Chapter 4

1999

We cheered as the local professional football team ran onto the pitch. Our school team were the county champions and an exhibition match was being staged. Proceeds from ticket sales went into the school fund and to the charities that we supported. The crowd was so large that extra seating had been erected. I had some friends on the football team and they were thrilled to be playing in the match. Our local team might only be in the second division, but they were playing well and looked like they would be up for automatic promotion if they kept it up.

We were having a fantastic time. The pro's had let our team score first and then for a while they gave an exhibition of one touch football that had us cheering like mad, even though they kept our school team running fruitlessly up and down the field. Finally they set up their striker for a shot from well over twenty-five yards, which he sent screaming into the corner of the net. It was a beautiful goal and our 'keeper never had a chance. Everyone jumped up and shouted "GOAL!" and this must have been the straw that broke the camel's back.

Above the sound of the cheering crowd I could hear the shriek of tortured metal giving way. I looked to my left and the section of seats there was starting to tip forwards. The cheers of the crowd there turned to screams as the stand gave way. I saw a girl falling from the top of the stand and before I could form the conscious intention I had grabbed her flailing arm and prevented her falling further. She shrieked as the sudden stop yanked her shoulder. It was Angela! She looked up at me beseechingly. And then her expression changed to one of shock. I became aware of a terrible pain in my arm and I rushed to grab her with my other hand. As I was pulling her up onto my section, I looked down to see my arm bent at an unnatural angle. I was aware of someone helping me with Angela.

Angela was crying, holding her shoulder, but I got the impression that it wasn't her injured shoulder she was crying about.

"Mark, your arm! What have you done to your arm?"

I ignored her and looked to see if there was anyone else I could be helping. I did what I could, pulling people up and directing them as best I could. I was doing it with only one hand, as my right-arm seemed to be useless. People were crying for help, but there didn't seem to be anyway to get to them. Meanwhile there was a seemingly never-ending stream of people who needed immediate help climbing up from the melee. I reasoned that the more relatively unscathed people we could get out, the better it would be for the injured. It was all I could do anyway.

Susan and I encouraged an impromptu rescue-line to form, and even Angela put aside her crying for the moment and got stuck in. From time to time she would stare at me looking confused. Occasionally, she would suggest it was time to get my arm seen to. Each time I would shrug the suggestion aside. There were still people I could help, and as long as I was still standing, I was better off than he poor buggers at the bottom of the heap.

The arrival of burly men in heavy fluorescent jackets and helmets was unexpected as it was welcome. In no time at all, the impromptu rescue arrangements were supplemented and eventually replaced with ropes and ladders as the firemen efficiently did their job. A fireman in a white helmet made his way towards us.

"You've done a good job lad..." He broke off abruptly as he saw my arm. "Good grief son, that arm needs attention now."

He turned to Susan, "Get him to triage now. I don't know what he's done to that arm but it doesn't look good." She nodded and helped me down to the ground and we joined the crowds streaming away from the disaster area. Angela followed holding her shoulder once more and looking forlorn.

The pain had become so intense that I couldn't speak. The crowd surged around us and we were separated from Angela. Susan stayed with me and managed to shield me from the worst of the buffeting. Flashing blue lights attracted us and we stumbled towards them.

"We can only treat the seriously injured people miss, I'm sorry" A man wearing a fluorescent jacket with the word 'NURSE' on the back was talking to Susan. Susan looked at him irritably.

"Not for me. Him. He's hurt his arm, I think it's broken or something."

"Sorry, let's have a look." He turned to me and gently examined me, being careful not to cause any more pain than he had to. Even so it was all I could do not to faint. He spoke to both of us. "He's probably dislocated his elbow, that's why the arm is bent the way it is. There's swelling on the forearm. He may have fractured that, but we can't tell without an X-ray. I can't give you anything for the pain until a doctor has seen you. Sorry."

"Can I stay with him?"

"Do you know him?"

"Yes, we live next door to one another."

"Good you can start filling in this form. Just the name and address, that sort of thing." While they were talking he led us to a stretcher and got me lying on it. "I can't say when you'll be seen, but we'll get round to you." And then he left after first draping an orange card on a piece of string around my neck.

"Can you check to see if Angela's all right?"

"Yes, when you've been seen to. You know that you did it again don't you?"

I grunted too much in pain to say anything more. I could feel myself slipping away...

When I woke again the pain in my arm had been reduced, from the terrible burning and stabbing sensation that I'd fought to suppress, to a bearable if nagging ache. I could feel the stretcher swaying and I looked about me. I recognised the confines of an ambulance. Through the tinted glass I could see the reflected flash of blue light from passing shop windows. Occasionally the muted ones of the siren could be heard.

"What happened to my arm?" Susan started; my unexpected question brought her sightless gaze into focus on me.

"Mark, you're awake!"

"It would seem so, unless this is a particularly graphic nightmare?"

"No, if only it were."

"So, what happened to my arm, it seems much better now?"

"Oh this doctor turned up. She said that, since you were unconscious, she would 'reduce' the dislocation now and save you the joy of a general anæsthetic." Susan stopped speaking and grinned at me, "You'd have liked her, she was very pretty."

