by Paul Haines
Father sat there, his big hands stroked her brow, and the apple in his throat bobbed up and down, up and down. 'No, Emily, no.'
'He's coming back for me,' Emily wailed. 'He'll go inside me like he did Mother and Rebekah. Don't let him, Father, please!'
'I won't,' Father croaked.
'You lie!'
'No, Emily, he'll never touch you.' Tears slid down the creases in Father's face, and he tucked the sheets tight around her.
'Do you promise?'
'I promise.' He reached for the fallen pillow.
'Father, the sheets are too tight.'
'I know.' He pushed the pillow down hard over her face.
He sat with her, a giant of a man, singing lullabies while she thrashed beneath the sheets. He sang softer and pushed harder until Emily ceased moving, until the last heave of her chest subsided. He imagined that last breath of air, so sweet and innocent, and wished he could hold it alive inside himself forever.
Father heard scuttling on the roof and the tinkling of bells. A thud sounded from the living room and Rebekah and Marthe started screaming. The pact now broken, Domovoy had returned to claim his own.
He left Emily's side and reached for his axe.
***
Afterword: The Feastive Season
A typical Christmas coming-of-age fable. Publishers in Australia didn't want to touch this story due to the explicit nature of its content. This surprised me. I thought that Down Under we were not as conservative as, say, a market like the US or the UK, but lo-and-behold, no thank you, sir. What surprised me even more was that I sold it to the first North American market I submitted it to after running out of options in Australia. It was a Canadian market, mind you.
Christmas, no matter how subverted it is from its origins, is a time of both wonder and terror for children, and as a parent of a young child, Christmas becomes a joy again. You cannot help but become infected with the sheer excitement that takes over the house you live in.
But what about that terror as an adult? (Apart from financial woes, of course, or the despondency of experiencing Christmas alone ...)
In a coming-of-age tale, there must always be a sacrifice, and usually this is the loss of innocence. The parents in this story are implicit in that loss, are, in fact, encouraging it, although in this case, the father who seemingly benefits the most from the exchange compared to the rest of his family is the one who dreads it the most.
The themes of sexuality and sexual jealousy recur throughout my work. The scene depicted in this story is the worst possible gift I could imagine giving, say, apart from a life. I could never be a swinger, no matter how liberating and exciting that scene appears to be. Apart from the ramifications of what that might do to my relationship, I'm not sure my monstrous ego could survive watching my partner in the throes of pleasure from another man. I guess at heart I'm not the radical liberal I'd like to be, instead I'm rather conservative.
"The Feastive Season" was written when I was neither married nor a parent.
***
They Say It's Other People
I haven't had much luck with women. Not since the accident anyway. Tonight was, well, not great; but it was going good until he turned up.
Her name was Marie—short and curvaceous, shoulder-length, blonde hair and large, blue eyes. She worked for a PR company and painted abstract expressionism in her spare time. Best of all, though, she laughed at my jokes (most people don't). Over dinner she'd touched me on my hand three times as we talked. We were sliding into each other's eyes in one of those electric moments—you know the ones, where your peripheral vision ceases and the focus narrows and narrows until all you can see is her eyes, her mouth—you can no longer understand the noises each of you are making. Words? What words?—and your skin is crackling with an urgency that screams: lean over and kiss her. They don't happen often in your life but when they do, the world feels fresh and new, and you know how it all works and what to do ...
... and the electricity arcing between us suddenly felt wet and slimy and
(it's the oysters)
nausea poked its head into my stomach for a quick peek.
'What's wrong, Will?' Marie asked.
'I, uh, nothing.' And just like that the world crashed back in, with the noise of the restaurant cacophonic in my ears, the smell of the tortellini bolognese rich as spoiling meat.
She reached out to touch me and my hand jerked away, knocking a wine glass. It teetered for a second, the wine sloshing against the rim, then Marie's hand caught and settled the glass.
'Are you okay?'
'Yeah, just feel a bit weird. Must have been those oysters.' I attempted a laugh, though it sounded more like phlegm catching in my throat.
