The Chair

    Light clicked on the wife's walls. Tumbling squares lit her pupils. Cooling marbled her tea, unnoticed on the sofa's arm. The television sat on a wooden stool, the only piece of furniture in the room apart from her seat. A chandelier lit three of five bulbs. The husband opened the door.
    'Moff,' he said.
    'Where you going?' she said.
    'See Bim in pub. Back later.'
    'When?'
    'Dunno. Bit. Shouldn't be that late.'
    The squares vanished and reappeared.
    'Alright, love. See you later.'
    'Bye.'
    He shut the door. She waited till she heard him leave the house, then stood in front of the television. She looked at the curtains, at their pattern of large green leaves on a white background. A strip of night wedged them open. She sat back down, picking up the tea and drawing its skin across its surface with her upper lip. She put the cup down and covered her face with a hand.


    Full moon struggled against hurricane black. Storm clouds fought for dominance, arms spiralling toward the light. Over crested stones, sea dumped itself in sand beyond the gurneys. Foam fingers cut the surf. The shape of the man's head glitched in the storm. The path between the prom-front and beach shimmered orange aside from a gap where he'd broken two wall-mounted sodium lights an hour earlier. He watched from above, crouching behind a wall next to a white observation rail, down towards a wider section of sea-front a hundred metres away. One couple had been and gone. Only the top of his face and head was visible, his body wrapped in a walking waterproof and his hands pocketed. He kept his eyes on the distant corner.
    Two men rounded the end of the prom. He stopped breathing, pupils knocking down in clicks as the figures moved towards him. Cloud ate the moon and mist appeared, haloing every light. He clenched fists in pockets as the men drifted forwards into the unlit space. At around twenty metres he heard them laughing, both drunk. Rain fell hard and the wind peaked, killing all sound and banishing the fog. The men stopped talking and put their heads down, shrieking. The man shrank and let them pass, looking up and behind him; the rain zoetroped, converging on security lights protecting a crazy golf compound set back from the beach. Hunched, hands in the puddles, he turned back to his watch then pulled up his hood. Weather bullied the beach. Distant moonlight galvanised the far-sea cloudscape. Wind flailed the sea, washed water round his fingers, shortened his breath and she looked up, grabbing at her fringe to clear her vision and looked back down under a scowl. The wind gusted against her mid-step, and she pushed hands into pockets, her foot hovering before landing on the path. The man crawled on all fours across the top of the observation deck then semi-stood in the mud of a downward slope. He slid to standing in a park, righted himself in the sheltered position and walked forwards, moving in the opposite direction to the woman. Ahead, a block of orange light signified an throughway in the beach huts. Out of the worst of the wind, he could hear water in his shoes. The rain intensified. He watched her pass, keeping himself hidden in the park. Once she'd disappeared from view, he adjusted his hood and walked into the orange.
    She was entering the blackest part of the path when he emerged, facing the sea, the silhouette of her Van de Graaf hair tearing the town's glow apart. He waited, watching her. He looked back towards the other end of the beach. He took a ball-peen hammer out of his coat and walked towards the woman's back.
    He closed twenty metres then hit her on the back of the head. She stepped forward and raised her arms, but remained on her feet. He hit her harder. She turned over on her right ankle and fell to the floor, the motion slinging her hair upwards and downwards like a whip. When he grabbed hold of her collar, he could feel her body shaking. Her shoes slapped against the path. Grunting, he knelt and gathered the two sides of her coat together, then pulled her over to show a pale impression of her face. He pushed down on her neck with one hand and hopped into a crouching position, putting his soles to the path. He turned the peen down, the hammer vibrating while he aimed, then hit her in the left eye. He hit her again, this time on the forehead. The peen sank in. Her body stopped twitching rapidly and began steadier jerks. The hammer resisted as he pulled it back. He tucked a foot under his backside to kneel on one leg, keeping hold of her throat with one hand. A rumbling sound left her mouth as her heels ticked on the tarmac. He pushed the hammer back into his coat and fastened the zip. Rain smashed them. He pulled back his hood, panting. Wind-drawn tears ran into the water on his face.
