Taming the Beast Read online

  ‘Can I have that one?’ She pointed to a random table-slouching drunk.

  Finally, a smile. ‘Yes, Sarah.’

  ‘Thanks, Mum.’ Sarah kissed his cheek. She considered sitting down and drinking the beer Mike had put on the table for her, but she didn’t know how to sit across from a hot stranger and not flirt.

  She picked up the beer. ‘Thanks. Now, I’d love to stay and chat but Jamie told me I can have that man over there.’

  ‘Sarah! That’s not what I–’

  ‘You said I could, Jamie-boy, and I’m going to. Just watch me.’

  There was a stunned silence. She felt a surge of pride at her ability to render them all speechless, followed by a bigger surge of fear at what she was about to do. She turned and began walking to the table she had indicated. The man was staring into his almost empty glass. He had greasy black hair, a crooked nose and a salt-and-pepper stubbled face. Why, oh why, Sarah thought, do I do these things? Why can’t I just sit down with my friends and have a drink and go home and clean my teeth and go to bed? Why do I always have to–

  ‘She won’t will she?’ Mike’s voice behind her.

  ‘No way,’ Shelley said. ‘That man is so ugly.’

  And then Sarah had no choice, because the man was ugly and the world being what it was, he probably never had women wanting to sleep with him. Sarah knew she was pretty, and she knew she hadn’t done any more to deserve her beauty than that man had to deserve his ugliness. It wasn’t fair that he had to go through life being unwanted and untouched when Sarah had all the wanting and touching she could handle. And besides, Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind. This man had as much chance as any other of being the man who would split her soul wide open.

  3

  Every weekday morning, Sarah argued with herself about whether she could afford to miss just one day of uni. She had worked till late, partied until later, was too tired, too hungover, needed to clean her flat, wash her clothes, get stuck into the next due paper. But she knew that even one day would hurt her, because it would not seem to hurt her at all and she would be tempted to repeat the exercise until it did. So every day she dragged her tired, aching, hungover carcass out of bed, threw on her least dirty clothes, stumbled through the wreckage of last night’s beer cans and walked the two blocks to the bus stop. She always sat up the back of the bus, her head against the window, her legs up on the seat to prevent anyone from sitting close to her. The journey took twelve minutes and every second of it was spent wondering how the hell she was going to make it through another day. She knew she would be sick as soon as she smelt the blood and bones fertiliser on the lawn. She would fall asleep in Gender Studies for sure. If she made it to lunch without passing out, it would be a miracle.

  And every day, the miracle occurred. No matter how wrecked Sarah felt when she staggered off the bus, she was instantly refreshed by the sight of the Miles Franklin Building up ahead. It wasn’t a beautiful building; it was standard seventies red brick, four floors, reflective glass and iron bars on the windows. But it was Sarah’s true home, her spiritual home. If she could afford to not work, she would spend every moment here. She loved the student lounge with its threadbare orange and green sofas, its chipped formica tables and wobbly chairs. She loved the ancient silver urn which only the second and third year students knew how to operate without scalding themselves. She loved the squeak of her sneakers on the linoleum floors, the persistent knocking of the front door against its frame on windy days, the nook under the stairs between the third and fourth floor where you could always find Joe D, buy some pot, pinch a smoke. She loved the old stoners who took a decade to complete their Bachelors’, and she loved the shiny new first years who could be overheard earnestly discussing the theories of Barthes and Lacan as though they too were shiny and new. Most of all, she loved the classes, where she vacillated between being sure of her wisdom and insight and being convinced of her impossible ignorance.

  The other students adored Sarah, because she gladly shared her always precise and coherent notes and was generous with praise and encouragement. She was humble but enthusiastic, easy to talk to but undeniably clever. Sometimes she slept with her classmates, sometimes with her lecturers and tutors, but this made her neither more nor less popular. Here at least, fucking for stress release, for celebration, or to relieve boredom was commonplace. That was another reason Sarah loved it.

