The Dark Part of Me

by Belinda Burns

  Trish picked a speck of tobacco off her pierced tongue. ‘So, what’s Scott like to root? He must be some kind of fuck-machine for you to wait all this time.’

  ‘Ask the Asian Bitch,’ I said, not meaning it to pop out like that.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing.’ I gulped down my scotch. ‘There’s someone at the counter.’

  ‘Fat Helen can deal with it.’ Trish pointed her fag at me. ‘I’ll get us another round and then you’re telling me everything.’

  So I told her everything, except the bit about pretending to be dead. I got in a real state, mascara everywhere, my nose all runny. Trish had to calm me down with two more scotches and a couple of drags on her cig. By then, it was nearly one and all of the customers had gone.

  I turned to Trish. ‘So, how can I get him back?’

  ‘Too easy,’ she said. ‘With cocks it’s just too fucking easy.’

  9

  Trish dropped me off at my car, which was still parked under the leopard tree outside Scott’s house. After five or six scotches, we were both pretty maggot but Trish was heading down the coast to catch the last set at some illegal rave. Her dealer was going to be there so she was confident of getting the drugs for Scott. As I watched her hoon away, techno beats rattling the rust-eaten exhaust of her Suzuki, I thought about her advice. It seemed fair enough, coming from someone who’d had heaps of blokes. I got in my car, switched the cabin light on, and read over the shopping list she’d given me:

  1. One pair of crotchless knickers (red lace preferable)

  2. One sufficiently large (but not larger than his) glow-in-the dark dildo

  3. One pair of ‘police’ (not those cheap fluffy ones) handcuffs

  4. One blindfold (black PVC)

  5. One leather whip or, if not available, teacher’s cane

  6. Several candles (for dripping hot wax on his nipples)

  7. Johnson’s baby oil

  8. One over-ripe banana (use your imagination!)

  9. One pair of black strappies (stilettos preferable)

  10. One pair of fishnet stay-ups (red or black)

  No wonder Trish had guys after her left, right and centre. BrisVegas wasn’t that big a place and word, no doubt, had got around. Scott and I’d never had kinky sex. We tried anal once but it hurt too much so we stopped. We liked experimenting, though, with different positions – doggy and standing up and the one where I faced the other way on top. That suited us fine, we didn’t need any weirdo shit. Sex toys were for married couples who’d lost the magic or old men who couldn’t get it up. I mean, what the fuck was I meant to do with an over-ripe banana? I hated bananas and so did Scott.

  I tossed Trish’s list on the floor and looked across at the house. The bricks seemed to expand and contract as if they were breathing. He was in there, I could smell him, splayed starfish on top of the sheets. I should have driven straight home but I couldn’t resist the thought of slipping into bed naked with him, his hands all over me in the dark, our legs entangled. I took off my sandals and got out of the car. The air outside was as warm as sea water, and it felt like I was swimming through it. Avoiding the sensor light, I trailed the edge of the front lawn until I hit the pebbled driveway which led to the side door. The pot plant was still there, dead now. Tipping it to one side, I hunted around for the spare key, trying not to think about redbacks. There it was, on the same rusty old keyring. I crept inside the rumpus, closing the door gently behind me. For a few moments I stood still, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the dark, listening for any sounds from upstairs. The old Kelvinator chugged in the corner like a big white bear. The pool table took shape, then the built-in bar, from behind which I half-expected Mr Greenwood to come popping up like a jack-in-the-box. My feet slapped against the cool tiles as I headed towards Scott’s bedroom. It was just like old times when I’d surprise him, driving over in the middle of the night to root and sleep spooned until sunrise.

  His door was shut, which was strange on a night so hot and muggy. What if she was in there? I imagined her thin, blue-ish legs entwined in his, her black hair strewn like seaweed across the pillows, her buff-coloured nipples small and erect as cherry seeds. I turned the doorknob but it wasn’t locked. Inside, it was stuffy, the air heavy with the smell of stale pot and unwashed clothes. I shut the door and tiptoed towards the bed, taking off my top and slipping out of my skirt. I ditched my bra and undies until I was cool and naked, skinny-dipping under the sheet. A lovely floaty feeling swept over me as the pores of my skin opened up. I crawled top and bottom, searching for him under the pillows and at the end of the bed where I found an odd footy sock and curled-up porn mag. Where could he be? The red digits on his alarm clock flashed 2.25. He was probably out raving in the Valley. He’d come home eventually, after the clubs shut at five, and I’d be waiting, strung out naked on his bed, the sparkle of my ruby belly-button leading him to his prize. I lay on my back, my ears pricked for the crunch of his footsteps up the drive. My brain charged with visions of us having wild and dirty sex. I watched the minutes flipping, then the hours. At 4.02, I remembered the spare key and dashed outside to replace it in case Scott needed it to get in. By 5.16 it was getting light and I hadn’t got a wink. Around the room, shapes were emerging, outlined by the first seeping of sun through the curtains. I had a sick, prickly feeling like a cactus was lodged in my stomach. But then, it wouldn’t be long before he walked through the door. I closed my eyes and waited.

