"What did you say your name was?" he asked, as I closed the front door behind us.

"Lianne," I said. Lianne Lawless." I knew it sounded unlikely but I didn't care. Saying the name made the inside of my mouth tingle.

I didn't know his name. It didn't matter. All that mattered was that ever since he had first glanced up, in the bar, and noticed me looking, tiny fish had been swimming through my veins.

He looked around the flat curiously. "This isn't what I expected."

"Good," I replied. They usually said something like that.

"Who's that?" He stared at the photograph on the mantelpiece.

"My sister." I always left her picture in a prominent place, since I found out the effect it had on them. After that he went quiet, except for a murmured protest of "I'm not into all that myself" as I began to tie him to the bed.

I smiled down at him. "I knew you'd get into it," I said. He stopped being quiet. I thought he was over acting a little, though, with the gasping and sighing. It was a good thing my brother's neighbours were all out during then day.

Couldn't you loosen the knots a little?" he begged, but I shook my head.

It wasn't long after that, I think, when I noticed he'd gone back to being quiet. I didn't take offence. I wished he didn't have to have such an off-putting expression on his face, though. Like he was suffering.

They asked about that in court. "And you claim you noticed nothing amiss?" the little bald man who thought he was so important asked me, several times.

I hung my head. "Well " I said. "You don't at times like that do you?"

The press loved that.

I told then court that I went to sleep. "As you do," I pointed out. My first thought when I woke up was that I had left him all trussed up like a chicken. My second thought was that something was wrong, very wrong.

And that's how I ended up in here.

Most of then other prisoners are all right. Some of them smirk and make the V for victory sign when they see me. Others act shocked.

"It was an accident," I protested for the first few weeks. Then I stopped saying it. Nobody believed me.

They all knew I was in for necrophilia. I'd been acquitted of manslaughter.

I wasn't to know he'd a dodgy heart. It could happen to anyone, as the saying goes.

At night, when the lights go out, the whispers start. "What's it like, then, come on, tell us, what's it like, don't try to tell us you didn't notice, come on Aud, what's it like?" They all want to know, even the one's that act disgusted.

Audrey ... pillar of the local community, organiser of charity tombolas ... famous at last.

I smile in the darkness.

The End


Copyright Helen O'Shea 2000
All rights reserved. All characters are fictitious in this story and no reference is intended to any person living or otherwise.

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