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Authors: Emily Maguire

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BOOK: Taming the Beast
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‘Don’t you have parents?’

‘Everyone has parents, silly.’

‘Where are they? Why do you live like this?’

Sarah loved that he wanted to understand her. There was not a chance in hell he ever would, but she loved that he wanted to. She reached behind her, catching his hands, drawing his arms around her waist. He made a small noise of pleasure and nuzzled the back of her neck.

‘Have you read
Jane Eyre
?’ she asked.

‘Have I…’ He was audibly surprised, but recovered quickly. ‘Ah, yes, yes, I think so, at school. A long time ago.’

‘Do you remember why Jane leaves the comfort of Thornfield Hall even though she will be homeless and poverty stricken? Why she voluntarily reduces her station in life from governess to beggar?’

‘I don’t…’ He chuckled into her hair. ‘I wasn’t expecting a test. I haven’t studied.’

‘She left because her dignity was worth more to her than physical comfort.’ Sarah turned around and looked up into his face. ‘And that’s why I live like this.’

Oh, the pity in his eyes! Sarah took off his glasses so she could see it without interference, and the pure, wet, sincerity of it made her ache. With a burst of passion she kissed him, tugged at his shirt,
his belt, his fly. She grabbed a handful of the delicious soft flesh around his middle and pulled him to her bed which squealed in protest. She knew she stank of lard and stale smoke and beer, but the man did not seem to care. ‘Oh, Jesus,’ he said, repeatedly.

His efficiency at undressing her – the ease with which he lifted her dress over her head without catching the zip on her ponytail, his practised way of loosing her hair from its elastic – impressed her. He must have a daughter, she thought. Men with daughters knew how to painlessly undress a girl.

Sarah had her own much practiced actions to impress with: the condom plucked seemingly from thin air, opened with one hand, rolled on before he had a chance to tell her he would rather not wear it. And then, with the smallest movement of her hips, the barely noticeable tilting of her pelvis, he was inside her. His face changed instantly, transformed by that expression which made Sarah briefly love every man she fucked: shock that he was inside her, mixed with gratitude that she was allowing him to be. With most men the expression appeared at the moment of penetration and then morphed into a look of triumph or resolve. But this lovely, soft bellied, father of daughters remained shocked and grateful almost to the end. Then, in the final moments, he was, as they all were, overtaken by the need for it to be finished, and his face turned ugly in its greed.

Sarah came, as she usually did, because she knew how her body worked, how to position herself, how to tense and relax, clench and release, how to keep a man from coming until she was done with him. Mr Carr – another man who had learnt from his daughters how to undress a girl without messing up her hair – had taught her all these things, and she was grateful for this every day of her life. But he also taught her that an orgasm was nothing; it was a sneeze or a good cry. So although she sought out sex like the drug it was,
and although she came and came and came and came, what she hoped for was always the other thing: the merging into one, the making of the beast with two backs. Every man, every time, she waited for that moment of transcendence, the melting of self which allowed the absorption of another’s melted self; she wanted so much for Mr Carr to not be the only one who could reduce her like that. But after seven years of determined fucking she was beginning to lose her faith. Sweating and gasping beside her was another man who had been tried and enjoyed but who, in the end, had failed to be anything but a good fuck.

After the man left, Sarah smoked her last three cigarettes and drank the two flat beers she had opened earlier. She pushed aside an overdue electricity notice to get to
The House of Mirth
, which she carried into the bedroom. She was more than halfway through; hopefully sleep would come early tonight. But less than an hour into her reading, the light bulb blew. She thought about getting up and changing it, but decided it was too much effort. The last line she had read echoed in her mind:
There had never been a time when she had had any real relation to life
. She lay awake most of the night listening to the rats squealing and scratching in the alley below her window.

On the previous Saturday night, when she was supposed to be at a party with her old school friends, Sarah had stayed up all night fucking an eighteen-year-old professional dancer. On Sunday, she slept and studied and took her phone off the hook. Yesterday, Monday, she went to uni and then to work and then had sex with the man who’d driven her home. So it wasn’t until Tuesday morning that she answered her phone and was screamed at by Jess for missing the party on Saturday night. Sarah had a headache and was running late for uni, so to shut Jess up, she promised to meet them at the pub after she finished work.

