Metamorphosis: A Collection of Stories

By Propertius Press

In this collection, stories chronicle changes, where by a lesson, a journey, discoveries, the confluence of ideas, an accident or some other more esoteric circumstances, we become more attuned to the connections - and distances - between the inner and outer worlds. We grow wings, take flight, and start all over again. More than a coming-of-age or life crisis, it might be said each of these stories begins with a seed and opens into flower. Sometimes the flower could be said to continue the cycle back into the earth, but this is never for naught. Something always remains as a result of this evolutionary transmogrification that gives the reader something to consider, that perhaps wouldn’t have happened otherwise.

The first short story collection to be brought forward by Propertius Press, Metamorphosis showcases the efforts of our most innovative new authors, in stories representing the best and brightest of over 250 original submissions. These finalists are haunting, thought-provoking tales that will bring you into worlds that may feel strangely familiar, reflecting oddities, triumphs, and even laughter. The stories take you to places you'll want to share and revisit as you experience, perhaps, your own metamorphosis of existence, feelings, or even philosophy. We're never really too old, too jaded, or too exhausted by life to grow wings, take flight, and start all over again.

An old woman boiling laundry in her yard on a remote mountain top suddenly sees a rabbit and thinks dinner is on the way. A young student dealing with the aftermath of rape lashes out, opening a deeper wound. A poet, in despair over making a living, finds the keys to another world – whether real or imagined. A couple of brothers paint remarkable frescoes on the ceiling of a church. The individuals who make up the stories in this collection encounter the unexpected, and don’t necessarily live to tell about it. Working around the theme of life-changing experiences, these tales are the culmination of over three years' work.

We recommend you take them in slowly, one at a time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Propertius Press
• Release date: Jul 21, 2019
• ISBN: 9781370264070

Propertius Press

Provocative, engaging literature for the discerning reader who enjoys discourse. These are books you'll talk about, share, and read multiple times. Propertius prints for the ages... for the love of books.

Book preview

Introduction to the Anthology

Metamorphosis: noun

1. Biology. a profound change in form from one stage to the next in the life history of an organism, as from the caterpillar to the pupa and from the pupa to the adult butterfly.

2. a complete change of form, structure, or substance, as transformation by magic or witchcraft.

3. any complete change in appearance, character, circumstances, etc.

4. a form resulting from any such change.

5. Pathology.

a. a type of alteration or degeneration in which tissues are changed: fatty metamorphosis of the liver.

b. the resultant form.

6. Botany. the structural or functional modification of a plant organ or structure during its development.

Source: Dictionary.com

Even in the dictionary, metamorphosis takes many forms; there are the inner alterations as well as the externally apparent. The act itself of writing stories is a metamorphosis – from the smattering of words on a page, something meaningful awakens and is born. Chronicling changes are often of supreme interest to writers, we tease them, pick them apart, take them into ourselves, undeniably drawn to them, devouring like bees besotted with honey. We are like Gregor Samsa when he awoke the next morning, reviewing what we’ve written and enumerating each particle of words and phrases for meaning, both hidden and unmistakable.

In this collection, the stories chronicle deep changes in at least one of the characters, where by a lesson, a journey, discoveries, the confluence of ideas, an accident or some other more esoteric circumstances, the central character becomes more attuned to the inner and outer worlds than they were at the beginning. More than a coming-of-age or life crisis, it might be said each of these stories begins with a seed and opens into flower. Sometimes the flower could be said to continue the cycle back into the earth, but this is never for naught. Something always remains as a result of this evolutionary transmogrification that gives the reader something to consider, that perhaps wouldn’t have happened otherwise.

HOW TO BE A BAD BOY IN FOUR EASY STEPS

Paul Mills

Step One

Show her how much you don't care

Four of us, sitting in Netty's back garden. Asif flicking through Instagram on his mobile, Manda staring at Netty's guinea pig, me staring at Manda's legs, and Netty writing porn on her laptop. If we're being really, brutally honest here, it could not be called a productive revision session.

I actually really, really want to be revising. This is a really important exam, and I've always been one of the best in my year, especially at maths. But I also really really want to lose my virginity to Manda. I don't know where it came from, but these last few weeks, I have been consumed by this overriding need to sleep with her. Perhaps even Netty as well, (Miss Davey always tells us we should aim high, after all.)

Netty's hot, but Manda's hot as.

And if you want to attract girls like this, you got to be a Bad Boy (capital letters important there!) Bad Boys don't care about exams. Bad Boys couldn't give a toss about their education or anything else. Bad Boys would rather sit around doing sod all than do something worthwhile, like revising.

Bad Boys sound a bit dickish, now I think about it.

But that's not the point. The point is I can picture Netty and Manda (especially Manda) getting with a Bad Boy, but never with a Good Boy, which let's face it, is what I've always been. So while I'm around them I don't play chess, or read science magazines, because those are Good Boy activities. I don't listen to Vivaldi or Radio 4. I don't mention that I'm a member of the Young Lewes Singers or the British Hedgehog Preservation Society. And I certainly don't even touch any of the maths textbooks strewn around the lawn - largely for the benefit of Netty's mother, who peers out at us occasionally – however desperate I am to cram for the exam. They must never know that I care about my future.

So far though, I've made about as much progress with my seduction of Manda as I have with revision. I spent hours studying that website, to the point where I thought I was an expert, yet everything I've said to her to engage her and Demonstrate Worth (the website talks a lot about Demonstrating Worth; it's the first and most important step) has met with blank uninterest. I've even used some of the lines the website recommends. Nothing. They barely got a reaction. Right now she has her habitual look of... I guess you'd call it expectant boredom. As if she expects the world to entertain her, and she wants the world to know that so far, it's doing a pretty poor job of it.

