Watch This

thethemeis: An Unusual Ability

theauthoris: Aaron Twentythree

   I had a friend who claimed he could make women orgasm just by thinking about them. It's a pretty unusual ability, sure, but I'd never seen any proof of it.

   The man was a compulsive liar. I remember clearly the time he told me that his father was an Inuit, a skilled fisherman built for freezing environments with a hide as thick as hippo's skin and fingers that could be as articulate as an Eton graduate's mouth. He told me this Inuit-turned-Brit father of his made his own clothes, mostly out of fabric from sofas on skips and the skins of animals that he'd found dead in the road. He said that you can move an Inuit into the big city, but you can't teach him to swim with the big fishes. He'll always be stuck in his ways, he said, because he misses the land of the snowy ground (apparently, that’s what they call Alaska) like an amputated limb. He told me that his mother had met her Inuit husband when she was the site manager at the oldest oil derrick in Alaska, drilling for the last drip of oil it could find. Staying at an Inuit village for the night, she'd huddled up to one of the locals and woken up with a bun in the oven. It was love at first sight. My friend claimed she went straight on working, and the day she finally gave birth, she was still wearing her hard hat and hi-vis jacket. 

   When I finally met his parents, when I lifted him to pick up some furniture to take to the dump for them, I was met with a small, round, bald Mancunian called Steve and his frail old wife called Ethyl. Ethyl was in a wheelchair; said she had been since she was twenty-three.

   Another time, he told me he’d met Bill Clinton at a work event. They were having their Christmas party, back when companies were allowed to have Christmas parties, and it was being held at a fancy function hall up in town. He said he was standing at a window looking out over the Thames, ‘watching the world go by’ as he put it, when he felt a tap on his elbow. Turning so suddenly that he nearly spilt his martini on his elbow-nudger, he found that his attention had been grabbed by none other than the infamous player-president. Bill was a charmer, he claims, opening the conversation with, ‘I saw your suit from across the room, and I couldn’t help but come over and compliment you on your sense of style.’ They spoke about everything from taste in women to debt consolidation, my friend tells me, before Bill had them both at the bar necking premium vodka.

   This might be believable, if you hadn’t seen my friend’s sense of style. He looks like he pulls his clothes on with his teeth, in the dark, after a heavy sniff of glue.

   If you point out the holes in the plots he weaves, your words fall on deaf ears. Selective comprehension blocks out all your protestations – he only understands what he wants to.

   And because he lies so often, I didn’t believe him when he told me told me he was disappearing. That night, in a dingy bar on the overlap between London and Shitter London, he said he was leaving the continent for good, and I just laughed at him. ‘Fuck off, Keith,’ I guffawed, ‘you’ve never been further than Portsmouth.’

*

   I suppose I should start from the beginning. He invited me to his flat, a one bedroom number in New Cross, to pick him up so that he could drink all he wanted. When I got there, the door to his apartment was ajar and the hallway outside stank of gin. I tried not to let my clothes touch the stained brown walls and I breathed through my mouth, as I pushed his door open and wandered inside his filthy flat. I didn’t have to look much further than his living room to find him, sprawled half on the floor and half on his sofa, covered in gin and dribble and pizza tomato sauce, straddling the line between consciousness and retardation. To be honest, after years of knowing him, I should have expected it.

   I prodded him awake. ‘Keith,’ I said, ‘you still up for the pub, or not?’

   ‘Fuck you, Smokey Robinson,’ he blurted, snapping out of his stupor and straightening up. I would have laughed if my gag reflex didn’t have such a violent hold on my throat. ‘Oh, it’s you. …Have you seen Cherry about?’

   ‘Who – or what – is Cherry?’ I asked, collecting the clothing and empty alcohol containers from his floor to assist in the clean-up operation, as he just sat there dazed.

   ‘A prostitute,’ he replied almost under his breath, murmuring as he lifted up pizza boxes and papers on his coffee table, as if looking for this whore under all his trash. ‘She was here half an hour ago, definitely.’

   ‘Of course she was.’ 

   ‘She was. Asleep on the floor in front of the telly, all foetal like. I woke up and had another go on her.’

   ‘Of course you did.’ 

   ‘She’d better not have taken my fucking wallet.’ His rooting around became more frantic.

   ‘Keith,’ I sighed, ‘stop lying and get in the shower. We need to get to the pub. I’m not wasting all night watching you sweat gin.’

*

   And an hour or later, there we were, finally in the pub. After two more gins, that’s when he said it.

   ‘Trust me, Aaron, this is the truth. Even if I didn’t have to go, even if they weren’t literally on my tail, I couldn’t stand being in this country any longer. The taxes, the job market, the media, the residents, everything about this country just grates on me these days. I’m disappearing. After tonight, you might never see me again.’

   I kept my eyes on the girl at the bar, the one with the thick-rimmed glasses and turtle-neck jumper. Her in the pencil skirt and the high heels, looking like she’d had a shit day at work. Given half a chance, I’d make it better for her. 

