Share Your Toys, Timothy!

Trouble was, most of the women of his acquaintance seemed to be divorced or determinedly unmarried and none of them were family orientated. It had dawned on Tim that he had left it far too late to start his family from scratch. So, going out and having fun with so many different attractive women, which at one time seemed to be so wonderful, suddenly palled and became stale.

At the same time he didn't really want to stay at home alone and mope. He enjoyed social interaction and wasn't quite ready to become a hermit. So he still went out for meals and to pubs and clubs for company, but he now tended to meet old close friends, mostly now divorced guys, and leave night clubs much earlier than ever before, to go home alone.

Without realising it had crept up to him, he found that although he was never lonely because of his many friends, he couldn't escape the feeling that he had missed out on having someone special sharing in his life. He felt he had become ready for such a step in recent years, but everyone else of his acquaintance was completely out of step with him.

Both Pete and Simon had consumed far too much alcohol to drive themselves home, so they left their cars at Crystal's, and Tim dropped them off at their homes in his company Jaguar saloon.

Pete was first to get out and make his weary, unsteady walk to his front door, Tim illuminating his way until he opened his door and waved his thanks.

Then Simon was dropped off. Sarah and Simon had a long goodnight kiss outside his place. Abbey was sitting up front alongside Tim and commented that they made a nice couple. Tim thought she actually meant it, although Tim wasn't so sure it was a good idea, but he kept any such doubtful thoughts to himself. Abbey had danced several dances with Simon and she expressed her view that he was a nice guy, too. Tim had to agree, he was a good friend. Tim had danced twice with Sarah himself and she was not only fun to be with but was a very bright girl, if a little on the scatty side.

When he dropped Sarah off, she insisted on giving him a goodnight kiss too and told him that she'd had a much better time that evening with a group of perfect gentlemen than she had expected from the bunch of crass kids they had started out with. She seriously asked him to keep Simon out of trouble, as she wanted to see him again at Christmas. He promised her that he'd do his best.

He dropped Abbey off last of all, by now it was gone three o'clock in the morning, way past the bedtime which had become his norm over the past couple of years or so since he'd given up his unsatisfactory role of playboy. He walked her to her automatically porch-lit door over a very noisy, crunchy gravel drive and made sure she had her door key handy. She had definitely had a good few drinks during the long evening but was still quite capable of rational thought and, focussing on the keyhole, released the door and pushed it ajar.

"Well, good night, Abbey," he said, "I hope you have a great time at college and do let me know if you have any car trouble, won't you?"

"I will, Tim and, thanks to you, I had a really good time, tonight," she smiled and pulled him into a passionate goodnight kiss. Her lips were warm and soft, her tongue wet and insinuating. Her hot, lithe youthful body pressed itself into him and he couldn't help himself reacting to her. They broke off the kiss after he let her kiss him as long as she wanted, with only a token light embracing response from him.

"Abbey-" he began.

"I know, I know," she interrupted, with an index finger on his almost bruised lips, "I can't fall in love with you because you are far too old, and too set in your ways, and too honourable, and you're old enough to be my father ... plus I've still got my whole life before me to live." She moved her finger out of the way and kissed him again, softly and gently this time. "You're a very nice man, Mr Timothy Smith and you'll always be my knight in shining armour."

More seriously she added, quietly and quite soberly, "I could've, probably would've, been raped tonight if it hadn't been for you, so I owe you ... big time. I'm going to make sure that every girl in town knows about Toby and his three stooges. They won't get lucky around here ever again!"

They both laughed at that.

"Both Pete and Simon said they hadn't seen anything out of the ordinary themselves and just followed your lead," she continued. "They were really sweet guys and Sarah and I had a really great time. I think maybe Sarah has a thing about Simon already."

"Yeah, we'll have to watch that," he said. Abbey's eyes looked a little alarmed in the porch light. "Only kidding," Tim added, "Simon's a really nice responsible guy. I like him a lot."

"Mmm, yes. So are you."

"Abbey..." he reiterated.

"OK, I am not going to fall in love with you but I can still like you a lot can't I, Tim?"

