Best Supporting Actor

John Vize

Description

A humorous tale of contrasting characters with widely differing attitudes to relationships, sex and love in all its forms. The incurable romantic finding love in middle age; the young married woman for whom sex is a personal currency to be spent as she desires; the arrogant, exploitative womaniser; the single mother with a dark secret and the sexually inexperienced 'thirty something' lady are the unsuspecting players in this tragicomedy. Sexual awakening, love and lust drive them in unequal measure. A spiral of life-changing events follows a tragic accident that seals their fate. Seduction, adultery, deceit, betrayal, conspiracy and revenge ensue. But who, if any, are the winners or losers? Who will find fulfilment? Who will pay the price? Who will triumph? And who will live to tell the tale?

Informations

• Publié par: Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
• Date de parution: 28 mai 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781528992749
• Langue: English

Extrait

B est S upporting A ctor
John Vize
Austin Macauley Publishers
2021-05-28
Best Supporting Actor About the Author Dedication Copyright Information © Acknowledgement Chapter One: Without Due Care Chapter Two: Charles Trelawney Chapter Three: Mid-Life Crisis? Chapter Four: Aunt Margaret Chapter Five: Time to Tell Chapter Six: All Is Forgiven Chapter Seven: Philippa’s First Flight Chapter Eight: George’s Indiscretion Chapter Nine: Tristan Chapter Ten: A Game of Chance Chapter Eleven: Every Other Saturday Chapter Twelve: I’m Not in Love Chapter Thirteen: Taking Cats to Lunch Chapter Fourteen: Keeping Fit Chapter Fifteen: George Fights Back Chapter Sixteen: A Mental Illness? Chapter Seventeen: Dog Day Chapter Eighteen: A Quick Drink Chapter Nineteen: Margaret’s Accident Chapter Twenty: Wicked Uncle Chapter Twenty-One: Solo Flight Chapter Twenty-Two: First Time with Philippa Chapter Twenty-Three: Take Me Home Chapter Twenty-Four: The Wake Chapter Twenty-Five: The Happiest Day of My Life Chapter Twenty-Six: Woman on Top Chapter Twenty-Seven: Indecent Proposal Chapter Twenty-Eight: Degrees of Persuasion Chapter Twenty-Nine: A Lonely Week Chapter Thirty: White Silk Sheets Chapter Thirty-One: Slipping the Surly Bonds Chapter Thirty-Two: Seeing Her Again Chapter Thirty-Three: Looking Back
About the Author
John Vize was born in London and educated at King George V College in Southport. Following a commission in the Royal Air Force as a pilot, he held a marketing management role in Ford Motor Company before co-founding a successful advertising agency. He retired after selling the business and now spends his time travelling, writing and throwing himself into numerous active projects. He lives in rural Northamptonshire with his wife, Judith. To balance the restful pursuits of gardening, poultry and bee-keeping, he remains a keen yachtsman, canoeist and aerobatic pilot.
Dedication
To my late mother, Eileen Joan Vize.
Copyright Information ©
John Vize (2021)
The right of John Vize to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781528992725 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781528992732 (Hardback)
ISBN 9781528992749 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2021)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LQ
Acknowledgement
To Sam Street for her invaluable advice and encouragement, to those who have inspired this fictional tale and to my wife, Judith, for her patience during those summer holidays in Greece that I spent typing rather than touring. Thanks also to my daughter, Claire, for her calm and expert IT support.
Chapter One Without Due Care
My affair with Alice had lasted for almost a year when it happened.
The alarming incident and the close shave with the law could have landed me in gaol had I not wriggled out with some reckless deception. I soon shrugged it off at the time but little did I realise the eventual impact it was to have on my selfish, carefree life.
I usually take Thursday mornings off to visit her at home whilst husband, Ken, attends a weekly sales meeting in the Midlands. We can rely on his regular attendance as he’s his company’s sales director, and it’s very convenient too that he likes to instil in his team a work ethic that requires a full day after a very early start.
It isn’t a love affair, neither of us wants that. It is just pure sex. She is twenty-five, blonde and beautiful and not concerned at all about the age difference between us.
Alice insists that she loves her husband and never criticises him or complains about him in any way. She made it clear from the start that our liaison is just for fun. She has a single man’s attitude to sex. I’m very fond of her but I don’t love her and she doesn’t love me. But we have such fun. In the past year I’ve had more sex in more ways and in more places than ever before in my life. It is fantastic and I can’t believe my luck. She is spectacularly beautiful, has the body of a porn star without the implants and she fucks like a rattlesnake. There is no emotion, no tears, no rows, no jealously; just wonderful, compulsive, energetic shagging.
