The Dark Part of Me (4 page)

I’m standing, shaking against the wall. I catch my reflection blurred and tiny in a graffitied mirror opposite. I step up to it and I look just fine but not much like me
either. Like they didn’t rape you or anything, I tell myself. The toilets are feral. I turn a tap on with my fingertips, splash water on my face. What a mess. I want to be home, tucked up in
bed in my PJs. I re-apply my lippy and try to adjust my top to hide my cleavage. The foundation has melted off my face, exposing my freckles and the jagged white scar which sits above my right
eyebrow. It’s past midnight and the last bus has gone and I don’t have enough money for a cab. I could call Mum to come and get me but it’s not worth the grief. A toilet flushes
and I jump. From the cubicle, one long, blue Converse appears. I scan the room and catch the urinals in a bank along the wall. I’ve never seen a urinal before. Ha! I’m in the
men’s. I head for the door.

‘You ’right?’

I wave a hand over my shoulder. ‘I’m fine.’

There’s a squeak of sandshoes across the floor.

‘You just prefer the men’s?’

I turn around. He’s tall and broad-shouldered. A shock of sun-bleached hair. He’s wearing faded Levi’s and a plain, red T-shirt. His arms are tanned, hairless and sinewy. He
runs his hands under the water. Somehow, he looks familiar.

I smile back, just a little, and make my assessment of the men’s loos. ‘We’ve got better lighting and bigger mirrors, and it doesn’t smell so… ’

‘Rank?’

‘So bad of piss.’

He shakes his hands dry and wipes them on the front of his jeans. He looks up and flashes me a broad grin. His eyes aren’t blue but violet, the colour of squid ink or orchids, black grapes
in sunlight. More shocking than beautiful. Something twists in me. I’m sure I know him from somewhere but the line is too cheesy to say. I step closer, drawn by his eyes, as if I might pluck
one out to examine it.

‘They real?’

‘What do you think?’

‘Weird.’

He stares back at me. ‘You here with mates?’

‘No.’

‘Who then?’

‘I’m by myself.’

‘What? To pull?’

‘No. To dance.’

‘Nice seedy establishment you’ve chosen.’

‘If it’s so seedy what are you doing here?’

‘Buck’s night for some guy from uni. I’m supposed to meet them here.’ He checks his watch. ‘The strippers’ll be on soon.’ He winks and heads towards the
door. ‘You coming, dancing girl?’

We stand at the back of the club. The dancefloor has been transformed into a stage. A girl about my age stands legs apart, completely naked save for a sparkly gold g-string and
a long string of oversized pearls around her neck. Her body is child-thin, her skin milky white. Her breasts are small but pert. Something silver glints from the dark aureole of her right nipple
and again from her belly-button. Madonna’s ‘Like a Virgin’ starts up as the girl bangs her hips from side to side, blue-ish bone rippling under translucent skin. I lean back
against the wall. I can’t help staring. As the lyrics kick in, she takes the pearls from her neck and swings them around and around like a lasso. She doesn’t smile, not once, just pouts
and slides her small pink tongue over her front teeth. Men slouch back at tables and chairs around the stage, drinking beer, swapping sly glances with their mates. I spot the uni wankers crammed
along the stage front, leaning forward like teenage groupies at a rock concert.

Gavin waves in our direction and Purple-eyes gives him the thumbs up.

‘Is he your mate?’

‘What, Garvo? Nah, not really. Mate of a mate. He got some chick preggers and he’s been conned into marriage by her oldies. Poor bastard. Nineteen and getting hitched. It’s his
last night of freedom so we’re all out on the slash.’ He pauses, looks at me. ‘What, d’you know him?’

‘No.’

We stand in silence as I’m drawn back to the girl. She is rubbing the pearls, held taut with both hands, back and forth against her golden crotch.

‘What do you reckon?’ Purple-eyes nods towards the stage.

‘What?’

‘Does it turn you on?’

I shrug, non-committal, but the truth is, she does make me feel a bit sexy.

‘Tell you what, watch the rest with me then I’ll drive you home.’

For all I know he could be a complete psycho-murderer but then he seems harmless enough, like someone’s big brother, and I need a lift home and I’m still sure I know him from
somewhere. Besides, he’s real hot.

‘What about your buck’s night?’

‘Got a big match tomorrow so I’m off the turps. Garvo’s so maggot he won’t notice.’

A slow clap starts up, wolf-whistles in-between. I look back to the stage. The girl has ditched her g-string, showing off a hairless pussy. The pearls are gone, too. Sitar music is playing as
she swivels her skinny hips like a belly dancer. She runs her hands over her breasts, then down her body, and sticks her fingers up inside. I wonder how many men, at that precise moment, have
erections. The music stops and a hush falls over the room. A drum roll. The girl pushes her fingers further inside, her eyes closed, her mouth hanging open. Purple-eyes gulps. The drum roll
finishes and the girl takes one large step forwards to the edge of the stage. She’s pulling something out of herself, something small, round and shiny which glistens under the spotlight. Then
another shiny thing and another. I squint up at the stage. A roar goes up from the crowd. Loud, eager clapping and then I twig. The string of pearls. Each one coming out quicker now as the crowd
goes wild and one man, rushing forwards, snatches the pearls and stuffs them in his mouth.

‘That’ll be Garvo,’ says Purple-eyes.

‘That’s disgusting!’

‘It’s not meant for chicks. Unless, of course, you’re a dyke. C’mon, want a lift or not?’

