CHAPTER 1

Colin Bailey was invisible.

He’d been invisible all his life. He had no real friends, so the only time he was with a crowd was on his school photograph. Even then he was so nondescript that even his mother scolded him for skiving off on the day the picture was taken. She didn’t see him until Colin himself showed her where he was sat, right at the end of a row, the solitary sullen face among a sea of smiling children.

He’d always been an unhappy child. For that he blamed his parents. He believed, rightly or wrongly, that he’d been a mistake, not really wanted or loved. His father only spoke to him three times before he ran off with Mrs. Lloyd, the lollipop lady when Colin was thirteen.

Colin fantasised that Mrs. Lloyd, having discarded her white coat and crossing placard had provided his father with the sort of wild abandoned sex denied him by his god-bothering uptight mother. In reality he had very little idea what sort of arrangement his parents had come to in the bedroom department but Colin had already developed an unhealthy appetite in that particular area. Sadly for him, despite the fact that it was 1981, a time when morals were as loose as any period before or since, fantasising about wild abandoned sex was as close as he was likely to get; particularly at the age of thirteen.

Things didn’t improve much during his teenage years. How could they? He was invisible. At the youth club, girls gathered in two’s and threes as they do, chatting conspiratorially and risking a sly glance towards the all too visibly handsome sporting ‘jocks’ or the boys in the fledgling rock group who used the youth club to rehearse their four numbers over and over. The girls never saw Colin; or if they did, they chose to ignore him because he was nondescript. He often imagined that if he disappeared off the face of the earth, abducted by aliens perhaps, that when the police asked people from school, or the boys and girls who hung out at the youth club, when they had seen him last, they would have been hard pressed to remember him at all.

After his father had left, his mother had appeared to have taken to religion with even more fervour and Colin was constantly being bombarded with warnings about the sins of the flesh. He was warned to stay away from the tarts that she saw flaunting their lissom young bodies outside the school gates or the youth club when Colin’s mother arrived in her battered Hillman Imp to collect him and whisk him away to the safety of their three bedroomed semi-detached on the edge of town.

Everything changed for Colin one Friday night at the youth club. Karen Smith, a plain girl with sticky out ears, was playing table tennis with her constant companion the very pretty Charlotte Jones. Karen bent over in front of him to retrieve a ping pong ball from under Colin’s chair without apparently noticing he was sat there and her blouse fell forward to reveal everything from her neck to her navel. Colin suddenly realised she had the biggest pair of breasts he had ever seen; and they were real. Colin made his way home thinking about Karen Smith. Why was it that Charlotte Jones, her stunning looking friend, had a couple of bee stings, based on Colin’s assessment from hours ogling her at school and the youth club, while Karen, plain chubby Karen had natural breasts which were bigger than many of the surgically enhanced models from the magazines some of the older boys left lying around at school? Perhaps his mother was right about this God of hers. He did move in mysterious ways.

The next couple of years passed with little change to the domestic routine. His mother communicated with Colin grudgingly. She had found herself a part-time job at a nearby care home and this took her away during the week and at weekends for several hours on occasion, which suited Colin as he much preferred his own company. It gave him space and time to plan. He still ogled Charlotte Jones, who was going out with Scott Hall the school rugby captain, which meant his ogling had to be done very carefully, if he didn’t want to get a serious beating. Scott Hall was a bully who took great delight in thumping Colin at every opportunity. Scott wasn’t picking on Colin in particular; he thumped virtually everyone that was smaller and younger than him. Colin knew that one day he would have the opportunity to get his revenge. He could wait.

Colin’s sixteenth birthday came and went without much ceremony. His mother slid a card under his bedroom door on her way to work and none of the children who shared his lessons had a clue. It was hardly as if he had had friends round for a party ever since he was a toddler was it? Nor had he been invited to Wayne, Duane or Shane’s parties either. If by some miracle he had then his mother would have surely lost the invitation.

So it was a big surprise as he watched Scott and Charlotte pedal away from school one afternoon after school that someone spoke to him.

“Hi. Colin isn’t it? You got a birthday about now yeah?”

It was Karen Smith, with those impressive mounds jutting provocatively from her school blazer. Colin was tongue tied. All he could do was look at her school tie, lying limp between her breasts, which she was tugging downwards as she battled with her own shyness.

“To…today,” stuttered Colin, managing to say something at last.

Karen could hardly miss his fascination with her chest and pulled her blazer together as if feeling the cool breeze for the first time on that autumn afternoon.

“Happy Birthday!” she cried and skipped away down the pavement towards the Greenwood estate where she lived with her mother, father and three older siblings.

Karen was nine years younger than her closest sister Susan and she felt like an afterthought, rather like Colin did. Although this led her to feel lonely and eager to find someone to love her and to love in return, it didn’t leave her seeking revenge and retribution on the scale that Colin often plotted.

