‘Pssssst … ’
Her head went up and there was some grass sticking out of her mouth. She looked straight towards me, but she could only see the tree. I wanted to laugh but instead I bit on my cheek and lifted up my arm. I pointed it at her as if I had a gun. ‘Bang. You’re dead.’ I said it out loud and now she knew I was there and she turned and ran towards the others, who ran with her. They wouldn’t come back for a while.
It was hot, even by my tree, even through the leaves, and I started to walk again. I liked to be by the water when it was hot and I always went the exact same way, on a winding path towards the lake. I liked to sit at the edge on my jacket, not that it mattered now, I was dirty. I would sometimes see fish, or tadpoles which were my favourite animal because I used to catch them and they seemed very clean with no hair and being washed all the time in the water. Once I even saw a hedgehog just walking along. It was my most peaceful place. I always brought bread for the ducks, and I kept some in my jacket pocket in a plastic ziplock bag. Once when I was feeding them they came out of the water in a pack and I had to run away.
I was getting near now and I saw a couple sitting in my spot by the water. They looked really young. The girl was blonde and she was giggling, loudly, at everything the boy was saying, bending towards him, and he was speaking into her ear. I would have told her to shut up if she were my girlfriend. I liked quiet girls, even though in my head I would have liked to have a girl touch me, but not giggle at me, and not lean on me either. I did once have a friend called Harriet who wanted to come round all the time, and be in my space, which just meant very close to you. She went to the school for special people with me, and always gave her homework in on time which I thought you should do, because I always tried to do things on time too. She liked me a lot and I knew that because she told me all the time and she didn’t mind that I was quiet but she tried to fill up all the silence with what she thought, and even the idea of her naked hadn’t been enough for me to want my room full of her all the time.
We had held hands and I had tried not to mind about germs and wash them when she had gone and she tried to kiss me, but the worst thing was when she would try and push my mouth open with her tongue and her mouth spit would get on me. I hated it, I really didn’t want someone spitting in me, and I was certainly never spitting into anyone. I wanted to fuck someone, not kiss them. I had seen pictures of naked women, they were everywhere. Even on the Tube I would think about the pictures on the adverts, and where I could put my penis, what I could do to relieve this endless throbbing in my trousers, but I did know that it wouldn’t involve spit and it wouldn’t involve lots of hugging. Just fucking. That was the word Harriet had used, but she had wanted me to do lots of other things. I felt physically sick when I thought about it. Bodily fluids. Even the words made me feel like scratching myself.
The couple by the lake were locked in a kiss now and the man’s hand was stroking up the girl’s thigh towards her bottom. That was full of germs.
I crept behind a tree so that they couldn’t see me. His hand was now between her legs and she didn’t even try to move away. At least she’d stopped the giggling, but now she was frowning and looking very serious. I put my hands over my ears to stop hearing the sound of them panting. I was very sensitive to noise and the only noise I had expected to hear today was ducks quacking, not this, in the place I had come to clear my head. They shouldn’t even be here in the middle of the day, and I was worried about her now. She was wriggling and he seemed to be squeezing her breasts really hard. I tried to look away and felt sad and angry at the same time. I was angry with them both, and sad, knowing that this was the last time I would ever come here because of them and their disgusting appetites. Now what would I do with all the crusts and stale bread? I wanted them to shut up, pushing my ears shut was just giving me a headache, and it wasn’t really working. I felt goosebumpy and sick and excited. I tried to pluck up my courage to shout ‘Go away!’ at them, but one bit of me didn’t want them to stop.
Their mouths were literally chewing each other up. I was feeling as if I might cry now, stuck like a rabbit in the headlights, my grandpa would say. If I touched the front of my jeans I would explode, so I didn’t. I wasn’t walking home muddy and sticky as well. My hands weren’t keeping the noise out properly; I wasn’t pushing hard enough in case I burst an eardrum.
