Chapter 9: If someone could give you a pill

By the time Wendy came home my batteries were thoroughly recharged and we headed straight upstairs for the usual mindblowing fuck. Later on, when she finally made it to the front room, she looked dismayed at the horrible mark on the carpet. (I had tried to do something about it before she came back, but with only limited success.) I told her I had spilt something.

"What on earth was it?" she asked.

I decided to try the power of FUCK once more. "Don't worry about it," I said casually.

"OK," she smiled contentedly, and cheerfully headed to the kitchen to cook and clean. Part of me missed the old forthright and obstinate Wendy, but I had to admit the new version had advantages. And there seemed no doubt which Wendy was happier, a point I put to the test over dinner. I reminded her of our conversation on Friday night, the one about how her outlook had changed.

"How would you feel," I asked, "if someone could give you a pill that would make you go back to the way you were before?"

"Ugh," she shuddered. "I'd throw it in his face. I was so bloody miserable then."

The following day, Monday, was Albert's funeral. I expected it to be a grim affair and so it was. It revealed the sad but perhaps unsurprising truth that Albert had indeed been a man without friends. Mr Lucas the solicitor put in an appearance but apart from him I was the only mourner unconnected with Albert's employer. Even my precious Wendy let me down. She had booked the day off but on Friday one of her colleagues had kindly gone sick and left her with some emergency to cope with (she worked at the head office of a big retailer). So I was left to make small talk with a smattering of Albert's scientific colleagues and a couple of management types.

We kept the formalities brief. Someone from the company made a short speech about Albert's brilliance and unwavering dedication to scientific truth; then I followed with some suitably lapidary remarks recalling his disdain for wealth and fame and praising his single-minded commitment to his goal in life (fortunately no one asked me to specify what this might have been). The whole ceremony was uncompromisingly secular. Albert had never said anything about religion, but somehow we all knew he would have wanted God kept out of it.

The company had laid on a few refreshments afterwards in one of its meeting-rooms (the least it could do, I thought, after all the money it had made). Cautiously, I took the opportunity to sound one or two of the scientists to see whether Albert might have taken any of them into his confidence about his greatest project. I could only drop oblique hints, of course, but they would have resonated with anyone with the least inkling of Albert's schemes. But I got nothing but blank looks. It was clear that Albert, true to form, had kept his work to himself. So as soon as I decently could I left the rest of them to exchange company gossip and headed for home.

The truth is I was dying for a shag. My need for sexual release was growing more frequent. Wendy and I had fucked overnight and first thing, which of course was wholly routine by now, and I had slipped off to the gents twice at the crematorium and once at the wake, but I could feel the sap rising afresh. And this time, I thought happily, it would not be another of these mechanical wanks; a real woman awaited me. Wendy had promised that morning that after sorting out her work crisis she would leave at lunchtime and be waiting when I got home. And we both knew what that meant.

It was half past three when I returned home, complete with raging stiffy, so where was Wendy? Glumly I went upstairs to do the necessary by myself. As I got undressed it occurred to me to check for messages on the bedside phone.

I heard Wendy's voice. "James, darling, I'm so sorry. Those bloody women in accounts have completely bitched last quarter's sales figures. It'll take all day to sort out. You'll have to manage without me I'm afraid. Expect me about seven or eight. 'Bye, darling." The angry tone and intemperate language, both untypical of her, spoke of her frustration.

My own frustration, meanwhile, was projecting angrily in front of me demanding relief. I lay on the bed and contemplated it as it reached skywards. I had (if I may set modesty aside for a moment) never been a small man; but what stood before me now was beyond all normal experience. A slowly deepening red in colour, it must have been at least thirteen inches long. The girth, too, had massively increased. I experimentally put my wrist alongside it for comparison; the wrist, I could see, still had the advantage, but the cock was not that far behind. As even more blood engorged it, the skin, already pulled far back from the glistening red helmet, became painfully tight. My need had become desperate. I reached out a hand to apply the necessary stimulation.

At that moment a sudden inspiration flashed across my mind. Kylie! Of course! By now she was quite legitimately out of school. I grabbed the phone and stabbed into it the cellphone number I had presciently got from her yesterday. She answered promptly. "Kylie —" I began.