32

May 2017

Vickey, Alex

Vickey was woken early in the morning by a delightful feeling at the pit of her stomach. Alex, lying next to her, her beloved Alex, was caressing her crotch with his hand. Without opening her eyes, Vickey moaned quietly.
Alex’s fingers became increasingly insistent. Vickey sensed her sleepy body being overcome by a sweet bliss of sexual arousal.
“Good morning, my delicate Viktoria!” said Alex, leaning over and kissing her on the lips as she finally opened her eyes. Vickey sensed the taste of mint toothpaste and coffee. So, he’d woken some time before but got back into bed to be with her. She hated it when he went off on business. It meant she would wake up in the apartment on her own, and that meant that it was time for her to go.
She accepted this state of affairs, of course. As she accepted many other factors. For him. Vickey really wanted a family, but once, when she’d told Alex that her period was late, she was told that she should immediately get an abortion. Alex didn’t want children. He’d raised his voice at her for the first time, telling her that the planet was overpopulated as it was and that he didn’t want to be responsible for yet another poor creature. He was beside himself in fury. It turned out that she wasn’t pregnant, but she decided that if she did get pregnant by chance she would keep the baby. Alex would see the baby and fall in love with it, and he would be the best father on the planet. She was convinced of that.
In some article that she’d come across in Psychology magazine she’d read something that had stuck with her. The author argued that people fall in love with the image of a person that they themselves have constructed, rather than an actual person. But Vickey had done everything to get rid of that idea. Alex was the way she saw him – the best, the kindest, the bravest, it was just that he was a little lost, hurt, confused. What was most important was that she loved him more than anyone else on Earth, her love was strong, and nothing could change that. She didn’t doubt that and she was ready to fight for her right to be with him.
Vickey smiled him a happy smile. It was only when she woke up with him that she felt happy.
Alex smiled to her in answer and moved his lips down to her neck, to her ear, her earlobe, along the length of her neck to her breasts, biting at her nipple until there was a sweet pain.
Along with the pain, Vickey was penetrated by the thought that she’d been in bad spirits the evening before. But the sex that night had been so passionate, prolonged and exhausting that she’d fallen asleep allowing Alex’s hot sperm to gradually drip out of her pussy onto the sheet. She rushed to stop him.
“I need to clean up down there, don’t,” said Vickey. Alex looked at her, smiled mercilessly and, taking her throat in his right hand, forced her head back down onto the pillow.
“Dirty little slut,” he said slowly, stretching out the words, looking over her naked body pinned to the bed beneath him. “You know that I love it when you’re a whole cocktail of scents – sweat, sperm, desire and ecstasy. I’d fuck you for days on end and never let you into the shower.”
He’d lowered his head to her tummy and sniffed with a theatrical gesture.
“The heavenly aroma of debauchery,” he confirmed, laughing.
Vickey cheered up and relaxed. Alex could always make her laugh in bed.
He sat up on his knees on the bed, behind her, turned her over onto her back and put her legs over her shoulders. He used his saliva to make her pussy wet, lubricating the entry.
At first, Alex only went halfway inside her, and then slowly pulled out, then he entered Vickey again with a sharp motion, this time three quarters of the way, and again slowly pulled out. With his third thrust he went fully in. And then began to slowly, very slowly, move inside her.
Alex took Vickey’s right leg with his hand and moved it across his chest. Her toes were in front of his mouth and he licked them. Toe by toe, separately. And then stuck them in his mouth and began to suck and lick and bite them.