The man unbuttoned his trousers and hitched up her skirt. I pulled at the sleeves on my jacket – I hadn’t even taken it off yet and hadn’t got any sun on my skin. Everything was ruined. Grandpa would have called her a slut and I agreed with him. This was not how I had wanted my walk to go. I wished I could go home, and I didn’t think it was fair. Why did my whole routine need to be upset when parks were for walking and ducks and houses were for sex and germs? I looked at them again and that was that. I couldn’t help it, I came in my pants, and that really really made me cross. Then, just as I didn’t think it could get any worse, the man started moving down, kissing her and I could see what he was going to do, he was going to kiss her between the legs and I snapped. I was almost sick in my mouth and I had to make him stop before I had that picture in my head for ever.
I couldn’t get a word out of my mouth, I was too upset, and I was on my tiptoes, hands waving, searching for a way to make them stop and then I saw it, between me and them, a huge heavy stick that had fallen from a tree, and I started to walk towards it, quickly, before he did anything else to her.
I didn’t try to hide, or walk quietly now, I marched towards them like the men in my army game, and they didn’t even hear me, they just carried on like animals, on the spot where I sat, where children would feed ducks, where the nice brown dog had once jumped in to get his stick. Now I had the stick in my hand, feeling its weight, and as I got to them I made the war cry like in my computer game and lifted it up above my head. Now they saw me, now they stopped their noises, and the rhythm broke just before he got past her stomach with his kisses.
His eyes met mine, and, although I was not good at reading emotions, I could see that he was scared.
‘What the fuck?’
He was in a sitting position now, but his body covered most of hers even now. He was quiet, at last, but I could see that he was poised, working out the situation, and I knew I had to do something quickly. The girl wasn’t giggling now. She was pulling up her spotty knickers and covering her pale little breasts. She had red blotches on her neck.
‘Fuck off, you perv.’
‘If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.’
That was also advice from my grandpa and I said it quietly, and tried not to look at the penis between his legs. I was at a loss standing there, and the branch above my head was heavy. Just then the girl started to half scuttle, half crawl away and looked over her shoulder at me. Disgust, that look was, disgust. It made me furious and I finally took action. The wood made contact with the back of the man’s head as he turned towards her, and the branch didn’t break, and he went face down on to his stomach, and I hit him again on the back of his head. I was good at aiming and that was from playing so much on the computer. I wished I could tell Grandpa and that would be one less thing for him to correct. Now she was getting to her feet and I swung and hit the backs of her legs to stop her. She tried to cover her face and head but that just showed me her body again, and I noticed for the first time that she had no hair anywhere. I brought the club down on her head now, and she fell back, legs apart, and neither of them looked like people any more, or a couple, they just lay there, still and quiet.
I couldn’t look at them any more and I threw the stick, like that family did for the dog, into the lake. There was blood on my white T-shirt, and some hair which was long so must have come from her head. I decided to do my jacket up because it was dark and you could see some spots on it but they didn’t look red, they looked grey, like dirty marks. I walked round to the other side of the lake and splashed water on my face in case it was also bloody, run my fingers through my ha
ir and started to walk. I smoothed my hair as I went, and looked down at my trousers; they were messy but the mud from earlier covered the blood marks, and the stain from me coming by the tree was covered by the jacket. I felt organised and as if I had done something important. I had stood up for myself, and that was the first time. They wouldn’t go to the park and grunt in the middle of the day again.
What they did was wrong. I knew right from wrong and I was calm. Cool as a cucumber, my mother said sometimes, and they were a vegetable so they would be calm.
