Taming the Beast (8 page)

‘I wish you would at least get a mobile phone. That would be some security.’

‘Good idea. Excuse me while I pluck some spare cash out of my arse.’

‘Well if you didn’t spend all your money on booze and cigarettes.’

Sarah sipped her beer and then lit a smoke, ignoring Jamie’s glare. ‘Seriously, I’ve been doing extra shifts all week, and I’m still fifty short for the electricity bill. I’ll have it by next week, but if I get cut off I’ll have to pay for the reconnect–’

Jamie put a fifty-dollar bill on the table in front of her. ‘Are you sticking to your budget?’

Sarah shrugged. Jamie wrote her a new budget at least every six months, and every time she told him there was no point because she would never stick to it, but he was in serious denial.

‘Something must be wrong there… Has your study allowance decreased again or something?’

‘I don’t know. It’s always going down. It’s way less than what I got back at high school, and I was barely making rent then. If it wasn’t for all the overtime I would be totally screwed.’

‘You know, Sar, Mum’s offer is still open.’

Ever since Sarah and her parents had parted ways, Mrs Wilkes had been auditioning for the role of Sarah’s mother. And although the Wilkes family were the most generous people she knew, and the spare room in their house was bigger than Sarah’s whole flat, she had never been seriously tempted to join their family. For one thing, Jamie and Brett were both ex-lovers of hers and the idea of them being her de-facto brothers was too creepy. Also, she needed emotional space more than physical, and the Wilkes were the kind of people who had deep, touching conversations over dinner and told each other they
cared
. Having these people prodding at her brain, trying to get into her psychic pants, put her off her food, and if she didn’t eat, they all started thinking she was anorexic and wanted to mindfuck her body image. And she couldn’t tell Jamie any of this because he would want her to talk about why she felt threatened by emotional intimacy.

‘Thanks, Jamie-boy, but living with your family would totally kill my sex life.’

Jamie smiled, but in the tight, tense way that he did when he was frustrated. ‘Do you ever wonder if maybe your priorities are out of whack? I mean, really, Sarah, it’s just sex.’

That’s what Jamie didn’t understand: it was never
just sex
. Even the fastest, dirtiest, most impersonal screw was about more than sex. It was about connection. It was about looking at another human being and seeing your own loneliness and neediness reflected back. It was recognising that together you had the power to temporarily banish that sense of isolation. It was about experiencing what it was to be human at the basest, most instinctive level. How could that be described as
just
anything?

And aside from all that there was the possibility that maybe,
maybe
she would find another man like
him
. The other half of the beast that scratched up her insides, kicking and roaring.

Sarah finished her beer and stubbed out her cigarette. ‘Haven’t we had this conversation before?’

‘Yep. Every time you need to ask me for money because you can’t afford your lifestyle.’

Sarah flicked the fifty at Jamie’s lap. ‘You can keep your money and your judgements thank you very much.’

‘Sarah, come on.’

She jumped off her stool. ‘I’m library bound.’

He held out his hand, his face an illustration of regret. ‘Take the money, Sarah, please.’

‘I don’t need it. I just remembered I had some money stashed somewhere.’

Jamie came towards her, the note waving in front of him. ‘Bullshit.’

‘No, really. It’s true,’ she said, running out of the bar, and if it wasn’t true at that moment, it would be.

*

Jamie arrived at Sarah’s door just as it opened. A grey haired man in a pinstripe suit stood in the doorway.

‘What?’ The man touched his chest. ‘Why are you lurking out here?’

‘I’m not– Um, is Sarah–’

‘Yes. Excuse me,’ the man said, stepping past Jamie. ‘I’m in a hurry.’

‘Sarah?’ Jamie stepped inside, locking the door behind him. ‘You decent?’

‘Yeah. In here.’

He stepped into her bedroom and immediately gagged as he inhaled a lungful of semen and sweat. He concentrated on taking
shallow breaths to minimise the amount of sexual waste product breathed in. Sarah was lying on her side, her glorious, messy hair covering half her face and all of the arm which held her up. She was wrapped in a burgundy sheet, which clung to her jutting hipbones and emphasised rather than concealed her round little breasts.

Jamie looked away from the terrifying magnificence of postcoital Sarah only to be confronted with something far more awful. On the floor beside her bed lay a shrivelled, cloudy condom, a pile of scrunched up tissues and – Jamie felt like his lungs were going to explode – a neat pile of twenty-dollar bills.

