Here we go again

If you've read any of this blog, then you will have noticed that it comprises of two things: excerpts from the fiction I write, and me complaining about how hard it is to write fiction.  Depending on your point of view, you may or may not be pleased to know this post is another piece of fiction.  Then again, you might never have read any of my other posts and may now be thinking "What on earth is this person gibbering on about?".

What I really should start doing is varying this blog a bit - start complaining about American drivers, fat people and other things that aggravate me.  But I don't want to come across as some cut price Jeremy Clarkson, so I will avoid doing that and stick to the fiction.

So onwards to the point of this post: right back at the start of writing this blog, I mentioned a story I'd started back in 2006 called Infinite Diamond.  A few weeks ago, I was heavily into finishing two other stories, Satisfaction and GhostWalker, both of which I've now finished and posted the first few chapters of on here (if you go looking, beware that Satisfaction is VERY rude).  I wanted to take a break from writing, but then I opened up Infinite Diamond and started reading...  It's really not that bad.  It's rough, it's literally in it's first draft but still, it's got potential.  It's also about 60% complete.  It would be a crime to leave it incomplete, surely?  I might as well get a first draft complete.  That way, if something happens to me, a least the concept would be captured, if not the final words.

So I'm going to have a stab at completing the first draft.  Not reviewing what I've done previously, but finishing an imperfect story.  Saying that, I did review the prologue last night and that's what I'm posting here.  It's only 1,200 words so I thought 'What the hell?'.

I've found I'm better writing fast paced, short books, running in at about 80,000 words.  That's the target for this one too.  It's still some way off completion but with the way I've been writing in the last few months, I reckon I could have a draft complete in a month.  If I do, that means I would have 3 complete 80,000 word stories, all of which are completely different in nature and style.  I think that's something to feel reasonably happy about.

Anyway... Here's the prologue to Infinite Diamond...

The man ran as fast as his weary legs could carry him, his breath as ragged as his peasant clothes.  The dark, muddy track that he followed was heavily rutted by cartwheels, and he slipped and stumbled as he ran, but it did not slow his escape.
Thunder rumbled in the distance, and the recently passed storm had left the earth beneath his feet treacherously wet.  Branches tore at the man’s rough clothes as he stumbled to his left and rolled along the hedgerow, before resuming his desperate course.
A gibbous moon emerged slowly from behind low, scudding clouds, reflecting in the long deep puddles that lay ahead of him.  The pale light shone on his face, giving his skin a pallid glow that echoed his fearful expression.  This was a man running for his life.
He did not let up his pace, even as each breath he took became shorter and more painful; his exhalation hung for a moment in the cold night air as though he were steam train driving on in desperation.  He was young and fit, but he was pushing himself beyond endurance to escape the fear that pursued him, and with every step his stamina was beginning to desert him.
He jinked around a large puddle ahead of him, seeking firmer ground so as not to be slowed.  The thunder rolling across the horizon to his left continued to sound its death knell, and as it faded another sound took its place.  He pulled up quickly, stopping for a moment.  He bent down, hands on his knees trying to breathe quietly, straining to listen beyond the rush of blood in his ears and the laughter of Mother Nature.
There it was – the unmistakeable bass sound of hoofbeats.  Somewhere behind him, not too far away, a horse was galloping towards him.  He gave a short yelp and resumed his desperate course, but it was all too obvious that he was going to be caught by his pursuer.
The horseman was hunting with intent, driven by an anger that tore at him from within.  He wore a knight’s tunic, all black save for a white lion on the right breast.  He wore no helmet, but had on the gauntlets and boots from a suit of armour, and a heavy coat of chain mail glinted beneath his tunic.  His mount was a black stallion and wore no armour; it was a animal being ridden for the speed of pursuit and it snorted fiercely as the rider drove the beast forward towards his ever closing quarry.
The fleeing man was exhausted, his race run, but still he did not stop; driven on by fear and fast fading hope, he began to run again. The sound of the horseman closing on brought panic rising in his throat, and he could not stop himself from glancing over his left shoulder to glimpse a sight of his nemesis.  It proved to be a fateful mistake.
His boot landed on a smooth, wet rock sitting in the middle of the track.  It was slippery with mud and his foot turned as he landed on it.  He yelled out in agony as his ankle turned over, sending him stumbling forward.  He fell into the mud, splashing into dirty dark water.  In moments he was pushing himself to his feet again, but the fall had allowed the rider to close to within killing distance.
The horseman was no more than thirty yards from the fallen man and without slowing he released the reins, reached behind his back with his right hand and drew an arrow from the quiver strapped across his back.  He never took his eyes from his quarry as drew a heavy bow from his left side, notched the arrow, raised the bow, drew it back to its full weight and let the arrow slip.  It flew true and landed square between the shoulder blades of the running man, who cried out and fell forward, splashing down into ground.  This time he did not rise, but lay prostrate, his head turned to one side, his breath laced with cries of pain.
The rider whipped by the stricken runner, and wheeled his horse around before dismounting in one swift movement.  He sheathed the bow, and drew a long sword from a scabbard hanging on the horse’s saddle.  He strode up to the fallen man, his face filled with hatred.
“Get up,” he ordered, standing over the prone body.  The man on the ground didn’t move; only his shallow groans suggested there was still life in him.
“Maybe you need some encouragement,” snarled the knight.  He grabbed the shaft of the arrow rising from the man’s back and tugged on it.  The man screamed in pain, agonisingly lifting himself with his elbows to try and ease the pain.  The knight quickly slipped his foot under the fallen man’s body and kicked him onto his back. The arrow shaft snapped as he rolled over and he screamed again as he fell back into the mud.  Their eyes met, one gaze full of hate, the other swimming with fear.
“Why?” the swordsman demanded, putting the tip of his sword to the fallen man’s throat.
“You know why,” the man on the ground answered, his teeth clenched with pain.
“Your betrayal will cost you your life, you fool,” the knight said.  He drew the sword up, wrapping both hands around the hilt, ready to plunge it down.  “Make your peace with God,”  he hissed, “for you are about to face Him.”
He drew his gaze from the fallen man’ face to his chest, to where he was about to drive his sword but as he did, his eyes narrowed in suspicion.  He suddenly lunged down, grabbing at the fallen man’s left hand.  He prised back his cold dirty fingers to reveal a small, dark disc of metal.  The knight took it and stood up, examining it.  It was warm to the touch, and in the centre was a recessed button.  His eyes flicked back to the fallen man, who now had a defiant look on his face.
“They are coming for you, Luyten,” the man on the ground said.
“You will not live to see them,” Aaron Luyten spat back.  He raised the sword and thrust it down with one hand, stabbing the fallen man through the chest.  He let out a loud moan, and grabbed at the blade, clutching it.  Luyten twisted it, feeling it crunch against his victim’s breastbone, and he saw blood from the man’s hands run down the blade as the keen edge of the sword sliced his hands open.  Then, with a last gurgling breath, the hands went slack, and life slipped from the fallen man.  Luyten waited a few more seconds, his weight resting on the hilt of the sword before he drew it back from the lifeless body.  He looked down to his hand and thumbed the button in the centre of the disc.  It popped back up flush with the surface of the disc, and he then slipped it into his tunic.  He turned, leaving the body in the middle of the track, and walked back to his horse.  He glanced up at the distant storm as a sheet of lightning illuminated the horizon.  He knew the dead man, Second Lieutenant Chase Crawford, was right.  They were coming, there was no doubt of that.  But thanks to the murder he had just committed, he would be ready for them.

