The Mermaids Singing

F ROM 3" DISK LABELLED: BACKUP. 007; FILE LOVE. 008

Getting to know Paul was somehow more exciting than Adam had been. Partly, I suppose, because I knew now I could handle it if things didn’t work out the way I wanted. Even if Paul didn’t have the insight to see that I could give him more than anyone else, even if he rejected my love, even if he went as far as Adam and actually betrayed the inevitability of our partnership with someone else, I knew that there was an alternative scenario that could give me almost as much satisfaction as the achievement of what I deserved.

But this time, I felt sure that I would get what I wanted. Adam, I now saw, had been immature and weak. Paul was neither of those, I could tell at once. For a start, he hadn’t chosen to live in the yuppie part of town like Adam. Paul lived on the south side of the city in Aston Hey, a leafy suburb beloved of university lecturers and alternative therapists. Paul’s house was in one of the more inexpensive streets. Like mine, it was terraced, though his two-up and two-down rooms were obviously far bigger. Unlike mine, he had a small garden at the front, and his back yard was twice the size, scattered with terracotta planters and tubs filled with flowers and dwarf shrubs. The perfect place to sit together for a preprandial drink after work on summer evenings.

Now with Paul, I’d have the chance to live in Aston Hey, to enjoy those quiet streets, to walk in the park together, to be just like other couples. He had an interesting job, too – lecturer at Bradfield Institute of Science and Technology, specializing in CAD programs. We already had so much in common. It was a shame I’d never be able to show him what I’d achieved with Adam.

One of the major advantages of having no mortgage is that I have virtually all of my salary to play with. It’s a substantial disposable income for someone of my age and with my lack of dependants. That means I can afford a state-of-the-art computer system, with regular upgrades to keep me out there at the leading edge. Given that one software program alone cost me nearly three thousand pounds, it’s just as well I don’t have anyone leeching off me. With my new CD-ROM system, video digitizer and special-effects software, it took me less than a day to import the videos into my computer. Once they were digitized and installed there, I could manipulate and morph the images to tell any story I wanted to see. Thanks to other video erotica I’d already installed on my system, I was even able to give Adam the erection he’d failed to achieve in life. Finally, I could fuck him, suck him, fist him, and watch him do the same to me. But the knowledge that I would be able to do that still hadn’t been enough to save him. Not even my computer and my imagination could give me the joy and satisfaction he could have done if he’d only been honest with himself about his desire for me. And so, every day he had to die all over again. The ultimate fantasy, constantly changing, shaped to fit my every mood and whim. At last, Adam was performing everything he could ever have fantasized about. It was a shame he couldn’t share in my pleasure.

It wasn’t perfect, but at least I was having more fun than the police. From what I read, it was clear they were getting nowhere. Adam’s death barely merited a mention in the national media, and even the Bradfield Evening Sentinel Times gave up after five days. Adam’s body was identified after four days, when anxious colleagues reported him missing after failing to get any reply from his phone or his doorbell. I was interested in their tributes (popular, hard-working, well liked, etc.) and I felt a moment’s regret that his stupidity had deprived me of their friendship. The Sentinel Times’s crime reporter had even managed to track down Adam’s ex-wife, a mistake he’d made at twenty-one which he’d extricated himself from by his twenty-fifth birthday. Her comments made me laugh out loud.

Adam Scott’s ex-wife Lisa Arnold, 27, fought back the tears as she said, ’I can’t believe this could have happened to Adam.

‘He was a friendly man, really sociable. But he wasn’t a big drinker. I can’t imagine how this weirdo managed to get hold of him.’

Lisa, a primary-school teacher who has since remarried, went on, ’I’ve no idea what he was doing in Crompton Gardens. He never showed any gay tendencies when we were married. Our sex life was quite normal. If anything, it was a bit boring.

‘We married too young. Adam’s mother had brought him up to expect a wife who waited on him hand and foot, and that just wasn’t me.

‘Then I met someone else and I told Adam I wanted a divorce. He was really upset, but I think it was more that his pride was hurt.

‘I haven’t seen him since the divorce, but I heard he was living on his own. I know he’s had a few affairs over the last three years, but nothing serious as far as I know.

‘I just can’t get used to the idea that he’s dead. I know we hurt each other, but I’m still devastated that he’s been murdered like this.’

I didn’t rate the chances of Lisa’s second marriage lasting the course if she still had as little insight into the workings of the male mind. Boring? Lisa was the only reason sex with Adam could be boring.

And as for calling me a weirdo! She was the one who had turned her back on a charming, handsome man who loved her so much that he was still talking about her to complete strangers three years after she’d rejected him. I knew all about it; I’d listened to him. If anyone was a weirdo, it was Lisa.