Savage Night - Allan Guthrie [22]
Closet chains were just like handcuffs but with a long chain between the cuffs. Several feet long usually. Designed to allow the wearer—usually a con attending a family funeral or wedding—to use the bathroom in privacy without the risk of him escaping through the window. He'd wear one cuff and his escort would be on the other side of the door wearing the other. Had to keep the door ajar to let the chain through, but that still gave the con a little dignity while he did his business. But Yardie's closet chain looked to be on the short side. Three, maybe four feet long. He'd nicked it from a prison officer's home. The screw shouldn't have had it there, so it never got reported stolen.
Yardie's mates had paired up, tried it on, and now two of them had the chain stretched tight about three feet off the ground and a third was about to jump over it. Park hoped he'd trip.
Effie pointed out the girlfriend of one of the mutton heads. Effie knew her vaguely. Rumour had it she swung both ways, Effie said.
Park got on well with lezzers. And this one was a looker, too. Not that he was going to hit on her, him being a married man and all, but there was no harm in saying hello. He left the happy-couple-to-be in the corner to snog for a while, grabbed a bottle of white wine and went off to talk to the dyke.
She wasn't very talkative, though. Any topic of conversation he brought up, she replied with a one-word answer. He thought long and hard and came up with a topic he was sure she'd be interested in. Muff diving. Told her it'd been a while, but that was something he'd always been good at. Did a mean butterfly kiss.
She dropped her drink and ran off.
Seconds later he was on the floor with her boyfriend looking down at him, clenching his fist and snarling. No, really: snarling. Park had never heard anything quite like it.
The boyfriend hadn't actually hit him. Just shoved him sideways onto the ground whilst Park was off-balance picking up the lezzer's glass. Pretty embarrassing. And totally uncalled for. Wasn't as if Park had been chatting her up.
But even if he was, it wasn't as if this guy was married to her. And she swung both ways, so he probably wouldn't ever be married to her, cause if he was, she'd only be able to swing one way. If that was technically possible. And if she swung both ways, then she'd need to be able to swing the other way, cause that was in her nature. Which is why she couldn't ever marry him. Stood to reason.
Not that Park managed to explain it to himself as rationally as this, cause he was fuming at the time and incapable of thinking clearly enough to put on his own trousers.
As he got to his feet, an audience gathered round, all the fun of jumping over a closet chain forgotten for now. Rage was thermalling through Park, heating him up from the inside till his face was all toasty on the outside. He felt a muscle tug in his cheek.
Park tried to hit the cocksucker on the point of the chin rather than on the nose or mouth, which is where he'd have preferred. But that was easier said than done. He caught the lip full-on, and it burst and spurted nnnnngah blood almost straight away. Came out all thick and red and spelling disaster.
All the energy drained out of him, saliva built under his tongue, that weird nausea not like he was going to be sick but something much more specific. Happened every time he saw blood. Had done for as long as he could remember. Since he was three, to be precise. Vision blackened at the edges, bells rang, chest tightened, knees gave way. If he managed to get his head between his knees, it passed after a few minutes. If not, he fainted.
Haemophobia. Or the term he preferred: blood-phobia. It was his biggest embarrassment.
Apparently, after he'd fallen to the floor, the ned boyfriend had seized his opportunity, brave as a bull with an extra-thick lip now Park was on the deck, and given him a few smacks round the head and a couple of kicks in the ribs. That's what it felt like, anyway, and Effie corroborated