When he wasn’t fantasising about the opposite sex, he was imagining ways to avenge the wrongs he perceived had been done to him. His father had never loved him and had scarpered; his was the first name on the list. His mother had never wanted him either and she constantly held him back from achieving what he felt he richly deserved. Any school friends he might have made if he hadn’t been invisible were barred from coming to his house, because according to his mother they were either ‘born out of wedlock’ or ‘no better than they should be’, neither state appearing to Colin to be a valid reason for him not being able to mix with them if by some miracle they had noticed him. The list started to take shape as her name was entered directly below his father’s. Scott Hall would be added in due course, vying for third place with Leroy Ambrose, another bully who lived on the Westbourne estate. He too took great delight in causing Colin pain; if he didn’t administer it himself he watched his young cronies do it for him and laughed. Leroy didn’t know it, but he was a marked man too.

 

CHAPTER 2

The following spring and summer were taken up with mock exams and then the real thing. Several children suffered badly with nerves and a couple threw up as soon as they were seated in the main hall to sit an exam. Others went out in large groups and persuaded older lads to buy them cheap booze so they could go and get shit-faced in the park. There were floods in the girl’s toilets; floods of tears as more and more pupils realised that instead of watching TV or standing on the street corner chatting to their mates, they might have been better served doing a little revision.

As June drifted on summer breezes and warm sunshine towards July, Colin was walking down the school drive on his way home to an empty house after a math’s exam. It had been an easy paper (with calculator) which had been stretched out to an hour and a half, heaven knows why, as he had completed it in an hour and spent thirty minutes looking at the students in front of him catching up on some sleep or doodling. He had answered every question; most of them had flicked through the pages of the question paper and made a stab at a couple then given it up as a bad job.

“More tears in the toilets and more cans in the park,” he mused as he strolled towards home and the prospect of making beans on toast for tea, before his mother crept into the front room so as not to have to talk to him when she got in from work.

“God that was hard,” said a voice “I hate sums don’t you?”

It was Karen with her first words to Colin since last autumn.

“Not so bad,” he replied, hoping she would be satisfied with that and leave him to get off home to his magazine.

“Get you,” she giggled and walked alongside Colin with no sign of wanting to leave anytime soon.

“How did you know it was my birthday?” asked Colin.

Karen looked at him and wondered at how he still remembered that afternoon last year. She hadn’t given it a second thought since. Surely, something must have happened in his life since then?

“Our Susan works with your Mum at Graceland’s. She gives her a lift in that clapped out old car she drives and Susan said they stopped at the garage on the way home so she could pick up a cheapo card for her useless son.”

“Oh,” said Colin.

“Do you want to know when my birthday is?” asked Karen.

Colin wasn’t sure. He was almost at the crossing where he could leave Karen to head off to the Greenwood estate, while he hurried to the outskirts of town and the sanctuary of his bedroom. Karen was resigned to the fact that Scott and Charlotte would be screwing their way through the summer holidays and she would be stuck with little to do except mooch about at home, trying to avoid the chores her mother would put her way, so she didn’t wait for Colin to answer.

“It’s next Friday,” she said “you can take me to the pictures, if you want?”

Colin was still unsure. Then he suddenly remembered his mother talking on the phone the other evening and was certain a handful of middle aged cast-offs like his mother would be descending on the front room on Friday night.

So he blurted out, “Yeah. Definitely, okay I’ll meet you outside the Palace.”

Before Karen had a chance to change her mind, he shot across the zebra crossing just as the lights changed and almost got wiped out by the 432 bus. As he glanced back he spotted Karen waving, but as more traffic spilled across the gap between them, he pretended not to notice her and hurried home.

Their final exams were out of the way over the next couple of days, but their timetables didn’t coincide again, for which Colin was extremely grateful. Karen made no attempt to contact him, nor did he her. As the days ticked ever more quickly forward to the Friday Colin was growing more and more tense and nervous. Why had he agreed to go? Friday duly arrived and Colin decided there was nothing for it but to get to the Palace cinema at half past six and tell Karen he could only afford his own ticket. With luck she would be expecting him to pay, it was her birthday after all and she’d stomp away in a huff and he’d be off the hook. There would be no recriminations at school as neither of them would be going back except for final assembly.

Colin got to the cinema a few minutes early, to try to calm his nerves before the storm that he envisaged when Karen learnt he wasn’t going to treat her. It was too late. Karen was already there and as soon as she spotted Colin she waved two tickets for the balcony.

“My treat, I used the birthday money from my Nan. If you can buy some sweets and crisps for us to share, that will be brilliant.”

“Damn,” muttered Colin “I’ll have to go through with this now.”