The last thing I'm going to write about rewrites - for now...

Well, I have finally completed rewriting my story Ghostwalker.  I began doing it in November 2010, and due to some events along the way (moving to America, getting married, that sort of thing) I took my time going through the story.  As it is now, it's hovering somewhere around the 78,000 word mark, which qualifies it as a short novel.  And yes, I'd like to try and get it published.

Looking back over the various iterations of this story, I noted a couple of things.  The details of the story have changed, developed and evolved so far that the rewrite I did turned out to be just that - I would estimate that there's no more than fifteen per cent of the story that remains as it was in the previous version.  Saying that, it's hard to place exactly which version is which.  At no point in the past did I have a fully completed manuscript; rather I had bits and pieces linked together by the odd instructive paragraph explaining the events.  Even so, the previous versions of the story ran to 120,000 words and then later 100,000 words.  So it's safe to say that a lot of extraneous details and events have been removed to tighten the pacing and tell the core story as swiftly and succinctly as possible.

I'd say that when writing a story, less can very much be more.  It all depends on the type of story.  If you want to write an elaborate, multi-stranded story with lots of richly defined characters, then wandering over then 100,000 word mark makes sense; indeed, it's essential.  If, on the other hand, you're trying to write a fast-paced, exciting thriller then that sort of word count just drags things down and slows the pace to little more than a grind.  I do find that if something is painful to write, the chances are that it's going to be equally painful to read.  It's the same with movies - why make it 150 minutes when you could have told it in 105 instead?

The one thing I have noticed though is that despite the many changes to the story, it remains fundamentally unchanged.  It has a beginning, middle and end that are unchanged.  The events take place in the same sequence.  The denouement is pretty much the same.  What has changed is the details of how characters move around, and how they interact.  Whereas before it was a plot driven story, I hope now that events unfold because that's how those people would really act in those situations.  Of course, it's still a thriller, so people do find themselves in some improbable scenarios.  I just hope nobody reads it and thinks 'Why on earth did they just do that?'  If they do, then it's going to be back to the drawing board.

But for now, I can relax a little and not think about this story, until I get it proofread at least.  Any takers?

More about re-writing

I'm currently rewriting Ghostwalker, as I've said before.  It's going reasonably well, but the further I get into it, the more I'm changing.  Small changes at the outset of the story ripple down throughout the narrative, which means scenes and conversations between characters are having to be re-written.  In addition, I'm changing some of plot points; people still get from A to B as before, but how they get there has changed.  I'm doing this to (hopefully) make it more believable, and to simplify the story, make it faster paced and to move around some of the revelations within the story to make them a little more natural.

The result is an absolute pain of a re-write.  I just hope it's worth it.

Satisfaction Chapter Four

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Re-writes

Re-writing is agony.  Anyone who has ever written anything, be it an essay, report or short story knows that on the first pass everything seems fine, but when you go back and re-read you find yourself changing things around, picking up on inconsistencies and errors and generally polishing things up.

This is something I struggle with.  I am very critical of what I write.  If you look between the two stories I've been posting, Ghostwalker and Satisfaction, you will see that not only do they differ in style but that they are also a long way apart in terms of being a finished product.  There's a couple of reasons for this.  Firstly, Satisfaction is being proofread and critically analysed, to ensure it's a higher quality piece.  Secondly, it's the final version of a simple story, written in an uncomplicated manner.  Ghostwalker is some way behind in both respects.  It's a story that I have rewritten substantially, any number of times, and I think it is suffering for this.

The problem is that when I first wrote it, at eighteen, it was a fast-paced, exciting and fun adventure story about an eighteen year old guy.  Through subsequent rewrites, it became a multi-stranded thriller told from multiple perspectives.  While this may work in some instances, what I found was that I didn't have the experience to tell that kind of story.  I tried to make it into a convoluted political thriller, whereas the original premise was anything but.  I also made the character ten years older, which meant the story didn't work: why was a 28 year old living at his parents and so dependent on them?  I had to create an overwrought back story involving past criminal activities that dragged the story down and presented numerous plot holes.  In order to make this work, I went through several more rewrites, each increasingly turgid and boring.  The word count leapt from 75,000 to 105,000.  That's 30,000 words, or 100 pages of trying to explain why this guy is doing some stupid things.  That's not good writing.  That's pain.

So I have gone full circle and tried to re-write it as a fun story, bringing the word count back to 80,000.  I'm telling the story from Dan's point of view, cutting back on a lot of the extraneous material to keep the story simple and effective.  The opening is supposed to capture some of the bewilderment Dan is feeling, whilst hinting at the distractions Mel presents.  After the first three chapters, the story starts to leap forward as Dan finds himself becoming a suspect for his parents death.  Rather than following a mundane police investigation, the story leaps sideways into adventure, which is how it was written originally many years ago.

