Dog Handling

by Clare Naylor

  The parade was in full swing and with each float that passed another disco hit filled Liv’s head. She was happy to be jostled by the crowd with their whistles and cans of beer and shrieks of excitement and she couldn’t help but dance along as she and Ben stared upwards to see more camp than several hundred rows of tents grinding and pouting away. Every so often Ben would rest his hands on her waist as he stood behind her and she could feel his knee brushing the back of her legs. She was absolutely beginning to get the point of Cocksucking Cowboys by now. They fuelled her on her journey. Even if she didn’t know her destination, as she was so tipsy. But just as she was getting into Barry White rasping “Hang On in There, Baby,” Ben put an arm around her waist and led her away from the throng and onto a quieter street.

  “A bit of peace and quiet at last,” he sighed as they strolled past the darkened, silent houses in Paddington, smelling the jasmine and enjoying the warmth of the night until the noise of the crowds drifted away.

  “Absolutely,” Liv said. Though suddenly she missed the buzz. It had matched her mood, the energy that was still bristling through her. She was still high from earlier, and part of her wanted to keep dancing and moving. Still, here was Ben. All to herself. Couldn’t really complain.

  “I don’t know what it is about you, Liv, but since you arrived I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you. I mean truly, I have never been this distracted by anyone. There’s something different about you. . . .” He stopped and turned to her, pushing her hair gently back from her face. She was looking slightly blankly at him. “Oh, I know that sounds like a line, but it’s not. . . . It’s like you’re not even aware of how great you are and—”

  “Ah, you see, I have a theory on this.” Liv moved around to the other side of the tree and began to pull the leaves off it. Then the odd twig. Breaking it up into pieces. “Ha, look, I’m pulling apart this poor tree. Anyway, the thing is . . .” And she was away. Straight off the starting block her mouth was running the 100-metre sprint in Lycra shorts and very serious trainers. Fuelled by the booze with fluorescent go-faster stripes. Liv talked. And how. “What you have to understand, Ben, is that I was with my old boyfriend for years. I mean ages and aeons and practically generations—almost since Victorian times—and so I’m not exactly what you’d call experienced with men and I know that I’m not supposed to admit this, especially to you, but I think that what you like about me is this quality that—”

  “It’s a kind of innocence,” Ben said as he watched her carve her name on the tree with her fingernail.

  “Totally innocent. I mean really, how many people have you slept with in your life, Ben?” she asked as he rested against the tree and began to stroke her shoulders. “Actually, don’t answer that, I don’t even want to know, but the point is that I’ve slept with . . . well, not many, and if I were to tell you how many then actually you might—”

  “You’re talking complete rubbish.” He was holding her hands and standing a breath away from her.

  “I know; I’m sorry. I think maybe I’m a little high. Shall I shut up?” she asked through a haze of cocktails and fresh air.

  “Just give me a minute,” said Ben as he moved in closer and began to kiss her bare, burned shoulder. “Or two.” And he kissed her neck.

  “Okay,” she conceded, and closed her eyes just for a moment.

  “Too much bloody Chardonnay, I reckon. I’ll be fine. Just need a gulp of fresh air.” Back on the roof terrace Amelia waved the horse-peeing friend away, and picked up her handbag before heading down into the street.

  “Where do you reckon Ben’s got to?” murmured one of the glossy posse when she was out of earshot.

  “I saw that English girl in the dunny. You know, the one with the market stall.” Horse pee raised her eyebrow and the glossy posse decided they wouldn’t want to be the English girl with the market stall when Amelia got her hands on her.

  “Oh, and this one, the one just below my shoulder blade. This one’s from the time when I was seven and I fell off a dustbin.” Liv and Ben had progressed to an intimate history of each other’s scars.

  “It’s shaped like a boomerang.” Ben smiled and ran his finger over the shiny white mark on Liv’s back. “In fact, you are my boomerang. You’ve come back to me, haven’t you?”

  “Oh, that feels lovely.” Liv shuddered. “Can you do that with your tongue?”

