Undercover

2 years ago this week I started a blog of short stories inspired by Rory's Story Cubes. As time went by the stories didn’t need the cubes. But the cubes will forever be part of the blog. To celebrate my blog’s second birthday I’ve returned to the cubes. 5 stories inspired by those 9 cubes. The blog has asked me to ask you not for presents to celebrate its birthday but for comments, shares, likes etc. Let’s get this thing going viral :-) 


The two men towered over Jess trying to intimidate her. They were asking questions but not waiting for answers.

‘What’s a small girl like you doing in a place like this?’ said the first one.

“Don’t you know it’s dangerous here?’ the second one chipped in.

‘Do you need one of us to take care of you?’ Fucking hell!
She wasn’t expecting  Morecombe and Wise but their patter was awful. She’d need more than an abacus to tot up the number of times she’d heard sleazy lines like that from sleazy guys like this.

She couldn’t decide if they were for real or if the machismo was bravado. They looked like boys playing being men. Maybe when they’d got a bit more worldly –wise they’d realise that the definition of being a man was not harassing women with shows of strength and cheap lines.  What she did was know that if they laid one hand they’d be in big trouble. She could take them on her own she was sure of that, but she also knew she had back up just one press of a mobile phone button away.  She could smell their cheap deodorant; the type that the adverts said made women throw themselves at men. But to Jess’s nostrils the tinny aerosol smell smelt more like rotten fish than an aphrodisiac.  She tried to push past them. She had a job to do and these idiots weren’t helping.

‘Where’s the little lady going?’ said the first one. Jess hissed like a swan.  She wanted to put a footprint right across the face of the creep. It wouldn’t take much but she would draw attention to herself.

‘Hey why don’t you two boys go and buy me a gin and tonic then I can properly relax?’ She said smiling her most flirtatious smile. She knew a chance to get the little lady drunk would be too hard to resist for them. She’d bet her life they’d buy her a double and tell her it was a single. If they ever found her that is.

After they were gone she prowled the room; scanning for danger, all eyes and ears, remembering her training, remembering her brief, telling herself that tonight would be the night when they would catch those bastards.

Jess tried to sleep but she was buzzing from the adrenaline of the evening. Too wired to sleep, too tired to do anything else. But she was safe and sound now in her own house, her own bed. She knew soon enough the security of being at home would allow her to relax and drift off.  She reflected on the evening. She had to stop doing this, it had given her such a buzz but she felt rather foolish now. One of these days she was going to get herself killed, or worse. The alternatives didn’t bear thinking about. What was it now, her fourth, fifth time she’d gone undercover?  Dressed like a whore and gone in to low down dirty bars looking for the gang who routinely drugged, raped and filmed vulnerable girls. Only there was no gang, there was no back up, she’d had no training, it was all in her mind. And tomorrow morning she’d be back behind her desk at the library where the only mystery she would have to solve was when Mrs Lewis would return the long overdue copy of 50 Shades.

Thank you to one of my loyal readers for providing the artwork for this story. (I am sure you will agree it is brilliant.)