The Dark Part of Me (17 page)

The phone rang. I answered in my drowsiest, sexiest voice. ‘Hello?’

‘Darling, it’s me.’ It was Hollie and I could tell, by the high pitch of her voice, that something was wrong. ‘Why haven’t you called me?’

‘I was going to.’ I felt bad. I was always letting her down. I should have called her back, but my mind had been on other things. ‘Listen, there’s something I should tell
you about Danny.’

A shadow fell across my middle, blocking the sunlight like a sudden cloud. I sat up and there he was, right outside my window, grinning, in a pair of basketball shorts, no shirt.

‘
Hollie
. I’ve gotta go, alright? I’ll call you back later. I promise.’

‘But what about—’

I hung up.

The sun blazed around him like an aura. Sick excitement ripped through me. It was just like old times when he used to come in the middle of the night. Even on the hottest night of the year,
we’d sleep spooned together on my single bed, the sweaty sheets knotted around us. At first light, he’d wake up and drive home so that Mum didn’t catch us. He hauled himself up
and sprung, biceps flaring, onto the sill. I was propped up against my pillows, pretending to read, as if these days I always hung about the house reading novels in lacy lingerie and full makeup.
He pounced onto my bed.

‘You expecting someone?’ he said, checking me out, his eyes roving up and down my legs, lingering on my belly-button ring, hovering over my wet-look lips.

‘No one in particular,’ I said, looking up from the page. His stare made me want to shed my skin but I’d spent a fortune on my bra and undies and didn’t want to get naked
just like that. I wanted him to kiss me all over like he used to, to build up slowly. I wanted him to discover my butterfly butt-tatt. But he sat at the end of the bed, his knees drawn up to his
chest.

‘Show us the gear, then,’ he said.

‘The gear? Yeah, cool, the gear.’ I got it off the top of my dressing table.

We sat cross-legged on the bed with our knees not quite touching, the stuff between us, the sun streaming in through the window. He was perfect in every way. Even his shoulder-length hair and
stubbly face turned me on. He was a man now, his jaw sharper, his Adam’s apple fully formed. He unwrapped the elephants first, lining them up on the bed, same as Trish’d done. He
counted them twice, up the row, down the row.

‘How much do I owe you?’

‘Don’t worry. It’s on me.’

He cocked his head to one side and looked at me. ‘You sure, babe?’

‘Positive.’ I slapped him lightly on the leg. ‘It’s just great to have you back,’ I said, realizing with a twinge in my gut that I sounded a bit wet. ‘So, are
you going to that rave?’

‘Yeah. S’pose.’ He was fingering the pills one by one, giving them the kind of attention I wished he’d been giving me. ‘They’ve eroded a bit. You should have
kept them in the fridge.’

‘Yeah, but Mum’d find them.’

‘You haven’t changed one bit, have you? You’re still the same girl I met that night at Café Neon.’ He chuckled. I smiled. At least he was talking about us.
‘You didn’t even know it was a strip joint.’

‘Yes, I did.’ I lied. ‘Remember that stripper.’

‘Yeah, I thought you were a dyke, you were so into it.’ He opened the speed bag and peered inside.

‘Stop it.’ I wondered what he’d think of Hollie and I pashing.

‘Babe, trust me, I’m not complaining. Two chicks are always better than one.’ He stuck his nose into the bag and inhaled deeply like some kind of a speed connoisseur.
‘Let’s just say, if I had the opportunity, I wouldn’t say no.’ He nudged me with his big toe and handed me the speed bag. ‘Rack us up a few lines while I hang a
piss.’ He stood up and pecked me on the cheek, his stubble thicker from a week’s growth. ‘You’re so fucking sexy,’ he whispered in my ear before disappearing down the
hall.

I cleared the junk off my bedside table and tipped a fair amount of speed into the middle. He was acting like a real arsehole but I couldn’t help myself, he looked so fucking good. I
grabbed my credit card from my wallet and got to work carving out six straight and even lines.

One line for being dirty.

One line for being sexy.

One line for going wild.

One line for bad-girl want.

One line for Scott’s hard cock.

One line for getting back together.

I licked my finger along the edge of the credit card and quickly rubbed it on my gums. Scott padded back down the hall, his feet slapping against the tiles.

‘Your mum’s still got that weird sign about washing your hands
vigorously
.’ He was standing in the doorway. ‘If it wasn’t so fucking hilarious, it’d
be really twisted.’

‘She’s got a new boyfriend called Randy Andy.’

