Taming the Beast

by Emily Maguire

  ‘Fucking talkative cunts like you make me wish I was.’

  Sarah shivered. ‘Well now, that’s just rude. I’ll be leaving now. Thanks for the drinks.’

  She walked out of there fast, shaky with anticipation, nauseous with fear. As she rounded the corner of the pub she heard the door slam and then heavy, unhurried footsteps. She walked slower and did not look back. The footsteps got closer. A hand closed on her neck, and she very nearly came on the spot.

  He pushed her up against an industrial sized waste bin, face first. Her lips touched cold metal and under her cheek was something sticky, but warm. The smell of rotting vegetables and cat piss got in her throat and made her dry retch. Something ran over her left foot, and she remembered the giant rats she had seen skittering under the outdoor dumpster at the restaurant.

  ‘Tell me, why would a sweet little girl like you walk into a place like this and start coming on to a bloke like me?’

  He held her head firmly, so when she opened her mouth to speak it filled with the bitter taste of whatever had last been spilt down the side of the dumpster. ‘I just wanted a quiet drink,’ she said, trying to keep her mouth closed. ‘I can’t help it if some fat old dumbfuck deludes himself that I’m interested in him.’

  He pulled her head back and then slammed it into the dumpster. ‘You know what I do to smart arses, girl?

  Sarah spat blood; it caught on her chin and dribbled on to her chest. ‘Fuck them with your hairy little pin dick?’

  ‘You got the first bit right.’ She felt the cold night air on the back of her legs as he pulled at her skirt and underpants. He grunted and pushed, and Sarah bit her tongue. She had not been expecting such a violent and complete entry. The tears streamed out of her eyes, and mixed with whatever was on the side of the dumpster. She tasted metal, and dirt, and something that might have once been chilli. She could hear, from the window over their heads, glasses clinking, and a woman yelling that Carlos was a fucking faggot. Metres away, on the other side of the dumpster, the local toughs revved their engines as they dragged each other off at the traffic lights. Above all, she could hear grunting and the smacking of flesh.

  He finished and pulled out with as little care as he had entered. ‘Happy now?’ he said, zipping his pants and gasping for air.

  ‘Ecstatic.’ Sarah said.

  She pulled up her underwear, wiped her face on her sleeve, and then vomited all over his boots.

  On Sunday night, Sarah went to the local Leagues Club where the Under-17s were celebrating the day’s win. Her initial target was the coach, a fat, red-faced man with missing front teeth, but he threw up on the bar and was booted out, leaving Sarah alone with ten over-excited sixteen-year-old boys. She woke the next morning with a throbbing head, an aching jaw and red raw thighs. Four pairs of muddy football socks were draped over her bed head and her sheets were stinking and stiff. She wished she could remember how the socks and the stains came to be there, but her memory of the night ended with her being carried into her flat by a blur of boys.

  She went to uni but couldn’t concentrate, so she spent the morning working out at the uni gym. Around twelve, she passed out and dropped a dumbbell on a beefy bloke’s foot. Sarah and the beefy bloke staggered together to the nurse’s office where his foot got strapped up, and Sarah was told she was underweight and hypoglycaemic. Then the beefy bloke took Sarah back to his dorm and had sex with her. Sarah fainted again half way through, and the bloke was kind enough to stop and feed her some apple juice so she could continue.

  The rest of the week was similarly filled with obsessive behaviour calculated to cancel out thought. During the day, Sarah swam laps, jumped hurdles, scrubbed floors and ceilings, read Sartre’s Nausea in French, and worked extra shifts at the steak-house. At night she screwed the worst men she could find. Over the course of the week she had sex with a one-armed door-to-door charity collector, a taxi driver who charged her full fare to drive her home afterwards, and a semi-famous ageing football hero who made her chant his on-field nickname the whole time he screwed her. On the Friday night, wanting to really push the boundaries of compulsive, disgusting sex, she went to a gay bar in North Sydney. By the time she fell into bed at nine o’clock on Saturday morning she had blown two gay men and pulled off a third.

