Saving from Monkeys

by Star, Jessie L.

  He didn't care! I might as well have not existed for all the give a damn he was offering me.

  "Really?" I choked. "I find out that my life’s just some joke you've cooked up to feel superior and that's all you can say?"

  He brushed his flop of hair out of his face in the most affected move ever. "I guess so."

  "What is wrong with you?" To my horror I felt tears prick at my eyes and I grabbed up the bottle he'd just set aside, chugging down another burning mouthful to brace myself. Drinking from the bottle made me feel reckless and tough and gave me the courage to add, "Don't you get what you've done? You've ruined everything. I'd just started to think I was worth something-" I stopped abruptly, realising too late that the alcohol hadn't just made my legs and arms start to feel rubbery, it'd loosened my tongue as well.

  Elliot didn't say anything for a moment; he just took long measured swallows of his drink before finally looking up at me and saying solidly, "That's crap."

  I sucked in a low shocked breath, but he hadn't finished. "As long as I've known you, you've thought you're something special, Rox, definitely better than me. So you don't get to march in here and accuse me of taking away your self-worth when you and I both know that's total bull."

  "So, what?" I asked shrilly, taken aback by his attack. "This," I waved the paper in my hand at him, "is punishment for being the one person who doesn't worship the ground you walk on?"

  "Yes, Rox," he said sarcastically. "I paid for your uni accommodation without asking for anything in return just to teach you a lesson. My evil knows no bounds."

  "You-" I gasped, lubricating the passage of the next words with another swig from the bottle I clenched tightly in my fist. "Even for you, that's just..."

  "Even for me?" I'd touched a nerve and he jumped up, a muscle ticking away in his jaw.

  "Seriously, what is your problem? That money stuff," he gestured angrily at the paper, "that's not anything to do with you. It's not your business."

  "Not my business? Are you out of your mind?" The liquid in my bottle slopped in time with my agitation. "I know money's like cushions to you, Sinclair, just a bunch of stuff that you've got lying around that makes life comfier, but it means something to people like me and my mum. We can't even afford the couch to put cushions on so don't you dare say that this isn't my business." I threw the paper down onto the coffee table between us where it lay, crumpled, staring up at us accusingly.

  "You came here, Rox. If you don't like what I have to say that's not my problem and you're more than welcome to piss back off again." He was shouting by the time he was done, actually shouting.

  I rocked back on my heels and, although things in my brain seemed to be getting increasingly fuzzy, I tried to understand what was so weird about that. The answer was actually pretty simple - I'd never heard him shout before. In fact, before tonight, I would've said that Elliot Sinclair just plain wasn't the shouting type. The sarcastic type, sure, the mocking type, definitely, perhaps even the growly type, but not the shouting type.

  Looking at the hunch of his shoulders and the set of his mouth now he'd closed it again, a sudden thought struck me. "You're sad."

  He rolled his eyes. "Great comeback, Rox."

  "No, I don't mean 'you're a loser' sad," I protested, "I mean you're 'sitting at home on your own drinking' sad."

  "And what about you? You obviously came here drunk, were you sitting at home drinking on your own?" He pointed out.

  "Yes, but only for the chocolate," I said in frustration.

  That seemed to pull him up short for a moment and then half his mouth lifted in a twisted sort of smile. "I don't understand half the stuff you say," he said with a shake of his head, "never have. But hey," he pointed at his mouth where the strange little smile had pulled at his lips, "I smiled, so I'm clearly not sad."

  He didn't fool me for a second, but as I took another drink from the bottle, I told myself that I didn't care whether he was sad or not. It was my mum, not me, who thought I should look out for Elliot, to take him under my wing and allow him to do the same for me.

  It was thinking of my mum, who'd always sought to do the best for Elliot and who had been betrayed by him, that brought me back on track.