‘Sounds like a poof to me,’ he said, flapping his wrists.

‘He’s got a massive dick.’

‘Couldn’t be bigger than mine.’

‘It’s huge.’

‘How big?’

I estimated the length with my hands.

‘Width?’ he asked.

‘Salami-size.’

‘Bullshit.’ He wrestled me onto the carpet and pinned my arms above my head. ‘Mutai?’ He was playing our mercy game, just like old times.

I shook my head, not giving in.

He flipped me over, twisting my wrists in Chinese burns behind my back. It hurt like shit.

‘Mutai?’

‘Mutai,’ I conceded through clenched teeth. He released me and I rolled over. We lay side by side on our backs, close but not touching. I felt the heat radiating off his body and I
could smell him – that salty, scalpy smell that made me so horny. He turned to me, his head propped up on his arm. I did the same so that only a thin slither of air separated us. We stared at
each other for ages, each part of me burning under his gaze.

‘Fuck, you look good.’ He had goose bumps on his chest.

‘I missed you, you know.’ My ears throbbed hot and I had a sinking sensation in my chest like I’d said the wrong thing. He held a finger to my lips and shook his head.

‘I know what
you
need.’ He crawled over to the lines. I rolled onto my back and stared at the ceiling. What the fuck was he playing at? I needed sex not drugs, but then, as
Trish said, speed was meant to make fucking even better. I sat up and watched as he snorted two lines, back and forth, no fuss; then I had one. As he looked at me, Scott’s pupils grew huge
with lust. He pulled me to him and kissed me fiercely. Like eating the first strawberry of the summer, it was sweeter, juicier, more delicious than I’d remembered. His lips were so full, so
ripe, I wanted to bite them off. He pulled back, turning around to the lines and polished off three more. I had the last one, feeling the stuff drip burning down my nasal cavity into my throat.
When I looked up, he was gone.

‘Scott!’ No answer. I went searching for him. The speed was kicking in big-time now, firing my limbs, zipping through the twists and turns of the sausagey tunnels in my brain. I
dashed from room to room. The house was bright and fresh. In the kitchen, there was the zing of lemon Pine-o-cleen in the air. I ran and skidded across the tiles, out through the sliding door to
the courtyard. ‘Ouch!’ The pavers were hot. I nipped back inside. The cool hush of the lounge room with everything covered in plastic made me think of funeral parlours.

‘Scott!’

‘In here!’

He was lying on his back. Naked starfish on Mum’s bed. The air-con was on full-blast and he’d tuned the alarm clock radio to Triple J. ‘Suck My Kiss’ by the Chilli
Peppers was playing. His eyes were closed but his body writhed to the music. I stood there looking at his nakedness. His cock, smooth and thick, pointed straight at the ceiling in a massive
erection. He’d always wanted to fuck on Mum’s bed but I’d never had the guts before. It was just past three and I reckoned she wouldn’t be home before five.

Scott opened one eye, lazily. ‘Let’s do it, babe.’

‘One sec.’ I dashed to my bedroom for the whip and the handcuffs.

We went wild. Scott ripped my g-string off with his teeth and threw my bra across the room. He pushed me face down on the bed and cuffed my wrists behind my back and tied my ankles together with
the cord from Mum’s chenille. He said he fucking loved my tatt. I screamed in ecstasy (and a bit of pain) as he lashed at my bare butt with the whip and talked dirty, calling me
‘bitch’ and ‘whore’ and ‘slut’. He flipped me onto my back, my hands squashed beneath me in the cuffs. He straddled my face, forcing his cock into my mouth,
ordering me to suck. I worked my tongue up and down it, careful not to snag with my teeth, mustering as much saliva as possible as he thrust back and forth, the friction hot against my lips. He
grunted his enjoyment. All I could see were his balls, loose and dangling, as he hovered over me, his weight supported by one hand. I could feel my wetness mounting and I wanted him in me so bad.
Drawing back, I said, ‘Fuck me,’ but he said, ‘No,’ and thrust back deep throat. I was choking but he didn’t seem to notice.

