The Dark Part of Me (27 page)

‘What are you doing? I’ve gotta get home,’ Scott said. ‘For fuck’s sake, ease off, alright?’ He swiped at the wheel. I swerved, narrowly missing a road
island, and accelerated along Moggill Road, through Toowong. Turning off at the cemetery, I flew up the hill, past the botanical gardens and the derelict quarry, veering left at the sign which said
‘
Mount Coot-tha Lookout 1 km ahead
’. I wound down the window and my hair went flying wild in the hot, dusty breeze.

‘You’ve really fucking lost it, haven’t you?’ Scott shouted.

As I raced further up the mountain, Brisbane fell away below us like a futuristic wasteland. I pictured all the burbans below, sleeping off their Christmas bellies, floating like overweight
corpses on the surface of a thousand backyard pools. About halfway to the top, there was a dirt embankment overlooking the view. At night, lovers parked their cars along the siding to pash and
root, but, at 5 p.m. on Christmas Day, there was no one within coo-ee. I pulled over, the tyres skidding on the loose gravel.

‘What are you doing now?’ said Scott.

I cut the ignition, cranked the handbrake, killed the radio.

‘What’s your big announcement?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ He was lying. I could see it in his eyes and in the way the top of his ears went a bit pink, same as when he’d said he
hadn’t rooted Trish.

‘Tell me!’ I grabbed his arm, digging my fingernails into his skin. He yelped, jerking away.

‘Bitch!’ he said, inspecting his arm.

I glowered at him, my tongue hot with venom. ‘Fuck you.’

We sat, steaming in silence. The engine ticked and expanded. The heat rolled in around us, thick and suffocating, pressing me into the seat. Sweat beads rolled from the roots of my hair, down
the back of my neck and my spine. I smiled across at him.

‘I know a secret.’

Scott turned and looked at me. ‘What secret?’ His eyes roamed my tits and I could tell he had sex on his mind. Danny’s name was on the tip of my tongue but I didn’t want
it to ruin the moment. Scott crawled over the brake-stick towards me.

‘Just shut up and fuck me, alright? I know you want me.’

But I pushed him off and flung open the door. I leapt out of the car and stuck my head back through the window. ‘I know about your little secret.’ I turned and bolted, gripping the
car keys tight in my hand. I crossed the road and hurried down the embankment into the bush, skidding on the gravel. The undergrowth was thick and spiky, lashing at my bare legs. Sharp stones bit
into the soles of my feet. I had no idea where I was going; I just wanted Scott to chase me. I could hear him thrashing after me, swearing and calling out for me to come back, and I kept running in
no particular direction, my vision smudging in the heat-haze. Everything was a blur of brown and silvery-green, as if the friction of my body against the world could have set the bush on fire.

Scott was gaining on me. I could hear him panting, the snap of fallen branches underfoot. He kept yelling, ‘I’m gonna get you, Rosie. I’m gonna get you real bad,’ in a
voice that got me half-frightened, half-rank. I couldn’t wait for him to catch me but I wasn’t giving in easy. Blood fired in my veins as I jumped over rocks and fallen logs and ducked
under low-lying boughs. I squeezed the car keys tighter in my hand and looked out across the valley. The sun was a huge, red disc. The horizon was streaked with wisps of blood-coloured cloud,
bathing the city in an eerie, pinkish haze.

‘Gotcha!’

Scott tackled me around the waist. We fell hard to the ground. The keys flew out of my hand. My shoulder grazed against a flat slab of granite. He had me trapped, his legs straddling my waist.
He was laughing cruelly, his mouth wide open.

‘Mutai?’ he said.

I squirmed and shook my head. ‘No way. Not until you tell me.’ I flung my arms back against the rock. The granite was hot beneath me. Its warmth made me horny. He watched me, his
hands resting loose on his thighs. I could see his cock rising steadily against the satiny material of his boxers, slipping through the fly, the head smooth, pink and glossy. He swallowed, audibly,
visibly. I laughed, my voice low and strange, my nipples so tight and bursting they could have rolled off from my chest. He lay down flat on top of me, the weight of his body pressing me into the
rock. His face was close to mine, his breath sweet and beery against my cheek. Stretching up, he roughly prised open my fists, pulling back the fingers, one by one. ‘Where’re the
keys?’

‘You’ll have to strip-search me,’ I said.

