The Penance List Page 2

  The Head summoned him regularly for ‘private acts’, he frightened him into submission by telling him that he had the Devil in him, that he was a lost soul going to hell. The Head would graciously save him by exorcising the Devil and preparing his path for heaven. The exorcism occurred when they met in the Headmaster’s study, it was their ‘private act’. Their meetings were to be kept a secret; if anyone were to find out he would suffer the wrath of the Archangel. He would be tied to a wooden cross, slashed with a thousand knives to within an inch of his life and left to burn in the cauldron of hell. David often wondered in whose hands was the worse fate… the Archangel or the Headmaster.

  He had thought about going to confession, telling Father Michael, the school priest, but the fear of the Archangel got the better of him. Even if he did find the courage to tell, he doubted the priest would help; he and the Head were best friends; they always sat together in the dining room at meal times, laughing and joking. He had a suspicion that Father Michael knew of the ‘private acts’. Sometimes he would be aware of another presence in the room, someone watching from behind a curtain, or the dark shadow of a corner. He would hear a moan, the same type of animal noise the Head would give as he jerkily completed the exorcism ritual. He was alone, frightened, dirty and ashamed.

  Recently he’d been asking his Religious Education professor about the teachings of the Bible, about the fear people had of the Devil. It seemed to him that the Devil was as strong as, if not stronger than, God. If God did not love him, maybe the Devil would, he was certainly strong enough to protect him from the Archangel and the Headmaster. It would be pitting a demon against a demon; the nightmare would finally stop.

  He wondered if he could change sides for a little while, just until the pain ceased. One day he would be as tall as the Head and could protect himself, then he could return to God’s side. Like supporting Man United whilst he lived in Manchester, but really he supported Chelsea FC, it was just temporary, to survive.

  Plan B would be suicide, but he wasn’t brave enough for that.

  As they marched out of the hall, a few of the elder boys glanced back at him. He lowered his head, he was sure they knew of his shame, of why he got extra attention from the Headmaster. He wanted to scream out that it wasn’t his fault, that he hated it, that it hurt when the Head tore into him, that he would do anything to make it stop. Did they know because the same had happened to them when they were small? Surely someone would speak up? Was everyone frightened of this man? Why did he have so much power?

  And why had he been chosen? He’d been told that he had a cherubim face, whatever that meant. Should he put a blade to it, cut it up? Should he cut his body, his willy? Would that stop the Head calling him ‘his special boy’?

  His shame kept his head low, unable to look students and teachers in the face. He’d learned to dress and undress alone, cried off from swimming and Physical Education classes, any activity that exposed his bruised, beaten, vile, ugly body to their pitying eyes.

  He concentrated on surviving from one day to the next. Blocking out the pain. He’d changed from an innocent, cheerful, loving little boy into a lonely, degraded, dirty being that was going to hell.

  His sister was a bitch, his father distant, the only person who truly loved him was his beautiful mother; he feared that if she ever found out what he was allowing to happen, that he would lose her also. He tried to keep up an academy award performance in his letters home. Inventing news of winning sports cups, gold stars, prefect badges, that he was a popular and studious pupil, but recently he didn’t have the stomach for writing.

  He was as much to blame for keeping the guilty secret. The shame of people knowing was as bad as the act itself. He began to form a scarab shell, keeping up the pretence, hardening his emotions.

  During the assembly’s closing hymn, he came to a decision, one that would change his life. He scoffed as he sang the empty words ‘The Lord’s my shepherd’… oh no he isn’t, he’s got the sack, the Devil is replacing him; things are gonna get better.

  He dipped his hand inside his collar and pulled out the silver cross and chain that hung around his neck. Tearing the cross from the chain he threw it to the ground. Stamping his small foot on top of it, he venomously ground it into the floor, marking the wood.

  With renewed strength, he stood tall and puffed out his small chest. Chanting his new plan under his breath, he marched out of the great hall, staring straight ahead, ignoring the serpent eyes that bore into him from the stage. The Devil would help him now, he would be loved, he was no longer afraid. He pushed through the heavy oak doors, defiant, caring less for the cusses from fellow pupils as he knocked them out of his path.