   ‘Where are you going? France? Germany?’

   ‘Fuck that. I’m going to the US. People like me blend into the scenery in the US. Somewhere like LA, I was made for places like that. They’d never find me there.’

   ‘Sorry… who? I have no idea what you’re talking about. Who’s after you?’

   ‘Who isn’t,’ he replied, sniffing and eyeing the room suspiciously. More of a statement than a question, despite his choice of words. ‘It’s the drugs, mostly. Bad deals, bad debt, bad lies I should never have told. Either way, if I’m not out of the country by tomorrow I’ll be dead by Thursday.’

   To be honest, the way he was living his life at the time, it wouldn’t surprise me if that one was the truth.

   ‘Have you ever read The Boy Who Cried Wolf? That’s you.’

   He laughed, clicking his fingers at the barmaid for another gin, despite knowing that that place didn’t do table service. ‘Aaron, you’re a prick. But I love you. And I’m leaving. Tonight. As soon as possible. Just say goodbye, please. Whether you believe me or not, just humour me by having this goodbye drink with me and pretending. …What are you staring at?’

   ‘What?’ My attention snapped back to Keith, like he’d caught my cock in a mouse trap.

   ‘That girl at the bar. You’ve been eyeing her up since she walked in. You’re like a dog that’s spotted a rabbit. My drinks nearly spilled, the way your erection propped the table up.’

   I laughed, shrugging off my reddened cheeks. ‘Shut up, Keith. No idea what you’re talking about. Carry on, what were you saying? Some bullshit or other.’

   He paused, just staring at me. My blush intensified, and a grin crept across his face like a caterpillar crawling across a leaf. All tooth and smugness, he downed the rest of his drink, ice and all, and said, ‘Watch this.’

   The slicing noise of drifting paper and the hard thump of dropped books distracted me, as the paperwork that my lady friend at the bar had been reading fell from her hands onto the beer-stained carpet below her stool. I wanted not to look because I didn’t want to focus on her again under his watch, but I couldn’t keep my eyes from her as her hand slapped onto the bar, drawing the attention of all seven punters in the room. Her breathing quickened gradually, that chest of hers heaving under the figure-hugging jumper as she gripped the bar for support. As her head threw itself back, flinging that shiny brunette hair all over the place, her legs uncrossed and the first groan fell from her lips, hanging in the air like Viagra for my ears. ‘Oh,’ she sighed, as her ankles curled to point her toes at the floor, ‘oh God.’

   Someone should help her, I thought. She’s having a heart attack!

   But then she groaned, ‘Oh, yes.’

   I sat there with my mouth agape, as her back arched and her sighs grew louder and louder with every passing second. Pushing her chest toward the sky, she cried out for God again as she ran her hand from her slender neck, down her gasping chest and across her stomach. The fingernails of her other hand scratched deep trenches into the wooden surface of the bar. ‘Fuck, yes,’ she cried out, at the top of her lungs, throwing her head around so the hairband that was holding her ponytail in place came loose and allowed some of her hair to escape. ‘YES!’ 

   She was having an orgasm. An intense, blissful, all-consuming orgasm that drowned her in pleasure and erased the world around her, as her insides exploded with delight and her muscles quivered uncontrollably. She was coming hard, and the world around her paused to watch.

   My breathing grew agitated to match hers as I kept my eyes glued on her, and she pushed a hand into her crotch to quell the feeling of ecstasy that was erupting down there. ‘FUCK ME!’ She cried. ‘FUCK FUCK FUCK OH FUCK YES DON’T STOP THIS IS THE BEST I’VE EVER – ’

   She screamed.

   And that’s when it stopped. Her legs stopped shaking, her back straightened up, and her breathing began to return to its normal pattern. Her intense orgasm abated, and the bar fell silent in its wake. 

   I’m not even sure she was embarrassed. To me, she just looked dazed. She bent to pick up her papers, and staggered out of the pub with them clasped under her thin arm. The rest of us replayed every filthy second of what had just happened in our heads, reliving the moment for just a while longer, holding onto the beautiful view.

   Still speechless, I turned back to Keith, and found that he had disappeared. 

   I haven’t seen him since.

The Road To Happiness

thethemeis: An Unusual Ability
theauthoris: LiamD

   He looks like he hasn’t washed in weeks and smells worse. The way he has been staring for the past hour or so is nothing short of lecherous and his appalling dress sense (ripped acid-washed jeans accompanied by a filthy, worn white vest) does everything but scream ‘I am definitely a woman beater and almost certainly a rapist’. Claire might have once thought that judging a man on such superficial details as these would be an unfeasibly shallow way to live, yet if her recent experiences of the opposite sex have taught her anything, it’s this: If a man comes across as an arsehole, the odds that he is in fact an arsehole are incredibly favourable.