'Oysters? We haven't had any oysters, Will. You look pale.'
Her hand reached out again and this time her touch was reassuring, not like the sickening jolt I'd experienced before. By this time though, nausea was no longer having a peek inside my stomach—he had climbed right on in. It felt like he was unhappy with the walls and had decided on a little redecorating.
'Excuse me.' I rose from our table, eyes searching for the bathroom. 'I'll be back in a minute.'
I was on my way to the door with the shiny top hat on it when I saw him: Hustlin' Hawkins. Sauntering past the restaurant window in a long, black coat, with his shiny, leather shoes impervious to the rain and his hair rejecting the breeze. He waved to someone inside and disappeared from view behind the wall. Then he came through the door, the maître d' welcoming him with a wide grin. I'd moved universities, cities, even goddamned countries, and here he was in the same bloody restaurant!
I barely made it to the bathroom. In hindsight, using the basins would've been better—no splashback on my clothes—but I never saw them in time and the cubicles looked too hard to negotiate—doors, handles, locks—so I staggered onto the urinal and threw up.
Where do I start with Hustlin' Hawkins? He's been following me all my life.
To say he was my nemesis would be wrong. An agent of retribution and punishment? How could a fourteen-year-old boy be my nemesis? Why would a fifteen-year-old boy, as I was when we first met, deserve one? To say I hated him and always hated him would be true. To say I was equally envious is also true. Do we have a word that expresses both hate and envy? Resentful. Bitter. They can be used for both but neither word conveys the depth of feeling, that intense hatred, and worse, the envy I had for Hawkins back then, even before he'd earned his millions and the Hustlin' tag.
He'd been big for his age and had the looks that drew the girls. He inspired male friendship because we knew he drew the girls, and if you hung out with him then they might notice you, too. After all, he'd have more than enough to go round. He wasn't smart but he wasn't dumb enough to be kicked out of school either, and due to his physical prowess, he excelled at sport. I could see what people saw in him but I couldn't understand why they'd flock to him. Did I feel threatened? Sure, I guess, who wouldn't? It was a stage of my life where hormones were running rampant, confusing everything, pumping testosterone, producing sperm, with no outlet except my hand.
Hawkins began to woo my friends from me, slowly and surely and I never noticed until it was too late. I'd started seeing Katie, one of the more popular girls in school and who had good-sized breasts for a girl that age. (Back then that seemed to be the mark of a good girlfriend. Back then when we didn't know anything at all). We did a lot of kissing and that was it. No touching, no feeling. No sticky fingers or hand-jobs. Our dates would leave me beating off in the bathroom late at night. She wanted it to be right before we did it, saving herself for when that time came. She promised me it would and with that promise I knew I could wait.
I threw the end-of-year party at my house because my parents had gone away for the summer holidays. It was shaping up to be the party to end all parties. My older cousin, Fraser, jacked up the booze. (It only cost a bottle of Jim Beam and an invite to him and his black-jersey mates).
And even
better, Katie lied to her parents that she'd be staying at Tracey's place overnight. I'd been walking around with a hard-on for most of the day, even beaten off a couple of times to make sure I wouldn't rush the moment when it came.
The party heaved, music pumped loud into the night, beer flowed from kegs and crates, wine coolers and Malibu and Southern Comfort. The hard men of school drank Jim Beam and smoked cigarettes and talked V8 engines in the corner of the kitchen. Knives heated on the stove element, ready to burn 'spots'—tightly rolled balls of dope—under a cut-off milk bottle. The smell of marijuana drifted easily through the house, couples danced and air-guitared and kissed and necked and I walked in on Hawkins busily fucking Katie in my parents' waterbed.