Jamie stared at her. ‘Is this the spare money you had stashed away?’

‘Yeah, it was stashed in Joe’s trousers.’ She laughed, showing Jamie the shiny wet inside of her mouth.

Jamie had long ago stopped reacting outwardly when Sarah did something like this. Inwardly, it was like a tiny shard of glass stabbing him in the heart. So small that it didn’t really hurt at all, except that there were now so many tiny shards that his heart kind of ached all the time, and every little new one made it that tiny bit worse.

He forced his face into what he hoped was an expression of exaggerated shock. ‘You robbed that poor old man I saw hobbling out of your apartment?’

‘You’re hilarious, really. Joe happens to be a genuine old-fashioned gentleman. More than happy to help out a financially needy young girl, asking nothing in return.’

‘What a saint.’

‘You don’t know the half of it. Not only did the darling man give me enough money to pay all this month’s bills, but then he let me fuck him for, like, three hours.’

Feeling very, very sick, Jamie grinned at her. ‘The selflessness!’

‘I know.’ She yawned, looking small and young and in need of a mother’s goodnight kiss. ‘I’m a lucky girl.’

‘I have big, big news.’ Jess twisted her plait around her finger, smiling coyly at the table top.

Shelley put down her diet coke and leant forward. ‘So? Tell, tell.’

Sarah watched the couple at the next table, trying to ascertain their relationship. The man was easily thirty years older than his companion and their matching red hair and pale skin allowed the possibility of shared genes. But the girl was mesmerised, smiling and shaking her head at the bloke as though she’d never seen anything like him outside of her dreams.

‘Sarah? Are you paying attention? This is important.’

Sarah nodded at Jess. ‘Yes. Absolutely. Full attention.’

‘Okay, well…’ Jess smiled, looking from Shelley to Sarah and back again. ‘I’m getting married!’

Shelley screamed, throwing herself half across the table and catching Jess in an awkward embrace. ‘Congratulations! Oh, that’s so wonderful!’

‘I know, I know! He asked me last night, and of course I said yes right away, and I don’t have the ring yet because we’re going to pick it together this afternoon but I couldn’t wait to tell you both the news. Ah!’

‘Ah!’ Shelley squealed back.

People were staring at them because of the screaming and hugging and knocking of salt and peppershakers from the table. Of everyone in the café only Miss May and Mr December were oblivious to Shelley and Jess’s squawking. The man continued to talk in a voice far too low for Sarah to hear, and the girl continued
to stare up at him as though he was not old and ugly and wearing a dreadful Snoopy tie. Sarah felt a tiny stab of jealousy, but mostly she was happy to have discovered evidence that true love did exist. She smiled at them, knowing they would not see her even if she went and lay naked across their table.

‘Well, Sarah?’

‘I’m speechless.’ Which was not true. She had plenty to say but most of it involved calling Jess a stupid fucking idiot, and she at least had enough sensitivity to hold back from insulting the girl in her moment of frothy princess joy.

‘Oooh, I could scratch your eyes out I’m so jealous.’ Shelley squeezed Jess’ hand. ‘Well, maybe this news will give Jamie the push he needs to finally pop the question.’

Sarah almost swallowed the cigarette she was about to light. ‘You want Jamie to propose? As in marriage?
Jamie?
’

‘What? You don’t think we’re good together?’

‘God, I don’t know about that.’ Sarah paused to light her cigarette. ‘But Jamie and
marriage
? He’s such a sheltered little mummy’s boy.’

Shelley snorted. ‘So why the hell do
you
spend so much time with him?’

Sarah thought about it, but not for too long, because Shelley’s eyes were narrowed. Also, Sarah and Jamie’s friendship was, like all long-term relationships, complicated. Her throw-away bitchy comment was coming back to bite her, because Jamie was way, way better than any man she knew; it was just that he was so
fragile
. But here and now was not the time or place to be going in-depth about what Jamie meant to her.

‘I just meant that he doesn’t strike me as ideal husband material. If there is such a thing, which for the record, I don’t believe there is.’

‘Well, he’s perfect for me anyway,’ Shelley said. ‘And he was
so
right about you. You are such a cynic.’

