The Cuckold

It was the usual Friday night slot at Sandra’s house. Her man Archie was at the bowls and would not return until the early hours when the bowling club threw him out. I liked Archie, we were mates and I always felt a tinge of guilt visiting Sandra on the fly. However, Sandra was a real looker with a voracious sexual appetite and I like that in a woman.

She answered the door wearing a flimsy black silk negligee and beckoned me in with a wolfish grin. Forgoing our customary glass of wine we stumbled up the stairs with indecent haste groping and snogging as we went. Once in the bedroom we wasted no time shedding our clothes and getting down to business.

We were on the job for five minutes when I heard an unusual creaking sound and it wasn’t the bedsprings. I paused for a minute and asked Sandra what that sound was.

“What sound?”

“I heard something – it’s stopped now.”

We got back down to it, but a few minutes later I could discern the strange creaking again. Glancing over my shoulder I could see that her wardrobe was rocking. This was surely the source of the mysterious noise. I thought I was tripping – my blood ran cold with fright – the way it does sometimes when you are first confronted with the unknown. I leapt out of bed and opened the wardrobe and low and behold there was Archie crouching with his trousers around his knees.

“Hiya Johnny” he said with a sheepish grin.

“What the fuck is going on here” I enquired angrily.

“He found out about us” chimed in Sandra “and he wanted to watch.”

“That’s disgusting” I retorted “you’re fucking perverse!”

I was hurriedly dressing as Archie and Sandra were trying to explain the situation. Unbelievably they wanted me to stay. I was, ironically, taking the moral high ground.

“It’s just a wee game Johnny – you like to play games” said Sandra.

“I wouldn’t interfere – I’d be quiet as a mouse – you wouldn’t know I was there” said Archie.

“I’d fucking know alright” I replied. “You pair take the biscuit – I want no part in your wee games.”

I left in a great cloud of righteous indignation vowing never to darken their door again. I did though - I met up with Sandra a couple times after that, but although I still found her most alluring the magic was gone. I’d check the wardrobe for passengers each time and though it was always empty I couldn’t stop thinking about Archie. How did he feel knowing his wife was at home with her lover while he was presumably playing bowls? Knowing he knew just ruined the whole thing for me. I’ve never forgotten the spectator in the wardrobe either and whenever I’m in someone else’s bedroom I always do a quick recce before removing my kit – which looks pretty weird; but it’s a participation sport for me and no audience is required.

.

Sweet Nothings

In the post coital haze
when you’re fuzzy warm inside
Do you pour sweet nothings
into receptive ears?
What fragrant lies
escape your honeyed lips?
What sugar coated deceptions
slip between the sheets?
And in the morning light
do you cultivate a little distance?
Do you feign casual indifference
amidst stilted words and gestures?
Or do you simply simulate amnesia
with deliberate and practised poise?
.

Lore

with the solemn progression of years
I had cast myself as the effigy of a man
and made a shrine of my heart
which I polished with tears
until it shone slick with a lustre
dark and impenetrable
I buried it deep within
where no other could survey
and paid the occasional pilgrimage
in memory of its passing into lore

Charley

Her Majesties Customs and Excise had put the kibosh on Johnny’s parcel scam. He had smuggled hundreds of pounds of sticky black hash into the country and he had become an affluent man on the back of it, but what now? What good is a dealer with no product?

Initially Johnny scored from Buddha, but he never liked that arrangement. The prices were good and so were the deals, but he just didn’t like the idea of being beholden to Buddha. So when Edgar Allen came along Johnny switched to him. Edgar, also known as Poe – though never to his face, was a wealthy man who had been dealing for years and so had loads of contacts. Soon Johnny was once more turning over pounds of hash – until Poe turned him onto charley.

Cocaine was the up and coming thing for the cognoscenti – Johnny had a different class of customer they drove Porsches and ate in fancy restaurants. Johnny aspired to be just like them. He started to drink wine instead of beer; he even had books about it. He took to reading to improve his mind, he had always been the studious type; Stewart Melville’s College had trained him well.

Johnny had a way with the ladies, especially now that he could dress in the sharpest suits and throw a bit of money around. He liked money and he liked the things it could buy. He liked drugs, but not to the extent Buddha and Psycho Peter did, he’d never lose control, he always knew when to knock it on the head.