She spent the rest of the day regretting her promise and arrived in a bad mood, expecting to be bored, and without bothering to change out of her stinky work clothes. She was relieved to find that Jamie was there, less happy that Shelley was with him, and astounded that Jess’ boyfriend was hot. She wished she had taken the time to change.

‘Finally we meet,’ Mike said, taking her hand and kissing it.

‘Finally? I’ve only known you existed for three days.’

He held onto her hand. ‘But I’ve known about you for months. Jess talks about you all the time.’

Sarah raised her eyebrows at Jess, who was glowing. Well good for her. She turned back to Mike. ‘So I suppose you think I’m a nerdy slut with terrible housekeeping skills.’

He laughed. ‘You’re not?’

‘Occasionally. But sometimes…’ She pulled her hand free and twirled around. ‘…I’m just a simple, hard-working waitress in desperate need of a cold glass of beer.’

Mike went to get her a drink. Sarah took the opportunity to tell Jess how hot her new catch was. ‘I really like this guy,’ Jess said. ‘I really, really like him, you know?’

‘That’s great,’ Sarah said. ‘Good for you.’

Jamie pulled Sarah aside and leant in close. ‘Don’t even think about it,’ he whispered.

‘Don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Sarah, I mean it. Look how happy Jess is. Just keep your hands – your
everything
– to yourself with this one.’

‘But he’s so irresistible. How ever will I control myself?’

‘I’m not joking.’ Jamie narrowed his eyes the way he did when he wanted to appear serious and severe. Sarah had never told him how cute that look was, because then he would stop doing it. ‘You can have any bloke you want. Except this one.’

‘Can I have that one?’ She pointed to a random table-slouching drunk.

Finally, a smile. ‘Yes, Sarah.’

‘Thanks, Mum.’ Sarah kissed his cheek. She considered sitting down and drinking the beer Mike had put on the table for her, but she didn’t know how to sit across from a hot stranger and not flirt.

She picked up the beer. ‘Thanks. Now, I’d love to stay and chat but Jamie told me I can have that man over there.’

‘Sarah! That’s not what I–’

‘You said I could, Jamie-boy, and I’m going to. Just watch me.’

There was a stunned silence. She felt a surge of pride at her ability to render them all speechless, followed by a bigger surge of fear at what she was about to do. She turned and began walking to the table she had indicated. The man was staring into his almost empty glass. He had greasy black hair, a crooked nose and a salt-and-pepper stubbled face. Why, oh why, Sarah thought, do I do these things? Why can’t I just sit down with my friends and have a drink and go home and clean my teeth and go to bed? Why do I always have to–

‘She won’t will she?’ Mike’s voice behind her.

‘No way,’ Shelley said. ‘That man is so
ugly
.’

And then Sarah had no choice, because the man
was
ugly and the world being what it was, he probably never had women wanting to sleep with him. Sarah knew she was pretty, and she knew she hadn’t done any more to deserve her beauty than that man had to deserve his ugliness. It wasn’t fair that he had to go through life being unwanted and untouched when Sarah had all the wanting and touching she could handle. And besides,
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind
. This man had as much chance as any other of being the man who would split her soul wide open.

3

Every weekday morning, Sarah argued with herself about whether she could afford to miss just one day of uni. She had worked till late, partied until later, was too tired, too hungover, needed to clean her flat, wash her clothes, get stuck into the next due paper. But she knew that even one day would hurt her, because it would not seem to hurt her at all and she would be tempted to repeat the exercise until it did. So every day she dragged her tired, aching, hungover carcass out of bed, threw on her least dirty clothes, stumbled through the wreckage of last night’s beer cans and walked the two blocks to the bus stop. She always sat up the back of the bus, her head against the window, her legs up on the seat to prevent anyone from sitting close to her. The journey took twelve minutes and every second of it was spent wondering how the hell she was going to make it through another day. She knew she would be sick as soon as she smelt the blood and bones fertiliser on the lawn. She would fall asleep in Gender Studies for sure. If she made it to lunch without passing out, it would be a miracle.