  She wished she could stay at university forever. Learning, teaching, thinking, talking, fucking. Sleeping under the gum tree behind the science block in summer, and on the squishy green Arts lounge sofa in winter. Drinking bad coffee and half-price beer, eating peanuts and Joe D’s chocolate-chip hash cookies. She had another six months of her undergrad degree, and then her honours year, and after that, she did not know. Although almost everybody she knew said she was bound to do great things, nobody, including Sarah, seemed to know what this meant.

  Whatever she did, she was determined to not live up to anyone else’s expectations. These expectations were, depending who you asked, that she would fall pregnant and live off welfare; that she would become the pampered mistress of some old but rich businessman; that her heavy drinking would tip into full blown alcoholism and she would die in a gutter clutching an empty metho bottle; that her occasional dabbling with illegal substances would become less occasional until she reached the point where she was turning tricks to pay for her next hit; or, that she would get tired of fending for herself all the time and return to her parents, happily copping their shit as long as they cleared her university debt and gifted her with the traditional Antipodean post-uni tour of Europe. The first and last of these were laughable; the others she had flirted with throughout the years. She had to remain on guard to ensure these flirtations did not become love affairs. She had to work hard at being something more than a living cliché.

  Jamie was waiting for Sarah at their usual table in the uni pub. They met here at lunch each day, because Sarah would only go to the Economics building if she was in the mood to pick up a virgin, and Jamie refused to go to the Arts lounge because he believed that everyone there thought that Commerce majors were soulless subliterates.

  She bought a beer and a packet of cigarettes and headed over to Jamie who was sipping a coke and picking at a basket of fries.

  ‘I called you when I got home last night,’ he said. ‘It was after two. Where were you?

  ‘I was running amok with Andy the alcho.’ Sarah kissed his cheek and sat down. ‘Say what you want about middle-aged unemployed drunks, but shit do they know how to party. I don’t think there’s a pub in all of Sydney I didn’t drink in or a street I didn’t vomit or piss in last night. Plus you’ve got to love a bloke who doesn’t let go of his bottle even while he’s fucking a girl.’

  ‘Jesus, Sarah!’ Jamie looked like he was going to cry. ‘Why do you do these things?’

  She shrugged. ‘Nostalgie de la boue.’

  ‘I’m not even going to ask what that means, because I don’t care. You know it’s only a matter of time before one of these blokes cuts your throat.’

  Sarah rolled her eyes. Jamie gave her the same lecture at least once a week, although sometimes he predicted a bullet to the head or a stocking around the neck, rather than a cut throat. She knew he was right, but she also knew he would never understand that it was necessary. To reach ultimate bliss, one must face grave danger.

  ‘I wish you would at least get a mobile phone. That would be some security.’

  ‘Good idea. Excuse me while I pluck some spare cash out of my arse.’

  ‘Well if you didn’t spend all your money on booze and cigarettes.’

  Sarah sipped her beer and then lit a smoke, ignoring Jamie’s glare. ‘Seriously, I’ve been doing extra shifts all week, and I’m still fifty short for the electricity bill. I’ll have it by next week, but if I get cut off I’ll have to pay for the reconnect–’

  Jamie put a fifty-dollar bill on the table in f
ront of her. ‘Are you sticking to your budget?’

  Sarah shrugged. Jamie wrote her a new budget at least every six months, and every time she told him there was no point because she would never stick to it, but he was in serious denial.

  ‘Something must be wrong there… Has your study allowance decreased again or something?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s always going down. It’s way less than what I got back at high school, and I was barely making rent then. If it wasn’t for all the overtime I would be totally screwed.’

  ‘You know, Sar, Mum’s offer is still open.’

  Ever since Sarah and her parents had parted ways, Mrs Wilkes had been auditioning for the role of Sarah’s mother. And although the Wilkes family were the most generous people she knew, and the spare room in their house was bigger than Sarah’s whole flat, she had never been seriously tempted to join their family. For one thing, Jamie and Brett were both ex-lovers of hers and the idea of them being her de-facto brothers was too creepy. Also, she needed emotional space more than physical, and the Wilkes were the kind of people who had deep, touching conversations over dinner and told each other they cared. Having these people prodding at her brain, trying to get into her psychic pants, put her off her food, and if she didn’t eat, they all started thinking she was anorexic and wanted to mindfuck her body image. And she couldn’t tell Jamie any of this because he would want her to talk about why she felt threatened by emotional intimacy.