  She was frustrated to find that she still thought of Daniel as she drifted off to sleep. The week of manic behaviour had failed to stop her craving that ridiculous old man. She wished there was something she could take, some drug, that would cure her of her need to have him. She had taken everything she could get her hands on, and she still wanted him. She had even resorted to the pills she’d sworn she would never touch, the ones that had nearly killed her.

  That was when she was seventeen and hanging with a DJ named Todd who had filthy orange dreadlocks and a body sculpted by God himself. Sarah took the first pill because he slipped it under her tongue while he was kissing her. After Sarah had swallowed the tablet she was able to dance behind his mixing deck for thirty hours straight.

  The pills became a must. Her HSC was approaching and the study load combined with waitressing meant that sleep was a rare and brief luxury. She couldn’t afford the pills since she was barely making rent, and so not for the first or last time in her life, Sarah became selective about the men she slept with. It was never a straightforward transaction, never prostitution exactly. It was just that instead of choosing the guy with the cutest arse or wildest moves, she chose the guys who would dose her up before she did them.

  She started needing the pills just to get out of bed in the morning. She began to let Todd and his grimy, raver mates stay at her flat so that there was always someone around to get her buzzing. It got to the point where Sarah had to kick someone out of her bed most nights and sometimes she was too tired and so just slept alongside the body of a drug fucked stranger.

  One night she was up late studying and heard a noise like a cat being strangled, coming from her bedroom. She stumbled into the room, in a rage at being interrupted and at being so fucking exhausted even though she had taken more pills than usual that day. Todd was in bed with a naked bald woman, who had a needle hanging out of her left arm. Sarah closed the door and slept that night on the sofa.

  The next day she confessed all to Jamie, who got his brother and father to come around and evict the squatters from her flat. Then Jamie sat next to Sarah for two days while she swore and sweated and vomited. When the worst had passed he cooked for her, and fed her, and when she began to panic he stroked her hair and read her study notes out loud so that she wouldn’t get behind in her exam preparations. He even paid her rent for the week that she was too sick to go to work. She swore to him that she would never do such a thing to herself again.

  But this week she had tried her hardest to do just that. She had taken the pink pills in the hope they would make her feel like she did back then, which was like she didn’t care about anything except more pills. It didn’t work of course. Not the pills or the pot or the coke or the booze or the sex could stop her wanting Daniel. She saw now how ridiculous it was to have thought they would. If eight years of losing herself to men and drugs hadn’t crushed the desire for Daniel, one more fucked up week wasn’t going to do it. The thing to do was accept it. Plunge the needle into her arm. But first, she had to sleep.

  Persistent knocking woke her. She stumbled to the front door, still wearing her fag-hag outfit of leather mini-skirt and gold bra. Daniel was standing on her doorstep, his eyes bright and his face flushed. He grabbed her by the shoulders and kissed her hard, her back up against the door frame, his whole body pressed into hers.

  ‘God, you feel wonderful,’ he murmured into her throat. ‘Are you ready to go?’

  Sarah stepped away and wiped her mouth, trying to pull herself together. He was staring at her. ‘Did you just get in?’

  ‘I don’t know. What time is it?’ She still felt fuzzy from all the shit she had taken last night. It was so good to see him, but it was such an effort not to pass o
ut.

  Daniel pushed her inside and closed the front door. His eyes scanned the room, then returned to her and narrowed. ‘Did you wear that out?’

  Sarah struck what she thought was a sexy pose. ‘You like?

  ‘It’s appalling. And you’ve spilt something on your top.’

  Sarah looked down and laughed. ‘Oh, look at that, will you? I didn’t notice that before. That’s what you get for giving blowjobs in dark alleyways, huh?’

  His fist struck the underside of her chin, and she went flying through the hallway and landed on the kitchen floor. She sat up carefully, registering pain in her left hip and elbow. Daniel was standing over her. Sarah took his outstretched hand, but when she was halfway up, he let go and she went crashing onto the kitchen tiles. She pulled herself to her knees and looked up at him just in time to see his shoe make contact with her right shoulder. She fell again and this time she stayed down, crying into the floor.

  Daniel nudged her with his foot. ‘Get up.’

  ‘Fuck you.’

  He kicked her in the ribs. ‘Up.’

