by NJ Moss
“Somewhere safe. Somewhere happy. Doesn’t that sound nice?”
“Yes. It really does, Mummy.”
“Good girl.” Her mum’s hand was on her shoulder. She was squeezing her supportively, and Millicent’s smile glimmered across her face. It felt wonderful. She forgot about the kitty and Comrade Philip’s son. Mother had even let her call her Mummy. “Hurry up now.”
Millicent packed swiftly. She didn’t want to annoy her mother in any way, to change whatever had triggered in her. They hurried down the stairs together.
Millicent’s mind flooded with brighter vignettes, with she and her mother walking through a sunlit park together, hand in hand, and laughing when a dog cocked its leg and peed on a plant… or something, anything mothers and daughters do, the stuff she’d read about in storybooks.
“That’s it,” Mother whispered, leading her toward the door. “Just a little further.”
In the years following, Millicent would relive these moments viscerally several times, and each time would snap something inside of her. She’d remember how her mother had gone werewolf, how her kind smile had turned mocking, and most of all how her father had appeared from the hallway closet like a killer. He’d held a hammer in his hand and his lips were twisted somewhere between a smile and a grimace.
His eyes were shining in a way Millicent knew well, the way they gleamed when he’d smoked the glass pipe too much. “I know what you did.”
“What, Father?” Millicent murmured, but they were far past that. “I didn’t do anything.”
He’d called her liar and leapt at her, and he’d used the hammer; it had done devastating things to her body, and then he’d done devastating things to her body. He didn’t invade her the same way Philip and Purple Moon did, but he used other means. Mother was there for all of it, sitting in the corner, lips puckered around her pipe as her eyes lit up blue with the gas lighter.
It lasted a long time.
When it was over, Millicent was barely able to stand. Only the ropes stopped her from falling.
Her hands were tied above her head and her tiptoes just barely reached the floor, and the sun was bleeding yellow-red through the window, or maybe that was the blood seeping down her forehead. He’d hit her so many times. He hated her. Mother hated her. She couldn’t trust anybody: not even herself, and now the rage came, the white-hot rage, as she stared at her father pacing up and down with the carmine hammer in his fist.
He smacked the weighted end against his hand.
“Something’s wrong with you.” Smack-smack-smack. “You captured and tortured an innocent defenceless animal. You’re broken.”
He had broken her body, but he didn’t mean in that sense, she knew. He’d bruised several ribs and fractured her pinkie finger and left burns up and down her left thigh. He’d caused her toes to swell and the joints in her shoulders to burn with agony. He meant her soul was broken.
Millicent stared hard at him.
“What?” He darted at her, squaring his shoulders. “Don’t fucking look at me like that.”
She stared and stared, because he wasn’t real; none of this was real. Everything that existed was only a projection of her mind. She saw it now, as pain made her body weak; she could withdraw from it all. She never had to be there. It was the same as in the Rainbow Room, so she floated, up and away and she stared at herself from the ceiling.
There was a small girl: blood down her nightie, petals of it on her bare thighs, staining her feet like spilt wine. Her hair was tangled and her eyes were animal.
“I’m warning you.”
She stared and stared and stared.
“Fine.” He lifted the hammer and stepped forward. “You godawful fucking mistake.”
The blow fell and her whole world trembled, and she floated away, away… she found herself back in her fantasy, only now Father stood next to the little sprite. His wrists were slit and he was swinging back and forth on a sturdy piece of rope, his mouth open in a rictus as though his final word had been sorry.
28
Jamie
“Another, sir?” the barman asks, as I stare down at my empty whisky glass.
I don’t even know what I’m doing here. I told Hazel I had to schmooze a client and she accepted it, because she’s trusting and incredible and perfect. I’ve had client meetings before on Saturday nights. She didn’t think to question it.
I don’t deserve her. I don’t deserve anything.
Hazel would leave me if she had any sense. She knows how broken I am. Dad fucked me up. Mum left, walked out on her own kid. What sort of a woman does that?
I can’t pretend anymore. I deserve better than this. I deserve a life worth living.
Okay, Mum, that’s bloody great. You swan off to Italy then, leaving me behind with Dad. That makes perfect sense.
I look up at the barman. He’s older than me by at least ten years, maybe more. He’s got grey in his hair and his moustache is brown-grey.
“What did you want to be when you were little?”
“Astronaut,” he says, with a slight smile.
“What happened?”
He shrugs. “What always happens, sir? Life gets in the way.”
I move my finger around the rim of the glass. It’s Saturday night and I’m sitting in a hotel bar, the sort of place where men decades older than me call me sir.
I want to ask him how many I’ve had already, but I don’t want him to cut me off. I must be coming across as more sober than I feel.
“I’ll take another. Make it a double.”
“Of course.”
I glance at the clock above the bar. It’s almost midnight. The place is still pretty busy, filled with elegant women and men in suits. Soft music plays. I should be here with my wife, but why? Why? She’s going to leave me when that bitch makes it public.
I’ve got no word from Tom Brown yet. I have no way to contact him. After giving him the list this morning, he left, back to his not-smiling routine.
The barman brings my whisky. Knocking it back, I slide the glass over to him. “Another.”