At the moment, this look is directed towards Guinea, (which you have to admit is a brilliant name for a guinea pig!) Guinea doesn't seem to mind. Barely even seems to notice.

Or maybe on some level he does notice, because he suddenly looks up at Manda and then makes a run for her bare foot, (her sexy, coquettish bare foot!) She jerks it out of his way. It's not that she has any problem with animals or anything, it's just that Guinea is something of a pervert. I would guess he thinks about sex roughly as often as I do, but not having any female guinea pig companions, he tries it on with anything that's even vaguely guinea-pig shaped. I've had to pull him off my shoe twice this afternoon already, and Netty says the other day she caught him raping a brick!

Guinea seems pretty determined, and Manda has to actually get up and scarper around the garden to escape his attentions.

Guinea seems slightly nonplussed, but then loses interest and starts nibbling her maths book instead.

Manda settles down beside me. I smile at Guinea. While Manda was standing up, rather hurriedly and clumsily, I caught a glimpse of her knickers. They're pink. Thanks, Guinea.

It occurs to me that Manda and me are the only ones not doing anything. I should say something. However Bad I am, I'm never going to seduce her if I don't actually engage her. (It's a difficult balancing act though. The website says you're not supposed to let her know you're interested in her. If you do that, she's in control. If she thinks you're not interested, you've got a much better chance.)

One of the best ways of Demonstrating Worth is to be funny. Maybe I could jokingly refer to Guinea's attempt to get with her foot. 'Do animals often try it on with you?' Something like that. Is that funny? Or is that just lame? Maybe I should be more explicit. 'Do you often get animals trying to have sex with you?' Yeah, that works. And it's good to mention sex. The website said sexual banter was a great way to initiate proceedings, and you could escalate it and escalate it to the point where you're all but propositioning your Target. (Although that bit came after Isolating your Target, and I haven't got close to doing that yet. Is it okay to do the sexual banter thing before I've Isolated my Target? Difficult to know. I'm certainly not going to proposition her in front of Netty and Asif, am I?)

Then, just as I'm working up the courage to say it, Asif indicates Guinea, and says: 'Is he not your type?' Netty sniggers.

Dammit, dammit, dammit!

Manda seems unamused, and pretends not to have heard. Instead she looks to Netty. 'Read another bit,' she says.

Netty grins. She's one of the youngest girls in our year, only had her fifteenth birthday a month or so ago, and she looks incredibly innocent, especially since she had braces put in to straighten her teeth. But the stuff she writes is so hard core they'd never be allowed to publish it, and if any of the teachers read it she'd probably be excluded from school.

'My ears detected a click,' Netty reads. 'And I wheeled around to see him stepping away from the door, smirking. Why have you locked us in? I gasp, my eyes widening.' 'Why do you think?' he sneers, his thick lips curling up into a dangerous grin.'

The 'He' in this story is Bad Boy Drogo, a character so bad, he even has the words Bad Boy in his name! The previous bit Netty read us described him physically, and painted such a vivid picture of his rippling muscles, and his glistening tattoos, it could have been designed to make Asif and me insecure about our own puny bodies.

'He put his hands on my hips and picked me up into the air, so effortlessly he would have thought I weighed nothing. As he did so, his hands were so hot, they seemed to burn my skin through my flimsy clothes. I was paralysed to resist him as he threw me on my back on the hard wooden floor. And my slender legs opened for him instinctively even though I had not told them to. My ruby lips tried to form the words: 'No! I'm getting married to Darius. He loves me. He doesn't want to just use me And then discard me like some valueless object!' But his rampant mouth was exploring my body. My nipples were so hard they could cut glass. And all I could do was to moan softly and close my eyes. When I opened them, a snake was slithering towards me. But this snake had no forked tongue. And it is me who hisses, with pleasure, as it slides into my...'

She stops, mid-sentence. The three of us listening are doing our best to look like literature critics. Asif is nodding, thoughtfully. 'I can't decide which word to use,' says Netty. Then, looking straight at me: 'Tom, what word do you think would work best?'

Make no mistake, this is a test. If I'm a proper Bad Boy, I'll know dozens of dirty words for what a woman has between her legs.

As it happens, I don't know any. In fact right now, I'm struggling to even remember the proper word for it. So instead, I just glare back at her, looking unimpressed, as if I couldn't give a toss about her or her writing.

She's not buying it. No one's buying it. I'm going to have to say something.

It occurs to me that I'm the only one who's had my sixteenth birthday, so I'm technically the oldest person here, and as such, I could plausibly know words that none of them do. I could just make something up.

'Sinker,' I improvise.

'Sinker?' says Asif.

I look at him with subtle but unmistakeable contempt. 'What, haven't you heard that word before?' You innocent little boy, my tone seems to say.

He looks skeptical, but that's okay. He can't be sure. Maybe it is a real word. Maybe I'm just that much Badder than him.

Netty and Manda are sniggering, and I think they're sniggering at him. I think.

Evidently, he thinks so too, because he tries to claw back some lost ground by saying: 'Netty, you got any beer?' Like he thinks we'll all be impressed that he's a beer drinker.

'No,' Netty says. 'My mum' (She rolls her eyes, as she does whenever she mentions her mum for any reason whatsoever) 'doesn't allow alcohol in the house. You could go down the road and buy some for us though.'

It's another test. Obviously. He fails it. Spectacularly.

'Nah, they wouldn't sell me alcohol, would they? They always want ID.'

And then he does something remarkable. He picks up a maths textbook and starts to flick through it, looking for something. When he finds it, he reads, studiously. Is he revising? Seriously? He's revising, right there, in front of them? I think he's given up!