"Well, I don't mind you liking me, Abbey, after all, you're my favourite college girl right now. So, get yourself off to bed!"

"And you're my favourite knight," Abbey released him from her embrace and pushed open her door. "Please don't say anything about tonight to my parents, will you? They'd only worry."

"I won't tell them anything."

"Mum says you're too nice for your own good. She likes you, too, says you are almost as noble as Dad and Granddad and they're the noblest people I know. Even my Dad likes you."

"Well, I like both your Mum and Dad a lot too, they're very special people, only don't tell them I said so, either, will you?"

"Your secret is safe with me, g'night Tim, you're a sweetheart."

"G'night Abbey, you are too. Sweet dreams."

~~~~~~

"That's got her settled in."

"Yes, I hope she'll be alright, she's so far away from us and she's not as worldly wise as Geoff and Mickey were at that same age. I hope we haven't spoiled her too much."

"She's going to be fine, Jenny," Roger soothed, "She's not spoiled, Mickey assures me, she's only a phone call away and, well, we know that she's a bright kid."

"I'm still going to miss her. She's still my baby."

"I know," Roger chuckled.

"What're you laughing about?"

"Well, most of the time you are more like sisters than mother and daughter, always going out together shopping and lunching ... buying cars together."

"She does love that car."

"So did her room-mate, Kat. Boy! She was strange! That hair, all that make-up, the visible tats and all that metal!"

"I know, it makes Abbey look a lot more grounded, somehow."

"She is very sensible, except when it comes to her choice of boys, I don't like that Toby fellow one little bit, and he didn't even bother to show up to say goodbye today"

"That's because he is 'sooooo old news!' she told me as we were packing. She said she thought I was pretty lucky to meet someone special like you...." in the glare of on-coming headlights, she paused and could see him smile at his daughter's compliment, "... And she added 'my Tim Smith'!" Jenny smiled as she noticed Roger's smile transform into a grimace.

"What did she mean by 'your Tim Smith'?" Roger asked through gritted teeth, "You have me worried now that we are going home to an empty nest."

"I do love you, honey." Jenny chuckled, squeezing the back of his hand as he tightly gripped the steering wheel, "What she meant by that was that I was lucky enough to meet Tim when I was pretty much her age, who did me a great service without any strings attached; like a white knight, if you like, saving me from my first choice vehicle which probably would have turned out to have been a disaster. And the benefit to me was that through that smart choice of car I attracted the attentions of my perfect man."

"So, I don't have to have Tim Smith rubbed out any time soon, then sweetheart?" he said quietly.

"No! The very thought-"

"Just joking," Roger moved his hand so that he entwined the fingers of his large hand with the familiar and much-loved long slender fingers of his wife's, "So, were you actually attracted to Tim when you bought your car?"

"No, of course not!" she snorted, laughing, "Honey, back then I was a mature woman with a brand-new degree in computer programming and I had just landed my first big well-paid job with your company, as it happens; while he was a child of about 15 doing a Saturday morning job for pocket money. Roger, he was still at school!"

"I might let him live then, provided you steer well clear of him. He ... worries me."

"Honey, if you know anything at all about Tim Smith, you would know that he will have nothing at all to do with happily-married women; so you can be absolutely certain that he will have nothing at all to do with me."

"Does that mean-"

"Yes, it means exactly that, honey, I am a happily-married woman; so let's get home. As you mentioned, we have an empty nest for the very first time in our lives and it needs ... Christening!"

"Does that mean in every room?"

"Why, honey, just how much energy do you have tonight?"

Chapter 3 - Bushwacked!

Tim thought no more about the incident with Abbey for at least a couple of months. It was just a few days past mid-December when he was forcefully reminded of it again.

Once more, as was his habit on a Friday night, he left Crystal's about midnight or so while the place was still buzzing inside, and made his way across the dark car park towards his car, parked in the far corner where he hoped it wouldn't get bumped by careless motorists. As he walked, he buttoned his coat up against the biting cold wind and began pulling his leather driving gloves onto each hand in turn. He clicked his Jaguar saloon ignition key and the car lights flashed, showing him clear silhouettes of three guys standing in front of the car, each brandishing what could only be baseball bats.

"Hi arsehole," Toby snarled, "This is pay-off night." He slapped his baseball bat against his other hand, making an obscene smacking noise.