I weighed up the pros and cons of flirting with a pretty doctor, versus the agony of a dislocated elbow and decided that I had the better end of the deal. Besides there was always a chance that she would check up on me, to see how I was doing. I smiled to myself. The relief from the pain was making me a bit loopy; I must have been high on my own endorphins.

"What are you smiling about now?"

"A couple of things. First it's a hell of a lot of trouble just to meet a pretty woman and then I'm unconscious anyway and second it looks like Angela's mother won't be bothering me this time."

"So that's number ten."

"Please don't say anything, I'd rather just keep my head down." Susan nodded at my request, but I could see she was unhappy. "Look I'm happy that you know; as long as you know the truth, I can put up with all the rest." I slumped back onto the stretcher; the evening was taking its toll. What was I going to do now that she was at college? Oh well perhaps this was the last time, ten was a nice even number after all, wasn't it?

This was definitely no fun whatsoever.

The blackness surrounded me almost like a welcome friend. The pain in my arm faded quickly. I remembered that, after they'd X-rayed me to make certain that my arm wasn't broken, they'd let me go home.

When I got home, I discovered that Susan had 'phoned my mum to tell her what had happened, and so my time convalescing was spent in the lap of luxury. Susan had kept her promise and, though the papers were full of the exploits of a mystery youth who had apparently single-handedly - I winced at the pun - saved hundreds of people, she hadn't told them the real story. I'd teased her about the absurdity of the stories and hoped that, when she was a journalist, she wouldn't fall prey to the easy exaggeration.

As I mulled these thoughts and others, I realised that, for the first time, I wasn't restricted to my memories of the events in the bubbles, this time I'd remembered stuff that had happened after the scene. This was a new development and I strained to remember other things. I did remember that once I had almost recovered completely that Susan had 'rewarded' me with a glorious make out session while she 'babysat' for my mother as she went on a 'girl's night out'.

All at once the memories of that night were sharp and clear, the electric touch of her tongue on mine. The silken feel of her breasts under my fingers and the shock of her engorged nipple. The hiss of her breath, as I rolled her nipple in my fingers, and then the breathless explorations between her legs, the impossible softness of her vulva and the improbable heat and wetness between her lips. Finally, the alien feel of a hand, other than my own, caressing my hardness, making me feel sensations that I'd been unable to experience in years of solitary experience. I'd realised then that the tales were a mere reflection of reality. When someone else took you, the feelings were multiplied a thousand-fold. After we had finished, she'd looked at me lovingly and told me that we could never do that again. I'd given her my best puppy dog look and she'd laughed and the melancholy mood had broken.

Why couldn't I relive scenes like that, I whined to myself. Fuck being vomited over, beaten up, bruised shoulders and dislocated elbows, where was the hot 'n' heavy sex? After I'd had my little rant, I noticed that the blackness was definitely less all encompassing. I wondered about this, did it signal the end of something or was it just local variation. Then I could see the next bubble looming up ahead; as I accelerated towards it, I could definitely hear the sound of a voice, a female voice. I listened as hard as I could but I couldn't make out the words. And any further thought on the mystery of the voice was lost as I slipped through the surface of the next bubble.

2000

It was a quiet night, the moon was full and the air was balmy. Even though it was still early I'd felt the urge to say goodbye to my friends and walk home rather than take a bus. As I turned the corner I could see a figure slipping from Angela's bedroom and onto the garage roof below. I held my breath. Then the figure slipped from the shadows and the bright moonlight leant an eerie glow the figure of Angela as she turned to grasp the edge of the garage roof and hang at full stretch before dropping the last foot or so to the ground.

I stayed in the shadows between two trees and watched as she dusted herself down and took off the overalls that she had been wearing. Underneath was a dress so short it barely qualified as a tee shirt! Out of the pocket of the overalls came a pair of high heels to match the dress that she was wearing and then, with a last primp of her hair, she was off, walking quickly towards town.

Even though I knew she was not yet fifteen, she looked much older, and sexy as hell. I reflected that, had her mother not been almost psychotic about me, I'd have enjoyed very much living next door to Angela. I quelled the thoughts and slipped further back into the shadows as she passed in front of me. I needn't have bothered she was oblivious as she spoke quietly on her mobile 'phone.

"It's me, Jack. Angela, who did you think it was? At the usual place, yeah." She paused, breathless. "I did like you asked, I'm only wearing my dress and heels."

I could feel myself harden as her words penetrated to me. With a sinking feeling I knew that no good was going to come of this night. I resigned myself to fate and prepared to follow her. Jack was the name of her latest conquest. Unfortunately, unlike her previous boyfriends, he was older and less easily manipulated. In fact it was clear, from her state of undress for this late night rendezvous, that it was she who being influenced.

In her state of barely suppressed excitement it was a simple thing to follow her. At first I dodged from shadow to shadow, but then I realised that this sort of behaviour just made me look suspicious to any third parties, so I stopped and contented myself with walking slowly about thirty or forty yards behind her. At this point it was obvious where she was going anyway.

The Park.

Infamous for its dark woods and secluded corners, by day the park was the delight of children and dogs; by night it was a make-out spot par excellence. Dressed as she was, Angela was in danger. Though the main gates to the park were locked at sunset, the side gates never were. I watched with something approaching nausea as she fulfilled my expectation and walked through the gate and into the park. I waited for a short while and followed her through the gate.