  “I guess so,” Ben said gamely, but he was beginning to worry that Liv looked a bit unstable on her feet. He’d seen her knocking back a few cocktails and they were pretty ferocious. And now she was being unusually flirty with him. He had wondered for a moment if perhaps she wasn’t better off tucked up at home in bed. Then he looked at her warm, soft shoulders, the smooth skin on her arms, and the curve of her elbow, which he particularly loved. And he carried on kissing her. After all, he went out with Amelia; he was used to manic, insane women who talked complete nonsense and never shut up. So he began to press his lips against Liv’s scar. To kiss her shoulders. To ease the straps of her dress down and move his knee between hers.

  Amelia stepped out into the street and pulled a packet of cigarettes from her Marc Jacobs bag. As she lit one and took a deep drag a small group of worse-for-wear revellers nearly crashed into her. One of the young women half smiled at Amelia, not sure if she knew her from her feng shui evening class or if she’d seen her on the television but knowing that she knew her all the same. Amelia smiled back and stepped out onto Oxford Street with a tentative strappy sandalled foot. Last year a friend of hers had slipped on half a hamburger at Mardi Gras and broken her ankle. Then she’d put on loads of weight because, obviously, you can’t exercise when your leg’s in traction and you have to eat hundreds of poached eggs in hospital. Amelia was very cautious of foot.

  “Wouldn’t go down there, love. Never guess what we’ve just seen,” one of the men laughed over his shoulder as Amelia made her way down a back street into Paddington.

  Amelia took another lung-crushing drag on her cigarette and then tossed it to the ground and squeezed it underfoot. “I bet I would,” she mumbled as they walked off. “I bet I bloody would.” She forgot all about soggy hamburgers and marched, her bag clinging onto her shoulder for dear life, towards the scene of the crime.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Pets Win Prizes

  Liv woke up and began to wallop herself around the face. She could feel a giant mosquito perched on her right cheekbone.

  “Get off. Go away.” She slapped away until it had to be dead, then lifted her hand from her cheek to witness the gore in a satisfied way. She looked at her hand. It wasn’t a mozzie at all. It was a spiky, glittery false eyelash. Ugh. And she’d just completely given herself a headache by whacking her face like that. She leaned over to pull a pillow from the other side of the bed to hide from the glare of the Sydney weather. Instead her hand hit skin. Unmistakably skin. Human. She slowly turned her head, wondering if maybe she hadn’t just got what she’d prayed for at her Tim altar all those months ago. To wake up and find that it had all been a dream, they were still engaged, and he was lying next to her in bed. But as she opened her eyes she realised that no, her prayers hadn’t been answered. Well, not the Tim one, anyway. But maybe another one. Had she, she tried to recollect, ever prayed to see Ben Parker wearing reckless ruby lipstick with the sibling of her glittery eyelash stuck above his left eyebrow while lying buck naked in bed next to her? Not specifically, she thought. But maybe in one of her dirtier, more daring moments this scenario might have crossed her mind fleetingly. Anyway, the point was it had come true. Thank you, God, for answering my prayers.

  She had had sex with Ben Parker. She had died and gone to heaven. She was now a whole woman. Complete, fulfilled, extended, delighted, and satisfied by the man of her dreams. The only hitch being she couldn’t remember a moment of it. Not a kiss. Not a lick. Or a squeal or a groan. Nothing. Nada. Rien. Naff All. She had somehow managed to have sex with him and completely forget it. How could that be? Then she rem
embered the Cocksucking Cowboys. Of course. She could have cried—she had clearly been a miserable, philandering good-for-nothing male in a previous life to warrant this sort of bad luck right now.

  Then just as she thought it couldn’t get any worse she remembered dog handling. She’d slept with Ben Parker. She’d totally and utterly messed up her plans. How could one person be so breathtakingly stupid? There was now absolutely no way that she would ever get him in the sack again. He was as good as gone. In fact, if she closed her eyes and opened them again in six seconds he would probably take the opportunity to sneak out of her life and vanish. She had given away the goods. She was the cheap floozy. The scarlet other woman. She took a deep breath and wondered what the correct position to assume was when you were about to be kicked to the kerb. Maybe head between knees like aeroplane crash landings. Certainly she wanted to avoid eye contact when he did it. She decided to go and take a shower to give him a chance to leave without having to endure the whole embarrassing thing about letting her down gently. She peeled her sheets back as slowly and quietly as possible and made her way to the bathroom.