  The air-con’s on the blink. The men have sweat patches down the spine of their shirts. The women fan themselves with programmes folded into concertinas. March can be the hottest month sometimes. I sit between Mr and Mrs Greenwood in the university concert hall, wearing a new white linen trouser suit which I reckon makes me look twenty-five instead of seventeen. It’s three months since the car crash and it hurts to sit for too long because the pain in my neck comes back. But I grin and bear it, clapping polite as an opera-goer as the chancellor walks across the stage, because it’s Scott’s big night and I’m so proud of him. I uncross my legs, thinking about varicose veins, but then re-cross them, thinking surely it’s more important to look sophisticated. Mrs Greenwood has her legs crossed and, despite the heat, she’s wearing flesh-coloured pantyhose. From where I’m sitting, most women, even the grannies, are bare-legged, swollen feet jammed into sandals or court shoes. Mr Greenwood’s in his one and only suit, a shiny seventies number with wide lapels and flared trousers. As he leans across me to whisper something to Mrs Greenwood, I catch a flash of his hairy tummy, spilling through a gap in his shirt.

  ‘This speech’s been going for bloody half an hour. I came to see the boy, not this idiot drone on about bloody funding. If anyone needs funding it’s me after paying for him to come here.’

  ‘Sssshhhh. Don’t be so rude, Bill,’ chides Mrs G. ‘He’s the head chief of the university and a damn sight smarter than you.’ She arranges her face in a perfect show of concentration and turns back to the stage. I do likewise but Mr Greenwood’s got ants in his pants. He jabs me in the ribs, narrowly missing my left breast.

  ‘So, when are you two love-birds going to tie the knot, hey?’ He pats my linened thigh. Mr and Mrs Greenwood were childhood sweethearts, growing up on adjacent farms west of Ipswich. They got married when they were both just sixteen and Mr Greenwood still thought it was the norm. ‘Christ, when I was the boy’s age—’

  ‘Sssshhhh.’ Mrs Greenwood shoots him a death stare as the chancellor finishes his speech with an apology for the broken air-con.

  Mr Greenwood nudges me in the side and whispers, ‘He’s got some silly idea about going travelling with that no-hoper mate of his, Bomber, but I’ll set him straight. He’d be a complete dimwit to leave a pretty girly like you behind. Don’t you worry, love, I’ll have a word with him.’ Scott is going overseas with Bomber. He winks at me and I force a saccharine smile while Mrs Greenwood’s special lasagne does backflips in my stomach. Excusing myself, I squeeze out through the tightly packed aisles and das
h outside, as up on stage they start calling out the graduates’ names in alphabetical order.

  I miss Scott getting his degree. For the rest of the ceremony, I sit on the lawn, not caring about the grass stains on my white linen bum. You see, it was me and Scott who were meant to go overseas. We had a pact. We’d made a plan. I wrote everything down in a special notebook – Scott’s number one destination was Amsterdam, mine Paris – and we had a date of departure, in four years’ time, after I’d finished my degree. That night, after talking it all through, we were so excited that we made love for hours in the dark. We did it slow and gentle because my arm was still in plaster. At first light we drove up to Mount Coot-tha to watch the sunrise. We stood looking out over the city, my feet wedged between the railings with Scott behind me, his arms around my shoulders. There was something about the puny skyline, winking lazily in the pink light, which gripped me with an intense longing to escape. I leant my head against Scott’s chest and said, ‘We’re too cool for this place,’ but he just laughed and said, ‘Take it easy, babe. We’ve got a few years here, yet.’