They lay naked on the bed, the sheets thrown back onto the floor. Her legs were wrapped around his waist, her white lace knickers—the special ones—hung from one ankle, so eager had she been to have him in her. She peppered his neck with kisses. I saw the wet trails her saliva made on his skin. (Sometimes, late at night when I'm alone, I can still hear her soft moans. They make me feel sick and aroused. What's the word for that?) His arse pumped up and down like the pistons in those V8 engines my cousin always talked about, the hard line of muscle flexing with each rapid thrust. I remember him raising his head and looking at me, sweat shining on his brow and the veins in his temple and neck bulging with the blood pumping through his body. Pumping inside Katie. He grinned and pushed harder into her. The groan from Katie, deep and animal, was the last thing I really remember.
I found out later they'd been fucking each other for about a month. My friends knew, her friends knew (hey, we were all friends!), but no one had bothered to tell me. I confronted him and he beat me up. End of chapter one.
I tried to wipe the splashes of vomit off my trousers, but the paper towel disintegrated, leaving a damp stain stippled with white paper dots. The mirror showed red, watery eyes and my skin had taken on a sallow appearance.
What are the chances? When does coincidence become pre-ordained? I couldn't believe Hawkins was here in this restaurant. I hadn't had any contact with him or his friends
(my friends, they were my friends)
in years.
I splashed cold water onto my face, chanced another glance in the mirror—still looked like shit—and braved the interior of the restaurant again. I hesitated
(he'll be at the table with Marie. She'll be laughing, touching his hand)
at the door. Paralysed by an inability to face Hawkins, dreading the 'Hi, how you going? Great to see you. What brings you here? We must catch up' charade we'd been playing our entire lives. Where really I wanted to choke the bastard and smash his head open on the floor, with a crack of the skull for everything he'd done to me, until there was nothing left but a dead, lifeless fuck that didn't deserve to ...
'Oh, sorry,' said a man entering the bathroom as the door hit me.
'My fault,' I said to the floor, terrified for an instant it was Hawkins but knowing the voice wasn't his.
I stepped into the restaurant and walked back to my table, eyes still on the floor. I expected to see shiny leather shoes stop in front of me and that drawl say 'G'day, Will. Long time no see. You dating anybody I can fuck?'
By the time I got to the table, my shirt stuck to my back. Marie sat there with
(his saliva still wet on her skin)
a smile on her lips; her eyes widened when she saw me. She stood up and came round, taking hold of my arm.
'You look terrible,' she said. Her perfume, Chanel No. 5, I think, filled my nostrils and for a second I felt better. 'Perhaps we should go, take a raincheck perhaps.'
'Yeah, look sorry about this, Marie.' I kept my voice low and stared at the table. I could feel him sitting somewhere in the restaurant. 'I'm just, uh, yeah ...'
'It's okay.' She guided me gently towards the bar. 'I'll fix this up and we'll get you into a cab.'
As Marie paid, I noticed a long, black coat draped on a stool at the bar. It was still damp from the rain outside. On the bar next to the stool lay a black leather folder with a business card on it. A glass of whiskey on ice sat next to the folder. My gut churned and I lurched out into the street, sucking in lungfuls of air, trying to quell the nausea. I collapsed to my knees, the wet concrete biting beneath my trousers, and tried to vomit. My stomach racked and a trickle of bile splattered the pavement. The world around me roared and blurred, Marie had me, then I sat alone in the back of a taxi as it slid through the empty streets.
The business card had been Marie's.
I sat nursing a bottle of vodka in my one-bedroom apartment with the music turned down low so the neighbours wouldn't complain. I'd tried calling Marie but I kept getting her voicemail. I couldn't keep
(his sperm on her skin)
the worm of worry from burrowing into my thoughts. I hadn't been with a woman since the accident and this was the first chance of intimacy I'd had. And bloody Hustlin' Hawkins was here. They say history repeats and no matter how I've tried and what I've done, it looked like it was going to repeat again. He would steal her off me, use her and discard her like all the others. How could I be with her then? After he'd been there?
I called Marie's mobile once more but it rang out. I sculled long from the bottle and hit the bed, hoping the booze would pull me under and wipe his face from my mind. Instead I lay on the bed in the dark, the jumble of memories left to me since the accident a sour reminder of his life in mine. Why couldn't the bad memories have been scrubbed instead of the good ones?