Vickey’s body began to shake from this sweet torture. His right hand returned to her neck, fixing her head in place and slightly pressing in on her breathing.
Vickey groaned loudly, a wave of powerful excitement washing over her. But she couldn’t raise herself up higher to continue ascending this winding path of ecstasy.
“More, please, more!” she groaned. “Don’t stop!”
Alex’s fingers dug into her harder and he sped up the pace. Now he was fucking her with fast, rhythmic motions. Vickey balanced on an invisible line dividing incredible satisfaction from an all-encompassing orgasm.
“Again, again!” she repeated insistently.
But now, on the contrary, Alex stopped, pulled out of her, and in a single motion turned her over, putting her on her knees.
Vickey’s face sank into the pillow. She couldn’t say another word. Alex took her hips in his hands and she sensed the heated head of his cock slipping past the wet entrance to her pussy and touching her defenseless, naked butthole.
A spit, and Alex entered her ass. She shrieked out in pain, but thanks to the pillow only weak, muffled cries could be heard. Alex didn’t notice them, or he pretended not to. He continued to move mercilessly in and out, faster and faster.
Vickey sensed the pain gradually transforming into unavoidable ecstasy. She cried out louder. She curved her spine so that his cock would bump into the back wall of her pussy deep within her stomach. She could hear Alex breathing heavily and his passionate, animal snarling.
A flash of light. The exultation of two bodies merging. Time stopped.
He fell together with her onto the bed, continuing to move weakly within her as his prolonged orgasm came to an end, but it no longer caused her any pain. She didn’t want him to pull out of her, she wanted to lie like that a little longer, every part of her body touching his, listening to his breathing as it gradually calmed down.
“Good morning!” Vickey said in a whisper. “On mornings like this I think we should thank Mother Nature more often for being alive.”
Unexpectedly, Alex shuddered. He pulled out of Vickey and tried to raise himself up. But Vickey gently tugged at his arm.
“Don’t go, please, stay for a while,” said Vickey, but Alex, without turning round, pulled his palm out from beneath her. He picked his things up from the floor and then froze for a moment.
Vickey’s last phrase about “thanking Mother Nature” and her attempt to hold onto him for a moment longer had pushed him off balance.
He got up from the bed sharply and headed off into the bathroom.
“God, Alex, what happened?!? Alex!” Vickey shouted out after him. She just needed to look at his face to understand what was happening.
Already in the doorway, he turned round abruptly, took two giant steps back to Vickey, and shouted with a fury that was unexpected coming from him:
“Leave me alone! Get out of my life! I don’t owe anything to Mother Nature! I don’t owe any mother! I don’t belong to you! I hate you!”
Alex fell silent, training a heavy, blank stare on Vickey, and then moved off to the bathroom quickly. His whole body was shaking. He got under a hot shower, the sound roaring in his ears, there was a cold fury piping through his chest. His taught skin, burning under the hot water, slowly massaged him back to his senses from afar.
Alex gradually realized what he’d done. He imagined poor Vickey, desperately crying in the bed that had just been their love’s cradle. Lost, hurt, not understanding what she’d done wrong or what had happened to him. He felt sorry for her, but he couldn’t think about her right now.
He recalled that just before he’d been overcome by that uncontrollable fury, in his mind’s eye, he’d seen an image of his mother, with a belt in her hand. Mother Nature. An image so precise and unshakable, that for a moment he’d even forgotten where he was and who he was talking to.
Under the water raining down on him, he suddenly wanted to grow smaller, to cease to exist, to not have been born. He dropped to the floor of the shower and huddled up into a ball. And lay in that embryonic pose for a long time.

