My Idea of Fun Read Free

I am about to tear it all apart – tear her apart.
    I've courted this moment assiduously, longed for it even. It's all very well getting your kicks from hurting people, defiling them, causing them untold suffering, but it doesn't really amount to anything when they don't even know you. Ignorance is, relatively speaking, bliss, when even as they give up the ghost they can still comfort themselves with the thought that you are some kind of daemon, not human, not like them.
    With Jane it's going to be different. She knows me, she trusts me, she says she loves me, she thinks she is bearing our child. When I tell her that things are not at all as they seem, she will be utterly incredulous; and then, as she comes to believe, what exquisite pain there will be, what complete betrayal. The man she cherishes, the man she butterfly-kisses, the man she sleeps curved around like two spoons in a drawer. It is he who is evil, he who is sworn to destroy her, an emotional quisling of the first water.
    I can bide time now, polish up my adamantine treachery, since I've decided now what I want to do. It's pointless for me to dwell on The Fat Controller's unsportsmanlike tactics. Wasn't evil always thus, banal, pinching its plots from elsewhere and shamelessly bastardising them? This business of cropping up in Jane's womb, it's only the latest in a long procession of shoddy gimmicks. I don't want to react, to show myself to be any weaker than I am, because that's quite weak enough.
    Jane will be asleep soon, she's not a big sitter-upper. She'll probably take a couple of sips of her camomile, read a few lines of a novel and then start sliding down into the dark burrow of sleep. Usually, when I come upstairs, I tuck her in and turn off the lamp on her side of the bed.
    So that leaves me here, I'll be undisturbed whilst I'm being disturbing. Here in the dun kitchen, listening to the fridge, with the whole night ahead of me, I want to try and explain, if I can, how all of this came to be. How it could have been that my idea of fun diverged, so far and so fast, from what might have been expected of someone like me. But I also want it understood by you that this explanation isn't intended as justification of any kind. I don't need to justify myself, I only want to be understood. That's always the cry of the weak man, isn't it? He cries out for understanding when he has none of his own. But I ask you, do you understand, do you really comprehend what has happened to you? If you look at the entire course of your life does it resolve itself into a series of clear-cut decisions, places where the route divided and you took the right way rather than the left? Couldn't it just as easily have been the Hand of Fate, blind or otherwise, that nudged you? Either scenario would make as much sense for anyone. At least it isn't like that for me, I can actually point to my determinants, I can name them even: The Fat Controller for one, Dr Gyggle for two, and if I were pressed for a third it would have to be Mummy.
    Here's the hook. When I'm done we'll decide on it together, you and I. I'll give you the opportunity to participate in the denouement. I'm all for audience participation. After all, what's your fleeting embarrassment set beside my life's work? Don't worry, I intend to give full weight to our deliberations. When we're done I'll either go on upstairs, wake Jane, tell her the truth and have my fun as she expires, or I'll give up on the whole thing, pop my clogs and shuffle off into some other dimension altogether.
    I don't think I'm being overly dramatic about this and nor do I feel I'm shanghaiing you. After all, you're like all the rest, you like the world on your plate ready to be forked into two chunks, don't you? There's nothing more comforting for you than saying, ‘This is either this, or it's that.’ You do it all the time, it's as primary as breathing for you. I'm merely providing you with another opportunity to exercise your fine