Emma grabbed his hand. “You’ve had a stomach full of monsters over the past few weeks. A couple more aren’t going to frighten you off.”
He watched the gathering of smocks as they drifted out of sight over the crest of the hill. The night swarmed around them and the ocean whispered as it collapsed against the shore. In the forest, new noises were emanating, from things Sean guessed they hadn’t seen when they first entered it.
PART FOUR
THE SHERIFF’S PICTURE FRAME
– Derek Raymond,
CHAPTER FORTY: XX
Last night, it had seemed there would be no end to the pleasures that accosted her every move. There were many options and she explored them all. It was a long night. It was a very messy night.
At first the town was too bright for her. Lights on every building dazzled her as she walked through streets thronged with people. She felt her mouth watering but quelled that appetite in the hope that it might be superseded by another. She saw herself, ghostly and unsure, in the deep-black panes of shop windows. She concentrated on her panic, which threatened to engulf her whenever she lost her reflection to a group of men or women walking by. Just because she didn’t see herself didn’t mean she wasn’t there. Once the group had bypassed her, she returned to the window. The black dress. The long, almost uncontrollably curly hair. The eyes that seemed too green to be human and better suited to a large cat. The decolletage. The curve of the buttocks. The jewel on a necklace. She saw these things on herself and echoed on the women around her in different styles and colours. The men looked at her. The women did not. She fitted in.
She focused on a group of men and followed them into a pub called the Tut ’n’ Shive. The inner walls of the pub were painted black and the lighting was more subtle than on the street. The music and voices were very loud however, and she had to compensate for that. Susannah’s hearing was extremely good – too good – but she found that Simon’s was less so, which helped in here. She felt confident about the way she looked, an amalgam of the best of those with whom she had come into contact.
She ordered a drink at the bar, pointing to a silver bottle that a number of other women were swigging from. When the bartender asked her for money, she stared at him blankly.
“I’ll get this.”
She turned to find a man standing next to her, brandishing his wallet.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I forgot.”
“Forgot your purse?” The man shook his head. “It happens.” When she took a sip of the stuff in the bottle (foul – so sweet it coated her throat with an awful, syrupy skin) she sensed him assessing her body. It made her giddy and it was all she could do to stop herself from grabbing him right now, and doing what the women in the pictures had done.
“I’m Mick,” he said, wiping a hand against his thick denim shirt exaggeratedly before offering it for her to shake. This she did, tasting him through her pores and finding it hard to relinquish his fingers. He didn’t seem to mind too much.
“I’m Susannah,” she said. “Susannah Gleave. I’m twenty-four. I have good tits.”
Mick’s eyes widened. “Well, yes, I can see that.” He assessed her more openly. “Yes. The jury has returned its verdict. Guilty. Of having good... bosoms.” He laughed, a strange, staccato yammer that sounded like a child’s impression of a machine gun. “Are you foreign?” he asked.
“Foreign?”
“Yeah, you know... not from these shores.”
Cheke smiled uncertainly. “You can tell?”
“Not much,” Mick said, theatrically. “What are you? Swedish? You look Swedish. Athletic. Tall.”
“Swedish,” Cheke said, trying out the unfamiliar word. “Yes. If you like.”
Mick took a sip of his pint, the first flicker of a frown creasing his forehead. He shook it away. Cheke looked him over. He was quite a bit shorter than she was. His hair was dark, but was silvering at the temples. He was balding at his crown. He wore his shirt outside his trousers. Black, chunky boots rooted him steadily to the beer- soaked floor. She liked his overall chunkiness. She liked his pale eyes too. Grey, like Gleave’s. Wolfish.
“Your prick,” she said. “I need to know. Is it–”
Mick spluttered foam over the edge of his beer glass. “Ex
“Sorry... I mean... your cock? Is that right? I wondered, is it big? Are you shaved? Down there? Have you fucked before? What noises do women make, when you–”
Mick held up his hand. “Look, if I’d had twelve Kronenbourg, it might be that I’d be all over you for what you’re saying right now. But as it is, this is my first. And this is all a bit too weird for me. So, good luck. Maybe some other time, hey?”
She watched him back away and then press through the cluster of bodies massing at the bar. Somebody vacated a stool and she slid onto it, nursing the bottle between her fingers. She was considering going after him when another man stepped up beside her, glanced once at her and then, when she didn’t avert her gaze, turned to face her and smiled broadly.
“Hi,” he said. “I’m Derek.”
“You’re black,” Cheke said.
The smile died. “Yes. I am. Is that a problem?”
Cheke was astonished by the cat and mouse. There didn’t seem to be any scope for direct talking. She thought of how quickly Mick had retreated when she cut through any charade. She smiled, as warmly as she possibly could, shifting her body around on the stool so that he could see whatever, and as much, as he wanted of her. “No,” she said. “You’re beautiful.”
It was the right answer.
He took her back to a flat in Woolston, on the eastern fringes of the town. He poured her a glass of wine from a half-finished bottle in the fridge and put on some music – something he called hip hop – before making it clear that the stereo cost a month’s wages. The music meant nothing to her. It hurt her ears, made it hard for her to understand anything he said. He asked her if she fancied some coke, extracting a small bag of white powder from beneath a sofa cushion. She nodded, said sure, she wouldn’t mind, and waited to see what he would do with it. He chopped a few lines with a razor blade on a mirror and offered her a rolled ?50 note.
“You first,” she said. She followed his lead.
After they had snorted a couple of lines each, Derek pushed her back against the sofa. He unbuckled his jeans and let them fall to the floor.
