As soon as you walked through the door the unmistakable aroma of weed and the familiar smell of infidelity left you in no doubt that you had entered the Cavendish Club. As usual the place was full of desperate people, some searching for everlasting love, most of them just after a one night stand. The events over the last few days had left him depressed and emotionally drained. The day had started badly and progressively g...

If you were looking for a woman with style and sophistication, the place to visit was the Bridge Hotel wine-bar between the hours of 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. Positioned high above the embankment of the river Tyne the wine-bar attracted a diverse range of corporate, stylish and beautiful people eager to unwind, flirt and get up to mischief, or just go straight for the desirable option of committing adultery. This particular time...

Whitehall Primary School was in the last week of a mid-term break and with only a few members of staff on the premises and no obstructions from interfering children, it should make his survey a lot easier to complete. The car tyres crunched in the deep snow and the windscreen wipers squeaked across the windscreen as he manoeuvred the car carefully through a pair of black metal gates before pulling to a halt in the school...

If only he had gone straight to the casino on Friday night like he intended he wouldn’t have had the police knocking at his door and he would definitely be in a better frame of mind for the long drive to Stockport. He was certainly beginning to regret his act of chivalry. The Bay Horse public house in Gateshead was a place you generally called into for a quick drink on the way to somewhere else. It was a dirty, sleazy pla...

“Double-Room” (circa-1970) After the death of Victoria, and his brother Frank away most of the time with the British Armed Forces and his younger sister Eve in those unbearable teenage years, living at home with his parents was never going to be the same. So when Gary Fowler offered him the opportunity to move into his flat, it didn’t take him long to make up his mind. In the beginning their loyalty and friendship towards...

Jimmy Boyd was a hard man. Towering over most people at six feet tall his casual persona hid the physical, threatening and violent tendencies that earned him his reputation. The long white scar running across the left side of his neck was given to him by a nightclub doorman, just before Jimmy got the better of him. After Jimmy had finished with him his injuries were so bad an ambulance had to rush him to the nearest hospi...

“Tartan Blanket” (circa-1968) From the day their mother and father informed family and friends that their daughter, Victoria had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, it took less than four months before her battle against the disease finally ended and her life slipped slowly away. In the last few days of her life her body had been reduced from a nine stone beautiful young woman to a weak and helpless skeletal frame. With...

“He Looked Familiar” (circa-1982) When Brenda Morton entered a room her tits came first and the rest followed. “Come inside,” she invited, her words breathed in a soft seductive whisper, her eyes taking a quick tour over the smart young man old enough to be her son. “I was expecting someone older,” she said. “Please take that age thing as a compliment,” she smiled, flashing dark brown eyes, her fingers playing with a wate...

“Persuasive Approval” (circa-1971) Meeting Beverley Jackson for the first time after their impulsive moment of intimacy when Charles and George left them alone in the hotel to visit the landlord of the Red Bull was always going to be a little uncomfortable. He stepped out of the car and walked into the hotel reception. Other than muffled voices coming from the television he was surprised to find the place deserted. His ac...

“A Question of Gender” (circa-1980) If someone had told him that one day he would fuck a middle-aged woman with a broken leg, who would then persuade him to join a swingers club and participate in group sex in a room full of faceless strangers, he would have said they were on drugs or completely mad. But there he was leaving the Cavendish Club with a fifty-year old woman with a leg in a plaster cast, clutching his arm as...