Now that's not to say that all the rewrites have been for nothing.  Each iteration of the story has brought elements in that have survived to the latest rewrite.  If anything, the over-analysis of the story has lead it to the final version being far more grounded in reality than the first version ever was.

As an example: in the first ever draft, Dan (called Oliver at that point) smuggled a gun through an airport security screen by dismantling it and pretending it was a lighter and a Walkman.  He also successfully talked an air line attendant into allowing him onto a plane so he could hijack it.

You can see why I had to rewrite it.

In my defense, I was eighteen at the time, and 9/11 hadn't happened.  But still...  I deserve being flogged for such lazy work.  So now, what I'm trying to write is a fun, fast thriller that isn't completely and utterly ludicrous.  I want people to get out of scrapes and situations through good planning and relationships (like real life) not through contrivances and utterly ridiculous, impossible plot devices.  This is why I'm rewriting again.  The fundamental premise of the story - a guy trying to prove his innocence in a race against time - is sound.  The way he was doing it wasn't.  People are far more interesting than any McGuffin, no matter how intriguing.  Let the McGuffin dictate the events of your story, and you will find yourself rewriting again and again and again.

Ghostwalker Chapter Three

The four of them stepped from the warm car and out into a cold, clear night.  Their breath hang in the air as they stretched their legs, grateful to be off the road.
Mel headed for the front door with her mum in tow, leaving Dan and Trevor to collect the bags that filled the boot.  Dan watched Mel wistfully as she chatted with her mum.  He wondered if she knew how gorgeous she was.
“How are you doing?” Trevor asked from the back of the car, noticing where Dan’s gaze was directed.  Dan looked at him and gave a non-committal shrug.
“Okay, I guess,” he said.
“Do you want to give me a hand with the bags?” Trevor asked, gesturing to the boot.
“Yeah, sure,” Dan answered. Trevor passed him several carrier bags from their shopping spree, and then a suitcase.  Dan realised that Mel must have been back to her parent’s house to pick stuff up that afternoon.  She would have seen his house.  That thought chilled him more than the cold night air.
“Come on, you two, it’s freezing,” Mel called from the front door.  Trevor shut the car boot and they walked up to the house.
“We can put the stuff upstairs,” Mel said, letting them into the hallway and shutting the front door behind them.
The house was smartly decorated, belying the mundane exterior.  The hallway was painted in pale tones with cherry flooring.  There were pot plants by the front door and on the landing.  Rising up the cream carpeted stairs were four black and white prints of the Manhattan skyline, two with the World Trade Centre intact.  Dan liked the fresh, simple look, a million miles from the rustic idyll he had pictured.
Mel led the way up the stairs, followed by Dan and then Trevor.  Dan tried to keep his eyes fixed on the small of Mel’s back and not any lower, although it was hard to ignore the tight jeans she had on; it was an awkward moment, not helped by a disapproving cough from Trevor.
They reached the landing and Mel pointed out the spare room where her mum and dad would sleep.  Trevor took their bags in there, and then Mel led Dan down to the end of the landing.  She opened the door and said in an apologetic tone, “Welcome to the penthouse.”
It was a tiny little box room.  Half of it was filled with stacks of cardboard boxes and piles of old magazines.  There was a folded up camping bed propped up against the wall.  Dan reckoned that when he lay down he would have been able to touch the opposing walls with his head and his feet.
“It’s not much, I know,” said Mel, “but it’s the best I can do at short notice.”
“It’s more than I could ask for,” said Dan gratefully, as she opened a built in cupboard fitted above the stair well and pulled out some bedding.  She smiled as she handed it to him.
“Anything for an old friend,” she told him as she pulled out the camp bed.
“Hey, we’re not old yet,” he replied, putting down the bedding and helping her flatten the bed.  He picked up a couple of sheets and between them they made the bed as they talked.
“I’m older than you,” she pointed out.
“Not by much,” Dan reminded her.
“Four years, mister.  They count.”
“No, you look really good.”
“For my age, you mean?”
“No, that’s not what I meant.  What happened to the skinny girl I used to know?”  She was still slim, but she had developed curves in the time she had lived away from home.  She was seven inches shorter than him but her build made her look taller.  Her long dark hair wasn’t straight like he remembered her as a child but now fell in soft curls.
Some things hadn’t changed though.  She still had the same smile that could make his heart skip and the same dazzling green eyes that felt like they would burn into you if she looked at you for too long.
“She grew up, and out,” answered Mel.  Dan nodded in agreement.  It was strange; they hadn’t seen each other for so long, and yet they had slipped back into the old banter with such ease it was as though they had never been apart. 
A couple of minutes later they had the bed made and Mel gave it a pat of approval.
“Come on,” she said, “let’s go and get you something to eat.”
“Can I get a quick shower first?” Dan asked.
“Yeah, of course,” Mel said.  “The bathroom’s right there.”  She pointed to the door at the opposite end of the hallway.
“Thanks,” said Dan gratefully, “I’ll be right down.”

