Snake Bite

by Christie Thompson

  ‘Nothing wrong with Goth kids,’ Cash said. ‘Just expressing themselves.’

  ‘Oh, my God, Cash!’ Casey cried. ‘Next thing you’ll be saying it’s okay to worship Satan and sacrifice goats and all that other gross shit Goths are into!’

  ‘I’m pretty sure my cousin doesn’t sacrifice goats, Casey,’ Stu hooted.

  ‘You never know.’ Casey raised her eyebrows.

  ‘Actually, Katie hired this fucked-up movie last night.’ Stu shook his head. ‘Fuckin’ hell. It was, like, serial killers hanging people up on hooks and then raping their corpses and then the corpses turning into fucking zombies and all kinds of fucked-up shit.’

  ‘Seeeee!’ Casey hissed, poking Cash in the leg. ‘Gross shit!’

  ‘Me and Lukey watch some stuff like that,’ I admitted. ‘Horror and stuff.’

  ‘Well, I already knew you and Lukey were weird, Jez, so no big surprise!’

  ‘Serious?’ Cash looked at me. ‘Why’d’ya watch shit like that?’

  ‘It’s not real, it’s just entertainment. I dunno.’

  I remembered when me and Lukey started watching horror movies I was so grossed out and terrified, but I always pretended I enjoyed watching them because I didn’t want him to make fun of me. But after a while they weren’t scary anymore; I learned to anticipate what was going to happen—the classic climaxes and twists of the genre were nearly always played out, and I could remind myself that the blood and guts were just awesome make-up artistry or special effects. Watching horror every weekend, soon I found other types of film boring (except for Harry Potter, of course). I used to watch heaps of telly when I was younger. I’ve cut back a lot. The shows I liked the most when I was little were things like Friends and 7th Heaven, because the people in them were always smiling and happy and lived in really awesome big houses and had loving families. When I got older and wiser I realised that those shows were just a load of shit and happy people like that don’t even exist. At the end of a horror film you can go, well, my life is totally lame but at least I’m not on a hook in some psychopath’s basement having my breasts hacked off with a handsaw.

  ‘They’re just movies,’ I said.

  Casey shot me a withering stare. ‘Weirdo,’ she emphasised.

  ‘Aren’t we all?’ Cash said, smiling at me.

  ‘Cash . . . Puh-lease,’ Casey drawled. ‘Horror movies are for big fat nerds with acne who will never get a date. I guarantee you that if you did a survey of the people who watch horror movies they would be the fattest, ugliest, most pathetic losers. Can you imagine Paris Hilton sitting home on a Saturday night watching zombie corpse rape or whatever over a plate of chicken nuggets and oven fries?!’

  ‘Paris Hilton was in a horror movie!’ I pointed out.

  ‘Exactly.’ Casey threw up her hands. ‘She was on the other side of the camera, probably wearing something totally hot before her character got killed. Where she was not was on the couch shovelling chocolates into her gob.’

  ‘Why the fuck are we talking about Paris Hilton? Who cares what Paris Hilton would do?’ Cash asked.

  ‘Paris Hilton is a skanky whore. I’d tap that,’ Stu chortled.

  ‘Jesus,’ I muttered. ‘Maybe we should all run out and make sex tapes, then?’

  Casey leaned forward, narrowing her eyes. ‘Do not take the piss out of me, Jez. Seriously.’

  I sighed inwardly. Casey was getting into one of her bitch moods, but I wasn’t going to buy into the argument.

  ‘Not taking the piss, Case,’ I said mildly, sipping my beer. ‘I’m just not a fan is all.’

  ‘She became world famous after that sex tape, anyways. I reckon she’s a pretty smart bitch.’ Casey settled back into her chair.

  ‘Hey, Stu, you still got that Honda?’ Cash asked.

  The guys went inside the shed to look at Stu’s motorbike.

  ‘That was pretty hectic with those guys at Kambah Pool in the parking lot, hey?’ I said carefully, measuring Casey’s reaction.

  Casey laughed shortly. ‘Dickheads. But hey, I haven’t told my parents yet, okay? They would go mental or something. Probably kick me out of home and shit.’

  ‘What about Cash?’ I asked.

  ‘Meh.’ Casey studied a fingernail. ‘Dunno. He acts cool but I dunno what he’d think ’cos I’m his sister and stuff. Figure it’s best not to tell him either.’

