Mum was unbelievable. She could totally manipulate whole conversations so quickly I found it hard to keep up. I was determined not to back down this time.
‘Are you serious? Food? There’s some two-minute noodles and a jar of fucking Chicken Tonight sauce from 1991!’
‘God, you exaggerate. I haven’t had time to do groceries this week, I was busy organising bloody Christmas, wasn’t I?’ Mum was in full defensive mode now. ‘That was bloody expensive, too. And there was HEAPS of food at Christmas.’
‘What about the other fifty weeks of the year?’ I raised my voice to match Mum’s. ‘And there was that time I asked you to buy shampoo and you kept “forgetting” for, like, two weeks. I ended up shoplifting some because I was sick of wiping the grease off my roots with toilet paper!’
‘That never happened.’
‘Yes, it did,’ I hissed. ‘Not that you would have noticed.’
‘And what did I tell you at the time?’
‘MUM! You can’t wash hair with SOAP.’
‘Fine, so you’re moving out, then? And I suppose it’s all because of me?’ Mum was switching gears, I could already sense it. She was moving into self-pity mode. This was usually the one that got me.
‘Mum . . .’
‘You don’t even know how lucky you are just to have a mum who loves you! I never even had a proper mum! Foster families! And then I was living with Paulie’s family.’
‘Mum, I know. I’ve heard this a thousand times.’
‘And then there was you. My little Jez. My own daughter. And now she wants to abandon me, too!’
‘Oh, Mum . . . It’s not you . . .’
Wait a second . . . It was totally her!
‘It is me, Jez.’ Tears began to slide down her cheeks. ‘I’m a drunk . . . I’m pathetic . . .’
‘Mum, please, don’t —’ ‘No, it’s true. And I’m sorry I kept forgetting the shampooooo!’ Mum began bawling.
‘It was just that one time with the shampoo. I don’t know why I brought that up.’
‘And you’ve always had food, right?’ Mum blinked at me through her tears. ‘You never went hungry?’
‘Yeah, it was fine. Just that other families . . .’
‘We aren’t other families. We’re just us two. You and me. You’re all I’ve got.’
I sighed and edged a bit closer and put my hand on top of Mum’s.
‘I’m sorry, Mum. But you know I’ve got to leave sometime.’
‘Can it be later rather than sooner? Please, Jez? I’m really, really going to try. No more late nights. Lots of groceries. Lots of shampoo.’
I laughed in spite of myself.
‘Serious, Jez. I’m really gunna try not to drink anymore.’
I’d heard this before. But it’s not like Mum wasn’t being sincere. That was part of her problem. She totally believed all her own bullshit.
‘Do you drink because of me?’ I asked suddenly. ‘Do you think you might even be better, like, without me around?’
‘Christ, no. You’re the best thing . . .’ Mum gripped at her pillow, her face all bunched up.
‘Oh, Mum, don’t cry.’ I climbed under the doona and gave her an awkward hug.
‘Please stay, Jez,’ Mum was bawling again. ‘Please stay . . . I’m so sorry. I don’t really want you to go, I was just trying . . .’ Mum started gasping, hardly even able to talk through her tears.
‘Mum! Breathe!’
Mum gulped in some air. ‘I can’t stop you from going to Melbourne. If I tried then you’d hate me even more. I hate that you hate me. I hate that I’ve been a bad mother.’
‘Oh, Mum. I don’t hate you.’
‘I want you to stay here! Please, please stay here. I still need you!’ Mum sobbed. ‘Please don’t go, Jezza . . .’
‘I’ll think about it,’ I said.
Mum grasped for the glass of water on her bedside table and choked down a gulp and then collapsed back against her pillows, staring up the ceiling, pulling her best sad-sack head and all I could do was kind of pat her hand and say, It’s okay . . . It will all be okay, Mum . . .
She’d done it again.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Lukey and I started hooking up.
That day we were hanging around an abandoned shop that we liked to break into. We didn’t even need to break in anymore. Nearly all the windows were smashed and nobody’d bothered to come fix them; maybe the shop was going to get demolished. We dumped a couple of pills each to get really off tap, and then smoked a fat joint straight away. We were both in destructive moods, just fucking shit up and kicking over shelves, then getting out cans of spray paint and drawing dumb pictures and slogans all over the walls. FUCK THE PIGS. MEAT IS MURDER.