Whatever. He's most definitely down, so by my reckoning, it's time to give him a good kick.

'What, and you couldn't nick some?' When he casts an annoyed glance at me, I follow it up with: 'No, perhaps you couldn't!'

A sour feeling in my stomach as I say it. I feel like a complete dick, saying that to him. But then again, Bad Boys are dicks, we've established that. And it's had the desired effect on the girls. They're smiling at me. Well, Netty certainly is, and Manda's coming as close to smiling as I've ever seen her. There's definitely admiration in that look.

There's something expectant in that look.

Um...

No! No, I didn't mean -

Oh shit, that was a really stupid thing to say, wasn't it!

Step Two

So break the law already.

The four of us, marching purposefully towards Netty's nearest corner shop. Netty and Manda whispering and giggling to each other, Manda's legs still bearing the imprints of all the grass she's been sitting on. Asif bringing up the rear, looking rather worried, the last time I glanced back at him. Me outwardly hard as a rock, but inwardly feeling like a condemned man on his way to the scaffold, (this is exactly how that would feel.)

I'm wearing Netty's brother's jacket, which probably looks suspicious as, but otherwise I'd have no place to hide the beer I'm gonna ni...

I'm gonna ni...

The beer I'm gonna nick from the shop.

Am I really going to do this? Am I actually? I have a horrible vision in my mind of a local newspaper, (there isn't one round here, it went bust ages ago) and there's my face on the front page and the headline is: 'Puny teenager caught attempting to steal alcohol'. ('I can't understand it. He was always such a good boy,' said the delinquent's mother.)

Maybe there's a way out. Maybe I can distract them all, make them forget about the whole thing.

'Have you been to the south end of town recently?' I say.

'No, why?' says Netty.

'There's something pretty cool there. We should check it out.'

'Yeah? What is it?'

'Not gonna tell you. It's only around for another couple of days though.'

'What is it?'

'Not gonna tell you,' I say.

'Maybe we'll check it out then.' She smiles. I smile. 'After you've got these beers for us,' she says.

Nearly worked. Could have worked. Looks like I'm going to have to go through with this after all.

I try to channel Bad Boy Drogo. He'd be cool with this. He probably does this all the time. I'm not Tom Waterman any more, I'm Netty's sexual fantasy come to life (and ironically, I'm after her best friend – how does that feel, Netty?) My muscles are rippling. My tattoos are glistening. (Do tattoos actually glisten? Never mind. Mine do.) I've probably been manipulating this whole situation to go like this from the beginning. Because I, Bad Boy Drogo, know that there's no better way to bed an impressionable young girl (and crush a potential love rival) than to flagrantly break the law and act like it's nothing. Alpha male, alpha male!

And then we turn the corner and the shop's right there, and suddenly I'm not Bad Boy Drogo any more, I'm just a kid in a jacket that's too big for him out with two girls who are way out of his league and who are probably laughing at him anyway.

Shit! Did it have to be so close? I want to have to walk another block to get there! This must be how the soldiers in World War I felt when they were ordered to go over the top. Does it have to be now? Can't there be just ten more minutes to prepare for this mentally?

Asif leans in to me and whispers: 'You don't have to go through with this. Let's just go, and revise for the exam.' (You'd love that, wouldn't you Asif. For me to just mooch away with my tail between my legs!)

Netty and Manda are standing in the shop doorway. They're watching me, eager to know which way it's gonna go. I shove past them into the shop. Because Bad Boys do that. They're not courteous.

A small shop, just two aisles. One has basic foodstuffs - bread, tinned food – the other has kitchen stuff and cleaning products. There's chocolate at the front of the shop. A bored looking guy behind the counter, watching a tiny TV. He barely looks up as I enter the shop, the girls right behind me. Asif stays outside, for now. Wimp.

I look around for the beer, and there's a curious mix of frustration and relief in my stomach when I see it. It's behind the guy behind the counter. So that's it, I guess. Game over, before it's even begun.

Except...

The beer may be out of reach, but just in front of the counter, there's a rack, with some bottles of wine on it. Could I? Can I picture myself taking one, hiding it under Netty's brother's jacket? I can't actually, but I can picture Bad Boy Drogo doing it. The question is, who do I want to be?

If I chicken out, I can be back in my bedroom inside of an hour, with my textbook. I won't even have lost too much face. We came in for beer, after all, and the beer isn't possible. But if I go through with this, in a few hours' time, I'll be in bed with Manda. I mean, that's definitely going to happen, right? If I steal a bottle of wine from a shop – if I steal a bottle of wine from a shop – it can't not! (I hope I'll know what to do.)

I summon Bad Boy Drogo from his home in the Word document on Netty's laptop. He comes. I let him take over.

Bad Boy Drogo looks over at Netty. He indicates the wine with a flick of my eyes. She looks back at him (me) excited and turned on. Maybe Netty should be my Target after all. Bad Boy Drogo picks up a bar of chocolate, just beside the rack of wine. Happens to be Turkish Delight, which is my favourite kind of chocolate.

If I were contemplating stealing the wine, I'd be scared stiff, but since it's Bad Boy Drogo doing it, it's kinda exciting. Thing is, the way the guy behind the counter's got the TV positioned, the rack of wine is in his field of vision.

Netty initiates a little scene with Manda in the food aisle, to provide a distraction. 'How much are these?' she says in a whiny voice. 'There's no price on them. I don't want to buy them if I don't know how much they are.'

'I don't know,' says Manda. 'Ask the man.'

Bad Boy Drogo tells me not to look round, and I don't, so I don't know what they're talking about.

'Excuse me,' calls Netty. 'Can you tell us how much these are? There's no price on them.'

