Brass

by Helen Walsh

  ‘Ehm, didn’t have no mags love.’

  He can hardly look me in the eye.

  ‘Yes, they did. I always get them from here. It doesn’t matter though.’

  Head down, he hands me my change and turns on his heels. He can hardly get away fast enough. I shrug my shoulders, fire a cigarette and carry on up Smithdown, where the noise and colours slowly fade out into stock-still blackness.

  I walk on. Time passes. I light another cigarette and toss it prematurely into the gutter, chasing it with a ball of catarrh.

  I turn a bend and there is the purr of an engine. I swing round slowly. A set of dimly lit headlights lurks a hundred yards behind. I walk on with my head held high and my shoulders pulled back, but no matter how much distance I put between us, the glare and volume of the engine remain constant. Someone is following me. Instinctively, I leave the main road and veer into a residential street, scanning the rows of tightly packed terraces for signs of life. Everyone is sleeping. I scud headlong into the next street and my tummy dips with relief at the yellow light spilling on the pavement from people’s living rooms. Still the headlights follow. Not wanting to risk reaching the end of the street and being thrust into another row of slumbering houses I slow right down but instead of shadowing my pace the engine draws closer. It’s the deep, diesel thrum of a four wheel drive. I delve in my pockets and make a tight fist around my keys, fitting my thumb and forefinger around the body of the sharpest to make a knife of sorts. A prick of fear penetrates the cocaine haze and my heart begins to bang like a jackhammer. Underneath my coat a puddle of sweat forms in the dip of my collarbone.

  The vehicle is crawling alongside me now and the driver is looking right at me. He’s leaning across and he can see my face stretched tight with panic He can see the rise and fall of my flailing chest and my rapid, shallow breath spuming in front of me The whiz of an electronic window rends the night air and I almost pass out with fright. I stall and hover outside a brightly lit window and, very slowly, light a cigarette. From the corner of my right eye I see a slice of exposed face caught in a band of light from a house. It’s the face of a white male.

  ‘I wouldn’t though would I? Put myself in danger like that. I mean that’s the difference between girls like me and her. They go out, get off their head and then walk home and expect their pals or Mr fucken Samaratian to look out for them. Girls like that need to be taught a fucken lesson. Isn’t that what you said?’

  I swing round. Sean is leaning across the empty passenger seat of his Shogun. From out of his chiselled face, two green eyes laugh in their sockets.

  ‘You ba-stard! What the fuck are you…’

  ‘Get in.’

  He opens the door. I climb in, slam it shut.

  ‘You… You utter cunt!’ I finally spit out, ‘What the fuck are you playing at?’

  ‘What am I playing at?’ he says, eyes dilating in shock, ‘I think it’s me that should be asking you that question. Fuck was you doing walking home through Tokkie this time of a night?’

  His voice is husky from chemicals and fags.

  ‘Er, hang on a minute! You’ve been following me since Toxteth?’

  ‘We passed you in the fucken cab remember? Me and Kev. You was in fucken la-la land weren’t you, splayed out on the fucken pavement like a meff.’

  The black hack. The two silhouettes. That was yesterday wasn’t it – or the day before? Thinking on it makes me feel dizzy. I try to zap it from my memory banks and look away. My breath blurs up the half-opened window.

  ‘Fucks sake girl, what was you thinking?’

  A tight clot of anger swells in the pit of my throat, sucking the breath from my lungs and firing streams of adrenaline into my limbs and up to my head. I pivot round, slowly, and stare right into him.

  ‘Don’t you fucken lecture me like some student imbecile,’ I say feeling the anger tense and twist my face, ‘I fucking know that barrio as well as you do soft cunt.’

  He flinches involuntarily and his mouth falls open. He doesn’t know what to say.

  ‘And even if I was being a dick, what gives you the fucking right to try and teach me a lesson?’

  ‘Teach you a lesson?’

  He composes himself now, disguising the shock of a moment ago with a mocking belligerence.

  ‘Yeah, trying to prove a point by freaking me out back then?’

  ‘Millie – what are you on about, girl?’

  He pulls his head into his chest and holds his hands up.

  ‘You. And your fucking games.’

  ‘Games? Lessons? You’re starting to sound like a bad fucken beakhead. I mean that’s pure paranoia that is, babe.’

  ‘Paranoia?’