  Sarah sat up, leaning against the kitchen bench for balance. Daniel squatted in front of her and took her chin in his hands. ‘Are you on drugs?’ he said, sounding like he was her father or something. Sounding like he was her goddamn teacher.

  ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘Isn’t everybody?’

  Daniel shook her head in his hands. ‘What have you taken?’

  ‘Just, um, just some E, and, ah, uppers, and, oh, lots of vodka, some pot.’

  ‘Are you straight enough to talk to me?’

  ‘Why would I want to talk to you? You’re a fucking psycho bully. You like beating me up, that’s all.’ Sarah started to cry. ‘You say all this shit, like you love me, like you care about me, but then you hurt me and make me cry, and leave me alone for a whole week.’

  ‘Who did you give a blowjob to?’

  ‘Aren’t you listening? I’ve had it with you! I’m not answering your stupid questions anymore. You can fuck off.’

  Daniel leant forward and softly kissed her lips. Then he took out a handkerchief and wiped her face. She cried harder, but he kept kissing her and wiping her nose until she had exhausted herself. Then he guided her head down on to his lap and stroked her hair.

  ‘I’m sorry. You’re not in any state to talk to me at the moment. You’re clearly still under the influence of something, and it’s unreasonable of me to expect you to talk sense.’

  ‘It’s unreasonable to expect anything when you’ve just beaten the shit out of me.’

  He rubbed her hair. ‘Don’t exaggerate. I barely touched you. You’ve obviously taken something that heightens sensation. Just lie here and calm down a minute.’

  Sarah lay quietly. It was true she was high still, and she was sleep deprived and probably suffering from adrenal exhaustion from all the stress, but she wasn’t delusional. He had belted her around, and she had not exaggerated that.

  After a little while, he told her to go and clean herself up. When she came back out, showered and dressed in pyjamas, he presented her with a cup of coffee and a plate of vegemite toast. ‘You look like you haven’t eaten for a week.’

  Sarah took his offerings and sat on the floor. She was too sore to sit straight in a wooden chair. He sat beside her and took a finger of toast from the plate.

  ‘I’m not ready to go with you,’ Sarah said, when his mouth was full.

  He swallowed and smiled at her. ‘I won’t take no for an answer.’

  ‘I’m not saying no. I’m saying that it isn’t going to happen today. I have stuff to sort out.’

  ‘I can’t allow that, Sarah. This week has been a new kind of hell. I hated being apart from you, but I comforted myself with the thought that you were preparing to be with me. Now I find you’ve been running around doing God knows what with God knows who.’

  ‘I never promised to be chaste. You volunteered for abstinence; I didn’t.’

  ‘I never said that. I said I wouldn’t sleep with you until you moved in with me, and in the meantime, you had to stop sleeping around. I’ve been going at it like you wouldn’t believe.’

  She put down the half-eaten slice of toast. ‘Are you saying that to hurt me?’

  ‘No, if I wanted to hurt you I’d do this.’ Daniel pinched her on the inside of the elbow where it really stung.

  She pulled her arm away. ‘Did you have sex last night?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Sarah recoiled as though he had pinched her again. ‘Who with?’

  He shook his head at her. His forehead was creased and between his eyebrows there were three deep vertical furrows. Sometimes he looked at her as though she was still a student, young and bright and so in awe of him that she would take whatever he said as law. Sometimes she felt like she was. Well, Mr Carr, of course you can kiss me, and of course, you can touch me there, if you’d like. And yes, Sir, if you say that it is true it is, and what you say is right must surely be, and I always thought that it would be wrong to let a man open my veins with his teeth and bleed me dry, but if you say that I should then I will.

  ‘Answer me. Who are you fucking?’ She forced herself to hold his gaze.

  ‘A young woman named Tricia,’ he said. ‘Among others.’

  ‘Among…’ Sarah pressed her hand to her throbbing right temple. ‘How many others?’

  ‘There are a few I choose from. Depends what mood I’m in and who’s available. And how much I’m willing to spend.’

  Vomit rose in her throat. She swallowed it down. ‘You’ve been fucking prostitutes?’

