Days 13-17
1,642 words in this post / 22,759 words total. Poor few days because of my birthday…
40. More of Samuel
The cold shoulder that Samuel had been getting from Sara all night was the last in a long line of frosty reactions he’d had from women. Three weeks earlier he’d been on a terrible date. He knew it was over when he realised he’d been alone at the table for a full twenty minutes; it was then the penny dropped that perhaps, just perhaps, she wasn’t still in the toilet.
It wasn’t that Samuel was an unpleasant person. In fact, he was liked by most people who met him; people thought of him as a nice guy. Jack certainly thought highly of him, at any rate. And he wasn’t unattractive, either. Jack was better-looking, but that didn’t take anything away from Samuel, who turned a few women’s heads in his own right. The problems for Samuel came when he was alone with women. The date that walked out on him wasn’t the first. And all of them—every one of those women with whom Samuel had spent time—cited the same reason for not wanting to see him again. He was boring. Not in the common sense; he had hobbies and he was even quite funny when he wanted to be. No, it was something more fundamental. It was as if, at his core, he wasn’t really there. The date who had disappeared having pretended to go to the toilet would later say to a friend that it was like being on a date with a shadow. Another described spending time with him as being like the sensation of not-being-in-the-world you get when extremely tired. It was as if he were present, but not really there.
Friends never got that impression. Jack, for instance, who had known Samuel for many years, would have struggled to believe that either of those women were describing Samuel in that way, as a shadow or anything like that. It was just on dates; just with women.
Sara would have found any man boring that night, because of the foul mood she was in, so that’s by the by.
Samuel couldn’t understand what his problem was with women. It was a pity no woman ever took the time to tell him how she felt in detail. All Samuel knew was that he would go out with them, and never see them again. He was twenty-two years old, but little more than a virgin.
It was set to be quite an extraordinary night for Samuel.
41. More of Jack
Jack’s experience with women was completely different to Samuel’s. He had slept with a lot of women. He hadn’t kept count, but the reality was it tallied well over a hundred. His problem wasn’t that he couldn’t have sex, but that he was rarely fulfilled by sex. He described the problem to Samuel one night, drunkenly. He said: “It’s like those strong man fairground games. You know, the ones where you have to hit the base with a giant hammer, and make the thing fly up to ring the bell? Well, it’s like for me, most of the time, the bell doesn’t ring…” Samuel laughed at this because to him it was pretty funny, a joke. It wasn’t a joke to Jack though. Not at all.
And so, disappointed as he was, Jack naturally went from woman to woman trying to find the one. So far, he hadn’t. The only people who he could really get close to were his friends, particularly Samuel. He liked being out, just having a few drinks, with no stress of what might happen later. He liked his life being simple.
The night when he and Samuel met the Barrett sisters, however, he found himself actually chasing Camille—a rarity. Usually, it was the other way round. And once Sara had left he thought, “Well, that’s that then,” expecting Camille to follow suit. But she didn’t. Jack, for all his sexual experience, had never had a threesome. The idea didn’t really appeal, but when Camille insisted they all go back together he was so shocked he agreed.
It was set to be quite an extraordinary night for Jack.
42. What Happened with Jack and Samuel: One Version of Events
Camille leant over to Jack, and kissed him lightly on the cheek. Meanwhile, she reached out for Samuel, eventually finding his hand and gripping it tightly. “Now what?” she asked them both.
Jack looked at Samuel and Samuel at Jack, both had their eyebrows raised slightly, suggesting, “If you will, I will…”
A few minutes later, both men were standing naked in front of Camille, who, in turn, was naked on the sofa. She didn’t move. Samuel shuffled awkwardly from foot to foot; but Jack, the more experienced and confident of the two was calm. “Well?” he asked.
Camille chuckled. “I don’t think so,” she said.
“Excuse me?”
“No, I mean… No offence but… Well.. I think it would be pretty, you know… awful,” Camille said, casually dressing herself.
“Awful?” repeated both men.