She danced for him. She liked to dance and he liked to watch her dance. Her moves were purely sexual, not everybody can dance that way. She was going through a pupation; the final emergence of her sex. She was only seventeen years old. She was pretty basic in that she didn’t play games. He liked it like that. He had enough complication in his life. She’d dance for him and they’d dance together. Then they’d snort some coke and fuck some more.

He was chopping up another line and trying to work out how he’d get rid of her. She was young, too young really, but he liked them like that. She was in the bathroom taking a shower. He snorted the cocaine and joined her there.

“I want to shave your pussy,” he said.

“What?”

“I want to shave your pussy,” he repeated.

“Why?”

“Because I like them like that,” he said, “totally naked like a little girl.”

“I don’t know...” She was towelling herself dry.

“Ever eat pussy?” he asked.

“No,” she replied.

“I want to watch you eat some pussy,” he said.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked.

“Doing what?”

“Acting all weird.”

“I’m not acting weird,” he said, “I’m just telling you what I want. If you don’t like it you can always leave.”

“Johnny...” she began with a whimper before she made for the bedroom and put her clothes on.

“Bastard!” she said as she slammed the door on the way out.

Some women had said that he feared commitment and that was true. He feared commitment to the wrong woman. When the right woman came along he’d know. He felt sure he’d know.

He had certain rules of engagement because it was all about power. All relationships have that dynamic; all relationships are a kind of war with one or the other in the dominant role. Johnny wasn’t prepared for that contest again, not yet.

Johnny had other worries on his mind: like the poachers on his turf who were selling cheap adulterated coke at cut-price rates.

“There he was – bold as brass doing his loaves and fishes with my fucking coke!” Johnny was obviously angry.

“I’m not responsible for what the punters do with the product after it leaves my hands Johnny and neither are you” replied Buddha.

“No?” answered Johnny. “I’m supplying you and you are supplying Angel and he is undercutting my dealers by selling lactose at fifty quid a gram. You see my problem here Buddha and there is one obvious solution.”

“If I cut off his supply he’ll just go to someone else” observed Buddha.

“But he won’t be selling my coke to my punters at a discount. The wee bastard steps on it three times over before he punts it on – it’s a fuckin disgrace.”

Buddha just smiled – he knew fine well that Johnny stepped on his gear because it was Buddha who taught him how. First, he boiled a woolen sock full of borax for an hour or two – then he dried the borax in a thin layer so that it wouldn’t clump up. Finally he ground it into a crystalline powder that looked exactly like cocaine, weighed the same as cocaine but had no odour or taste – it was the perfect cutting agent and Johnny used it on every batch.

“When he finds another supplier and comes into your clubs – what will you do then?” enquired Buddha.

“I’ll be hiring a couple of Peter’s boys to discourage him.”

Buddha winced at the word ‘discourage’. Peter often discouraged people by breaking their limbs. He was President of the local chapter of Hell’s Angels and had his hands in many pockets. Psycho Peter was not a man to be messed with. Hopefully, Angel would take a telling and leave Johnny’s turf alone. Buddha thought it a shame it had come to this; Angel and Johnny had once been the best of friends. He reflected that cocaine had brought on a change in Johnny – he had become hardnosed and ruthless. He wasn’t the sweet schoolboy Buddha had met ten years before, he was unrecognisable.

“Do we have an understanding Buddha?”

“I understand perfectly Johnny – no more charley for Angel.” Buddha felt he’d had the squeeze put on, and on reflection realised that he had. He would have a word with Angel next time they met – which was Johnny’s intention all along. He wanted to avoid these shenanigans if he could, but he’d sell no more of Johnny’s gear to Angel, after all he’d given his word.

Buddha’s attempts to pour oil on troubled waters met with typical Angelic obstinacy.

“Bastard! Who the fuck is he? It’s not like he owns the clubs!”

“As a matter of fact,” interjected Buddha:”He owns shares in at least two of them and has an exclusivity deal with the management of the others – no one else deals in those clubs and they collect a princely kick back from Johnny. It’s all buckshee Angel and you lack the resources to compete. The only reason you aren’t parked in Warriston cemetery is Johnny’s friendship for you.”

“Friendship!” exclaimed Angel “He tries to drive me out of business and calls it friendship!”

“There are other clubs,” soothed Buddha,”you can have your pick of them. From Johnny’s point of view you are encroaching on his franchise and he’d be a poor businessman to allow that wouldn’t he?”

