Billy
In the not too distant future…
This is the story of Billy Herman. Now, as we move forward from this point, you need to be aware of this fact: Billy Herman never had any luck in life.
Fate had dealt him a cruel hand. He was bespectacled, dumpy and short, and, to add insult to injury, he had been cursed from birth with a hideous skin affliction that broke out as a searing, puss-ridden rash.
Needless to say, his childhood was awful. As a boy everyone constantly harassed Billy for his maligned appearance, jeering at him and excluding him from all social groups. Some of the more cruel insults included:
“Look out! It’s “Herpal” Herman!”
“Fuck off, Quasimodo! Go jump under a bus!”
Sadly for Billy he didn’t find any relief at home. The squalid conditions of his house and his parents’… questionable… method of raising their son meant this was impossible.
In fairness, Mrs. Herman often tried to encourage her son.
“Oh, Billy…”
Mrs. Herman’s exchanges with her son often began with this laboured greeting as she regularly caught him slumped on the worn down leather sofa in the living room. Like everything else in there it was poorly situated, occupying the only space not bedeviled by clutter.
“Why are you sitting there? You should be playing outside with your friends.”
Billy would often reply to his mother in typical fashion, “I don’t have any friends, Mum. They’re all dickheads!”
“Don’t be vulgar! Now come on, I’m sure that isn’t true. And anyway, you’d have more friends if you showed yourself to be a fun, active boy, instead of sitting in here like a fat bastard and being a depressing sight for me and your father.”
Obviously, her approach was so back-handedly complimentary that it was like being cuddled and spat on simultaneously. Billy wondered why she even tried.
Mr. Herman, in contrast, never bothered with any kindly pretense to his son, believing that his wife was being too soft. He would bluntly tell him to get lost so he didn’t have to acknowledge his presence.
“Don’t bring any mess in if you do go out, you little turd. I don’t want your mother having to clean it up instead of making me my tea!”
Mr. Herman was a very lazy man.
Billy once theorised that his father was co-dependant with his chair. He would have stayed there permanently if he didn’t occasionally barrel over to the pub or go for his daily ablutions that often clogged the toilet like sandbags. And yet, ironically, he demanded that everyone else keep the house running like a well-oiled machine without any contribution himself.
Billy, perhaps justifiably, thought he was a wanker.
Billy’s attitude to life became increasingly tense and bitter as he contended with people at school and at home. He would battle with his Dad over the most inconsequential things, goading his father into doing something just so he would have an excuse for retaliation. One notable instance involved an issue with the cleanliness of the bathroom where Mr. Herman cornered Billy on the landing and thrust him roughly against the wall by his neck.
“Don’t pop your bloody zits on the bathroom mirror, you little shit,” he bellowed. “If it happens again I’ll make you lick it clean!”
“Get off me, you creep!”
Mrs. Herman died when Billy was eighteen years old. She had been scrubbing the living room carpet near her husband’s chair that had been decorated with melted cheese. At this time she wasn’t feeling very well at all, and doctors had recommended her to rest more as she was diagnosed with extreme exhaustion. Mr. Herman offered little sympathy and still expected her complete obedience and servitude. While her husband was in the pub watching the football, she died alone, very suddenly, from an aneurysm.
Billy, regardless of their problematic relationship, loved his mother, and resented his father for treating her as nothing more than his concubine. They barely spoke to each other after her passing as Billy had moved out to begin work as a buying assistant at a company in Salford.
Mr. Herman wouldn’t last out the year. He was so incapable of looking after himself that he developed pneumonia. Billy never visited him in the hospital before his death. He did, however, go to the funeral, even returning later that same evening, where he urinated on his father’s grave.
***
In spite of everything Billy, like anybody, desired a companion. He needed to be with a beautiful woman. It wasn’t that Billy was seeking female companionship for something so prosaic as love, though. For someone who had grown up as a social pariah he only wanted a beautiful girlfriend to elevate his status among his peers. And with reconstructive and plastic surgery having technologically only come so far this, in his mind, was his only option.
However, this too proved problematic.