    He took his hand off her neck and she began to move with the spasms. Looping an arm underneath her back, he raised her shoulders. He put his left hand underneath her left armpit and raised her into a fireman's lift, then took steps forward along the path. He stopped and turned, then returned and bent, keeping her body level across his shoulders as he picked up her bag. It was soaked. He turned back to the town's lights and walked again. The sea appeared to be fitting. He turned off the path when he reached a brick rotunda to his left, which was brightly lit with sodium bulbs. Her booted legs bounced in front of his eyes. The inside space stank of urine. A broken pushchair stood in a puddle next to the exit doorway. The fabric surrounding the handles was torn and flapped in the wind. He moved passed the pushchair and out onto a muddy path. As soon as he was clear of the rotunda's yellow light, he stooped and turned the woman over his shoulder and onto her back on the grass. The rain eased. A white glow from the crazy golf enclosure lit her face.
    He stood over her, looking down. Two small patches of skin remained visible around her right eye; the rest of her face was covered in blood. Bone structure around her left eye had collapsed, the entire area reduced to a red mass. Her hair lay on the grass, soaked in blood. The man turned to look at the yellow space in the base of the rotunda, black liquid striping its centre. He turned back to the woman. He stood and looked at her. The rain picked up again. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a Stanley knife. He pushed the blade forward and unzipped his trousers. His hands were shaking. He pulled out his flaccid penis with his left hand, pulling at it as he sniffed up rainwater. He struggled to remain upright, then knelt in the mud. He put the knife down in an area of light and used both hands to turn the woman over to be face-down against the wet ground. Bubbles formed at the corner of her mouth. With his left hand on his penis, he lifted up the woman's knee-high skirt with his right hand. Her legs were bent, so he straightened them. He pushed her skirt up over her backside. She was wearing thick tights; he grabbed the elastic at the waist and pulled them down, then left his penis alone and used both hands to roll them down to knee level. The process took over a minute. Water welled between her thighs. The woman coughed. He pulled her knickers down, again using both hands, to show a stripe of faeces raised in peaks across her buttocks. He pushed her knees as wide as he was able against both the knickers and tights. He could see the woman's vaginal lips and a smudge of pubic hair below her anus. He picked up the Stanley knife in his right hand and cut the woman's left buttock, and then cut it again, deep enough to see the muscle beneath the skin and diarrhoea. The woman's hand flapped in the mud. He pushed the blade into her anus and cut down, joining it to her vagina. His penis became erect, and he began to masturbate with his left hand. The skin at the base of his penis rubbed against the zip of his trousers. While continuing to masturbate he stabbed repeatedly at the woman's groin, slashing the woman's vulva and anal area several dozen times. He stopped masturbating and sliced off one of the vaginal lips, then put it in his mouth and began to chew. He dropped the Stanley knife next to the woman's body and moved his right leg forward so his foot rested outside the woman's knee. He repeated the action with his left foot, assuming a squatting position over the woman's rear, then tipped forward and pushed his penis into the top of her rectum. He simultaneously ejaculated and spat the skin from his mouth.
    The man stood and made a mooing sound before putting his penis away. He bent to retrieve the knife. Mud dropped from his shoes as he walked onto a path that led onto the perimeter of the crazy golf compound and onwards to a public toilet across another park.


    'I'm not entirely sure that's the best option, Mark.'
    A waitress passed with two plates.
    Mark moved a fork forwards on the wooden table, then back to its original position. He sucked the insides of his cheeks as he watched a candle flame on the fork's curved surface.
    'Mark.'
    'What you haven't explained to me, though, is why. Surely this leaves us all at the best advantage.'
    'That depends on what you mean by "advantage," doesn't it?'
    Mark looked up at the woman, dodging her eyes and focusing on the Christmas tree. Various colours reflected off its plastic branches.
    'Are you ready to order?'
    The seated woman spread the fingers of her left hand and looked down at the table.
    'No, not quite,' said the man, indicating the empty chair. 'We'll wait.'