“Businessman?” scoffed Angel “Is that what he is now? I remember him when he was selling quarters to his bum chums at school. He’s a jumped up public school boy – that’s what he is. I could take him with one hand behind my back.”

“I wouldn’t count on that Angel. Johnny has a harder backbone than you realise and that’s why I’m advising you to back off before someone gets hurt.”

“Are you on his side? – did he get you to talk to me? – to threaten me?” Angel was raving mad now and wild about the eyes. He stormed out of Buddha’s flat with a parting shot; “You can tell Johnny to fuck right off back to Morningside and you can join him there Buddha”.

When Buddha heard the news about Angel’s boyfriend Belle he wasn’t surprised. He’d been spied dealing sugary coke in one of Johnny’s clubs and taken a real bad hiding from two biker types. It seemed Johnny was determined to enforce his franchise to the bitter end if needs be. Buddha made a mental note to distance himself from Johnny who was obviously building an empire and when you are building an empire the last thing you need is friends.

.

Parcels from India

His sixth year at Stewart’s Melville College was merely a formality for Johnny. Most students were treading water until university or employment, but Johnny only showed up so that he could sell dope to his classmates. He had sorted out a job placement as copy boy at The Scotsman newspaper on North Bridge Street. He told his parents that he would be attending Edinburgh University after the summer break, but he had already decided to quit full time education and make his living as a drug dealer. In any event his summer job only lasted three weeks before he was sacked for tardiness; he had been late for work almost every morning and did not seem to care. He didn’t tell his parents, but allowed them to think that he was going to work each morning when in fact he was whiling away his days in the cafes, museums, art galleries and cinemas of Edinburgh.

Johnny thought his birth place magical. From Edinburgh Castle to the Port of Leith, the city was a hive of commercial and recreational activity. A million people visited Edinburgh every year drawn by the arts festivals and the beauty of the ancient metropolis. He loved the fact that so many of the half million population were originally from foreign shores, there was a real cosmopolitan vibe to the city.

On leaving home that summer Johnny got himself a flat above a grocers shop in Fountainbridge. The flat was selected from several alternatives because it offered a back entrance from Dunbar Street which made the flow of traffic to and from his flat less conspicuous.

Johnny had kept some of his customers from school and had, through word of mouth, acquired a few more. He dealt in quarters, halves and ounces – nothing smaller. He was shifting at least a nine bar a week to his regulars and was pulling in two hundred to two fifty weekly – depending on demand. Ideally he would have liked to sell more dope to fewer people so that he could buy more at a lower price and besides fewer customers meant less risk.

Johnny was doing okay but it was not until he met Mr Sharma that things really took off for him. Sharma owned a chain of properties and a couple grocer shops. He spent his days behind the counter of the busiest of these on Fountainbridge below Johnny’s flat. During the first few weeks in his new domicile Johnny built up quite a rapport with the old man. One day when Johnny, who was obviously wasted, visited the shop to buy some beer when Mr Sharma struck up a surprising conversation.

“You like smoke?” asked Sharma.

“Depends on what you mean,” said Johnny.

“You know what I mean - I mean hashish,” replied Sharma.

“Yes, I like it very much”

“How much you want?” said Sharma holding out a finger.

“A quarter.”

“A quarter finger?” Sharma was unimpressed.

“I see, no, the whole finger.” replied Johnny.

The old man disappeared for a moment and returned with around a quarter ounce of soft black Indian hash. This was no cheap repressed gold seal – this was the creamiest Manali. It was a sticky dark brown on the outside, but tore open to reveal a pungent sweet khaki green putty on the inside.

He had to get some more, if he could only get a decent supply of this high quality dope he could make himself a fortune. Soon Johnny and Sharma were to become the best of buddies.

The old man loved his scotch whisky and Johnny would bring him bottles of malt when he went to score. It first he could only buy in ounces because that is all Sharma’s visiting friends and relatives could smuggle through customs on their persons. Then they hit upon a scheme to smuggle pounds of the high grade hash into the country.

Sharma would let out one of his flats to a fictitious John Bullock. Parcels from India containing chopping boards and rolling pins full of sticky black hash would be sent to John Bullock at that address. Johnny would be there to receive the parcels on Mr Bullock’s behalf, but he’d leave the unopened parcel by the door for a month before he could reasonably assume that customs officers were not following it. Johnny would keep his flat in the meantime and deal from there. It seemed like a foolproof plan and things went well, for a time.