Colin was dragged through the swing doors by the birthday girl and up the stairs to find their seats. Several other couples were scattered around the auditorium and Colin sank lower into his seat as he recognised some of them as kids from school. Scott and Charlotte were about four rows in front and another two pairs of pupils were also awaiting the start of the main feature, but Colin noticed they appeared more interested in who it was that Karen had brought with her.

The lights dimmed as the film was about to start. All those staring faces had been getting on Colin’s nerves anyway. He could usually be in a room and nobody gave him a second glance. He was out of his comfort zone.

Why hadn’t he just stood Karen up? What was so special about her? Apart from her massive boobs, what else did she have to offer? I mean, she wasn’t a looker like Charlotte Jones. He peered over to where Charlotte was sat, but Scott and Charlotte were already going at it like it was going out of fashion. ‘Romancing The Stone’ wasn’t going to hold their interest.

In fact, none of the courting couples on the balcony were watching the film, they were all at it. Colin was about to turn to Karen to point this out to her when she roughly pulled him round and whispered loudly in his ear.

“When am I going to get my birthday present?”

With that she kissed him … hard.

Karen was eager to move things along a bit quicker. Colin wasn’t a bad kisser it had to be said, although he seemed a bit green. He hadn’t moved his arms from where she had pinned them when she grabbed him, nor had he made any attempt to put his tongue in her mouth, and in Karen’s experience, which was considerable, that was almost the first thing the lads did. Oh well. Perhaps he needs a hint or two. With that she moved position in her seat and slung her left leg over the seat in front affording Colin easy access to her crotch. There was still no reaction. Okay, here’s hint number two buddy, if this doesn’t work then either you just don’t fancy me or you’re a queer.

In the meantime, Colin continued to kiss Karen eagerly. With all this shuffling about he was wondering if she had cramp in her left leg. He didn’t want this pleasurable feeling he was getting from kissing and holding a real live woman to stop, but he thought perhaps it would be polite to enquire whether she was alright. If he didn’t, she might think he was rude and the little progress he’d made might come to an abrupt halt.

Karen’s left hand located Colin’s zip and her practiced hand was inside and going to work on his stiffening shaft before Colin could say a word about cramp or anything else come to that.

Karen guided his right hand down between her legs and nibbled his ear whispering,

“Fair’s fair.”

Colin moved her panties to one side with his thumb. He couldn’t help noticing that the elastic seemed to give rather freely; maybe they were an old pair. His mother would have bought new ones for him if they had been as slack as that. Although she hardly spoke to him, his mother seemed well aware of the importance of proper support for a man.

“For crying out loud,” said Karen “I’m gagging for it here.”

Colin thrust his thumb into her and he went about pleasuring a girl for the first time. Of course he didn’t get everything right on that first attempt, which of us does? Karen moaned and groaned and sometimes it was when he did something really well and others it wasn’t. When he was in a very good spot she increased her number of strokes per minute to an impressive amount. Colin couldn’t keep count any longer, in fact he couldn’t keep anything any longer and he came over Karen’s hand with a tremendous surge.

Karen reflected on the size of Colin’s dick. Ticking off the various male members she had held in her hand from her long list, she was pretty certain he was either number one or two on her Top Ten. Colin Bailey might prove to be a ‘keeper’ she mused. Karen and Colin kissed, more adventurously until it was lights up and chucking out time.

Colin waited until Scott Charlotte and the others had drifted off, then he walked out of the cinema with Karen. She was catching the bus out to the Greenwood estate, one of the few remaining local services running.

“Can I see you again?” asked Karen. “Only, I enjoyed it tonight. Next time you can have a go at these” she giggled, pushing her chest towards him “you never gave them a second’s thought once you got going.”

Colin said “Yeah okay. I’d like that,” And he meant it.

Colin stood and watched the bus disappear from view then walked home. He walked in, ignored his mother when she called out and demanded to know where he’d been and went upstairs to bed. He hardly slept but lay there fantasising about the last weeks of summer that lay ahead.

 

 

CHAPTER 3

After he left school, Colin applied for over forty jobs but somehow his application forms constantly seemed to be overlooked. As he was always under the radar in class and never picked on or pointed to by any of the teachers, his impressive list of results caused a little consternation. Not in Colin, who would have liked to have gone on to do ‘A’ levels and even go to university. No, most of the kerfuffle was in the staff room and caused by teachers frantically trying to identify the student who had seven A* grade and four A grade passes. In the end they gave up and put it down to an administration error.

His mother solved the employment problem, possibly because she was terrified of having him at home day in day out; more likely because as a single mother she was keen to get Colin out in the big wide world earning some cash as soon as possible.

