Prologue
My name is Steve Reynolds and I'm not a very nice man.
I never have been, really. I was never one of the good guys, even as a kid. I've always been a gambler, always pushing my luck, even when that luck came at someone else's expense.
If you don't ask, you don't get
. My dad taught me that, at a very early age.
Son, you make your own luck in life
. Another favourite of his.
Nice guys finish last.
Full of clichés, was my old man. But in my younger days those clichés served me well.
Especially when it came to girls.
Sure, I got verbally abused. Laughed at. Belittled. Slapped a few times. Even punched once or twice when the object of my attention turned out to be already taken. But I'd always keep on gambling, against the odds, until eventually the stars would align and I'd get lucky with a pretty young thing who was way out of my league but drunk enough or desperate enough or just plain curious enough to go home with the guy whose brash confidence seemed massively disproportionate to his decidedly average looks.
Years ago, that's how I ended up with my beautiful wife. Persistence and blind luck landed me what should have been my biggest win ever. She was truly stunning, and truly lovely with it. Kind, compassionate, caring. All the things I wasn't.
There was a problem, of course. Gamblers are addicts, and we're the worst kind of selfish. It's such a rush, getting to play the odds and win. Better than any drug I've taken, and fuck knows I've done most of them. Maybe not better than the sex itself - at least, not if you're doing it with the right person - but surely a close second. And just like drugs, or sex, the euphoric hit that accompanies each win is tragically short-lived. Even if it's a fucking gargantuan, massive win beyond all expectations, pretty soon it'll be time to go looking for the next one.
I think my wife thought she could change that. Maybe I believed she could, too. She apparently loved me enough to try. I loved her too, but clearly not enough in the end. So now she's my ex-wife, and I've got two teenage daughters who I never see, who've grown to hate me nearly as much as I hate myself.
Which leaves me here: forty years old, hairline receding, paunch expanding, living on my own in a shitty council house in a shitty Essex town, claiming what I can off the state whilst working cash-in-hand on whatever shitty jobs I can pick up each week. All because I'm still gambling. Still pushing my luck. Still chasing pretty young things, like the tragic old creep I now am. Still unwilling to settle for women of my own age, unable to find sagginess, wrinkles, greying hair and neuroses attractive.
Yeah, like I said. I'm not a nice man.
Of course, now I'm older, the odds have got longer when it comes to acquiring suitably appealing female company. Much longer. Sometimes I have to settle for young, and not worry too much about pretty. But still, I've found that if you're really prepared to push your luck, and you don't mind throwing some hard cash into the mix, it's surprising just how far you can go. Sometimes - just sometimes - if your morals are loose enough and you're not bound by the shackles of needing to be a good person and you're willing to
really
take advantage of a situation and to hell with the consequences... well, then you might just end up way beyond the realms of the
likely
, the
plausible
, the
believable
... and end up smack bang in the middle of what all you nice guys could only ever believe to be a fantasy.
Which, I suppose, brings us neatly to the events which I am about to recount here. I'm not proud of what I did. It doesn't make me look good. In fact, it makes me look pretty vile. But can I bring myself to regret it? Any of it? Of course, not.
Like I said. I'm not a very nice man at all. As you're about to find out.
Part 1
On the day in question - a lovely sunny Saturday, in late June - I was in an unusually positive state of mind. It could very easily have been different, but such is the life of a gambler. As usual, I'd ended up in the bookies the previous afternoon, losing most of my week's earnings. But then I'd dropped my last fiver on a triple acca, and all three horses had somehow come through for me. That meant I'd left with a nice fat roll of twenties in my pocket which totalled a cool two grand.
Two fucking grand. That had given me the shivers, just feeling it in my hand. Two grand bought some serious quality time with some proper top-notch hookers. But that just wasn't my style. Where's the thrill in paying for a guaranteed result? Where's the anticipation? The chase? The challenge? Much more fun to patrol the pubs and clubs in town, searching for a suitably attractive young inebriate who could be persuaded to accompany me home. It would be a long shot. It always was, these days. But I knew from experience that throwing a chunk of my winnings into the mix might just shorten those odds a lot. With two grand in my pocket, I was pretty sure I'd be getting lucky that night.
So, I'd showered and shaved, and was going to head out to the barbers before they shut. I hadn't been for a while and my thinning hair was approaching full-creepster length. It wasn't a good look, and I knew I'd be needing all the help I could get later on when I was trying my luck. Trusting in fortune and the cash in your pocket was one thing. Looking like you still lived with your parents at forty was another.
That left me getting dressed in my bedroom, thinking of what the night might bring, idly looking out through the blinds at my small, unkempt garden below. The window was cracked open and I could hear the sounds of youthful frivolity from outside. Female frivolity, by the sound of it.
I smiled. That would be Lauren Carter, the girl next door. Well, one of them, anyway. Her mother, Amy, had churned out five kids already, with another one on the way. At eighteen, Lauren was the eldest. As far as I knew, each of her siblings had a different father. The family had moved in a few months before, having been 're-housed' by the council. Rumours were that they'd been evicted from their previous place and got dumped on our estate because no-one else would rent to them. Based on the endless comings-and-goings, the parties and the constant noise at all hours of day and night, I suspected the rumours were true.
I peered through a gap in the blinds, craning my neck slightly to get a better view.
Two bikini-clad teens - Lauren and a friend - were playing some kind of cheapskate version of volleyball, batting an inflatable beach ball back and forth over a washing line. Unusually, Lauren's younger siblings weren't out there screaming and swearing and throwing things around. But then I'd seen her mother stuffing them all into a seven-seater minicab earlier that morning. Off to Pontins for the weekend, she'd said. Needed a break. Oh, and by the way, Lauren's having a pool party this evening so there might be some noise.
Right. Like every other fucking Saturday night, then.
I finished buttoning my shirt and focused all of my attention on the girls playing outside. The 'pool' was a crappy inflatable thing that was slowly being filled by a hose. The party clearly hadn't started yet, so I figured the girls were just bored and passing the time until the others arrived. I recognised the friend. She'd been around a few times and I knew her name was Shannon. Not because I was a proper stalker or anything, but simply because I'd heard Lauren yelling it at the top of her voice enough times.
My smile broadened as I watched. Neither girl could be called naturally beautiful, but in keeping with the local Essex tradition they made the best of what they had with copious amounts of make-up and artificially-induced tan. And whilst their bodies weren't glossy-magazine material, their curves were mostly in the right places.
Lauren was the larger of the two, in every aspect. I guessed she was around five-six in height. I didn't need to guess that she carried rather more weight on her than her smaller friend. Happily, a fair amount of that weight was on her chest, in the form of tits that were already captivating my attention as she threw the ball around. In my eyes, they were plenty enough to distract from her not-exactly-beach-ready tummy. I guess I've always been a sucker for a nice rack. Her hair, highlighted in a variety of blonde shades, was tied back in a loose plait. It was as fake as her tan, but it looked good on her. Hell, she looked good all round in the sun's late-afternoon glow; almost pretty, in fact, with her false lashes and heavy eyeliner managing to emphasise her femininity rather nicely. Not that I was looking at her face. Her bikini might have been surprisingly modest in its cut, but it was still showing off more than enough to hold my attention.