Hello, my name's Karen, I'm thirty-six years old, married and the mother of ten year-old twin boys, Andrew and Stephen. My story begins on an ordinary Sunday morning in August; well, to be accurate, I suppose it began seventeen years earlier, but we'll come to that later.
In recent years Sunday mornings have been the highlight of my week and I'd expected today to be no different: Sunday mornings are when I get to lie-in bed!
My husband Tim gets the boys breakfasted and dressed and I stay in bed until they've left for the sports centre, at a few minutes before ten; it's mini-rugby in winter and kiddie-cricket in the summer. They have a short coaching session to begin with and then play a match against another local team, or just amongst themselves.
I will join them at midday to watch the last twenty minutes of their game, after which we all go out for lunch somewhere. I will concede that lunch isn't so much of a 'highlight', the boys get to choose the venue, so rather than roast beef with all the trimmings, our Sunday lunches comprise a burger, a pizza or a KFC; not what I'd consider haute-cuisine.
Those two hours in between are my weekly shot of 'Me Time': A lengthy shower, with time to shave my legs, armpits and... anything else I feel needs preening, before properly drying and styling my hair rather than just quickly running a comb through it. Until finally and best of all; to sit completely undisturbed while I trim, file and paint my toe and finger nails.
You perhaps need to be the mother of two lively boys to appreciate just what that means; but thoughts of those pleasures were filling my mind as I climbed out of bed not two minutes after I heard the front door closing. Wearing nothing beyond a short, silky bathrobe, I'd made it as far as the landing, when I heard the front door re-opening.
Damn and Blast! What had the boys forgotten? And would I get dragged into helping to find it? I didn't hear any voices, so I froze in place and kept quiet; perhaps they would think me still asleep and find whatever it was for themselves? I was still there a minute later when I heard footsteps on the stairs; too heavy for the boys', so it had to be Tim.
It was only then I realised that I was even holding my breath; that got released in a squeal as Tim climbed the last few stairs. Except that it wasn't Tim, this man's build was far heavier... muscular heavy and his hair colour was several shades darker. I didn't recognise him until the moment he reached the landing and turned to face me.
"Hi Karen... I'm guessing Tim and the boys gone down to the cricket club?"
It was Sam, our next door neighbours' youngest son; what the hell was he doing here? I can't say I was unduly frightened by his intrusion, we've been neighbours since he was in primary school. Though Sam's no longer a schoolboy: Seventeen... No, eighteen years old; that noisy party back in May was for his birthday and he's soon going off to University.
We must've stared at each other for half a minute, Sam wearing a broad smile and me open-mouthed in surprise, before I found my tongue. "Wha... Why... How... How did you get in here Sam?" I pulled my robe a little tighter as I spoke.
Sam remained silent and continued to smile as he raised his hand; a key clearly visible between his finger and thumb. Ask a stupid question... Sam's parents had kept a spare key to our house and we one to theirs for ten years. "Don't worry, mum and dad have gone to the coast for the day, so they don't know I've got it"
The first tremor of fear, or concern at any rate, fluttered through my stomach on hearing Sam's words. Sam couldn't... I'd known him since was a child... Well, he could, he was a powerful guy nowadays, but he wouldn't, Sam's a lovely young man; polite, respectful, well brought up. "What... what is it you want?"
"Oh, I'm looking for someone and hoped I might find her here." What did that mean? I was the only 'her' that lived in this house. Sam's smile had grown wider, there was now an, edge to it; wolfish, that was the adjective... 'Wolfish'.
Sam was a bit of a peeping-Tom; when I sunbathed in the back garden, I'd often see the curtains twitch in his bedroom window as he peered out from behind them. But that was just kid's stuff, his mother and I had talked, and laughed about it more than once. Hell, I even played up to it, tweaking and adjusting my bikini far more than was necessary; on a couple of occasions I'd even engineered a nipple-slip.
I felt my colour rise at those recollections, but they were way short of... anything more. Heck, that was as much me as Sam; I was more likely to go out sunbathing if I knew Sam was at home. Teasing my neighbours' son before going inside to Jill myself off as I fantasised about Sam jacking-off next door while thinking about me; How sad was that? Such is the life of a frustrated wife and mother.
