch.’
She tilts her head and rests it
lightly against the door jamb. He detects a polite impatience for him to
leave, but risks a lingering glance into her unblinking eyes, as if within
those smoky cinematic depths a private screening will reveal the information he
desires; though she remains inscrutably on hold.
‘I’ll… see you, then?’ Now
he can’t prevent the faintest interrogative inflection from hijacking the
attempted statement.
The gentle crescent of her preset
smile seems about to deepen, but duty calls: a mobile he hasn’t realised she’s
holding shrills with attention-seeking insistence. Beneath her silky
façade she hardens perceptibly. Adam, retreats, as if thrust half a step
back by an invisible hand, nods his acquiescence.
‘Bye.’
Long lashes flutter a late bonus
message – though he recognises the professional farewell – then
she’s gone; he hears her voice, recharged, before the softly conspiratorial
click of her well-oiled latch seals off sounds from within, and laps unhindered
around the bare atrium, returning as an echo.
‘Jesus.’
He sinks back against the wall,
eyes cast high as though in search of seraphim. At this moment such an
apparition feels plausible, and apposite in more ways than one: the modern apartment
occupies a corner position in the basement of a much older red-stone building
– he thinks an ex-chapel of sorts; or maybe a church school?
Concentric galleries diminish skywards to a lofty Edwardian cupola.
Stunned in the crypt-like twilight he’s obliged to watch tiny motes tumble
gently down to disappear upon the fibrous grey industrial-gauge carpet that
expediently accepts no tracks. The place could be uninhabited: on this
level an arid quadrangle, identical modern front doors standing like newly
quarried, rudely numbered tombstones awaiting their epitaphs, etchings bearing
cryptic clues to each life beyond – the mundane and the scandalous
nameless and unwitting neighbours.
Peremptorily abandoned he feels
curiously unwilling to depart, when once he’d hurry through hunched and hoping
to be unseen: inbound, door seven magically opening upon approach, saving him
from the need to knock or even to break stride, and absorbing him silently into
scented tropical darkness; outbound, he’d scurry lightly away, skirting the
walls mouse-fashion, should salacious voyeurs lurk hawkishly on a balco
ny above. Now – as…
what?… an
initiate
? – former visits have abruptly time-warped,
concertinaed into a sense of erroneous familiarity, of misplaced tenure.
Thus reluctant to accept his dismissal, he loiters uncertainly, like one of
Count Dracula’s vampirettes that failed to make it back into the tomb before
daybreak, cut off from its life-blood and about to be painfully exposed to the
withering rays of dawn. As he begins to acknowledge the irreversible
nature of his redundancy, the sudden amplified crack of a key springing a
mortise somewhere overhead triggers a reflex and tips the mental transition in
favour of flight. Instantaneously he’s marching light-headed to the lift,
for now at least a one-way conduit from underworld fantasy to high street
banality. Via a small ground-level lobby it disgorges him efficiently
into the mid-afternoon heat and desiccated litter and badly driven buggies
bearing milk-drunk mini-passengers, wearily pushed by unqualified tracksuited
teenagers. He feels out of place; Leith might be up-and-coming, but it’s
known for its underclass and daytime drunks and not-always-night-time
violence. And while he feels a small sense of relief as he moves away
from the immediate vicinity of the condo, where his presence could not easily
be accounted for, he remains on alert should he be recognised. Why is he
here? What would he say to someone? He wishes for anonymity, but
accusatory sunbeams with disconcerting accuracy winkle out shiny angles on shop
windows and passing vehicles; he squints and fumbles for the illusory designer
shade of his sunglasses.
His waxed convertible shimmers in
the haze of an adjacent supermarket parking lot. But there’s a Hibernian
FC-green corner bar opposite and he diverts on foot into its shadowy gloom,
sidestepping the glowering smokers loitering conspiratorially at the entrance,
patently unwilling to accommodate a stranger. Waiting at the long
counter, his head still thumps with confused thoughts like an impatient youth’s
souped-up hatchback, straining, overloaded with writhing mates and pulsating
primeval bass. He can barely hear himself order the Scotch and water.
He’s conscious of eyes falling
upon him – not that anyone would know him – and then he feels a tap
against his calf. He turns to find a small sad-eyed mongrel, roped to a
lank-haired down-and-out, standing in hopeful anticipation, fixing him with
their respective stares of hunger and desire. Thus outnumbered, he downs
his drink and casts his change upon the bar-top, surrendering his station to
the more needy.