When the pills kicked in we calmed down a bit and slouched in a corner and smoked durries in silence, side by side, our backs against the back wall of the shop, surveying our damage and having a good laugh about it. We didn’t talk much. I didn’t want to think about the future. The future seemed to me like just this black hole. The only thing I could really picture myself doing the next year was going back to school to finish Year 12, but I reckoned that was because I knew what my school looked like, and I didn’t know what Melbourne looked like, or what I looked like in Melbourne, what I’d be doing, or where I’d be living. So I didn’t think about it. I dug around in my pocket and pulled out a berry-flavoured Lip Smacker and slicked it over my lips.
‘Fuuuck. These pills.’ I looked sideways at Lukey, not daring to move my head in case it fell off my shoulders.
‘Fuckin’ oath.’ He sighed. ‘So hectic.’
‘Maybe I should have only done one.’ I felt a bit panicked. I concentrated on breathing, but the waves of the drug were crashing through me like a stormy ocean, knocking me over and under.
‘Jez? Jez, you right? Your face is like . . . white.’ Lukey rubbed my back. ‘You want to go for a walk? Get out of here?’
I nodded.
‘Let’s go, then. Back to mine.’
When we got to Lukey’s bedroom he pulled off his t-shirt. His armpits were shiny with sweat, all the stringy, black hairs twisted together in little clumps.
‘Do you mind if I get naked?’ Lukey tugged down his shorts and kicked them across the room. ‘I mean . . . do you want to, like, mess around a bit? It’d be fun, like . . . I’ve never done it on pills before.’
‘Sure,’ I said, like it was no big deal. ‘It’s so hot, hey?’
I was nervous. I eased my t-shirt over my head. My skin was so pale I could see all the blue veins running down my ribs, and I had a t-shirt line, the skin on my arms pink and dry from a fading sunburn.
I climbed onto the bed next to Lukey. I was in my bra and undies. He was in his boxers, satin ones with Peter Griffin from Family Guy printed on them, and he was still wearing his socks.
‘Are you gunna take your socks off?’
He reached down and peeled off his socks. His feet looked all spongy and smelled like rotten garbage.
‘What’s with your feet?’
‘I dunno. I think it’s like, whatdyacallit? Some fungus thing? ’Cos Dad never cleans the shower.’
‘Why don’t you clean the shower?’
‘Are you serious? Who cares?’
‘It smells.’
Lukey shrugged. ‘Does it bother you?’
‘I guess not, no.’
We started kissing.
Lukey pulled back. ‘You taste funny.’
‘It’s berry lip gloss. Is it gross?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
We kissed again. Lukey angled himself so that he was half on top of me and reached around to undo my bra. He struggled with it.
‘Do you want me to . . .?’
‘I nearly got it.’ He kept struggling. ‘Here, just turn around for a sec.’
I turned around. He got the bra undone and pulled it off my arms. I lay there, bare-chested, both Lukey and I looking down at my breasts. They were relaxed in the heat, two small
swells of tissue topped with pink-brown puffy nipples. I felt they were totally uninteresting compared to breasts I’d seen on telly, which were big, hard, balloon-like with long erect nipples. I wondered what Lukey was thinking, but didn’t want to ask.
‘You have really nice breasts,’ he said finally, massaging one of them.
It was hot, uncomfortable, sweaty. Writhing around on his stinking sheets, which probably hadn’t been washed for months, our clammy skins gripped and pulled on each other stickily. Not the way you imagine when you see sweaty people having sex in the movies, sliding over each other, all oily. Our bodies, both mostly skin over bones, jutted and jabbed like we were all knees, hips and elbows. For the first time in my life I wished I had some soft fatty flesh on me.
Lukey took off his boxer shorts and then pulled down my underwear and flung them onto the floor. I wondered if I was supposed to have removed his shorts for him. I stole a look at his crotch. A soft pear-shaped penis, broad at the base, narrow at the tip, hung like a sock on a doorknob under a surprisingly large bush of black hair. It wasn’t ugly, but it wasn’t anything that nice to look at, either. I could see big blue veins twisted like rope under the surface of the skin, and a gathering of darker skin at the tip, ruffled and wrinkled.
