Taming the Beast Read online

  Jamie nodded and took a sip of his beer. He was exceptionally bad at small talk. Before Mike had come along he had been lurking on the edges of a group of people he vaguely knew from uni, pretending to be listening to the conversation. But by holding his shoulder and talking fast, Mike had drawn Jamie away from the group, and here he stood face-to-face with this bloke he barely knew who had very recently had sex with one of Jamie’s oldest friends. A different kind of bloke would say something like so how does old Jess shape up in the sack. Jamie didn’t know why he could think these things and not say them, but it explained why his friends were all girls.

  ‘The legendary Sarah hasn’t shown up then?’

  Jamie shrugged. ‘I haven’t seen her. She might be around somewhere.’

  ‘Sounds like the kind of girl a bloke would notice though.’

  ‘True.’

  Mike nodded and lit a cigarette. ‘Notice in a look-at-that-ugly-crack-whore-throwing-herself-at-everything-in-pants way?’

  ‘No! Did Jess tell you she looked like that?’

  Mike laughed and held up his palms. ‘Jess didn’t say anything about how she looked. I just assumed from all those stories that she…’ He bit his lip, looking off into the distance. ‘So what does she look like?’

  Jamie stalled by tossing his almost-full beer into a nearby cardboard box, then taking another from a slightly further away box, opening it, drinking from it. He had no idea how to describe Sarah’s looks. She was not ugly. She did not look like a crack whore or any kind of whore or any kind of addict. She did not look old enough to be in university or to live alone or to drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes and have sex. She did not look as though her voice would be as deep as it was.

  She looked like – she was – the daughter of suburban, upper middle-class professionals. She was what a lot of people called short and skinny, but what Jamie called average. Her skin was so pale she could be mistaken for an English tourist. She was the only person Jamie had ever seen who could have hair down to her arse without looking like a religious freak. It was shiny and not quite black, and when she tied it back, her ponytail was thicker than Jamie’s wrist. Her eyes were fucking terrifying.

  Of course he didn’t say any of this to Mike. He just shrugged and said, ‘She’s okay,’ and went to find Shelley.

  2

  Most kids Sarah knew applied for their Learner’s Permits on their sixteenth birthday, spent a year of Saturdays learning to drive, received their Driver’s Licence on their seventeenth birthday, and on turning eighteen, a brand new car from Mum and Dad. Sarah managed the first step okay; at sixteen she was still – barely – living up to her parents’ expectations. But then everything went to hell, and she spent most of that year struggling to keep herself fed and clothed and in school, and so had neither the time nor the money to take driving lessons. Her seventeenth birthday was a blur of drinking, smoking and fucking, followed by another year of bareknuckled survival, and by her eighteenth she had decided it was better she didn’t have a licence because she was quite often either drunk or high, and besides, getting lifts from men was the easiest way to get them into her flat.

  The downside to her non-driver status was that she was reliant on the local private bus company to get her to and from work each night. As the only bus service in the district, it had no competition, and thus its drivers were careless about sticking to the timetable, sometimes ignoring it altogether and ending their shift an hour or two early. On these occasions – and after freezing her arse off at the bus stop for twenty-minutes, Sarah realised tonight was just such an occasion – she was forced to either walk, hitch or call Jamie. She had promised Jamie she would never, ever hitch, and she had promised herself she would only ever do it in daylight.

  ‘Shit.’ She stamped her feet against the cold, but her legs were tired after her double shift and the stamping hurt, so she stopped. She looked back at the steakhouse; she would have to go back in there to use the phone. She really didn’t want to do that: the drunks started to get nasty after eleven and she was still in uniform which meant she couldn’t kick them in the nuts or tell them to go fuck themselves. Not without losing her job, anyway.

  ‘Shit. Shit. Shit.’ Her leather jacket was warm enough, but the wind whipped against her bare legs. Her sore, tired, cold, bare legs. She swore again, stepped to the edge of the footpath and stuck out her thumb.