  They are coming out of the hall, a sound like swarming bees from the quadrangle. Mr and Mrs Greenwood appear, squinting in the sunlight. Scott goes up to them, hugs his mum, slaps his old man on the back. All I want to do is talk to him so I know it’s not true. I spot Bomber and Muzza sitting on a bench a little distance from the crowd, watching Scott with his uni mates. Pushing up off the lawn, I head towards them, but Mrs Greenwood’s coming up to me with a frown. She leads me by the crook of my arm a little distance from the main gathering.

  ‘Are you alright? You’re white as a sheet.’ She presses a palm against my forehead. ‘And you’ve got a bit of a temperature. Were you sick?’ She scans the grass for incriminating evidence.

  ‘I’m OK. Really.’ I glance across at Bomber and Muzza, busting to go and interrogate them. Mrs Greenwood stands there gripping my arm, searching my eyes. I can see where she’s painted her fuchsia lipstick beyond her actual lip-line.

  ‘You’re not… ’

  I look at her blankly.

  ‘You know… ’ She bends her head closer to me.

  With a nervous laugh, I tell her I’m not pregnant. Mrs Greenwood turns to see Scott having his photo taken with his year. She is so chuffed with him getting a degree; the first Greenwood ever to go to university. He’s not smart, like me, but still he’d scraped through and there are heaps of jobs for personal trainers. The western suburbs are stuffed with rich, overweight housewives desperate to loose excess flab, or so Scott was always telling me.

  ‘But, they’ll all want to fuck you,’ I’d say.

  ‘So long as they pay me,’ he’d tease.

  I’d punch him in the arm. ‘That’s not allowed. Besides, they’ll all be fat and disgusting.’

  ‘Not when I’ve finished with them. They’ll be super-toned and terrific. Then, only then, will I let them sleep with me. I’ll be their reward.’

  I break off and head towards the guys, my jaw clenched with foreboding.

  ‘Are you going overseas with Scott?’ I ask Bomber straight out.

  ‘What’s it to you?’ Bomber’s dark-brown eyes are defiant and his chest is puffed up like a rooster in an oversized Chicago Bulls singlet. Muzza says nothing. I wonder why they are here.

  ‘It means a fucking lot to me.’ I glare back at Bomber, hands on hips. ‘So tell me or I’ll tell Kirstie you’ve been rooting around.’

  ‘Give a fuck? She’s with the programme but it makes no difference,’ he says. ‘With a cock like mine she ain’t going no-where.’ He grabs at his crotch and, through the baggy fabric of his shorts, jiggles his balls. ‘No other nigger can satis-fy the bitch like me. Nice and hard up the arse. Yeah-yeah, you know it.’ He punches the air with a rapper fist.

  ‘Are you going, too?’ I ask Muzza, struggling to keep my cool.

  ‘Nah, no moula.’

  ‘That’s fucked, Muzz. You think me and Woody do?’ says Bomber. ‘We’re gonna find jobs soon as we get to London. If that fails, Woody reckons we should hook up with some rich pommie bitches we can scum off.’ He flashes me a challenge.

  ‘Crap,’ I fight back. ‘Scott would never say that.’

  ‘You better believe it, baby. Woody’s goal is to root a bitch from each different country we visit. He’s already taking bets. Isn’t he, Muzz?’

  Muzza snorts.

  ‘He’s calling it Woody’s Worldwide Rooting Quest, kind of like a spell-a-thon except it don’t matter if the bitches can’t spell!’ Bomber slaps his thigh. Muzza grins, sheepishly. I tell myself that it’s just stupid mates talk which means nothing.

  ‘So, when’re you off?’ Muzza speaks to Bomber as if I’m invisible.

  ‘Next Saturday,’ says Bomber.

  ‘Yeah right,’ I scoff, disbelieving. It can’t be true. He’s lying. But my guts have turned to mush.

  ‘Yeah, we got our tickets last week.’ He turns to me. ‘Guess now the cat’s outta the bag.’ He slouches back against the bench, his arms stretched out along the top railing, his legs spread wide. A smile of victory infects his face.

  ‘You’re so full of shit, Bomber,’ I say.

  As I head down the grassy embankment, Bomber’s voice carries on the still air. ‘What a fucking psycho-bitch! He’d dump her ’cept he says she gives awesome head.’

  After the graduation, everyone goes to the R.E. Scott’s in the thick of it, sculling beer with his uni mates. Somehow I have to grab him and get him to tell me the truth. It isn’t easy. The sporty chicks from his year want a piece of him, too. Tall and tanned, they hang off him like flies. They hate me for nicking the best-looking guy on their course and I hate them for being sluts. Everyone knows that Human Movement chicks are the easiest roots on campus.