Tim's first thoughts were that, if he tried to punch his way out of this situation, they not only had numerical advantage but could easily outreach him to pick him off with their weapons. Tim only had his fists and a small pocket penknife, which he only used to peel apples or sharpen pencils at work, with a good wipe over between each unrelated task.

He thought he might get a couple of telling blows home with his fists but there would only be one outcome if he stood toe to toe with them here and now on their chosen field of battle.

He needed to reduce the odds more in his favour. So he clicked his locking key, which distracted them slightly as his car flashed behind them, while he turned tail and ran out of the car park along the road away from the lounge bar. They followed but were at least a dozen or so footsteps behind him. Tim was glad he had kept up his regular gym and roadwork, and easily maintained his pace, even though the hounds on his tail were roughly half his age.

A half-dozen blocks down the road was his preferred battleground, given the limited choices immediately at his disposal. It was a short dark alleyway leading to a soft drinks company, formerly a dairy. Basically the alley was a dead-end. There was an easily-climbable eight-foot high chain-link fence on the left-hand side of the alley leading to a car park belonging to a builders merchant and a further similar fence on the other side of the car park, which he believed led to some domestic back gardens. It was a possible escape route if things didn't pan out as he hoped.

Tim increased his pace to open up a bigger gap, without much danger of them losing sight of him. As soon as he entered the unlit alley into the shadow of the tall office building on the right-hand side, he stopped. As quietly as he could, he pulled one of the two heavy wheeled bins out from under the fire-escape, where he knew he would find them, and gently laid it down flat in the path he had just taken. It was full of rubbish and heavy, anyone running into it would fall straight over it, possibly incapacitating himself in the process. His eyes were beginning to get used to the gloom and he took the heavy rubber lid off one of the conventional dustbins under the stairway and held it up ready in his left hand like a shield, as he took up a position just behind and slightly to the left side of the fallen bin.

The first guy who rounded the corner was Toby. He was the one most determined to catch Tim, the other two were probably slightly less motivated, and Tim hoped they would be easier to discourage. Blindly, Toby ran straight into the bin and fell full-length over the obstacle, dropping his bat in the process as he tried to cushion his fall with his hands. Tim ignored him initially. The other two followed just behind Toby and Tim faced up to them. He pushed the bin lid into the face of the guy on the left and threw a punch at the face of the right-hand guy. The one on the left received the lid in his face and chest but recovered sufficiently to swing his bat at Tim's head, hitting his forehead above the left eye with a glancing blow as Tim pushed as hard as he could against the thug's chest. Meanwhile Tim's fist hit the right-hand guy full in the face and he went down for the count. Tim recognised him as the first guy he had punched in the lounge bar a couple of months earlier, when he had broken his nose. Tim guessed the guy must have been born with a glass jaw!

Still pushing with the dustbin lid against the chest and face of the left-hand guy, Tim followed up this up with another right-hander into his body. The attacker dropped the bat and, as his knees buckled, Tim hit him again with the end of the bin lid on the top of his head and the assailant went down like a sack of spuds to join his mate in the land of nod.

Meanwhile, Toby was swearing and trying to get back up from his prone position, his legs slipping for grip on the cobbled surface of the ancient alley. Tim kicked him in the face and followed up with several kicks to the body. Toby lay still. Tim surveyed the scene and all three potential thugs were on the floor either groaning or comatose. This was a much better outcome than he had expected at the outset, if he was honest, and had been resolved in a matter of seconds. Other than the slight glancing blow to his forehead, Tim was unharmed.

He didn't need to think much about what he was going to do. Tim picked up Toby's loose bat with his gloved hands and hit him quite hard three or four times about the body, although not his head. Tim did the same to the other two. He justified his action as being appropriate to the kind of treatment he had expected to receive from them if they had caught up with their intended target in Crystal's car park. Later, when he had calmed down somewhat, Tim was not so sanguine about those subsequent actions.