  Chapter Three

  Twenty-two years later, Cellini’s Restaurant, Chelsea, London.

  Tara, T to her friends, a kind-hearted, attractive, leggy blonde (well, almost blonde; the dark roots had to be sorted out every now and then), was the protective mother-hen of the trio, the organizer. She held down a good job in advertising (just about, her time keeping was shit and her upfront honesty got her in trouble), she owned a small one bed roomed apartment in Chelsea, paid her bills on time and was a dutiful daughter to her eccentric, overbearing, social climbing snob of a mother, whom she prayed she would not become.

  Tara loved sex. Hey, who didn’t? It was free, healthy, body toning, and sent feel-good pheromones whizzing through your system. As long as no one got hurt and you were with the right person, what better way of spending the weekend than loved up, giggling under a duvet with a delicious creature?

  Being an old romantic, sex and love went hand in hand. To make love to someone, she had to be ‘in love’, at least a little. As falling in love didn’t happen every day she hardly ever actually had sex, she endured insufferably long dry patches. But when it was good, it was very good, and worth the wait.

  But sadly, when she did fall, she had a penchant for falling for the wrong guys. Viking types: rape and pillage, well, no rape, but certainly plenty of pillage. Pillage of her heart, generosity, trust, and with her messier affairs, her bank account.

  In the aftermath of one of her break-ups, her trusty girls were on hand to pick up tear-stained pieces. Their hardest job was overseeing her cell phone usage. Vetting the texts, voice messages and emails she insisted on sending to the offending male, especially after copious amounts of wine and character assassination sessions late into the night… I don’t know why I ever went there, he’s got a small cock, doesn’t know how to use it, could never find my panic button and snores!

  The girls would have to forcibly uncurl her angry digits to confiscate her phone. Not an easy task as she had the strength of an ox when under the logic-drowning influence of alcohol, but needed to avoid acute embarrassment the following ‘sober’ day.

  gonna cut ur herpes-ridden balls off, put em in a coffee grinder, post em 2 ur tart wiv a note, ‘dear slapper, wake up n smell the coffee.’

  Not the sort of helpful message to send to an ex when trying to cultivate the cool, sophisticated, hand raised, ‘am SO not bothered about being dumped’ look.

  Post relationships, Tara was banned from sending the ex any non-authorized-by-the-girls messages for at least three weeks (three weeks tended to be the average habit breaking time frame). She spent many a hangover (between trips to the bathroom) wolfing down headache tablets, gallons of water, and egg and bacon toasted sandwiches, feverishly thanking the girls for saving her from herself. How did love, lust, sex make us behave so desperately pathetic?

  “They are, after all, only ‘men’ for God’s sake! There are plenty more rocks on the mountain,” said Helen, the girls knew she meant pebbles on the beach, but with the amount of men she’d got through, mountain was more appropriate.

  Helen was the rich bitch of the three. Her sexy wild eyes, unruly auburn hair, and voluptuous mouth gave her the look of a passionate gypsy. Orphaned as teenagers, she and her brother had inherited an unhealthy amount of family money. She’d dabbled at workin
g in her student days, but being a ‘dogs-body-runner’ in a company that she could probably buy lost its shine after a while. She did not have to work, but most definitely should have; it was dangerous leaving her bright, inquisitive brain idle, consequently she was bored, bored, bored.

  Her self-esteem was surprisingly low for a girl of her beauty, it may have stemmed from being the daughter of a beautiful mother and the sister of a stunningly handsome brother, living in their shadows, always overlooked. She had no idea how attractive and entertaining she was, however many compliments she received. Consequently, she fucked every man she met in the search of love and affirmation. She craved to be as confident and together as Tara and Josie, and was jealous of the ease with which they swanned through life. She loved them both dearly, but felt she was always running along behind, trying to keep up.

  Lack of confidence, jealousy, sexual predation, and boredom were a dangerous mix. Tara and Josie had their work cut out cajoling and supporting their needy, adorable friend.

