by Sabre Rose
I must have fallen asleep like that as I woke a few hours later, fully dressed, someone pounding on the door.
Dad and I met in the kitchen, sharing a look of confusion over the table. Dad pulled the door open. Two policemen looked back at us.
“Are you Andrew Rush?”
Dad cleared his throat. “Can I help you?”
“It’s about your daughter, Phoebe Rush. A body has been found and we think it’s her.”
four
My sister was a whore.
I first heard the word when I was twelve. I didn’t know what it meant at the time, but Molly Ryan told me her uncle said that she was one. Phoebe just laughed when I told her. She never let things like that get to her. She sat me down and held onto my shoulders, looking straight into my eyes. “A whore is what people call women when they are threatened by them. It says more about the person who uses it than the person it is used to describe.”
I already knew it wasn’t a nice word. I could tell by the way Molly said it. She almost spat it. She was probably just copying her uncle. As I grew older I knew why people used it. I knew it was because of her job. People didn’t see that my sister provided for us in ways my father never could. They didn’t see that she was happy. That she was free. That she chose that life.
They only saw a whore.
When she first went missing the headlines in the local paper and the news referred to her as a prostitute. Missing Prostitute Phoebe Rush. Some called her an escort. Some an exotic dancer. One even called her a lady of the night. As though it were the darkness that was the issue.
My sister always held her head high. She always smiled. She would smile while attending school meetings or assemblies where people would talk behind her back and quietly refuse her assistance in place of my absent parents. She would laugh and tell me that it was her secret weapon for getting out of it.
She was strong. I never once saw her hang her head. I never once saw her bend to their vicious words. The only time she ever apologised for her chosen profession was when it affected me. If she could have shielded me, she would have. But she told me that people chose to be cruel. She told me that was their choice and I didn’t have to be the same.
There was only ever one person she lied to about her job. She told our father she was an assistant to an important businessman. And she was. Sort of. She assisted many men, just not in the way our father imagined.
Her clients were professionals. Her dates required glamourous dresses, dramatic makeup and real jewels. I tried to sell some of it after she disappeared, the money would have helped. But each time I managed to sneak a few pieces to the pawn shop, Dad always found out and spent more money getting them back. He couldn’t stand for anyone else to have a piece of her. Now, all her belongings were locked away as a shrine to her memory.
She was careful. Safe. Protected.
Until that night.
She said goodbye like she always said goodbye. With a kiss and a smile. It wasn’t a new job. It was a place she had been before. She knew the men. She knew the parties. She knew what was expected of her. Nothing other than to socialise and laugh and dance. As normal, nothing else was required and any further arrangements made were strictly hers to approve.
Benedict Walsh was the last man to see her. He said she danced, she laughed and chatted with some of the guests. She had a drink. Maybe two. And then she got into a taxi and left.
But he couldn’t remember the name of the taxi company.
It was too dark to see the colour of the car.
And every taxi company contacted by the police had no record of collecting her from that address.
She simply disappeared.
Dad and I were left in limbo, not knowing what happened. We no longer knew how to live. We couldn’t smile without feeling guilty. We couldn’t laugh without wondering if she was out there somewhere, unable to laugh herself. Maybe she was held captive. Maybe she was hurt, injured, waiting for someone to find her.
My father walked the roads around the Walsh’s residence. He always suspected them. But they were wealthy. They were well respected. They helped the police. And despite his insistence that Benedict Walsh was behind her disappearance, he was never believed. He was the father of a whore.
After a while, I accepted that there was only one reason for her not to walk through our door. She was dead. And while I gave up hope, my father drank to forget.
five
“Are you okay?”
My father was back in his chair. We had spent the day at the police station, listening to their explanation. Feeling nothing.
Dad stared at the TV. The news had already hit. Local Prostitute Phoebe Rush’s body found in the trunk of a car at the bottom of the lake. They showed her photo again. The same one that always accompanied her story. It wasn’t one that showed her smile, the naturalness of her beauty. It was one from her business profile. Sultry. Seductive. One that fitted into their narrative.
Dad hadn’t said much as we sat in the small office with grey walls and slats across the windows. The policeman explained that a jogger had recently gone missing while on the running tracks around the estuary. He went for a run and never came back. It turned out later that he had skipped town. Wanted to start a new life with a new wife and a new family. But before they discovered that, they sent divers into the water to search for his body. Instead, they found a car. One that had been reported missing years ago. A year before my sister went missing.
A year before she was killed.
They dragged the car to the surface. They popped the trunk. They found my sister.
Do you know what a body looks like after four years under water? Neither do I, because they wouldn’t let us see. But they knew it was her because the DNA told them so.
Nothing had changed, except now we knew. She was dead. She would never walk through that door with a smile on her face and an outlandish story of where she had been. She would never hold my hands and dance in the light shining through the window. She would never add another picture to our map.