The demand for Johnny’s strong black hash was high and he couldn’t keep everyone supplied. So he decided to franchise the operation. He approached a few trusted customers and friends and laid out the basics of the ‘dead parcel’ scheme. They would all rent out rooms to fictitious characters just as he had. They would receive parcels but leave them unopened for one month. They would then bring the parcels to him and he’d pay them in dope or in cash for their trouble. Johnny was moving into the big time, now he was turning over pounds of hash in the place of ounces.

Soon Johnny’s parcel business had gone nationwide and he had dope arriving in Glasgow, Aberdeen, Manchester, London and a host of other places. It was difficult for him to keep pace with all those parcels, so he brought in a friend to give him a hand. Donald ‘Duck’ Dewar was one of his oldest friends and Johnny trusted him implicitly. He took care of the transfer of the parcels conveying them from one place to another. Often he would drive alone to the other end of the country to pick them up and ferry them back to Edinburgh.

It was on just such a job that he arrived in Euston Station in London looking for his contact Brian. He waited near the statue of Robert Stevenson – he was late and expected to see Brian waiting there for him. Brian was nowhere to be seen, but a stranger approached him and said;

“Donald?”

“Yes,”

“Brian couldn’t make it, so he sent me,” the stranger handed Donald a duffel bag.

“Is everything alright?” asked Donald, “is Brian okay?”

“He has the flu, that’s all. He said he’d call you in the next couple of days.”

Satisfied that everything was in order Donald drove home. It took him eight hours after which he was exhausted. He tossed the bag beneath his bed and crashed, falling asleep immediately. He was still in his clothes. He was dreaming that he was still driving along the motorway, looking for an off ramp when his car started to make an odd thumping sound. The sound got louder and louder until at last it woke him up. When he awaked he was surrounded by customs officers and policemen.

“Donald Michael Dewar you are charged with the possession of cannabis with the intent to supply. You do not have to say anything, but anything you do say may be used in evidence...”

There was eighteen pounds of hash and six thousand pounds in cash under Donald’s bed. He was in big trouble. There were other arrests that day; Her Majesty’s Customs and Excise had been following the parcels for weeks. The affair made the papers and was featured on the TV news. Johnny started to receive calls from distressed associates. They hadn’t been busted by mere cops, they had been busted by customs officers who tore their places apart and threatened them with smuggling and conspiracy charges.

Johnny had to pour oil over much troubled water in the next few days. He went to see each of the busted friends who could tie him to the parcels; he took Psycho Peter with him. He promised that he’d pay their legal fees and do anything he could to help them out if only they would keep his name out of it. The presence of Psycho Peter was an implicit threat, one that was never voiced, but was left hanging in the air.

Finally Johnny visited Donald who was out on police bail. This was a tricky situation, one that had to be handled with kid gloves. Psycho Peter was not at this meeting, he did not have to be, Donald knew Peter quite well and in a way he was in the room with them.

“I’m sorry for what happened Donald, but you should never have talked to a stranger in a situation like that. You should have walked away and phoned me,” said Johnny.

“It all seemed so normal. I made that trip a dozen times. I had no idea I was being followed,” replied Donald.

“You got careless,” said Johnny, “So did Brian, he opened the parcel to have a smoke and he named you Donald, they all named you.”

Donald’s face went ashen. He started to cry. Johnny sat down next to him and put his arm around him. Donald began to sob uncontrollably.

“You are going down no matter what happens Donald,” said Johnny, “but I’ll pay your legal fees and put ten grand in a bank account for you coming out. You’ll get six years max. I’ll keep an eye on your mother for you; I’ll see that she is safe and sound. You needn’t worry about her while you are away. You’ll have a job with me waiting for you too. All you have to do is keep schtum, don’t mention my name.”

So it was that Johnny walked away when his friends all got busted. Donald was branded a criminal mastermind by the prosecution and was given ten years by the judge. He nearly fainted when he heard the sentence. He scanned the courtroom looking for his friend, but Johnny was weathering the storm in Ibiza and did not return until all the trials were over. He had learned the final lesson on how to be a successful drug dealer – you have to be a total cunt sometimes in order to survive.

.