Half an hour later, Dan was sat at the breakfast bar in the kitchen, holding a mug of tea that Maggie had just handed to him. He wore a clean sweater and sweatpants, courtesy of their detour into Tesco, and had cleaned up the cut on his head the best he could.  His black eyes were starting to fade; he healed quickly and he knew in a couple more days they would be barely noticeable.   Mel was sat opposite him.
“You don’t actually look that bad,” she said, looking at his forehead.
“I’m pretty sure I’m going to have a scar,” he answered.
“That’s kind of cool, though,” Mel said.
“Melanie!” snapped her mum, from behind Dan, but it didn’t bother him.  Mel had a point.
The kitchen was small, but nicely decorated, in line with the rest of the house.  It had been fitted with a cherry worktop and white units; the walls and floor were covered in matching slate tiles.  Dan liked it, partly because it looked fresh and smart, but mainly because it was nothing like the kitchen at his parent’s.  That was only other kitchen he had ever sat down in and drank tea.  Maggie sat down next to Mel.
“Where’s Trevor?” Dan asked her.
“On the phone,” she replied.  “Work.”
“Work?” Mel asked. “It’s Friday night and it’s nearly midnight.  Who’s at work at this time?”
“Ah, that’s the price for marrying an accountant,” Maggie answered.  “They never stop.  There’s always something going on somewhere in the world.  I think it’s helping him get along, you know, under the circumstances.”  Dan knew Trevor was a little more than an accountant; he was a financial director for an engineering company.  He had never struck Dan as the type to want to put his feet up.
“I do like what you’ve with the place,” Maggie went on.
“Thanks, mum,” Mel answered.  “It was a bit of a dump when we got it, but I’ve done a lot to it, so I like it.”
“Who’s we?” asked Dan.
“Steve, my ex,” she said, with a hint of bitterness in her voice.
“Oh, right,” said Dan.  “I didn’t realise.”
“It’s alright.  Like I said – he’s the ex.”
“So you have this place to yourself?  That can’t be cheap.”
“It’s not easy,” admitted Mel, “but Mum and Dad help, and I’m not going to be taken for a ride by anyone.”  She smiled at her mum, who nodded appreciatively.
Maggie had said nothing throughout the little exchange; instead, she watched the two of them together.  She didn’t share her husband’s apprehension about Dan.  He seems too nice to be left to the wolves, she thought, and if he and Mel get on well, then so much the better.  After all, nobody’s perfect.  Dan continued the talking to Mel, oblivious to Maggie’s observations.
“I can see that,” he said to her appreciatively.  Mel reached over and gave his arm a little squeeze.  It was not much; hardly anything in fact, but it said more than any words could at that moment, especially as she left her hand in place.  Dan turned to speak to Maggie, trying to ignore Mel’s warm touch on his arm.
“Is Trevor okay with me being here?” he asked her.  She raised her eyebrows.
“Of course he is,” she said, slightly defensively.
“He just didn’t seem to be too happy about it at the hospital, that’s all.  I don’t want to impose.”  Mel snorted at the idea.
“It’s not him you’re imposing on, it’s me, and I don’t mind you being here one bit,” she said tartly.  “Dad’s always worrying about something or other anyway.”
“Mel,” said Maggie, rebuking her.
“Well, it’s true,” Mel replied.  “He won’t want me getting mixed up with trouble over here,” nodding at Dan.  Dan felt his face flush.
“For God’s sake,” Maggie said, chiding her daughter, just as Trevor walked into the kitchen.  They all looked at him, wearing the expressions of guilty children caught stealing biscuits.
“Have you been talking about me?” Trevor asked dryly.  It wasn’t meant as a joke, no matter how lightly he tried to make it sound.
“Don’t be silly,” said Maggie, a little too quickly.
“Is there any news?” asked Mel, deftly moving things on.  Dan gave her another appreciative glance.  Trevor leant back against the kitchen side.
“There’s a couple of meetings I’ve managed to put back to later next week,” Trevor began, but Mel cut him off.
“Not about work,” she said, speaking to him like he was an idiot.  “About… you know...” she stopped speaking, and instead tipped her head towards Dan a couple of times in a none too subtle gesture.  Despite the sudden dread of what the reply might be, Dan couldn’t help but smile.  Trevor caught on.
“Oh, right,” he said, clearing his throat a touch too melodramatically.  “I called a couple of people down the street.  There’s not much going on now as far as they can tell.  They seem to be making what’s left of the house structurally safe, but no-one seems to know if they’ll wait until Monday before carrying on.”
“That makes sense,” Dan said.  “I wouldn’t want anyone else getting hurt.”
“No, quite right,” agreed Trevor.  “Apparently there’s still a lot of forensics people there.”
“Forensics?” Mel asked, frowning.  “What are they doing there?”  Trevor shrugged.
Trying to figure out what happened,” Dan answered.
“Looking for evidence, if you ask me,” said Trevor brusquely.  There was something in his tone that sent a chill down Dan’s spine.
What are you thinking, Trevor?
“Hopefully they’ll get it sorted out quickly,” Mel said.
“Yes, then we can all get back home,” Trevor agreed.
“Most of us,” Dan said quietly.
“I’m sure you’ll find somewhere soon enough,” Trevor replied.  There was no warmth in his voice.
“He can stay here as long as he needs to,” Mel answered.
“Is that such a good idea?” Trevor said.  His question was answered by a pregnant pause.
What did you just say? Dan thought. Trevor’s tone of voice was making him angry.  He stood up.
“Look Trevor, I know you don’t like me being here, so if it’s that much of an issue to you, I’ll just go, alright?”
“No, you will not,” Mel said to him, standing up as well.
“I know what this is about,” Dan continued, ignoring Mel.  “I know you don’t want me near your daughter, and hey, who can blame you?  But right now, I really do not need this.”  His trembling voice rose as he spoke.
“That’s enough, Trevor,” Maggie warned.  She looked furious.  It was a fury Dan shared.  All of a sudden he wanted to hit Trevor, hard.  He wanted to hurt him.  He took a step towards him.  Trevor sensed the turmoil that was engulfing Dan.
“That’s quite a temper you’ve got on you, Dan,” Trevor remarked.
“Dad!” exclaimed Mel angrily.  She knew exactly what he was doing; she just couldn’t see why.
“Trevor!” Maggie snapped.  “What on earth are you thinking?”
Yeah, what are you thinking, Trev?  Do you know what I’m thinking right now?  Do you know I want to smash your stupid face right in?
“I’m sorry,”  Trevor said to everyone, sounding anything but.  Dan opened his mouth to speak, but Mel took his hand and spoke for him.  “I don’t believe this,” she said furiously.  “You’re totally out of order.  Dad, I want you out of here right now.  Dan, you come with me.”  She stood up and rounded the breakfast bar, dragging him out of the room.  Maggie turned angrily on Trevor as they left.
“What the hell are you thinking?” she lashed at him.  “That boy’s just lost his parents.”
“I know,” he replied.  “And the fact is he’s the obvious person who stands to gain from their deaths.”