Ever since he was a teenager he had retreated from his tormentors into a world of books, creating a mental safety blanket of sorts that never corresponded to the reality of life. Having particularly been enamored by Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels, he had acquired, apart from a rudimentary knowledge of Cold War espionage, a skewed outlook on how to communicate with women. Billy, for an intelligent person, failed to reconcile the context of the era in which the books were originally written. This coupled with his unfortunate looks guaranteed failure.
Billy always remembered one particularly painful instance of this during his formative years. He had always had a crush on Vicky Muir, the most popular girl at school. She was a stunning brunette frequently seen dating various boys but her most frequent paramour was Joshua Buxton, the captain of the school football team and, at least in Billy’s eyes, an A-grade imbecile.
The young Billy had lusted over Vicky for years and she was always his subject for self-gratification. He fancied her so much that even minimal contact with her was enough to cause instant arousal. This once led to a mortifying oral French lesson and, consequently, the nickname “Hard-On Herman”.
Billy one day decided to bite the bullet and ask Vicky out. He was sure that if he were as suave as Bond she’d be all his. The sexual possibilities exploded in his mind like Catherine Wheels but he had to quickly calm himself lest he suffer another embarrassing physical setback.
He ambled over to the bench she was reading on. Vicky was quickly drawn out of her book as she acknowledged Billy’s heavy breathing.
“Hey, Vicky,” he slurred through his attempted seduction. “How would you like to have a curry with a great bloke like me on Saturday night? Your treat, babe!”
Vicky reacted with the kind of revulsion that most people would have if they had been asked to kiss a corpse.
“Piss off! I’d rather shag a rhinoceros!”
Billy’s humiliation was cemented as he had ignored the fact that Buxton, who had been playing a game of kick-about with his friends, was witnessing the entire debacle.
“Herman, you fucking idiot!” he guffawed. “As if Vicky would even dirty herself by touching you. C’mon, babe, being near ‘Hard-On’ is making me sick.”
“Stay away from me, you weirdo.”
Billy watched as Vicky walked away with Buxton, in tow with his gang, laughing at him. Even with hot fluid stinging his eyes, he could see Joshua put his left hand on the rear of Vicky’s skirt - the exclamation point to his degradation.
I hope you die, was what he wished he had said to her.
***
Billy Herman would fail again and again with women, even into his adulthood. The only woman to respond with any affection to him was Cathy Leeves, his only “friend”. Cathy, by her own definition, was a plain girl with glasses, but this was because she chose not to highlight the fact that she was really quite pretty. She herself opted to remain unglamorous. Billy, because his warped vision of women clouded his brain from registering the truth, supported this erroneous assumption and only tolerated Cathy’s presence in his life. This was in spite of her attempts to comfort him when he inevitably failed to attract a woman.
“Billy,” she once said to him, whilst gently stroking his shoulder, “I’m sure there’s someone out there who’ll love you no matter what you look like.”
Billy wouldn’t even attempt to conceal his contempt for her opinion.
“Cheers, Cathy, I really needed an appallingly saccharine platitude.”
Cathy foolishly desired Billy even though, deep down, she was aware that she didn’t fit into his twisted view of female perfection. Nevertheless, one day, she bravely went for broke.
“B-Billy, I… I know you keep looking for a woman, but…”
“What?” Billy asked with annoyance.
Cathy bit her bottom lip, but pushed through her anxiety.
“I’m here… and… and I really like you. Why don’t you go out with me?”
Billy was shocked. He knew that Cathy liked him, but when confronted by the proposal he was almost rendered speechless. He didn’t want to date Cathy. She was so plain, so… ordinary. But he had no other romantic prospects. Women generally viewed him like he was road kill. And he sort of liked how she fawned over him. Then again, he thought, she’s so pathetic about him. It was borderline unsettling. And yet…
“…Fine,” he said with great reluctance.
Cathy, seemingly oblivious to this, rushed him and bear-hugged the visibly uncomfortable Billy, who grimaced derisively at this sign of affection. How could have I lowered myself to be with this cow, he obnoxiously thought to himself.