  "Fine, you're not sad, you're just a borderline alcoholic," I punctuated this by jabbing the hand holding a rapidly diminishing amount of spirit at him, but firmly refused to acknowledge any semblance of hypocrisy. "Whatever, I don't care, what I want to know is how you managed to get my mum's saving account details. My mum's not the best with money, but even she would have noticed the balance making such a jump. If you've done something illegal to get that money to her I swear..."

  I let the threat trail off, but he'd evidently reverted back to 'aloof Elliot' and there was no response forthcoming. He just sank back against the cabinet again and watched me steadily, kind of like he was waiting for something.

  "So what did my mum say when the money appeared?" I tried again, becoming slightly disorientated as some strange little logic thingy in my brain started tapping me on my figurative shoulder. "Wait," I growled in frustration, not sure whether I was talking to myself or Elliot. "I need to know this. How...? Why...?"

  Elliot's gaze remained steady on mine as my thoughts twisted and turned, trying to find a way for it to make sense.

  "Monkeys," I whispered in the end, unable to come up with any other alternative than the truly horrible one. "She asked you for the money, didn't she? Mum went to you, not the other way round. But she said she could…she promised me….she was saving for my wedding!"

  Elliot's mouth stayed resolutely sealed and my hands scrabbled for purchase against the smooth neck of my bottle as suddenly everything seemed to tip off balance. Considering how much I'd drunk it wouldn't have been surprising if it was me toppling over, but actually, it was my concept that was shifting.

  "Monkeys," I repeated, louder this time, staring down at the floor as it was suddenly the only thing that felt steady and safe. "Monkeys, monkeys, monkeys!"

  "You need saving from monkeys, you know." Elliot's voice was sharp and I whipped my head back up to look at him as he added, "If you're angry, just be angry. Don't stand there as if you've just dropped a plate in front of my parents and have to stop yourself from swearing. That's not supposed to be your life now."

  "Saving from monkeys, that's what you think I need?" I lurched towards him, peering at him closely through the alcoholic fuzziness.

  "And what difference would saying 'fuck' make?" I demanded, the long-disused word tasting strange on my tongue. "If I said 'my fucking mum had fucking lied to me and fucking humiliated me in front of the one fucking person I've spent years not trying to appear so fucking pathetic to'? Does it make it any better?"

  It was weird only realising that that's how I felt after the words had come out, but that's how it was. I'd spent the last decade fumbling along using my work ethic to keep me one notch above Elliot on the pride scale, and my mum had just swept my legs out from under me.

  "So I'll keep my fucking monkeys, thanks very much," I rambled before realising exactly how close to Elliot I'd ended up and taking another long, burning pull from the bottle in my hands in response.

  "You might want to slow down on that." Elliot's voice was deep and smooth and he smelled really nice…but still, he was a monkey and I hated him.

  "Don't tell me what to do," I snarled and he held up his hands with a sigh like 'fine, not my problem'.

  I took a deep breath, grabbing at my anger with both hands so it wouldn't float away on the sea of alcohol that was threatening to engulf me. "So, lay it out for me, take me through how my mum asked you for all that money." Elliot looked like that was last thing he would ever want to do and I glared at him. "Come on," I pushed, "I'm a big girl, I've got my monkeys and my alcoholic chocolate, I can take it."

  "No." He drained the last of his drink and set the glass down on the cabinet with a bang. "We're done here."

  "We are so not done-" I started to inform him, but he
talked over me.

  "Well, I am, so have fun talking to yourself."

  He got up, moving slightly unevenly, and pulled his shirt up and over his head as he ambled towards his bed. I watched the play of muscles across his back and shoulders and knew my mouth hadn't just gone dry from the alcohol. It'd been something I'd unconsciously known through my teenage years, that Elliot was pretty much a perfect specimen of man, but I'd never known it in the sort of sledgehammer to the chest kind of way I was feeling it then.

  The alcohol buzzed through my body carrying with it a spark of something else, something that flared as Elliot flopped down on his bed.

  "So, you expect me to, what? Just walk out and let it go?" I told my legs to move and, after a longer than average pause, they obeyed and I swayed my way towards him.

