Precious You

by Helen Monks Takhar

  “Fucking hell, Iain.”

  “Sorry, babe,” he said, not looking to see if I was all right, instead focusing on the wrap of coke he was fumbling with, which was about to go everywhere. I hadn’t seen him that pissed for a while. I suddenly saw him through the young eyes around us. His box-fresh dad T-shirt clung to an undeniable middle-aged roll, paired with jeans he’s owned for more than ten years, a smile that lingered too long not to be considered cheesy. Dusty Converse. A faded man.

  “Give me that,” I said, then under my breath, “I’m fine, by the way. And you need to slow down.” But he hadn’t heard me.

  “That’s my girl. You know she’s a journalist? How can you tell? Look how she racks them up. You see, with most folk, they’re vertical, all uneven, but Kathy? She chops hers out horizontal…same length, all spaced out, same size, like lines on a reporter’s notepad. Beautiful that, eh?”

  Here, he had a point. I’d deftly set out six perfectly horizontal lines of exactly the same width from tip to tip, tidying up the ends so they were all exactly the same size, as was my way. One for me, one for you, one for Iain, and one each for the lads still hanging around Iain for free gin.

  I did the first line, then went to ask, “Who wants next dibs?” I was still looking down at my handiwork, but when I raised my head, all I saw was unbidden horror.

  From nowhere, the Snowflakes had amassed around me, looking at me as if I’d just killed someone. The pearl-clutching disgust on their faces; on your face.

  “No thank you, Katherine. I don’t think we need that to have a good time,” you said, and looked to the Breakfast Club around you for supportive “Yeahs,” which they duly supplied.

  “I’ll take that as a no, shall I?” I handed Iain back his bank card and a rolled tenner.

  “Ah well, your loss, kids.” Iain hoovered up three lines, one after the other.

  “Iain,” I warned.

  “Yeah, this is my gran’s house,” “Dan” piped up from nowhere, “I don’t feel comfortable with you doing that here?” the stupid boy’s voice rising at the end as if he was asking a question. I heard another voice. “God, don’t they know how many London kids get slaughtered for that?”

  I couldn’t bear the disapproval, and worse, I knew whoever made that last comment was right. This kept happening: Something from your lot I immediately dismissed as a pile of shit, until I thought about it, and saw it really wasn’t.

  I was making a bad job of coaxing the powder back into one of the wraps.

  “Let’s pretend we didn’t see it,” you told me, shaking your head, reminding me once more why your kind, even when you’re coming from a right-minded position, remain so fucking irritating. I was about to restart our conversation, but you were swallowed for a selfie by a group of girls who only earlier told me they weren’t sure who you were.

  “Fucking hell, these kids don’t like to party much, do they?” Iain slurred in my ear.

  “I’ve got three hundred quid’s worth burning a hole in my pocket.”

  “Fuck, lighten up. We can still have a toot.”

  “I don’t want to.” I kept my eyes on you, now dancing with a new group of people to one of those bands I don’t know or understand, one that has numbers where there should be letters in their name, consonants where there should be vowels. It seemed as if you had no intention of talking to me, you’d just got me there to throw your youth in my face. Humiliate me again and again. “I really think we should go.”

  “No!” He said it desperately. He heard it too, and added, “No, I mean, they’re not too bad, eh? Come on, let me get us a drink and give it another whirl. We’re just getting started.”

  “You’re pretty far gone already.”

  “Well, pardon me for getting pissed up at a party!”

  I knew I wasn’t going to get him out the door without a fight. It was already demeaning, having a middle-aged quarrel about drugs in front of your lot. Iain was looking over my shoulder as if he was watching out for someone more interesting to talk to. As if he was looking for you.

  “Sorry. You’re right…Well, I reckon I’m about ready for another. You?” I took his hand again and led him toward our bag of drinks near the sideboard.

  “Sounds good to me.” His eyes kept flicking around. I needed his attention on me.

  “Have you noticed, no one here really knows her?”

  “Who?”

  I rolled my eyes before I could help it. “Lily, Iain, Lily. It’s like, there’s a whole load of kids who’ll have a debrief over smashed avos in the morning and sit around and say, That girl? I thought she was with you? But no one will know where she came from, or where she went. Go on, go and ask someone, anyone, how they know her.”

  “You’ve got a very active imagination. You should try writing fiction.”

  “Yeah, and you should put your pen down until you can do better than fucking stupid clichés.” At this, Iain’s jaw tightened.

  “Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean that…It’s just she doesn’t add up. Again. I know she’s hiding something. I found out her name isn’t Lunt, by the way. Also, I’ve not told you, but someone keeps sending me vile, incriminating emails with stuff in them only she or I could know. What do you think about that?” May as well lay my cards on the table because I could sense something dangerous about Iain. He was focusing too hard on my face, like he had to force his eyes not to be obviously tracking you as you moved around the cramped living room. “Why are you here, Iain?”

  “You know why. Because I can’t spend another hundred thousand nights sitting at home getting pissed without a bit of a break…What are you doing here?”

