Tales of the Unexpected: Twisted Tales Episodes VI - X

By Jason Cosnett

Another collection of five unexpected and twisted tales...A husband seeks to improve his marriage in Lip Service; two competitive brothers visit the south of France in Flesh and Blood; in A Christmas Heist, a cat burglar befriends a young girl on Christmas eve; a father reminisces about the war and his wife in the Sweet Passing of Time; and Inspector Milburn deliberates over a particularly nasty crime in The Other Woman.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jason Cosnett
• Release date: Apr 30, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463426883

Jason Cosnett

There's a guy in the place who's got a bittersweet faceAnd he goes by the name of Ebeneezer GoodeHis friends call him 'Ezeer and he is the main geezerAnd he'll vibe up the place like no other man couldHe's refined, sublime, he makes you feel fineThough very much maligned and misunderstood

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Tales of the Unexpected: Twisted Tales Episodes VI - X

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2020 Jason Cosnett

Follow on Instagram: jasoncosnett

Table of Contents

Lip Service

Flesh and Blood

A Christmas Heist

The Sweet Passing of Time

The Other Woman

Lip Service

"Kiss, kiss"

Twenty-three years of marriage had seen plenty of ups and downs for Louise and I, but most of the memories we shared were good ones; two healthy daughters, a sound stable of friends, and a decent size house in the well-to-do area of Amberley-on-Heath were but three examples of what our married life had propagated. Though it wasn’t entirely the grandeur lifestyle we had envisioned when we first tied the knot and mortgaged ourselves to the hilt, we lived a comfortable existence, minus the fast cars and fancy boats that our neighbours seemed to accumulate. Once the girls finished their private high school education, we reasoned we would also be able to indulge in such toys that the residents of this upmarket suburbia expected. But that was a few years off yet; for now, the garage was occupied by the estate in lieu of the coupe.

Louise was forty-two with twinkling blue eyes and a smile to melt your heart. I was a few years older (one should never reveal one’s exact age suffice to say you can take ‘few’ as a literal meaning and perhaps even double it). I liked to think I kept myself in relatively decent shape for my age, and have always prided myself as a fine male specimen; twice weekly workouts and restricting all night booze-ups to every second month seemed to keep father time at bay, and many people often commented that I looked much younger than my years implied. And whilst I enjoyed a smoke, I wasn’t quite a pack a day kind of fellow. But for all my outward appearances, I had of late noticed a decline in my most masculine of attributes: passion with the love of my life Louise. And this, dear reader, is where the trouble started.

At first, I had put it down to a couple of stressful work deadlines and an office restructure that had me come within a hair’s breadth of a redundancy payout, but that was over six months ago now, and whilst my desires and urges for Louise were as strong as ever, it just didn’t translate into an acceptable performance under our duck feather duvet. Louise had noticed the difference too; our love-making was less frequent and intense, and whenever she broached the subject, I found myself shutting her down with a cursory comment that my effort was the result of feeling tired or that I had other things on my mind. Which was partly true at least, but it wasn’t the main reason behind my lacklustre bedroom routine. And truth be told, I hadn’t a clue as to what it was.

I could understand if I saw Louise as a less attractive woman than she was, or I had a bit of fluff on the side that was occupying my masculinity in another queen size bed. But it was neither of these things. I loved Louise dearly and had no inclination whatsoever to consider having an affair with another woman, which made my dreary sex drive all the more frustrating. It was as if someone had turned off the switch to my sexual appetite, and all I was left with were the remnant memories of historic bedroom antics. I had hoped it was just a delayed reaction to being part of the midlife jungle, though with each passing week and little improvement, my mind had recently been thinking that this might be a more permanent arrangement. And as a man too stubborn to book an appointment with the family doctor (and didn’t Louise cop a serve when she casually dropped that into conversation one night in bed), there seemed to be no respite in sight.

It was Louise who stirred me from my wandering thoughts.

‘You’ve got that blank look on your face again,’ she said.

‘Mmm?’

‘That look. The one where your mind is elsewhere. You haven’t heard a word I said, have you?’

We were in the car together, my left hand draped over the centre console whilst my right casually lolled the steering wheel side to side. Beside me Louise looked as stunning as ever in that new low-cut dress she’d gone and bought, a glimpse of thigh showing through her tanned hose. ‘Have you?’ she repeated.

‘Sorry. What were you saying?’

She sighed. ‘Oh, Robert. Well I’m not going to go through it all again. I just wanted to know whether we should have the party at our house or hire a hall. Sally wants a hall, and-‘

‘Hall it is then, my dear. ‘No mess to clean up. At least, no mess that we have to clean up.’ Sally was the eldest of our two girls. Hard to believe that she was turning seventeen in a few weeks’ time. Where does the time fly?

‘Well, good. That’s all I wanted to know. As long as you are happy.’

I smiled. ‘As long as you and the girls are happy, then I’m happy.’ Living in a household full of females meant compromise time and time again. As well as a little submissiveness.

I pulled up to a set of traffic lights and waited. ‘Speaking of birthdays, remind me again which office bunny we are out celebrating? Jonice, wasn’t it?’

Louise closed her eyes and twitched her nose. ‘It’s Janice! And it’s not her birthday. She’s had a baby. Bit of a difference there, dear. On both accounts.’

I frowned. ‘The baby’s not going to be at the pub, is it?’

‘Of course not! And neither is Janice. She’s still at the hospital with the newbie. This is just an opportunity to whet the baby’s head. I did tell you all this when you were moping about the house earlier.’

‘You lot make up any excuse to do a pub crawl, I swear.’