The jugs of beer are lined on the table and the chant of 'down down down down' reverberates through the entire uni pub. Hawkins staggers onto the table, a jug in hand. Cheers and whistles pierce the chant as he begins to scull from the jug.
'You think he'll do it?' Carla whispers in my ear. She sucks quickly on my lobe and squeezes my arse before I can reply.
Then Suze, Carla's best friend, has her and they chatter away, eyes fixed on the man in the spotlight. Suze had switched universities and ended up bringing her boyfriend with her. Hawkins.
Someone elbows me. 'Come on, mate. Down down down down!' They elbow me again and I start chanting, wishing Hawkins would attempt an open-throat and choke to death on his twentieth birthday.
Hawkins lifts the empty jug high in the air then turns it upside down over his head. The pub cheers in adulation and the girls are clapping and screaming. I grab a jug from the table—I'll drink his money.
Later on, a catfight breaks out. One of the guys pulls Suze off one of her friends, a girl called Debs. Suze is screaming at her, but Debs gives her the finger and wipes the blood from the scratch on her cheek. Rumour has it that Debs fucked Hawkins behind Suze's back. Beats the hell out of me why Suze stays with him, then I remember high school and me and Katie. I was the last to know then, maybe it's the same for Suze. Hawkins cares for no one but himself, but no one seems to care.
I push through the crowd to the toilets. Someone's kicked in one of the toilet bowls and the floor is flooded with water. Guys stand in the doorway, pissing into the room. I try for the women's toilets instead and miracle of miracles there's no one applying makeup or exchanging gossip inside. The two end cubicles are engaged but the middle one is vacant. I go in, wipe the lid, and start taking a dump.
I hear something knocking against the wall in the cubicle next to mine, a rhythmic banging. And the occasional grunt. I grin. Dirty bastards, I think. By the time I've finished squeezing out the first log, the banging is louder, faster. The woman is whispering 'harder, harder' and I know her voice.
'I'm going to cum,' says Hawkins.
'Hold on hold on,' Carla keens.
'I'm fucking cumming, bitch!'
Then she's moaning high and loud, as her first ever orgasm rips through her.
I lay awake for the rest of the night, scared the next set of memories would also decide to spend the night with me. By the time the alarm went off in the morning the bottle of vodka was well empty and my head well full with the
relentless gnawing paranoia that Marie was rising weary and sore from Hawkins's bed.
That night, a Sunday, Marie called and invited me out for a drink on Thursday evening. The sound of her voice calmed me but I wanted to ask her if she knew Hawkins. I needed to ask her, but I knew if I did that the hysteria dwelling within would show. Instead I blocked it out.
I spent the following days in a blur—since the accident it gets hard to remember details sometimes. And then, finally, it was Thursday evening.
Ciccolina's was one of those exclusive bars where you had to know the bouncers to get in. And they sure as hell didn't want to know you. A big, black guy in a Hugo Boss suit stood sentinel, massive arms folded, gold gleaming on his fingers. He opened the door before I even approached him and
(blood pooling on the floor)
ushered me through to the bar.
Inside, the room was lit sparingly with art deco lamps. Dark wood took precedence, while huge ceiling fans turned the air from the wall heaters around the room. The bar itself was long, perhaps fifteen metres, and people in designer clothing and hairstyles, suits and leather and flesh, clustered around mostly taken seats. Music slipped from concealed speakers, the volume comfortable enough to allow the steady rhythmic bass to ride with the patrons' heartbeats. I spied Marie and began to ease myself through the crowd. But as I tried to move closer to Marie, the crowd pressed tight, forcing me to push harder. The music throbbed in my ears and sweat broke under my armpits. I thought I heard my name chanted in the music, all twisted and metallic. Elbows jabbed and I tripped. I staggered forward, then hit the floor. The crowd closed over me, oblivious to my presence. I lay there for a second on the polished floorboards among high-heels and leather boots, the breath hitching in my chest. I knew what would happen next. I'd been here before. Before the accident.