***
For Billy Herman, the next few weeks of going out with Cathy Leeves was about as pleasant a hernia. Cathy on the other hand blissfully ignored Billy’s lament.
His outlook didn’t evolve. He still foolishly believed that he deserved someone better: a gorgeous, naughty nurse; a glistening wet swimwear model; a desperate yet wonderfully mature housewife looking to escape the drudgery of married life. All these and more were better options than dating “plain old” Cathy Leeves, a woman as glamorous as sandpaper. He should be with someone sexy, everything that Cathy wasn’t.
He should be with Elena Black, a striking woman who worked in his office at the internet-communications firm. Elena was blonde, slender and young who had formerly modeled clothing for a well-known high-street fashion chain in her late teens. She had not lost any of her toned figure, often wearing provocative clothing to prove to herself that men would always want her which, with few exceptions, they often did.
Billy was their self-appointed leader. He didn’t even bother to hide his lust. Not even any niggling sense of loyalty to Cathy prevented him from imagining all kinds of perverse scenarios that lapped in his mind.
The straw that broke the camel’s back for Billy came one day when Elena was filing some documents in the cabinet adjacent to his cubicle. As she was trying to put them in order several fell out of her arms.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake!” she hissed.
Believing that no one was around to help her, Elena bent down to pick up the files. She was completely unaware that behind her was a man leering at her from behind his cubicle wall, licking his lips. She was also unaware that, due to the shortness and low waistline of her work skirt, the top of her underwear was on display for anyone to see.
Billy almost lost his composure right there and then. It took every ounce of restraint not to explode with excitement and the remaining hours of his day were intolerable. I must have her, he thought. Nothing would stop him. That night he mentally pictured Elena bending over to help him bear to be intimate with Cathy.
The office Christmas party occurred a few weeks later. It was that night that Billy decided to ask Elena out. It was just that he had an “albatross” with him that he had to get rid of.
“Billy, are you listening to me?”
Drawn out of his trance-like ogling of Elena, Billy realised with disappointment that he was still with Cathy.
“What?” he asked aggrieved.
The fact that, in spite of her love for him, Billy would always desire other women over her finally dawned on Cathy. For once, she wouldn’t stand for it.
“Billy Herman, I have forgiven a lot of your faults. But I’ve had enough. Stop being a complete bastard and acknowledge my existence when I’m trying to talk with you!”
Billy dismissed her pleas.
“Be quiet, Cathy! I don’t want you to embarrass me in front of Elena.”
“Jesus, Billy! I won’t let you ruin our relationship! Will you just listen to m-!”
“Shut up, you toad!” he snapped with cruelty. “I’ve listened to you and your whining for the last time! Just fuck off!”
Cathy was stunned into silence. This lasted only seconds, because as tears streamed down her face, her eyes flashed with baleful hatred.
“You, “Herpal” Herman, are dumping me?” she gritted furiously through her teeth. “You think you’ll do better than me? Seriously? You’re a fucking fool and you’re just like your bastard of a father! I swear, I promise you, this isn’t over!”
Cathy left an unnerved Billy to turn and see that everyone at the party had witnessed his abysmal display. He stopped his glance at Elena who was visibly disgusted with him. Amazingly, no matter that it was utterly inappropriate, Billy attempted to flirt with Elena.
“Hey, Elena… forget what you saw and forget her, love. I saw you alone and a babe shouldn’t be by herself. Cathy couldn’t handle that I was genuinely concerned, okay? I’m a gentleman, and I saw a damsel in distress. If you ever need company, here’s my number.”
Elena immediately threw the card that had Billy’s number on it back in his surprised face.
“If you, after that disgusting performance, think that I ever want to date a piece of shit like you, then you’re deluded!”
She turned and walked away from him, as did every other person at the party. Billy, rejected and humiliated, could not utter a single sound. He had blown it.
Once again, Billy Herman was alone.
***
A year had passed, and Billy was now totally isolated. He had no choice but to quit his job as everyone at the firm despised him for what he had done at the party. He figured that if he hadn’t he would’ve been sacked anyway as he became a problem for office morale. And although he loathed Cathy he missed the adulation that she bestowed upon him, undeserved as it ultimately was.