33

May 2018

Greg, Maxim

The meeting at which Max and Greg slightly changed the plan for the preparations for the main robbery took place at a football match. Arsenal Football Club was playing against Tottenham Hotspurs in a local derby at the Emirates Stadium in a North London derby. The venue was packed with rabid fans, and Greg and Max were among them. They both loved football, both had been fans of Arsenal in the past, and neither of them had been at a match in a long time. So, as well as discussing work in the breaks between quarters, they’d decided to have some fun by following the game.
“Business first, though,” said Greg, as they lounged on their plastic seats in the stands.
“Get in there, kid!” smiled Max. He was in an upbeat mood. For him, this trip to see Arsenal, was a shining symbol of the beautiful life that lay ahead. Max, in a great mood, in clean, good clothing, at the Emirates, at his home team’s stadium. There were tens of thousands at the enormous space of the sports complex. And he, Max, was just like them. An equal among equals. He sipped his coke. He didn’t have to open the door for anyone, he didn’t have to give anyone a lift anywhere, he didn’t have to humiliate himself for a tip, he didn’t have to be worried about getting fired or the management being in a bad mood. For him, this evening was a symbol representing the good life that awaited him.
“Come on, let’s have it,” said Max. “I can see that you’re fit to bust.”
Greg smiled, revealing his yellow teeth.
“Hitting bank machines is too risky right now, you know that. They’re in the street, and the city authorities have stepped up security, every bank machine in every godforsaken corner of this city is brightly lit with dozens of security cameras poking in its direction. But Fatty here has to check that on the big job he’s not going to screw up when he presses the button or make a mess of himself in some other way. So, this is the plan I’ve come up with.”
Greg looked around just in case, and then continued in a quiet voice.
“We’re going to blow up the lockers at a station.”
Over the speaker system they announced that the match would soon be starting.
“We’ll carry on at half-time,” Greg said to Max quickly, turning back to the football match playing out before them.
The huge pitch of the Emirates had torn him out of his grey, humdrum, dangerous life. The harsh, often aggressive life that he had chosen for himself. He looked at the group of fans, predominantly men of different ages, arguing about football, the couples in love hugging one another and waiting for the game to start, the happy, proud fathers who’d brought their growing children along to watch.
The teams started coming out onto the pitch. Greg observed the players closely and the expression on his face suddenly soured.
“Just look at that,” said Greg indignantly, pointing at the Arsenal players. “The back five are out and only one of them is English. What’s going on, can’t we create footballers anymore?”
Max smiled.
“It’s the way of the world now,” he said.
“What a fucking world Max?!?” Greg continued, riled up. “The right back’s a Bosnian and the centre half’s a Greek” he said, pointing at two of the Arsenal defenders. “And those two, Iwobi and Aubameyang where are they from?.”
“What does it matter?” asked Max.
“What?!?” Greg asked back.
“What’s wrong with it?” Max replied.
“Max, wake the fuck up,” Greg almost shouted. “We’ve had a brilliant team back in the day, remember Anfield 89, Copenhagen 1994 when we won the Cup Winners Cup? That team that beat Parma, was all ours, Adams, Merson, Smith, Campbell, the midfield was all English lads that night, Davies, Selley and Morrow.”
“Morrow was Northern Irish,” said Max, flaunting his knowledge of the game.
“What’s the difference? He’s British. We’re one country,” said Greg, not giving in.
“All right, all right,” said Max, trying to calm him down, although, because of his age, he didn’t really remember the Arsenal glory years
“What do you mean ‘all right, all right’?!?” Greg continued, still angry. “And not just Arsenal, before the ban, English sides always won the European Cup, Liverpool, Forest, Villa, we dominated Europe with all English players, and the odd Scotsman of course. It’s fucking wrong! It’s an insult to the country, right? Is this Arsenal or the Harlem Globetrotters out there?”
Max smiled. Greg’s attitude to a time in the world that no longer existed, and to football itself, surprised him.
“And the managers?” Greg continued. “We haven’t got any British managers left. Look at the premier league it’s all French, Italians, German, Spanish…”
“Wenger’s French,” said Max. He’s the best manager we’ve ever had.”
“There you fucking go again,” Gregory said angrily. “What about Herbert Chapman?”
They started watching the first few minutes of the game. Greg shouted at the Arsenal midfielder with the ball.
“Pass it, you fucking idiot!” screamed Greg.
“Calm down, Greg” said Max. “Don’t attract too much attention.”
“Managers…” said Greg, lowering his voice slightly. “Look at George Graham. He was a real giant of a man, and I don’t mean in stature. He kept those real giants we had in line. He made them champions. He was a rock. The way he’d keep Ian Wright or Paul Merson in line, they knew not to mess around with George.”
“We almost won the Champions League a few years ago, we got to the final didn’t we?” said Max, getting into the conversation.
“But nearly all that team was foreign,” objected Greg.
“What’s the difference? All right, Thierry Henry is French, he won us everything, The invincibles was down to him. You’ve got to admit you owe him some thanks for that, He’s Arsenal through and through, It’s just the way things are now, things have changed.”
“Yeah I can agree with you on that, Henry was something else. “But look what we’ve got out there now. Look at them out there, for fuck’s sake. They’re not good enough for Arsenal.” He screamed towards Xhaka in the center circle. “What the fuck are you doing, you Bosnian prick!?”
“He’s Swiss,” Max corrected him.
“At least Wilshire is playing, he’s one of our own,” said Max.
“Yeah he’s quality,” Greg drawled, falling silent for a while.
Bizarrely, it turned out that he had something in common with Greg, thought Max. Something named England. A small country with an incredible history. With a complex, ambiguous history, with painful eras when a whole section of society found itself in a vacuum, when everything changed in the blink of an eye. A country that was loved. Loved by people who lived in that country. And even Max and Greg, criminals, people who lived by stealing, wanted to be proud of their country.

