‘I want to take you out tomorrow night.’
‘I have to work.’
Daniel removed his hand. ‘I’ll pick you up at seven.’
‘I really do have to–’
He was walking away. ‘Seven o’clock,’ he called out over his shoulder.
For eight years, Sarah had lived with an emptiness that couldn’t be touched. Not by men or booze or drugs or knowledge or hope. She had lived with it for so long that it had become a personality trait; it was her edge, her toughness, her ability to be intimate and still distant, passionate and still calm. She had built her life around the Daniel Carr shaped hole in the centre of the world. And just like that, the void was filled. Overfilled. Overflowing.
Now a new kind of emptiness had established itself, not in her, but around her. She felt, for the first time in years, physically vulnerable. Her tiny flat was cavernous, her creaky bed enormous, her sofa wanted to swallow her up when she retreated there. No safety or comfort could be found. Every space was vast because he did not fill it. She longed for him to come and enlarge her. She hoped it would happen soon.
Part Three
1
Sarah called in sick and was out the front of her building by six-thirty. Daniel pulled up at six-forty-five. Apart from a polite enquiry about her day, he did not speak to her during the drive. She didn’t mind the silence; it allowed her to meditate on his thighs. Sarah knew that underneath the stylishly baggy, beige linen slacks, the muscles were tensing and releasing with every brake and acceleration. She knew that the blond curly hair covering his legs thinned and then stopped midway up the insides of his thighs. The skin there was pale and baby-soft and would respond to her tickling tongue by breaking out in goosebumps. In the ten minutes it took Daniel to drive to Parramatta and find a parking space, Sarah worked herself into a mute frenzy.
‘Is Mexican okay?’ he asked, putting his hand on the small of her back and guiding her down a back alley.
‘Fine,’ she said, as if it mattered.
The restaurant was dark and half-empty. They sat in a corner booth next to a photograph of a Chihuahua in a sombrero. Daniel ordered a jug of sangria and a glass of scotch, and then turned to Sarah with a frown.
‘Is all that face paint for my benefit?’
‘Oh, yeah, I suppose so.’
‘You look better without it. Plain girls wear make-up, the beautiful ones don’t need to.’
Sarah shrugged and picked up the menu, but as soon as they had ordered she went to the ladies room and rubbed off all her lipstick. When she got back to the table he touched a finger to her lips and smiled.
‘So,’ said Sarah while they picked at their food. ‘Where have you been all these years?’
‘Ah, that’s a big question. The short answer is I’ve been up north.’ Daniel took a sip of his scotch. Was he nervous or did he always drink Scotch and water with dinner? Sarah ached with not knowing him.
‘Why don’t you give me the long answer?’
He sipped his drink again. ‘Right. I moved to Brisbane, taught English and Modern History at a nightmarishly underfunded city school, completed my dissertation, tutored migrant kids, ran a men’s devotion group at the local church, learnt to ski, learnt to speak French, took my family around North America and Western Europe, watched my mother die of breast cancer, moved to Kempsey, set up an out-reach program for disadvantaged teens, won a citizenship award, celebrated my twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, took up jogging, learnt to cook, got divorced, moved to Sydney, secured a position at a prestigious boys college, searched for the girl I have thought about every day for the last eight years, found that girl, sat across from her and drank scotch. The End.’
Sarah realised she had been holding her breath. She stared at the tabletop and breathed deeply for a few seconds. She could not bring herself to look at him.
‘Now your turn,’ he said.
Sarah looked at her plate. ‘School, waitressing, uni, haven’t been anywhere. Boring.’
‘Hmm, no mention of boyfriends. In all those years – teenage years no less – there were no love affairs, no romances?’
‘None worth mentioning. My food’s cold.’ She pushed the plate away and looked around for an ashtray.
‘You can’t smoke in here, Sarah.’
‘I know. Do you see me smoking?’
‘I see you looking for an ashtray, and you’re jiggling around like a true addict.’
Sarah froze, realising that her shoulders had indeed been jiggling.
