The monthly Global Short story competition can be found on
      www.globalshortstory.net

      Operated by Certys Ltd, there are three prizes each month and
      you can write on any theme you like. A special Science Fiction
      category was introduced recently.

      I was shortlisted earlier in 2009 with a story called 'New Parent'
      before winning with 'Step-baby' in the September.

 

      Step-baby

      Over the years, many things had been left on Gavin's doorstep:    
      telephone directories, the odd bunch of flowers, litter. And once,
      before he came south and just after the neighbours had found out
      about him, a pile of what his mother called 'dog mess'.
         
      Never a baby though.
         
      Even from down here he could tell that the straw shopping basket up
      by the front door contained a baby. He was hardwired to recognise
      that Moses moment just like anyone else. Perhaps more than anyone else.
         
      He realised then that he was frozen mid-climb like some cartoon
      of surprise: one leg up on the first step, one leg down on the pavement
      and his front door key in his hand. So he quickly climbed to the top of
      the steps and looked down into the basket.
         
      He wanted to be able to sneer at its tacky purpleness; whip out
      something Gavinesque about the missing taste buds of the person who had
      picked it, but his heart was all over the place and he was having too much
      trouble trying to claw his way out of the bathroom back in Doncaster.
      He saw himself down on his knees where the lino was worn away by all
      those feet facing forward, facing backwards. His sister was panting.
      Quietly.
         
      This baby was asleep though; its features folded in on itself. It was
      tiny, days old at most.
         
      Only when his heart had calmed to something like its normal rate
      did he think of turning his head quickly to scan up and down the street.
      The last of the day's sun was dazzling off windscreens and wing mirrors;
      London was grinding its way home in the background. No one was skulking
      away with tell-tale baby vomit down their back.
         
      He thought of Maxwell and his career and the need to act correctly, and
      reached for his mobile phone.
         
      His thumb hesitated over the '9'. When the police arrived, blue lights
      flashing, it would make this seem too important, too public. Someone,
      or some people, had merely picked a doorstep and left a baby on it;
      could have been any of the doorsteps on the street.
         
      He'd ring the police station instead. More low key. There would be a
      phone number in the house.Skirting around the basket as cautiously as
      if it had been ticking, he slid the key into the lock and pushed open
      the door. The baby moved and he held his breath. It stilled again
      and Gavin saw that the little fists were now out, clenched on top of
      the blanket as if it was incensed that it had been abandoned.
         
      He bent down and slipped off his trainer and then, wedging open the
      front door, walked lopsidedly along the hall. Already the baby was
      changing things. Now his first impression of home was not expensive
      polish or hand-blocked wallpaper, but how his foot in its sock slipped
      on the wooden floor. He was glad to get into the kitchen amongst the
      cold comfort of the granite.
         
      Except the baby kept pulling him back along the hallway.

      He couldn't decide if it was the good postcode, the antique furniture,
      or a spell on a Diversity Awareness course that was keeping the
      police officers in check. Both young, the guy not bad looking in a
      boy band kind of way, they were playing it straight.
         
      Unfortunately they had brought the basket, and therefore the
      baby, inside. Now they were all perched on the sofa and chairs with
      that hideous purple thing centre stage, like some screamingly kitsch
      piece of art. The emergency social worker was on her way.
         
      Gavin had given them the facts of the discovery and shrugged his way
      past whether he knew of any reason why the baby had been left on his
      doorstep. It was, for him, a genuine gesture: he really didn't know why
      the baby had pitched up there. It had to simply be a random act, done
      without any knowledge of the past echoes that rippled out from it.
         
      Still, those echoes would fade as soon as they took the damn baby away.
         
      Suddenly, the baby started to cry. It was shredding everyone's nerves
      in seconds; the sound storming into the quiet corners of the house and
      crashing against the walls.
         
      'Don't look at me,' said the policewoman, doing a strange thing with
      her hands as if she was pushing away air. 'Don't know anything
      about babies.'
         
      Gavin felt the baby's crying reach inside him to tear bits away and
      drop them down the tunnel that led to that other baby and so he got
      up quickly, scooped the squirming, scrawny thing out of the basket
      and held it against his chest. It was swamped by its pink babygro
      and Gavin struggled to get a grip. Just at that moment, Maxwell
      appeared in the doorway.
         
      'Jesus Gods!' he said glaring at the baby and then at Gavin, 'What the
      hell have you done now?'

      Waiting in the queue for his sandwich and espresso the next day,
      Gavin re-examined the row that had flared up once the social worker
      had removed the baby. Maxwell didn't readily apologise for that
      knee jerk 'done now?' comment that had undermined 'Normal Gavin'
      in front of the Police. Then when he did apologise, warm mouth on
      Gavin's neck, it felt insincere and fuelled by a much baser motive.
         
      Gavin had not been impressed and the frost on the sheets had still
      been there this morning.
         
      They both knew there was an imbalance at the heart of their
      relationship: class, age, achievements, wealth, but Gavin didn't need
      to have his nose rubbed in it. It had been a telling foretaste
      of the support he could expect from Maxwell should he ever learn about
      the shadow baby behind the one last night.
         