‘That won’t take long.’ He grabbed both my wrists, pinning me to the ground, and pashed me, deep with tongue. Next thing, his shorts were off and his fingers, hot and
insistent, shoved the crotch of my bikini bottoms to one side. Planting his arms against my hips, his cock nudged and bumped at my pussy. I ached with rankness. He thrust hard up into me. I yelped.
I hadn’t done it in two years and for a second it hurt, but then it felt awesome. I swung my legs around his back, my fingers twisting in his hair. Dusky sunlight spangled and burned around
him like an aura. We rocked back and forth. Gold light flitted in and out of the eucalyptus overhead. I felt myself rising, teetering on the edge.

‘Call me a slut,’ I hissed.

‘You fucking slut,’ he said. ‘You filthy fucking whore.’ His neck was strained with one thick, pulsing vein. We went for it, riding hard and fast, my thighs slick and
foamy as a racehorse’s. My eyes were shut tight. The granite rasped at my skin but I was nearly there. I was so fucking bad, such a bad, bad, bad, bad, bad girl. Oh fuck. Oh fucking fuck. I
saw my orgasm shimmering ahead and I galloped towards it, my legs viced around Scott’s torso, my butt-muscles clenched and pumping, my fingers looped and gripped in his hair. ‘You dirty
cunt,’ Scott growled, as I bucked and reared beneath him, biting into his chest, my whole body convulsing, and then there was nothing but the softest blackness raining down on me and I
slumped back onto the rock. It was the best orgasm I’ve ever had. Scott came soon after but I was dead, or as good as, drugged with the sweetest post-coital nectar. Save his breathing, all
was silent.

Scott slid off me, his chest wet with sweat. I opened my eyes and sat up, feeling weak and giddy. The bad-girl sizzle ebbed away, retreating inside me. My crotch was hot and damp; my back grazed
and stinging. Scott crawled away from me, his bum up in the air. Between his legs, his balls hung loose in the heat. A few metres away to the left of the granite rock, a frilly-neck froze, reared
its collar and hissed, its forked tongue flashing in and out. Scott turned and stared at it, mimicking its throaty gargle, his hands splayed around his neck. The frilly got all in a tizz. It
whipped around in circles, hopping on its tiny clawed feet, its beady eyes bright with fear and anger. Scott pegged a stick at it. Its tail pitched upwards and it darted away, scuttling across the
dirt, and I thought how gutless Scott was and how much I hated him.

‘I know the truth about you,’ I said, searching for the car keys in the fading light while Scott stood by not helping.

‘Yeah?’ he said. ‘That I’m a fucking awesome root.’

‘No.’ I paused, waiting for him to look at me. ‘I know about you and Danny.’

A muscle spasmed in Scott’s cheek and everything froze like in a Western. Those tiny seconds after a gun goes off. Then thwump, thwump, the bodies start hitting the dirt. I opened my mouth
to eat back the words but it was too late. I’d triggered something now. Scott came up behind me and grabbed my wrists, squeezing hard.

He whispered, close in my ear, his spit hitting my cheek. ‘That fucking faggot cunt! I know he’s been after me.’ I bet he’d liked it too much, the feel of Danny’s
hand on his dick. It must’ve fucked with part of his head. The part that teetered, wavered, wondered if. So he’d crushed and tortured it, clubbed and stomped and killed it before it
took him over.

Letting go of my wrists, he pushed me roughly up the hill and I stumbled forwards onto my knees. ‘You think you know me?’ he said, ‘C’mon then. I want to show you
something.’ He strode off ahead, not once looking back at me as I followed him up to the car. As we drove down the mountain in silence, I felt numb. BrisVegas lay sprawled, a great expanse of
dirty green studded with a million rooftops burnished orange as the sun collapsed into the valley.

I pulled up under the leopard tree.

Scott burst out of the car, slamming the door so hard it shuddered up my spine. His head filled the open window. ‘Get out.’ His voice was steady.

I sat in the driver’s seat, not knowing whether to obey him or take off.

The Greenwood house was ablaze with light. Upstairs, the Christmas tree winked in the window and the front door was wide open to catch the breeze. Silhouettes, adult-and kid-sized, zipped back
and forth like shadow puppets. Downstairs, the men were playing pool. I caught the whiff of barbie-meat. Mr Greenwood’s favourite Buddy Holly track, ‘True Love Ways’, drifted out
across the lawn.