I dragged my thoughts and attention back to the here and now. "Who... Who is it you're looking for Sam, there's no one here but me."
Sam's grin never wavered. "And Polly Flinders... It's Polly that I'm looking for."
Those flutters of concern in my belly took weight, lead weight; my stomach hit the floor! How the hell did Sam know about Polly Flinders? Sam would've been a babe in arms when Polly was... born and she'd been buried - very deeply buried! - before Sam had even started school!
I, along with my boyfriend of the time, had created Polly Flinders during my first year at college. I didn't look anything like Polly nowadays; indeed once my wig and make-up where in place I'd only borne a passing resemblance to Polly even then. Polly had only appeared in five blue-movies, but those were enough to see me leaving university debt-free.
Looking back in hindsight, I should've said 'Who?' or perhaps stayed silent and looked at Sam blankly; though that likely wouldn't have changed anything, I'm sure that my expression on hearing Polly's name mentioned was all the answer that Sam needed. "Whe... Wha... Who told you about Polly? Nobody knows about Polly!"
"Nobody? Not even Tim?..." I'm guessing that my expression again betrayed me. "...Now that is a bonus, Polly, I'd assumed that Tim knew at least."
Sam's smile had changed yet again; it now appeared... Victorious, I could no longer meet his gaze and my head lowered as I mumbled "So who told you?"
"Nobody told me; it was the wonders of modern science. I was watching you sunbathe a couple of weeks ago; I know you know that I was watching, but did you know that I was filming you too? By the way, you flashed a nipple while I was filming; did you realise?..." I didn't reply, I didn't even raise my head.
"...Anyway, after you'd gone back inside, I used a still picture of your face to do a reverse image search on the internet, along with a tag of 'porn movie'; I was hoping to find a film of someone who resembled you to whack-off to..." Those tremors in my stomach had taken flight again.
"I didn't get much joy, or so I'd thought; but then I opened one up called 'Stoking Polly's Ashes'. It was a real old-school, vintage flick and I didn't think the girl looked anything like you; I was on the point of trying another one when I saw a small scar on the actress' fore-arm and I've noticed that you have one there too"
I'd been seven years old; I got that scar falling off my elder brother's skate board. Forget about those stomach tremors, I was now trembling all over; my eyes remained lowered.
"So, I screen-grabbed a decent full-face photo of the actress, cleaned it up a bit, ran that through an AI ageing-filter program on my laptop and then grafted the hair from your picture onto it..." Sam reached back and pulled two A4 sized photos from out of his back pocket and held them up before me. "A pretty close match aren't they?"
Much as I didn't want to, my eyes rose unbidden to look at Sam's pictures; the photo-shopped one wasn't exactly me, but there was certainly a resemblance and far more than a passing one. I finally managed to find my voice, but didn't think to deny anything; it was too late for that. "OK, so your picture maybe looks a bit like me, but it's not close enough to prove anything."
"Who's looking for beyond-reasonable-doubt? The only court that I'd be putting this before is the Court of Public Opinion; upload these photos onto the local Facebook page, along with links to the three films that I've found and see who else agrees with me... Are there any more films out there?"
I didn't answer Sam's concluding question, three were more than enough for me to be worrying about. All five will be out in the ether somewhere, I'd long realised that, but I've never tried looking for them; they weren't very good in the first place, so must sit well down the Google-list of any search and I didn't want to risk raising their position.
"Well, are there?"
I shook my head in the negative; if Sam wanted to keep searching then I couldn't stop him, but I wasn't going to provide him with any clues. I lifted my eyes from the pictures and glared at Sam "You can't put those pictures onto Facebook and even if you do, the page moderators will take them straight back down again... They'll know that it was you that posted them too.
"No they won't, I've already set-up a fake username using a second-hand laptop that I bought, I can sit in the town square and post them using the town Wi-Fi and everyone will think it's someone called Vera Turner who's asking. You're right about the moderators pulling it of course, but it's likely to last for a couple of hours, ample time for a few people to see it... and download the photos and links."