  It didn’t take long – three or four minutes, seven or eight cars – before a late model Commodore station wagon pulled up alongside her. ‘Where you going?’ the driver called out. He was fortyish, dark, thinning hair, wire-rimmed glasses. Sarah peeked into the car: a child safety seat and a couple of picture books on the back seat; an empty diet coke can on the floor in the front; a blue bear with a polka-dot bowtie hanging from the rear-vision mirror.

  ‘North Parramatta. Just past the gaol. Is that out of your way?’

  ‘Not at all. Hop in.’

  The car smelt like the bottom of Sarah’s fridge, but it was warm and she was off her feet so she was happy. He drove like a man used to chauffeuring small children around. Slow, but with frequent, fast glances to the side, over his shoulder and into the rear-vision mirror.

  ‘Just got off work?’ he asked, glancing sideways and down at her legs.

  ‘Yeah. I normally catch the bus but it didn’t show up.’

  ‘Still though, you really shouldn’t get into cars with strange men.’

  Sarah looked at him. He had a lot of wrinkles around his eyes, and his nose was the tiniest bit crooked. From the front it probably wouldn’t even be noticeable, but Sarah was looking at him side on, and so she could see the kink that was probably from football or maybe squash. Not from a bar fight though: he was too clean cut. He was about three years away from being past it. He had nice ears. Small, neat ears.

  ‘I mean…’ he glanced at her legs again, ‘I could be an axe murderer, or a serial killer.’

  ‘You could be, but you’re not, are you?’

  He chuckled, revealing a double chin. ‘Well, I’d hardly tell you if I was, would I?’

  Sarah smiled. ‘You wouldn’t need to. I have an inbuilt psychopath sensor.’ She touched the top of his arm, briefly, as a test. He gasped, then tried to cover it by clearing his throat. She touched him again, this time letting her hand rest on his forearm. ‘I’m perfectly safe with you, I can tell.’

  He looked at her face for the first time. ‘How old are you?’

  She skimmed her palm along the soft fur of his arm. ‘Old enough.’

  The man frowned at the windscreen. ‘Where do I turn off?’

  ‘Left at the next lights.’

  He drove on in silence. Sarah wondered what he had been doing, driving this family wagon around the suburbs so late on a weeknight. She suspected he had been heading for one of the Sorrel Street brothels. Either that or he actually was a psychopath looking for his next victim.

  ‘So where are you off to tonight? After you drop me off, I mean.’

  He licked his lips. ‘Oh… nowhere.’

  They were nearly at her place. She was so tired; she really should just go to bed. The man was biting his lip, concentrating way too hard on his driving.

  ‘Pull up in front of that truck.’

  He did as she asked. Leaving his hands firmly at ten and two o’clock, staring straight ahead. She was tired, yes, but that was the least of what she was feeling. Waitressing robbed her of herself; she became a girl in a uniform who would smile perkily at the twenty-something blokes who asked her if hospitality was a fulfilling career; a cookie-cutter waitress who would not pour beer over the head of the old man who pinched her arse every time she walked by his table; a sturdy competent pair of hands moving from wiping to stacking to scribbling order codes to scrubbing. Fourteen hours of being closed to the world left her bursting to be opened.

  ‘I’m going to have a beer before bed. You want one?’

  The man gripped the steering wheel with shaking hands. ‘I do, yes.’

&nb
sp; He babbled while she unlocked her door – he had been to a work function, couldn’t stay long, his wife was expecting him home – but once inside he fell silent.

  Sarah watched his face; she could always tell how a man would fuck by the way he reacted to her flat. Raised eyebrows and a turned-up nose meant the bloke would go on to screw her like he was the prince and she the scullery maid; sad eyes and pitying sighs meant she would be the little lost girl getting fucked by her kind protector; open disapproval at her housekeeping skills warned her she would be the naughty daughter getting punished by Daddy; and hesitation, fear even, meant she would be driving the action, showing the poor fellow that everything was okay. Her favourites – and the rarest by far – were the ones who didn’t react at all, didn’t even look around. The blokes who had her on her back as soon as the door was closed, who could spend a day and night in her slum and never discover the colour of her walls or the layout of her kitchen.

  ‘Is this…’ The man squinted at her. ‘You live alone?’