‘We do not. It’s not a pub crawl either. And besides, it’s been ages since we’ve been out with the crew from work. I think the last time was the Christmas do from memory. Not that you could probably recall too much about that evening, drunken fool you were.’

‘Mmm. Probably.’ The lights turned green and I released the brake. That was about the last time we had engaged in an intimate encounter we had probably both enjoyed, I reflected. And evidently, I was half-cut to the nines of all nights.

It wasn’t hard to find Louise’s work colleagues. They were a noisy lot at the best of times and already it looked as if a few of them were going to be worse for wear at the office in the morning. We exchanged a few polite hellos with the marketing staff before nestling onto the end of a long bench. I was about to get up to join the queue for my customary pint and a smattering of whatever Louise felt like when I felt a tap on my shoulder.

‘Robert, old boy. Good to see you!’

I turned around but already the man had swung onto the bench beside me. It was Louise’s boss, Dale Andrews, Head of Strategic Procurement.

‘Dale,’ I said. ‘Dale…Great to see you.’ I was momentarily caught off guard. The Dale Andrews I remembered was a fifty-six year old balding man with a pot belly and spindly arms. This Dale Andrews had thick luscious hair with hardly an ounce of fat, and his arms- well, it looked as if he’d been spending his spare time lifting weights and knocking back protein shakes. ‘You look…amazing.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Fancy a drink, Dale?’ Louise offered.

‘Already got one,’ he replied, holding up a scotch and coke.

‘I’ll get us some drinks then,’ she said. ‘You stay here and catch up with Dale, love. You’ve probably not seen one another for a while.’

I hardly noticed her leave. I was still in awe at the transformation of the man before me, and my mind raced. When had we last seen one another? The Christmas party, wasn’t it? When was that…ten, twelve weeks ago now? It didn’t seem possible that he could have lost so much weight in that time and completely changed his appearance. Even the skin around his neck looked taut. Someone had shaved a good ten years of the man. Fifteen perhaps. It seemed impossible.

Dale had gone through a particularly messy divorce a couple of years prior, and it was common knowledge that he hadn’t really been himself since the shackles of his marriage had been broken. Louise had mentioned a couple of times recently that he seemed to have started looking better, and I’d assumed she meant he was getting back on the saddle of life again so to speak. But the complete turnaround in his physical appearance could not all be attributed alone to his new found single lifestyle. It seemed incredible.

‘So…how have you been, Dale? You look great, you really do. I’m not just saying that. I hardly recognised you for a moment.’

‘Thanks. A lot of people of have been telling me the same lately.’ He outstretched his arms. ‘But it’s still me. Just a bit less of me around the waist.’ He moved in closer. ‘But more of me in other ways,’ he said cryptically, and laughed.

I smiled, unsure of how to respond. ‘So, what have you been doing to turn yourself around? Hitting the gym? Sorry, I hope that didn’t come out in a disrespectful way. It’s just I know you were pretty down on things for a while.’

Dale pointed to his drink. ‘Do you ever think moi would give up this for a life of sweat on the treadmill. No, I think not, old boy. And no offence taken; I know I was looking like a fat oaf in my old life.’

‘What then? Surely you didn’t go for the old nip and tuck?’

‘No, no. Nothing like that. That kind of thing’s too pricey for me. And I’ve a bitch of an ex-wife to support so I certainly can’t afford that kind of luxury even on my salary.’ Dale gave a friendly wave to a young woman on the other side of the room. She returned his gesture by blowing him a flirty kiss. ‘Just the new girl Andrea from the mailroom,’ he said. ‘And what a bit of all right she is, let me tell you. I’ll be giving her some mail to sort out a bit later in the back of the Volvo after we leave here I’m telling you.’ He took a gulp of his drink. ‘Just as well I don’t have any daughters, otherwise my guilt-meter would be on par with the blood pressure I’ll be experiencing later tonight.’

I glanced over to the girl and back at Dale. She looked only slightly older than Sally. ‘You and that girl?’ I asked incredulously. She blew out another kiss; this one seemed to linger, and there was no mistaking the dark and inviting eye contact that cut across the room.

‘I know. Hard to believe, isn’t it? A year ago, she wouldn’t have given me the time of day. But now…’ he smirked. ‘Now, I feel like I can have any woman I want. And you know what Robert?’ He leaned forward for emphasis. ‘I do. But she’s only a short-term arrangement…couple of weeks at best. She’s already in the home straight as far as I’m concerned. Nowadays I tend to get bored easily. I’ll probably have moved on to some other floosy by the end of the week.’

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Physical attributes aside, the Dale I knew was conservative and shy. But here was a man openly flirting with a work colleague almost a third of his age. And with his newfound youthful looks, why not?

‘Amazing, isn’t it?’ he continued. ‘Who’d have thought, eh?’

‘What’s your secret then? Is it some new-found freedom from your divorce? You must be doing something right. I hadn’t seen you all that long ago.’

Dale downed the remaining drink in one swig. ‘You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.’

‘I might. Try me.’

He cleared his throat. ‘OK…but don’t think any less of me for telling you, old boy. And I’m only telling you this because that wife of yours is not about.’

‘I won’t. I wouldn’t.’

Dale set aside his empty glass. ‘Now as a man, you’ll understand. Or, at least I hope you’ll understand.’

‘Yes.’ I wondered if Dale delighted in telling whatever secret he was about to reveal, and just how many times he had told it. There seemed something quite smug about his demeanour.

‘Well, after Christmas, I set myself a task to…become a new person. I suppose I had wallowed in enough self-pity over that bitch of a woman I’d had the misfortune to call my wife for twenty-five years, and decided it was finally time to move on. One of my friends at the snooker club who had also gone through a bit of a rough divorce suggested the best way forward was to, er…clean