  ‘Scott.’

  ‘Hi, babe.’ He swaggers over, tipsy but not yet wasted, and kisses me with a hot, beery tongue.

  I take a deep breath. ‘Are you going overseas without me?’

  Scott rubs the back of his neck, looks at his feet. ‘Babe, let me explain. It’ll only be for a while, a few months or so. Six months max.’

  I shove him hard in the chest. He stumbles backwards. His beer sloshes over me as I push past him, tearing through the crowded public bar. He shouts after me but I’m already outside on the pavement. I hail a taxi and get in.

  I yawned and opened my eyes to a low, flaky ceiling which was strange and yet familiar. Overhead, someone crossed the floor with quick, efficient steps. A toilet flushed, followed by the groan of rusty pipes. I sat up in bed. Scott’s bed. 8.53 on the alarm.

  He hadn’t come home.

  I found my clothes in a tangle on the floor and got dressed, telling myself he’d probably crashed at Bomber’s. I made his bed, tucking the sheet in tight and folding down one corner like in a swish hotel. From the pocket of my skirt, I pulled the Baci chocolate ‘kiss’ I’d stolen from work as a treat for him. I placed it on his pillow, in the dip made by my head during the night. Then I sat down at his desk to write him a note:

  To my sexy babe,

  I’ve just spent the night naked in your bed! I thought I’d surprise you but you didn’t come home. Where were you? Maybe you crashed at Bomber’s place? Hope you had a good night. Did you go raving? Anyway, please call me when you get this note. I’m really sorry about acting psycho Friday night – it must have been the bourbon and pot combo.

  Love your (still naked) Rosie xxxRRR

  P.S. Trish is getting you the stuff.

  I slipped the note under the chocolate and snuck out barefoot through the rumpus room. Mr Greenwood was mowing the back lawn in a pair of paint-splattered stubbies, so I ducked low under the window sill so he didn’t see me, and snuck out through the side door. As I walked along the pavement, the boughs of the poinciana trees sagged in the heat. The sun passed through my thin shirt, warming my nipples. There was a Sunday smell in the air. Across the road, the lawn-bowlers were out in force, dressed in whites. Bending and stooping
. The lovely ‘chock’ of balls colliding. Gentle clapping. I scanned up the road for my car. It was still there, under the shade of the leopard tree. Another car was parked a few metres in front. Passing by, I shielded my eyes from the glare and glanced in. There was someone slumped in the driver’s seat looking dead, like I always thought people sleeping in cars looked dead. I stopped and peered closer. It was dark inside the cabin, the tinted glass cutting out most of the sun. The window lowered with an automatic hum. A blast of ice-cold air-con hit me. A dark face appeared. I jumped back in shock.

  ‘Danny?’ His face was covered all over in brown stuff like boot polish or mud, camouflage-style. ‘What the hell have you got on your face? What are you doing here?’ I hopped from foot to foot, the bitumen searing my feet. Startled, he rubbed his eyes, brown coming off on his fingers. He stared at himself in the rear-vision as if he had no idea who he was. He turned to me, dazed. His lips were blue. He was wearing the army coat and I wondered if he was naked underneath. He clenched the steering wheel with both hands.

  ‘Where am I?’ he said, squinting up at me.

  ‘At Scott’s.’

  ‘Oh.’ He shook a clump of black hair out of his eyes and looked across at the house.

  ‘Are you stalking him?’ I half-laughed. Last night’s sneak-in was pretty bunny-boiler, too, but part of me felt uneasy, like there was something major I didn’t know about.

  ‘Does he know I’m here?’

  ‘Nah, he’s still asleep,’ I fibbed, waving towards Scott’s bedroom window.

  ‘Good.’ He turned the key in the ignition. Opera blared from the multi-track. ‘Hey, Rosie.’ He beckoned. I bent forward, my arms resting on the sill. ‘Don’t tell Hols about me being here. She’ll freak.’

  I nodded.

  ‘Or Scott,’ he added.

  ‘OK. Sure.’ I reached in and touched his arm. It was cold. ‘Are you alright?’ He looked so freakish, yet so vunerable with his face all blacked up. It took me back to the times when we were kids playing aborigines in the cave.