Greg’s voice interrupted Max’s thoughts.
“Let me explain, Max,” Greg said, talking calmly now. “The Arsenal defense – a Czech in goal, then a Greek, a Bosnian and a Spaniard alongside one Englishman.”
“So what?” asked Max.
“So what?” Greg said, imitating him. “It’s a fucked-up disgrace!”
Max laughed.
“Here’s a question for you,” said Greg. “In Greece or Bosnia, are English players making up half the teams?”
“I don’t know Greg,” said Max, shaking his head. “There’s a British lad in Germany at Dortmund who’s meant to have a bright future, then there’s Gareth Bale at Real Madrid, he’s doing alright, I don’t know really…
“That’s just it,” said Greg bitterly. “‘nobody knows…’ That’s our problem – nobody fucking knows anything.”
Max didn’t want to argue with his mate.
Greg waved his arm in resignation.
“Let’s go down and talk. I can’t watch this,” said Greg.
As he was leaving, both saw a piss-poor pass from Iwobi, the sort of thing that had become the Nigerian’s trademark and he started shouting again.
“Open your eyes, you fuckwit!! Who’re you passing to?!!!?” Greg gave a dismissive wave of his arm and disappeared through the exit from the stands.
Max liked Greg. Not just because of his debt to him and the unusual way in which they’d met. Greg was a kindred spirit. Neither of them had achieved much in life, but both thought that Mother Nature had given them something. That they’d been given something they could work with and develop. Or life hadn’t given them the opportunity yet. They just hadn’t yet had the chance to do something with that opportunity.
“So, I’ve been thinking,” continued Greg when they’d sat themselves down at a table in the hall with some beers, a hot dog and a couple of packets of nuts. “There’s no better place for a controlled explosion than the automatic left-luggage lockers. Just think about it – no guards, the lighting’s gloomy, the security cameras are a joke. I’ll take a look round the stations, try and find something suitable, and you speak to Leon, it’s his turn to show us what he can do.”
Max nodded his consent.
“Then we need to check out Alex,” said Greg.
Max could see that there was a certain tension between Greg and Alex. And Max sometimes asked himself what would happen if he had to choose between them. If he had to point the barrel of his pistol at one of them. If there was no choice. Before he could drive that thought out of his head, he managed to come up with an answer: He would always choose Alex. His childhood friend.
“Give us the plan, then,” said Max, frowning slightly.
“I think that we need to choose a place where there’s a lot of people, on the one hand, but there’s no alarm button on the other, simply because no one’s ever robbed a place like that,” said Greg, clearly pleased with himself.
“Sounds good,” said Max. “So, can you tell us what such a place is, dear friend?”
Greg looked from side to side again before going on.
“Bowling,” he said, and looked at Max.
“Bowling?” Max asked, amazed.
“Yes, fucking bowling! Did you mishear and think I was suggesting robbing a morgue?” answered Greg.
“It’s a bit unexpected,” noted Max, shaking his head.
“You’ve got to realize, Max,” Greg said in a wheedling voice, but with confidence, “we need to get Alex in shape. Alex has to take out the guard. From behind, pipe across the back of the head. There’s no other way.”
A beautifully-dressed couple walked past them. Greg waited for them to get a little further away.
“As soon as that loser of a guard hits the deck,” continued Greg, “right at that moment, we have to take control of the girls on the till and the manager.”
Max nodded.
“And that’s it,” said Greg. “From then on in it’s just technical. We leave in 12 minutes. You’ll go nuts when you go in there, bro. The bank tellers are behind a plastic desk in the corner. Can you believe it? They don’t give a damn about security, the fucking losers.”
“This is a walk in the park,” smiled Max. The beer was spreading delightfully through his body, and if you’d asked him, he would have preferred to spend the rest of the evening watching the basketball game.
“The main thing is that Alex shouldn’t screw up,” said Greg.
“Right,” Max said to himself quietly.
In his thoughts, he wasn’t far away – he was 50 yards away from the Emirates food court, watching the game. The beer had put him in a peaceful mood. He didn’t want to discuss aggressive plans in all their brutal details. He wanted to relax in his seat and cheer on his beloved team. Even if half of it consisted of foreigners from all over the world.