  “Because…because I needed to know more about her, but given she’s lied about knowing anyone here, I’m hitting dead end after dead end.”

  “You are reading way too much into things. Way too much. I don’t know…Sometimes, can I be honest for a sec? I just don’t know—”

  I didn’t like where this sentence was heading. I had to put the brakes on it. “OK, let’s forget it. Put it down to another long week. I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. It’s all me, I know that, really. Come on, let’s keep mingling with the Snowflakes. Please. Come with me.”

  I found a quiet spot to chop us another few lines and saw him coming back to me again. After we’d refreshed ourselves, I led him out again into the “party.” The only two high people there, we had a little secret and that made us a team. We somehow got our groove on, producing an old cool couple routine. We talked ourselves up; I offered internships and sage advice, Iain, a sofa bed to crash on “if you’re ever in London.” And as Iain became less cogent, I wasn’t overly worried, since I’d ended up allowing myself to get peeled off by some not-bad-looking Felix or other. When I went to get another drink, I couldn’t see Iain, but given the state he was in, it seemed likely he was slumped in some corner to “rest his eyes” while awaiting his “second wind.” This used to happen a lot at our parties, back in the day. Same old, same old. It seemed the right time to focus on finding you and having the conversation we needed to have.

  The room was full, but there you were alone, leaning against the wall near the door; me against the opposite wall, viewing you through a group of kids. You didn’t look at me, but you knew I was watching you. You were texting someone.

  My phone vibrated in my pocket.

  You were messaging me. My heart leaped like a teenager waiting for their first kiss.

  Meet me in the garden in 2 mins. It’s time. Xxx

  You focused on the floor as you tucked your hair behind your ears. You were asking to be observed. You stood up straight, decisively, then turned to leave the room. I took a breath and made myself wait for a minute to pass before letting myself walk as calmly as I could toward my fate.

  The pink room swirled about me as I left it. I sensed the truth, hot a
nd pure, awaiting me. I headed to the kitchen and then out through the open door into the yard. On I went over the skinny strip of scrub that passed for a garden in that random grandma house, excitement rising. It’s time.

  I could see a love seat toward the end of the “garden”; a small bench under a ragged apple tree surrounded by sentimental little tea lights in wire-hung mason jars. It faced out to a forest of savagely tall nettles. And there you were in the middle distance, opposite the bench, your face turned toward the stars.

  I had to tread carefully, stepping over broken bricks to reach you. I picked my way through the undergrowth, something of the fairy tale in the air as I dipped low to avoid a shooting clump of buddleia at my head and dodged a mess of brambles at my feet.

  You began to speak. Someone I couldn’t see, until I noticed an elbow poking out from behind the tree. It seemed familiar. One of the lads from before? If he didn’t shift, I planned to scare him off, say something to send him back in the house so we could really talk, like you wanted to, like we had to.

  I moved forward again, lurking for a moment behind a dead oak. I was close enough to hear you now.

  “You’re sure? You’re absolutely positive you want this?”

  Consent and double consent gained. Making someone firmly agree to something they don’t fully understand.

  And then he came out of the shadows, his back to me.

  Iain.

  He sat down and waited for you on the love seat.

  You walked toward him, savoring his attention as you approached. He reached for your hands and pulled you toward him, seizing you with an urgency that ripped through my heart.

  You straddled him. You kissed him hard.

  The moonlight caught your fingernails—the same mimosa color as your stupid laptop case from that first morning you invaded my life—as you moved my partner’s face to your tits.

  He obliged, tearing open your shirt and pushing up your bra to free you.

  Overwhelmed by you, he lifted you away from him for a second so he could tug his old jeans and the boxers I’d bought for him down to his ankles. I could see how much he was dying to get inside you. My stomach dropped to the floor. I saw myself running forward and pulling you off him, throwing you to the floor and kicking you hard in the stomach.

  But the physical me could not move an inch. So on I watched, my world disintegrating as he grabbed your arse with both hands underneath your leather skirt while you threw back your head, eyes shut in apparent ecstasy. I felt as if I was about to vomit. I’d seen more than enough. I had to get back to the house without being noticed, preserve what little I had left of my dignity.

  But then something changed in you.

  You brought your head back and your eyes were open. You looked down to watch Iain on you. Impassive. Once-removed. You then began searching the darkness for something, him still devouring you, unawares.

  I drew myself behind the dead oak, but I could still see you through the dry branches.

  Your eyes stilled. They’d found what they were looking for.

  Mine.

  You stared right at me.

  You didn’t move for a second or two. You wanted to make sure I was definitely watching.

  Looking at me, you reached between your legs and pulled your prim cotton knickers to one side with your fingers. You made a fake groan as you lowered yourself onto my partner’s cock. You held my gaze throughout.

  But I couldn’t turn away now.

  Because if I did that, you would know just how much hearing Iain’s moans as he pulled you onto him destroyed me again and again and again. You would know by how much and how hard you were beating me.

  So I stared right back at you, Lily.