  ‘Yep.’ Sarah walked past him, reaching her arm to the right to turn on her bedroom light, then to the left to light up the bathroom. The one in the combined hallway/kitchen/living room was already on. The man continued to squint through the gloom. She really should get a lamp. A tall, bright lamp to stand next to the sofa. But then what was the point? All she did here was sleep, screw and study, so as long as she could see her books, she didn’t need much light at all.

  ‘Have you lived here long?’

  Sarah handed him a beer and opened one for herself. ‘Forever,’ she told him, which felt true. It had been five years, which was almost a quarter of her whole life.

  The man sipped his beer, staring intently at the nicotine yellow wall in front of him. ‘How old did you say you were?’

  ‘I didn’t.’ Sarah peeled off her jacket and kicked off her shoes, sighing at the immediate relief this gave her feet. ‘Smoke?’ she offered.

  ‘No, I don’t–’ He nodded at the pile of textbooks on her foldout card table. ‘You’re a student.’

  ‘When I’m not a waitress.’ Sarah sank into one of the five-dollar chairs, indicating to the man that he should sit in the other. He hesitated, perhaps wondering if the rickety old thing would hold him, then lowered himself until he was perched on the edge of the seat.

  ‘What do you study?’

  ‘Arts.’ Sarah stubbed out her half-smoked cigarette. At first she had thought he was the nervous type, but it was clear now he was a protector. She could see the cogs turning behind his small black eyes: how it would only take a little money to get her some decent furniture, how the least he could do was pay her uni fees, how he could make sure he always picked her up when she worked late, so she wouldn’t have to come back alone to this grim little flat.

  ‘Hey, you haven’t seen the view.’ Sarah stood and walked the three steps to her bedroom and then the two to her bedroom window. She knew without checking that he was right behind her.

  ‘It’s an alley.’ There was an angry edge to his voice. ‘A garbage filled alley.’

  ‘What a pessimist. You’re looking at a treasure trove. Look, we’ve got a couple of mattresses, some car tyres, and that cane chair would be lovely if only the seat wasn’t punched out.’ Sarah felt his breath on the back of her neck. ‘That TV out in the kitchen came from that alley. It doesn’t have colour, but it works well enough otherwise. I like to watch the late news when I get home from work. It keeps me company.’

  ‘Don’t you have parents?’

  ‘Everyone has parents, silly.’

  ‘Where are they? Why do you live like this?’

  Sarah loved that he wanted to understand her. There was not a chance in hell he ever would, but she loved that he wanted to. She reached behind her, catching his hands, drawing his arms around her waist. He made a small noise of pleasure and nuzzled the back of her neck.

  ‘Have you read Jane Eyre?’ she asked.

  ‘Have I…’ He was audibly surprised, but recovered quickly. ‘Ah, yes, yes, I think so, at school. A long time ago.’

  ‘Do you remember why Jane leaves the comfort of Thornfield Hall even though she will be homeless and poverty stricken? Why she voluntarily reduces her station in life from governess to beggar?’

  ‘I don’t…’ He chuckled into her hair. ‘I wasn’t expecting a test. I haven’t studied.’

  ‘She left because her dignity was worth more to her than physical comfort.’ Sarah turned around and looked up into his face. ‘And that’s why I live like this.’

  Oh, the pity in his eyes! Sarah took off his glasses so she could see it without interference, and the pure, wet, sincerity of it made her ache. With a burst of passion she kissed him, tugged at his shirt, his belt, his fly. She grabbed a handful of the delicious soft flesh around his middle and pulled him to her bed which squealed in protest. She knew she stank of lard and stale smoke and beer, but the man did not seem to care. ‘Oh, Jesus,’ he said, repeatedly.

  His efficiency at undressing her – the ease with which he lifted her dress over her head without catching the zip on her ponytail, his practised way of loosing her hair from its elastic – impressed her. He must have a daughter, she thought. Men with daughters knew how to painlessly undress a girl.

