Taking Advantage
Taking Advantage will be found on this site shortly.
Here is Taking Advantage at last. I hope you will find the waiting worth while.
TAKING ADVANTAGE
Another year had passed.
Graham was at the bonfire again.
Last year he had watched as more and more branches, old clothes and anything else that had been collected had been added until the bonfire had at least doubled its size. Then some bright clown in the office had suggested they hold a wake to commiserate the failure of the Gunpowder Plot. Beers, wines and spirits had been brought in and various concoctions created.
Graham, entirely out of character, had become tipsy and found himself pinching the bottoms of some of the female members of staff. That was when he had moved away from the alcohol induced festivities and into his office.
The room was in semi-darkness as he removed his coat and tie. He glanced at the large settee set along one of the walls and was surprised to see his secretary lying there. He could see at a glance her clothing was dishevelled, buttons of her blouse undone and skirt high on her thighs. ‘Most unladylike,’ he had almost uttered. ‘Thank goodness for the poor lighting,’ he thought. But he could see quite adequately and at that very moment a small voice in his head cursed that very gloom and the first seeds had been sown.
With a sudden guilty movement he forced himself to turn away
“Don’t you like what you see?” The sultry, throaty voice stopped him in his tracks. “I asked you a question.”
Slowly Graham turned to face her. She was still lying where he had feasted his eyes on her body. But he couldn’t reply. His tongue was in a dry trap of a mouth.
“Perhaps you need to see more.” The sultry voice murmured and without changing her position she began to undo the remaining button of her blouse.
“Melanie. No…” Graham stammered but he could not take his eyes off what she was doing. He wanted to tell her to stop, to dress, cover herself but he could only stare.
There was no going back after that. The seeds of passion grew into full bloom.
It was approaching the fifth of November again and bonfires were being built all over the area. Graham saw it as an opportunity to extricate himself from an awkward situation.
Melanie wanted them to live together.
Graham delayed that by inventing a change in his job which required him to work two or three times each week at a neighbouring town. Alice, his wife, had also accepted his change of job and even helped him find suitable accommodation.
Melanie had wanted to do that herself but had to confess Alice had good taste when it came to choosing a flat. So for two days and two nights, sometimes three nights, Melanie and Graham lived together in their own love nest.
But Melanie wanted more.
It wasn’t money, or new clothes, or jewellery she wanted. She had convinced herself she wanted the respectability a ring would give her. Graham was happy with things as they were.
But Graham had a problem.
He was finding it financially impossible to maintain his two worlds. Soon most of his savings would be gone. So he had come up with a solution. Every time Graham thought about it… and he had thought about it day and night, he felt a knot grow in the base of his stomach and bile rising to the back of his throat. The fact that it was approaching the fifth of November was the catalyst that triggered his will to carry out his plan.
It had not been an easy decision to make.
Melanie had certainly introduced him to many things. It was as though she was searching for something. And she had made his life more interesting than he had ever thought possible. Theirs had been an active, physical relationship from the start and he found it exciting being with her. She exercised regularly and her body was in excellent shape and she knew how to use it. Alice though, with her middle-aged spread, had surprised him. Something within her had been awakened and she had become a willing participant in the seductive ways Melanie had taught him. It was as though she had been awakened too.
But only one of them could stay.
One of them would have to be removed from his life… permanently.
And he felt he had found the perfect solution.
It was three o’clock on bonfire day morning. A vehicle drifted silently down the slope to the carefully selected bonfire site. A long, stout tree trunk had been sunk into the ground as the central support. A dummy had been fixed to the upper part and long, thick branches had been spread around the base in the shape of a cone.
The van stopped alongside the bonfire and a dark shape exited from the passenger side. It removed a large section of the material before backing the van close to the central support.
When the engine was switched off the silence was explosive, broken only by the cracks and pings of the cooling engine block.
A blurred outline clambered onto the roof of the van, removed the dummy and threw it to the ground. After clambering down off the top a side door opened and a floppy, still, silent silhouette was pulled from the inside.
A balaclava had been pulled back to front over the head to hide a white blob of a face. It wore old wellies, thick garden gloves and straw stuck out around the neck, waist, hands and feet. There was little to tell the two dummies apart. After a struggle the limp form was dragged on top of the van. Pieces of wire, pre-cut to length, were tied around the central trunk.
The new effigy of Guy Fawkes was lifted up and pressed against the tree trunk, its head lolling to the side as though it no longer wished to see what was happening or perhaps looking for a witness.
With the still form resting on one knee the chest under the arms was tied to the pole. Tentatively both hands were moved away and although the dummy sagged a little it did not move. The wire strands under its chin and around its forehead were then secured and after that several more loops of wire were secured around the effigy to prevent it falling prematurely.
Before clambering down off the top of the van, paraffin was poured over the head, back, arms, legs and into each of the wellies before the dummy’s hat was placed on the head. The final act was to replace the branches so that none of the changes would be noticed.
In a motel room clothes were hastily removed, bundled into a refuse bag and thrown into the back of the van where the old dummy lay. After a long, hot bath the stolen van was driven to a deserted spot on the mountain and set on fire.
Graham awoke slowly that day his mouth tasting like a sweaty sock. He had no idea where he was or how long he had been asleep.
Pain had been his alarm call; a throbbing pain in his head almost like the morning after the night before feeling. And yet he couldn’t remember having had a night before.
And his eyes didn’t want to stay open either.
When he could get his eyes open he could see and yet he couldn’t see and his befuddled brain struggled to make sense of it all.
His mouth was full and yet he couldn’t swallow or spit it out what was in it and it was some time before it dawned on him he was tightly and painfully gagged.
Graham couldn’t move his head and something bit into his forehead when he tried. He couldn’t move his arms or his legs. There was only one thing he could move… his eyes. But he couldn’t see clearly and could only conclude there was something in front of his face.
Then Graham heard voices, happy voices, children’s voices and experienced more pressure being applied to his body. His eyes swivelled downwards. He could just make out leaves fluttering on a branch although the light had considerably dimmed. He wondered why he was in a tree and what he was doing there.
And then the answer hit him like a blow to the ribs from Mohamed Ali.
“No,” he screamed.
But no one heard him. The scream was only inside his head.
“Help me some one. Please. Help me.”
But no one heard his pleas either.
Standing at the back of the crowd of children and their parents and friends, two women looked on as the flames from the bonfire leapt high into the air.
“If he hadn’t talked in his sleep I wouldn’t have known what he was planning to do with one of us and I wouldn’t have got to know you, Alice.”
Alice smiled at the other woman. “And I’m glad we did meet, Melanie.”
In the bright, flickering light of the flames, the two women turned their back on the fire of opportunity and hand in hand walked into the blackness.