The guy looks up, but not enough for it to be safe to take the wine.

'Those are one pound twenty,' he says.

'One pound twenty? They're 40p in Tesco's!'

'Look, do you want to buy them or not?' he snaps.

'Not for one pound twenty!'

'Then piss off out of my shop, stop causing trouble!'

My hand is hovering near the wine. The guy's still got one eye on his TV.

'I told you he was a jerk,' says Netty. The guy doesn't react. As the girls are leaving, Netty whispers something to Manda. She's perfected the art of whispering so that certain key words are audible the other side of the room. She often does it to annoy Dr Crofts, the history teacher. 'Claire Hiscock says........... paedophile.............. exposed himself to them.'

'What?' he screams, wheeling round to face them fully. The nearest bottle of wine disappears under my jacket. My heart is beating fast as. 'Get out of my shop! Get out of my shop!' he yells at the top of his lungs. 'Never come in here again! I ever see you in here again, I will call the police, you little shits!'

Actually, I agree with him, that was a disgusting thing for her to say. If Manda didn't habitually wear such short skirts, I'd be totally on his side on this one. (Bad Boy Drogo thought it was awesome though.)

The guy suddenly remembers my presence, and wheels round again to look at me, fury in his eyes. 'Are you with them?' he says.

'No,' Bad Boy Drogo squeaks. 'They just came in after me.'

'Don't have anything to do with those two,' he says. 'Nasty pieces of work, the pair of them.' He looks down at the Turkish Delight. 'Pound.'

I put the Turkish Delight on the counter and fumble in my pocket for a pound. I can't use my left hand, because my left arm is pinning the bottle to my body under my jacket. For a horrible moment, it feels like it's going to slip and fall to the floor with a crash, but I manage to hold on to it. I put the pound on the counter, and he snatches it away, goes back to his TV.

I've done it!

I glance down at the prices on the bottles of wine still on the rack. The one I've taken is £16.99, but I'll double that when I tell the girls as we're drinking it. (Wine's horrible, but I'll pretend I drink it all the time.)

As I turn to leave, it suddenly occurs to me that there might be CCTV cameras. I'm tempted to look around to check, but if I do that and there are, they'll get a clear view of my face, whereas as it is, there's a chance they haven't had a good look at me. So I just walk away from the counter towards the door...

...and stop dead.

There are sensors either side of the door. They're big and obvious, and yet somehow I contrived not to notice them when I came in. Presumably the more expensive products, like wine, have some kind of tag on them and the guy behind the counter takes it off when someone buys a bottle. If I go through with an unpaid-for bottle of wine, some alarm will go off.

I don't know what to do now.

The girls and Asif are just outside, watching me through the glass door. I'm just standing here, clueless as to what I do next. It's more than possible that the guy behind the counter has noticed the fact that I've stopped, but I don't want to look round because the guilt would be obvious on my face.

Seconds go by. If I go through the door and then leg it as the alarms go off, he'd come running after me. Would I be able to outrun him? It's academic. I know I'm not going to do that.

More seconds go by. I'm still just standing here. It's not like I can casually go back and put the wine back on the rack. That way I'd look like a wuss and I'd get caught. But I literally have no other plan.

This is ridiculous. How long have I been standing here now?

There's only one thing I can do. I look down at my shoe. I say, just about audibly: 'Dammit. It's always coming undone!' I move to the side, to make way for anyone wanting to come into the shop, and bend down, as if to tie my shoelace. I surreptitiously put my hand under Netty's brother's jacket and take hold of the bottle of wine. Gently, very gently, I slide it down to the floor, making sure not to create any sound as it hits the ground. I stand up. I walk out of the shop, leaving the bottle there on the floor, just inside.

But it still counts, right? I mean that particular bottle of wine should be on the rack, and it's not any more. So technically, I stole it. Right?

Netty and Manda are pissing themselves laughing. Manda is laughing for real, but Netty is overdoing it a bit; it looks forced. I laugh along with them a little, a swaggering, devil-may-care kind of laugh, and that poor sap Asif is the only one not laughing.

He's frowning at us. Seems a little concerned.

Step Three

Tell her sweet little lies.

'What's the thing you wanted to show us? Down the south end of town?' says Netty.

'Nah, I can't tell you. Has to be a surprise.'

'What do you think Manda? Do we like surprises?'

'Just tell us what it is,' says Manda.

I smile enigmatically.

'Do you want to go and see what it is?' says Netty.

Manda shrugs. 'Okay.'

'You go with Tom then. Asif and me are going back to my place to finish revising.'

Manda looks like she's been slapped, but Netty just goes over next to Asif. He grins ear to ear. Beams. Netty winks at Manda, and then her and Asif walk off together, leaving Manda and me alone.

I'm not sure how I feel about this turn of events. On the one hand, I feel slightly jealous of Asif. Netty is cooler than Manda, and I wonder why she went for Asif of all people. On the other hand, I now have Manda all to myself, so I can start the process of sexual banter and escalation. On the other other hand, Manda does look distinctly underwhelmed to have been left alone with me.

'Come on,' I say, and we head off to the south part of town, me pretending to be reluctant because I don't want to seem too eager, Manda not even having to pretend.

We're going to the museum. That's why I couldn't tell them where it was I wanted to go – that sounds lame as, right? But it's not. They've got an exhibition of sixteenth-century torture equipment, and it's hard core! They've even done up the entrance of the museum so it's like you're walking into a sixteenth-century dungeon. The nastiest one is just this big wheel, but what they did was they used to break people's limbs so they could wind them round this giant wheel, and then they just left them there. It's horrible. I bet even Peter Munns, one of our year's bullies, would feel uncomfortable looking at that. And I remember thinking when I was at the exhibition that if he happened into the museum, and he saw all this seriously nasty stuff, and he saw me looking at it, he'd have a new respect for me!