And every day, the miracle occurred. No matter how wrecked Sarah felt when she staggered off the bus, she was instantly refreshed by the sight of the Miles Franklin Building up ahead. It wasn’t a beautiful building; it was standard seventies red brick, four floors, reflective glass and iron bars on the windows. But it was Sarah’s true home, her spiritual home. If she could afford to not work, she would spend every moment here. She loved the student lounge with its threadbare orange and green sofas, its chipped formica tables and wobbly chairs. She loved the ancient silver urn which only the second and third year students knew how to
operate without scalding themselves. She loved the squeak of her sneakers on the linoleum floors, the persistent knocking of the front door against its frame on windy days, the nook under the stairs between the third and fourth floor where you could always find Joe D, buy some pot, pinch a smoke. She loved the old stoners who took a decade to complete their Bachelors’, and she loved the shiny new first years who could be overheard earnestly discussing the theories of Barthes and Lacan as though they too were shiny and new. Most of all, she loved the classes, where she vacillated between being sure of her wisdom and insight and being convinced of her impossible ignorance.

The other students adored Sarah, because she gladly shared her always precise and coherent notes and was generous with praise and encouragement. She was humble but enthusiastic, easy to talk to but undeniably clever. Sometimes she slept with her classmates, sometimes with her lecturers and tutors, but this made her neither more nor less popular. Here at least, fucking for stress release, for celebration, or to relieve boredom was commonplace. That was another reason Sarah loved it.

She wished she could stay at university forever. Learning, teaching, thinking, talking, fucking. Sleeping under the gum tree behind the science block in summer, and on the squishy green Arts lounge sofa in winter. Drinking bad coffee and half-price beer, eating peanuts and Joe D’s chocolate-chip hash cookies. She had another six months of her undergrad degree, and then her honours year, and after that, she did not know. Although almost everybody she knew said she was bound to do great things, nobody, including Sarah, seemed to know what this meant.

Whatever she did, she was determined to not live up to anyone else’s expectations. These expectations were, depending who you asked, that she would fall pregnant and live off welfare; that she
would become the pampered mistress of some old but rich businessman; that her heavy drinking would tip into full blown alcoholism and she would die in a gutter clutching an empty metho bottle; that her occasional dabbling with illegal substances would become less occasional until she reached the point where she was turning tricks to pay for her next hit; or, that she would get tired of fending for herself all the time and return to her parents, happily copping their shit as long as they cleared her university debt and gifted her with the traditional Antipodean post-uni tour of Europe. The first and last of these were laughable; the others she had flirted with throughout the years. She had to remain on guard to ensure these flirtations did not become love affairs. She had to work hard at being something more than a living cliché.

Jamie was waiting for Sarah at their usual table in the uni pub. They met here at lunch each day, because Sarah would only go to the Economics building if she was in the mood to pick up a virgin, and Jamie refused to go to the Arts lounge because he believed that everyone there thought that Commerce majors were soulless subliterates.

She bought a beer and a packet of cigarettes and headed over to Jamie who was sipping a coke and picking at a basket of fries.

‘I called you when I got home last night,’ he said. ‘It was after two. Where were you?

‘I was running amok with Andy the alcho.’ Sarah kissed his cheek and sat down. ‘Say what you want about middle-aged unemployed drunks, but
shit
do they know how to party. I don’t think there’s a pub in all of Sydney I didn’t drink in or a street I didn’t vomit or piss in last night. Plus you’ve got to love a bloke who doesn’t let go of his bottle even while he’s fucking a girl.’

‘Jesus, Sarah!’ Jamie looked like he was going to cry. ‘Why do you do these things?’

She shrugged. ‘
Nostalgie de la boue
.’

‘I’m not even going to ask what that means, because I don’t care. You know it’s only a matter of time before one of these blokes cuts your throat.’

Sarah rolled her eyes. Jamie gave her the same lecture at least once a week, although sometimes he predicted a bullet to the head or a stocking around the neck, rather than a cut throat. She knew he was right, but she also knew he would never understand that it was necessary. To reach ultimate bliss, one must face grave danger.

BOOK: Taming the Beast
8.17Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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