Read by Greg Page
Gordon Collindale went into the bathroom to prepare for bed. Marjorie was waiting for him, and the tone of her voice when she’d suggested an early night hinted that she had planned something other than their usual forty winks.
Gordon sighed to himself. He wasn’t really in the mood. Middle age had seized a large portion of his libido, cruelly coinciding with the moment his wife had discovered the second wave of hers. He was no longer the spry young man in his sexual prime, and Marjorie’s recent demands, though mostly fun, were beginning to tire him out.
If you would like to read the rest of this story, please check out Lovers' Lies, the Arachne Press anthology in which it, and many other sexy and lovable stories from the League archives, appears.
Gordon’s nightly routine was exact. After he had squeezed every last drop from the bagpipe of his bladder he began the important task of oral hygiene. First, the automatic toothbrush for exactly four minutes - timed on his keen internal clock, afterwards flossing, with every tooth given the same amount of methodical and precise attention. He did not feel rushed by the impatient presence of Marjorie in the next room; her soft, barely audible moans and pleadings leaking through the walls showed that the wait was enhancing her pleasure and this meant that Gordon had to do far less thrusting during the actual act. It was a win-win situation.
Gordon took his clothes off and surveyed himself in the mirror for any worrying signs of decay; he had become increasingly paranoid after listening to a discussion about skin cancer on Radio Four. Every blemish, freckle or liver spot was like a klaxon that reminded him that he was more likely to die sooner than he had planned. As with most people, dying was not on Gordon’s to-do list.
Satisfied that he had been granted a temporary reprieve from mortality, Gordon went to the hook on the back of the bathroom door, took down the matador costume and began to put it on.
***
The Bullfighter was Marjorie’s idea. Their sex life had been fulfilling but they both agreed that the edges been blunted by the sustained normality of a staid suburban life. Marjorie was the first to suggest role-play, hoping it would fire Gordon’s imagination. They had thought about it for a while and had dismissed an initial circus theme because Marjorie was worried that the face-paints would smear the bedspread. Devoid of other ideas, Gordon suggested they brainstormed; he had learnt this technique in the office. He even borrowed a flip chart one evening so their ideas could be comprehensively documented. Perhaps, he thought, Marjorie would indulge him by dressing as a saucy nurse?
His disappointment was palpable when his wife produced, as if from nowhere, a complete Spanish bullfighter’s costume. This was not what he'd had in mind.
“This wasn’t what I had in mind,” he told her.
For Marjorie, the genesis of the idea lay in a holiday they had taken in Spain earlier that year. Marjorie, in the sun, away from their semi-detached home with garage, felt relaxed and free. Sitting outside a café on La Rambla, they would idly watch the world go by and Marjorie could not help but compare this to their progressively greying life in Surrey. Barcelona was exotic and exciting while Surbiton was firmly stuck in monochrome. She didn’t get such brilliant sights, sounds and aromas in the Marks and Spencer Café. This was how the matador seed had become planted in her mind, despite the couple not seeing a single bullfighter at any time during their stay.
Gordon realised that it could have been worse; a getaway in any other country could easily have meant wearing lederhosen or a string of onions around his neck. Besides, his office had begun to ask questions as to the whereabouts of the flip chart, so he reluctantly agreed to the Spanish scenario to get things over and done with.
After a few attempts Gordon began to warm to it. There was something in the intricacy of the costume that he found attractive; the ornate patterns hinted at a more beautiful and aesthetic way of life. Gordon was content to play along, not once questioning his wife’s choice. He even missed her passionate cries of “Juan!” when his ears were muffled between the chubbiness of her milky thighs.
However, that night there was something unsettled bubbling away in Gordon’s mind like a spicy stew. Had he misread the mood? All the earlier signs had pointed to another assignation between The Toreador and The Sexy Senorita; Marjorie had cooked a Spanish Omelette and between them they had drunk a bottle of Waitrose Rioja. But still, there was a nagging doubt at the back of Gordon’s mind that tonight was somehow different. Something other than pheromones was in the air.
He checked the costume. It still smelt fresh from the dry cleaners. Thankfully they asked no questions about the strange garments; this sort of thing happened more than Gordon had realised. He checked the decorations once more to see if any of the costume’s flamboyances had been accidentally damaged. Satisfied that his outfit was intact, he put his hat on and went to join Marjorie in the bullring.
His wife was on the bed, lying naked save for a large raven black bouffant wig. She was panting in excitement. Gordon could not shake the feeling that there was something not quite right about the whole situation.
Marjorie patted his side of the bed to suggest that he came thither.
“Oh come to me you sexy Spanish man!” she pleaded.
“Si senorita,” Gordon replied. He affected a slight accent that always made him feel vaguely uncomfortable, more racist than racy, though Marjorie seemed pleased with it.
“I want your hot chorizo!” she moaned.
Gordon was not entirely sure what chorizo was, but the exhausting events of the ensuing ten minutes meant that he could make a pretty good stab in the dark.