  ‘I won’t tell him,’ I assured her. ‘What’s with “Britney”?’

  Casey’s mouth stretched into a grin. ‘As in Britney Spears! Hottest trashy bitch ever. My stage name.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘So.’ Casey smacked me on the arm. ‘Did you mack on with my brother or what?’

  I could feel the blush rising in my cheeks. ‘Yeah,’ I admitted, giving her a dopey grin.

  ‘You guys were gone for a while.’ Casey wiggled her eyebrows. ‘Did you . . .?’

  ‘No!’ I exclaimed. ‘No . . . we just kissed a bit.’

  ‘Duuude. I don’t give a fuck if you fuck my brother. Go for gold.’

  ‘I don’t know. We’ll see.’

  ‘Jez . . . Are you still, you know? A virgin?’ Casey stage whispered.

  ‘Fuck uuuup!’ I was embarrassed.

  ‘I just assumed you and Lukey would have done it by now.’

  ‘Lukey? No!’ I could feel my face reddening.

  ‘Oh, my gaaaawwwd!’ Casey hissed. ‘You’re a fucking virgin! Aren’t you?’

  ‘None of your business!’

  ‘That is amaaaazing. You are like prime real estate to guys, you know that?!’

  ‘Oh, gee, thanks.’ I rolled my eyes.

  ‘No, it’s a good thing! But babe, you don’t want to hold onto that thing for too long. Firstly, there are way too many hot guys out there and you need to start a-fucking. Secondly, you don’t want people to think you’re frigid.’

  ‘I don’t really care what people think, Casey.’

  ‘Okay, maybe not. But guys aren’t going to want to go home with the girl who pecks them on the cheek and then runs away. That’s called being a cock tease, honey.’

  ‘Then they just use you for sex, though!’ I protested.

  ‘So you go out and find another cock! Plenty of cock to go around!’

  ‘Maybe.’ I wanted to drop the subject.

  ‘Your problem is low self-esteem, Jez. You don’t even know how pretty you are and how much power that gives you straight off, up front. I’m not joking.’

  At that moment I looked up and caught Cash staring at me from over the top of Stu’s blue-and-silver Honda. Casey followed my eyeline. Cash broke into a grin as he realised we were clocking him, and he kind of shook his head, embarrassed, and looked away.

  ‘Seeee?!’ Casey urged. ‘He is totally hot for you. Your move!’

  ‘Okay, okay.’ My tone told her to change the subject.

  ‘Did I tell you I’m gunna get fakies?’ Casey gripped at her chest.

  ‘Fake boobs?’

  ‘Totes. As soon as I can afford it.’

  ‘Why? Your tits are okay.’

  ‘Mine are freakin’ A cups!’ Casey exclaimed. ‘I’m gunna get large Cs at least.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Jez!’ Casey rolled her eyes. ‘Don’t be a moron. Guys don’t go for flat-chested chicks. I’ll make three times as much money with fake breasts.’

  ‘Who cares what guys think?’

  ‘I care, stupid!’ Casey retorted. ‘I’m a stripper not a scientist. I’m gunna make heaps of money off being a hot bitch.’

  I couldn’t think of anything to say. For some reason I felt like I should be against boob implants, like I should be saying it was wrong and that men should like women for how they look naturally. But this was Casey. If she wasn’t stripping, what would she do for a living? She would probably get a job in retail and work really long hours for really crap money, or at best land some sort of desk job, where she would be bored out of her tiny brain. Or she’d get hitched to some bloke and pop out kids and
be a really shitty mother because she is way too self-obsessed to give a fuck about another person’s needs. That really got me thinking—a lot of that femi-nazi shit is fine for chicks smart enough to go to university and get proper jobs. And then those smart women with good jobs still whinge about how men get all the better paying jobs or whatever. What are the rest of us supposed to do? I wondered. What the fuck am I going to do?

  ‘Go for it,’ I said, feeling kind of moody all of a sudden. ‘Yeah, I reckon just go for it.’

  I looked up at Cash again. He was leaning over Stu’s bike, his tattooed biceps flexed, stomach rippled, concentration in his sky-blue eyes. Go for it, I repeated to myself, and then had to clench my guts for fear of the butterflies bringing up a bellyful of warm beer.

  FOURTEEN

  It was in the tent in the Hollands’ backyard, a few days later, with Cash. It was just another sticky afternoon. Casey, Cash and I were drinking beers, me straddling the tyre swing, Casey stretched out on a towel catching the last few warm rays, when the wind started to pick up and blew a storm over the Valley.