  Josie had a different beauty. She was perfectly coiffured with striking, glossy red bobbed hair, and a knock-out figure. She was the stylish one of the three, always immaculately turned out. When she opened her mouth, her surprising cheeky cockney London accent made her all the more attractive. She was cockney and proud of it. She mercilessly took the piss out of the other two’s ‘posh’ accents. She’d worked hard to get where she was. She adored her friends and their tireless debates on minutiae; she escaped her own demons listening to their trivia. She didn’t feel the need to discuss her sexploits; she just patiently listened to theirs, envious of their innocence.

  The girls were in Cellini’s, their favourite restaurant, discussing the complicated science of men. They loved escaping to the cosy waiter-friendly haunt, sipping wine and gossiping the trivia stuff. They picked at delicious food and were spied on by flirty waiters and pervy, pasty businessmen with wives at home who had no idea on how non-understanding they were.

  Chapter Four

  Coffee Shop, Chelsea, London.

  Across the busy London street, behind the poster-cluttered cafe window, he silently watched the girls at lunch. A large red double-decker bus pulled smartly into his view.

  “Fuck,” he spat under his breath.

  He was seated on a tall barstool high enough to see over the traffic and into the restaurant, except when buses laden with bored, miserable, commuter pale faces trundled by.

  “Only London has this many bloody buses,” he cursed, waiting anxiously for it to pass, but the remorseless traffic had come to a standstill.

  His beautiful, dark, chiselled face leaned momentarily against the cold glass. He was alone in the cafe except for its staff, who were too busy chatting amongst themselves to take much notice of a tourist playing with his new camera. From time to time, he pretended to studiously scrutinize the instruction manual laid out beside his double espresso, absorbing the multitude of functions that his new toy boasted, particularly ‘how to focus’, giving reason for his lens to be trained on the same spot for the past half hour.

  Whilst waiting for the traffic to move, he rested the heavy camera in his lap and allowed his tired eyes to close for a moment. The cold glass soothed his forehead, numbing his caffeine-induced headache. His mind wandered back to when he was a teenager, standing in the woods, screams echoing through the trees, the wind chasing around his naked body.

  He slipped his hand into the inside top pocket of his coat, searching out for the reassuring touch of cold steel… aahh, there it is, my partner in crime. He stroked the knife. His generous, sensual lips stretched into a contented smile; he felt a leap of excitement between his legs. He loved being him; he got away with murder.

  An impatient car horn brought him back to life. Rubbing his eyes, he returned to work. The traffic was crawling; the bus had moved on. He picked up the camera, focused in on the soft lips of her mouth and took the picture.

  Click, click… laugh, little girls, enjoy while you can, not long now, soon it’s my playtime.

  Chapter Five

  Cellini’s Restaurant, Chelsea, London.

  “Spit, don’t swallow, I say, can’t stand the stuff either, no matter ‘ow much sugar you put wiv it,” announced Josie, cheekily spicing up the debate. “It’s the texture that gets me, egg white gloopyish.”

  She squeezed her red glossed lips tight into a rigid line and shook her head, not about to let a drop of anything in, gloopy or not.

  “Spitting is SO not a good look though, Jose. Just pretend you love it, spread it all over your chin with the tip of his dick,” Tara tilted her head back, pouted her lips, and waved a clenched hand seesaw fashion across her euphoric face, demonstrating her enjoying-it look.

  Click, click… he recognized her action, licking his lips; what a bad girl.

  Josie giggled; she of all people did not need a lesson in blow jobs, but Tara had a sweet way of talking naughty whilst making it sound as if she were discussing pruning petunias. Tara took her sex tips seriously; she wanted everyone to have the fun she had.

  “That way, he’s in heaven with the view and the thought that you love every damn inch of him, while not having had to swallow a drop. Perfect; everyone goes home happy,” Tara beamed, her blue eyes sparkling with the simplicity of it all.

  Enzo, the handsome young Italian waiter in smart white apron, had been forgotten. As he deftly dispensed the crisp Chardonnay into their glasses, he listened open-mouthed, barely breathing, following Tara’s performance.