  ‘Thanks, Jamie-boy, but living with your family would totally kill my sex life.’

  Jamie smiled, but in the tight, tense way that he did when he was frustrated. ‘Do you ever wonder if maybe your priorities are out of whack? I mean, really, Sarah, it’s just sex.’

  That’s what Jamie didn’t understand: it was never just sex. Even the fastest, dirtiest, most impersonal screw was about more than sex. It was about connection. It was about looking at another human being and seeing your own loneliness and neediness reflected back. It was recognising that together you had the power to temporarily banish that sense of isolation. It was about experiencing what it was to be human at the basest, most instinctive level. How could that be described as just anything?

  And aside from all that there was the possibility that maybe, maybe she would find another man like him. The other half of the beast that scratched up her insides, kicking and roaring.

  Sarah finished her beer and stubbed out her cigarette. ‘Haven’t we had this conversation before?’

  ‘Yep. Every time you need to ask me for money because you can’t afford your lifestyle.’

  Sarah flicked the fifty at Jamie’s lap. ‘You can keep your money and your judgements thank you very much.’

  ‘Sarah, come on.’

  She jumped off her stool. ‘I’m library bound.’

  He held out his hand, his face an illustration of regret. ‘Take the money, Sarah, please.’

  ‘I don’t need it. I just remembered I had some money stashed somewhere.’

  Jamie came towards her, the note waving in front of him. ‘Bullshit.’

  ‘No, really. It’s true,’ she said, running out of the bar, and if it wasn’t true at that moment, it would be.

  *

  Jamie arrived at Sarah’s door just as it opened. A grey haired man in a pinstripe suit stood in the doorway.

  ‘What?’ The man touched his chest. ‘Why are you lurking out here?’

  ‘I’m not– Um, is Sarah–’

  ‘Yes. Excuse me,’ the man said, stepping past Jamie. ‘I’m in a hurry.’

  ‘Sarah?’ Jamie stepped inside, locking the door behind him. ‘You decent?’

  ‘Yeah. In here.’

  He stepped into her bedroom and immediately gagged as he inhaled a lungful of semen and sweat. He concentrated on taking shallow breaths to minimise the amount of sexual waste product breathed in. Sarah was lying on her side, her glorious, messy hair covering half her face and all of the arm which held her up. She was wrapped in a burgundy sheet, which clung to her jutting hipbones and emphasised rather than concealed her round little breasts.

  Jamie looked away from the terrifying magnificence of postcoital Sarah only to be confronted with something far more awful. On the floor beside her bed lay a shrivelled, cloudy condom, a pile of scrunched up tissues and – Jamie felt like his lungs were going to explode – a neat pile of twenty-dollar bills.

  Jamie stared at her. ‘Is this the spare money you had stashed away?’

  ‘Yeah, it was stashed in Joe’s trousers.’ She laughed, showing Jamie the shiny wet inside of her mouth.

  Jamie had long ago stopped reacting outwardly when Sarah did something like this. Inwardly, it was like a tiny shard of glass stabbing him in the heart. So small that it didn’t really hurt at all, except that there were now so many tiny shards that his heart kind of ached all the time, and every little new one made it that tiny bit worse.

  He forced his face into what he hoped was an expression of exaggerated shock. ‘You robbed that poor old man I saw hobbling out of your apartment?’

  ‘You’re hilarious, really. Joe happens to be a genuine old-fashioned gentleman. More than happy to help out a financially needy young girl, asking nothing in return.’

  ‘What a saint.’

  ‘You don’t know the half of it. Not only did the darling man give me enough money to pay all this month’s bills, but then he let me fuck him for, like, three hours.’

  Feeling very, very sick, Jamie grinned at her. ‘The selflessness!’

  ‘I know.’ She yawned, looking small and young and in need of a mother’s goodnight kiss. ‘I’m a lucky girl.’

  4

  ‘I have big, big news.’ Jess twisted her plait around her finger, smiling coyly at the table top.