He frowns for a moment, but then he pours me a fresh glass.
I knock it back, coughing away the taste, the acidic bite of it. I don’t like whisky. I only drink it when I’m on the lookout for my next obsession. But even then, I never pound it like this.
Whisky is a prop.
Right now though, I’m starting to like it. Life doesn’t seem as sharp as it did half an hour ago.
“Another.”
There’s that frown again, but he pours it and then hands it to me. He uses a fresh glass every time. My old man would lose his mind. Freddie Smithson was always a stickler for the water bill, the cheap piece of shit.
I force myself to sip this one. I need to piss, but I don’t trust myself not to stumble when I stand. It’s hard enough to balance as it is.
A woman slips onto the stool next to me. I think maybe I’m staring at her, but for some reason I don’t give a damn. It’s hard not to stare. She’s curvy and sensual-looking. She’s got big expressive brown eyes and she aims this cheeky smile at me when she sees me staring. “Do I know you?”
“I wish you did.” I think I’m slurring. Come on, Jamie. Get your game face on. A man could forget his problems with a woman like that. “I’m J—Justin.”
“I’m Julia.”
“The two Js.”
She laughs. It’s such a sweet sound, such an innocent sound. She’s not the sort of woman who’d walk out when things got tough. Her cleavage is on display in the sparkling golden low-cut dress. The base of my cock aches.
She’s not a woman I’d select when I’m on the prowl, but this isn’t about that. This is just… what? It’s pointless; it’s an escape. I don’t even know. I should drink some water and think this through, but I won’t. Goddamn, there’s something wrong with me.
“Can I buy you a drink?” I ask.
Deep inside, a voice yells at me to stop. I’m in Bristol. This is home turf.
This is a mistake. But what am I doing that’s so bad, really? I’m just talking. It’s not my fault she’s beautiful.
“Really?” she says, with a cute quirk of a smile, unsure, as if she doesn’t know how downright smoking-hot she is.
“It’d be my pleasure. What’s your poison?”
She gives me the name of a cocktail. Pretty girls always drink cocktails, expensive shiny things that work as props as much as my whiskies do. I watch her as the barman prepares it, seeing the way she looks at me, appraising, her eyes moving over my body and my suit and my Rolex and my wealth.
She loves it. She’s hungry for it. I could do this. I ache for it.
“Where’s your date?”
She purses her lips, sucking on her straw. “Who says I had one?”
“You come to a lot of bars alone dressed like this, do you? You look like you’re going to a ball.”
She flutters her eyelashes. She’s spent a lot of time on them, I can tell. She hasn’t got those globules women sometimes get. “I was here with my boyfriend, actually. But he… Let’s say if there was a prize for breaking up with somebody in the worst possible way, he’d get first, second, and third.”
“He broke up with you tonight?”
“It’s our one-year anniversary. We booked this hotel ages ago. We were having dinner and that’s when he dropped the news. I thought he was going to propose.”
“Jesus Christ. Some men are animals, Julia. You can’t blame yourself.”
I refuse to believe what I do is worse than what her boyfriend did. Maybe I break a few trespassing laws, but I’d never shatter a woman’s heart like that. It’s deranged.
She places her hand on mine and looks at me in the way women sometimes do. It’s a wild look, like they’re ready to let themselves go. Women need to forget as much as men. What better way is there than hot, hungry, passionate fucking?
“That means so much,” she says after a long pause. “It’s awful. Now I’m up there on my own. I guess I’ll spend the night crying and thinking about all the things I’ve done wrong. Why would he abandon me?”
I place my hand on her back, rubbing softly, feeling the way her skin burns through the fabric. “It’s not your fault. It’s his. He’s an idiot.”
“That feels good.”
“So you’re up there alone, eh?”
She purses her lips again. She knows what she’s doing. I know what she’s doing. But she’s waiting for me to make it explicit. She needs her dignity, after all. There’s a difference between being seduced and throwing herself at a stranger.
“Sounds like you could do with some company.”
She keeps sucking on her straw, going hmm-mm as she nods, draining her cocktail. She’s getting herself ready.
It’s happening. I can already taste her, every inch of her. I can already imagine the way her face will get sassy and confident as I drive up inside of her. I can feel her fingernails on my back.
“What room are you staying in, Julia?”
“Fifty-four. That’s where I’ll be… by myself, crying myself to sleep. Unless a knight in shining armour comes to save me.”
She hops from the stool and walks away, swishing her hips, glancing at me over her shoulder before she walks around the corner.
I stare down at my whisky. I don’t have to do this. My balls are bluer than ice. I don’t have to do this. I love my wife. But this woman needs a little release. Hazel will never find out. I don’t have to do this. But Julia’s up there, getting ready for me, probably peeling her golden dress off and arranging herself on the bed. I don’t have to do this. Does she shave completely, or does she have one of those stylish Brazilian thingies women sometimes get? I don’t have to do this.
I need to make her scream.
I don’t have to do this, do I? Do I?
My phone vibrates. A text. It’s Hazel.
