Sneak Peek: Constant 2, Chapter 6 - The Funeral of David Saunders (Patreon)

Despite a whole host of distractions and challenges this week, I've still managed to make a strong start, or at least build on last week's start, with Constant.  I think I've got a solid foundation to build from and although tricky, it'll hopefully maintain the tension as we shift into the final story arc of the series (I think).

Anyways!  Here's a sneak peek of the opening of chapter 6--still, I might add, very much in a rough state liable to change considerably by the end.  Enjoy! And let me know what you think.

***

Constant in All Other Things 2

Chapter 6

by

Fakeminsk (fakeminsk@gmail.com)

“Friendship is constant in all other things

Save in the office and affairs of love:

Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues;

Let every eye negotiate for itself

And trust no agent.”

Much Ado About Nothing

Synopsis:

“Ordinary” life resumes for David Saunders after his return from the Clinic. With the tenuous hope of returning to a male existence in six months left dangling in front of him, can he endure Cindy Bellamy’s life—as secretary, girlfriend, party girl—for that long; or is it time to take matters into his own hands?

OR

It’s the funeral of David Saunders, and as he’s laid to rest those who remain determine who ultimately killed him: was it the ex-girlfriend, the boss, the boyfriend, or the girls at work?

What has gone before:

David Sanders saw something he shouldn't have: his boss, pharmaceutical magnate Jeremiah Steele murder the son of an underworld rival. Placed in witness protection, an assassination attempt forced David adopt the life of Cindy Bellamy, a tragically deceased young woman. For months he suffered the ignominy of living a life he despises, his torture both alleviated and acerbated once discovered by Julia, a jilted ex-girlfriend. A return trip to the Asklepios Clinic raised tantalising hints of the past, revealed an old enemy, and led to an unexpectedly intimate encounter. It also extended his time as Cindy by another six months whilst making his disguise all the more complete.

***

I tried, honestly, but all things considered the funeral of David Saunders’s a pretty sorry affair.

But then, so was David Saunders. A pretty sorry affair, I mean. Oh, don’t get me wrong. His life had been a good one. Mostly. The sex was good. And there was a lot of it: so much sex, so many girls, though never enough to fill the emptiness at his centre. But then, he’d always been nothing more than a shell, really, a papier-mâché husk. To be fair, he’d made a convincing hollowed-out life, the exterior perfectly smooth and suitable but the contents—ah, well, the young man who stepped into that life was already broken beyond repair.

Poor damaged me; how sad.

Look at me, getting all maudlin. If I’m not careful my mascara’ll run. But hey, if I can’t indulge a bit of panda face at my own funeral, then when?

There’d never be a tombstone or grave or anything to mark David’s passing. But if there was his epitaph ought to be… oh, I don’t know. “He was a good fuck.” Probably. I’d like to think all those girls who met him, went home with him, spread their legs for him remembered him—fondly, if they remembered him at all. They ought to. At least he always made a point of getting them off, whatever it took. Never thought twice about going down on a girl, didn’t care if they wanted to ride on top or needed finger foreplay until his fingers cramped. Took it as a badge of pride.

That’s a hell of a lot more than most guys. Trust me. I know.

Still. From dust to dust, nothing to nothing; cock to cunt; male to female. Non-existence to stolen-existence: David Saunders’s last act in life was to slip, cuckoo like, into a pair of panties and take over the empty nest of Cindy Bellamy’s existence.

There were only two in attendance. It took some work, but Julia finally agreed to come. I could tell she was more than ready to be rid of David. Saying goodbye was easier than dealing with guilt, right? And she clearly still felt guilty over what she’d done to me last month, at how she’d fucked me over.

Like, I get it; she wanted revenge. Believe me, it’s a motive I understand. But it hurt, and we hadn’t spoken since.

And her presence there brought a strange sort of fluttery happiness in my belly, even if she stood there looking caught somewhere between sombre, confused and bored. She’s bothered to show, and that meant something. She’d even made some effort to dress up. Julia looked good in black, though I missed the long hair. She’d cut it short after we fell out. Looking her over, I still felt an echo of the old longing—a wholly inappropriate dampening at the crotch at the thought of what I’d love to do to her. It was a funeral, after all.

And then there was me, in that tight little back dress, the same one I’d worn all those months ago on that first date with Dan. (Bastard fucking son of a bitch dickhead!) Squeezing into it—and the under-rigging need to get it to fit—brought back all kinds of memories. Not necessarily good ones, mind.

On the one hand, that night with Jules, gilded memories glossed by time: Champagne giggles as we tried to make sense of the bands and buckles of the lingerie. Twisting and turning as she strapped me in—her playful slap across my bottom and sucking in my gut—taut straps across my thighs and her fingers tracing them. Makeup, soft colours painted on each others’ lips… kissing, and back to the sensuous brush strokes, repairing the damage. Breasts pushed up against each other, and the phantom memory of a cock straining against the confines of its panties. Our roaming hands and hot breath.

Was that the night that killed David Saunders?

No. But it was a nail in the coffin, one of many.

Then the other hand, the bad memories. After the fun, zipping me into the little back dress and sending me off on a date with a man, another man, in the full knowledge of where it would bring me and openly mocking me for it. And then what came after, because that wasn’t the worst thing you did to me, was it Jules?

