C.J. Skuse - Sweetpea - The most unique and gripping thriller of 2017

I shoved my hands into my duffle-coat pockets and turned around to see a guy I recognised. He was the one in the Wales rugby shirt with the tattooed forearms who’d bought us the first lot of Prosecco at the restaurant.

‘Where you going then, baby?’

‘Home.’

‘Aww, can I come?’

‘No.’

‘Please? We can make each other happy tonight. Still got a bit of time before the bongs, ain’t we? You look sad.’

He sidestepped in front of me. I stepped away. He stepped back. He laughed.

‘You followed me, didn’t you?’ I said.

He leered, eyeing me from head to toe with a lingering look at my crotch area, which I’ll admit did look inviting in my too-tight skirt. ‘Just seeing where you were going, that’s all. Don’t be like that. I bought you a drink.’

‘I said thank you at the time.’ Like, of course that would be enough.

He put his hands on me.

‘Could you take your hands off me, please?’

‘Come on. You were giving me the eye.’

‘Don’t think I was. Get off.’ I wasn’t raising my voice. I didn’t need to. His molestation attempts were pathetic. A hand on my boob. A motion to his belt buckle.

‘How about you get your laughing gear round my old boy then? Just for ‘Auld Lang Syne’, eh?’

He was strong; a prop four or something. As well as the cut on his left eyebrow, he had the beginnings of a cauliflower ear. He slathered all over my face and I let him. Nobody else was around. Even if I screamed, the nearest people over in the Manette Court complex would take five minutes to get to me. And that’s if they even bothered. He’d have come in me and gone by then and I’d be another statistic, getting vaginal swabs and drinking tepid tea in some police waiting room.

No. That might be my sister but that would not be me.

‘Come in here,’ he gasped in my ear, taking my freezing hand inside his hot clammy one and pulling me towards the bush. An upended Lidl shopping trolley lay on its back.

I stayed rooted. ‘There’s no room in there.’

‘Yeah, there is.’ He tugged harder on my hand.

‘Pull your jeans down,’ I said.

He smirked like his ship had just come in – a ship with a massive hard-on. ‘Oh, yes, baby girl. I knew I could thaw you out.’

Unsteady on his feet, he fumbled at his belt. Then his zip. His over-washed jeans collapsed in a heap at his ankles. So did his boxers. There were little Homer Simpsons all over them. His cock sprung out like a small Samurai, ready to do battle.

Ba-doing!

It had a bend in it. I wasn’t sure whether he was pleased to see me or giving me directions to the bus station.

He stroked it upwards. Well, upwards and towards the bus station. ‘All yours,’ he said.

‘Mmm,’ I said, ‘lucky old me.’

The temptation to laugh was so strong but I choked it down and made it look as though I was starting to wriggle out of my knickers under my skirt. All keen.

‘Can you get on all fours?’ he panted.

‘Like a dog?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Why?’

‘’Cos I wanna fuck you like a dog.’

I grew breathless. ‘But the ground’s hard.’

‘So’s my dick. Get down. Go on, don’t tease.’

‘I’ll suck you off but no more,’ I said.

‘That’s a start,’ he said, eyes lighting up. I crouched down and took his little warm Samurai in my grip.

‘Shall I finger myself as I’m sucking it?’ I asked, heart in my throat.

‘Fuck, yeah! Dirty bitch!’ he chuckled, growing harder and more veiny.

He waited for it – for my lips on his bell-end. I pulled on his dick as though about to milk it.

‘Knew you were a dirty bitch.’

I saw Craig’s face on his as I held the cock steady and, reaching into my pocket, I closed my fingers around the handle of the steak knife. Bringing it out slowly while stroking him into full submission, I waited until his eyes had closed and his chin tilted to the sky in ecstasy before I hacked down hard on it and started carving through the gristly meat. He screamed and swore and beat at my head with his fists but my grip was tight and I sawed at it through slipping, bloody fingers until I had yanked his penis from its roots and pushed him backwards into the murky green water. His forlorn manhood dropped to the cold canal towpath with a bloody slap.

The splash was loud and he was still screaming but, despite all the hullaballoo, no one was coming to either of our rescues.

‘Aaaaaaarrrgghhh! Aaaaarrrrrrgghh!’ he went, splashing around like a child at its first swimming class.

A little curl of steam rose up from the penis, lying dejectedly on the towpath. I found a spare dog poo bag in my coat and picked the severed member up, then ran towards the footbridge, my heart still banging like a bastard on a jail-cell wall. I lost my breath completely as I reached the top and looked down over the water.

‘Fucking… sick… bitch!’ he gargled, flopping about.

He kept splashing, sinking under the murky water, then bobbing up again and spluttering. The last thing he must have seen in this world was my face, on the bridge, smiling in the moonlight.

Thanks to my cruel improvisation, I was feeling something I hadn’t felt for a long time. That same feeling you get when you’re a kid and you spy an adventure playground. Or when you poke your foot out of the bed on Christmas morning and feel your full stocking hanging there. It radiates out from a deeply exciting inner squiggle until your whole body feels electric all over. The best feeling in the world. It’s an exquisite privilege to watch someone die, knowing you caused it. Almost worth getting dolled up for.

1. Teen boy and girl in the park who kicked their black Labrador that time

2. Derek Scudd

3. Wesley Parsons

4. The guy with Tourette’s who sits in the Paddy Power doorway, shouting about spacecrafts and the time he got fisted by a priest

5. Craig and Lana. To save on bullets, I’m putting them both together here – one shot, right through both skulls

6. The man in the blue Qashqai who pulled out of Marsh Road and beeped when I didn’t walk fast enough. 'Stupid slow bitch,' that’s what he’d said. All the way round the block I was picturing his suited body hanging by its neck – wriggling and twitching and me standing beneath him, just watching

Did a BuzzFeed quiz this morning – How Psychopathic Are You? Turns out – very. I scored 82 per cent. They even accompanied my results with a picture of Ralph Fiennes in Schindler’s List . Don’t know how I feel about that.

The quiz had been right about one thing, though.

Do you try to evade responsibility?

Well, yes, yes, I do. Remorse-wise, the canal incident has left little impression. I haven’t killed anyone for three years and I thought that when it happened again I’d feel bad, like an alcoholic taking a sip of whiskey. But, no, nothing. I had a blissful night’s sleep. Didn’t wake up at all and, for once, no bad dream either. This morning I feel balanced. Almost sane, for once.

*

Craig and I spent the first day of the New Year in front of the TV, eating pizza, the blue Quality Streets and watching ‘80s movies – Pretty in Pink , The Outsiders and that one where Demi Moore has a pink apartment and goes nuts at the end. He is an exceptional liar, I’ll give him that. I know he saw Lana today, under the pretence of ‘meeting Gary and Nigel down Wetherspoon’s’. He was vay convincing, to the untrained eye.

Sadly, my eye is hyper-trained – like an Olympic sprinter when it comes to rooting out bullshit.