In the living room, Dan was sat with Mel on the sofa.  He was sat with his hands clutched together, head bowed, and she had her hand on his shoulder comforting him.
“Don’t take any notice of Dad,” she said softly.  “He can be a bit of an idiot sometimes.”
“No wonder he didn’t want me to come here,” said Dan, staring at the floor.  “Not if that’s how he feels about me.”
“Me and Mum don’t think like that,” said Mel, trying to encourage him.
“I should never have come here at all,” Dan replied.  “I need to go back and see my doctor.”
“Not tonight,” said Mel gently.  “It’d be too late by the time we got back to be of any use to anyone.  You stay here tonight and I’ll take you to the station first thing tomorrow morning.”  He looked at her.
“I’m about as welcome here as the plague,” he said.
“You are welcome in my house anytime, Dan Ryan,” she assured him.  “You let me worry about everything else.”  He considered her offer for a moment, and then nodded.
“Thanks, Mel,” he said.  “You’re being really good to me, you know.”  He was looking into her eyes as he spoke, and her gaze was fixed on him, full of compassion and tenderness, something he now knew he missed more than he realised.  Maybe it was the circumstances, but he felt so open and vulnerable to her it was as though she could have swallowed him up with her gaze.  Just at that moment, when Dan realised he was sitting there staring at her and saying nothing, there was a knock on the living room door and Maggie came in, followed by Trevor.
“Sorry to interrupt,” she said.  “Trevor’s got something to say.”  He shuffled awkwardly, glanced around and then he spoke to Dan.
“I just wanted to apologise for speaking to you like that just now,” he said to Dan.
“Okay.  Forget it,” replied Dan quickly.  He had no intention of getting into a conversation with the man.
“Yes, well… I’m sorry for thinking what I think.” 
That’s a pretty weird apology.
“Dad…” Mel said.  Dan knew she was thinking the same thing as him.
“No, come on, let’s be fair,” he said, cutting her off.  “Why would you be want me anywhere near your daughter, given my track record?  But I think you’re forgetting I’ve just lost my parents.  No offense, but the last thing on my mind is Mel.”  He looked at her.  “Don’t take that the wrong way.”
“It’s fine,” she smiled, happy to see him barking at her dad.
“We know,” Maggie said, but Dan cut her off.
“Yeah, you do, and Mel does, but I don’t think Trevor here does.  What do you reckon Trevor?”
“I reckon you’re right,” came the measured response.
Damn right I’m right.  I know you think I’m not good enough for your daughter on any level.  I know you’ve always thought that and I know you’ve made sure you kept her as far away from me as possible.
Mel reached over and put her hand across Dan’s shoulder, but her touch caused him to stand up, push her away and stride out of the room.  Mel stood to follow him, but Maggie stopped him.
“Let him go, love,” said her mum.  “Give him some space.”
“But he’s distraught,” said Mel, tears in her eyes.
“Yes, and no wonder,” said her mum, glaring at Trevor.  “As if today wasn’t bad enough as it is.”   
“Yeah, well done Dad,” snapped Mel.  “Wading in with your size nines.  Why can’t you just keep it zipped for once?”
“I’m only saying what everyone will be thinking,” answered Trevor defensively.
“God, no wonder I got out when I could,” Mel snapped, and stormed out of the room as well.

Dan shut himself in the bathroom and slumped to the floor, sobbing with his back against the bath.  It was all too much for him.  He wanted to get away from these people.  Ignoring Decker’s advice had been a huge mistake.  He had let a moment of ridiculous lust get in the way of grief and common sense and now he was trapped in an unbelievably awkward situation, a situation compounded by his lack of memory.  He wanted to remember his mum and dad but all he could see in his head were fragments, nonsensical moments of white noise.  He knew Decker had said that was normal, but it felt like it was slowly driving him insane.
He reached for a length of toilet roll and blew his nose noisily.  The pain in his chest that had been sitting there all day was not subsiding.  He gritted his teeth, banging his fist on the side of his head, as if it would somehow help unlock his forgotten memories.  It did nothing but make his head hurt, and he slowly slid to his left, falling down onto his side, where he stayed laying curled on the floor, in a foetal position, clutching at the toilet paper.
There was a knock on the door.  Dan ignored it, but a moment later it opened anyway.
“Hey,” Mel said softly.  He didn’t answer her, so she stepped over him, shutting the door behind her, and sat down on the edge of the bath.
“Sorry about Dad, I really am,” she said, looking down at him.  “He’s just… just… a dickhead, I suppose.”  Dan snorted at that, and looked up at her.  His eyes were swollen and red. 
“What is happening to my life?” he asked, croakily.  “It might have been shit before, but at least it made some sort of sense.  I mean, I know what I had wasn’t exactly anything special, but compared to this…”  He tailed off again.  Mel tried to find something to say that would help.
 “Why don’t you try and get some sleep?”
 “You sure you’re just not trying to keep me out of the way of your Dad?”
“A bit, maybe,” she admitted.  “But can you blame me?  He’s not exactly behaving himself and you’re in no state to put up with his antics.  I think he’s just feeling a bit protective.”  Dan gave a little nod.  She was probably right.
“Come on,” she said. “I’ll put you to bed.”  She held out her hand and he sat up and took it a few seconds later, letting her help him to his feet.  She led him out of the bathroom and down the landing to the box room.  She had set a little lamp down beside the camp bed, giving the room a snug, cosy feel.
“Get yourself to bed,” she ordered. 
“Thanks, Mel,” he said, genuinely grateful.  “You’re being really good and you don’t have to be.”
“It’s nothing.  It’s just nice to see you again, even if it is like this.”  For a fleeting moment he thought about asking her to stay, but shot the idea down immediately.  Instead, he said goodnight to her and then shut the bedroom door.
He lay down on the bed and turned off the lamp.  The murmur of conversation rose up from beneath him.  He couldn’t make out what was being said but it sounded like an argument, one he wanted no part of.  He closed his eyes, wondering what the morning might hold in store for him.  Quicker than he realised, the mental fatigue of the day swept over him, and within minutes he was asleep.