‘I love the way you move. I think I’ll only ever take you to places where you can’t smoke, so I can watch you squirm.’ He smiled at her with thin lips, and she had to put her hands on her knees to stop them bouncing up and down. He leant forwards, both hands flat on the table. ‘I’ve made you self-conscious.’
‘No, you haven’t.’
He leant closer. ‘Your face is all red.’
Sarah pressed a hand to her cheek; it was burning. ‘It’s hot in here.’
He leant further, so he was almost out of his chair, and took her chin in his hands. ‘The colour of your face right now is exactly the same as the colour of your face when you orgasm, and your throat flushes like that too.’
Sarah felt droplets of sweat run down her temples. She tried to come up with something witty or cutting to say but all she could think was I never flush red, in bed or out. Even when she had won the Cross Country race in year ten, her face had not been red. Jamie had said she was bloodless then, and he said it again last week, after they had made love for hours, in her stuffy flat with all the windows closed.
Sarah tried to look away from his green, green eyes but he held her head firmly, and to pull away would have involved a movement more violent than she felt capable of. She didn’t feel capable of anything. She sat dumbly staring into his eyes and feeling the heat from his fingertips spread out from the tip of her chin, up over her cheeks and nose and forehead and down over her throat and chest.
‘Where do you work?’ Daniel said, releasing her chin and leaning back in his chair.
‘Western Steakhouse. It’s this greasy dump on the other side of the river,’ she said, as though this was a normal, everyday conversation.
‘Sounds glamorous. How long have you been doing that?’
‘Since I left home.’
‘Which was when?’
‘About six years ago.’
‘You wouldn’t have even finished school.’ He frowned at her. ‘Why did you leave home?’
Sarah dreaded that question even under normal circumstances, which these were not. She usually lied, but couldn’t to him. If she told him the truth he would pity her and that would be unbearable. ‘That’s a hell of a story. Let’s save it for later.’ She smiled as though it was a treat to look forward to.
Daniel nodded, but looked annoyed. To lighten the mood, Sarah asked him about the French classes he had taken. She asked the question in French and was rewarded by a blinding smile. He was delighted with her and she glowed under his delight. Thinking only of keeping that brightness alive, she told him how after he left Sydney, she had started to meet Alex Knight every day after school, supposedly for French tutoring. She had to stay up half the night studying so her results would reflect the hours she had supposedly spent being tutored but had actually spent getting fucked.
He stared at her for several seconds. When he spoke, his voice was low. ‘That is the most appalling thing I’ve ever heard. I feel ill.’
‘What? Why?’ She laughed. ‘Like you never knew that teenagers spend study time screwing on the backseats of cars.’
‘That’s not the… You were…’ Daniel ran his hands through his hair. ‘Alex Knight was the School Captain. He was a Christian Youth Director! Slimy little shit.’ He took a large gulp of scotch. ‘Did you realise it was illegal for him to be doing that? Did he?’
‘You’re kidding?’
‘If I had known that a Year Twelve boy was carrying on with an underage girl I–’
‘Dani
el!’ Sarah grabbed his hand, and he stopped ranting to stare at it. ‘Alex was seventeen. You were how old?’
‘That’s not the–’
‘How old?’
‘Thirty-something.’
‘Thirty-eight. So, my second lover was twenty-one years younger than my first, and therefore, a total child as far as I was concerned.’ Sarah squeezed his hand. ‘He was actually the youngest of all the men I slept with in the year after you left.’
‘All the… What are you saying? There were others?’
‘Of course.’
‘I… Damn.’ He rubbed his eyes, sucked air between his teeth. ‘How many others?’
He was mad with jealousy. She was elated. ‘I’ve no idea. I lost count.’
‘But…’
‘But what, Daniel? What’s the matter?’
‘You were so bright. So clever.’ He closed his eyes.
‘Funny thing about brains is that men don’t tend to notice them when you’re wearing a short skirt.’
‘Shut up, Sarah.’
Daniel refused to see the dessert menu and less than an hour after they had arrived, they were back in his car and heading for home. Several times Sarah started to speak but he would not allow it. Each time she opened her mouth he took his left hand off the wheel and held it up. ‘No,’ was all he said.