As we're passing under the railway bridge, heading into the south end of town, I share my Turkish Delight with Manda. It's a dilemma, actually. The website didn't say anything whether or not you should offer chocolate to your Target; the closest it came was saying that you should never, never offer to buy her a drink in a bar. If you do that, you're signalling that you're interested in her, and it's better to come in under the radar, as it were – get her to chase after you, rather than the other way round. I can't figure out if the same should apply to offering your Target chocolate as well, but I'd look pretty rude walking alongside her guzzling chocolate and not offering her any, so I do.

My phone buzzes in my pocket. It's mum, and I answer it quickly, without thinking. I ask how she is and she tells me to be home by seven because she's making spag splosh, (mum's cutesy name for spaghetti bolognaise.) I say okay. There's a bit more insignificant stuff. Mum stuff. Then I say goodbye and ring off.

'Was your mummy worried about where you were?' says Manda. The mockery in her tone is so obvious it makes me hate her. I'm trying to summon Bad Boy Drogo again, but I can't be Bad Boy Drogo if I'm being mocked by a girl, especially not one who's younger than me. She's stopping me from being Bad Boy Drogo!

For a moment I wish my mum was dying of cancer or something, or I was helping her to recover from a traumatic knife attack or something, just so I could tell Manda that and make her feel small. What's she even mocking me for anyway? Having a mother?

'What did she say she was making for you? Spag splosh?' She's on the verge of laughing at me.

We see Stephen Long coming in the other direction. He's in the year above, and he's kinda pathetic. He's not even a school bully, he's a wannabe school bully. He's the guy who comes into the chess club room when there aren't any teachers around, and bangs on the tables to make the pieces fall over, and shouts 'Earthquake!' I'm quite pleased that he gets to see me out with Manda. I hope he's jealous.

As he passes, he indicates Manda and says to me: 'Oi mate, how much?' I ignore him, and so does Manda. He goes off in the other direction, cackling.

'Where are we going? Just tell me where we're going,' says Manda, and she seems to be on the point of stopping dead and abandoning me. I need to turn this around. Come on Bad Boy Drogo, where are you?

'Do you want to know why I was so fast to answer my phone when my mum called then?' I say.

The website says it's okay to lie to your Target. They mostly know that you're doing it, anyway, and they actually like it. Plus the truth can often be a bit boring.

'Around this time of day she sometimes gets panic attacks, especially when my dad's away on business.'

'Panic attacks?' she says.

'Yeah, and if that was happening, I'd just leave you here, go straight back to her. She's pretty much recovered now, but sometimes it still happens. It's been two years since...' I give a sigh, to indicate that I didn't really want to have to tell this story, '...She was attacked.'

'Attacked?'

'Yeah, my next door neighbour was a complete psycho. And he came into our house by our back door and attacked her with a knife in our kitchen. She would actually have been killed if I hadn't been there.'

Wow! I'm an amazing liar. Why have I never discovered this before?

'Are you serious?' Manda says. 'Are you seriously telling me this?'

'I was only fourteen, so I obviously couldn't fight him off or anything. All I could do was stand between him and her and not let him get near her. And when he tried to knock me out of the way, I bit his hand and wouldn't let go. And he tried to stab me, but I was biting the hand that was holding the knife.'

'Oh my God!'

You know what? This is so Bad Boy Drogo! This is his back story! Of course he had a traumatic childhood! I'm Bad Boy Drogo again!

'Yeah, that gave my mum a chance to run out and call for the police. He's in a loony bin now, and I thought my mum was going to go the same way for a while. She broke down. She's okay now, she recovered eventually, but even now she sometimes gets panicky and she's convinced he's coming for her, and when that happens, even my dad can't calm her down. Only I can, because I was the only one who was there when it happened. She phoned me in the middle of geography the other week and I just had to get up and walk out. And Mr Kinlock went mental, but I just said to him: Sorry mate, I've got more important things to think about right now, and got up and left the classroom.'

Yeah! Everyone in school's scared of Mr Kinlock. Everyone except Bad Boy Drogo, a.k.a. me!

Manda's entranced.

'For a while after it happened, she couldn't look after me. She couldn't even look after herself. I had to do everything. Cook meals for her, take care of her. I was fourteen years old! But I didn't want her to be taken into hospital, because then I'd have been put up for adoption. So I did everything I could to stop the authorities from finding out that I was looking after her, rather than the other way round. If they'd taken her into care, they'd have just put her in a padded cell, pumped her full with drugs anyway, and I wasn't going to let them do that to her.'

'Oh my God! That must have been awful,' she says.

'In a way, it was actually good for me, because I had to learn to be independent. You know, most fourteen-year-olds are just Mummy's boys, just do what they're told, but this experience put me in charge, and that showed me I could make my own decisions, do things for myself. It was around then that I got my first ta - er...'

I was so in character, I momentarily forgot that I don't actually have any tattoos.

'Your first what?'

'Um...'

My first tank? My first tomato?

'My first ta – tarantula.'

'Your first tarantula? Piss off! You don't have tarantulas!'

I stop dead, look her in the eye. 'Why would I lie about that?'

She looks suitably chastened. I'm pretty sure my shameless lies are working, though I wonder if all Bad Boys feel this guilty as they're bullshitting their Targets. (Why couldn't I have been born two hundred years ago, back when it was still okay for boys to court girls they were interested in? That would have been much more my thing.)