The news was rehashing old details. It showed Walsh and his clueless wife standing solemnly at the memorial service held a year after she went missing. Dad hadn’t wanted them there. Neither had I. Their presence was a slap in our faces. A knife dug into our hearts.
The police had re-opened the case, not that it was ever officially closed. They had reached a dead end. They had given up. Now they were pleading with the public again. They were calling for witnesses of the car, of any strange happenings at the old boatshed that sat on the edge of the estuary.
They released the new information that her hands and feet were bound. They were going to look into her clients. Again.
I looked over at Dad and repeated the question. “Are you okay?”
He didn’t answer. Instead, he smiled a sad smile and reached for the bottle. He wasn’t always this way. He was just lost without her. Mum dying had beaten him down. Phoebe’s disappearance had shattered what was left.
My phone rang and I grabbed it quickly. The ringtone was too bright. Too cheerful.
It was Jess. “Why didn’t you call me?”
“I-”
She didn’t let me finish. “I’m coming over. This requires alcohol. Lots of alcohol.”
Later, we sat in my bedroom, staring at the map on the wall, hiding from the unshed tears in my father’s eyes.
“We should go out. You need to dance. You need to drink and dance and forget.”
I laughed, feeling strangely cold, empty. I thought finding her body would bring a sense of closure. But all it did was create more questions. “What would people think?”
“Fuck people.” Jess tipped a bottle of beer to her mouth.
“I really don’t think that will help.”
Dad knocked on the door and opened it a crack. He nodded to Jess. “I can’t be here. I’m heading to the pub.”
“Do you think that’s a good idea?” The pub was Dad’s second home. The place he went when t
he silence got too loud.
“No. Probably not. But I’m going anyway. What are you girls up to for the night?”
“I’m trying to convince her we should hit the club.” Jess grinned softly at Dad as though smiling too widely might break him.
“Good idea.”
I looked over at him, surprised. “It’s a terrible idea.”
“Sometimes terrible ideas are the best ideas. You should go. It would do you good to have some fun.”
“I don’t feel like having fun.” And then the pain hit. Those were words I could remember saying to my sister when she would drag me out of bed in the wee hours of the morning. I was tired. I had school the next day. I didn’t feel like having fun. I wanted to sleep. But she would never listen. She would pull the blankets off the bed, turn up the music and start dancing until eventually she would win me over and we would sing at the top of our lungs. Our neighbours sometimes complained. But Dad never did.
I sighed. “Fine. I’ll go.”
six
I don’t know how long we were at the nightclub before I noticed you, because when I looked up, your eyes were already on me. You didn’t smile. You didn’t nod your head in recognition. You just stared, leaning against the bar, elbows propped on the counter.
Music pumped like blood through my veins. Coloured lights illuminated your face in flashes. Red. Blue. Green. Yellow. You held a glass in your right hand and occasionally brought it to your lips, a sip at a time. Surrounding you were all the same people from the movie theatre. At least I thought they were. They looked the same. Dressed the same. But you weren’t paying attention to any of them.
Even though I looked like my sister, the only time I felt like her was when I danced.
I was free.
I was alive.
Music moved my body in ways nothing else could. Nothing else ever would. Except you.
You watched but you never moved. You didn’t come over to talk to me. You didn’t jerk your head, inviting me to join you. But it wasn’t until one of your friends bumped into you that you turned away from me and back to them.
Just like I did in the movie theatre, I felt the loss of you. And even though you didn’t owe me a thing, not a word, a glance, or a kiss, disappointment replaced the music in my veins. The people previously made invisible by the pulse of the bass jostled against my body. Sweat covered my skin. My eyes burned with the fog that was shot from machines and swirled around my feet.
I needed to breathe.
Stumbling my way through the crowd, I headed for the back door, drawing in a gasp of fresh air as soon as I made it outside. People were smoking and they looked at me curiously. Leaning against the concrete wall, the cool breeze of the night danced over my skin, prickling it with goosebumps.
“You should come and see the finished product.”
Heat flooded through me just at the sound of your voice. I was back there. At your place. Naked and exposed. Bared for you.
Pulling myself from the wall, I willed myself to appear calm, unflustered. But I don’t think it worked because you smiled at me in a way that said you knew my innermost thoughts.
“Now?”
You tilted your head so the tip of your cigarette met the flame between your fingers. “Do you want to keep dancing?”
“I’m with Jess.”
“The bouncy one? She can come too.”
I laughed. Jess did bounce when she danced, but only when she was drunk. But I didn’t want Jess to know what I had done. I didn’t want her to know that you drew the lines of my body.
I didn’t want to share.
But as if uttering her name was magic, the door swung open and she appeared.
“There you are!” She rolled her eyes as though it was something I often did, running away. Then she saw you. “You again.” Her eyes narrowed. “Are you stalking us now?”
“Yes.” You said it so openly that no one would have ever suspected it to be true.