  I made my body stand there, forced myself to watch, didn’t let myself so much as flinch the whole time you looked at me as you fucked my partner. I let myself hear him come in you, sounding like he was being strangled as he said your name. Only then did I allow myself to disappear into the night and slide into the darkness of my total isolation.

  * * *

  —

  I RAN PAST the babble of millennial inflections bouncing off the walls, the air a dizzying rose-colored fuzz, clean hair and faces melting into one. I pushed my way through to the front door and burst onto the empty street.

  I found I was bent double. My hands on my knees as if I’d just come home from my Sunday run. A net curtain twitched across the road as I called a taxi, my words arriving between pants that reverberated up and down the sad little street. I didn’t belong there. We never should have come.

  When I got back to the B&B, I stayed only long enough to gather my things, including my cars keys.

  Drunk, I raced through unlit country lanes. I took corners hard, barely braking. Rage taking me over, at Iain, at you, but mostly at me. I should have known.

  When I had no idea where I was anymore, I stopped at a passing place. Watching the sun rise from the backseat of my Mini after a scrape of sleep, I had that feeling again: This was another vision of my future.

  MARCH 25—PARTY TIME

  I don’t have any friends. She knows it. Yes, I’m completely alone, but I guess I’m so used to not having anyone, I can hardly feel it anymore. I had someone once, but not for long. My room in Ruth’s house in Headingley was where I finally thought I’d found home. Talking with her for hours and hours, I never felt the need to be in control of her. It was no work at all, because if she was winning, I was winning. I think this means I loved her. These days, I’m struggling to have anything like a meaningful conversation with anyone my own age, in fact with anyone else who isn’t Katherine Ross.

  Because this thing is taking me over.

  Talking to anyone but her is like sucking a sweet with the wrapper on. No flavor. No spice. No danger. No point.

  I found out about the party on Twitter. A friend of a friend of an old acquaintance, in the distant galaxies of one of my old lives. This would do. It feels like this is exactly what I need to move things right along. Neither of them can keep away from me, even if they tried. This is the closest I’ve ever felt to powerful my whole life.

  I’ve started to daydream about pushing the concierge out of my window, viewing the bloody pulp of his body on the graveled shore of the reservoir below me. But at least I can see he knows he’s doing something wrong. The way he shuffles into the apartment, avoids looking into my face, tells me he knows how he’s using me isn’t fair or right. But Katherine Ross has no moral awareness. She doesn’t even know her sins. She thinks she’s blameless and given all I know, I believe that’s the greatest crime she could commit. I have to punish her.

  MARCH 26—THE MORNING AFTER

  Finally, they arrive at the party. Both of them have made an effort and it’s so sad to see. She’s got too much makeup on and his brand-new T clings to his dough-like pecs. I can’t help it, I’m hoping the people here will be kind to them. I’m not a monster, you see?

  “Who the fuck are they?” I hear someone say when they see them get out of their cab, and I admit there’s something a bit ghoulish about the pair of them in the streetlight, her hobbling up the garden path with her bulging shopping bags, having some kind of a go at him. Him, all red and obviously drunk, already racing to the door to get away from her.

  “Oh my God, they’re coming in! Don’t let them!” another person says, at which point I jump up and say, “Don’t be insane. They’re with me.”

  Of course, they freak everyone else out. A couple of people complain that “That old woman keeps asking me weird questions about you.” So that’s why she’s here. She’s looking to solve the puzzle. Of course she is, and of course she assumes she can do it her way. So arrogant, so her. So, I egg her on without giving her anything more than I need to keep them there. She needs to come to her own conclusions by herself. That’s when this works best.

  It
’s almost painful to watch them, messing about with their grim drugs. I share in everyone’s horror, but it’s more awful for me because I’ve vouched for them. They have no idea of how the world works now. It’s worse than that. They don’t even want to know.

  Eventually, I know the moment has come. I feel a surge of nerves, but massive energy too. Power, or something like it. I send them both the same text, but I tell him to come and meet me now under the apple tree, then ask her to come in a couple of minutes. It works out perfectly.

  How she wants to look away. How repulsive she finds seeing me on top of “her Iain.” What woman wouldn’t? But what other woman would try to stare out their rival in the very moment they’re doing their partner?

  I keep waiting for her to blink first, but she refuses to acknowledge the truth: I am hurting her. I am winning. Even as it couldn’t get any worse for her, with her partner on the verge of coming inside me, she stares on. Totally defiant, like I can’t touch her at all, like she could pretend this hasn’t changed a thing. But it has and we both know it, despite her refusing to look away.

  After I’d done with Iain, she finally steps back where I can’t see her anymore. What will she do now? Will she let herself crumble now that I can’t see her, or will she come after me fighting? The wait is exquisite, especially because I know what Iain plans to ask her when he sees her next. I’m moves ahead of her and I’m going to do everything in my power to make the punishment fit the crime. I’ll make it so she will blink.

  By Sunday night I had forty-three missed calls from Iain. You didn’t call or text me directly, but I wondered about how much you were shaping Iain’s texts. I had a vision of you drafting them together, passing his phone between you in between exquisitely guilt-sodden sex.