We walk on in silence again, but this time I'm okay with the silence. Our roles have been reversed; before, I was struggling to think of stuff to say to prove how interesting I was, but it was fine for her to say nothing at all, because she's a hot blonde who wears tiny, tiny skirts. (Miss Davey once said to her: 'Are you going to wear a skirt with that belt Manda?') Now it's Manda who seems to want to think of stuff to say, (but can't,) in order to impress me. I'm speculating there, of course. I can't be sure what's going through her head. That's just the impression I get.

(What I should have said to Stephen Long, I should have just looked him up and down and said: 'More than you can afford!' That would have been brilliant! Oh well, I'll know for next time.)

I wonder what Netty and Asif are doing. She's probably moved their revision session from the garden to the bedroom, and from there... Man, knowing Netty, it could be anything! Maybe she brought up a couple of drinks and accidentally spilt one over him, and then she's like: 'Oh no, you'll have to take your shirt off.' And then she'll be like: 'Oh no, it looks like I've spilt some over myself as well! I'll have to take my shirt off too!' And then she'll – oh man! – she'll probably be biting her lip, and she'll sit down on his lap, and... That's probably what's happening right now!

Except.... No, it's Asif, isn't it! He's probably like: 'But Netty, I don't think we should be doing this. We're only fifteen. Let's just sit and hold hands.' Yeah. That's what's happening right now.

'Do you know Niall Smith?' says Manda.

'Yeah?'

'He's a rubbish kisser,' she says. 'Just tries to lick your face.'

I wonder what she expects me to do with this information. 'I won't be kissing him then,' I say. She doesn't laugh. This feels like a competition.

We're on the high street now, and I can see the museum on the other side of the road. Maybe there'll be no one else in there, and I'll snog her in the museum. Maybe for the rest of my life I'll be able to boast: 'Well I had my first girl inside a medieval torture chamber.' I really want that to happen. I'm trying to think how likely it is. How many people are there likely to be in there? It's Sunday afternoon, so...

Sunday afternoon. Hmmm....

'His brother's a bit better,' says Manda.

Under other circumstances, I'd have to pretend not to be fazed by this, but right now, I'm distracted by something distinctly unfortunate. The museum is nearer now. It's close enough for me to be pretty sure that there are shutters down over the entrance. I think it's closed.

'I'm a pretty good kisser actually,' I mutter, but I'm too worried to put much effort into escalating anything. The museum is probably closed. This could undo all my good work up until this point. How lame will I look when I say to Manda: 'Oh, sorry, it's closed. Shall we go somewhere else?'

Maybe she'll react well. Maybe she'll laugh, and say: 'Oh, it doesn't matter!' But, while I can imagine many girls doing exactly that, I can't imagine Manda doing that. What I can imagine Manda doing is looking at me with such contempt and telling me I'm the lamest guy she's ever been out with.

But I really don't have much choice, do I? I have to tell her this is where we were going, and we can't go there because it's closed, and I have to tell her now, because we're now close enough to the museum for there to be no doubt at all. The shutters are down. It's definitely closed.

Maybe we could... No, that's beyond ridiculous. I dismiss the thought from my head as soon as it enters, although not too soon for me to get another image in my mind of my face on the front page of a local newspaper, and this time the headline is: Horny teenager breaks into museum for no obvious reason.

What am I going to say? How am I going to phrase this? We are now at the museum... we are now walking straight past the museum... and now the museum is behind us, and I'm still leading Manda down the road, even though I now have no destination in mind. We are literally going nowhere.

Um... what am I doing? This is stupid. I have to tell her we were going to the museum and it was closed... but I can't quite bring myself to.

And now I am past the point where I can legitimately admit my mistake. Although, what else can I do? If there was anything down this side of town – a pub, a coffee shop, anything – I could take her there and pretend that's where we had been going all along. Maybe there'll have been a Costa Coffee opened up since I was last over this way and I'll say to her the surprise is whatever seasonal drink or cake they have right now at Costa Coffee. It'll be pretty lame, but what else can I do?

Still walking. No sign of a new Costa Coffee. It wasn't really likely now, was it?

There's a small area of grass with a couple of benches up ahead, as I remember. It couldn't really be called a park, but I guess I could take her there and try and snog her. Though this time of the evening, it's probably full of elderly dog walkers. This is a terrible plan, but there's literally nothing else I can do.

Unless...

There's a small queue up ahead, outside an anonymous-looking building. It's not so much a queue really, in fact it's halfway between a queue and a cluster. Quite a range of different ages, though a few of the people there are about eighteen, I'd say. Could this be salvation? Maybe they're queuing for some really awesome event, like... like... anything, just so long as it's something!

'Rob Hawker's probably the best kisser in our year,' says Manda. She's looking at me earnestly. I think she really wants me to be jealous, or turned on, or something. I think she's finding my lack of response a bit frustrating.

I try to surreptitiously check out the queue and the building as we're walking towards them, to see if there's any kind of indication as to what this gathering is waiting for. There's nothing obvious.

We're almost on them now. No more time to think. It's this or the park-that-isn't-a-park, with the dog walkers. Which is the less stupid idea of these two stupid, stupid ideas?

There's a guy in a vest, so muscle bound, he looks like he's on steroids. Tattoos on his arms. That settles it. Whatever this event is, if it's the kind of place that this guy thinks is worth coming to, that's where we're going. I'm trusting your judgement, steroid guy.

We join the end of the queue.

'Is this it?' says Manda.

'No,' I say, ultra sarcastically, 'I just decided to stand here on this bit of pavement for a while.'

The woman in front of us – twenties, reasonably fit – turns round to look at us, then looks back. She didn't register surprise to see us standing there, which has to be a good sign.

'What are we queuing for?' Manda says, craning her neck to see to the front of the queue. There's nothing there. Just a doorway.

'Wait and see,' I say.