The heat inside his hooded black
roadster is stifling. He drops the canopy and pulls out into the traffic
that’s shunting city-bound along Leith Walk’s crazy-emporia-lined
carriageway. Hallucinatory outtakes persist in flashing real across his
mind’s retina. Billboards advertising blockbusters and broadband assume
x-rated scenes invisible to pedestrians. Disconcerting mirages occupy
lorry-sides and bus ads. He watches replays of reflected vignettes
captured in mirrored wardrobe doors, images of the past hour that had slipped
tantalisingly beneath his blindfold. Tanned limbs entwined. In the
semi-darkness long black tresses, unnaturally straightened, a little
unforgiving, familiar… and others, soft, natural…
blonde?
***
‘Daddy, why can’t we all die
together?’
‘Camille – what are you
talking about?’ The question rouses him from the persistently invasive
psychedelic daydream. He glances sideways but fair windblown curls veil
her face. ‘Camille?’ He eases off the accelerator and her ringlets
respond to gravity. She’s biting her lower lip.
‘You said you and mummy would die
before me.’
He’s reminded of last night’s
bathtime conversation, brought on by a tragic accident on the patio when a
tricycle failed to give way to a ‘baby’ snail. ‘Camille… I was just
saying that, usually, older people die before younger people.’
‘But you said
I’m
old
‘cause I’m four and I can’t have a dummy.’
‘Well, you’re
kind of
old
– I mean you’re a big girl now, not a baby any more.’
‘So why can’t I die when you and
mummy die?’
‘Oh, Camille… look – I’m
really
old, I’m
thirty
-four, positively prehistoric – but
my
mummy
and daddy are still alive aren’t they – gran and grandpa? And so
are mum’s mummy and daddy in France. Maybe one day a long time off they
might die… but I’ll feel okay and so will mum because we’re grown-ups now…’
‘But I want us to die
together
!’
Suddenly she breaks out into heaving sobs. ‘I don’t
want
… to be
left
…
on my
own!’
He reaches across to locate a
small hand; despite its tiny tenderness it fails to conduct away his sudden
guilt. He’d been late collecting her from holiday club. She was
last kid standing, alone in the great echoing school hall, a diminutive figure,
head down, studiously colouring-in at an elf-sized desk, while the sole
surviving member of staff loitered handbag at the ready, poised for
departure. At the creak of the door, Camille had flashed him a furtive
glance, returning focus to her work as if deciding how to react, then a tornado
of emotions had picked her up and whirled her across the parquet floor; she’d
crashed into his thighs and squeezed him tight even before the spinning crayons
had settled in her wake. She’d thought they’d forgotten her.
Correction: that
he’d
forgotten her.
‘Hey, hey! Come on,
baby. This stuff’s a long… long… long way off. You don’t need to
think about it.’
‘When we get home can I have a
dummy?’
He smiles at her characteristic
brightening; his little April shower. ‘Alright then, just this once
before bedtime… but hide it under a cushion when mummy comes in, okay?’
‘Okay. And can I watch a
dbd?’
‘Any dbd you like.’
‘And will you sit with me and
watch it, too?’
He chuckles. ‘Who do you
take after, Little Miss Negotiator! Alright then – but first I’ll
need to check my mail, okay?’
‘Okay.’
‘Nearly home, look – here’s
your Christening church.’
‘Daddy?’
‘Aha?’
‘And can I stay with you and
mummy for ever and ever?’
‘You can stay as long as you
want.’
***
Standing in the ensuite bathroom
Adam grips the sides of the washbasin and stares into nothingness beyond the
mirror. What does he feel? Desire? Distaste? For once
he’s not sure, though the balance is inexorably shifting towards the
latter. He presses his fingertips to his nose and inhales. Despite
his best efforts with a nailbrush the garlicky smell of sex still
lingers. It must be inside his nostrils, he reasons, recalling the
drowning melting honeyed contact, pressed audaciously upon him. He
inspects his reflection: his lips feel a little raw, but they look
normal. He checks his wrists, and then his ankles too, where pressure
still has a ghost of a grip, but they are unmarked; the vinyl self-cling tape evidently
performed as advertised. He thinks about applying some after-shave to
camouflage his anxiety, but settles for an abridged squirt of deodorant; it’s
less obvious. From below he can hear Camille calling him, frustrated
– something about the ‘dbd’. He shouts back an appeasing reply, and
pads to the bedroom to change into a blue sports vest and matching cargo
shorts. He locates his wristwatch: it’s a quarter past six –
Monique should be back any minute. He gathers up his discarded clothes
and drops them into the washing basket, then has second thoughts and pulls them
all out. As he descends the stairs he hears the crunch of Monique’s tyres
on the driveway. Quickly he takes his laundry bundle to the utility room
where Ela their cleaner will deal with it when she arrives in the morning, then
he slips into the playroom and kneels beside Camille, who is now patiently
sorting out multicoloured beads, her ‘dbd’-watching plans defeated by a
combination of technology and her father’s non-appearance.