34

July 2017

Vickey, Diana

“Can you love two people at once? Genuinely wanting them in your life, in your bed, even though they’re so different? Can you wake up in the arms of a beautiful woman and still remember your unfaithful beloved? Can Diana sense that? Is my pining for Alex going to hurt her?”
It turned out that before getting to know Diana, Vickey knew little about the female body, or even about her own body. Sex with Alex was wonderful but, in some way, completely different. Unlike the very dominant Alex, she felt she was on an even footing with Diana, they continually swapped roles, even over the course of a single night. It was if a predatory instinct that had long been dormant was awoken within her. She liked taking Diana to the edge with her caresses, possessing her body, guiding her orgasms, studying her.
Endlessly studying. They could spend hours on end studying each other’s bodies, millimeter by millimeter, exploring erogenous zones with their tongues, the tips of their fingers. Thanks to Diana, she’d learned that she could experience multiple orgasms if her clit was caressed beyond the first climax. At thirty years of age! Vickey thought she would miss the male organ in her games with Diana, but the swiftly developing sex toy industry and Diana’s brains as a researcher had convinced her of the opposite.
Back in the early days of their relationship, making use of an “unexpected” day off – something doctors didn’t get a lot of – Diana dragged Vickey off to a sex shop in Soho. Side by side with Diana, Vickey didn’t feel ashamed, even in a place like that. Her lover, like a true medical specialist, expressed concern about the dildos the size of baseball bats, and when she got to the artificial vaginas she joked that some men must confuse them with cunnilingus training devices, with the result that there would be even less orgasms to go round.
Holding each other by the hand, they wandered among the aisles of goods for a long time, examining what was on offer, giggling and choosing. All this resulted in the purchase of some aromatic oils, nipple clips and a couple of whips, a “Womaniser”, which had only just appeared on the market – a vacuum vibrator with five levels of intensity – and a “Jolly Jo.” That’s what they called their huge black dildo on leather straps, although it was at least to some extent comparable in size with a human organ. It buckled onto the waist and constituted the first strap-on in Vickey’s life.
It was an incredibly hot day in June and it must have been about 25 degrees centigrade out in the street. Having been in the shop, and having got hot under collar at the thought of all the toys they’d bought, they decided to have a cold glass of wine at a table in front of one of London’s innumerous wine bars.
They made themselves at a sheltered spot in Soho where there were few people, it being working hours. They sat at a table, next to each other on a sofa, so that they’d be able to embrace and kiss without getting up. Diana asked for a blanket to be brought.
“It’s getting cooler,” Diana explained to a waitress in her doctor’s voice. “It’s windy, and we might catch a chill without even noticing.”
Diana put the blanket over Vickey’s knees and with a crafty look in her eye reached into the bag of toys. Taking out the vibrator, she looked Vickey in the eye and cheerfully said: “I can’t wait to give it a try!”
“You’ve gone nuts.”
“Nobody will notice,” answered Diana, leaning forward to kiss Vickey on the lips.
She pushed her hand under the blanket, under Vickey’s skirt, into her knickers, and declared in a satisfied toned: “I can tell you want it. I mean, you’re already wet, aren’t you?”
Just one touch of Diana’s fingers on Vickey’s clit had her moaning. This woman drove her insane.
Diana pushed the vibrator under the blanket and under Vickey’s clothing, nestling it against her clit and pressing it down tight with her hand. She turned it on.
The Womanizer began quietly kissing away.
It wasn’t like a normal vibration, it was as if it was kissing her there, gently sucking in air. The sensations were extraordinary, but incredibly powerful. Vickey squished around on the chair, she was uncomfortable, she thought that everyone was looking at her, she sensed that she was losing control and beginning to drown in the waves of delicious sensations that were washing over her.
But Diana looked at her with determination in her eye, stopping her from breaking free as she pushed the Womanizer to a higher setting.