I don't know what we're queuing for, Manda. There could be anything in there. It could be an orgy. It could be a squirrel sacrifice.

It's not likely to be a squirrel sacrifice. But still, it could be anything!

I wish I'd stayed at home. I'd have finished with trigonometry and simultaneous equations by now, and I'd probably be taking a break, watching Youtube.

'No, what is it?' Manda says.

She's looking pissed off with me now. How can I get her to wait patiently? What would a proper Bad Boy say?

'Strikes me, if a chick's only good for asking questions... Well, what else is she good for?'

I do not understand what I just said. There is no way of interpreting it so that it makes the slightest bit of sense. Still, it seems to have worked. It sounded pretty Bad, and Manda has shut up.

A middle-aged woman arrives and there's a small commotion as she unlocks the door. People start filing in.

Come on, think positive! We could be queuing for a really awesome rock concert, and Manda will be really impressed that I knew about it when no one else in our year did.

What if they have someone with a clipboard, and your name has to be on a list or they don't let you in? If so, I'll just have to Bad-Boy my way past him. It's okay. Bad Boy Drogo will help me out.

We're passing through the door now, and I've still no idea what's on the other side.

This has the potential to end very badly.

Step Four

Surprise her. As in, really surprise her.

It's a community centre of some sort. Not good. I can't think of anything awesome, or even cool, that could take place in a community centre. Especially one where the chairs are arranged in a horseshoe shape. Me and Manda are at one side of the horseshoe, the far side of the door. So I can forget about taking her by the hand and exiting quietly without anyone noticing, should the situation seem to require this.

The middle-aged woman sits in the front, and starts the meeting. She has bleached hair, and the look of a fading eighties film star. When she speaks, she has a sing-song voice that puts the emphasis on arbitrary words.

'Thanks for being patient. Sorry we're slightly late starting. Traffic round here's hell, as you know. I see we've got a few new members, and...' she turns to address me and Manda, '...kids, it just breaks my heart to see how young you are. What is our society coming to? I really don't know.'

That's kind of ominous.

'So, to let you know how it works: I don't believe in going round the circle, saying Hi, I'm Sarah, blah di blah di blah! No one ever remembers everyone's name. It's just a complete waste of time. We will hear from all our new members, of course, we will, but we'll hear your names when we hear your stories. Is that all right with you, my lovelies?

'My name is Sarah, by the way. I think you all know that. I will speak first, because there's something I want to get off my chest.' She gives a rather theatrical sigh. 'First of all, I did not break my promise, I did not. And the reason I did not, it was actually down to you guys. So thank you to everyone here. I owe you all big time. And very possibly someone else does as well. That said, I did come very close to breaking my promise, the promise I made in front of you all back in February. I am actually very ashamed of how close I came.

'I went through a very bad period. The feelings of paranoia and worthlessness came back, and they came back strong. I couldn't handle it, and I contacted a man on Let's Meet App. He came over to my house. Obviously, we would have used condoms, but even so...

'I didn't have sex with him, and the reason I didn't is that I couldn't face telling you all that I had broken my promise. I swore to myself that I would be one hundred per cent honest with you all, and I knew that if I came back here and told you that I had had sex with another stranger, I would not be able to face the shame of telling you all about it. And do you know what? That's what stopped me. So thank you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you all.

'So anyway, cut a long story short, I told him I was positive, and he fled for the hills, as you can imagine. So that's me.'

There's a brief smattering of applause. I didn't quite get her story. It didn't seem to go anywhere.

She turns to a rugged man in a beard, probably late twenties, although I'm terrible at guessing people's ages. 'We haven't met you before, have we?'

'We haven't, no,' he says. 'I'm James. Very pleased to meet you all.'

'Very well James. It's very good to make your acquaintance. What's your situation?'

'Well... This'll sound bad,' he says.

'We've heard worse. Believe me.'

'I'm... or I was... a teacher. Not from round here. Up in York. And I recently lost my job due to my... what my therapist has persuaded me to see as my sex addiction.'

I take a sharp breath in and find I can't breathe out again. Is this a group therapy session for sex addicts?

'Before I go any further, I want to stress that I never did anything with any of my students. Never even thought about it. I say that because it's the first thing people always think – for some reason – when I tell them why I lost my job. I never did and I never would.' He pauses. He's clearly very nervous. 'I've always had a lot of sex, ever since I was in my teens. I've never felt ashamed of it.'

'There's nothing wrong with having lots of sex,' puts in Sarah. 'I've always said that. Have as much sex as you like. It's when your desire... your need for sex starts to do damage to you and people around you that it becomes an addiction.'

I can't believe this. This is a sex addict group therapy session. I'm horrified.

'I started my first teaching job, up in York, as I say,' continues James. 'I had not been prepared for how stressful it would be. The workload was so heavy, some nights I was getting four hours' sleep or less. On top of that, kids these days, they are absolute bastards, pardon my French. They saw how inexperienced I was, and they seemed to delight in humiliating me. When it got to the point where I was almost slitting my wrists – seriously, I considered doing that – but instead, I did something that's possibly even worse. I abused my position in the school to get a hold of the phone number of the mother of the worst of the troublemakers. I called her up, pretending it was about school. And well, basically, I started an affair with her.'

'So it was a power thing,' says Sarah.

We need to leave. We really really need to leave, but I don't know how. Could I just motion Manda to walk out with me, past the whole lot of them? What on Earth will I say to her afterwards?

'I think it was,' says James. 'I couldn't punish the little shit in any way that really seemed to affect him, so this was my way of getting one over on him. And I didn't stop with just the one mother, either. At one point, I was sleeping with three mothers of students I was teaching. Always the worst ones, the ones that were causing me a real headache. It came to a head when one mother I was sleeping with went to the headmaster with, er, an image that I had sent her.'