  ‘Fuck! Rain!’ Casey squealed, grabbing her towel and dashing inside the house.

  ‘Hey, Jez! Tent!’ Cash motioned to me and then pointed to his tent.

  I glanced back at Casey standing just inside the glass sliding door, grinning knowingly and poking her tongue between her forked index and middle fingers.

  I dashed across the yard towards Cash, who was kneeling inside the tent, holding up the flaps, looking at me expectantly, saying, ‘C’mon, Jez! You’re getting soaked’. I half fell into the tent behind Cash and he caught me in his arms and kissed me.

  Cash fumbled around for a moment then clicked on a pen-light. It lit the tent in a mild grey-yellow glow. The rain started coming down so hard we had to yell to hear each other. So we didn’t bother talking.

  Cash stripped off my wet t-shirt and jeans and balled them up in the corner of the tent and started kissing my belly, his breath warm on my goose-fleshy skin. I was drunk, stoned, only half conscious. Too out of it to care much whether I was doing things right or putting on a performance or whatever. I was curious to see Cash’s naked body, as I’d never really seen a man up close like that before, but his form was all shadows and warmth flashing back and forth across my vision, and then a weight on top of me, uncomfortable and heavy.

  Having sex for the first time—the pain wasn’t that hekkers or anything. When Cash entered me (such a horrible way of putting it, but how else can I say it? Started fucking me? Started making love to me?) I remember thinking, Well. There you go. You’re not a virgin anymore. After that, while he thrust away on top of me, my mind started wandering. Is this supposed to feel good? Am I going to have an orgasm? I don’t remember anything else except that when he finished (came? blew his load?) I heard the snap of rubber as he pulled off the condom. Done.

  Cash rolled off me, his arm slung across my waist, his face burrowed into my neck. He kissed me a few times—on the cheek and on my ear. Then I could hear his breathing growing heavier and soon he was snoring. I turned my head so he wasn’t next to my ear, pulled my bikini back on and lay awake for a while, curled up under the sleeping bag, rubbing myself to try to keep warm.

  ‘Jez! Jezza!’

  I woke half aware that my head was wet, took in a sharp breath and gurgled on some water then shot upright into a sitting position, spluttering and shaking the water from my hair.

  ‘The tent is flooding,’ Cash’s voice came out of the darkness, but I could hear the laughter in it. ‘C’mon. Inside.’

  Cash unzipped the tent, and we crawled out into puddles of earth. I could feel the hard mud scrape my knees and shins as I scrambled to my feet and dashed across the yard, through the rain, towards the light coming from the house. Cash opened the sliding door for me and I stepped into the house, skidding on the tiled floor and grimacing at the arctic gush of the air conditioning against my flesh as I stood, in my bikini, while Mr and Mrs Holland looked up, startled from where they reclined on the leather lounges, watching telly.

  ‘Hi,’ I said weakly, peering at them through thick clumps of hair plastered over my face, my hands automatically swooping down to cover my bare body.

  ‘That you, Jessica?’ Mrs Holland leaned forward against the glare from the telly and squinted at me. ‘What on earth . . .?’

  ‘Been for a swim, Jez?’ Mr Holland boomed, clearly amused.

  ‘Uh, no . . .’ I stammered before looking at Cash desperately. He just stood there in his shorts, elbowing me in the ribs, grinning like a maniac.

  Mrs Holland wrinkled her face in distaste as she surveyed our sodden, dirt-caked bodies. She threw her hands up in the air and let out a dramatic sigh as if to say, What am I going to do with you kids?!

  ‘Stay there,’ she said in her no-nonsense ‘Mum’ voice, her tuckshop lady arms jiggling as she gestured. ‘Don’t get mud in the house. I’ll get you some towels. You’ll need to go straight into the shower.’

  I stood at the door, shuffling miserably from one foot to the other. I’m pretty sure if anybody could have seen my face it would have been burning scarlet. Mrs Holland emerged from the hallway with two big towels and wrapped one around me and started rubbing me down, briskly.