When they were one street away from her flat, he pulled into the deserted netball court car park. ‘Okay, listen.’ He turned off the engine and faced her in the dark. ‘I am incredibly disturbed by what you’ve told me tonight.’
‘Clearly.’ Sarah lit up a smoke.
‘Must you smoke in my car?’
‘If you don’t like it you can take me home. In fact,’ Sarah opened the window, pegged the cigarette out onto the asphalt, closed the window again and turned to face him, ‘you can take me home anyway. I’ve had enough.’
‘Tell me what I’m supposed to feel, Sarah. I’ve spent all these years believing you meant it when you told me I was the only man you’d ever love. I ignored the fact that you were an attention starved child who always said and did whatever it was you thought would please me, whether you meant it or not. I ignored the fact that you were too naïve to possibly understand what it means to love someone, and I–’
‘Stop it!’ Sarah slammed her fists against the dashboard. ‘This is bullshit. I meant every word I ever said to you. I loved you, Daniel. I loved you so fucking much.’
‘If you loved me you wouldn’t have run straight into the arms of that boy.’
‘I can’t believe I’m hearing this from you.’ Sarah turned to look at him, tucking her legs up under her body. ‘You remember you used to tease me about how horny I was, and I hated that word and would get all demure and say “oh, no, I just missed you,” or whatever.’ She saw the smile flicker across his face and it gave her the courage to reach out and touch his arm. ‘I worried that there was something wrong with me. That normal girls didn’t get so wet their lovers laughed to touch them. I worried that you found me sluttish or disgusting, because I was always so hungry for you, for sex. But when I asked you whether it was wrong of me, you quoted John Wilmot at me and–’
‘For did you love your pleasure less, you were no match for me.’
‘Yes. And those words were such a gift to me. To know that my desire was not something monstrous, that anyone who thought I shouldn’t want so much and so often, was not worthy of me.’
‘I didn’t realise at the time that your desire was non-specific. I assumed that the voracious appetite I so admired was for me only.’
Sarah pressed her lips together. She tasted sweat and became aware that her whole face was damp with it. When she’d left her flat earlier she had shivered in response to the cool night air and cursed herself for wearing such a skimpy summer dress in late April. But now the heat was suffocating. Anger and confusion always made her hot.
‘Daniel, please don’t misunderstand me. The first time you touched me, you turned me on. I mean that literally. I was barely aware I had a body and then, boom, my body was screaming, dripping and aching and twitching all the time. And you made it okay. You showed me what to do with all that heat and need and how fucking incredible I could feel.’ His arm shook beneath her hand. She squeezed it hard. ‘Problem was, you left without turning me off.’
‘God, Sarah,’ he said, his voice shaking with his arm, ‘I didn’t know. I didn’t realise you would… this isn’t what I expected from you. I never would’ve gone if… God, this isn’t how I expected you to be.’
Sarah felt the automatic shift and made sure it was pushed into park, then she released the handbrake and climbed up on her knees beside him. The world was all wet. Her cheap polyester dress was sticking to her back and breasts, and the sweat dripped down her legs and pooled behind her knees. Her hair stuck to the back of her neck and forehead and ears and cheeks. Her face was wet and so were her lips. Acutely, she was aware of the wetness between her legs being thicker and hotter. It mixed with the dampness of her sweating thighs and the perspiration dripping from her belly.
Then she was feeling how wet his throat was and his wet, wet mouth was under hers, opening and pulling her in. Mr Carr’s mouth. Mr Carr’s lips. His tongue and his teeth, sharp and mean and wet, wet, wet. She tasted blood and her body surged with recognition. He was the only man who kissed so it hurt.
Sarah remembered the first time he bit her, when she was fourteen and in his car and he had made her turn over so he could take her from behind. She had found it strange to not be able to see his face while he was inside her, and strange also, the very different sensation she got from the new angle, strange and good. Soon she was gasping and pushing back and up into him and as he came, he bit her shoulder, hard.
