Free Everything to Nothing by Mark Henthorne Page B

heard Sarah start to make
her way downstairs. She took the few paces from the bottom of the
stairs and stood in front of him while he was still sat on the
sofa.
    ‘I guess I’ll
be going then. Would you, erm, like to see each other again?’
    ‘Yeah, I don’t
see why not.’ he said. He was thinking that if she was that wild on
a one night stand, hell yes he wanted to see her again.
    Peter then
stood up and gave her a hug and a kiss on the lips. ‘Look, about
the cocaine, don’t tell anyone. Sorry it had that affect on you.
You really shouldn’t have taken that much though, you need to get
used to it.’
    ‘After that
nose bleed I don’t think I will be touching the stuff ever
again.’
    ‘Well, if you
ever want to, come round and I will give you some. You will have to
pay for it though.’
    ‘I can’t see me
doing that. But I would like to see you again.’
    ‘Here is my
mobile number,’ said Peter, giving her a business card, ‘so give me
a call whenever you want to go out. I am free most evenings apart
from, well, Friday and Saturday, for obvious reasons. Do you want a
lift home?’
    ‘No, it is
okay. It is not far from here. Could do with the walk.’
    ‘Okey dokey
then babe. Give me a call and I will take you out.’
    ‘Sounds good. I
will definitely call you.’
    With that Peter
leaned forward and gave her a passionate, deep kiss and took her
hand. He led her to the front door and they parted with another
kiss and as the door closed behind her Peter said out loud, ‘Now
that was what I call a wild, wild night!’
     
    Chapter 12
     
    Sally slept
fitfully that Friday night. Although what sleep she did have was
dreamless, she awoke often and one of two images were always there
when she awoke.
    The first image
she saw was the man, the second was always David. When she tried to
get back to sleep she focused all her mind on the image of David
and desperately tried to force out the image of the man.
    After waking up
for what felt like the one hundredth time during the night, Sally
gave up with sleep at about six in the morning. It was pitch black
outside but she still decided to go for a run, then a swim and
hopefully catch her father at breakfast before he went to work.
    At first she
could not believe that she was going back out into the dark after
all that happened to her during the last night. She flicked on the
bedroom light and she rummaged in a chest of drawers for her
running shoes and sport clothes to wear. She slipped the clothes
on, not bothering with underwear, and tied her shoes tight. She
heard a noise outside her door and guessed it was one of the
maids.
    Sally quickly
decided that she did not want to see anyone so she walked over to
the French windows, thrust them open, and stepped out onto the
balcony. She sucked in the crisp, clean night air and she was
surprised about how mild it was for the time of year.
    Her balcony
faced east and she could see the first hint of dawn just touching
the horizon, but she knew that full sunrise was still at least an
hour away. Sally continued sucking in the fresh air as she did some
light stretching of her legs.
    She then closed
her eyes and purposefully brought the image of the man to the front
of her mind and then she said out loud, ‘I will not let you affect
my life! I will sleep at night, I will not be afraid of the
dark!’
    With that she
sprung over the balcony wall and gracefully fell the ten feet to
the lawn below. She landed with her knees bent and instantly
started to jog. She jogged for a minute and then sprinted for
thirty seconds. As she was running along the lawn she sidestepped
bushes and trees, occasionally leaping over the smaller bushes
which appeared out of the early morning gloom in a classic hurdlers
pose.
    After about
five minutes running, the lawn ran out and she entered woodland.
There was a path through the trees that she followed until it
finished against the estate’s internal wall after another five
minutes of hard running. The