  ‘Is right, girl – and I’ll tell you another thing shall I? If I didn’t know you’d been caning it like that tonight, no fucken way in the world would I be letting you sit here in me Danny like this, giving us all that fucken attitude.’

  He slumps back again shaking his head and trying to look wounded. I sneer at him.

  ‘Just slow it down a bit, eh – and accept that not every cunt is trying to get one over on you. I seen you slumped on the pavement back there looking like some roughed-up crack whore. I didn’t want to inflict Kev upon you so I got rid of him and come back for you. I was fucken worried about you, weren’t I? Girl got raped last week. Does that not mean anything to you?’

  He shakes his head despairingly.

  ‘And I’m about four times over the limit, la. Risked my fucken licence to come and find you and all you’ve given us is abuse.’

  There’s hurt in his eyes now, real hurt.

  ‘And I’m sorry if I scared you and that – but I had to make sure didn’t I? Can’t just be pulling up on birds and frightening the living shite out of em, can you?’

  I flop back in my seat. No way am I conceding, here. There’s a long silence, punctuated only by the sound of my breathing. And then he nudges me.

  ‘Great little swagger you’ve got there by the way. Almost thought you were advertising for business.’

  He lowers his head and runs a playful finger along the bridge of my nose. I want to stay mad at him but I can’t. He squeezes my chin, coaxing a reluctant smirk from my lips.

  ‘Come ’ead,’ he says, slipping the vehicle into gear, ‘Let’s get you home. We’ll shoot back to mine and I’ll get you a couple of sleepers. Can hear your heart racing from here.’

  No, I want to say, take me straight home but I shrug my shoulders and let him drive me.

  The car picks up speed.

  ‘Don’t suppose any of you grabbed my bag?’

  ‘No, hon. Not that I know of, like. Any cards you need to cancel?’

  He hands me his mobile.

  ‘Nah, never take them out with me.’

  I feel a genuine pang of regret that I’ll never see those photos. Other than that, the bag was worthless. Outside his apartment block he shuts down the engine and invites me in. I decline with a ‘I’m really fucked and need to get to bed’ voice and his face twitches for a second. He tightens his lips and jumps out. In the sudden dark silence of the empty vehicle, flashbacks of the night collide in my head, flooding me again with a tremulous paranoia. All Sean’s crap about saving me from the wrath of the streets is just a fucking front. There was no need to come looking for me. He thinking he should have had me when we were alone in his flat this evening. He could have had me, if the boys hadn’t come up when they did. That’s just the way it goes. But there was no need to come looking for me. He saw me sat on that pavement and thought he’d been given another chance, end of story. Well here’s the news – he’s got no chance.

  I climb out and the cold claws my bare legs. I walk to the front of the car and lean into the warmth of the bonnet. I spark a cigarette and think the situation through. If I just walk away now, I’ll come across as nervous – at worst, intimidated. But if I let him drive me home then that’s exactly what I’m doing – letting him, saying okay to him.

  Time passes
. I find myself wondering whether little Suey got home okay. I hope she’s alright. I shouldn’t have done those things to her, no matter how badly she wanted me to. That was wrong. I light another cig. Lights flick on and off in a window high above, then moments later, Sean materialises. He struts over self-consciously, a half-smoked spliff hanging from the corner of his mouth. And fuck does he look gorgeous. I swear, if it wasn’t Sean, if it was someone else, some stranger I’d kidnapped in a club, I’d rag him all over this city. A feeling of absolute yearning swells in my cunt. I clutch it and contain it. There’s no way that animal’s getting anywhere near.

  ‘Neck these,’ he says handing me two tablets and a bottle of ice cold Volvic. Bastard. Does he really think I’m that dense? I wait til he turns away and slip them in my pocket.

  ‘Sorry, I took so long. Forgotten where I’d put the little bastards. Might take a while to kick in, but you’ll sleep like a baby. Zopiclon. Straight from Rodney Street. No hangover or nothing. Fucken clean as, la’

  He hands me the spliff and jumps up into the driver’s seat.

  ‘Come ’ead,’ he shouts, craning his head out of the window, ‘Finish that in here.’

  I open the passenger door and linger. His eyes scorch the air between us.

  ‘Look – thanks for all this Sean, but I’m gonna walk. I’m wired. I need to walk off some of this energy.’