  I’d always been a little in awe of Mrs Holland. She was a short, fat lady, with an intimidating presence, but was as fiercely protective of her kids as a lioness with her cubs, which was kind of ironic because Cash and Casey were two of the wildest kids I knew. Mum and I once watched from the front yard, on one of the several occasions the police came to question Cash about something, as Mrs Holland stood, hands on hips, shaking her finger, red-faced, saying, He’s not the bad egg you think he is! Which I found super amusing at the time because I’d never heard anybody say ‘bad egg’ before.

  ‘You shower first, Jez.’ Mrs Holland ushered me down the hall to the bathroom. ‘What the hell have you two been up to, anyway? Doing a bloody rain dance?’

  ‘Rain dance!’ Cash hooted from where he was drying himself in the living room. ‘Nah, tent flooded. Must’ve got a hole. I didn’t realise. Haven’t seen rain for a while.’

  Mrs Holland fixed me with one more bemused stare before closing the bathroom door behind me, but a smile itched around the corner of her mouth to let me know she wasn’t really angry.

  After showering I stepped out of the steaming bathroom, a towel wrapped double around my body, damp bikini in hand, and felt the air conditioning blast against my skin again, refreshing this time. I tapped on Casey’s door.

  ‘Case?’ I let myself in.

  She was sprawled on her bed, pink-cased laptop about thirty centimetres in front of her face. She broke into a sly smile when she saw me.

  ‘So?!’

  I shrugged and tried not to grin like a maniac. ‘It was good,’ I lied, trying to be all casual but secretly ecstatic to have her attention and admiration.

  ‘High fives!’ Casey raised her palm.

  ‘What’s happening?’ I asked, meeting her hand and plopping down on her bed.

  ‘Facebook,’ Casey replied, looking back at the screen. ‘Borrow some clothes.’ She gestured vaguely to her cupboard.

  I went over to her white laminate tallboy and pulled out a pair of cotton shorts and a singlet, and wriggled into them under my towel, too self-conscious to get completely naked in front of Casey. I took a look around her room while I was dressing. Her carpet was cream coloured, clean and plush under my feet. There were only a few knick-knacks on top of her dresser, and a half-open drawer stuffed to the brim with accessories and junk jewellery. There was no dust, only clean surfaces. I thought of my own bedroom, like a pirate’s cave, every surface overflowing with dust-laden shit, burned-out candles and incense holders. I was betting Casey’s mum still cleaned her room for her.

  ‘I’m starving,’ Casey announced, sitting up. ‘Want a snack?’

  ‘Sure,’ I said.

  I followed Casey to the kitchen. Her parents were still on the couch.
Cash lazed on the floor rug, his back against the coffee table. Their faces glowed blue and purple from the light of the flat-screen television, and they helped themselves to bowls of nuts and rice crackers.

  Casey emerged from the kitchen with a bag of Doritos, salsa, and two cans of Diet Coke. She pressed one into my hand and then crossed the room to the sofa and flopped down between her parents. Mr Holland casually slung his arm around his daughter’s shoulders and sneakily reached into the bag of corn chips and nicked a couple.

  ‘Oi!’ Casey shrieked with a giggle. ‘Hands off, piggy!’

  ‘I paid for them chips.’ Mr Holland grinned, crunching a handful of Doritos in his mouth.

  ‘You don’t need any chips, Bruce,’ Mrs Holland admonished. ‘You’re getting fat!’

  ‘Me?’ Mr Holland rubbed his beer gut. ‘This is all six-pack, love.’

  I stood awkwardly in the kitchen observing the scene that was being played out before me. I came to the conclusion that this type of event was unusual for the Hollands. I’d known their family for almost a decade and had never really seen Casey and Cash hang out with their parents. It seemed to me they were role-playing the ‘happy family’ thing, and I wondered if they would have bothered if I hadn’t been there as an audience. Casey kept looking over at me as she chatted to her dad, and Cash would occasionally smile in my direction while he talked with his mum. It was as though they needed me there to reassure themselves that they had an inner family circle of which I could never be a part. Or maybe they felt a little self-conscious because they knew that I was the poor girl from next door with the alcoholic single mum who lived in a govvie house and they were experiencing some of that class guilt that people get. I didn’t care, really. Truthfully, sometimes when people treated me differently I felt a little special because I knew I’d had a ‘tough’ upbringing. Then I’d go home and the fridge would be empty and Mum’d be drunk or stoned with Shaz, both of them cackling like hyenas listening to loud music trying to pretend they were still young, and then I’d feel so bitter and twisted up inside I just wanted to scream or cry or throw a hard and pointy something at my mum’s skull.