I had known for a long time that when people looked at me they didn’t really look. My paleness and being different made them feel uncomfortable so they glanced away quickly. So I walked the route I always took, down the steps one at a time, and, apart from the looks that people gave when I avoided the lines on the pavement, I felt alone and safe. I was tired, and I thought I might have a splinter and a blister but as soon as I put the key into the door I relaxed a little bit because I was safe. I took a bin bag out of the cupboard and unfolded it and put it on the floor, and tore off a second one from the roll. I undressed until I was naked. I was wearing the T-shirt with the mud and blood on it, beige trousers with blood and mud marks on them, and muddy shoes and cleanish socks and underpants. I thought about keeping the socks but I didn’t want anything from this morning so I put them all into the bin bag and I tied the top. Neat bow, double knot and I shuffled myself all the way to the door of the bathroom, standing on the other bin bag, avoiding looking at myself in the mirror. I knew I would still be pasty and my arms red and bobbly, and I didn’t want to see that. The water in the shower was set just as I liked it, warm, not too warm, but not cold, and I stood and did my breathing exercises waiting for it to be just right before I got in.
I needed to scrub myself, with a brush, until my skin was all red. There wasn’t a germ or a sperm that could survive my showers. I had googled cleanliness and my shower gel killed ninety-nine per cent of all bacteria.
I stood with the water running over me, and I decided again that I had done a good thing. People could go on walks in the park without having to watch strangers being disgusting.
I got out of the shower and dried myself carefully even between my toes. You had to dry everything, even between your legs. I always did that but today the roughness of the towel made me think back to the park, and I cleared my mind and went and lay down on my bed naked and clean. I was hot, and my panting made me start thinking about them and their panting which made me get hard. I tried to keep my mind off them, but at least I was at home, in the privacy of my own home as my grandpa said, and I wasn’t upsetting anyone. I pressed down hard, hoping that would get rid of the thoughts, but it didn’t and two minutes later the hot white liquid spurted out on to my stomach, while thoughts of her legs and her scrabbling to her feet flashed through my mind.
I reached for the baby wipes in my bedside drawer and cleaned myself. At the back of my mind, nagging worries about what I’d done and being in trouble tried to push in, but I got under the duvet and thought about nothing at all. Tomorrow was another day. I drifted off looking at the list next to my bed. Tomorrow was Wednesday and Grandpa would still be coming to visit. I wished he wasn’t.
The light woke me up. I had forgotten to draw the curtains, which had never happened before. I was on my back, as always. It was good for my posture and I had trained myself. My size twelve feet were tucked under the duvet, with my arms resting on the top. Neat and tidy. I got out of bed and straightened up behind myself as I went. Feet into my slippers that were waiting by my bed, dressing gown on, tie the bow, go and make my toast. I love familiar things, and my mother gave me these green and black checked slippers every Christmas, and the dressing gown every year for my birthday.
I was feeling tired. I counted the number of hours of sleep, and it should have been enough so why was I tired? Eight o’clock on the kitchen clock. I had found one which didn’t make a noise and had big clear numbers on it and it was on special offer, two for one. I put one in the hall and one in my kitchen. Tick tick tick at my mum’s house had made me want to scratch my own skin off and grind my teeth. Quiet clocks. It was time to start the day. I dressed, in a white T-shirt, beige chinos, white socks and white Calvin Klein underpants. The same clothes that filled the bin bag from the walk in the park. I needed to ask my mother for a new set. I would tell her that the old ones had a hole because sometimes they got holes from being washed so much. My mother says my clothes are like a uniform, but I had seen this outfit in a magazine and she bought each item in bulk, one set for one week and the ones that are at the laundry. Even the trainers I wear are always the same.
I put the cereal bowl into the dishwasher and my mug next to it. The bin bag of clothes was sitting, tied in front of me, so I took it and the small one from my under-sink bin and I went downstairs. I wish I lived in a house with no stairs, and one that didn’t have a paving stone path with cracks in it where dirt and rubbish could get in. I laid my kitchen rubbish in first and then put the bag of clothes on top. I closed the lid tight and made sure the bins were in a straight line. What next? I checked the time again. Grandpa would come at eleven but now I had a gap, so I went back up the stairs, one at a time, and sat down in front of my computer screen, the big one my mother had given me. It had a dual processor and was good for gaming and graphics. That was important. In fact it was the most important thing in a computer.