I hesitate. ‘But I don’t know your name.’

‘Scott.’

‘Rosie.’

He grabs my hand and kisses it like in the movies.

That night, Scott didn’t stop talking the whole way home, rattling off a compendium of ‘getting to know you’ facts about himself while I conscientiously took
it all in like I was going to be tested. He told me he was nineteen, three years older than me. He’d just finished second year Human Movement Studies at Queensland Uni. He said his best mates
were Bomber and Muzza and that he’d known them since kindergarten; he had an older brother called Nick who played in a band; his favourite colour was Kermit-the-frog green; and his favourite
number was seven. He told me he was mad about sport, especially basketball, water polo and cricket; and his Mum’s beef lasagne was his favourite food, followed closely by Big Rooster’s
chicken fillet fingers. By then, we were turning into my street.

‘Here’s fine.’ I pointed at the kerb, feeling like a little girl being driven home from school.

‘That your house?’ He pulled over, switching off the ignition.

‘Yep.’ I prayed Mum wouldn’t come storming out in her chenille.

‘Still scabbing off the oldies?’

‘Yeah,’ I admitted, trying to sound tough.

‘Me, too,’ he said. ‘Mum and Dad mind their own business, though. My bedroom’s downstairs so I pretty much do what I like.’ I pictured my tiny, pink room, smackers
in the middle of the house, and my single bed.

We sat in the dark interior of his 1979 Gemini, listening to the engine contract, the cool night air slipping in around our bodies. I pressed my palms against the bare tops of my inner thighs. A
new sensation burned in my gut. Sick excitement. I felt his eyes on my neck, my shoulders, my legs.

‘Lucky you don’t live far,’ I blurted out.

Scott grinned. ‘Lucky for what?’

‘Nothing,’ I said, burning up. ‘I’d better go. Thanks for the lift.’ I fumbled with the door handle.

‘Door’s fucked from the inside. I’m afraid you’re stuck in here, babe. Unless of course you want to climb over me.’ His tone was light and playful but when I tried
the door again it wouldn’t budge.

‘No kidding. This car’s a piece of shit.’ I thought about winding down the window and opening the door from the outside but instead I undid my seat-belt and, flipping onto my
knees, crawled over the hand-brake. I wrapped my arms around his neck for leverage and hoisted myself on to his lap. The steering wheel dug into my back and my head butted against the ceiling. My
chest was level with his nose. I turned to the door but it was locked, the button wedged beneath his elbow.

‘Move your elbow, please,’ I said. But his hand was behind my head, pulling me towards him. Our lips met and I was amazed at the softness of his mouth. He held the kiss then pushed
his tongue inside, sliding it over my teeth and my gums. His mouth tasted sweet, of red cordial mingled with something even sweeter, like caramel. His tongue was smooth and slippery, gentle yet
insistent. I pulled back.

‘What’s up?’

‘Nothing.’

What’s up was that I hadn’t kissed anyone since I was nine. It was Friday morning cookery class when Frank Castelli, a chubby Italian boy, held the blunt side of a carving knife to
my neck and poked his tongue in my gob while Mrs Hodge had her back turned rolling out pastry for our strawberry tarts.

‘I know this sounds silly but you look familiar,’ I said.

‘Really?’ he said.

‘Yeah.’ We stared at each other, a beam of streetlight slicing between us.

‘Maybe out. Brisbane’s not that big, hey.’

‘No, that’s not it.’ I drummed my fingers against my temple. ‘Wait. It’ll come to me.’ A memory hook snagged in my brain. ‘I know! You were mates with
Danny Bailey, weren’t you? You went to Grammar.’

‘Yeah. Nah.’ He tilted his head back, out of the light, and I couldn’t see his eyes. ‘Only for a bit.’ His voice had gone quieter, low and kind of distant.

‘I’m best friends with Hollie, his sister. God, I remember now. You used to come round to the house. That’s right. How funny.’ I thought back to the time, as a kid,
I’d spied on them: Danny and his school mates, watching porno vids and drinking Mr Bailey’s vintage piss out of the cellar. But right then, I was too shy to mention it so I just smiled
and blinked and tossed my hair back over my shoulder.

‘He’s still inside, isn’t he?’ Scott ran his fingers through his hair a few times. I still couldn’t see his eyes.

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Were you there when it happened?’ Hollie had never told me who was there that night in the changing rooms after footy practice. The school and the
parents had made sure that the boys’ names, except, of course, Matty Taylor’s, were kept well out of the papers.

‘Yeah, nah, but I wasn’t in on it.’ Scott cleared his throat and stretched out his legs. His face was back in the streetlight. He stared at me, tracing a finger down the side
of my body, brushing against the edge of my breast, giving me awesome tingles. I could feel his erection against my thigh so I flashed him some bad-girl eye, but he’d spotted my scar. I
turned away, patting my fringe down over it, but he pulled my hand off and ran a finger along the ridgy bit.

‘Don’t!’ I batted his hand away.

‘Whoa, sorry. What’s the big deal?’

‘I just don’t like it, alright? It’s ugly.’

‘Nah, scars are cool. It makes you look dangerous. Like you’ve been in a fight or something. How’d you get it?’

‘I fell off a bike when I was seven,’ I lied. ‘Nine stitches.’

‘Impressive.’

We pashed again. Our tongues synchronized better this time. He wrote my phone number in pen on the inside of his arm and I got out. He rolled the car backwards down the street without the engine
on. I crept around the side of the house and climbed back through my bedroom window.