   He knocks back the eighth pint of the cheap lager he’s been drinking all night, pouring a good quarter of the beverage down his front while doing so. He apparently doesn’t notice the spillage which drips from his thick beard to form a damp patch on his stained vest since he makes no effort to dry his face. Instead he stands up and saunters toward her, apparently having amounted the necessary sum of Dutch courage. As he leaves his table, dark patches around the crotch of his jeans become evident. She hopes those are also from the beer.

   These little details that mark this man out as a person with no self-respect, no regard for his own well-being and consequent disregard for others, are not things that Claire Relf needs to notice. She has seen this man a few times in The Drake, knows what type of person he can be – what a hopeless drunk he is. It is perhaps this foreknowledge that gives her mind the reason to notice the further evidence (if needed Mi’lord) of how egregious this man truly is.

   ‘’Ello gorgeous.’ he slurs in a low drawl. ‘Can I buy you a drink?’

   Claire glares at him in disbelief. Before she even starts her response he lets out a loud burp, not even bothering to turn his head away from hers.

   ‘…Besides the fact that you’ve just belched in my face…’ she begins, ‘…you are filthy, you smell awful, you have no dignity, no manners and you’re stone drunk. Why would I possibly want a drink from you?’

   He doesn’t respond to this immediately and Claire almost feels guilty for her hasty outburst. Then he hawks a missile of phlegm into her empty glass and looks her directly in the eyes. Her skin crawls.

   ‘I wasn’t always like this y’know.’ For a moment his voice sounds sober, somehow distant. ‘I’m not a bad person, not really. I’ve just been through a lot recently.’

   ‘Okay, wait, let me guess.’ She scoffs. ‘You used to have it all, a wife and two kids, a big house, a six figure salary? I’ve heard it all before and I’d appreciate it if you’d just leave me alone.’ This is what she wants above all else. Despite Claire’s bold front she is wary of the drunk in front of her. He is now grinning pensively.

   ‘Well you haven’t heard this one before. I can guarantee that. It’ll fill your heart with wonder.’

   In spite of herself she finds that she does want to hear his story. Perhaps so she can laugh derisively after he has spun a yarn she has heard from each of the drunks in this place time and time again. Or perhaps she’s genuinely curious, wondering what type of riches to rags story could possibly fill her with wonder.

   ‘Try me.’ She offers in a loathsome tone that is betrayed by the fading contempt in her face.

   He takes a moment to acquire a nearby bar stool and sits beside her. ‘Many people who hear this story would think the narrator crazy. But every word of what I’m about to tell you is true. By the time I’ve finished telling it, you’ll feel very differently about me. You’ll see things from my perspective, understand why I am the way I am.’ He looks into her eyes again but her skin doesn’t crawl like the last time, at least not until he finishes his sentence.

   ‘You might even grow to love me’. He chuckles softly as she grimaces and commences his tale.

 

---

 

   You were right about the money and the house. After I’d finished my Mathematics degree at Cambridge I was able to immediately land myself a graduate job in accounting for a reputable firm in the city. As a bachelor I was completely loaded. Within five years I had my own house, a shiny new Merc, a fifty inch 3D television, all the mod-cons a wealthy man could desire. Everything was going great. I even enjoyed my job which was uncommon in that line of work, or so I was told by my colleagues.

   Looking back now it seems perfectly obvious, but it took me a while to put my finger on it back then. I’d only really feel it when I wasn’t busy. When I was lying in bed at night, waiting for my brain to shut itself down. One night it hit me. Hit me right between the eyes and gave me a follow-up jab to the stomach for good measure. I was lonely. It was the most intense feeling I had ever experienced. I had no one, no remaining family ties, no real friends outside of work, nobody to come home to. I didn’t socialise much, didn’t really know how, didn’t feel any desire to was the real problem. So I never met anyone. That loneliness I’d feel night after night, it began to eat away at me. It took great mouthfuls straight from my soul, if there is such a thing. Outwardly, nothing changed. The money still rolled in, I turned up to work everyday, the grind continued just like clockwork. But inside it felt like my will to live was being siphoned elsewhere at an exponential rate. After twenty days of this I decided that I couldn’t take it any longer, simply couldn’t bare to be alive. So I took a carving knife from my kitchen drawer and made my way towards the alley behind this very pub, with the intention of ending it all. Why the alley? Well it probably sounds stupid now, but I couldn’t bare to sully my  freshly cleaned house with my blood.

   I remember arriving at the alley very clearly. There was an unpleasant smell to it as I opened my rucksack to retrieve the knife. It was a pungent stench, unholy. A smell that accompanies deals with the Devil. Maybe that’s just the benefit of hindsight talking, because just as I touched the flesh of my wrist with the blade, A voice that might have been as serpentine as Satan’s himself talked me out of the deed.

 

---

 

   Claire jolts on her stool as the strange man before her suddenly shouts towards the bar.

   ‘Two more Carlsbergs over here Bill.’