Mrs. Bailey knew someone at the church, who knew a man who was looking for a school leaver to work for peanuts. The Shaw Park mines were three miles out of town. There had been mines dug deep into the limestone to quarry stone for building materials from as long ago as Roman times. The network of tunnels was no longer being used for mining, that source of local employment having been abandoned in the sixties. Various species of bat had taken up residence in the decades since, plus a local entrepreneur who had realised the potential of the conditions underground and the security the tunnels could provide.

Colin’s academic prowess, cruelly cut short by his mother, much to his annoyance, suggested he was far more suited to senior management positions in due course rather than grafting hundreds of feet underground, but what his views didn’t seem to matter. Colin just added this latest item onto the list of things he would ‘put right’ when the opportunity arose.

Karen was as keen as mustard regarding their relationship continuing and they met up a couple of times a week at least. Tuesdays and Fridays weren’t a problem getting away from his mother, as she just assumed he was off to youth club. Even though she disapproved of the females that went there, she didn’t think Colin could get into as much trouble there as hanging around on street corners or worse still creeping into one of the town’s many public houses. She knew her son was seeing Susan’s youngest sister because Susan had let it slip in conversation one evening on the way home from work but at least she remained blissfully unaware of Colin and Karen’s increasingly real rather than imagined sexual activity.

Sometimes Colin and Karen walked up onto Lowden Hill and found their own little haven where they spent warm summer evenings exploring each others bodies. Colin had a mental wish list of things he wanted to do to Karen and what he wanted her to do to him. Over the summer evenings outdoors and into early autumn when the grass was too cold and damp so that the warmth of the Palace cinema seemed more and more attractive, he ticked lots of items off his list. He was a bit like one of those sad kids who went train spotting he thought one evening as he lay unsleeping re-living the hours he’d spent with Karen earlier. He wondered whether Ian Allan had published a book on the subject.

Karen was truly happy. Possibly for the first time in her life she had found someone who she believed loved her and she certainly loved Colin. She hadn’t let him go all the way yet but she wasn’t going to hold out much longer. She didn’t want to. Imagining what Colin’s monster would feel like inside her filled most of her waking hours. The Pick and Mix counter at Woolworth’s in the High Street was where Karen had spent her Saturday mornings for the past year or so at school. Working that was, not browsing. Her exam results, much as she had expected, were a bit of an assortment, which meant she was destined to be picking and mixing on instruction from people who wanted a nibble for some time. Maybe after she’d had a couple of kids and got them off to school she would ask her Susan if there was anything going at the care home; although she didn’t fancy it that much. Old people smelled of piss and up there they sat around for hours on end just staring at each other trying to remember who they were. If Colin had a really good job she might not have to work ever again.

“Steady on girl,” Karen said “He’s not hooked yet; plenty of time to make plans when that day comes.”

All the machinations between his mother and the go-betweens had been completed. Colin was to start work in mid-September at the Shaw Park mines.

“Report to Mr. Owens at 8.30am sharp in the morning,” his mother told him on Sunday morning before she left for church, “and don’t let me down. You will, I know but please… not on the first day.”

So at the tender age of seventeen Colin was down the mines. He was the happiest he had ever been. This might seem a strange state of affairs but as we shall discover, there were many advantages to his new occupation and he saw the potential within a couple of hours as he was escorted on his induction programme by his new employer.

His boss was a wide boy called Eric Owens; in his mid forties Mr. Owens had more front than most people which really only showed when his leather jacket was undone. He had cornered the market as far as storage was concerned. For his own part it was food washed down with copious amounts of lager; for his business it was providing space for people to keep their valuables secure.

The maze of tunnels were sectioned off by customer; many lined with filing cabinets full to overflowing with documents from banks, building societies, solicitors, insurance brokers, anyone and everyone that Mr. Owens could convince that this was the place to keep things safe for decades, so that their company premises could be light airy temples, honed to perfection in the art of making money.

A lot of this money came to Mr. Owens because ‘safety costs, lack of safety costs you a whole lot more’ He repeated this mantra time and again as he sold the idea to professional people from all around the region.

“Well Colin my boy, that’s about all there is to see,” said Mr. Owens after a two hour walk around his place of business. Colin could see the exercise had raised a significant amount of sweat on his new employer’s forehead.

“Just as well,” thought Colin “I don’t reckon you could have lasted much longer without keeling over.”

Eric Owens flopped into his office chair and indicated to Colin to sit down.

“The first twelve months or so you’ll be working with Wally Kerr on days; he’s been here ever since we opened and knows the ropes. You listen to Wally and you won’t go far wrong. Once you hit eighteen, provided you haven’t pissed off to some fancy job in London, then you can work the night shift.”