Billy believed that the only way to improve his fortune was to change himself… physically, at least. Forsaking his obvious emotional problems, he thought the only way women would like him was if he altered his appearance. He didn’t want to waste time with genuine exercise and thus downloaded e-Book after e-Book to realise this uninspired idea.
“There has to be a quick way to go from a melted waxwork to mantastic,” he muttered to himself.
One Saturday afternoon, Billy’s life would change forever. He had been reading his latest downloaded e-Book, entitled Losing Weight For Idiots, when his attention was drawn to the Holo-News Broadcast being beamed from his 3D MegaScreen.
“… In other news, cosmetic surgery has made perhaps its most revolutionary breakthrough,” began the newsreader.
Billy immediately put down the Palm-Unit and ran over to watch the broadcast.
“Doctors have confirmed their first successful genetic overhaul of a young female in Eastern Europe,” continued the newsreader, ”An operation that was deemed as unethical and too dangerous in this country. Both the surgeons and the patient have declined to provide any information about who the patient was and why the procedure was carried out. The only guarantee the doctors made was that further operations could now be done.
“More successes are hoped for despite the controversy generated. Widespread protests, including everyone from fundamentalists to humanist and feminist organisations, are taking place across the globe…”
Billy’s mind raced with elation. If people were willing to risk the human body just to achieve some subjective form of beauty, then he could travel to have the operation done. He could finally turn his fortune around…
His focus was suddenly drawn away from the newscast as a projection of Elena appeared without warning on his Holo-Phone. Shocked as he was, Billy immediately scrambled over to the device to find out what it was she wanted.
“All right, sexy?” she began flirtatiously, which was uncharacteristic, at least towards him, but was nonetheless appreciated. “Bet you didn’t expect to hear from me. By any chance are you free to meet up for some “indecent” fun?”
Billy didn’t even have to think about it. He couldn’t even believe it.
His perverted mind was already made up.
“Hell yes!”
It seemed as if Billy’s prayers were answered. He would finally be with the woman of his dreams.
When Elena arrived at his flat, he had dispensed with any pleasantries or decorum. He was already in his underwear and perspiring with aroused glee.
“I knew you’d see the light, Elena. So, should we skip to the good stuff or do you wanna waste time with pointless foreplay?”
He tried to pull Elena over towards him, but she put up an arm between them. Billy, put out of sorts with this, couldn’t hide his sudden disappointment. Elena quickly placated him with a seductive gaze.
“Soon, Billy. Firstly, I thought I should tell you something…
Elena’s sultry expression turned into a sinister smile.
“I’m not really Elena. I’m Cathy!”
The colour of Billy’s face drained away.
“W-what?” Billy uttered trembling.
“Oh yes, dear. You hear about that surgery? Moi. You see, you really hurt me when you dumped me, and I just couldn’t forgive you,” she said with a chilling coyness.
“And I wanted revenge, even if that meant using that bitch you dumped me for in some capacity. God bless unscrupulous surgeons, right? And replacing Elena wasn’t difficult. One false ad for amateur modeling, and she was easy pickings for me to choke the life out of her pretty body when she came to my house! Even made it look like suicide. At least I don’t have to stay like this – the process goes both ways.
“Well, Billy, it’s been fun. Time to say goodbye.”
As she finished recounting her story, she unsheathed a long, hidden blade from beneath her dress, almost terrifying Billy into incontinence.
“Cathy – please wait-!” he cried pitifully.
“Shh…” she said with faux-affection, ”Don’t panic, sweetheart. One way or the other, you were always going to fall head over heels for me!”
“CATHY Nuh-!”
Billy never finished his sentence as Cathy completed the fatal swing of her blade.
Billy’s head came off cleanly, swiftly, and brutally. It fell through the air, leaving a crimson trail that marked its downward trajectory. His face would forever be stricken with a rictus of horror.
Billy Herman never had any luck with life.
THE END
This is the story of Billy Herman. Now, as we move forward from this point, you need to be aware of this fact: Billy Herman never had any luck in life.
