Taking the Edge Off Ch. 04

That Friday night, Michael's few remaining friends were forgotten in a hurry when a man in his late twenties, who had a familiar face but otherwise he couldn't have known, approached him, shook his hand and introduced himself in the middle of the pub as the guy who was going to show him how to fuck his mother, since apparently he couldn't even get his dick up.

'I'll be outside,' Michael told him after a long, cold stare-down. Nobody else wanted to get involved, at least those who actually saw and heard what was going on. Joey was too far back out of the way and surrounded by the usual gaggle of girls to notice.

Michael was livid with rage, to the point where if he bottled it up for too long waiting for that man to appear on the street, he might actually black out and do something worse.

All that evening he had been sat opposite a girl he had not yet been introduced to. He knew that her name was Sara and he knew just by looking at her that he liked her, a lot. To his surprise and also to his disdain, because he didn't want her getting in the middle of this fight, she was the next one to come out through the door with a couple of beer bottles in hand.

'I saw that,' she said warily. 'I heard it too. He's not coming outside. He's back at the bar and causing trouble for other people. So if there is a fight happening tonight, it looks like you'll have to get in line.'

'You should go,' Michael said sullenly. 'Don't get in the middle of it.'

'Don't be a dick,' she said and smiled, 'I brought you a beer.'

He took the bottle, reluctantly, and thanked her, then introduced himself. Then so did she. Sara Wakefield was her name. She was a pale brunette, something of a goth crossed with something of a nerd and just maybe with the blood of a Viking shield maiden. She was strong looking at 5'11", with dark red hair and strong facial features and yet soft on the eyes, for all the deep reds and stark blacks she wore.

'Listen, if he comes out, relax and think how funny he'd look with this bottle cracked over his head,' she joked. But she wasn't even joking. It just amused her to look down on such lowlife. 'Because if he interrupts my conversation that's what's going to happen. And then you can either hold my coat or we can kerb stomp the fuck together and drag his ass into the alleyway.'

Michael was crying with laughter when she was done charming him. He clinked her bottle with his and they drank to that. He knew he liked her for a reason.

'So what's the story?' she asked. 'I know that cunt that was spreading the rumours about you. I've kicked her ass before too. I'm not asking you if they were true. I really don't care. I just want to know why none of your friends stick up for you!'

'I guess that makes you my friend then,' Michael said. Sara's body language said that was an affirmative and maybe more. It took ten more minutes before another patron at the bar knocked out the goon, along with most of his front upper teeth.

8

Darren Kirkman was parked up outside their house with the engine of his black Ford Prius idling all the while. He had honked the horn, but there was no sign of Karen. Then he had called her and she told him she'd be over in a second. He was more than happy to wait being that he was the late one. Darren was easy going like that.

At thirty six years old he had seen marriage come and go with the slow death of love, or what he thought was love. Most couples he knew just seemed to know how to get on with it. They worked their way up to buying the family car and then the house to call their own, weighed down by work and a mortgage for the rest of their lives along with the gradual slowing down caused by age and boundless, sleepless children.

He had no children. His ex didn't want any. That was a first. To begin with he thought he was the lucky one, since the idea of children with Presley somehow didn't fit into his vision of ideal. But then he was too laid back off the job to question what was wrong with that picture, all because the conventional marriage was now dead and provided no real meaningful contrast.

Instead he found himself with a wife who prized her social life too much to find the time for him while he dug deep into his work as a lawyer and spent as much time on the job at home as he did at the office or the court.

And while he brought home the bacon, she slacked off everywhere else because the idea of the unemployed domestic goddess was offensively misogynistic. She lived to shop, but not for groceries or anything useful.

Mr Practical, the breadwinner, had trouble settling back into single life after all that, but mostly because of the reputation that came with it, because in professional circles, the single life was questionable and full of dark possibilities.

Freedom of association – it was a double edged sword, and so now Darren Kirkman questioned why he should be single, although he loved the freedom that came with it. That gave him an inkling of what he should look for in a woman other than agreeable, free-spirited and good with credit cards.

The first time he took Karen on a date they went for food and cocktails and just to shoot the breeze. He met Karen a few times through work. Having lunch with Karen and her friends sealed the deal. He asked her straight if she wanted to go do something at the weekend. Something, to Darren, could have been anything, but all he really wanted and needed was a friend. He was short of those.

When he laid eyes on her, running barefoot across the road in that impressionable black dress, he held his tongue and dared not to laugh.

'We have a situation,' she said.

'Oh that's okay, we can reschedule some other time,' he offered amiably.

'Don't use such dirty words off the job, Darren,' she scolded. 'It's difficult to explain but I don't trust myself to leave the house empty tonight. Do you know how to use an X-Box?'

Darren did laugh then. 'X-Box has been a friend of mine for some time now.'

'Well then lose the jacket, park up in the driveway and let's shoot some zombies. What do you say?'

Darren knew what he wanted to say in a heartbeat. 'Either you are a girl after my own heart or we're twins and don't know it yet.' On that note, Karen hoped they weren't related. She didn't want to develop that habit any further.

9

Close to midnight, the Red Swan was emptying. Most of the patrons who frequented the joint did so to warm up for the rock club two blocks parallel. At midnight was when the Madhouse really got into full swing, but Michael wasn't that sociable. He didn't like the clubs, or to get particularly drunk.

With that he parted ways with Joey and the rest of their mutuals and decided it was time to head back home. There was just one friend he had to say goodbye to first. Sara was outside with a small circle of her own when he passed by and said he was leaving then asked her what she was doing.

The look she gave him was priceless, albeit slightly wasted. 'Did you just ask in a roundabout way if I wanted to come home with you?'

'I...' How did this go again? 'Actually I usually try not to appear so easy, but if I did take you with me, all you'd get right now is milk and cookies.'

'I would be willing to make that compromise in future circumstances,' she said and it caught him completely off guard.

'Can I give you my number?' he asked.

Michael, for the first time in a long time, spent the journey home with a smile on his face. However sneaking back into the house, fetching himself a glass of water from the kitchen and then heading upstairs to his room, that smile slackened at the sounds coming from his mother's room.

There was no avoiding it, though he could have gone straight to his room. Instead, because Karen and her date had left the door wide open, he wanted to see what the cat had dragged in. The stress of their vigorous sex session on the creaking bed assured that they hadn't heard him come in. Now standing in the pitch black beyond the threshold he could see them in the act, in the reflection of her dress mirror which faced the queen sized bed.

Whoever Darren was he had game. He clearly went to the gym regularly. As he went at his mother, hammer and tongs, his whole body rippled from his ass and through his shoulders to his elbows. Michael honestly couldn't be mad or disappointed though. In fact he laughed to himself.

Especially when his mother, in the throes of breathless, heated passion, muttered the words, 'oh fuck, Michael, yes...'

Abruptly their lovemaking ceased. 'Michael?' Darren yelped. Apparently it wasn't easy at all for a real man to replace a momma's boy. That really was the icing on the cake. Hopefully, he thought, Sara might prove to be the cherry on top.

Unable to get her out of his head that night, after slipping quietly into his room and then his bed, Michael's message tone chirped.

"Nice to get to meet you tonight. You're cool with me. And cute. Don't let the cunts ruin that X"

"You too. I like you. Would you like to go cunt punting sometime? X"

"Is that like Whack-A-Mole? X"

"Yes but you use your foot X"

"I like you too XX"

TBC...