The Womanizer began to hum more insistently, but the noise of the street masked its buzzing to all the people surrounding them. Vickey had difficulty restraining her moaning. She gasped for air, trying to silently breathe out the arousal that had overcome her body.
Unexpectedly, the waiter again appeared at their table to take their order.
“Oh, yes!” Diana responded cheerfully. “We totally forgot to order something. Bring me a glass of Prosecco, please.”
She gave the waiter a smile, as if nothing was out of the ordinary, and turned to Vickey, adding: “My girlfriend might want something else.”
Vickey desperately grasped for reality with her consciousness. She thought that Diana would pull the vibrator back while the waiter was there, but, on the contrary, she just pushed it up to a higher setting. This torture was almost unbearable.
The waiter turned to Vickey for an answer. His look betrayed that he knew perfectly well what he was witnessing, and that he was enjoying himself too. In order to get rid of him as fast as possible, Vickey pulled herself together as best she could and noisily forced all the air out of her lungs: “Prosecco, please!”
The waiter, either because he was observing the rules of the establishment, or because he simply wanted to stay a little longer, didn’t leave immediately, instead reading the order back to them.
Vickey thought she couldn’t take any more, she thought she couldn’t bear it. She pressed her face into Diana’s shoulder to somehow hide from the inevitable. Finally, the waiter turned his back to them and left their table.
Vickey looked up to Diana, her eyes full of a silent plea. Diana smiled tenderly to her and put the vibrator on maximum.
An explosion. In order not to shout out, Vickey dug her teeth into Diana’s naked shoulder. Another explosion, and another, and another. Vickey thought that her heart was about to stop, that she couldn’t take anymore. But another two explosions came, and then another!
Finally, the orgasm began to die down, slowly leaving her stomach. The muscles of her vagina continued contracting, but less ardently, leaving a pleasant aftertaste in her body. Vickey pulled herself away from Diana’s summery, naked shoulder.
“There’ll be a bruise,” said Vickey, getting her breath back. “But I think I love that Womanizer! It’s the best!”
“And I love you, my girl!” answered Diana, turning to the waiter who had arrived with their glasses.
“Have a pleasant evening!” said the waiter, as if somewhat disappointed to have missed the culmination.
“Thank you!” Diana answered, as if there was nothing out of the ordinary. “An evening full of surprises…”
“Diana loves me! Love? What does it mean? Do I love her? Do I love Alex? Can you love two people at the same time?”
A long line of questions streamed through Vickey’s head, unable to find answers and hurtling onwards. Her heart was thumping away desperately in her chest. Without the strength to hear what the waiter was saying, Vickey had no idea how much time had passed since Diana, her wonderful, caring Diana, had said those three key words.
Finally, Vickey pulled herself together and looked Diana in the eye. She was about to say something, but Diana interrupted her.
“My dear Vickey, I really do love you, I want to be with you, and I want you to know that. I loved you from the first time I saw you. That’s the only kind of love there is. But I don’t want your answer right now. People discover their feelings at different paces. Let’s not rush. Let’s just carry on spending our time together as we have, ok?” Diana said in a totally calm voice.
It seemed that these words, formed up into sentences, came from Diana’s lips with a magical, extraordinary speed. Not fast, not slow, but as if in some sort of film. But a film about her. About Vickey.
Vickey’s heart was ready to leap out of her chest. She wanted to say: “I love you, I love you too! How couldn’t I love you? But I don’t know what to do with my love for Alex. I miss him! I think about him the whole time. Can you love two people at once? Now I know that you can. But can you be with both of them?” But the words stuck in her throat, and she merely nodded in silence.
It seemed to Vickey that the hour that followed stretched on for an entire day. All sense of time deserted her and it felt as if she’d been enveloped in cotton wool. That was exactly how it felt.
Having finished their wine, they walked along the boulevards for a while, and then headed home to watch a film that they’d been saving for one of these “unexpected” days off – the black-and-white film “Man With a Movie Camera”, with a soundtrack by the Cinematic Orchestra.