   Despite the lack of a ‘please’, it doesn’t strike her as uncouth. If anything it sounds warm, like greeting an old friend. Perhaps she has misjudged this man after all she thinks. Perhaps. But she is bothered by the lack of a conclusion to his story.

   After a moment of silence, she asks ‘Who was it, what did they say?’

   He smiles again. ‘All in good time my dear, I can see how badly you want to know. Standing behind me was the most revolting man I’d ever seen. Let’s not forget that back then I was a clean shaven accountant, rather handsome in fact. I was never an ugly man.’

   Claire takes a moment to inspect his face and realises that underneath his messy beard and long clumps of hair could be an attractive face, she supposes. The further she examines the more true this seems to become.

   ‘I don’t want to say too much about the man who spoke the words I heard in the alley. Don’t want to remember him at all if I can help it. But he made me a curious offer, said he could gift me with… an unusual ability. He told me life would be worth living again. It would come at a price of course, he told me I would appear as a vile drunkard to the rest of the world for as long as I lived but if the reward for such a sacrifice was my eternal happiness, how could I refuse?’

   Her head swims with various possibilities but can’t quite figure out where this is going. ‘Wh-‘

   He interrupts her before she can speak. ‘See Claire, on this evening we were fated to meet. You might have felt feelings of revulsion towards me at first, but your love for me has slowly blossomed, even over the course of our short conversation. From the moment I saw you walk in, I knew that you were my soul mate, that we shall live a long and happy life together and you felt this too. Deep down, you know it’s true. Don’t you?’

   Claire Relf has never felt so many emotions wash over her so quickly in the space of one evening. She is completely stunned. This handsome, unfortunate soul standing in front of her has completely blown her mind yet simultaneously made her feel safe, made her feel that no matter what, everything will be alright if she just stays with him. She nods blankly to him and he asks her a final question.

   ‘So, will you come back to mine tonight?’

   ‘Yes, of course,’ she replies, as if this request is the most natural thing in the world. One thing is still bugging her though, some unfinished business in the back of her mind.

   ‘…What was it though. What did he give you?'

   He smiles at her and she blushes madly. ‘He gave me the ability to make people believe every word I say.’ He tells her. ‘But don’t worry, I’d never use it on you.’

Town Hall

thethemeis: An Unusual Ability

theauthoris: Aaron Twentythree

    This man, this executive, this head of the board, he walks up to the podium with a grin on his face like he just lifted a bus with his dick. This chair of the meeting, he struts up to a wooden cuboid emblazoned with a big metal company logo, with a smile on his face like the entire room just sucked him off one by one. We didn't, but that's how he looks. Straightening his tie, widening his smile, adjusting the position of his feet on the soft carpeted floor of the auditorium in our swanky, shiny London offices, he spells out a sentence like a children's TV presenter, drawing out each word as if it tastes like warm cookies fresh from the oven. 

    "We'll just wait for everyone to join us," he says.

    Me, I wouldn't be here if I had a choice. I'm here as a favour to my boss, who owes a favour to some other guy, who owes a favour to the speaker. I'm just making notes, scribbling doodles, carving out a half-price record of history with an HB pencil. This is our monthly Town Hall meeting, a presentation given by some fat cat who rose up the ranks so long ago that he hasn't had any real interaction with the business since 9/11 was breaking news. Some big shot who probably hasn't done a job like yours or mine since Noel's House Party was still on television. As people file in, I prepare myself mentally for the unending stream of shit that is about to fall out of this man. This script about how well the company's doing, all written by some P.A. paid to blindly follow orders from this dribbling tycoon.

    And then it begins.

   "The merger is one of the hardest hurdles the company has had to cross," he drones, "but we're making it a cakewalk." The backdrop behind him is grey curtain, spread across the wall and coated in dust. The company colour: grey. The company theme: grey. This big wig's personality: non-existent. Slides that a nameless intern prepared earlier are projected on the centre of the curtain, and he clicks through them at yawn-inducing speed and talks about profit forecasts and quarterly performances and yearly targets.

    All the while, I imagine him losing consciousness, passing out and hitting his head on the corner of the podium on the way down, bleeding a pool of scarlet into the soft grey carpet. 

    The blood, it glugs out into the shape of our company logo.

    "I would advise you to reach out to your manager," he drools, "because we're all in it together. Touch base with a member of the leadership team, because you'll need them around in the next paradigm shift." Around me, some people are sighing and checking their watches but some people are more interested than if their lives had depended on them taking in every byte of information that slides from this VIP's mouth hole. Bloody apple polishers. Fresh-faced, bright-eyed arselickers.

    I look back and forth from this big cheese to his enthralled audience, and imagine a moment where every suit in the room disintegrates instantaneously. All these fat fuckers, their tremendous, horrifying naked bodies, they fall out and offend the eyes of the head honcho at the front. The heavy-hitter, his balls and piece fall out and the podium collapses in front of him, exposing his fiscal stimulus to the room.

