Ventriloquists

‘It’s just a story, though,’ Rosie said.

‘You can die of stories,’ Spofford said.

John Crowley,
Dæmonomania

You have to think yourself worth saving before

you get angry at someone who wishes to kill you.

Tom Wolfe,
I Am Charlotte Simmons

First Montag Press E-Book and Paperback Original Edition August 2014

Copyright © 2014 by David Mathew

As the writer and creator of this story,
David Mathew
asserts the right to be identified as the author of this book.

All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law. However, The physical paper book may, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, or hired out without the publisher’s prior consent.

Montag Press
ISBN: 978-1-940233-10-9

Cover art ©
2014
Daniel Serra

Jacket design, layout, & e-book © 2014 Rick Febré

Author photo © 2014 Jonathan Jewell

Montag Press Team:

Project Editor – Charlie Franco

Managing Director – Charlie Franco

A Montag Press Book

www.montagpress.com

Montag Press

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Montag Press, the burning book with the hatchet cover, the skewed word mark and the portrayal of the long-suffering fireman mascot are trademarks of Montag Press.

Printed & Digitally Originated in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s vivid and sometimes disturbing imagination or are used fictitiously without any regards with possible parallel realities. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

V
E
NTRILOQUISTS

BY DAVID MATHEW

contents

Grey Voices

Finders Keepers

The Moron and the Nurse’s Dog

Housewarming

Salty
Entr’acte

Show and Tell

Party Animals

Lesser Characters

Toenail Island

Hospital Patience

Relationship Problems

Whipping Boy

Night Pursuit

Unpatrolled Borders

Wish Fulfilment Vignettes

Wild Nature

Thought for Food

Confessions and Accusations

Delivery

Goodbye to the Carnivores

Property Viewings

The Edlesborough House

Reunion

Number 77 (and the Camp)

Cabin in the Woods

The Shredding of Sleep

Troubled Trances

Homes of Wherefore

Faithful Following

The Canines of Strangers

Descent

An Absence of Light

Guided Tour of the Atrocities

The Village Idiots

Beneath a Storm of Voices

Aftermath

Benny Hill

Stand-Offs

The Intra-Rationalist

Children of the Overlap

Group Activity

Scenes from the Vivaria

Skull Rendezvous

The Can-Do Spirit

Grey Voices

WHEN THE LARGE MAN HUFFED
and waddled his way up the slope to the station platform, Nero kept his eye on the cross-footed gait and hoped that the man wouldn’t take the next bench along. But the man did. And when the large man took the next bench along, he deposited at his feet a laptop case, the contents of which clinked together to join the sounds of the man’s sighing heavy breathing.

Wine bottles,
Nero decided.
Couple of drinks on his way home. Must’ve been at the conference centre. Late one.

Nero’s girl, Jess, was not bothered about the man’s arrival: she continued to kiss her man’s neck as though nothing had changed – as though they were still the only two people in the sickly beige illumination on this rural platform. Nero, on the other hand, was sorely disappointed: he had intended to spider his fingers up Jess’s short purple skirt; now
that
was out of the question, wasn’t it? Although his erection still drummed in his boxers, the pulse was not so insistent – the tune was difficult to hear. And to think, this might have really
gone
somewhere.

Still might,
Nero told himself. ‘Last train’s not for another half hour, mate,’ he called over to the large man. But where else could the man wait? Nettle (spiky by name and by nature: old joke) was in the middle – dumped deep in the heart – of nowhere. A village-worth of overpriced houses; The Rook public house; the newsagent and general convenience shop; the conference centre… Like it or lump it, thought Nero, the man had a right to travel.

‘Thanks. Bit quiet out here.’

Indeed, the loudest sounds were Jess’s kisses, planted peck-peck-peck on Nero’s face. Deciding not to let the moment dwindle (in a spirit of waste not want not), Nero returned his full attention to his girl. Their faces caught and held, tongues tapping. Nero anchored one heavily jewelled hand in the sea of flesh at Jess’s hip.

There we are.
Nero felt some of the force return to his groin. Might be a limit to how far they could go, but this was still nice.
Yeah, this’ll do. Maybe under the jumper a bit, not as far up as the bra, but feel the skin on her side…

A crack and a click from the other bench.

Guy’s opening a bottle. Twist top, not a cork. Prepared. Quite thirsty myself.

Nero turned his face away from Jess, as much for a breather as out of any genuin desire to confirm his deductions. What he saw surprised him. The fat man was staring straight at them!
Audacious innit!
Swimming up from his erection, via his belly, to his well-moistened face: a solid clot of embarrassment. It was Nero who turned away, but not for long. The large man was still staring when Nero tuned back in: staring and raising his bottle of wine to his lips.

White wine: girl’s drink,
was Nero’s gobbet of constructive criticism. He didn’t like the man’s gaze; he was feeling fidgety – ferrety.
Do you need a picture for your mobile, knobcheese?
This Nero was on the cusp of posing, when the voyeur, prompted it seemed by the lovers’ inactivity (maybe drunk, too), threw in:

‘Don’t stop on my account, whatever you do.’