35

November 2016

Alex. Diary

“We think we’re not like anyone else. That’s what we want to think.

But there’s something that, it seems to me, we don’t even think about, and if, all of a sudden, we do think about it, we don’t see it, even though it’s right before our eyes. The habits, the basic upbringing that our parents gave us, that they gave us when they taught us to walk or to eat our beans on toast, and then, under various guises, cultivated in us until we’re sick of it, our throats retching, our minds poisoned. We’ll deny that it – I don’t even know what to call It, that thing with no name – is ours entirely. The reality, those standards of thinking, the square walls of our barbarity, our slippery grip on an understanding of life, the all-encompassing lies around us that we will deny until it’s too late, far too late. We can clutch at specks of the truth, but they’re only miniscule crumbs, bones thrown to us as if to a dog, already stripped bare and hiding their true spite. As if to a dog dreaming of eating its fill and falling asleep, even if it’s on a patch of cold, dirty asphalt, but in the sunlight of Acceptance and Approval. The approval of Mom, Dad, Uncle Dave from Sheffield or god knows where, fat or obese Aunty May from Coventry or Basing-fucking-stoke, or some fucked up cousin from Canterbury or god knows where who Granddad Dennis loves so much, along with his schizophrenic sister. And, of course, we need the approval of our colleagues. Colleagues we chat with at work every day. Until we’re ground down into dust. Every day, for nine, ten, eleven hours. In offices with dank air, two or three square yards per person, where we spend the best days of our lives. Five days a week. Week after week. Day after day. The best hours. The best days.
Damned colleagues at work. All those people around us. Without even raising an eyebrow, they’ll stick a blunt needle of contempt and betrayal into you, and then, as if nothing had happened, help a half-blind old crone cross the road. Colleagues who are ready to stick a knife in your back because you might have a bad influence on their two-thousand-a-month pay packet. Who tremble, terrified that they won’t be able to make rent on the single-roomer thirteen minutes’ walk from some far-flung metro station.
Because they all know. And they tell everyone. Everything. And they tell you. From your childhood. And that something, even if we’re lucky and we see it and understand it, immediately loses any meaning for us, it gets lost in a series of jackets and black coats of the masses, the bulk of humanity that’s chaotically moving around, all over the world and, of course, in our extraordinary London.
We don’t let it show, we pretend that it isn’t there. In front of our neighbors, in front of the phlegmatic shop girl at that Waitrose in Edgware and our acquaintances by a tube station out in the sticks. We even pretend to ourselves, for god’s sake. And we do it so well that we even start to believe. We mask our pretense with that sham smile of happiness that we just posted on Instagram or Facebook or god knows where else.
But that IT prevents us from smashing up our cursed iPhones and Samsungs when the alarms start bleeping on them, to shut them up forever, that IT forces us to throw off the blankets and go out to meet the world, to put up with it all when that bastard boss starts moaning in his dismal incompetence and skill in surviving for the sake of his job. He’ll betray any and all of us and then happily carry on poking his tongue up the ass of his boss so far that not even the Guinness Book of Fucking Records can work out just how far it’s gone in, not that anyone’s ever actually even seen that Guinness Book of Fucking Records. It’s that Acceptance and Approval that forces us to put up with it all, and put up with it for so long, to put up with the idiocy of others, the dismal smell of bodies and clothing of certain colleagues at work and passengers on the metro, to put up with stupid, horrifically undereducated Debbie who, nevertheless, thinks she knows everything, that awful, uneducated head of the sales department, to put up with the stupidity and boorishness, to survive, to put up with the blood-soaked news, to put up with the tears. And all for a REASON as old as the world itself, because of something that, when observed up close, turns out to be a fiction, nonexistent dust, all because we want to prove to others how incredibly cool we are, and educated and beautiful, what good company we are, that we’re not greedy and, most importantly, how wise we are. Why else would we need all those megatons of selfie photos on the social networks? All those “look at my tits, look at my lips, look at my cock poking out of my trunks” videos? All those fake poses in the photographs, with the women curving their backs and necks as if they’re about to stick their noses into their own clits and come, and come better than anyone – where do they all come from? “You can hold me in contempt at work, my loser relatives can hate me, fear me or value my ability to make an apple pie for celebrations, just don’t think I’m like everyone else.” That’s THE REASON! We all want to be like those beauties on the covers of glossy magazines or, at least, like those skinny girls in the gutter press, but we’re still not like everyone else.
We’re united by that narcotic. A tough drug that’s stronger than whisky, sex and marijuana, because you can’t get off it. We’re drug abusers stapled to the chair, hooked on the needle of approval and acceptance. We’ll do anything just to be valued, to be applauded, to get a pat on the back and be given a golden watch with a recognized label, like a real Citizen, or a fake Rolex at the least. We’re ready to serve those guys, to wear our white shirts to rags, just as they’re all shouting: “Wow, that’s cool! Well done! Fucking hell!” “Just check out what a wise guy he is, he’s got the latest badge, beaten everyone, and now he’s hanging his Olympic silver medal in knitting up on a nail.” All of that drives us mad. We’re just monkeys who’ve put on suits, desperate for the recognition of others. If we could understand that, we wouldn’t do it. But someone’s hiding the truth from us on purpose.
If you had the chance to start it all over from the beginning, you’d immediately ask yourself: “Why?”