Fate had dealt him a cruel hand. He was bespectacled, dumpy and short, and, to add insult to injury, he had been cursed from birth with a hideous skin affliction that broke out as a searing, puss-ridden rash.
Needless to say, his childhood was awful. As a boy everyone constantly harassed Billy for his maligned appearance, jeering at him and excluding him from all social groups. Some of the more cruel insults included:
“Look out! It’s “Herpal” Herman!”
“Fuck off, Quasimodo! Go jump under a bus!”
Sadly for Billy he didn’t find any relief at home. The squalid conditions of his house and his parents’… questionable… method of raising their son meant this was impossible.
In fairness, Mrs. Herman often tried to encourage her son.
“Oh, Billy…”
Mrs. Herman’s exchanges with her son often began with this laboured greeting as she regularly caught him slumped on the worn down leather sofa in the living room. Like everything else in there it was poorly situated, occupying the only space not bedeviled by clutter.
“Why are you sitting there? You should be playing outside with your friends.”
Billy would often reply to his mother in typical fashion, “I don’t have any friends, Mum. They’re all dickheads!”
“Don’t be vulgar! Now come on, I’m sure that isn’t true. And anyway, you’d have more friends if you showed yourself to be a fun, active boy, instead of sitting in here like a fat bastard and being a depressing sight for me and your father.”
Obviously, her approach was so back-handedly complimentary that it was like being cuddled and spat on simultaneously. Billy wondered why she even tried.
Mr. Herman, in contrast, never bothered with any kindly pretense to his son, believing that his wife was being too soft. He would bluntly tell him to get lost so he didn’t have to acknowledge his presence.
“Don’t bring any mess in if you do go out, you little turd. I don’t want your mother having to clean it up instead of making me my tea!”
Mr. Herman was a very lazy man.
Billy once theorised that his father was co-dependant with his chair. He would have stayed there permanently if he didn’t occasionally barrel over to the pub or go for his daily ablutions that often clogged the toilet like sandbags. And yet, ironically, he demanded that everyone else keep the house running like a well-oiled machine without any contribution himself.
Billy, perhaps justifiably, thought he was a wanker.
Billy’s attitude to life became increasingly tense and bitter as he contended with people at school and at home. He would battle with his Dad over the most inconsequential things, goading his father into doing something just so he would have an excuse for retaliation. One notable instance involved an issue with the cleanliness of the bathroom where Mr. Herman cornered Billy on the landing and thrust him roughly against the wall by his neck.
“Don’t pop your bloody zits on the bathroom mirror, you little shit,” he bellowed. “If it happens again I’ll make you lick it clean!”
“Get off me, you creep!”
Mrs. Herman died when Billy was eighteen years old. She had been scrubbing the living room carpet near her husband’s chair that had been decorated with melted cheese. At this time she wasn’t feeling very well at all, and doctors had recommended her to rest more as she was diagnosed with extreme exhaustion. Mr. Herman offered little sympathy and still expected her complete obedience and servitude. While her husband was in the pub watching the football, she died alone, very suddenly, from an aneurysm.
Billy, regardless of their problematic relationship, loved his mother, and resented his father for treating her as nothing more than his concubine. They barely spoke to each other after her passing as Billy had moved out to begin work as a buying assistant at a company in Salford.
Mr. Herman wouldn’t last out the year. He was so incapable of looking after himself that he developed pneumonia. Billy never visited him in the hospital before his death. He did, however, go to the funeral, even returning later that same evening, where he urinated on his father’s grave.
***
In spite of everything Billy, like anybody, desired a companion. He needed to be with a beautiful woman. It wasn’t that Billy was seeking female companionship for something so prosaic as love, though. For someone who had grown up as a social pariah he only wanted a beautiful girlfriend to elevate his status among his peers. And with reconstructive and plastic surgery having technologically only come so far this, in his mind, was his only option.
However, this too proved problematic.