I had nothing to do so I could google anything at all. The time stretched ahead of me and I struggled to sit still and concentrate but that was because I didn’t want Grandpa to come. He kept telling me to ‘get on with life’ although my life was exactly how I wanted it, but I knew that there was no point at all in saying that if I wanted to stay in my own flat, so I went through the motions and Grandpa had given me advice and a book, and later I would have to do more research into medieval history to get a degree one day from the Open University. That would please my mother too.
I went to Google and wrote cats in as a search. If Grandpa was going to get me one I had to start researching them. It didn’t take long, though: they were different colours but they weren’t very interesting, I wrote down some different breeds and then tried to think of a new thing to look at. I wasn’t myself this morning.
What had happened in the park had thrown me out of my routine and I was finding it hard to concentrate. I started to panic and get agitated but I had to remember it was their fault, dirty people in broad daylight.
There must be girls in the world that weren’t dirty and wanting sex all the time: pure girls.
Then I suddenly thought of something to google. Grandpa said you could find anything on the internet and sometimes he showed me things to prove it. Lots of things I didn’t like at all. Now I thought of something which would be worth looking for. ‘Pure girls’. My fingers were trembly on the keyboard as I typed, and then, like a wonderful surprise, pictures started appearing. Blonde girls with plaits, in dresses, in gingham, in socks, in shoes, in white panties that you could just see when they bent over, but they didn’t want you to see, and they looked embarrassed. These were the sorts of girls you would want to have in your flat, clean and good and washed. These girls smiled straight at me, and they made me smile back.
One of them looked a little bit like the girl in the park, which made me upset, and I quickly closed that picture, my mind filled with the grunting and panting and giggling from the day before. I could see her face, the disgust looking at me, and the look in her eyes as she saw the stick. I felt sick thinking about it, but the front of my trousers was tight again, and I almost kicked my desk. I hated my body, I knew what was right and it let me down every time.
I wanted to get yesterday out of my head, and then I saw the video links. That was like a story, a different one, about nice girls. I scrolled down until I saw a young-looking girl sitting in a meadow with wild flowers round her. This would do it: I would never think about the park once I had watched this. I reached down and undid the buttons
on the front of my jeans to be more comfortable, and my penis almost jumped out of my trousers: relief. The girl smiled, and my hand grabbed hold of the throbbing between my legs. It was all going well, I felt better and in control as she walked through the meadow, but then she seemed hot, and started licking her lips, and taking off her clothes, stroking her breasts, and the panting started. What the fuck? I hated it, but I couldn’t stop. As she lay down on the ground, she pushed her panties down and her legs parted and the redness of the blood I had seen the day before flashed in front of my eyes as I came into my hand. As it pumped out of me, my thoughts were a mixture of blonde hair, sweet faces and the crunch of the wood as I wiped the smile off the face of the girl in the park.
I felt peaceful for five minutes, then the tenseness came back, worse than before and I wanted to scream. I had no idea how to do it, but my week had to get back to normal. I sat still for a minute, tiredness washing over me, and then went to the bathroom and turned the shower to cold. I threw my clothes on to the floor, something I never did, and the unfamiliar temperature made me jump. So many routines and parts of my schedule were altering: this was what happened when you had anything to do with people out there. I lifted my face to the cold water, and decided again to get everything back on track. The panic was rising in me, and the cold water helped me push it down.
My grandpa arrived when I was sitting back down at my computer and doing notes to show my mother when she next visited. The notes were on medieval feudal systems, but I ignored the section on droit de seigneur; I needed to keep right away from the subject of sex and violence until I felt calm. Our lunch was a baked potato each with butter. I had a raspberry yoghurt and Grandpa had blackcurrant and we ate together and then I washed up the cartons and put them in the empty bin.
The Man on the Middle Floor Page 3