‘You’re not hard,’ I said.
‘I’ll get there,’ Lukey said, guiding my hand down to his penis while he gently kissed my face, neck and lips. ‘It’s the pills.’
Lukey got an erection. The soft, gentle kisses turned into hard tongue pashes. He avoided my eyes in favour of my breasts or vag and started poking his fingers in down there. I could feel how dry I was. When he opened his palm and started rubbing at me, hard and then harder, it felt like sandpaper.
‘It’s the drugs,’ I whispered, shifting his hand away.
‘Maybe.’ Lukey frowned for a second and then flopped back onto his pillow with a frustrated sigh. ‘I’m gunna get blue balls now.’
‘What?’
He stared at the ceiling, one arm crooked behind his head and the other hand pulling at his cock. ‘I just really need to come.’
‘Oh, okay . . .’
‘I’ll just wank, okay?’
He half knelt over me, one arm by my shoulder supporting his weight, the other hand pumping away at his cock, his eyes avoiding mine, fixed on my breasts, until he came, hot and thick over my belly. He fell back onto the bed next to me, a little breathless, his fringe sticking to his forehead with sweat.
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘You got a towel or something?’
He leaned over the side of the bed and handed me a t-shirt.
‘It has to be washed anyway.’
I wiped myself and handed the t-shirt back to him. He threw it back on the floor and turned to me.
‘You want me to do anything for you?’ He gestured vaguely towards my crotch.
‘Nah,’ I said. ‘It’s okay. I’m feeling kind of sleepy anyway.’
‘Yeah, fuck.’ Lukey nestled his face into my neck and slung an arm and a leg across my body. ‘Me too. So tired . . .’
Within minutes his breathing grew deep and heavy and he was asleep. The light was still on. I got up and turned it off and lay in the dark, fingering my clitoris. I was still dry. As dry as old leather. I gave up and, eventually, fell asleep.
I woke up to the smell of cigarette smoke. Lukey was sitting up in bed, a durry clenched between his lips, Xbox controller in hand.
‘Hey.’ I pulled the sheets to my neck and propped myself up on my elbow. ‘Give us a drag.’
‘Want one?’
‘Nah, just a drag.’
He took another quick puff then passed me the cigarette. I smoked it down to the butt and then dropped it in an empty beer can on his bedside table. Lukey put down the Xbox controller.
‘How’re you feeling?’
‘Meh.’ I felt like shit. My head felt hollow and my stomach ached with lack of food.
‘Comedown is harsh, hey?’
‘Totally. I hate the comedown. I always cry,’ I confessed.
‘Serious?’
‘Yeah. It’s not like I’m always sad or anything. It’s more like . . . I just don’t know what to feel. It’s just like . . . nothing.’
Lukey slipped his arm underneath me. ‘Weird times last night, hey. I mean, it was good. But weird, too.’
‘Yeah, I know what you mean.’
‘I feel bad I didn’t make you . . . y’know . . .’
‘Oh. That’s okay.’
‘I was just tired.’
‘No worries.’
‘I could try again?’
He kissed me. His breath was sour and stale with cigarette smoke. I turned my head away so his kisses landed on my cheek and neck. His hand found its way in between my legs and his fingers touched my clit and he began to rub gently. It felt nice. I sighed.
‘You like that?’ Lukey began to rub harder.
‘No, like you were doing it before,’ I said. ‘Softer.’
‘Oh, okay. Most girls like it hard.’
I ignored him and closed my eyes. ‘I like it better soft.’
Lukey shifted on top of me and I could feel his fringe tickling my belly as he kissed further and further down until his head stopped between my legs. His tongue and mouth worked over my folds, softly sucking and licking. Minutes seemed to last for ages, until my hips began to buck up and down and my hands went numb and I didn’t know what the fuck was happening. Lukey held my hips with both hands and bore down on me, his whole mouth covering all of me until it felt as though every feeling in my body and every bit of warmth rushed to that one spot between my legs and I cried out with the fucking brilliant pleasure of it all, Ooooh. My fucking. God!
Lukey emerged and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
‘Good?’ He looked smug.