    "The next twelve months will be an exciting time," he drawls, "because we're in a position of strength. Our risk is low, our profitability is high, our..." and I drift out. My phone vibrates in my pocket, a snippet of contact from the outside world, that light at the end of this eternal tunnel; but I don't check it. Someone behind taps me on the shoulder, whispers psssst, but I ignore them. My eyes burn a hole in this go-getter's head, while he vomits lies that might be true or might be false but either way they're lies. He grins and you notice his teeth have been professionally whitened, professionally straightened, professionally cleaned. His head shakes with enthusiasm and you notice plugs where his hair is thinning but his wallet is saving him. His hands clench the air and wave with excitement and you notice that he doesn't have a ring on his wedding finger. You wonder if he's gay, then you wonder if you care. A clue: you don't.

    All the while, I'm imagining gravity suddenly reversing, and everyone in the room falling against the ceiling. They fall head first, and because the drop is so small they don't have time to hold their hands out. Some necks break, some eardrums burst, some craniums crack, and the ceiling is soaked in blood, and I sit still on the floor, looking up at the mess they've created. The blood fills every inch of the ceiling, except for a tiny spot where our company logo resides. A logo constructed out of dry ceiling.

    These imaginary situations cycle through my head, changing and developing at blistering pace, until I can't make out the sentences that the heavyweight at the front is saying. "Buy low sell high facilitate change navigation legacy impossible odds," he slurs, and I imagine a train crashing into the room and I imagine everyone in the room spontaneously combusting and I imagine him losing the ability to speak, "but I believe we can really turn a corn..." and then, something weird happens. He stops, his face suddenly splattered with the surprised face of one unexpectedly punched hard in the chest. He meets eyes with me, for a second we connect, and his eyes tighten as if he's saying fuck you very much. He looks right through into my soul, just for a beat, and all I receive is hatred. And this is happening in real life.

    Then it happens. The seat of his trousers explodes, bursting aggressively and spraying the back curtain with fecal matter. He screams, with pain and confusion, as a gush of shit streams from his anus with such force that the entire stage, his slides, the curtain, even the podium, are covered in excrement. And before they have time to react, the same happens to every single audience member. Their chairs collapse, they soil the floor, they scream and cry and beg for it all to stop. The floor is soaked in a good few inches of hot wet shit and all I can do is sit here and laugh. My ankles swim in stinking, lumpy, deep brown feculence, and I'm tickled pink. Everyone's in pain, and all I feel is pleasure.

    This is the day I realise I have a power.

    The power of bowel control.

New Beginnings

thethemeis: Curiosity Killed The Cat

theauthoris: LiamD

   It all started with the cat. I first saw it a couple of Sundays ago when I was moving in. There wasn’t much to note about its appearance other than the sleek black fur and those watchful yellow eyes. It had no collar or means of identification. If it wasn’t a stray it must have lived nearby since it came by every day that first week and seemed very friendly.

   I had arrived earlier than expected that day and had to wait for the landlord to turn up and give me my keys to the place. Luckily somebody was by the front door when I got there (I’d later realise this was something of a rarity, despite the eighteen tenants inside) and I managed to haul all of my belongings up the two flights of stairs while I waited. Dad had been kind enough to drive me up to Leamington from my family’s house in Sidcup, Greater London. He and Mum, who had come along for the ride, offered to go and buy some essentials while I waited. After 5 minutes of waiting outside the room, I decided my baggage was safe enough and descended the stairs to wait in the living room.

   ‘PLEASE ENSURE THIS DOOR IS KEPT LOCKED AT ALL TIMES’ read the sign on the front door. The door itself was wide open, my parents didn’t have a key to lock it with. Sighing quietly, I reached out for the handle to lock the door from the inside. That’s when I heard it, just as my fingers closed around the cold steel, a loud unmistakably feline mewing directly behind me. I jumped out of my skin and turned around to see it for the first time. The cat had entered the house and somehow that was when it started. A creeping feeling swept hold of me and I was suddenly convinced that something was wrong, horribly wrong. I had no idea what had happened to the now stagnant atmosphere that had not long before been fresh with exciting new beginnings. All I knew was I had to get the cat out of the house.

   ‘Out,’ I said feebly, restrained by an innate fear I didn’t understand. Pull yourself together, it’s just a cat. I told myself. The cat stared at me vacantly.

   ‘Get out!’ I tried again, this time louder, more commanding. The cat began to mew loudly again, hoping for food probably. The normality of its response had a calming effect on me. After taking a moment to compose myself, I angled my body behind the cat. The gloves were off now.

   Making my body as large as I could manage I stamped towards it roaring: ‘FUCK OFF YOU STUPID CAT!’

   As soon as it had scurried back through the open door I felt better, the remaining fear receding quickly, but that didn’t stop me from chasing it further out of the drive. I wanted to make sure it knew not to come back. While I was no longer scared I still hadn’t lost the unshakeable feeling. I had to keep that cat away from the house. If I didn’t, it would spell something terrible. I didn’t need to think this, it was something I felt I already knew. I was wondering how this could possibly be when I was startled for a second time that day.

