Inseparable Bond by David Poulter Page A

dragging him away from the
disturbance and popped pills into his mouth to calm him down.
    John sat in
his favourite chair watching television but his thoughts were
firmly on a weekend with his sister than on the football match on
television. Young Peter Scott was in the chair opposite, scratching
his genitals through his grey tracksuit trousers he always wore,
with his stinking feet resting on a footstool.
    Old Tommy was
also dressed in his usual attire, his open dressing gown heavily
stained on the lapels with the remnants of his evening meal and his
previous breakfast where strands of yellow egg-yolk had congealed
against the dark blue frayed material.
    The annoyance
of Tommy loudly munching a packet of crisps, the smell of Scott’s
feet drifting across the room and the television on full volume for
the benefit of some deaf residents proved too much for John. He
left and went to his bedroom.
    He undressed
slowly, first removing his shoes and putting the shoehorns inside
them, removed his jacket and hanging it on a hanger behind the
door, then his shirt and trousers, carefully folding them and
placing them in the chair, doing everything by feel and habit,
unhurriedly tending to the creases in his trousers. He finally
removed his long white underpants and lay on his bed wearing only
his socks. He reached over to the small dressing table by the sink,
opened the bottom drawer and shuffled around the few clothes;
picked out a pair of panties he had stolen from the staff
locker-room at work and sniffed them while he masturbated.
    It was
Wednesday, John’s only day off from work. He woke at six as he
always did. His body being programmed to twelve years of prison
routine he found impossible to alter.
    He ate
breakfast undisturbed as he watched the rain cascade down the
window, unsure about braving the weather or staying indoors with
some of the others.
    The heavy rain
turned to drizzle so he decided to spend the morning in the town.
He needed some clothes and was now in a financial position to buy
them.
    He called into
the small shop halfway down the hill, a Pakistani grocers which
smelt of herbs and incense as you approached it from the
street.
    Mahul was the
owner along with his wife; they were a quiet couple that always
appeared happy and satisfied with their modest living and
un-judging attitude, even with the constant abuse they received
from the young gangs that hung around.
    He walked down
the aisle looking for toothpaste when a man followed him into the
shop and pushed his way through to look at the same shelf. As he
reached for the tube, the man did also and his hand fell on Johns
and stayed there. John looked at him, his eyes holding him
steadily, His hand moved on Johns, like an embrace. He found it
unseemly, while at the same time it stirred something inside him.
He cleared his throat and walked to the till counter.
    He was much
younger than John, by about twenty years. He was dressed in blue
jeans and a short white raincoat. John was a little flustered but
the man seemed controlled as if this open flirtation was natural to
him.
    There was
nothing untoward and no one noticed and as John paid Mahul for his
purchase, the man came behind him and calmly suggested they meet in
the alley behind the shop.
    John did not
answer but loitered outside the shop for the man to appear.
    The man came
out opening a bag of sweets and walked behind the shop into the
back alley. John kept a safe distance behind him and followed him
into the back yard of a disused boarded-up house.
    As John walked
through the tall open gate, it closed behind him by the man who was
leaning against the corner of the wall. He slowly walked over to
John and gently placed his hand on his crotch. John looked down as
he slowly un-zipped his fastener and placed his hand inside his
pants.
    He watched the
man as he slowly bent down while revealing John’s penis to perform
oral sex. He pushed John against the wall, loosening his trousers,
which fell to his ankles.