Colin reckoned his mother had put this notion into Fat Eric’s head. If he was on nights he’d be out of the house evenings when her bible basher’s came round, plus he’d be stuffed as far as spending evenings with Karen or any other loose women that his mother disapproved of. While he was making a mental note of the next black mark to be put against his mother’s name when he got home later, he realised Eric was still droning on.

“On nights mind, you’ll be your own boss. You’ll be down here alone and what with turning eighteen your wages will be a sight better.”

Colin couldn’t wait. It had dawned on him as they were walking round the various tunnels that the filing cabinets contained vast amounts of raw data on thousands of people via the banks, building societies and so on that stored old paperwork there. It might prove to be considerably quicker to track down a person you were looking for, like a father for example, if you had access to all that documentation. Unwittingly, Eric was providing a service which, if Colin had been a criminal, could yield chapter and verse on a prospective target. Fortunately for Fat Eric, Colin wasn’t a criminal. Well at least not yet.

Colin caught a bus to the outskirts of town and then walked the next mile or so to the Shaw Park mines offices, throughout the winter months and into the New Year. His mother grabbed him at the end of his second week and demanded a sizeable chunk of his first ever wage packet for the housekeeping.

“Same amount every week on Friday night or you can find a place of your own, okay?” she had muttered.

Colin hadn’t argued. He left the money on the hall table each week and counted his blessings. At least if he paid her, she left him alone. In fact, he hardly saw her over the next six months. She was at church or Graceland’s; out shopping or visiting other friends who were ill or had become housebound. She’d go anywhere, Colin had imagined, rather than remain home and perhaps have to acknowledge I exist.

Although her friends frequently asked Karen who she was seeing these days, she wanted to keep Colin for herself, no sense mixing with lots of other couples and one of her prettier friends getting off with him once they realised he was so well endowed. She knew how her friends thought. Boys were deluded in thinking a healthy sex drive was only in the male domain; if they only knew how virtually every girl in Karen’s class in that last year at school, had talked about pretty much nothing else but sex and how to get more of it without getting pregnant. Once she had left school, although she sometimes met up with a few of her classmates in The Crown for a few underage drinks and a listen to whatever group was playing in there on a Friday night, she saw Colin as often as possible. Karen was eager for that final hurdle to be climbed.

Karen brought up the idea of getting a room so they could be alone when Colin walked her to the bus stop after a night at The Palace. Her place was out of the question as her Dad was a bit strict about his children sleeping with their partners under his roof. Colin wished that his mother was dead. Then they could go back to his room and he wouldn’t have to fantasise about doing it any longer.

“It’s no good most weekday nights,” he said to Karen “she’s either got somebody coming over or she’s just sat in watching TV. She’s at Graceland’s on Tuesday next week doing an evening shift but after she’s dropped your Susan off she’ll be home by ten.”

Karen’s face lit up and she gave Colin a little squeeze.

“Don’t worry,” she squealed “I’ll ask Susan to make an excuse and say she wants to have a look at a second hand car in the garage up the Shaw Road or something so they have to do a detour. That will give us another twenty minutes. Your Mum won’t say no, because if our Susan gets her own transport they can take it in turns to drive to work and it’ll save her some pennies. I’ll be round your place at eight. I can’t leave straight after I get in from work or my Mum will smell a rat.”

The die was cast. They talked about nothing else when they met up on Saturday. The two shifts at work with Wally Kerr moaning about his feet, his back, his piles and everything else that was troubling him, seemed to drag even more than usual, but eventually Colin was walking briskly back towards the bus stop and the short ride home to await the arrival of his girlfriend.

He shot upstairs to his bedroom and then tiptoed across the landing to the bathroom and tried to run a bath as quietly as possible. Fat chance!

“Why are you using all the hot water,” his mother shouted up the stairs “you’re not going out in this rain surely? I’ve got to get soaked hanging around looking at cars in the lot by that garage on the way out of town because your hussy’s sister can’t choose a car for herself. When I get in later there had better be some left for me to make myself look human again.”

Colin tried to work out whether there was enough hot water in the world to achieve that. As he washed, shaved and splashed on some deodorant, which his father had overlooked in his haste to get the hell out of the family home, Colin reflected that despite the fact that he saw Karen three sometimes four nights a week these days, she was still not considered girlfriend material by his mother. Not for her little boy even though she hated him and treated him like shit. He was sick and tired of her constantly running people down with no justification. She was going the right way about getting promoted on that list.

He tiptoed back to the sanctuary of his bedroom. He heard his mother muttering something about a ‘tart’s boudoir’ while she was getting ready for work. Then she was gone and Colin had the house to himself. He looked at his watch. Just over two hours until Karen would arrive. He nodded off and the next thing he heard was a frantic knocking on the front door.

It was a female voice shouting, “For heaven’s sake Colin, let me in. It’s pissing down out here!” It was his beloved.