Nero’s mouth set, gripped in a temporary oblong of inactive rage; his lips hardened as Troy jellied, Troy fell (a favoured expression of Nero’s). When words came back to speak, seconds later, they scratched with obnoxious loathing.

‘You some kind of perv, summing, mate?’

The fat man tipped the neck of the bottle in the direction of Nero and Jess. ‘Indeed I am! Fire away!’

‘Let him look, I don’t care,’ Jess giggled.

‘I don’t do public,’ Nero stated with priggish conclusivity – a plosive click, not altogether unlike that of the wine bottle being opened, on the final disdainful consonant.

‘Oh but you do,’ said the fat man. ‘That’s
precisely
what you do. What’s more, I’ll pay you for the show.’

It was the word
pay
that did it: planted an itch on Nero’s disgust. ‘Do what, mate?’

‘You heard. Pay you.’ Eyes pinched, eyes squinty:
rat’s eyes,
thought Nero. ‘Twenty quid if you kneel down and suck his cock. More if you do more, so to speak.’

‘You filthy bell-end,’ said Nero.

‘Cash?’ asked Jess.

‘Yes, cash. I can spend up to a hundred and forty.’

‘What, on expenses?’ Nero replied, bitter.

‘No, in cashflow. In my wallet of calfskin. Right now. I only watch. You do what comes naturally, no holds barred.’

‘I could smack you for the very suggestion.’

‘You could. Something tells me you won’t.’ The fat man took a pull on the bottle. ‘What’s in it for you to hit an old man with a diabetes problem?’

‘What’s in it for you to watch teenagers at it?’

‘Gratification, of course, by proxy. Do we have a deal?’

It was Jess who answered. She said, ‘Fifty.’

‘Thirty. And that’s my final offer, I’m afraid.’

Jess turn into Nero’s uncomprehending glare. ‘I’d blow you for thirty,’ she offered.

‘I think you’re missing the point, girl.’

‘Maybe. But we can get lashed on thirty. And sides,’ she added slyly, lowering her voice, ‘I was gonna to do it anyway.’

‘Here?’

‘Yeah, why not? No one around, warm evening…’

‘Someone around now.’

‘But not
then.
Show us the cash, mate,’ she said. ‘Not thy’m suspicious or nuffing.’

‘Of course. Would you like another drink, by the way? I have ample.’

‘What do you mean, another?’

‘You’ve had a few if I’m not mistaken, at The Rook no doubt. A short or two in the legally acceptable pint of Diet Coke. Something of that water anyway. Honest offer.’ Again, the fat man tipped the bottle in their general direction. With his other hand he plucked the calfskin wallet from his inside jacket pocket. Expertly, with nimble dexterity, he fished two bills free of the concertinaed leather. ‘Thirty for a dirty,’ he announced.

After salmon-leaping free of Nero’s halfhearted embrace, Jess plucked the money from the fat man’s pudgy hand. Without a word she bloused it: deep in the brassiere.

‘
Show must go on,’ she announced. ‘You up for this, Rambo?’

‘...Not sure.’

‘
Well
get
sure. We won’t be fifteen forever. Seize the day all that.’

‘
You’re
in a funny mood,’ Nero observed.

‘Fifteen!’ the fat man noted.

Gymnastically Jess dropped to her bare knees. She did not check for other people on the platform – she knew there was no one else present. No cameras either.
Tricky work, cameras,
Nero reflected. To hell with it.
Show on the road,
fiddling the fiddle free. Jess absorbed what he revealed – seemed to
absorb
him into her nasal passages, into her sinuses, into her
brain.

Done this before. Fair enough, probably Jonno. She likes a challenge. Lumpy Goth… what’s in it for this twat? Concentrate – train lines. Tongue on me glans – she can’t reach the balls. Best bit.

A sound of shuffling. The voyeur was standing up.
If he takes out his wand, I’ll what? Voice my protest? Behave yourself. Don’t be an infant. Paid for a wank innit. Bound to. Just don’t look. Up to him dirty cunt. Get what you pay for…

As the man approached – a matter of gentle strides – Nero focussed on the tracks, twisting them in his mind into sigmoidal shapes, into knots.
Tying up the line. Worse if another bloke sees the fall of Troy. Silly, really, given the circos.

The fat man used what remained of his bottle as weight, as heft, for the club that he bounced off Jess’s skull. Wine splashed; Jess yelped. Nero’s thigh muscles twanged with his velocity off the seat. But he hadn’t been paying attention; he hadn’t seen that the fat man carried something other than wine. A canister.

The contents were sprayed into Nero’s face.

Getting darker. Too fast. Does what it says on the tin…

What had he inhaled?

‘Train’s coming,’ said Nero as he fell over, chuckling. ‘Lucky train.’

His voice to his own ears grew grey.