Funny, though, how disgusting the idea of sitting with another man, in a romantic setting and holding his hand—kissing him—following him home and doing what inevitably follows, seemed then.

Funny, though not ha-ha funny. A lot can change in three months.

Still, no denying that night—that first date—was a step leading to tonight’s… celebration? That seems a bit cold. Ceremony, then.

I smiled at Julia from behind my veil as she shifted uncomfortably in her heels. There some kind of irony to the fact she’s less confident in heels than I am. She’s getting better, though—she has to. Meanwhile, my makeup’s appropriately dark and smoky, lips a deep dark burgundy, nails a glittering shade shy of black.

“Thanks for coming, Julia,” I said. “I mean it.”

She opened her mouth to answer, frowned, shut it and shrugged.

Appropriately sombre music rolled in the background. I’d asked the speakers to throw out some sombre music and, knowing my tastes, the AI generated an unending low dirge that seemed one-part remix of SIN-Di’s latest, to one-part ambient dark synth. Murky and ponderous throbbing set a perfect mood. A few dozen LED tealight candles dotted around my tiny apartment flickered and danced in the dark, glimmering from chipped shelves or dotted across the stained coffee and flimsy end tables. A little circle of lights cast their faint glow on a picture of David Saunders.

It was the best I could find. I’d nabbed it from an international trade paper from a few years back, a report on Neopharm’s recent expansion into Japan. The original picture captured the Hanami party in a wide-angle shot, black suits and colourful kimonos against a backdrop of brilliant cherry blossoms. A little zooming, cutting and cleanup and I’d extracted David from the moment. He was leaning, arms crossed, against a tree trunk, smiling that sardonic half-smile. He was alone beneath the short-lived Sakura. A single sliver of peach-shaded petal rested on one shoulder.

(The risk was minimal. I’d popped into a trendy café on the way home from work one night, one off the usual route. I’d used a shell account and a scrubbed laptop to grab the image.)

Looking at him now, I had to admit he was a damn good-looking guy. Short-cropped hair, lean but the stretch of his white shirt hinted at the muscle beneath. A little short, sure, but even at rest he exuded confidence—a cocky, crazy confidence I admired. Looking at the framed printout, I wanted that old confidence for myself.

Yeah, right. If I’d been there as I am now, I’d be one of those slim, pretty girls in the colourful kimonos, shyly smiling and bending at the knee and serving up sake to the businessmen. Gliding around the edge of the action, checking and keeping my makeup meticulous, an adornment to this manufactured scene of powerful and important people.

But I could totally see myself hanging off that guy’s arm at some club. My fingertip-length skirt sparkling in the flashing lights, a sexy contrast to his suit, white shirt and tie. His arm around my waist, possessively; possessed and cared for, pressing into him, safe.

I’d studied his face carefully before framing, setting it to memory: the angular features, bright eyes… sharp, high cheekbones—cheekbones just crying out for a little contouring, a little colour.

I shook my head and sighed.

“What the fuck are we doing here, David?” Julia sounded impatient.

“Not David,” I said. “Cindy.”

“Whatever. Fine. Cindy. What’s all—” and she swept her hand across the room, taking in the candles and photograph, the flowers and canapes. “This?”

It was too big a question to answer in words though I wanted to, needed to, judging by the pressure that swelled my chest and squeezed my throat into silence. Instead, I shrugged and offered a weak smile instead.

She leaned against the wall, drinking me in for a moment. “I’m going to need more than that. Cindy.”

I tried again. “We’re here to commemorate the life and death of Davd Saunders.”

She raised an eyebrow. “What, you’re…,” she sighed. “He’s dead?”

My bottom lip trembled a little as I nodded.

“How?”

“Four suspects,” I said, and with all the flourish of a Sherlock Holmes—or more appropriately, I suppose, a sexier Velma Dinkley or Jane Watson—I raised four fingers.

Julia rolled her eyes.

“They all did him in, “I continued. “But who takes the blame?”

The whole thing was a bit pointless, to be fair, but I wanted Julia, wanted somebodyto understand and maybe even mourn my—his—death.

If I was being brutally honest, David Saunders died the night he caught Jeremiah Steele with a gun in his hand. That bastard might as well have shot him down then and there. There was no returning to the way things were before—not after witnessing that sort of thing—and especially after turning to the authorities. Even then I knew that whatever followed wouldn’t be David Saunders’ life, but somebody else’s, a new life to replace the old.

I just never expected things to turn out like this—by ‘this’ is mean the tits and pussy, obviously, the skirts and heels, and so on; mincing around as a secretary all day, and nights—

“The ex-girlfriend,” I stated, pulling back one finger. “The girls at work,” I added, drawing back the second. “The boyfriend, and the boss.” I raised my hand, fingers curled into a small fist.

“The ex-girlfriend?” Julia smiled without humour. “Really? Fuck this, David. I’m out of here.”

Wincing, I held up a placating hand. “Please,” I said, and the sincerity and pleading whine to my voice must have touched her somehow. “I… I don’t think I can do this without you.”

Julia tossed her head as though sweeping an invisible mane of hair over her shoulder, and her hand reached for something that was no longer there. She scowled but stayed, picking up the glass of wine I’d poured for her.  It wasn’t great stuff, not on my secretary’s income. She took a heavy drink, grimaced, and forced a humourless red-stained smile.

“Well? Get on with it, then.”