“Yeah… You know… Awful. Not good.” By now, she was completely clothed. The two men weren’t. She looked at them carefully: she knew this would be the picture she would later draw in her diary. “Well,” she said. “I’ll see you around, maybe? Bye!”
Jack and Samuel were both very drunk. Had it not been for that fact, and the fact they were both standing in the front room, sharing the same humiliation, what followed may not have ever happened.
It turned out Jack and Samuel had a desire to be closer than either of them had previously realised.
Neither Camille nor Sara ever saw or heard from Jack or Samuel again. It took Jack a lot longer to accept the sudden change in lifestyle that it did Samuel, who with retrospect could say that he secretly had known how he felt all along. Jack took a little more persuading, but the constant ringing of that strongman bell eventually convinced him.
A year to the day later, the couple had a small civil ceremony, and became, in the eyes of the law, a partnership. They took a honeymoon in Seville and loved it out there. After a fairly lengthy sangria-fuelled discussion, they both agreed they would quit their jobs the next morning, which they did. Jack owned the flat in London, which he sold through an estate agent. He didn’t need to go back to England at all. The money they got was worth a lot in Seville. They bought a beautiful villa, learnt Spanish and opened a small shop selling humorous t-shirts to the locals.
The became well liked in the community and lived long, relaxed lives. They died on the same day. They were very old and very happy.
Good for Jack and Samuel!
42. What Happened with Jack and Samuel: Another Version of Events
Camille leant over to Jack, and kissed him lightly on the cheek. Meanwhile, she reached out for Samuel, eventually finding his hand and gripping it tightly. “Now what?” she asked them both.
Jack looked at Samuel and Samuel at Jack, both had their eyebrows raised slightly, suggesting, “If you will, I will…”
A few minutes later, both men were standing naked in front of Camille, who, in turn, was naked on the sofa. She didn’t move. Samuel shuffled awkwardly from foot to foot; but Jack, the more experienced and confident of the two was calm. “Well?” he asked.
Camille chuckled. “I don’t think so,” she said.
“Excuse me?”
“No, I mean… No offence but… Well.. I think it would be pretty, you know… awful,” Camille said, casually dressing herself.
“Awful?” repeated both men.
“Yeah… You know… Awful. Not good.” By now she was completely clothed. The two men weren’t. She looked at them carefully: she knew this would be the picture she would later draw in her diary. “Well,” she said. “I’ll see you around, maybe? Bye!”
Jack and Samuel were both very drunk. Had it not been for that fact, and the fact they were both standing in the front room, sharing the same humiliation, what followed may not have ever happened.
“What the fuck is your problem?” Jack yelled at Samuel.
“What do you mean?” Samuel yelled back.
“You’re pathetic… It’s there on a plate for us, and you go and screw it up.”
Samuel grabbed his clothes and stormed out, slamming the door behind him
Once the dust had settled, Jack tried to contact Samuel, but his attempts failed. He phoned, he went round to the house, he even phoned Samuel’s work. Nobody had heard from him; he’d simply disappeared. But Jack couldn’t accept it. He couldn’t accept that his friend had gone, that the friendship was over. He contacted the authorities, Samuel’s family, friends, co-workers, acquaintances, everyone he could think of. No-one knew where Samuel was. Everyone was concerned, but no-one was as concerned as Jack. He became obsessed.
Three months to the day later, the Jack took an overdose of anti-depressants, sleeping pills, painkillers, even allergy pills—in other words, everything he could get his hands on. He had become so withdrawn from the world and so distant from the people around him that his body wasn’t found quickly. In fact, it was three opportunistic burglars who discovered the corpse. The burglars stole the TV, the DVD player and the computer, among other things. As a gesture of goodwill, the ringleader—a young lad in a navy sweater—called an ambulance anonymously. “Some bloke’s dead,” he said. “Archibald Road.”
Coincidentally, that boy in the navy sweater was Jim’s mugger. He was also Samuel’s killer. Small world! It is worth mentioning that Samuel’s body was never found. The muggers had done a good job of disposing of it, that’s for sure.
Poor Jack! Poor Samuel!