   ‘It’s Liam, isn’t it?’ came a voice.

   I turned to see my new landlord. He was grinning in amusement. ‘Not a fan of cats?’

---

   I had given myself a week to get settled into the new place before beginning my new job. I was going to be testing video games at the Codemasters studios (a little over five miles away in Southam) and I had no idea what to expect. I spent most of the week getting to know the area and imagining endless possibilities of what work in the games industry would be like. Until Thursday evening, I’d forgotten all about the incident with the cat.

   I decided to make a shepherd’s pie for dinner on Thursday. I’d ventured to the local Co-op earlier in the day to buy the mince, gravy granules and potatoes. It wasn’t until I’d got back to the house that I realised I hadn’t brought anything with me to mash the potatoes with so after boiling I figured I’d sling them in the oven and hope for the best. It was while the mince was slowly browning and the potatoes boiling when I suddenly heard that loud mewing again. It sounded so close I would have sworn it was in the room if my eyesight wasn’t telling me otherwise.  The kitchen was located on the ground floor and, like most in the suburbs, contained a medium sized window looking out onto the back garden. I could see now that the window had been left slightly ajar and I closed it quickly. I felt that awful feeling sweep over me again;  I had to make sure the cat stayed away. Running into the adjoining dining area I slammed the back door shut before locking and bolting it. I stood still for a minute or so and listened. It was so quiet outside I became worried that it might have found another way in but I knew it hadn’t when the mewing began again.

   Now it was desperate, Let me in! it pleaded in its feline tongue. Never having studied the back door closely before, I looked down to find the remains of a cat flap. It had been boarded up but done so badly with cardboard, as if whoever had done it didn’t have time to do the job properly. The cardboard began to move back and forth as I heard the cat scratching at the obstacle that was keeping it outside in the cold. Scaring it away had worked before, I had to try again. I kicked out at the door with force, growling loudly as I did so. The cat let out a yelp and scampered away from the house. I had just enough time to see it jumping the fence to the next garden when I looked out of the kitchen window again.

   Again the feeling passed and I felt slightly foolish about the whole affair. In any case, it’s crisis averted, I thought to myself. That cat wouldn’t be coming back any time soon at least. If I could scare it enough, perhaps it wouldn’t come back at all. My thoughts were interrupted by Danny as he entered the kitchen. Danny was one of the few housemates I saw regularly and he was friendly enough.

   ‘What was that noise?’ he asked. There was no accusatory tone in his question. I just looked at him blankly.

   ‘I heard a massive bang from down here,’ he explained.

   ‘No idea mate, I’ve been upstairs while this was cooking.’ I gestured towards my frothy mess of potatoes and burning mince.

   ‘Fair play,’ he said simply, before starting a meal of his own.

   I finished cooking dinner and after eating it and washing my plates, returned to my room on the second floor. For no real reason I felt exhausted and slept early that night. By the time the weekend came around I had once again forgotten about the cat that had got me so worked up, though it never forgot about me.

---

   On the weekend I got the Chilterns train back to London Marylebone and made my way back home from there as I had done many times before. I had journeyed back partly to collect some luxuries I hadn’t thought of the week before (a pint glass I had missed most of all) but the main reason was for company. Living in a house that accommodates eighteen tenants should have given me plenty of people to socialise with, but for whatever reason I had barely seen anyone aside from Danny. I felt alone in the house, something that I suspected wouldn’t bother me so much once I started work but made me uncomfortable staying there for too long.

   The weekend at home was a relaxing one and by the end of it I felt refreshed and ready for whatever the new job had to throw at me. I jumped on the train from Sidcup at around five o’clock in the afternoon and once at Charing Cross, took the underground Bakerloo Line to Marylebone. It was just as the tube was leaving Baker Street that I felt it. That awful feeling, that something was wrong. I just couldn’t put my finger on what.

   But I could. I knew exactly what was wrong even while riding a train below the ground, over a hundred miles away from the epicentre. The cat was near the house, maybe even inside and this time there was nothing I could do. As I progressed toward Marylebone the feeling grew stronger and became accompanied by a growing, grim fear. I had no idea what could possibly be so bad about a cat being inside my new residence but that didn’t help my state of mind. For the rest of the journey my anxiety and fear grew. When I finally arrived into Leamington Spa train station at a quarter to eight and it was already dark. I ran through the high street towards the house, ignoring the stares and cries from the bewildered pedestrians I nearly knocked over. As I arrived and walked up the stone steps, I saw the door had been left wide open and immediately my fear mounted. My body was shaking violently as I willed myself to go inside.