Ever since he was a teenager he had retreated from his tormentors into a world of books, creating a mental safety blanket of sorts that never corresponded to the reality of life. Having particularly been enamored by Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels, he had acquired, apart from a rudimentary knowledge of Cold War espionage, a skewed outlook on how to communicate with women. Billy, for an intelligent person, failed to reconcile the context of the era in which the books were originally written. This coupled with his unfortunate looks guaranteed failure.
Billy always remembered one particularly painful instance of this during his formative years. He had always had a crush on Vicky Muir, the most popular girl at school. She was a stunning brunette frequently seen dating various boys but her most frequent paramour was Joshua Buxton, the captain of the school football team and, at least in Billy’s eyes, an A-grade imbecile.
The young Billy had lusted over Vicky for years and she was always his subject for self-gratification. He fancied her so much that even minimal contact with her was enough to cause instant arousal. This once led to a mortifying oral French lesson and, consequently, the nickname “Hard-On Herman”.
Billy one day decided to bite the bullet and ask Vicky out. He was sure that if he were as suave as Bond she’d be all his. The sexual possibilities exploded in his mind like Catherine Wheels but he had to quickly calm himself lest he suffer another embarrassing physical setback.
He ambled over to the bench she was reading on. Vicky was quickly drawn out of her book as she acknowledged Billy’s heavy breathing.
“Hey, Vicky,” he slurred through his attempted seduction. “How would you like to have a curry with a great bloke like me on Saturday night? Your treat, babe!”
Vicky reacted with the kind of revulsion that most people would have if they had been asked to kiss a corpse.
“Piss off! I’d rather shag a rhinoceros!”
Billy’s humiliation was cemented as he had ignored the fact that Buxton, who had been playing a game of kick-about with his friends, was witnessing the entire debacle.
“Herman, you fucking idiot!” he guffawed. “As if Vicky would even dirty herself by touching you. C’mon, babe, being near ‘Hard-On’ is making me sick.”
“Stay away from me, you weirdo.”
Billy watched as Vicky walked away with Buxton, in tow with his gang, laughing at him. Even with hot fluid stinging his eyes, he could see Joshua put his left hand on the rear of Vicky’s skirt - the exclamation point to his degradation.
I hope you die, was what he wished he had said to her.
***
Billy Herman would fail again and again with women, even into his adulthood. The only woman to respond with any affection to him was Cathy Leeves, his only “friend”. Cathy, by her own definition, was a plain girl with glasses, but this was because she chose not to highlight the fact that she was really quite pretty. She herself opted to remain unglamorous. Billy, because his warped vision of women clouded his brain from registering the truth, supported this erroneous assumption and only tolerated Cathy’s presence in his life. This was in spite of her attempts to comfort him when he inevitably failed to attract a woman.
“Billy,” she once said to him, whilst gently stroking his shoulder, “I’m sure there’s someone out there who’ll love you no matter what you look like.”
Billy wouldn’t even attempt to conceal his contempt for her opinion.
“Cheers, Cathy, I really needed an appallingly saccharine platitude.”
Cathy foolishly desired Billy even though, deep down, she was aware that she didn’t fit into his twisted view of female perfection. Nevertheless, one day, she bravely went for broke.
“B-Billy, I… I know you keep looking for a woman, but…”
“What?” Billy asked with annoyance.
Cathy bit her bottom lip, but pushed through her anxiety.
“I’m here… and… and I really like you. Why don’t you go out with me?”
Billy was shocked. He knew that Cathy liked him, but when confronted by the proposal he was almost rendered speechless. He didn’t want to date Cathy. She was so plain, so… ordinary. But he had no other romantic prospects. Women generally viewed him like he was road kill. And he sort of liked how she fawned over him. Then again, he thought, she’s so pathetic about him. It was borderline unsettling. And yet…
“…Fine,” he said with great reluctance.
Cathy, seemingly oblivious to this, rushed him and bear-hugged the visibly uncomfortable Billy, who grimaced derisively at this sign of affection. How could have I lowered myself to be with this cow, he obnoxiously thought to himself.
***
For Billy Herman, the next few weeks of going out with Cathy Leeves was about as pleasant a hernia. Cathy on the other hand blissfully ignored Billy’s lament.