He was standing in his parent’s living room.  It was exactly how he remembered it from his childhood, and his mum and dad were sat on the old sofa they had sold years before, the one he had ripped when he was eight.  Both of them looked pale and gaunt, staring into the distance, not seeing him standing there.
“Mum?  Dad?”  he tried to say, but no sound came out of his mouth.  It was like his voice was stuck in his throat, choking him.  He tried to move towards them but found he couldn’t.  Then, as he watched in increasing horror, flickering flames appeared in their laps, and rapidly spread across them, engulfing them both.  Suddenly they were screaming, but they didn’t move, they just opened their mouths and screamed.  He leapt forward, trying to help them, but the heat forced him back.  He tried again, and this time the fire leapt to his sleeve, and spread at an uncontrollable rate up his arm.  Almost instantly he was engulfed in flames, and the searing pain made him scream in agony.  He could smell his skin and hair burning away as he desperately flapped at himself, falling to his knees.  Through the orange flame, he looked up to his parents, still unmoving.  His mum’s gaze flicked down, and for a brief moment she stared straight into his eyes.
He woke with a start.  His heart was thudding against his ribcage.  He was still lying on top of the camp bed, fully dressed.
It’s just a dream, it’s just a dream, it’s just a dream.
He took deep breaths, trying and failing to clear the remnants of the dream from his mind.  He looked round the room.  Mel had left an alarm clock next to the bed.  The green numbers on it gave the room an eerie glow.  He squinted down at the display.  It was only one o’clock.  He had been asleep for less than half an hour.
He sat up, thinking of what he had just seen in his dream.  It had been horrible.  His mum and dad had been burning in agony, and he had been powerless to help them.  It made him worried. 
Is this what sleep’s going to have in store for me from now on?  Will I see them like that every time I close my eyes? 
He shook his head.  That wasn’t how he wanted to remember them.
For the next three hours he sat on the bed and tried to drill down into his forgotten memories.  Time and again he tried to retrace his steps from the previous night, but he could remember no more than at the hospital.  The gaping holes in his mind were frustrating him, but the more he tried to remember, the fuzzier everything became.
It’s a natural defense, that’s what Decker said.
Some defense.  It protects me by sending me crazy.He tried to turn his thoughts to something else.  The only good thing he could think of was Mel.  As soon as he started to think about her though, he was racked with guilt, and pushed those thoughts out of his mind as well.
Eventually, fatigue moved in to attack him again and a little after four o’clock in the morning he drifted back to into a dreamless sleep.  The last thought that crossed his mind before he passed out was that his parents had been dead for a little over twenty four hours and that he would never see them again.

Satisfaction Chapter Three

If you think Kristen was a one off then you’d be wrong.  What happened that day merely served to open my eyes to the possibility of how many girls would want to do the same thing.  The answer was, a lot.  Over the next few months I fucked a lot of girls.  It got so bad in fact that I actually lost count.  I know it was somewhere between thirty and forty, but that’s about as close as I can get.  I did all kinds of girls – tall, short, blonde, dark, slim, curvy – it seemed that the more girls I slept with, the hungrier and hungrier I got for sex.  I think it was the danger; the risk of being caught fucking during work was intoxicating.  How I didn’t get caught, God only knows.  Maybe people knew what was going on but nobody said anything.  If Sam knew, she’d didn’t let on when she made me a surprising offer.

I’d gotten into work as normal one morning to find her in her usual spot behind the front desk.  Instead of the usual happy, smiling face though, I found myself looking at a teary-eyed girl dabbing a tissue to her cheeks.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” I asked, genuinely concerned.  She shook her head, seemingly to upset to talk.
“Come on, you can tell me,” I said, leaning across the counter, bringing myself close to her.
“Me and Ben have finished,” she whispered, and then sobbed.  Ben was her boyfriend.  I knew things hadn’t been right, because I’d caught her couple of times on her mobile quietly arguing with him.  I hadn’t realised things had gotten that bad though.  I actually felt really sorry for her, because I liked Sam, and I didn’t like seeing her upset.  I had to get to my shift, but I agreed to meet her after work for a coffee so we could talk things over.
I got offered a session that day, from a really hot Dutch girl, but for the first time in my sexual campaign I spurned the opportunity.  I remember she’d seemed really affronted by that, which in retrospect wasn’t surprising given my burgeoning reputation.  But I had promised Sam my time, and I made sure I gave it to her.
We met up at Starbucks that afternoon, and she poured her heart out to me over a couple of lattes.  It turned out that Ben, far from being an ideal boyfriend, had been seeing a lot of girls behind Sam’s back.  Now, I know I’m not one to talk, but I’ve never cheated on a girl.  Yes, I’ve fucked a lot of girls, but not when I’ve been seeing anyone.
Anyway, Sam had a place she shared with Ben.  She’d thrown him out, understandably, and needed someone to move in there quickly to cover the rent.  I was still at home and was looking to move out.  It was seemed like too good an opportunity to pass over, and she’d fairly leapt at the idea when I suggested I move in.

You can see where this was heading, right?