'Mmm,' says Sarah to show she understands.

I glance at Manda. She's hard to read. Either she's being really, really cool about this, or she's gone into shock.

'The thing is, I kept sending them images, even after I was fired. You'd think being fired from my job – ruining my career prospects – you'd think that would teach me a lesson. But even yesterday, I was sending some very explicit images to one of the mothers, a woman I am not remotely attracted to by the way.'

'I know, my darling, I know,' says Sarah. 'You can't stop. That's why it's called an addiction. Thank you so much for sharing that with us. Being in this group will help you. It will.'

More applause, then something worse than the worst thing I can think of happens. Because the worst thing I can think of is Sarah turning to me and saying 'So what's your situation?' and I'd have to tell her that I'm not a sex addict at all, I'm gatecrashing. But she doesn't do that. She turns to Manda.

'Well young lady,' she says. 'What about you?'

Manda's eyes widen. I have no choice but to leap to her rescue.

'No, no, it's not her!' I say. 'She - she's here with me.'

'What? Moral support?' says Sarah.

'Yes. No. I mean... yes.'

Have I just confessed to being a sex addict? I kind of have, but what were my other options?

'Is that okay?' I say.

'Of course,' trills Sarah. 'Well done on you love,' she says to Manda, and then to me: 'That's a good friend you've got there. What's your name?'

'Tom.'

'So what's your story, Tom?'

'Um... The.... er....'

At first I think this is a nightmare, and I just want to wake up from it, but then I see the way Manda's looking at me, and it puts the situation in a whole different light. She totally believes this. She thinks I'm a sex addict, and I brought her along for moral support, I just, I guess she just thinks I didn't have the guts to tell her. But she's totally sympathetic. And there's respect there, too. And I realise, all of a sudden, that maybe I never needed to sleep with her after all. Maybe that's what I needed - her respect. So long as she believes I'm more sexually experienced than her, I don't have to feel inferior to her, or any of the rest of the kids in my school. Is that screwed up? Maybe it is, but even that's okay, because I'm in a room full of screwed-up people.

'It's okay, Tom,' says Sarah. 'No one here will judge you.'

Um... I, I... um...' I say.

And then I say: 'I... um... it's...'

And then I remember how good I was earlier at making stuff up, and I just go with it.

'Okay, so, er... so there's this girl in my year,' I say. 'And she's really cool, and she's really beautiful. Long, wavy blonde hair. And I always really liked her, and got on with her, so I asked her out on a date, and we started going out. And I went round to her house last weekend – no, two weekends ago, and I took her some flowers. And I said, I've brought you these flowers because they're really beautiful and you're really beautiful... And it was a really cheesy line, but she liked it, and we slept together for the first time. And I was so happy, because I thought I've got the coolest, most beautiful girlfriend in the world, and I was so happy.'

This isn't sex addiction though, is it really? This is a healthy, loving relationship I'm describing. (In fact what I'm describing is my deepest, most urgent fantasy. This is how I've always wanted it to be. Why isn't it allowed to be that simple? Why won't they let it be like that?)

'But then, er, the next day... Um, I was leaving school late, because I'd been in detention, and there was this other girl who'd also been in detention, and we were leaving together, and she said to me, come round behind the sports hall, there's something I want to show you. And we went, and there was nothing there, and I said, but there's nothing here, and she said, I know. And I said, well what did you want to show me? And she was.... She's quite tall, long red hair. She's from the year above. And she didn't say anything, she just stood very close, and she started stroking her, you know, her... she started stroking her breast. And I knew what she wanted, and I didn't want to, because I'd started going out with this other girl, and I loved her, so I really didn't want to, but I couldn't stop myself. So we had sex. And it was pretty good actually. But I felt awful, because I'd betrayed the girl I loved, but I hadn't been able to stop myself.'

Did Manda just snort?

'And then, the day after that, so this was the Tuesday.... I went around to a friend's to revise for an exam. She's a Catholic, really innocent looking. Long, brown hair. And she said, do you mind if I take a shower before we revise, so I said, okay. And her parents were out. So I was in her bedroom, getting my books out, because I thought we were going to revise, and then she came in, and she was wet from the shower, and she was wrapped in a towel. And she was biting her lip. And I thought, no, I mustn't. Because it's bad enough two-timing one girl...'

Sarah holds her hand up. 'I'm going to interrupt you here.'

What? Was that too hard core? Too hard core for a bunch of sex addicts?

'How did you find out about this group?' says Sarah.

I blink at her. I was not expecting this question.

'I am asking you how you found out about this group,' she says.

I don't know. How did any of them find out about this group?

'Right,' she says. 'James there has lost his job. You probably can't know how serious and how stressful that is. Silas over there has lost his wife. She won't let him see his young daughter. Because of his addiction. Suzanne was – uh...' she stops short, but the attractive woman who was in front of us in the queue says: 'It's okay,' and she continues.

'Suzanne was abused over a period of several years when she was just a child. Much younger than you. Now she has sex with strangers for money. She doesn't need the money, she just needs to be in control. I don't expect you to understand that either. But why do you think it's okay to come here, and make fun of these people?'

'No! I wasn't making fun... That's not – that's not what I was doing!' I say.

'Did you hear me say earlier that I'm positive?'

'Um... yes.'

'Do you know what I meant?'

'Um... you meant you're, er... you're a very happ... er, no. No I don't.'

'I'm HIV positive.'

I'm so surprised I very nearly choke on nothing at all.

'The man who infected me, I knew full well that he was positive. Even though he said he wasn't, I knew full well he was. But there was a part of me that needed validation, and it was so strong that I had