Well, actually that was how Karen felt about Colin; she was in love with him and she fully intended to stay that way. She presumed he felt the same way about her but Colin was not really the sort of character to have emotions like other people. His relationship with his parents, or rather the lack of a relationship, meant he didn’t really feel any close bond with another human being. He liked Karen. He liked how she made him feel and liked the things she let him do to her. But was it love? No Colin didn’t love her but for the time being, he wouldn’t be without her. He could imagine being with Karen for quite some time actually. No, our two young people had two entirely different agendas. Little did they know that tonight was going to be a tipping point in their lives and for Colin another stepping stone towards his inevitable personal Armageddon.

 

 

 

CHAPTER 4

Colin raced downstairs to let Karen in. She was stood on the doorstep trying to squeeze up against the door to shelter from the rain which was coming down in buckets. She was wet through.

“Where were you?” she asked as she pushed past Colin into the hallway.

“I fell asleep. Sorry,” said Colin sheepishly. Karen took off her coat and shook it at him. She grinned and grabbed him by the arm pulling him towards the stairs.

“Come on then. I’m soaked through to the skin, so I’ll have to get out of these wet things won’t I? We may as well get on with it while they’re drying.”

Colin followed Karen upstairs and pointed to his bedroom door. Once inside she peeled off her wet clothes and Colin took them to the spare room and draped them over the clothes horse his mother kept in there for his washing. She wouldn’t have his stuff in the same wash as hers.

He went back across the landing to the bedroom. Karen was sat up in his bed brushing her hair.

She said “Hurry up, I’m getting cold. I popped into the bathroom for a towel to dry my hair, hope you don’t mind? Bit whiffy in there though. Smells like someone broke a bottle of an old man’s brand of aftershave. I heard your Dad had buggered off?” She patted the remaining thin strip of bed to suggest he joined her.

“He did,” said Colin. He had never undressed in front of a woman before and he was all thumbs as he got out of his shirt and jeans. As Karen was still wearing her bra and panties he kept his boxers and socks on too as he slid under the sheets and blankets.

“Blimey,” said Karen “it’s you. What is that stuff? Oh well.”

As soon as he was in bed, she had the rest of her kit off in two seconds and threw it on the floor.

“Get them off,” she squealed “let the dog see the rabbit.” Colin obliged. They kissed.

Strangely, despite the times they had spent together in The Palace or on Lowden Hill they kissed a little awkwardly at first as if they were doing it for the first time. Karen took the lead, as she always did; each movement having been choreographed in her mind’s eye since she first determined that Colin was going to be ‘the one’. Poor Colin was just her willing victim. Not that he realised it at the time of course. He was having too much fun.

Karen kept a weather eye on the clock on the bedside table and they only spent a few minutes on each of the ‘preliminaries’ as she considered them. All the things they did to each other when that was all there was on the menu were lovely but she wanted the main course tonight. She mounted Colin and took his hard shaft in her hand and guided it inside her.

Colin didn’t need any further encouragement. This was what he’d been fantasising about ever since he was thirteen; he buried his prick into her as far as it would go. Karen moaned as she felt him moving further inside her. She had been right. It did feel bloody good. God he was big! Colin concentrated hard on not coming too soon. He wanted to stop for a while, ease off the pressure on his tool, but Karen was committed on a headlong dash for the finishing line. He grabbed her breasts which were swaying in front of his face and started to suck at her nipples. He hoped doing something else might take her mind off grinding down on him, begging him to come inside her. This only caused her to increase her rhythm and Colin realised the game was up and he gave up trying. He came.

Karen cried out “Yes. Oh fuck yes!” and collapsed on him, winding him so much that he just lay there, trying to catch his breath and wondering what the hell he had done?

In the back pocket of his jeans were the condoms he’d bought on the way home on Monday night. Why hadn’t she told him to use one? Had she ever mentioned if she was on the pill? Why didn’t I listen if she did, instead of tucking into whatever she was offering like a kid on her pick and mix counter?

Meanwhile Karen was glowing and feeling all warm inside. She dragged him on top of her and held him tight.

“Oh Col. I do love you. That was lovely. Thank you.”

He didn’t have the heart to say anything. He just lay there and listened to the tick of his alarm clock and wished away the minutes until they would have to get dressed and he could get Karen out of the house before his mother got home from work.

Karen’s own thoughts were of how good it had been to feel Colin inside her, how good it felt when he came and she remembered those unused pills that had piled up, strip upon strip, over the months since she had decided that Colin was a ‘keeper’ and that she was going to make sure he didn’t get away.

Colin got dressed in silence.

Karen slipped quietly across the landing to the spare room and when she got back she said, “All tidied away well before your Mum gets back. My clothes are nearly dry too.”