The only slight disappointment for me is that surprisingly my lovely porn princess’s orgasms are almost completely silent. She comes at least twice during our assignations but at her climax emits only a muffled squeak. It’s as if she’s a mouse worried about waking a cat sleeping nearby.
I always wait for her but often have to ask, “Was that it? Have you come?”
“Yes!” she answers with mock irritation and a sharp pinch of my arse, painful enough to prompt my instant ejaculation or postpone it for minutes. “Several times. Didn’t you notice?”
I wonder if perhaps, perversely she thinks that giving me the satisfaction of full volume would be a greater infidelity. Perhaps she limits the unfaithfulness by saving her orgasmic cries for Ken alone.
It happened on a cold damp Thursday early in March. I was on my way to Alice’s spacious home in the leafy suburbs, although there wasn’t a leaf to be seen in the naked avenue as spring very definitely had not yet sprung. Not a bud had so far emerged on the urban trees and I pondered whether nature had gifted them with inverted buds, an arboreal equivalent of the nipples I’d be taking into my mouth so soon, awaiting the kiss of warm sunlight to coax them from inactive hibernation.
It was just before one o’clock as I drove down the High Street and I was even more than usually excited. She had suggested that we ‘have lunch first’. This was a new game and I just knew she was going to tease me for an hour before we romped. Alice had left a voicemail an hour earlier saying that she was going to buy a dozen scallops and six Madagascan prawns and to ask me if she should pick up a Gewürztraminer, or go to the better stocked wine shop to find a more appropriate Muscadet, to wash down our crustaceans. Whilst I must confess she has taught me a lot about women and sex that even I didn’t know, I have in return taught the lovely airhead to appreciate fine wine and good food.
It was customary for me to call when ten minutes away for an always unnecessary final check that the coast was clear, that no unwelcome neighbour had dropped in for girl talk about unsatisfactory relationships or troublesome children.
The seat belt gave a little as I raised one buttock in the driving seat just sufficiently to make room for me to shove a hand down my trousers. I was getting a hard-on in anticipation and had to reposition my cock to take the bend out of it before it got too painful. Oh, what a wonderful life!
It was a short call to respond to her suggestion about the wine, a brief conversation that I knew would as ever end with an exchange of sexual innuendo, when he stepped from the kerb. Simultaneously, I felt and heard him hit the front bumper with a sickening crack and caught a glimpse of his agony as his body rolled along the bonnet towards me, slowing momentarily to face me accusingly through the windscreen before disappearing over the roof of the car. I don’t think I’d had time to brake before I saw him in the rear-view mirror rolling in the road behind me. The whole tragic, frightening episode lasted only two seconds but will haunt me for life.
I got out of the car and approached the crowd gathering noisily around the silent figure lying in the gutter. I was too shocked even to notice that I had wet my pants. I started shivering uncontrollably. It was obvious to me, just by the unnatural angle of his head, that he was dead.
The police arrived within minutes and the unnecessary ambulance within quarter of an hour. A paramedic with a ridiculous ginger Mohican hair style knelt by the body. He looked more like a children’s entertainer on his way to a kiddies’ party than a healthcare professional. I knew I’d seen him before somewhere but in my state of shock, I could not remember where. He didn’t even bother to open his lifesaving box of tricks. The body was respectfully covered with what looked like a duvet provided by a passing motorist. It was a children’s bedspread, printed predominantly in pink, featuring happy images of the Hello Kitty brand. A small bloodstain appeared in the area of the victim’s mouth, bizarrely coinciding with the image of the cartoon character’s face, making it look as though it was the cat’s nose that was bleeding. The gory patch didn’t spread for long.
Despite my obvious state of shock and the fact that the accident was plain for all to see clearly his fault, the police treated me as a criminal from the start. I was pushed into the back seat of the patrol car with that practiced manoeuvre they must teach at Henlow; firm downward pressure on the crown of the head ostensibly to give the impression that it’s to protect the prisoner from banging their bonce on the roof of the car rather than to remove any chance of escape.
I was breathalysed; thank God I was on my way to Alice’s rather than on my way home and then arrested.
At the police station I was interviewed briefly by a uniformed sergeant with an apparent I.Q. of less than fifty, cautioned for causing death by dangerous drivin