I looped my arm through hers, feeling how hot and sweaty her skin was in comparison to mine which was now cold to the touch. “Killian’s an artist. He invited us back to his place to see some of his stuff.”
Jess rolled her eyes. “Because that doesn’t sound creepy.” She walked over and took the cigarette from between your lips, bringing it to her own and sucking in the poisonous air. “You may as well be wearing a t-shirt with a lollipop on the front saying ‘suck me’.”
“It’s okay. I’ve been there before.” The words were out before I realised I had revealed my secret.
Jess turned on her heels slowly, pulling the cigarette out of her mouth and letting the puff of smoke into the night. “Don’t tell me. He invited you back to his place and asked you to ‘model’ for him.” She gave you back the cigarette but you threw it to the ground and crushed it under your shoe. “OMG, he did. Sophie, what is wrong with you? He could have been a serial killer!”
“I’m still here, aren’t I?”
You didn’t say anything during this exchange. You stood there watching, your eyes showing disdain for the world, your skin pale under the glow of the streetlamp and your mouth bruised and kissable.
Jess tugged on my arm and dragged me away, not far enough that you couldn’t hear what we were saying though. You looked on with interest, pulling another cigarette from the packet and placing it between your lips.
I had never been jealous of an inanimate object before.
“What’s going on?” Jess hissed. “Why didn’t you tell me you’d seen this guy again?”
I shrugged. “It was nothing. He’s an art student.”
“He doesn’t look like a fucking art student to me.”
The door opened again and one of your friends poked his head out. “You coming back in?”
You looked up and shook your head, letting smoke escape as a vapour out your nostrils. It was disgustingly sexy. I wanted you to treat me with the same filthy adoration.
“I like him, Jess.” It was best to tell her the truth. There was no way she would have let me leave with you otherwise, and in that moment there was nothing I wanted more.
For you to grip me in your arms.
To have your mouth on my flesh.
To be used by you.
“Fine.” Jess huffed. “But you text me his address as soon as you get there. And his full name. And his phone number.” Letting go of me she walked towards the door that led back into the club. “And a photo of him or possibly a copy of his driver’s license.” She gave you the signal that she was watching you, fingers pointed at her eyes then at yours, and disappeared back into the chaos.
You were blowing smoke rings into the air. Anyone else, and I would have turned away from such a flagrant display. But not you. With you, I was transfixed.
“So you’re coming home with me?”
It sounded so dirty coming from your mouth, as though I had agreed to more than just seeing your finished artwork. I wondered if you could see it in my eyes. The lust. The longing.
Swallowing the nervous knot at the back of my throat, I nodded.
And your eyes got stuck on the flesh of my neck.
seven
I was naked on your canvas.
Earlier, when I had left in a rush, it was only the lines of my sister’s face that looked back at me. Now, she was gone and I was there. It was my face staring back at me through wide and innocent eyes. My hair that flowed down my naked back. The cheeks of my backside that rested full and round on the stool. Despite you never seeing my full nakedness, you had drawn me perfectly.
You leaned against the wall and pulled a knife from your pocket, rolling it between your fingers in an endless display of confident defiance. My eyes were drawn to you as much as they were to the painting. You were so casual, so cocky.
“Do you like it?” You placed the knife back in your pocket and moved to stand behind me. I could feel the heat of you. Your mouth was close to my ear. The scent of stale smoke drowned my senses.
“You’re good.”
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Your smile was slow and drawn out as it crept across your mouth. It was everything arrogant, seductive and true. “I know.”
I moved closer to the portrait and further from you. “I’m naked.”
You stepped around me so your fingers could brush over the canvas. “You’re beautiful.”
I almost believed you.
“Come.” You held out your hand and I took it. “I’m sure I’ve got something to drink here somewhere.” Depositing me on an overstuffed couch next to the fire, you rustled through the contents of the shelving. I took the chance to look around the room once again. It was just as messy as before. Your bed—which was just a mattress on the floor—was dishevelled. Sheets hung over the edge and were strewn across the floor. The pizza box was gone, thrown into the large bin serving as trash collection in the corner and in its place were empty kebab wrappers.
After a few minutes of searching, you found a bottle of vodka and held it up as a question. I nodded. You gave up on finding a glass and took a swig straight from the mouth. I did the same, shuddering as the warmth of it hit the back of my throat.
You looked at me curiously. “What’s the matter?”
I coughed a little, clearing the burn. “What makes you think something is the matter?”
“I could tell by the way you danced. You were dancing to forget.” You took another gulp of the vodka. “Or maybe you were dancing to remember.”
I wondered how you knew this about me. Of course, I didn’t know what you knew. I was innocent. Naïve. Too easily swept up by you. It should have been plain that you had watched me before.
I shifted closer to the flames. Closer to you. “My sister.” I didn’t say anything more as there was a tightness in my chest restricting my words.