36

July 2018

Greg, Maxim, Alex, Vickey, Leon

As for Leon, everything went smoothly, with no surprises. They went to the huge Liverpool Street Station in advance and used their mobile phones to photograph the crime site. Leon did his calculations and prepared the explosive matrix.
Going into the far corner of the luggage locker room, Leon used special suckers to attach the matrix to the lockers in the last row from the door, putting them right over the locks. Alex and Max watched all this, pretending that they were putting some things in their bags. Apart from Leon, no one went into this corner of the locker room, it all went smoothly, and having set up, the members of the team got down to working on the next scene, where Vickey would play the main part.
Vickey had prepared perfectly for her role as a mute French woman. She was wearing a dark wig in the style of Mireille Mathieu, red lipstick and a broad-rimmed linen hat. Along with all that, she wore simple jeans, trainers, a white t-shirt and a checkered shirt. All very French, especially as she wasn’t bothering with a bra, leaving her pointed nipples poking upwards through her clothing, attracting the immediate and unambiguous admiration of all members of the male sex in the area.
Seeing her, Greg whistled, causing Alex another poorly concealed flush of jealousy.
Vickey stood surrounded by suitcases that Greg had ordered them to put several bricks in. Her chest was heaving, drops of sweat on her nose – it was clear that she was very worried. But that suited her role perfectly – this was clearly a foreign student lost in the catacombs of an empty station at night, in a place where everyone speaks an unfamiliar language. She couldn’t pronounce a word. Just try being calm in such circumstances.
Greg checked that everyone was in place and Leon got down to work. Then he walked briskly back into the waiting room and took up his position, ready to give the start signal. Suddenly he saw two hipsters heading for the locker room, carrying two heavy rucksacks.
Greg, trying to walk soundlessly, went after them, hiding next to the open door leading to the staircase where Vickey was standing.
Talking amongst themselves excitedly, they didn’t notice Vickey immediately, only spotting her when they got to her quivering chest, which at first they couldn’t take their eyes off, despite the worried mumbling and nervous hand movements of its owner.
“Is she playing Charades with us, or is she really dumb?” one of the guys asked the other when she failed to get a word out.
“You could be right,” his friend answered, trying to look past Vickey.
“Maybe she’s asking us to help with her suitcases?” the other asked, trying to pick one up. But Vickey tried to push him aside, pointing at her telephone, which was turned off, and trying with gestures to make herself understood.
“What does she want from us? I can’t understand!” the guy asked, indignant. “We can’t touch the suitcases. We can’t get past them. This is like some sort of quest, ‘Guess what the woman wants’.”
“We’ve never been good at this kind of thing, pal,” said the second, who looked like a typical IT geek.
“So, what do we do then?” asked his friend.
The guys looked around, at a loss as to what to do, and then, without discussing it, both turned round at the same time and walked off.
Greg had already disappeared behind the wall. Everything was going according to plan.
“She’s not leaving. She isn’t moving from the spot. She’s pointing at her mouth – maybe she wants to eat?” came the voice of one of the two guys. “What can you do?” They both laughed.
“Lost in translation!” joked his friend. “Maybe we’ll get out of here? The hostel’s not that far, we can dump our stuff there.”
“Excuse us, lady, we’re really sorry, but there’s nothing we can do to help, bye!” one of them said, and Greg heard them shuffling off and hurriedly climbing back up the staircase.
In a flash, Greg was just a few yards from the entrance. Vickey would now count to sixty and give the signal. The guys left the waiting room. He heard Vickey’s quaking voice on the radio.
“It’s a green light here!”
Greg quietly spoke in a hoarse voice.
“Hit it, fatty!”
He didn’t hear the explosion itself in the waiting room. Leon later boasted that it was no louder than a cork coming out of a bottle. Very soon, Greg saw Vickey walking through the hall briskly, and then Leon, covered in sweat, came bouncing along to catch up with her. They were the first to leave.
Greg waited for the glass door to close behind them. Then he gave the signal, and Alex moved off, followed half a minute later by Max.
Greg remained in the waiting room, looking from side to side. “A perfect performance!” he said out loud to himself, satisfied.
Visiting Liverpool Street Station a couple of days later, he was genuinely surprised at the results that Fatty had managed to achieve. The lockers for small pieces of luggage stood exactly where they had been, but now they had a sign hastily pinned up on them, “Out of order”, and neat little holes where there had previously been locks.
“A tidy piece of work!” Greg later said to Leon, praising him. “You didn’t let us down bro! Max wasn’t kidding when he called you a genius! That means you’ll crack the safety deposit boxes at the bank too!”
Leon beamed a smile of satisfaction, apparently forgetting that everything that they were doing was illegal and that he was an indispensable member of a criminal gang.