  "That'd be good, yeah." And he flicked the lights off and lay back against his pillows.

  "Hey!" I climbed up onto the bed next to him and thumped his shoulder, feeling dizzy and uncontrolled. "Don't you dare! Don't you dare dismiss me!"

  In the pale moonlight streaming down from the huge skylight above his bed I saw him shift his gaze to me and instantly something was different. The frustration in his eyes had been replaced with something deeper and darker, and it made my chest fizz strangely.

  "Don't look at me like that," I snapped uncomfortably.

  "Sorry," he apologised unconvincingly. "I guess I'm just used to better outcomes when a girl not wearing a bra climbs onto my bed with me. But if you're not interested..." he trailed off and closed his eyes.

  I looked down and saw that, sure enough, the way I was leaning over him would've given him a pretty clear shot down my top.

  "And that's what it takes, is it?" I asked over the sudden loud rush of blood pulsing through my ears. "To get your attention?"

  He didn't respond and a recklessness like I'd never felt before exploded in my chest. Slamming my bottle down on his bedside table I swung a leg over him so I was straddling his hips, feeling his body solid and warm beneath me.

  His eyes flew open again and, holding his gaze, I reached down and slowly pulled my top up, relishing the strange thrill of power I felt as I did so. Elliot had always been the one with the control, apparently even here at uni, but with the removal of one item of clothing, the balance had fundamentally shifted in my direction. It was this power trip that saw me throw my top off the side of his bed and sit there confidently, like topless straddling of my nemesis was an everyday thing for me.

  There followed a moment of silence so tense it was as if I could physically feel it against my skin.

  Finally Elliot exhaled a long, unsteady breath. "You have my attention."

  "Good."

  There was another throbbing beat of silence and then he was leaning up and I was leaning down and our mouths were clashing in a mess of heat and alcohol.

  ----------

  Rox was sprawled across the mattress next to him, her breathing slow and heavy in sleep, her puffy lips slightly parted. Elliot, on the other hand, was wide awake, his hands running through his hair, his mouth silently repeating one word over and over.

  Damn.

  He was still drunk, everything felt slow and syrupy like being stuck in molasses, but even so he knew he'd done wrong.

  He couldn't just blame the alcohol either; Rox had always given him a weird sort of buzz and so even yelling at him in that condescending way she had hadn't been able to stop him just about losing his mind when she'd settled herself on his lap like that.

  Everything from then on had made him wonder how they'd practically lived together from age 10 to 18 and today was the first time he'd kissed her. From the way she'd produced her own condoms out of her pocket with a shrug and a muttered 'that worked out strangely well', to the way she'd found the flop of his hair bizarrely aggravating, she'd just been something else.

  Now, though…

  The air conditioning unit across the room kicked into gear and the resultant breeze tickled the edge of the account print-out Rox had brought round, making it lift slightly. It was determined not to be ignored, then, as if there was any chance of that.

  The money Elliot had gladly given; he'd have poured every last cent he had into making Rox's mum happy, and he knew he'd do it again in a heartbeat. But there was also a sick feeling in his stomach as he remembered the way Rox had choked 'I was just starting to think I was worth something…'

  Like he hadn't been feeling bad enough already.

  He sighed heavily and scrubbed his hands across his face feeling sobriety tickling at the edge of his consciousness.

  Rox had been spot on about the sad thing. He was fairly sure she didn't know about Nan's stroke, but he hadn't been able force himself to bring it up. As Nan always said, it was best to take the reasons someone might want to kick you in the balls one at a time.

  He suddenly couldn't stand the sight of the paper cheekily waving on the coffee table and knew he had to destroy it. It wouldn't change what had happened, and it couldn't make Rox forget what she'd found out, but it still seemed important to invoke the power of 'out of sight, out of mind'.

  Easing himself off the bed, he headed over and snatched it up. He positioned his hands to rip it, but found himself running his eyes down the account information instead. His heart sank as he saw how long it had taken Rox's mum to save up, and remembered how gutted she'd been when she'd had to admit to him that it still wasn't enough.