His outlook didn’t evolve. He still foolishly believed that he deserved someone better: a gorgeous, naughty nurse; a glistening wet swimwear model; a desperate yet wonderfully mature housewife looking to escape the drudgery of married life. All these and more were better options than dating “plain old” Cathy Leeves, a woman as glamorous as sandpaper. He should be with someone sexy, everything that Cathy wasn’t.
He should be with Elena Black, a striking woman who worked in his office at the internet-communications firm. Elena was blonde, slender and young who had formerly modeled clothing for a well-known high-street fashion chain in her late teens. She had not lost any of her toned figure, often wearing provocative clothing to prove to herself that men would always want her which, with few exceptions, they often did.
Billy was their self-appointed leader. He didn’t even bother to hide his lust. Not even any niggling sense of loyalty to Cathy prevented him from imagining all kinds of perverse scenarios that lapped in his mind.
The straw that broke the camel’s back for Billy came one day when Elena was filing some documents in the cabinet adjacent to his cubicle. As she was trying to put them in order several fell out of her arms.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake!” she hissed.
Believing that no one was around to help her, Elena bent down to pick up the files. She was completely unaware that behind her was a man leering at her from behind his cubicle wall, licking his lips. She was also unaware that, due to the shortness and low waistline of her work skirt, the top of her underwear was on display for anyone to see.
Billy almost lost his composure right there and then. It took every ounce of restraint not to explode with excitement and the remaining hours of his day were intolerable. I must have her, he thought. Nothing would stop him. That night he mentally pictured Elena bending over to help him bear to be intimate with Cathy.
The office Christmas party occurred a few weeks later. It was that night that Billy decided to ask Elena out. It was just that he had an “albatross” with him that he had to get rid of.
“Billy, are you listening to me?”
Drawn out of his trance-like ogling of Elena, Billy realised with disappointment that he was still with Cathy.
“What?” he asked aggrieved.
The fact that, in spite of her love for him, Billy would always desire other women over her finally dawned on Cathy. For once, she wouldn’t stand for it.
“Billy Herman, I have forgiven a lot of your faults. But I’ve had enough. Stop being a complete bastard and acknowledge my existence when I’m trying to talk with you!”
Billy dismissed her pleas.
“Be quiet, Cathy! I don’t want you to embarrass me in front of Elena.”
“Jesus, Billy! I won’t let you ruin our relationship! Will you just listen to m-!”
“Shut up, you toad!” he snapped with cruelty. “I’ve listened to you and your whining for the last time! Just fuck off!”
Cathy was stunned into silence. This lasted only seconds, because as tears streamed down her face, her eyes flashed with baleful hatred.
“You, “Herpal” Herman, are dumping me?” she gritted furiously through her teeth. “You think you’ll do better than me? Seriously? You’re a fucking fool and you’re just like your bastard of a father! I swear, I promise you, this isn’t over!”
Cathy left an unnerved Billy to turn and see that everyone at the party had witnessed his abysmal display. He stopped his glance at Elena who was visibly disgusted with him. Amazingly, no matter that it was utterly inappropriate, Billy attempted to flirt with Elena.
“Hey, Elena… forget what you saw and forget her, love. I saw you alone and a babe shouldn’t be by herself. Cathy couldn’t handle that I was genuinely concerned, okay? I’m a gentleman, and I saw a damsel in distress. If you ever need company, here’s my number.”
Elena immediately threw the card that had Billy’s number on it back in his surprised face.
“If you, after that disgusting performance, think that I ever want to date a piece of shit like you, then you’re deluded!”
She turned and walked away from him, as did every other person at the party. Billy, rejected and humiliated, could not utter a single sound. He had blown it.
Once again, Billy Herman was alone.
***
A year had passed, and Billy was now totally isolated. He had no choice but to quit his job as everyone at the firm despised him for what he had done at the party. He figured that if he hadn’t he would’ve been sacked anyway as he became a problem for office morale. And although he loathed Cathy he missed the adulation that she bestowed upon him, undeserved as it ultimately was.