   The first thing that hit me as I walked in was the smell. It was far more pungent than anything I had smelt before and my lungs felt dirty breathing the air that carried it. Then I saw the crumpled heap at the bottom of the stairs. It was Danny, that much I guessed, although I only knew from the clothing. His face had been mangled into an unrecognisable state by what looked like the claws of a wild animal. Surely that small cat couldn’t have done this. A trail of blood ran from Danny’s unmoving body upstairs. I swallowed the lump that had grown large in my throat and proceeded up the stairs. Even before I had reached the top of the first flight I knew the trail would continue. Up to the very top of the building. Up to what used to be the loft before a bright businessmen had converted it to three bedrooms and begun charging people to stay. Up to my bedroom.

   I walked cautiously up to the top. I followed the unholy trail up to my bedroom door where it stopped completely. The door itself was immaculate and this seemed to feel me with dread most of all. I took my keys out of my pocket, though had a feeling I wouldn’t need them. I was right, the door had been left on the latch. I could hear a faint, slushy chewing noise from inside. What I saw as I peeked through the doorway is something that I can’t quite recall reliably. The landlord, who had apparently been called over after this whole ordeal had begun, was inside. In the fraction of a second I spent looking inside before fleeing, he looked like the only illuminated object in the room. The rest was little more than shadow, at least that’s how my mind remembers it. Whatever had him in it’s grasps was feasting upon him and I had just enough time to see his half melted face scream in horror and agony before I turned tail.

   I ran straight out of the house, straight out back to the train station and bought a ticket for the first train back to Marylebone. I rang Codemasters on the Monday morning, told them I had been offered a better job somewhere else. I didn’t wait to hear their response. Mum and Dad have finally accepted that I neither want to work there anymore or explain why.

   Today it’s Friday and this weekend we’re going back to pick up my belongings. I don’t want to go but Dad said he’d go alone if I didn’t go with him. As long as we come and go in the daylight, everything will be fine. I keep telling myself that but really I have no idea what will greet us. I said that it all started with the cat and that could still be how it all ends. See, I initially assumed the cat was consumed by whatever evil had awoke in the house but these past couple of days I’ve thought differently. What if curiosity didn’t kill the cat? I can’t remember what I saw in that dank hole I once called my bedroom, but I do remember what I heard. And it sounded a lot like that dreadful mewing.

Was it worth it?

thethemeis: Curiosity Killed the Cat

theauthoris: Deadbeat

This was an open and shut case. Every law officer in the city knew who'd done it. The problem was that she was untouchable, from all sides. Nearly every governor in the city had used her services. The mayor certainly had, that was no great secret. It seemed every mob boss had a soft spot for her, each having been tempted by unique charm at some point or other. And judging by his constant attempts to close down my investigation I wouldn't be surprised to find out that my boss has paid a visit to her penthouse. There was no hope of getting an arrest for this case, I knew that from the moment I entered the scene. But something about the whole scene just didn't sit right with me. For some reason I simply had to know why.

Before me lay the corpse of the notorious Mexican hit-man Carlos Lopez, widely known as "The Cat". He was almost barely recognisable without his characteristic wide mouth grin and gleaming eyes, but a shotgun blast to the face would do that to a guy. In the box next to his body lay the clothes in which he was found, a set of highly expensive linen pyjamas. It never seemed right to me to kill a guy in his sleep, but given the number of unaware victims this guy's dragged in to the hideout of some mobster or other I had hardly any sympathy.

The coroner had no more to tell me about the incident then I already knew. Killed instantly by a single shotgun blast to the face at around 2:30am after a brief struggle. Scratches from long fingernails, red varnish. Lipstick marks, pink. High volume of alcohol in his blood. No other narcotics. No other injuries or healing wounds. No other traces. It painted a pretty obvious picture, but how things escalated into murder was still a mystery. Any clues I wanted would have to be dragged out of people.

There was no great urgency in this case. Any hope we had of keeping this thing underground disappeared when some clumsy (or corrupt) porter dropped the body bag upon exciting the scene and let Mr. Lopez out of the bag. From then on all of the town knew enough of the details to cover any tracks. Any possible witnesses soon became quiet. The murder weapon was almost certainly long gone. If I was going to stand any chance of finding out what really happened that night I had to talk to the woman who had done it herself.

I took a while to track her down, but finally I managed to gain an audience with the woman at the centre of this whole drama. I was in some dingy motel on the edge of town with the most sought after stripper/prostitute/woman of leisure this rotten hell hole of a city had seen in years. I had to admit, even with my cynical view of these pond life I felt the need to take down myself she was strangely alluring. There was definitely something about her. It wasn't unusual for people in her profession to dismiss their background and hide their tracks, but she seemed to have absolutely no history. She was simply now know by the name she took as a stripper when she came to this town. The name which fit her so well it seemed natural to use it in general conversation.

"I'm delighted that you made the personal effort to find me detective," Curiosity purred in her always sexual sounding town. "But i'm afraid you really shouldn't have bothered. There is only one condition under which I can tell you the reasoning behind my actions that night. And it leaves you in a very similar position to The Cat."