  Once the shower was pelting hot against her skin and torrents of water were vanishing down the plughole along with leaves and twigs and soapsuds her mind began to clear just a little bit. Fragments came to her. Dave and James waving down from their float. Lots of men in thongs. Ben locking the door of the loo and kissing her. But that was it. There was a moment when she’d shed her clothes, that much she knew, and judging by the small forest blocking up her drain she’d had something to do with a tree. But the recollection of the untold bliss stubbornly refused to show its face. Maybe someone had seen her, she suddenly thought. Maybe she could place an ad in the newspaper and ask anyone who had to come forward and jog her memory with vivid descriptions. Or maybe they’d only had sex when they arrived back at her house. Perhaps Alex had seen or heard something. She’d ask her later. As she squeezed too much shower gel into her palms she offered up another prayer to God. Please, if I never ever imbibe vile alcohol again, will you let me remember The Bliss of last night? Just so I can rewind the memory and live it again in low, cat-feedingly lonely moments for the rest of my life.

  As she was contemplating her future as a spinster with cats, not men, she heard some creaking and footsteps in the other room. He was getting up and grovelling about for his shoes, no doubt. Which he wouldn’t put on until he was out the door in order not to be heard so he could make his getaway without being disturbed. She heard a low cough and a bit more creaking. In order to block out the scene she soaped her hair up into a foaming Mohican and began to whistle to herself. Soon he’d be gone and she could crawl around the cottage on her knees in misery, cursing her life and luck and parentage, which hadn’t made her Amelia, and sobbing at the thought of what could have been. But right now she was focusing with all the intensity of a certified whacko on the tune to “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.”

  “Liv, listen, I think I have to go, but I just wanted to say thanks so much. I had great fun and—”

  “Arggghhh.” Ben was standing in the doorway of the bathroom. Liv pulled the shower curtain round her. Futile, perhaps, after she’d bared her breasts to him last night, but she didn’t really remember that and well . . . she was shy. “What do you want?”

  “I’m sorry. Here, do you want this?” He passed her a towel, which she dived behind gratefully. “I just popped in to say thanks. I had fun and well—”

  “Well, you’re in love with your girlfriend. Of course you are. Why wouldn’t you be? I practically fancy her and I’m totally off blondes at the moment.” Ben looked at Liv as though she had shampoo for brains. “I’m off blondes because my ex was a blond. It’s a reaction thing. Well, I’ll be seeing you around then.” Liv clambered from the shower still covered in soapsuds and a wilting Mohican.

  “Bye then.” Ben’s shirt was still unbuttoned and he hadn’t got around to putting on his socks yet. He had clearly not got his quick getaway down to a fine art.

  “Yeah, bye,” Liv said breezily.

  But instead of turning on his heels and being grateful for being let off for his caddish laddish baddish behaviour, Ben was shifting his weight from foot to foot, smiling, and looking a bit awkwardly at Liv. “Bye,” he said.

  “See ya.” Liv shrugged. Go on. Out, out, damned boy. And then he leaned in to kiss her. She shoved her cheeks at him in a dinner party greeting way. But he was going for her lips. Honestly, the things men feel compelled to do out of guilt, Liv thought. Then, when he put his hands around her waist and began to search out her tongue with his she thought that rather than guilt this was simply a case of blatant opportunism. Here she was looking for all her life like a packet of Just Add Water and Shag and he was a boy. What else had she thought might happen?

  “God, you’re even more lovely in the daylight.” He moaned gently as he eased his shirt from his shoulders.

  Beautiful in daylight was a barefaced lie. Well, at least she knew where she stood. Scarlet Other Woman that she was and since she’d missed out on last night’s festivities and activities and she had already signed away her right to be treated well by having sex with him once, she might as well just tuck in now. He was never going to call again, so in for a penny, eh? “Hmmm, that’s nice,” she threw out as a sign of consent, and helped him with his belt buckle.

