All stories

“What the fuck is that?” Shenise screeched, cutting through the dull monotone whine of Renoirs opinion on why a no deal Brexit is such a positive step for England, as she points up to the reeds at the top of one of the rolling sandunes.

“What’s the matter, now. Sweetheart?” Renoir asked unsuccessfully masking his annoyance at the interruption.

“There was sumfing over there, i swear.”

“This is a private beach, my dear, you know that. It’s probably a seagull.”

Shenise hurumphed a little and wriggled herself back down onto the towel, positioning her magazine perfect figure for maximum sun exposure. Her oil lathered bare chest glistened like two perfectly formed and entirely unnatural hills glistening with morning dew. Which was not the thought of Kev, Dev and Aled who’s hearts were now beginning to slow to a normal pace, as they remained frozen against the sand bank, desperately hoping they hadn’t been spotted and that they hadnt wasted their £20 each.

Renoir (not his original name) continued, speculating on the undeniable benefits of automatic inclusion in the World Trade Organisation rules. It was hard to tell if Shenise was asleep due to the Giant sunglasses that covered her face, but as he gazed into into his own reflection he wondered why he bothered telling those kids when he was down here with a new girl. He was rich enough not to need the £20 per kid. Perhaps it was the admiration he saw in their eyes. For that brief moment he saw himself as a hero to them, someone to admire and respect. He shrugged off the thought that it had anything to do with his days of unnoticed youth. That it was just using his money to give them the sort of thrill he’d never had access to when he was young.

Shenise snorted and woke herself up with a start. Renoir stopped the uncomfortable thought train chugging around his mind and took up his pre-rehearsed epic speech.

Elsewhere Aled tried desperately not to reveal his erection as he peered through Kevs ancient periscope at his first real life breasts, cementing an, unknown to him at the time, cripplingly unrealistic expectation of female chests that he would only get over when Alice, his 17 year old love of his life made him watch a Netflix documentary on plastic surgery and modern day female body images. For now he merely wondered how Renoir did it; all these girls, a new one every month.

Dev however was more concerned with if he would be able to hide his ejection better than Aled when it was his turn. He was under no illusions how’s Renoir did it, his father having been on the Risk end of one of Renoir’s High Risk, High Reward investment schemes that had left him thoroughly underwhelmed with his fathers business acumen and eagerly awaiting the development of his, one day, own asset transfer and investment firm.

Kev was just amazed at the image clarity of his T1 vision explorer x-range periscope.

And Shenise. She thought about if she should tell Renoir she was three weeks late. If she was getting too fat. If her breasts were already too big, and too round. If Renoirs mother would ever stop looking at her like that. If she was pretty underneath it all. If she loved Renoir. If she liked Renoir. If she didn’t hate Renoir. If skin cancer was really that bad. If when she stopped and thought about it, he was really worth it anyway. If she had imagined the glint of binoculars or a telescope nestled amongst the reeds on the brink of the nearby sandune.

They will say that I am a hero when they see what I have done to you, when they see the exquisite work I have created from this poor pile of meat and gristle. Doubtlessly they will say that I am mad, but they will also say that I am an artist and there is consolation in that recognition.

The scraping of metal; the splitting of flesh; the tightness of bare skin in ice cold air.

And I must say it was a pleasure, from beginning to end; from the planning of it all, the watching and waiting for you. The pregnant pause when you realised who I was in the darkness and confusion; the beautiful moment when you knew, when it clicked, that you deserved what was to come, the realisation in your wide, bright eyes that of course it would be terrible. All of that held, frozen in the second when our eyes met for the first time in all those years.

I waited for days. I knew exactly where you would be and when. I knew the perfect moment.

Whatever else they might say about all of this there are few who would disagree that you did deserve it. After the things you did.

The ragged, cutting sound of panicked breath in stillness. The periscope reflection of the bare, candlelit room in the soft, wet film of your eyes

I wanted you to know what was happening, I wanted you to know why. An eye for an eye, and all that. I wanted you to suffer, like she suffered. And I made certain that you did, I’m sure you will agree. I’m not sure how long we have been down here together, but I have made each moment last - each one a perfect eternity. And nothing was wasted. I know that you will appreciate that. I used every scrap of you, just like you used her.

I’m not saying it wasn’t messy, but I had planned all of that in, you see, the mess was always to be part of this final tableaux; the crimson spatters, fading to rust even as we watch, the stained beach towels set to catch the spillages. I used old ones, of course, no sense in ruining the nice new ones, still piled soft and bright in the cupboard. Everything exactly where it should be.

The frightening snap of bone, the sound that fingernails make as they are dragged across concrete for the tenth, twelfth, thirtieth time.

And now, as the last bright drops of life drain out of your eyes, it is, after all of your begging, finally over. The last thing you will see is my smiling face. And we both know that all is once again as it should be.