With that she finished dressing and dragged Colin downstairs then made him walk her across town to the top of her road. They kissed goodnight and as Karen trotted off full of the joys of spring and Colin’s little soldiers, he looked after her and tried to convince himself that everything was going to be fine.

He got a right ear bashing when he got back. Colin let his mother rant on while he kicked off his shoes and threw his coat over the stair rail. Both of which he knew really pissed her off. With a little grin to himself he padded upstairs to his room and buried his head in the bedclothes to re-capture the smell of the girl he had had sex with only two hours before. Try as he might though, sleep didn’t come easily as he kept returning to the suspicion that he had been the one who had been shafted and not Karen.

Colin spent the day at work on Wednesday with Wally, retrieving files for one client then filing away the next consignment that had arrived from another. All pretty mind numbing stuff, but it suited Colin for the time being. He wasn’t thinking about what he was doing anyway, his mind was ticking off the days of his recent weeks with Karen, to work out when she was due her next period. Until that little matter was resolved he couldn’t think about much else. Karen was doing her own counting, but of course she was doing a little praying too, but not for the same outcome as Colin.

Because his mind was elsewhere Colin almost missed a familiar name on some documents from Morgan, Morgan and Gibbons the solicitors. They were downsizing their office in town and planning to share their premises with a new estate agent. As a result they were storing paperwork as recent as four years ago in ‘light’ storage. This was another money spinner that Eric Owens had dreamt up which allowed clients to ring up and retrieve stuff within twenty four hours without any financial penalty, so if they put something underground that they suddenly needed after a couple of weeks,

“No problem.” Eric would tell them. Naturally, if they selected ‘dark’ storage then it cost them a pretty penny should they decide to dredge up documents from twenty years, thirty years or even a century ago.

Any client with any sense made absolutely certain that anything committed to ‘dark’ storage wasn’t going to be called upon until Hell froze over. Nevertheless, Eric’s sharp business brain had made sure that he was still quid’s in, even if Wally and Colin were padding up and down the nearest tunnels time and again getting something back that had slipped through the net a bit too soon.

Just as he was closing a filing cabinet with MMG’s latest batch of ‘light’ items, Colin spotted a letter addressed to Mr. Adam Bailey and Mrs. Stella Lloyd. His father and his lollipop lady friend had bought a property in a village about fifteen miles away in early 1984 and Morgan, Morgan & Gibbons had handled the conveyance details. Colin was ecstatic. Things were looking up. Okay, the couple may have split up, moved on, whatever. He had a starting point now from which to trace his father and take steps to cross him off the list. It was the one bright spot in his day. For the rest of his time underground he was thinking about Karen.

Karen was thinking for most of the day too. As she scooped her customer’s confectionery selections into little paper bags she was wondering if her dreams were going to come true? If she was pregnant what would she call it? If it was a boy she’d always fancied that Rick Astley since he came on the pop scene so that would be easy; girl’s names were a bit trickier. Perhaps she should go for Michaela after Wacko Jacko? She wondered what Colin thought, but she wasn’t going to blurt anything out about ‘names’ until things were confirmed and he’d been persuaded to ‘do the right thing’. Karen was certain her Dad and her brothers would lean on him to make him see sense if he was thinking of ducking out of his responsibilities.

Colin and Karen carried on seeing one another as frequently as usual. They went to the cinema if there was a half decent film on and they could afford it. They wandered around town on evenings when the weather wasn’t too bad and sat in the bus shelter in the Market Place if it was raining. They talked about work; they both moaned about how boring their jobs were. They had a whinge about neither of them being able to afford a car so they might find somewhere quiet to jump in the back and go all the way again. They talked about a lot of things, yet all the time they were together and all the time they were apart they were thinking about what the future might hold.

Although he knew he’d be in deep shit if his mother found out, he even went into The Crown with Karen one Friday night and after she’d got them both a drink they sat in the corner away from the older regulars. She had no problem getting served as she’d been in and out of there since she was fifteen and with her boobs hanging out over the top of a tight blouse the bar staff weren’t in the mood to challenge her and sling her out in case they antagonised the legitimate customers, most of whom were male and keen on as much young flesh as they could get a glimpse of these days thanks very much.

While they nursed their drinks and chatted about nothing in particular, Colin tried to pluck up the courage to ask whether Karen had started her period yet. He couldn’t get the words right in his head, so that it sounded all nonchalant, as if it was no big deal, but that he was concerned about her feelings and all that shit.