‘Get outta the fucking car!’

I jumped. Scott was on my side, hauling me out of my seat. He dragged me across the lawn and up the front steps, two at a time. The door was open but the fly-screen was locked. He rang the bell.
His eyes shone manic.

‘Coming!’ Mrs Greenwood sang out from the kitchen. She came clattering down the hall. The lock clicked and she swung back the screen. ‘About bloody time!’ She was wearing
a bright-red belted dress and green bauble earrings with bells which tinkled when she moved her head. She saw me and stopped, her over-powdered face creasing into a sharp frown.
‘Rosie!’ she said, forcing her lips into a fake smile. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Outta the way, Mum,’ Scott ordered.

Mrs Greenwood stood firm, blocking the doorway, her arms folded across her bust. ‘Do you think that’s such a good idea?’ she said to Scott, then turning to me, ‘I mean,
Rosie dear, haven’t you just got out of hospital?’

‘No, she’s fine.’ Scott barged past her, tugging me inside and down the hall.

I tried to wrench my arm free but he pulled me through to the living room where Mrs Greenwood’s tribe of sisters were sipping sherry and Scott’s young cousins were playing with their
new Barbies. We stood under the artificial arch. The women looked up from their gossip and then, clocking me in my lime-green bikini, exchanged raised eyebrows. I felt naked, a mollusc with no
shell, my back still stinging from our root on the granite. I wished to god I had some clothes on.

Mrs Greenwood slipped between us. ‘Look, everyone. You remember Rosie, don’t you?’

‘What’s she doing here?’ Auntie Beth hissed.

‘You’ve got a bit of a cheek, haven’t you, luvvie?’ Auntie Marge squawked.

‘Where is she?’ demanded Scott.

Mrs Greenwood shook her head and pursed her lips. Scott grabbed my hand and stormed through the kitchen, down the stairs and through the rumpus. Mrs Greenwood and her sisters followed behind
like a flock of geese, carrying their sherry glasses with them. The kids, sensing drama in the air, charged like excited goslings in their wake.

As we crossed the lawn, the grass was cool and lush beneath my feet. The Grubs were warming up for a set. Coloured lightbulbs were strung up from the fence, drenching the lawn in red, purple,
orange. Mr Greenwood was on the barbie, which was alive with popping sausages and smoking squares of beef. He looked up as we went past and shouted, half-cut, ‘For goodness’ sake,
Rosie, put some bloody clothes on, why don’t ya?’ Near the band, I spotted Muzza, and Bomber just out of hospital, sitting on folding stools. Kirstie was there, too. They were all
talking to a woman with jet-black hair. Scott strode across the lawn towards them, ripping me along, Mrs Greenwood and her sisters still behind us.

As we got closer, I could see it was her. She was sitting sideways to Bomber and Muzza. Her legs were stretched out in front, her bare feet up on a chair. Scott ditched my hand. She swivelled
around, awkwardly. It was her. Almond eyes. Creamy skin and long limbs. Her stomach was huge. The ground rocked beneath me and my legs bowed. I told my knees to lock.

‘You alright, babe?’ she asked Scott with a pommie accent, smiling as she smoothed her slender hands over her swollen belly. My ears burned hot and bile rose in my throat.

‘I’d like you to meet an old friend.’ Scott nodded at me and Bomber tittered as she struggled to stand up. She was wearing dark jeans, slung below her bump, and a loose
peasant-style blouse. She was taller and more beautiful than the photo, softer in the face. Around her neck, she wore a string of amber beads the same as Scott had been wearing at the rave. I swam
in her beautiful, calm face.

‘Amber, Rosie. Rosie, Amber,’ Scott said. ‘Rosie and I went out for a while, when we were kids.’

‘Lovely to meet you,’ said Amber. She smiled at me, but I couldn’t speak. Wrapping his arms around her shoulders, Scott looked at me over the top of her head.

‘Can you believe it? I’m going to be a dad.’

But last week I swallowed your cum on Mum’s bed and today, less than an hour ago, we rooted like crazy fucking rodents.
I felt like my insides had been scooped out with a hunting
knife. Bomber and Muzza sat back, revelling. Scott bent his head and whispered something in her ear to which she laughed, clapping her hands together girlishly. Edging away from the scene, I
watched them, blackest envy rising like sludge in my chest. I wanted to be somewhere far, far away.