‘Is my cock big enough for you, babe?’ he said, rubbing his hands all over my front, fondling my belly-button ring, pushing his fingers up into me. My mouth muscles were getting
tired from the blowing, the cuffs were biting into my wrists. He went faster with his fingers, digging right up inside me like he thought I was going to come, even though he should’ve
remembered that I’d never fucking ever been able to come off a finger-fuck. I drew back for a breather, but he barked, ‘Don’t fucking stop!’ So I put him back in and went
for gold. I could tell, from his groans and the way he stopped finger-fucking me, that he was close to the edge. He roared and hand-fulled my tits, ‘Oh. Fuck.’ His whole body went rigid
and his cock stiffened in my mouth. ‘Fuck,’ he screamed, ‘fuck, fuck,’ each ‘fuck’ getting louder until his load hit the back of my throat. I gagged and gulped
it down. I had never swallowed before, but Trish had told me that down the hatch was the only way. ‘Before your taste buds know what’s hit ’em,’ she’d said. It left a
gluey, grassy, Brussels-sprouty taste that made me want to spew.

‘That was awesome, babe.’ Scott collapsed beside me with a big grin on his face.

Although I was pissed we hadn’t fucked, I figured there’d be heaps more times for that. While he snoozed, I sat up watching him. His cheeks were flushed from all the exertion, his
hairless chest shiny with a light coating of sweat. His penis lay to one side, still full and luscious as an exotic fruit. I didn’t want to disturb him because I didn’t want him to
leave. I wriggled down to lying position, as best I could with my hands cuffed and my ankles tied together, and rested my head on his chest. It was just past four. ‘November Rain’ by
Guns ’n’ Roses was playing on the radio. The Asian chick popped into my head. Those long pale limbs. That superior smile. I was tempted to ask him about her, but part of me didn’t
want to know. For now, it was enough just to be with him, inhaling his smell, listening to his booming heartbeat.

Scott jerked upright, tipping me off his chest. ‘Someone’s pulled into the drive.’ Snapping off the radio, he leapt up and peered out the curtains. ‘Shit. It’s your
mum.’ He dashed around the room in a panic. ‘Where’re my shorts?

Fuck! The one time in her life she was early. I struggled with no arms to a sitting position. ‘Quick. Get me the key. It’s in a brown paper bag, under my bed.’

‘But babe, she’ll be walking in here any second.’

‘You can’t leave me like this!’ With my ankles tied, I couldn’t walk and, with my hands cuffed behind my back, I couldn’t untie my ankles.

‘There’s no time,’ Scott said, tugging on his shorts.

‘Carry me into the bedroom. You can uncuff me and climb out the window.’

Mum’s footsteps clacked across the porch. A second later, she was jiggling the key in the lock.

‘Nah, I gotta split. Sorry. I’ll call you later, OK?’ He ran out of the room leaving me bound and naked on Mum’s floral spread and I knew I’d never ever forgive him
for it.

As the door creaked open and Mum clattered inside, shopping bags rustling about her, I burrowed, like an amputated rodent, under the covers. My voice weak and trembly, I called out, ‘Mum,
I’m in here. I’m really sick.’

In a flash, she was at my side, flinging her shopping on the floor, a look of tender concern on her face.

‘Where do you feel sick?’

‘Everywhere,’ I said pathetically, moaning a little and shimmying down further in the bed, covers up to my chin. ‘I was feeling hot and shivery so I came in here for the
air-con.’

‘You look flushed,’ she said. ‘Have you got a temperature?’

I rolled my head towards her on the pillow. She pressed her palm against my forehead.

‘You’re on fire.’ She looked worried. ‘Have you had a cold shower?’

‘Yes,’ I lied.

‘What about fluids?’

‘No.’

‘I’ll get you some lemonade.’

‘Thanks,’ I murmured, fluttering my eyelids closed, slackening my lips in pretend-suffering.

As soon as she was gone, I reared up like a vampire out of a coffin and surveyed the entire room, searching desperately for the whip. Maybe Scott had taken it with him. I fell forwards on to my
stomach and dived under the sheets in case it had somehow ended up at the bottom of the bed. No luck. At the sound of Mum’s heels, I fell back onto the pillows and resumed my sick-girl act,
closing my eyes. Mum stopped halfway across the room. Her knee joints cracked as she bent down to pick something up off the floor. I peeked through slitted lids. She was inspecting the red bra and
g-string which Scott had torn off me. She held the offending items at arm’s length, as if some rampant infestation of STD germs might be lurking within the crotch of my knickers.

‘Only prostitutes wear red underwear, Rosemary,’ she said, all prim. She dropped the bra and knickers onto my face. ‘Black’s fine but red is for whores.’ The lace
was itchy. I opened my eyes and shook the lingerie off my face.

‘Mum, I’m really sick, OK? Do we have to talk about this now?’

‘So long as you know.’

‘Fine,’ I said, wondering how she could object to red undies, yet root a man she had known less than forty-eight hours.