Karen was trying to work out how to break it to Colin that she was late, very late. Since she had gone on the pill at fifteen, because her mother wasn’t going to go through the sleepless nights she’d had with her Susan, she had been as regular as clockwork. As each successive day had dawned and still no sign, she got more and more excited about the birth of her little bundle of joy. The three of them would be so happy and Karen promised herself that if Colin played the game and married her, as he should do by rights, then she would never let him go short. Not like some girls she knew, who shut up shop as soon as they’d got their man and it was only on high days and holidays that those sexual favours were on the menu. Not me Karen thought; I loved it when Colin was inside me, it was the best feeling ever. When we’re together all the time I’ll be looking forward to that feeling as often as I can get it.

Both of them began to speak at the same time.

Karen laughed “Sorry. You go first.”

“No,” said Colin “it wasn’t important you say what you were going to say.”

Karen took a deep breath and was just about to launch into her now much rehearsed speech when from the other end of the bar there was the sound of music. Not the musical, nor the juke box but the very loud guitars and drums of a four piece rock band who were just starting their first set of the night.

“Oh,” said Karen “it’ll have to wait. These are good I’ve heard them in here before. The place will fill up now and be rocking all night. Let’s go and listen.”

Colin muttered to himself, “I can hear them from here, I don’t need to go any closer. If I get any nearer those speakers my ears will bleed. If this lot isn’t beyond the threshold of pain yet they soon will be.”

When Karen had her mind set on something then Colin just found it best to do as he was told. So off they went and sat at a table nearer the makeshift stage.

Colin had listened to several types of music at home. His father liked country and western which was pretty dire in Colin’s opinion. His mother liked classical stuff mostly; she wouldn’t have pop music playing on the radio or the television. If it wasn’t Beethoven or Mozart she might be in the mood for a bit of Roger Whittaker or James Last but nothing too loud or exciting. Colin listened to all sorts on the radio in his room and although he liked quite a few songs, he would be hard pushed to identify the singer or group responsible. Music just provided a background to his fantasies and his thoughts about ‘putting things right.’ His musical education was about to start tonight.

Karen knew every song the band played word for word and sang along, jigging about in her chair to the beat and clapping enthusiastically after each song ended. All four of the lads in the group seemed to recognise her and smiled at Karen and winked at Colin, despite the fact that he didn’t know them. He was starting to wonder just how often they had played in The Crown and how well they knew Karen but she interrupted his train of thought by pulling him on his feet and guiding him forward so they could dance together in front of the stage.

For her part Karen was pretty accustomed to using her body to make the men put down their pints or stop reading the paper; some even stopped chatting to their wives or girlfriends, even if it was only until they got a dirty look, but Colin had never danced in public, or in private if it came to that, so he just swayed a bit and hope it didn’t look like he was too much of a dickhead.

He was saved by the arrival of the crowd that Karen had predicted. The volume at which the group was playing had obviously shaken the foundations of the houses for a mile or two around and encouraged people to get their coats on and venture out for a pint and a bit of a listen, rather than die a lingering death in front of the TV.

Colin and Karen stood close together in the crowded bar watching the rest of the first set. With each successive song, Colin realised that he was enjoying himself. It was a peculiar sensation; he couldn’t really remember having had a lot of fun in his life in the past seventeen years. Apart from when he had provided his own amusement of course.

Karen told him the names of some of the songs he enjoyed the most and found it amusing that he didn’t know who it had been recorded by.

“Blimey Col!” she said “where have you been?”

When they left The Crown at the end of the night, Colin kept repeating the names Iron Maiden, AC/DC and Judas Priest over and over so he could write them down when he got home. As they wandered up the High Street Colin reckoned that once the ringing in his ears had stopped he’d probably be feeling that he had just had the best night ever.

Because the buses had stopped running ages since and it was too much for a taxi they had to take the long walk home. When they stopped outside her gate, Karen kissed Colin good night and then remembering the conversation they had been going to have before the group had started playing.

“Col? You do love me don’t you? I’m so fucking late I’m pretty sure I’m up the duff. It’s a bit earlier than we’d planned to get married I know, but we better get on with it as soon as….. Don’t you reckon?”

Colin shrugged. “Marriage, we never talked about marriage. Anyway I thought you were on the pill. Why didn’t you make me use a rubber? I had some in my back pocket? I bought them specially. Are you absolutely sure you’re pregnant?”

Karen was in tears. “It was an accident, just one of them things. I never planned it,” she lied “my Dad thinks blokes should do the decent thing if they get a girl in trouble. I bet your Dad would have said the same if he was still about.”

Colin didn’t want to get on the wrong side of Karen’s old man, he was getting on but he had a reputation of being a bit of a hard case.

“OK,” he said frantically trying to buy some time to think “we’ll talk about it next time we meet up yeah?”

Karen was thinking to herself that the tears had been a nice touch. With that she kissed him again and walked up the path to her front door. When she looked back to wave at Colin, he was a hundred yards down the road, with his head down, staring at every crack in the pavement.