Perhaps i'd seen too many spy films in which the villain reveals his plan only for the hero to escape and foil him later. Perhaps I hadn't fully believed she would carry out her threat. Or perhaps i'd just grown so damn sick of this rotting city and all the crooked characters within it that I was prepared to go. I was prepared to leave them behind just to know why someone who seemed, despite her sordid nature, above the evilness in this place, would drop herself down to the level of all the other scum. Perhaps then i'd have little else to go on for. Either way she revealed the entire scene to me and all its predictable and disappointing twist and turns. And then she put a bullet in my head.

Was it worth it?

Is anything?

Mexico

thethemeis: Curiosity Killed the Cat

theauthoris: Aaron Twentythree

   'Here, that's great, lad,' mumbled Derek, barely audible over his grandson's babbling. His eyes remained inches away from the blue glow of his computer screen. He was Googling donkey shows.

   Derek's grandson Harry was reciting the fourth division table out loud, making sure his grandfather could hear every result. Although Derek's hearing was starting to buckle under the pressure of passing time, he never let on to the kids that it wasn't bad enough yet that he couldn't hear the television unassisted because then he couldn't pretend not to have heard them when they asked a question he didn't want to answer or brought up a subject he didn't care to discuss. He was happy for Harry to read the table out to him, as long as he didn't start reading what was on the computer screen.

   'Charlton nil, Crystal Palace three,' Harry practically shouted across the room. He accented certain syllables in a way that Derek had heard many teenagers do in recent years, putting on some accent he was never brought up with just to fit in with friends that Derek can never imagine himself choosing when he was Harry’s age. Harry was fifteen, an age at which boys are normally loth to spend time alone with their grandfathers; but since the death of Ethyl, Derek’s wife, Harry’s mum has never been the same. She spends one half of her time staring into space, and the other half crying and yelling incomprehensible curses at Harry without reason. Grief has turned her into a wreck, a shell of the mother she once was; and as such, Harry avoids her like the plague.

   ‘Chelsea two, Bromley three,’ he shouts, typing a text message into his phone.

   Ethyl’s death was three years ago now, and although Derek still grieved for her, he had dealt with it in a far different way than his daughter. At first, he had sunk so far back into his shell that he feared even leaving the house. He would lock himself in his bedroom and hardly explore the house at all. When the mail came, he would throw it straight in the bin, fearing that it might hold more bad news he wasn’t ready for. Danger lurked around every corner, in every cupboard, in the face of every stranger that wandered past in the street. He read books, he wrote short poems about the pain he was feeling, and he lost two stones in those months.

   Then he found a present that his daughter and her son had bought him the Christmas before Ethyl died. Still boxed, never even looked at for longer than a few minutes, it was a laptop computer that Derek had no idea how to use and no idea what to use for. He unwrapped it that day, and invited his grandson round to teach him what to do with it. He’d heard somewhere that you could send letters to people on the other side of the world for free, in seconds, using one of these; and he wanted to learn how to do that, and then more.

   Over the weeks that followed, Derek gradually discovered the Internet. Having become a terrified skeleton following the death of his wife, he fattened up again into a chubby explorer, emerging from his shell and surfing everywhere from the Amazon to Expedia, from Adult Friend Finder to Flickr. He found out about karate and yoga, LCD screens and time travel, cats and literature, religion and India and hacking and boilers and Canada and wars and pregnancy and everything else that exists in the bottomless pit of the blogosphere. Even stuck inside his house, he was freed by the world inside his computer screen.

   And after it dragged him out of his shell, the Internet dragged him out of his house. He arranged French lessons for himself, cookery classes, a writing club, a skydiving trip, and holidays to every European city you or I could name off the top of our heads. He learned to play guitar (although not that well), he bought a games console that he never even played, and he went to plays he never even knew had been written. He even fucked a prostitute, a lovely young lady who it turned out had been in the year above his own daughter at the very same school. And now, the same Internet that had brought him all those new experiences had Derek discovering his favourite new topics yet: donkey shows and Tijuana.

   Derek had always heard that curiosity killed the cat. But for him, curiosity killed the pussy. The terrified wretch he had become was slaughtered mercilessly by his newfound thirst for knowledge.

   ‘Grimsby four, Man United one,’ mumbled Harry.

   ‘YES!’ Ejaculated Derek, at the top of his rusted lungs. Harry jumped out of his skin, and Derek couldn’t stop coughing until his laughter broke through as the more powerful convulsion.

   ‘Is you alright, granddad?’

   Derek looked up from his laptop screen. Still chuckling and coughing and spluttering and guffawing, he met Harry’s eye across the room that hadn’t been tidied or vacuumed for the last three months, what with Derek spending so little time in it; and he said, ‘Yes, son. I just like Grimsby, that’s all.’

   But it wasn’t that. It wasn’t a love of Grimsby at all. It was the amazing price that Derek had just got for a return flight to Tijuana, Mexico.