Billy believed that the only way to improve his fortune was to change himself… physically, at least. Forsaking his obvious emotional problems, he thought the only way women would like him was if he altered his appearance. He didn’t want to waste time with genuine exercise and thus downloaded e-Book after e-Book to realise this uninspired idea.
“There has to be a quick way to go from a melted waxwork to mantastic,” he muttered to himself.
One Saturday afternoon, Billy’s life would change forever. He had been reading his latest downloaded e-Book, entitled Losing Weight For Idiots, when his attention was drawn to the Holo-News Broadcast being beamed from his 3D MegaScreen.
“… In other news, cosmetic surgery has made perhaps its most revolutionary breakthrough,” began the newsreader.
Billy immediately put down the Palm-Unit and ran over to watch the broadcast.
“Doctors have confirmed their first successful genetic overhaul of a young female in Eastern Europe,” continued the newsreader, ”An operation that was deemed as unethical and too dangerous in this country. Both the surgeons and the patient have declined to provide any information about who the patient was and why the procedure was carried out. The only guarantee the doctors made was that further operations could now be done.
“More successes are hoped for despite the controversy generated. Widespread protests, including everyone from fundamentalists to humanist and feminist organisations, are taking place across the globe…”
Billy’s mind raced with elation. If people were willing to risk the human body just to achieve some subjective form of beauty, then he could travel to have the operation done. He could finally turn his fortune around…
His focus was suddenly drawn away from the newscast as a projection of Elena appeared without warning on his Holo-Phone. Shocked as he was, Billy immediately scrambled over to the device to find out what it was she wanted.
“All right, sexy?” she began flirtatiously, which was uncharacteristic, at least towards him, but was nonetheless appreciated. “Bet you didn’t expect to hear from me. By any chance are you free to meet up for some “indecent” fun?”
Billy didn’t even have to think about it. He couldn’t even believe it.
His perverted mind was already made up.
“Hell yes!”
It seemed as if Billy’s prayers were answered. He would finally be with the woman of his dreams.
When Elena arrived at his flat, he had dispensed with any pleasantries or decorum. He was already in his underwear and perspiring with aroused glee.
“I knew you’d see the light, Elena. So, should we skip to the good stuff or do you wanna waste time with pointless foreplay?”
He tried to pull Elena over towards him, but she put up an arm between them. Billy, put out of sorts with this, couldn’t hide his sudden disappointment. Elena quickly placated him with a seductive gaze.
“Soon, Billy. Firstly, I thought I should tell you something…
Elena’s sultry expression turned into a sinister smile.
“I’m not really Elena. I’m Cathy!”
The colour of Billy’s face drained away.
“W-what?” Billy uttered trembling.
“Oh yes, dear. You hear about that surgery? Moi. You see, you really hurt me when you dumped me, and I just couldn’t forgive you,” she said with a chilling coyness.
“And I wanted revenge, even if that meant using that bitch you dumped me for in some capacity. God bless unscrupulous surgeons, right? And replacing Elena wasn’t difficult. One false ad for amateur modeling, and she was easy pickings for me to choke the life out of her pretty body when she came to my house! Even made it look like suicide. At least I don’t have to stay like this – the process goes both ways.
“Well, Billy, it’s been fun. Time to say goodbye.”
As she finished recounting her story, she unsheathed a long, hidden blade from beneath her dress, almost terrifying Billy into incontinence.
“Cathy – please wait-!” he cried pitifully.
“Shh…” she said with faux-affection, ”Don’t panic, sweetheart. One way or the other, you were always going to fall head over heels for me!”
“CATHY Nuh-!”
Billy never finished his sentence as Cathy completed the fatal swing of her blade.
Billy’s head came off cleanly, swiftly, and brutally. It fell through the air, leaving a crimson trail that marked its downward trajectory. His face would forever be stricken with a rictus of horror.
Billy Herman never had any luck with life.
THE END
James Seymour
Hello, my name is James, and I am sadly not a woolen Tyrannosaurus Rex. I’m actually an unkempt shambles who is also an artist and "performance poet” based in and around Lancashire, and I am still searching for that elusive method on how to make a decent sandwich. This is my first attempt at writing a short sci-fi story.