  I gauge his face for signs of demur, but there’s nothing. Relief if anything.

  ‘OK babes. If you’re sure like. S’pose it’s safe enough round here. Go Rose Lane way, yeah?’ He glances at his watch. ‘Still be chocker with students this time of a night. And anyway, I shouldn’t really be driving in all honesty.’

  I’m in shock. My heart is lurching. What the fuck…

  ‘Are you warm enough? D’you want to borrow a coat?’

  ‘No. I’m fine, ta.’

  ‘Keep your mobile switched on babe?’

  I nod. I take a final drag on the joint and toss it into the night. Reflexively, I huddle against the cold.

  ‘Listen la, I’m giving you a fucken fleece whether you like it or not…’

  He swings out onto the gravel and walks round to the boot. It’s uncharacteristically messy for Sean, stuffed full of CDs, maps, waterproof coats and fleeces.

  ‘You’ve never struck me as the outdoor type,’ I say, pulling a compass out.

  ‘Ahh you know…’ he says, looking slightly embarrassed, ‘Good for the quads and that.’

  ‘And the soul.’

  He shrugs away from the remark and hauls out a heavy tarpaulin coat with a hood and thick fleece lining. I slip it on over my own. The sleeves are almost touching my knees.

  ‘No chance.’

  ‘What d’you mean no chance?’

  ‘I look like I’ve just escaped from Park Lane.’

  ‘Exactly. So if you decide to go philosophising on pavements again, potential rapists and what have you’ll probably think twice.’

  ‘But Sean, just say if I spot some piece of jailbait staggering home – drunk and gagging for it? Do I have permission to lob it?’

  I pull the hood over my head and Sean dissolves into peals of laughter at the absurdity of the spectacle. I wrench myself from the coat, fling it back into his boot and fold my arms defiantly.

  ‘No way. There’s no way I’m walking up Rose Lane wearing that. I’ll take the risk of being kidnapped and bummed within an inch of my life, thank you very much.’

  He just stands there giggling, appraising me affectionately and then in one seamless gesture his eyes lapse into carnal slits, distorting all sense of time and place, ripping all reservations from my body. All I am is a vacuum – exposed and needy and yearning to be filled.

  He moves closer. I feel my eyes dilate and suck him in. He kisses me, deep and powerfully. He pulls back as the beam from a passing car lights up his face and then he kisses me again, sucking my lips into his mouth like he wants to inhale my whole fucking soul. I want this to stop. I want to stop this so badly – but I’m helpless. All sense of right and wrong has been lost in the pure resin of desire. All I can do is hand myself over. Give in.

  He slips an arm around me and whispers, ‘You’re fucken beautiful,’ and he explores the small of my back and the jut of my hips and rib cage, expanding with the lunge and surge of my dilating heart, pumping sex through my veins, everywhere, across my scalp and down my spine, swooping round my belly, girdling my solar plexus and exploding in the damp of my armpits and Christ, it’s too much. It’s too fucking much. All these sensations and bodily emotions, overwhelming me and stupefying me, reducing me to just a feeling, a ball of pleasure. He releases me suddenly, leaving me stooped and wordless, panting like a dog. He steps back and our eyes crash savagely and the need to fuck devours his face, then fades quickly and is replaced by something else that is impalpable and so fucking distant that for a moment I think he might turn and walk away and this horrible chasm snaps wide open in my guts. He has stunned me with a yearning so profound and dangerous that if he leaves me now, like this, if he turns and walks away then my mind will crack. He moves close again and I sigh unabashedly and once again his hands are wrapped around me, gripping my frame as if he wants to crush it and his tongue, probing every inch of my mouth, thrashing over my teeth and gums and the wrinkled roof of my mouth and I can taste me on his lips – beak and booze and cunt, and then he pushes me back against the car and my face slams sideways into the cold of the pane and even though I can’t see his face, I know what it’s filled with as he drags the flat of his palm across the other side of my face, pulling my cheeks into my ears and blurring my vision. His tongue snakes the naked length of my neck and he thrusts his fingers into my mouth, digging into the moist flesh of my cheeks and stretching them back like he wants to tear my fucking face apart and I can feel my cunt collapsing and contracting, jet wet streams shoot down my thighs, absorbing the night like a damp sponge and just as I think I can’t take any more, that my body might implode, he pulls back and kisses me softly on the mouth, spinning me out into a different junction and we are calm and intimate for a while, like familiar lovers.