Sarah’s skin prickled. Later she would deal with Jamie, for the moment she shrugged and sucked back on her cigarette like she didn’t care at all.

Later that night, after many celebratory drinks at the pub, Mike drove everyone home, dropping off Jamie, then Shelley, then Jess. ‘Hey,’ he said when only Sarah was left. ‘Jump in the front. I feel like a fucking chauffeur up here.’

Mike drove with one hand on the wheel and the other on Sarah’s thigh, using every gear change as an opportunity to replace his hand closer to her crotch. She laughed at him when he told her how he had wanted her since the first moment he’d laid eyes on her, and she laughed even harder when he called her a fucking bitch. When they were parked in front of her building, he grabbed her and stopped her laughter by shoving his tongue in her mouth.

‘You’re a nice kisser,’ he said, when she pulled back.

Sarah kissed him again, to thank him for the compliment. He was not such a nice kisser. His tongue was sloppy and his jaw was slack. His hands were a different matter; one held her thigh firmly, while the other drew zigzag lines across her spine. After a couple of minutes, he started to fiddle with her fly.

‘Stop,’ Sarah said.

‘No.’ Mike moved his hand around to the side of her waist. His forceful tone was a point in his favour, as was the very sexy way he was nuzzling the side of her neck.

‘You don’t feel bad about this?’

‘You’re pretending that you do?’

‘I’m not pretending anything. I feel fine. I’m just wondering why
you
don’t feel bad.’

‘I love Jess. She’s an incredible girl. But she’s not like you and me. She isn’t relaxed about sex. Every time it’s got to be a whole big production.’ He took Sarah’s hand and placed it on his groin. ‘I’m busting, Sarah. Be a sport, heh?’

Sarah took her hand away, and then she peeled his hands off her. She would not
be a sport
. If they were going to fuck each other then it would be because it felt like a good thing to do; it would not be because he’d pleaded with her like a john with no cash.

‘Goodnight, Mike.’

‘What? No!’

‘Drive safely now.’

Later that night, in bed alone, Sarah considered Mike’s proposition. Not so much what he had said, but the way he had said it. Like he was certain she wouldn’t say no. Like she was a sure thing. Like she was breaking some law by not fucking him. It was an attitude she was used to, but which still got on her nerves. People didn’t understand the difference between being easy in the sense of fucking anyone who asked, and being easy in the sense of not making a bloke wait six months before deciding to fuck him. Sarah was easy in the second sense and resented people thinking otherwise. Her version of easy meant not wasting time playing games; the other version meant being a desperate sad case who lay down and waited to be used by whoever was passing by.

She knew she shouldn’t have been surprised at Mike’s attitude. She had been relieving sexual frustration for men who were in love with frigid princesses for her entire sexually active life. After Mr Carr left she threw herself at a romantically attached but desperately horny man and had been screwing grateful boyfriends and husbands ever since. The first was Alex Knight – school captain, exceptional student, keen athlete, church youth group leader – and
she fell hard for him. He had a girlfriend named Laura who refused to have sex until she had a ring on her finger. Alex was happy to wait for Laura, but not for sex. That’s where Sarah came in.

Sarah learnt a lot from Alex. Like the way men could say one thing, then another, then act in a way inconsistent with both positions and somehow still be convinced of their own integrity. Alex used to talk about how much he loved Laura and how he was going to marry her after he had his degree. Then he’d turn to Sarah and lecture her on how she was too young to be parking down at Toongabbie Creek with men, too young to be mucking around with blokes at all, and that she should have more respect for herself. After he’d gotten all that off his chest, he’d bang the hell out of her.

Alex was always sorry. His face grew darker with guilt as the frequency and heat of their couplings increased. He felt guilty about betraying Laura and guilty about using an infatuated fourteen-year old girl for his own pleasure and guilty about turning from his God. But still he did not stop. At the end of the year, Alex told Sarah that Saint Laura had gotten smashed at the end-of-year party and surrendered her precious virginity. It had been worth the wait, and they were more in love than ever, and… At the age of fourteen years and eleven months, Sarah was already over this romance bullshit.

She decided that she would abide by the rule her mother had made and not have a boyfriend. It amused her to tell men who propositioned her that she couldn’t go out with them, because her mother believed that involvement in romantic relationships impeded academic development. Would it be alright, she would say, if we just fucked?