Heading to bed. Try not to party too hard. There’s some pizza in the fridge if you’re drangry when you get home. Love you xxxx
I grin when I read drangry. We came up with it in uni, combining drunk, hungry, and angry. We’ve used it ever since.
I text her back, telling her thank you, telling her I love her. And then I stand and drain the last of my whisky and I walk the same way Julia went.
29
Hazel
“This place is even prettier in the daylight,” Millie says, smiling as she drops into the patio chair.
Pride fills me up. I worked really hard on the garden. It’s nice to hear somebody praise it. It’s not like Jamie has expressed much appreciation over it. But then again, he did offer to jump into the swimming pool in his suit. Maybe that counts for something.
“It’s a lovely place to sit on a sunny Sunday morning.” I nod. “Would you like a coffee?”
“That would be lovely.”
I go into the kitchen and fix the coffees, watching Millie through the glass doors as the machine hums and whirs. She sits completely still with her hands in her lap, like a statue.
She’s a puzzle to me. She’s interesting and interested. She’s stylish, with her black fringe and her dark suits. But there’s something else there. She reminds me of myself when I was a teenager, vulnerable but hiding it, even though she’s older than me.
She toys with her pendant as I lay the flat whites on the table.
“Getting any good ideas?” I ask.
“One or two.”
“Can I ask what the novel is about, or would that violate your code of secrecy?”
“It’s a little macabre. I don’t want to put you off your coffee.”
“I’ve got a stronger stomach than you might think.”
She looks at me, properly looks at me, in the way I love. She sees me and it makes me want to clap my hands like a little kid. Look, Mummy, I made a new friend. I know I’m being silly, but I don’t care. “I believe you. Okay, fine. It’s about a serial killer, a woman, but she only kills bad men. She only kills men who would go on to hurt women.”
“They haven’t hurt women already?”
She turns to the garden and sighs. It seems like she’s getting touchy. “There’s this theme in the book. It’s like, ah, things can be real… and fake. Alive and dead. I don’t know. It makes more sense in my head, I guess.”
“Hey, Millie.” I stare at her until she faces me.
“Yeah?”
“It sounds like a great idea. Really badass. Like an avenging angel.”
“Yes!” She giggles without a hint of self-consciousness. It’s infectious. “That’s exactly what it’s about. An avenging angel.”
“I look forward to reading some of it. I hope you don’t mind, but I had a look at your copywriting profile. Your reviews are impressive. I read a few of your samples too. You’re a great writer. Not that I’m much of a judge.”
She glows at the praise. I get the feeling she needs to be seen as much as I do. “I’ve always loved reading and writing. When I was a little girl, there was this room, this office, at the end of the garden. It was—It had lots of uses, but sometimes my parents would send me back there. You know how parents are.”
“A seen-and-not-heard sort of deal?”
“Yes, exactly. My father was a little strange. He thought books, stories—narratives, he called them. He thought they would have a negative effect on me. He only wanted me to read certain things, to think certain things.”
“Woah, that’s heavy.” I pick up my flat white and blow on it. “Was he religious or something?”
“Yeah, I guess so. Anyway, I’d sneak books from the library and hide them behind the rain—the office.”
I chuckle. “The rain?”
She picks up her coffee, mirroring my laughter. “I haven’t got any caffeine in me yet. Give me a break.”
“Did you start writing around the same time?”
She takes a sip, shaking her head as she lowers the mug. She doesn’t react to the heat. “In my early twenties. I tried working a few different jobs, but I found it diffi
cult getting bossed around. At least with freelance work, I don’t have anybody breathing down my neck.”
I want to ask about her tattoo. I don’t remember the exact date, but she called it the day her life changed forever. That’s what she said in the gym. But this is only the third time we’ve met. Maybe in a few weeks, when we’ve become closer, I’ll ask her.
I raise my mug. “Cheers, Millie. I know you’ve got it in you to write an incredible story.”
She beams and raises her mug. “To avenging angels.”
“To avenging angels,” I echo.
“His lordship has finally graced us with his presence,” I say, still laughing from the story Millie just told me. He asks me to call him Hercules, she said, both of us in hysterics. And when he cums, he shouts, “I am Hercules!”
Jamie stands at the door in his dressing gown, his bright greens flitting from Millie and back to me. He seems angry for some reason, which is hardly fair when he’s the one who dragged himself to bed at half past three last night. “Morning,” he grunts.
“Morning, grumpy-kins.”
“Afternoon,” Millie says, “if you want to be technical about it.”
“Hmm,” Jamie mumbles, striding into the kitchen.
“Will you give me a sec, Millie?”
“Of course. I don’t want to get in the way of your marriage.”
“What? No, that’s not it at all.”
She shrugs and leans back, placing her hands in her lap, staring down the garden with an enigmatic smile on her face.
I follow Jamie into the kitchen. He stands at the coffee machine, cursing under his breath as he tries to remove the pod drawer. I walk over and flip the lid open. “You have to flip it first, remember, you silly man?”
“Hmm.” He grabs a pod and jams it into the slot. He flicks the switch way harder than he needs to, and then he glares as it thrums and his mug starts to fill.
“Jamie, is there any reason you’re not speaking in complete sentences? Just so I know.”