By the end of that week, me and Sam were housemates.  We invited everyone down from the gym on the Saturday and we had a big housewarming party.  It was a great night, and Sam looked great, in spite of the fact that Ben had been round trying to patch things up that afternoon.  She’d none of it and there had been a massive row that I’d stayed well out of.  She’d been in tears when she’d sent him off, but by the time the first people arrived she’d recovered, and showed none of her fragility throughout the evening, in spite of knocking back plenty of drinks.  At the end of the night, she gave me an appreciative peck on the cheek, and a big hug.  I asked what it was for, and she said for being a mate, but it was obvious it meant more than that.  Ben could see it too, and I’d heard him accusing her of having something going on with me when they’d been arguing.  I knew it was bollocks, and yet part of me knew he was right; it just hadn’t happened yet.
It played out slowly and for a couple of weeks nothing happened.  Sam was still tender from the break up, and I was getting plenty of action with different girls at work.  I think Sam knew about that, but she didn’t ask.  Actually, I think everyone must have known.  It was getting ridiculous.  I was fucking three or four different girls a week and not just at the gym.  I was getting invites to their places and only spent a couple of nights a week in my own bed.  I made a rule never to bring them back to my place though.  I needed a refuge.  Most of these girls were one-nighters; a couple got it more than once, but they were the exception rather than the rule.
Whatever Sam thought about my exploits, it didn’t seem to put her off.  I’m not saying she went out of her way to do anything, but we seemed to have encounters at the most awkward moments.  You know what, I take that back.  I will say Sam went out of her way to have encounters.  In fact, she started getting ridiculously unsubtle about it.
For example, one morning, on one of my days off, Sam decided to bring me breakfast in bed.  She didn’t tell me she was going to do it and she didn’t knock on my bedroom door either.  She just came into the room with a bacon sandwich and a glass of orange juice.  I didn’t know she was going to do that otherwise I wouldn’t have been lying on my bed jerking off at the time, but I was and she saw the lot.  I reckon she heard me and came in deliberately.  I wouldn’t have minded that much, I mean I’m not exactly shy.  I probably would have let her watch if she’d asked but instead my bacon sandwich ended up on the floor and she’d run out screaming with laughter, so it ended badly for me in every respect.
I suspected her appearance wasn’t an accident and I got my proof the very next morning, when I was in the bathroom.  I’d just gotten out of the shower and was towelling myself down when the door opened and there was Sam in her dressing gown.  I stood there unfazed, drying my hair.  I was stark naked, giving her the full frontal, and she saw everything – again.
“Oh God, sorry,” she gasped, but she made no effort to look away or shut the door.
“You’re about as subtle as the Nazi party, you know that?” I told her dryly as I towelled my hair.  I took a few seconds doing it, and when I stopped she was still there, blatantly staring at my cock.  I took the towel and rubbed it round my groin, making sure she got a full view.  Sam bit her lip as she continued to stare.  I decided we had been waiting long enough.
“Come here,” I told her.  She didn’t need asking twice.  I told her to kiss me, and she did.  I told her to rub my cock, and she did that too.
Between kisses I told her, “I’m going to fuck you, Sam.”
“Yes, please,” she whispered feeling my rapidly hardening cock under her caress. 
“I’m gonna sink my cock right into your slippery pussy,” I whispered.  I could feel her trembling as I said it to her.  Sam liked dirty talk it seemed.
“I’ve wanted this for ages,” she told me unnecessarily as she caressed my chest as I untied her dressing gown and pushed my hands inside it, caressing her belly.  I watched as she ran her tongue over my chest.
“Let’s go to your bed,” I told her.  She didn’t need me to say it twice.  Her dressing gown was discarded on the landing and we were both naked when we fell on her bed.
We were all over each other, kissing, sucking, rubbing, you name it.  We ended up sixty-nining.  I had to really control myself and not fuck her mouth but she wasn’t put off by my size at all.  You might be surprised but there’d been a few girls at the gym who had upped and run when my cock had entered the arena.  Every guy wants a big cock but mine was too big.  Trust me, there’s such a thing but Sam did a good job sucking it, I can tell you.
Before I lost control and came in her mouth, I pushed her over and I fucked her on her bed.  She was the noisiest girl I’ve ever been with, even louder than Jenny.   She panted loudly with each of my deep strokes into her and that made me groan with pleasure too as I thrust in and out of her.
The sex with Sam was that hard and naturally passionate that it reminded me of being back with Jenny.  It was the first time any girl had done that since I’d left her.  She was also the first girl I came inside after Jenny, which was stupid because we weren’t using protection.  In all my conquests, I tried to be careful.  I hadn’t used a condom with Kristen but after that I had always made sure I was equipped.  I hated the things but I didn’t want AIDS.  Or a baby.  I’m not sure which would be worse.  But that moment with Sam was completely reckless when I came uncontrollably inside her.
Of course, in the cold light of day, it had just been a fantastic fuck.  I think it’s fair to say it was the best I’d had since Jenny.  We just gelled.  We shared her bed that night and I fucked her twice more before the morning.
Being friends and flat mates, this made things a bit awkward between us.  I was really fond of her, but not in love with her by any means.  For her I think it was just a kind of infatuation.  After a bit of drama, we agreed to be fuck buddies and we ended up having a lot of sex and I mean a lot, but there was never any emotion to it.  It was just sex.  But fucking good sex.

Having Sam as a fuck buddy really curbed my conquests at work.  Instead of trying to fuck every girl that walked through the door, I was now only having the occasional tryst, and usually nowhere near the gym.
I could see in retrospect that I’d been incredibly lucky not to get caught out.  The buzz of trying to sleep with different girls without letting them know about each other, and doing it in places where sooner or later we were going to get caught was all getting a bit much.  In that sense, Sam was a bit of a godsend.  She gave me the release I needed without it becoming suicidal.  It was a good job too, because right around that time was when things started to develop for me at work.

One Monday morning, I arrived at the gym ready for my shift.  I thought I was doing okay, despite all the indiscretions I’d had, and now I had put that behaviour to one side, I was feeling pretty settled.  You can imagine then how I felt when I saw the gym manager Martin waiting at the front desk when I walked in that morning.
Honestly, I thought I’d been caught out.  My heart stopped when I saw him stood there.  Of course, the irony of being fired after I’d stopped fucking every hot girl in sight wasn’t lost on me, but it didn’t make me feel a whole lot better when he spoke to me.
“Scott, have you got a moment?” he said, walking over to me.
“Um, yeah, sure,” I said, trying not to sound like I had been caught.  How has he found out? I remember thinking.  Shit, I needed the job.  It was too good to give up.  My head was full of those sort of thoughts at that moment.
“We’ll just pop into my office,” he said, and led me there.  I hated that walk.  It felt like I was walking the green mile.  I was certain I was going to be sacked, and when Mike sat down opposite me, grim faced, I knew it wasn’t going to be good.  But all of a sudden, his demeanour had changed.  He smiled, and spoke in a way that put me at ease.
“You’ve done well here, Scott,” he said.  “A lot of people don’t hack working in a gym.  They think it’s going to be a toss off, but you’ve found it’s not.”  I nodded in agreement, but I had no idea what he was talking about.  I was just coming to work and sitting around, then making use of the free equipment and fucking a lot of girls.  I didn’t say anything though, and let him continue.
“We’ve had a lot of good feedback on your attitude and your manner,” Mike said, “and I was wondering if you would be interested in coming over to work in the gym.”  I frowned.
“What do you mean?” I asked.  Sometimes I needed things spelling out to me in words of one syllable.
“I’m short of an instructor,” Mike said, “and I don’t want to advertise for a trainee when I’ve got a perfectly good applicant sat in front of me – if you’re interested, of course.”
“Well, yeah, of course I am,” I replied, trying to sound casual, but inside I was churning.  Not only was I drowning in relief from not being sacked, but now I was being offered an even better job than the one I was in.  I wouldn’t have to just sit around; I would be out working with the other guys in the gym and having a laugh and meeting girls… I mean, where was the catch?
Mike could obviously see my interest, as he grinned at me.
“You look like you’re keen on the idea,” he said.
“Damn right,” I said.
“Good,” he replied.  “You can start tomorrow.”