  ‘Yes, Sarah.’

  ‘This whole time you’ve been–’ Sarah got to her feet, stumbled to the bathroom, and vomited into the toilet. The small bit of toast she had eaten came up undigested. She drank some water straight from the tap, vomited it back into the sink, had another drink, washed her face and returned to Daniel.

  He was sitting cross-legged, looking up at her. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Just hungover.’ Sarah sat down and lit a smoke to get rid of the sour taste in her mouth. ‘So you have to pay for it, huh?’

  ‘I choose to. I don’t want to spend months wining and dining a woman just to get one night of sex.’ Daniel smiled conspiratorially. ‘It’s only a convenience until I have my girl with me.’

  Sarah watched him through the smoke. He was so goddamn calm. He was so fucking sure of himself. She had to maintain the shred of dignity she had left. ‘So,’ she said, in the most casual tone she could muster, ‘what do you do with them?’

  ‘I have sex with them.’

  ‘Just straight sex?’

  He laughed. ‘Whatever that is.’

  ‘What are they like?’

  ‘They’re normal women, just doing their job.’

  ‘What do they look like? The one last night, what did she look like?’

  ‘Bleached blonde, nice body, younger than me, but older than she claimed to be.’

  Sarah’s façade of indifference was dissolving. She fought to keep her voice in control and to keep her hands still. ‘Nice body? What does that mean? Big tits and long legs?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, Sarah.’

  ‘It does matter that you choose whores who look like your wife. It’s really telling that you choose ones who look nothing like me.’

  He stood up and walked to the window over the sofa. ‘I’ll start requesting scrawny, ugly brunettes if it will make you feel better.’

  Sarah ignored his insult. ‘I insist that you stop.’

  ‘You don’t get to insist anything.’ He slammed his fist into the boarded up window, then turned back to face her. ‘You think you have the power, but you don’t. I can take you any time I choose, just pick you up and carry you home and tie you up. You’ll see no one but me forever, until you die.’

  ‘Go ahead. Here I am. Take me.’

  Daniel turned back to the window, leaning his forehead against the chipboard. Sarah had meant what she said; she genuinely wished
he would abduct her. She wanted the choice to be taken out of her hands. She wanted to feel the total freedom of being owned.

  ‘I hoped I wouldn’t have to. I hoped you’d come voluntarily, that you’d want to come.’

  ‘I do want to.’ Sarah went to him, kissing the back of his freshly shaved neck. ‘The thing is, I’ve managed to make this life. It’s not all that great, but it’s mine. Like the song, you know, I’ve done it my way.’

  ‘The Sex Pistols version, I assume?’

  ‘There’s another version?’

  ‘I love you.’

  ‘I love you. Why is this so hard? Why can’t we just be together? Why can’t we just… why can’t we stop all this talking and just be happy?’

  ‘I don’t want you to be happy with anything except me.’ Daniel turned around. He was crying. ‘I want you to give up your little life. I want you to have nothing. I want you to be completely helpless. I want you to be scared and broken and shaking with fear.’

  Sarah was crying too. ‘You’re so fucking romantic.’

  ‘Little Sarah Clark.’ Daniel ran his neat nails down the side of throat. ‘I think we’ve both had enough of this tension, this struggle. Tell me now, are you going to come and live with me? Are you going to be mine?’

  ‘I’ve told you yes. I just need–’

  ‘No.’ His nails dug in. ‘No more waiting.’

  Sarah looked into his eyes and wished he would be a little gentler on her, a little weaker. She knew he wished she would be harder, stronger. That was almost funny because every man who had ever been involved with Sarah had told her she was not soft enough. She didn’t know if Daniel brought out her softness, or if he was so hard that she just seemed weak in comparison.

  ‘I have to see Jamie.’

  ‘I understand. I’ll come back tonight.’ Daniel kissed her forehead and was gone.

  9

  On a Saturday morning, three weeks after Jamie had last seen Sarah, Mike called and asked him to come to the pub. He said they needed to talk about Sarah. Jamie didn’t want to talk about Sarah; he wanted to talk to Sarah, but since she had stopped answering her phone he decided that talking about her to Mike would have to do.