Such was the rampant, animal nature of their lovemaking that Gordon completely failed to notice the thunderous rumblings coming from somewhere else inside the house. The doom that he had suppressed to the back of his mind was calling out to him.
It was only when Marjorie told him that he instantly remembered. Lying in their post-coital calm, with his hat askew and the rest of his costume strewn on the floor, Gordon discovered the cause of his unease; Marjorie leant over him and whispered a breathless “Happy Anniversary!” in his ear. The world started to sink. They had been married for twenty-three years and this was the first time he had forgotten to commemorate that fact.
His heart, already dancing a tango from their role-play, began to beat faster, clicking like castanets inside his chest. There were further rumblings from downstairs, but he dismissed this, thinking it was the blood thundering around his body trying to coagulate into a believable excuse.
“You’ve forgotten haven’t you?” said Marjorie, sighing more out of frustration than ecstasy.
Gordon’s sense of panic had reached its summit. It was best to be honest and admit the truth, but just as he was about to make his shamed confession there was another crash from downstairs, accompanied by an almighty, inhuman sound. Gordon could no longer dismiss the noises as being in his imagination. They had burglars.
“Shhh!” he told Marjorie. “There’s someone in the house.”
They were very still.
Marjorie tried to silence her breathing so she could hear clearly. Gordon tried to silence his so they could not be heard.
Again, the muffled noises echoed throughout the house.
“It sounds like they’re in the garage,” whispered Gordon
The affront of being burgled was one thing, but Gordon pictured the hassle of the aftermath; he had enough paperwork at the office without having to deal with an insurance claim.
“I’m going to have to go down there and see if I can disturb them,” he said, reasoning that if the burglars fled soon, they would not have a chance to pilfer the flat screen TV and the keys to Gordon’s car. Dear God, thought Gordon, not the car!
“You’ll need to put on some clothes,” said Marjorie. Gordon quietly grabbed what he could of the costume, and hastily put it on to protect his modesty. When he was ready, he noticed Marjorie standing in front of him with a package in her arms. It was a strange time to be exchanging gifts.
“I was going to save it for later, but there’s no time like the present” said Marjorie. Gordon unwrapped the large package to find it contained a bullfighter’s lance. It was the crowning glory of his costume. Everything had come together and Gordon finally felt like a real, red-blooded man, ready to confront any danger.
Gordon adjusted his cape, and with the lance in hand slowly made his way downstairs toward the direction of the crashing and groaning. There was a door connecting the garage to the kitchen and as he neared it the noise began to intensify. Gordon grabbed a couple of saucepans and began to bang them together in the hope that the din would alert the robbers to the homeowner’s presence, but the loud, violent, bestial noises still carried on regardless. There must be some kind of fight going on, thought Gordon, and he congratulated himself on leaving the car on the drive that night.
The fear in Gordon was palpable, but the inner strength that he discovered in the outfit was powering him on. There was something in the notion of the lone bullfighter that made him feel heroic, and as he reached for the door, awkwardly readying his lance, he could almost hear the cries of the crowd in the bullring lustily cheering him on.
He was greeted by a large black indefinable lump crashing around at speed. It was only after a few seconds that the apparition sensed the presence of another, stopped its carnage and calmed, but in this calm Gordon’s fear intensified as he began to properly identify his opponent. The intruder was not human. A pair of large bulging eyes stared at him; hot air rasped defiantly through the creature’s nostrils, the large sharp horns on its head rammed home the inadequacy of Gordon’s own weapon.
There was a bull in his garage.
Gordon heard Marjorie move behind him. She had followed him downstairs.
“I’m sorry love,” she said. “I meant to surprise you in the morning. I didn’t think it would wake up so soon.”
On the next morning people awoke to jaunty, tongue in cheek news reports of a disorientated bull roaming the streets of Surrey. The coverage became sombre when the body of Gordon Collindale was discovered crumpled in a corner and wearing a tattered bullfighter’s costume. The cause of death was instantly established and the coroner would conclude that the hole in Gordon’s chest was caused by a sharp object “not unlike a large horn.”
The hole in the garage door indicated that the desperate bull had eventually succeeded in violently forcing its way out, but how it got there in the first place remains a mystery.
There was little trace of the deceased’s wife, but the police had noted that her passport and money had also gone missing. A note had been left; it read “I’m sorry.”
Gordon’s car was unscathed.
***
Somewhere in Barcelona an English woman sits outside a café, wearing a large black wig, quietly mourning the accidental and violent loss of her true love. She is hoping that she will soon find something to replace the hole gored in her own heart.
And if she is lucky, he will be a bullfighter and his name will be Juan.
--
By The Horns by Darren Lee was read by Greg Page at the Liars’ League Cock & Bull event on Tuesday 8 February 2011 at The Phoenix, Cavendish Sq., London
Darren Lee lives in London. He is a regular contributor to MusicOMH.com and his story Spellbound was recently included in the 50 Stories For Pakistan anthology. He is currently working on replacing his hair, which has been shed in despair at the amount of unfinished work on his hard drive.
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