It was easy to slip into.  I found the atmosphere, the language, and the whole ethos so attractive that I felt like I’d been doing it forever.  I enjoyed the banter and actually found I was okay at instructing and advising people – after all, I’d been working out myself for a good few years, and a lot of the people I saw were already friends and acquaintances.  But even with the new people, I found myself able to help them, and I really started to enjoy myself.  It was the only time after breaking up with Jen that I felt really happy.
Of course, it wasn’t all work.  I was still living with Sam, and getting plenty of sex there, but I was still having other encounters.  Only a few stick in my mind now.
There was Claire, a Scottish model from Edinburgh.  She was stunning, but really vain, although to be fair she had every right to be.  I think the sex we had at her flat was a trophy conquest for both of us, nothing more.
Then there was Rebecca.  She was another Aussie, and it turned out she was a friend of Kristen’s, the first girl I’d fucked at the gym.  She came looking for more of the same, and she’d got it, but in the Jacuzzi at midnight, not in the shower.  She was a promo girl too, with an equally amazing body, but instead of a quickie we had a long, long fuck in the hot tub, one of the best I had at the gym.
Sam knew about them, of course.  I told her.  She actually got off on hearing about it.  I’d tell her what I’d been doing, just like I am now and she would get so turned on by it that we would end up fucking while I was telling her.  She always wanted to prove that whatever I was getting, she could give me better.  I really couldn’t say no to an offer like that.
I could have gone on and on like that, it was so easy.  And the scary thing was it got easier every time.  Whatever vestiges of guilt I’d had at the outset had evaporated so readily each time I laid my eyes on the next gorgeous girl who gave me a wicked smile.  After a while I realised that word was getting around, and some of these girls were coming to the gym purely to see me.  You can imagine how bigheaded that made me feel when I cottoned on to that.  I was king of the world, a fuck god.
Mike and Ian must have known, there was no way they couldn’t, but they never said anything.  I suppose they were just letting the extra business come in and then as soon as anything stuck to me I could be dropped like a hot potato.  I wasn’t completely naïve.  But I knew it wasn’t going to last forever either.  But the thing was it didn’t seem to be going downhill.  It just seemed to be getting better and better.
For instance, because I was getting along well at my job, Mike decided to start to introduce me to a wider selection of the clients, not just the people I was already working with and the odd newcomer.  This was a little bit daunting, because now I was dealing with a different class of people.  Suddenly I was working with some people with real money, not just lads who put all their earnings into keeping in shape.
These guys were the businessmen; the bankers with a lot of cash.  They would roll up in their brand new Mercs and Beamers and you knew that that was just the tip of the iceberg.  All their gear was designer label, and some of them had been known to give their trainers four figure sums as bonuses.  This was a different league to what I was used to, and it took a bit of adjusting to.
The first few guys were really aloof with me, really distant.  They’d look down on you like you were a piece of shit on their shoe, and I didn’t like that.  I wasn’t used to it.  More than once, I had to bite my tongue, and stop them from hurting themselves by benching more than they could.  God, that was tempting with a few of them.
Steve Johnson was the exception.  Maybe it was because he was a Yank, or maybe he was just a decent bloke, but his attitude was totally different to all those other wankers.  He was obviously loaded, but he never rubbed it in your face like the others did.  He didn’t make you feel about an inch high.  He reminded me of those old fashioned American smoothies, sort of like George Hamilton without the wrinkles.  It turned out he was an ex-dentist, which made sense really because he had one of those perfect Hollywood smiles; I’m surprised moths didn’t fly into his face when he grinned at night.
Anyway, me and Steve hit it off right away.  We would have a bit of a laugh and banter when he came into the gym and for an older guy he was in pretty good shape.  He told me once he’d been in the marines when he was younger and was doing his dentistry degree, and I believed him.  For all his warmth and charisma, there was something else behind those grey eyes.  You had the feeling he was like a caged tiger eyeing you up, saving his energy until you let your guard down and then he’d pounce.  In retrospect, that’s a pretty good analogy, but at the time he seemed great to me.  He helped build my experience and confidence as a trainer to new levels, and my new found friendship with him began to change my life.

It began a few weeks after he started to train with me.  After a session one morning, he told me that he ran games nights up at his house.  I didn’t really know what that meant so I asked him.  What it turned out to be was that on every first Saturday of the month he basically turned his house into a mini casino, with roulette, blackjack, poker and the rest – sort of like what you would see at a good wedding, except this wasn’t played for toy money.  The minimum entry fee was fifteen thousand pounds.  I remember he laughed for about five minutes when he told me that.
“You should see your face,” he kept saying.  Then he asked me if I’d like to go up there one evening.  Like a moron I said I would love to but that I couldn’t afford it.  That time I thought he was going to wet himself.
“No, no,” he said when he’d stopped laughing enough to be able to breathe properly and talk.  “What I need is a bit of eye candy to work as croupiers and waiters, to help bring a bit of sparkle to the night.  I’ve got a few girls lined up but in the interest of keeping things sweet for the ladies there, I want a couple of young guys and I think it would be right up your street.”
Now looking back with the benefit of hindsight, I would think this is a trap.  But remember at that time, everything was going great for me, and as far as I was concerned this was just another case of lady luck dealing me a fantastic hand (keeping with the gambling motif there, you see?).
So I said yes.