The End
When I phoned Ray to confront him about what he’d done, he completely denied everything. He called me crazy, but I know full well he was trying to intimidate me. Always thought my brother had something missing in his head, but I never realised he was this nuts. Basically, he was conveying a clear message: if I try to run out on the debt between us, he’ll find me anywhere. He has POWER over me. The fucker always fancied himself as a gangster or something, and now fantasy has become reality in his head.
The whole debt situation with Ray reached crisis point over the last week, but we have reached a grim settlement. He threatened to get in touch with Kate on Facebook and tell her I’m a penniless porn addict, unless I allow him to take everything of value that I own so he can sell it off and cover a chunk of my debt to him. To reassure his paranoid self that I wouldn’t skip town or anything like that, yesterday I drove over to his Chanctonbury shithole and gave him a spare set of keys. Big mistake! That’s obviously how he got in last night and shot the video. Can’t believe he still did that, despite us having reached an agreement!
Ray’s coming over later with the van to pick everything up, so I need to box all my stuff fast. God, how much do I now regret getting so drunk with this idiot, on the one night in years we’d gone out together? Why, of all the people I could have confided in about my problem – such as a pro therapist – did I decide to tell my untrustworthy brother? I should have known he’d hear that information and automatically think, Aha! Future blackmail material! On my birthday, too. Well, both our birthdays…
What on Earth am I going to tell Kate when she turns up and the flat’s been gutted? One excuse could be that I wanted us to make a whole new start together and choose a new TV, new sofa, etc.… right down to the towels. Meant to go out and buy WELCOME TO YOUR NEW HOME banners, but I forgot, and they may not even exist. So I am improvising. Used one of my liquid chalk pens to draw a big smiley face on the window, but it looks weird and I can’t think of exactly what to write beside it. I Love You will do the job, won’t it? People always like I Love You.
The thing is, I know that my cover story won’t wash with Kate. Especially as it’s not like I can afford to buy new stuff – I’ve even fallen behind on the rent! She’s already sold her own TV and all the bigger items like that, so this really is shaping up as a disaster of titanic proportions.
Speaking of disasters, I’m doing BADLY with the porn. Even with Kate about to move in, I’m struggling more than EVER to stay clean.
My periods of abstinence have yet to last more than one day, and even those feel like endurance marathons. I have lost so much potential work time to the smut, with people screaming at me over deadlines.
The new phone really isn’t helping, either. I never even knew smartphones could pick up viruses, but mine must’ve already caught one from the dodgy smut sites I’ve visited. Either that, or the virus has somehow lingered from previous use. When I bought this thing from Gwyneth on Gumtree, the handset was full of someone else’s pictures and videos – thousands of them – and it wouldn’t let me carry out the reset procedure that would wipe the memory. Hmm, this might explain why Gwyneth decided to sell the phone, and pretty cheaply too. Thinking about it, this may also explain why she didn’t want to face me in person and made her nan come over here to deliver it instead. She hasn’t replied to any of my follow-up questions, either. Interesting…