When did he become a coward? Sat on that plane to Ibiza? Eighteen years old and panicking there wasn’t a sick bag in the seat pocket. Or was it at thirteen, when Dad paid close to a hundred pounds for him to fly a Cessna? For thirty minutes the joy of flight was in his soul and then, as the ground was rushing up to meet them he wondered what would happen if the old guy at the controls had a heart attack, right then.

Job interviews, been through countless, climbing the ladder to Technical Lead, taking home six figures and a company car. He got married. He stood up in front of a hundred people and said I do and then he gave a speech and he first danced.

None of that a problem, so what happened?

He lived life through periscope, peeking at the world through the filter of emails and social media – sorry I missed it, sounds like you guys had fun! Next time, I’ll be there. Work, you know how it is.

Now when he needed to drive into the city he booked the afternoon off work, and he triple checked the route on Google streetview, obsessively settling each roundabout firmly in his mind. Number two was easy: left hand land, straight over. Number four. Right hand lane approach, move into the middle, indicate at the first sight of McDonalds, then into the left lane, and then next exit.

In his head he was perfect.

He was waiting at roundabout six. To his right a car had stopped too far forward. It was beach towel red, the young lady at the wheel forced to stretch to watch the lights. In the left lane was a black car, inching forward impatiently.

At least the roads were quiet. Just sit back, let them go.

They both went for the middle lane – went for his lane. Black car was uber-aggressive, but it was the red car that won it, black twitching then rocking as the driver stamped the brakes and tugged hard on the wheel.

He drew up behind them at the next set of lights. It wasn’t finished. From the car on the left jumped a black leather jacket spewing guttural sounds. He slapped his palms on the roof of the red car, and then brought his face down low to stare into the passenger side window.

Somebody shouted, “Oy!”

That was it. Just oy.

The beet red animal face turned, showing flared nostrils and lips pulled back from teeth. In a moment it became the face of a man who has just realised he’s stood in the middle of a road with his spittle running down a stranger’s car window.

And just like that, it was over. Both red and black pulled away chastely and he found himself standing alone outside his own car.

What was wrong with people these days? Why the aggro?

He got back in his own car. He checked his mirrors – twice – and then pulled away. Roundabout number seven. Middle lane, and then get over to the right, and try, try, try – try not to think about the pregnant wife waiting in the ultrasound room.

Fakebeard , Captain of the Octopus, was old school. She viewed rival pirates like Bradleigh Salterton (of the Seahorse) as unnecessarily touchy-feely in his approach to buccaneering. Unless his crew demanded it, he’d rarely slit the captain of a captured ship from gullet to gizzard, and his keel-hauling equipment was rusty from lack of use. He hoped a cat-o-nine tails was a magnificent sounding coat and preferred dressing-up to unspeakable cruelty. Then there was his stupendously annoying new parrot, who liked to be addressed as “Lawrence Lewellyn-Bowen presenter of BBC’s Changing Rooms” and screeched “lime green with a Louis quinze motif?” whenever it entered her cabin. Fakebeard herself had had to wear drag for most of her career and viewed clothes as no more than “things to keep me warm”. Which was why she couldn’t understand how it had happened in his cabin, on a beach towel with that stupid parrot shouting “up periscope!” and Salterton imploring her to mind his cape. Anyway, now she was digesting the news that she was “up the spinakker”, she’d “a bun in the forecastle”, or to put it simply, was pregnant. A meeting of the pirates ensued. Bluebeard, Blackbeard, Redbeard were in attendance. Each of them kindly offered to take over her ship , “just for a few years, until she was ready to return”, she could even ease her way back as bosun, part time, when she was ready. “What makes you assume I’m giving piracy up!” She shouted furiously, but muffledly, through her beard, smuggled years ago from Toys n Things in Barbuda. “Calm down dear” said the other beards. Salterton piped up: “you know” he said, “I’ve always fancied being a barge husband, raising kids and all that, if you could provide the doubloons I’d enjoy taking it easy!” A deal was agreed! Salterton would take a kind of Piraternity leave, whilst Fakebeard continued to terrorise the high seas. One condition was that he disposed of “Lawrence Llewelyn Bowen, of BBC’s Changing Rooms” who Fakebeard didn’t want influencing her kids.

Over the next few years Fakebeard continued to ransack Spanish galleons (often using only her teeth), freed several slave ships and was eventually absolved of all piracy crimes for extraordinary service in the Napoleonic Wars.

Salterton, meanwhile, attended his local Anti-Naval Class “for pirates about to parent”. When the baby was born his pirate finery soon became covered in sick and biscuit crumbs. On her occasional returns to his barge near Gloucester Fakebeard succumbed to the beach towel on several more occasions. This meant Salterton now struggled to maintain order amongst an ever-growing brood of cut-throat toddlers who “played” pirates with uncomfortably pointy wooden cutlasses and a stuffed parrot with a glass eye for interior design.

When he eventually returned to the sea, vowing to avoid children of all types forever, there was no doubt in Fakebeard’s mind which of them had been most heroic. Reluctantly, she organised a whip-round to purchase him a new Macaw as a back-to-work present.