‘I only want you.’ Sarah groped for his fly. ‘Always, I wanted you. I wish I’d never–’
Daniel bit her cheek. ‘Get in the back,’ he said, but didn’t wait for her to obey. He lifted her by the hips and half-pushed, half-threw her over the centre console and onto the back seat. He pushed her on to her stomach and pulled her dress up to her hips. Sarah reached behind her back to touch him, but he grabbed her wrists and held them together. Then he told her she was impossible and sunk his teeth deep into the flesh of her right thigh. Sarah cried out, in pain and in desire. Daniel bit her again and again and again until both thighs were soaked in sweat and saliva and spotted with blood. He didn’t remove her underwear, didn’t let her turn over, didn’t allow her to kiss him or touch him. He bit her over and over and over until she was crying so hard she thought she’d choke on her own snot.
And then abruptly, he stopped, climbed into the front and drove her home. She asked – she begged – him to come in with her. When he said no she cried some more and asked if she could come to his place instead. Or couldn’t they stay out? Couldn’t they please–?
‘I need to be alone, Sarah. This night has not gone well. Not at all how I planned.’
‘Daniel, please, please, don’t leave me like this. I’m so confused, and I–’
Daniel got out of the car, walked around to her side, opened the door, took her arm and pulled her out. Sarah clung to him, trying to kiss him but succeeding only in slobbering over his unmoving chin. He pushed her away, hard enough that she stumbled backward four or five steps. By the time she had regained her balance he was sliding into his seat.
Then he drove away leaving Sarah shaking and bleeding in the middle of the road. Exactly how he’d left her all those years ago.
2
Jamie knew he had to tread carefully with Sarah. Two days ago she had all but said she loved him, and he had been so elated that he pushed too far, and she freaked out and took it back. He had to remember that Sarah had never made a commitment, that she was terrified of losing her hard-won independence, and that better men than he had failed to win her. Jamie had waited for her for so many years and now that she was almost his, it was vital for him to bite down on his joy and let her take the lead.
&nb
sp; He decided to leave her alone for a couple of days so she wouldn’t think he was getting clingy. The wisdom of his laid back approach was confirmed when she called him at work on the second day and begged him to come over. I’m sorry we fought, she said, I really need you right now. He managed to wipe the smile off his face for long enough to convince his boss that he had a monstrous headache and had to go home.
As soon as Sarah opened the door, he knew there was something very wrong with her. He knew this because her face was red, and Sarah’s face was never red. She said it was just that it was such a hot day.
‘It’s not hot, Sarah.’ Jamie felt her forehead. She was burning up. ‘You must be getting sick. Do you feel sick?’
‘I feel fine. Why haven’t you kissed me yet?’
Kissing her, Jamie felt hot too. He took off his shirt and then hers. Her stomach and back were as hot as her forehead. ‘Why aren’t you at uni? You are sick, aren’t you?’ he asked, but the only answer he received was her tongue in his ear. Moving into the bedroom, he unbuttoned his jeans, took off her bra, kicked his pants off while he kissed her breasts, lay with her on the bed and pulled on the waistband of her tracksuit pants.
‘Wait.’ She sat up. ‘Turn the light off.’
‘What? Why?’ It was difficult for him to get into the state of mind necessary to be able to perform with Sarah. He had to first forget that he was more than likely the worst lover she’d ever had, and second, he had to forget he had a wife and daughter. He could only manage this advanced state of denial by becoming fully absorbed in how she felt and how she smelt and how she looked. By concentrating on Sarah’s physical presence, he got so aroused that not even fear of failure or heavy-duty guilt could stop him. And here he was, hard as a rock and ready to roll, and she had broken into his suspension of disbelief.
‘I’d just feel more comfortable with the light off,’ she said.
She sounded like Shelley. That was not good. He couldn’t do this if he was thinking about Shelley. He had to keep things moving or the guilt would overtake him and they’d never get anywhere. Jamie walked the two steps to the light switch, telling himself that he would get back into the mood easily once they were in bed. Besides, there would still be light enough to see her because the window over the bed allowed the sunlight to come in. But as he switched off the light, Sarah pulled the blinds closed. The room was so dark he could barely make out the shape of her on the bed.
Taming the Beast Page 13