  Rox had been half right, he hadn't really thought that money mattered too much until then. His parents had thought they could control him with it, but he'd seen a way round that pretty easily and didn't get what all the fuss was about. Seeing the only mother-like figure he'd ever known sobbing her heart out over the balance of her account had changed that, though.

  Rox's mum was convinced that she'd lose her daughter over her lack of it, and Rox thought it was the thing that gave her worth, so, yeah, he pretty much got their issue with the money thing now.

  He glared down at the paper, every curse he could think of directed at it as guilt rose like bile in his throat. Rox's mum had asked, begged, him to never tell Rox about what they'd done and the fact that, technically, he hadn't didn't make him feel any better. Rox knew, and things were about to get royally screwed up.

  From up on the bed Rox let out a murmur, the sort someone made when waking up. It jerked him back to the present where, wrecked relationship with her mum or not, Rox was naked in his bed after some of the best sex of his life.

  With no time to tear the paper up as he'd planned, he quickly shoved it into the top drawer of his filing cabinet. Just in time too as Rox sat up, her hair mussed up around her face, her chest flushed.

  "Where did you go?" She asked blearily and, despite everything, he had to repress a smile at the demanding note in her tone.

  "Miss me?" He asked arrogantly and her eyes narrowed.

  "We need to drink more," she declared in the definite tones of the still very drunk. "Because I want to have more sex with you, but I'm not doing it sober."

  OK then, so they weren't talking about it. That was fine with him.

  He walked back over to the bed, obediently snatching up a bottle from his liquor cabinet as he approached. It was vodka, not his favourite by any stretch of the imagination, but Rox was right, staying drunk was the only way this was going to happen. And, looking at her, tangled in his rumpled sheets, sleepy and hot and defiant, he knew that, damn it, it was going to happen that night as many times as Rox, and his body, allowed it.

  Unscrewing the cap, he tipped the bottle to his mouth and then climbed back up onto the bed and offered it to Rox who copied his movement, although she screwed her face up as she swallowed.

  "It's not pleasant is it, alcohol?" She asked, tripping over the 't's, "Sometimes it's just plain awful. Still," her eyes fell on him, knelt beside her, unself-conscious in his nakedness, "needs must."

  And then she was reaching for him boldly and he'd tumbled her back onto the mattress, kissing her fierc
ely as if, through sheer force of will, he could make her forget.

  Chapter 18 – The Bandaid and the Mixed Message

  The events of that night didn't come back to me all at once, it was more like Elliot saying I needed saving from monkeys had sent out a little thread of understanding. From there it had been about tugging on that thread until, like the fraying end of a tassel, it all unravelled in a big old mess.

  "Rox..." Elliot started towards me, saying my name in that way that made me breathless. It wasn't a good breathless this time, though, it was a 'you come within five metres of me and my head will wobble off' breathless.

  I scrambled backwards, maintaining the distance between us and only just barely managing to stop myself toppling off the edge of the bed. Grabbing up a pillow, I held it up in front of me like a shield, feeling that my flimsy little pyjamas just weren't getting the job done. My arms shook as I held it tight.

  "You're still bleeding. Here." Elliot moved forward again, holding the bandaid out to me, but the look on my face must have stopped him. "Christ, Rox," he said quietly, "it's just a bandaid."

  "Really?" I asked through lips that felt numb. "You're sure my mum hasn't asked you to stuff a few hundreds in there as well?"

  He had the cheek to look pained at this and I let out a choked exclamation and threw the pillow I clutched at him. He batted it away easily and I couldn't help but feel that that was symbolic of his whole damn life.

  "You-" I don't think I even knew the word for what he was. What I did know was that I couldn't stay another second in his company. I'd end up doing something unforgivable like try to strangle him with a sheet or, if history was any indicator, have sex with him. I jumped off the bed, reaching for my clothes where they were draped over the couch and yanking my jeans on.