Free Clockwork Dolls - FF by R. W. Whitefield - FF Page A

work, for it is God who offers salvation to you. Without Christ, there is no salvation.”
    “So all I have to do is ask, and it shall be given?”
    “If your heart is pure. Yes.”
    Dave laughed. It was almost a sob.
    “Ah, there’s the problem, right there.”
    “Look,” the cop said. “Why don’t we skip the philosophy and get on to the business end of things?”
    “I’m getting there. Just let me tell it my way. It’ll be faster.”
    Dave looked at the shadows in the corner once more before concentrating on the cop’s face.
    “Ask and it shall be given? That’s what you said, right? Well, I’ve got a story for you.
    “It started last month. Jane and Jim Barr invited me over to dinner. I almost turned them down, but any chance to see her was better than none at all.
    “And I had to get drunk before I could even bring myself to look at them.”

May 13th

    Dave was getting roaring drunk. He wasn’t enjoying it, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that two of the other three people in the room were his best friends, and they were better than Dave; better at their jobs, better in their sex-lives, better at life .
    But I’m the better drunk.
    The others around the table had made an effort and were smartly dressed for dinner, but Dave had deliberately chosen a tired and faded shirt. He had the sleeves rolled up to show his skinny white forearms, and he wore a very old pair of denim trousers that he’d owned since back in the day.
    When I was the better man.
    The remains of a large meal and a heavy drinking session were strewn across the table, with most of the empty bottles within arms reach of Dave. He took another hefty swig of wine, then remembered he was in the middle of a joke.
    “So they find the clitoris is missing…it’s been cut away.” He swilled more wine. “And the nurse says…” He paused, looking around the table. Nobody seemed to care. Jim and Jane were bent close, Jim whispering into Jane’s ear.
    In that case, I’ll just have to speak louder.
    “Go on guess what the nurse says…. Go on.”
    By now he was nearly shouting. But nobody answered him—nobody even looked interested in answering. He was too far gone to stop.
    “She says…it can’t have been a man then…he’d never have found it!” He laughed, too long, too loud, spraying a fine mist of wine down his shirt and slopping some out of his glass onto his jeans. “He’d never have found it!”
    The other three looked weary and bored…not a single smile from any of them. There was a long, embarrassed pause that Dave pretended not to notice. After another large swig of wine, he ploughed on. He’d come with the intention of saying what was on his mind, and the drink had now loosened his moral center enough to let it through the usual filters.
    He turned so that he was looking straight at Jane. And if he held his glass up just right, he was almost able to blot Jim, her husband, out of his view all together.
    “Do you remember Jane, that night in Miami, when the moonlight played on the sea and we slept on the beach? We didn’t have a stitch on and…”
    He was almost pleased to see Jane look embarrassed. Beside her, and directly across the table from Dave, Jim Barr, Jane’s husband went red in the face, but it wasn’t embarrassment. This was impending rage.
    “Why do you always have to be such an asshole, Dave?”
    Jim looked to Dave’s right, addressing the woman that sat there. Dave had been studiously ignoring her since he sat down to dinner, and couldn’t even remember her name.
    “He’s always been like this, Maggie…even when we were students.”
    Dave finally turned to look at the woman the others had deemed would be his date for the night. She was actually very pretty in a kind of hippy-goth type way, but he wasn’t in any mood to be placated. Besides, she seemed more amused than anything.
    I’ll soon put a stop to that.
    “And what are you smirking about?” He struggled to focus. “Come to