They were all taller than Tim and half his age. If they had got him down they would almost certainly have done him some serious damage. Compared to the rest of his family who were all tall, Tim took after his mother and felt he was the runt of the litter. That's one reason why he took up boxing while he was still at school, so he could be self-reliant. To some degree he always felt he was an outsider in his own family and needed to fend for himself. They didn't actually have a boxing gym in the Smith neighbourhood, so he caught a bus straight after school once or twice a week and didn't get home until late. That effort had the benefit of making him pretty independent from an early age. He put in a lot of cross-country running too, as well as skipping in the gym. He lifted weights as part of his regular exercise routine. This regimen gave him a good balance of upper and lower body strength, made him light on his feet and had given him the self-confidence that he felt needed a boost during his formative childhood and teen years. You have to agree that his self-reliance helped him in his adult life too.

He still went to Jim's Gym regularly, although Jim retired ten years ago and Tim bought up the place for a song. Steve Cartwright, a Boxing Olympic bronze medal winner, fought half-a-dozen professional fights before suffering a detached retina, which forced him to give up his own dreams; had given the gym a new lease of life with the youth and children members doing well in competitions. Steve kept the same old faded sign up outside as homage to the man who built it up from nothing. Tim had brought Steve in initially to manage the place and the option to buy a half-ownership with a bank loan. Tim assumed that once Steve finished paying off his loan he would approach Tim to buy out the remainder. When the thought first occurred to Tim he believed he might simply hand it over to him on a handshake, so long as Steve continued to give him free membership!

Tim stripped Toby of his clothes until he was completely naked, spreading out his coat and placing his shoes, socks, shirt, pants and trousers onto the coat. He stuffed the socks into Toby's mouth and used his small penknife, which he habitually maintained with as sharp an edge as he could, to cut off the sleeves of Toby's shirt and used one to tie his hands behind his back and the other his ankles together. Tim proceeded to do the same using the shirts of the other two guys and threw the three clothing bundles over the gateway into what used to be the old dairy. The present owners had a solid steel gate with razor wire on the top and the clothes wouldn't normally be discovered until reopening on Monday morning. Tim had already emptied their pockets of contents as well as removed their wallets and mobile phones.

Tim used each of their mobile phones to take several shots of all three of them, having previously moved the naked bodies into a somewhat amusing and compromising position. He then used one of the phones to dial 999 for the ambulance service, telling them that there had been a fight in that alley and three people were in urgent need of medical attention. It was too cold a night to leave them there naked until morning.

Tim emptied their wallets of cash and dropped the empty wallets down a drain on the way back to the lounge bar. He put the cash, including the change from their pockets into his jacket pocket, keeping it separate from his own money. Their keys and all other personal items, including credit, membership cards and driver's licences, he dropped into various drains, litterbins and domestic dustbins while he walked back to the lounge bar.

When Tim got back to Crystal's, two ambulances roared down the high street past the club towards that alleyway. At the entrance to Crystal's, as he re-entered the lounge, Billy the bouncer on the door nodded in the direction Tim had come. He knew that Tim had left the bar twenty minutes earlier and they had said a final goodnight to each other at the time.

"Your handiwork, Tim?"

"Not prepared to say," Tim grinned, "You know I hate to deliberately mislead anyone."

"Me too," He said, "Still, it was silly of me to ask such a stupid question. I know for a fact you only stepped out of the bar for a minute for a breath of fresh air and I'm certain you've been in my line of sight for the last 60 seconds or so since you left the club."

"Thanks Billy, I appreciate it, mate." He patted the doorman on his broad shoulders before re-entering the club.

Tim ordered a cup of coffee from Mel behind the bar and waved Pete over from the dance floor area once he had managed to catch his eye. When they got together, Tim replenished Pete's drink and quietly explained the situation he found himself in, explained the photos on the phones and what he intended doing with them. So Pete took two of the phones, collected one of their mutual mates, Gordon, and they went out to the Gents toilets with the mobiles in hand.

When Mel brought Tim's coffee over to him she noticed that he had a cut within the hairline trickling blood over his left eye. Without ceremony she pulled him into the brighter lights of the bar's kitchen and cleaned up the wound for him.