  Sarah had her own much practiced actions to impress with: the condom plucked seemingly from thin air, opened with one hand, rolled on before he had a chance to tell her he would rather not wear it. And then, with the smallest movement of her hips, the barely noticeable tilting of her pelvis, he was inside her. His face changed instantly, transformed by that expression which made Sarah briefly love every man she fucked: shock that he was inside her, mixed with gratitude that she was allowing him to be. With most men the expression appeared at the moment of penetration and then morphed into a look of triumph or resolve. But this lovely, soft bellied, father of daughters remained shocked and grateful almost to the end. Then, in the final moments, he was, as they all were, overtaken by the need for it to be finished, and his face turned ugly in its greed.

  Sarah came, as she usually did, because she knew how her body worked, how to position herself, how to tense and relax, clench and release, how to keep a man from coming until she was done with him. Mr Carr – another man who had learnt from his daughters how to undress a girl without messing up her hair – had taught her all these things, and she was grateful for this every day of her life. But he also taught her that an orgasm was nothing; it was a sneeze or a good cry. So although she sought out sex like the drug it was, and although she came and came and came and came, what she hoped for was always the other thing: the merging into one, the making of the beast with two backs. Every man, every time, she waited for that moment of transcendence, the melting of self which allowed the absorption of another’s melted self; she wanted so much for Mr Carr to not be the only one who could reduce her like that. But after seven years of determined fucking she was beginning to lose her faith. Sweating and gasping beside her was another man who had been tried and enjoyed but who, in the end, had failed to be anything but a good fuck.

  After the man left, Sarah smoked her last three cigarettes and drank the two flat beers she had opened earlier. She pushed aside an overdue electricity notice to get to The House of Mirth, which she carried into the bedroom. She was more than halfway through; hopefully sleep would come early tonight. But less than an hour into her reading, the light bulb blew. She thought about getting up and changing it, but decided it was too much effort. The last line she had read echoed in her mind: There had never been a time when she had had any real relation to life. She lay awake most of the night listening to the rats squealing and scratching in the alley below her window.

  On the previous Saturday night, when she was supposed to be at a party with her old school friends, Sarah had stayed up all night fucking an eighteen-year-old professional dancer. On Sunday, she slept and studied and took her phone off the hook. Yesterday, Monday, she went to uni and then to work and then had sex with the
man who’d driven her home. So it wasn’t until Tuesday morning that she answered her phone and was screamed at by Jess for missing the party on Saturday night. Sarah had a headache and was running late for uni, so to shut Jess up, she promised to meet them at the pub after she finished work.

  She spent the rest of the day regretting her promise and arrived in a bad mood, expecting to be bored, and without bothering to change out of her stinky work clothes. She was relieved to find that Jamie was there, less happy that Shelley was with him, and astounded that Jess’ boyfriend was hot. She wished she had taken the time to change.

  ‘Finally we meet,’ Mike said, taking her hand and kissing it.

  ‘Finally? I’ve only known you existed for three days.’

  He held onto her hand. ‘But I’ve known about you for months. Jess talks about you all the time.’

  Sarah raised her eyebrows at Jess, who was glowing. Well good for her. She turned back to Mike. ‘So I suppose you think I’m a nerdy slut with terrible housekeeping skills.’

  He laughed. ‘You’re not?’

  ‘Occasionally. But sometimes…’ She pulled her hand free and twirled around. ‘…I’m just a simple, hard-working waitress in desperate need of a cold glass of beer.’

  Mike went to get her a drink. Sarah took the opportunity to tell Jess how hot her new catch was. ‘I really like this guy,’ Jess said. ‘I really, really like him, you know?’

  ‘That’s great,’ Sarah said. ‘Good for you.’

  Jamie pulled Sarah aside and leant in close. ‘Don’t even think about it,’ he whispered.

  ‘Don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Sarah, I mean it. Look how happy Jess is. Just keep your hands – your everything – to yourself with this one.’

  ‘But he’s so irresistible. How ever will I control myself?’

  ‘I’m not joking.’ Jamie narrowed his eyes the way he did when he wanted to appear serious and severe. Sarah had never told him how cute that look was, because then he would stop doing it. ‘You can have any bloke you want. Except this one.’