  He dipped kisses over her neck and along her shoulder. This felt so good. She closed her eyes and felt his lips. She ran her hand down his back and traced lines on his smooth, firm buttocks. God, she felt as though she’d been Sleeping Beauty for the last five years and had just woken up to smell the coffee and taste the toast and honey, or something. This was what it was all about. This was the kind of lust that made grown women weep and men leave families and lives behind. Quite simply, it was the best.

  “That was lovely, thanks,” Liv said instead of letting him in on the secrets of her epiphany.

  “Are you sure?” He brushed her hair back from his face and she could see tiny beads of sweat glistening on his top lip.

  “Positive,” she whispered as he carried on kissing her.

  “Good.” He began to push himself against her. All over again.

  And an hour later, long after he was meant to have done the kerb kicking, Ben was sitting on the edge of her bed as he handed her a can of Tizer. She took a sip and, though she hated Tizer, it suddenly felt like the sexiest, most elixirish drink in the world.

  “We could have lunch on Monday. Please. You can’t turn me down again,” Ben said.

  “I’d love to. You have my number, right?” said Liv, abandoning all pretence of unavailability. Actually, she had a meeting with her suppliers in the garment district, but what the hell.

  “Great,” Ben said. “Now gorgeous as this is and much as I’d love to sit here all day and bask in the sun and have you by my side, I really have to go. But I’ll call you. We’ll go somewhere lovely. Maybe a picnic?”

  “Sounds great. I know this place called Parsley Bay. We could swim and I’ll make some Scotch eggs or something.” She laughed.

  “I’ll bring jam tarts and squashed sandwiches and flat lemonade and we’re away.”

  “I’ll look forward to it,” Liv said as she leaned over and kissed him good-bye one more time. “Oh, and I know this is not exactly a romantic thing to ask, but did we have safe sex last night? I mean I know you were careful just now, but we were pretty fucked up last night and I just wondered whether—”

  “Last night?”

  “Please say yes or I’ll have to slap myself so hard on the wrists.”

  “We didn’t have sex last night, Liv. Jeez, do you think I’d have taken advantage of you in that state? I mean I would have loved to, don’t get me wrong, but call me old-fashioned—I just brought you home to bed.”

  “Oh,” Liv said. “Okay, fine. Thanks. That was . . . sweet. See you tomorrow then.”

  Liv fell back to sleep again for another hour or so and woke up to Alex doing squat thrusts on her
rug. She turned her head and groaned in pain. Clearly she’d still been pretty plastered when Ben was here. Now she was beginning to feel the ill effects of so much unprecedented immorality. “Well, now I know that It Girls are born and not made,” Liv growled at Alex in her newfound sexy voice, which had just appeared from nowhere. Actually, her voice was the only good thing about her right now and she was tempted to leave messages on the machines of everybody she’d ever met just so they’d hear how gravelly and seductive she was. Because it wasn’t going to last. The reason being that Liv wasn’t going to last. Ugh, this was awful. She thought perhaps she had about six hours to live. Six hours’ countdown before the knocking in her head exploded into an ugly mass of self-loathing. Lots of stuff would come out of her ears. Mostly brain but perhaps a few internal organs, too, as they did feel as though they were swimming part of a triathlon in her bloodstream.

  “I’ve just had some homemade muesli and freshly squeezed orange juice. And the body-sculpt class is really making my arms firm. Squeeze,” Alex taunted mercilessly as she sat on the end of Liv’s bed and displayed a golden, toned arm. In just jeans and a T-shirt she’d come round to take Liv for lunch in Bondi.

  “Too bloody perfect. Leave the room.” Liv reached for a towel, which she wrapped around her face. “So you were out, right? You just got back?” Liv wondered if Alex had run into Ben, but no, she’d have said so. Liv saved it up to tell her later. Right now she didn’t quite have the energy.

  “You see, if you’d experimented with clubbing and dancing as a teenager like people are meant to, you wouldn’t be in nearly so much pain. Your body’s too old and broken down to deal with the onslaught,” Alex said as she flipped through the Sunday newspapers.