  Shelley put down her diet coke and leant forward. ‘So? Tell, tell.’

  Sarah watched the couple at the next table, trying to ascertain their relationship. The man was easily thirty years older than his companion and their matching red hair and pale skin allowed the possibility of shared genes. But the girl was mesmerised, smiling and shaking her head at the bloke as though she’d never seen anything like him outside of her dreams.

  ‘Sarah? Are you paying attention? This is important.’

  Sarah nodded at Jess. ‘Yes. Absolutely. Full attention.’

  ‘Okay, well…’ Jess smiled, looking from Shelley to Sarah and back again. ‘I’m getting married!’

  Shelley screamed, throwing herself half across the table and catching Jess in an awkward embrace. ‘Congratulations! Oh, that’s so wonderful!’

  ‘I know, I know! He asked me last night, and of course I said yes right away, and I don’t have the ring yet because we’re going to pick it together this afternoon but I couldn’t wait to tell you both the news. Ah!’

  ‘Ah!’ Shelley squealed back.

  People were staring at them because of the screaming and hugging and knocking of salt and peppershakers from the table. Of everyone in the café only Miss May and Mr December were oblivious to Shelley and Jess’s squawking. The man continued to talk in a voice far too low for Sarah to hear, and the girl continued to stare up at him as though he was not old and ugly and wearing a dreadful Snoopy tie. Sarah felt a tiny stab of jealousy, but mostly she was happy to have discovered evidence that true love did exist. She smiled at them, knowing they would not see her even if she went and lay naked across their table.

  ‘Well, Sarah?’

  ‘I’m speechless.’ Which was not true. She had plenty to say but most of it involved calling Jess a stupid fucking idiot, and she at least had enough sensitivity to hold back from insulting the girl in her moment of frothy princess joy.

  ‘Oooh, I could scratch your eyes out I’m so jealous.’ Shelley squeezed Jess’ hand. ‘Well, maybe this news will give Jamie the push he needs to finally pop the question.’

  Sarah almost swallowed the cigarette she was about to light. ‘You want Jamie to propose? As in marriage? Jamie?’

  ‘What? Y
ou don’t think we’re good together?’

  ‘God, I don’t know about that.’ Sarah paused to light her cigarette. ‘But Jamie and marriage? He’s such a sheltered little mummy’s boy.’

  Shelley snorted. ‘So why the hell do you spend so much time with him?’

  Sarah thought about it, but not for too long, because Shelley’s eyes were narrowed. Also, Sarah and Jamie’s friendship was, like all long-term relationships, complicated. Her throw-away bitchy comment was coming back to bite her, because Jamie was way, way better than any man she knew; it was just that he was so fragile. But here and now was not the time or place to be going in-depth about what Jamie meant to her.

  ‘I just meant that he doesn’t strike me as ideal husband material. If there is such a thing, which for the record, I don’t believe there is.’

  ‘Well, he’s perfect for me anyway,’ Shelley said. ‘And he was so right about you. You are such a cynic.’

  Sarah’s skin prickled. Later she would deal with Jamie, for the moment she shrugged and sucked back on her cigarette like she didn’t care at all.

  Later that night, after many celebratory drinks at the pub, Mike drove everyone home, dropping off Jamie, then Shelley, then Jess. ‘Hey,’ he said when only Sarah was left. ‘Jump in the front. I feel like a fucking chauffeur up here.’

  Mike drove with one hand on the wheel and the other on Sarah’s thigh, using every gear change as an opportunity to replace his hand closer to her crotch. She laughed at him when he told her how he had wanted her since the first moment he’d laid eyes on her, and she laughed even harder when he called her a fucking bitch. When they were parked in front of her building, he grabbed her and stopped her laughter by shoving his tongue in her mouth.

  ‘You’re a nice kisser,’ he said, when she pulled back.

  Sarah kissed him again, to thank him for the compliment. He was not such a nice kisser. His tongue was sloppy and his jaw was slack. His hands were a different matter; one held her thigh firmly, while the other drew zigzag lines across her spine. After a couple of minutes, he started to fiddle with her fly.