  His grip tightens once more and he’s pulling clumps of hair into his palm, dragging my head back so my eyes hit the sky where wisps of clouds drift aimlessly in the twinkling vault and I can’t swallow and once again I’m vulnerable and tiny as this tall, strong man presses his steel-hard cock right into me and unzips his jeans and Jesus, I’m gonna get fucked right here and now, under the glare of a broken street lamp. But then he slides his tongue across my cheek and into my ear and tells me:

  ‘Get in the car.’

  His voice is stripped of all emotion and I feel it resonate deep deep in my cunt and I start to panic cos if this pleasure intensifies, I might black out. Black out and miss the fucking fireworks.

  I’m on the back seat with my legs dangling out of the open door. I’m lying here, spread like a whore, bare legs wide open, wide open and waiting for him. He’s standing there with his hands on the roof, drinking it all in, his eyes mad, his breath rapid and steaming in front of him and I’m totally fucking naked, naked and shivering with my legs open for him. He looks in awe at my body and at my cunt glistening under the mellow street light and fuck but I’m powerless and utterly everything is nothing apart from this split moment of corrosive impossible desire. The need to be dirty and depraved swells quickly now and the need to be fucked, fucked hard and fast has taken over my everything. I pull him into me. He resists a moment, steps back again and peels of his jacket, cool and composed and sexy as fuck but I can’t hold back for much longer. I don’t want a fucking strip show. I want his cock for Christ’s sake, deep inside my cunt. So then I’m on to him, tearing off his shirt and wrenching, tugging his jeans down. His dick springs free and I gasp instinctively at the sheer fucking beauty of it. I catch his eyes and drag them down to his groin, shaking my head in mute awe as it twitches and throbs in the light from the broken lamp above which picks out the swell of veins
striating it’s impossible length and the shiny velvet complexion of a swollen head. He goes to touch me and I knock his hand away, aggressively.

  ‘Wait,’ I tell him, ‘I want to watch you a while longer’ and I settle on the seat with my back against the cold windowpane and soak him in from a distance while the stench of my cunt rises like a fog. I take the flat of his palm and hold it to my cunt.

  ‘Look what you’ve done,’ I say and smear his come-drenched fingers over my lips and under my nose and all over his face.

  ‘Jesus, Millie!’ He lurches towards me, ‘I’ve got to fuck you, girl. Please. Let me fuck you.’

  I hold him off a second longer, eyes pinning him back, drinking him in.

  ‘Oh I’m gonna fuck you, Sean. I’m gonna fuck you like you’ve never been fucked before.’

  I straddle him and swallow his dick whole, every pulsing rigid inch of it. I buck him hard and urgently and he groans and growls with his hands and teeth stuffed full of my tits, pulling and squeezing and biting, sucking and bruising. I slam down harder and harder on him til my legs begin to buckle beneath but then he grips my waist and slows me right down, taking the lead and moving me with the thrust of his hips, fast and skilful, and things are starting to blur now, but I’m not ready to come. I need him deeper, I need dirtier. I need absolute fucking depravity – to be fucked and used in every orifice, in every way, like some cheap street whore. I want him to hurt me.

  I lift myself off him and clamber back onto the seat. The windows are steamed over and the car is heavy with the stench of our sex.

  ‘You OK there,’ he says, catching his breath.

  ‘Fuck me the other way,’ I tell him, ‘Fuck my arse.’

  He runs a hand over his sweating scalp and mumbles something, low and dirty. He steps out of the car and frees his legs from his jeans. His face is frenzied and wild. I lie supine and pull him on top of me, his thick rigid cock gouging into the soft of my belly and the sheer fucking strength and beauty of this naked male is like nothing I have ever experienced before. I have never wanted anyone so badly. I would kill for this. I kiss him deep and urgently and with my left hand reach down to his cock and guide it to my anus. No spittle, no moisture – the pain is almost unbearable and I recoil violently. It feels like my whole body is being torn in two – like he’s plunged a red-hot blade inside. He withdraws and apologises, kissing me softly on the cheek. He feeds his way back inside my cunt, but I seize up my muscles and spit him out. I wrap my legs around his broad athletic back and reaching down again, coax him back to the neck of my backside. I want that pain. I want more of it.