I let out a shaky breath in reply. Lukey flung himself back on the bed.
‘So is now a good time to ask if you’re gunna come with me to Melbs?’
‘Ha, yeah, probably.’ I wiggled my numb toes.
‘So are you gunna come?’
I squeezed my eyes shut. ‘Mum is gunna kill me.’
‘YEEESSSSSS!’ Lukey leapt on top of me and wrestled me into a hug. ‘Fuck yes! This is gunna be so fucking good we’ll crash at my cousin’s until we get jobs and then when we have enough money we can get a really sweet place just us on our own and I’ll start selling pills and we’ll have a ton of cash to party and . . .’
I rolled onto my stomach and switched on Lukey’s electric fan and enjoyed the breeze brushing my naked skin. Sometimes life could be pretty fucking sweet, I decided.
TWENTY-EIGHT
I practically skipped home, still moist between my legs and smelling of Lukey’s sweat and Lynx deodorant. My cheeks were raw from Lukey’s stubble. Pash rash. I grinned to myself.
‘Fuck, YEAH!’ I exclaimed spontaneously, the sound of my voice surprising me. I broke into a run towards a low branch of gum and swung from it monkey-style. ‘Yeee-haw!’
One of our neighbours appeared at his flyscreen and bashed with his fists. ‘Get out of the tree!’
I dropped to the concrete and brushed my hands on my jeans.
‘WHAT’RE YOU GUNNA DO ABOUT IT!’ I yelled back and stuck my finger up at him. I smiled all the way home.
‘Mum?’ I called, crashing through the screen door. ‘You home?’
‘Here!’ her voice was muffled, coming from the direction of her bedroom.
‘Mum?’ I stuck my head in her door. ‘What are you doing?’
Her arse was hanging out her closet door, her head buried somewhere inside. Around her ankles were mounds of clothes, towels, elastic-shot knickers and tangles of bras.
‘Spring clean.’ Mum emerged from the closet, her face red and sweaty. ‘Chucking a bunch of shit out.’
‘Why?’ I hesitated. Something was up. Mum almost never cleaned like this. ‘What’s going on?’
She glanced at me quickly, grinning like a maniac, wiping her b
row with self-satisfaction.
‘New start. Out with the old and all that,’ she said, sweeping a hand across the mess of books, knick-knacks, tape cassettes and shit on her bed. She picked up a book, a Stephen King novel, and flipped through the pages absent-mindedly.
‘I might start reading again,’ she murmured and squinted at the back cover. ‘I remember enjoying this when I read it years ago. You don’t get much time to read when you’re a mum.’
‘I’ve never seen you read.’
‘I used to read. Where d’ya think I got all these books from?’
‘So read, then. I’ve never stopped you from reading.’
‘Maybe I will,’ Mum said optimistically. ‘Put this in the lounge with the paperbacks, will you, Jez?’
‘Tell me what’s going on first! Are we moving house?’
‘What? No! Nothing like that. I’m cleaning.’
I took the book from her. ‘This is a horror. I thought you didn’t like horror stuff.’
‘It’s more like a thriller.’
‘Fine.’ I waved the book at her. ‘I’ll put it with the other books, the ones you never read. But you’re gunna tell me what’s going on!’
I went down the hallway to the lounge room and Mum followed me. There was an ugly old brown shelf behind the velour couch which held plastic-framed photos—mostly of me as a kid, a few of me and Mum, Mum’s dusty collection of Happy Meal toys, which was pretty much her pride and joy in life because she’d been collecting them since I was born, and about a dozen paperback novels. I shoved the Stephen King onto the shelf.
‘There,’ I said. ‘You can not read that for another twenty years now.’
‘Don’t be like that, Jez,’ Mum said mildly, collapsing back on the couch. ‘Here, sit.’
‘Aren’t you hot in that thing?’ I sat next to her and tugged on the sleeve of her long-sleeved dressing gown.
‘I haven’t showered yet. I got too excited.’
‘About cleaning?’
‘No, not about that,’ she murmured, being all mysterious.
‘TELL ME!’ I couldn’t take it anymore. ‘Excited about what?’
‘About . . . my new job!’
Snake Bite Page 18