  Josie couldn’t resist mimicking Tara. Exaggerating her demonstration, she ridiculously wielded her cock-clenched hand all over the place; across her face, in her eye, over her shoulder, in her ear, over her head, under her chair, in her handbag, up her nose, across her chest, over the table, under her armpits.

  “Like this, dahling?” she asked in her poshest voice, arms flailing, mocking wide-eyed innocence, teasing her wonderful friend.

  Helen burst into giggles. Tara gave them both a withering look and soldiered on.

  “You may jest girlies,’ shaking her head. ‘But I think some form of BJ expertise is important for a girl to master, a necessary tool of the trade, so to speak,” she giggled at the pun. “Blatant spitting is trashy, SO not …”

  “… A GOOD LOOK!” Helen and Josie joined in loudly, teasing her some more. According to Tara, whatever you were doing, you had to look good, with a bit of style. It would be on her tomb stone, ‘this is SO not a good look’.

  “How do you get them to kiss and cuddle afterwards?” asked Helen, as she twisted the stem of her glass a little too roughly. “Most roll over, fart, fall asleep, or light up a fag and turn on the footy!…or, maybe, they just don’t like the taste of their own stuff and don’t wanna kiss you afterwards… bloody cheek, and they expect us to swallow it; where is the justice?”

  “Jeez, girls, do you mind, I’m trying to eat ’ere,” Josie cut in. “Bloody hell, can we stop talking men’s juices just until we get past the main course, for once, puhlease…”

  Enzo, still in a daze with the blow job demonstration, subconsciously wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. His other hand, dispensing wine into Josie’s glass, had been forgotten. Wine decanted out of her brimming glass onto the tablecloth.

  “’ere! wotch it sunshine, I don’t wanna swim in the stuff!” barked Josie.

  Tara, realizing he was listening, deftly changed the subject. Butter wouldn’t melt.

  “I love this time of year when the flowers come out; they look so pretty, they have such wonderful window boxes here; I wonder which florist they use,” she mused, pointing to the magnificent display of flower boxes outside the restaurant window.

  The girls nodded, momentarily confused at the sudden change of tack in convo.

  Click, click… they’re looking out the window, had they spotted him? fuck, fuck, fuck!!

  Red-faced, Enzo muttered an apology, mopped the mess with a napkin, dropped the bottle back into the ice bucket, and made a fast exit to the
kitchen. English girls were frightening, the pastry chef agreed with him.

  “How’s Ed the Head?” asked Helen, seizing the opportunity to change the subject.

  Click, click… good, they hadn’t seen him; he pulled in tight on her mouth, licking his lips, soon he would taste the fear in her sweat.

  Tara took a deep slug of her wine. The memory of Ed still made her tingle, after all this time; he was one of the sexiest men she had ever met. He’d also broken her heart and was the reason for her current dry patch. He was so unfaithful, so unreliable, but oh so deliciously charming. Once you realize that you don’t marry guys like Ed, you just play with them until ‘the one’ comes along, you are fine, never fall in love with an Ed.

  Sadly Tara, being a romantic, had. It ended in tears, when she realized she was not the only one he whispered sweet nothings to and shared his beautiful cock with.

  “Ed was many tears ago,” she said distractedly, getting bored with the hurt of longing for him. Forcing cheer into her voice, she counted up the months since they had split.

  “Shit, it’s been nearly a year… so long without sex, this is a serious dry patch… I keep dreaming about it, I wake up covered in sweat with the bed a mess, it is so frustrating, I’m gonna heal over soon if I don’t meet someone. Wish I wasn’t so damn choosy,” Tara’s eyes scanned the table, searching out the butter dish.

  “He was so bloody good he has ruined me for anyone else, fuck him!” she yanked the innocent dish towards her. “Where the hell have all the good ones gone?”

  Brutally tearing off a chunk of crusty bread roll, she stabbed it into the perfectly formed butter coils, and scooped up an unhealthy amount of the hip-enhancing stuff. She then waved it baton-like in the air between the two girls, and popped it into her mouth with a feisty chomp.

  “Yuk…!” cringed the girls in unison. What was it about being hurt by a guy that made a girl stuff her face with food?