      Gavin moved forward slowly. The queue was tortuous when the sandwich
      woman brought her daughter along; a dreamy, lumpen thing who was
      often missing through ill health but was now back and fumbling over
      change.
         
      At the head of the queue, he ordered, and the daughter gave him
      a loose, not-set-properly smile. People said she fancied him.
         
      She put his sandwich in a bag and spilt a little of his coffee, her large
      hands momentarily touching his. He turned away quickly and headed for
      the stairs.
         
      Everything disturbed him today. He was not Gavin. Normally any
      out-of-the-ordinary incident would have him perched on the edge of
      his desk, caught in an imagined spotlight and acting up every little detail.
         
      But his lips were sealed about the baby on the doorstep. No one
      at work would ever hear of it.         
      
      Too close to home. 

      Over a week later, he still couldn't get the baby out of his head. How
      sweet, the way she had felt against his chest. When he walked into
      the sitting room it seemed as if that hideous basket was still on the rug.
      He saw Maxwell lower his paper and give him one of his looks.
         
      Gavin was moving lopsidedly again: one foot in London, one foot
      in Doncaster.
   
      By the Friday he couldn't stand it any more; found the social worker's
      number; rang her.
         
      'I just wanted to make sure the baby was all right.'
         
      She sounded tired.
         
      'He's with a foster carer. Temporary measure, obviously, until
      the mother is located or -'
         
      'He?'
         
      Gavin heard the woman trying to bite back what she had said and
      then give up.
         
      'Sorry… I mean, we all assumed, what with the pink babygro and
      the other pink clothes in the basket. But the baby was actually a boy.'
      A long pause. 'Is actually a boy.'
         
      He put the phone down. A boy dressed as a girl left on a gay man's
      doorstep.
         
      He wouldn't think about it.
         
      He couldn't stop thinking about it. The baby was trying to tell him
      something, if only he could make it out.
         

      On Sunday he gave Maxwell everything he wanted; lavished his body
      on him until the poor guy looked punch drunk. Then, baby step by
      baby step, he began.
         
      'Maxwell, have you ever thought about… you and me… having
      kids. Adopting.'
      
      A basilisk stare. 'What's all this about?'
         
      Gavin moved his hand to Maxwell's chest, trying to pat his good
      mood back into place.
         
      'That baby, made me think.'
         
      Maxwell rolled out from under his hand. Then it escalated; Gavin
      escalated it. Maxwell was always backing away. They had no
      permanence. It was all of a pattern. Gavin was just R&R. Someone
      quirky, young, slightly rough around the edges.
         
      Bitter words. Slamming doors.
         
      'Lot on my mind,' he told the daughter of the sandwich woman when
      she asked him what was wrong.
         
      She handed him his change and nodded.  

      Three weeks after the baby incident, Gavin arrived home to find
      a truce had been declared. Fanned out on the kitchen worktop were
      brochures about Japan. Maxwell poured wine and handed him his glass;
      one of the best ones, heavy even when empty. His smile was assured
      when he saw Gavin nod towards the brochures.
         
      'We've always wanted to go haven't we? Couple of days in Kyoto, do the
      temples. Travel to Hakone to see Fuji. Then a week in Tokyo.' He clinked
      his glass against Gavin's. 'Interesting nightlife, Tokyo.'
         
      Gavin looked towards the brochures again. They were an envelope
      of dirty tenners, a ball gag, a sticking plaster.
         
      Was he really that easy? Apparently he was. He caved in, gave in,
      bent over whichever way Maxwell wanted. Earned himself an upgrade
      to Business Class and a Saturday in Selfridges shopping for holiday clothes.
         
      On Monday, he was back on the edge of his desk in the spotlight,
      entertaining everyone with a little vignette about trying out his
      Japanese on a tourist in Oxford Street.
         
      At lunchtime, standing in the queue for his sandwich he felt lightheaded
      with the promise of what was to come. The daughter of the sandwich
      woman gave him a mournful look.
      
      'You're going away.'
        
       It was touching really.
         
      'Where's Japan?'
         
      Gavin saw her mother's glint of irritation. Well, it was sad, but some
      people just had babies that never grew up.
         
      'Far East, quite a way.' It was his kindest voice.
         
      'It'll be hot,' she said with great seriousness as she put his sandwich
      in a bag and handed him the coffee.
         
      Back at his desk he put his hand into the bag and pulled out a small
      pink sun hat along with his sandwich.
         
      Not random then, that leaving. A baby passed to him in trust.      
      Another one he'd let slip through his fingers.
         
      He didn't go home that night, ending up instead down on his hands
      and knees in a fetid flat with someone he knew would treat him
      as badly as he deserved.
         
      When he eventually slunk home, Maxwell was standing by the fireplace,
      one hand in his pocket. He looked at Gavin as though he had always
      known he would turn feral. He raised his chin. 'Where the hell have
      you been?'
         
      'Bit late to play Daddy isn't it?' Gavin said and went upstairs to pack.