Heart of Glass (28 page)

He must have been unused to
such honesty in his office, for the professor cautiously placed a
fatherly arm around my shoulder, handing me his hanky. I sniffed
and blew and at last was calm.

“
Now, do you have any other
work?” he asked again, walking back to his own side of the desk and
sitting down.

“
I have some short stories
and a few poems, but they’re not that good.”

“
I think you should let me
be the judge of that. Go home, look through them and bring me your
best pieces. I’ll send them off for you next week if they’re
ready.”

There was no way on Earth
they wouldn’t be. I’d see to that.

***

When Mark knocked at my
door, I was in uncertain as to whether I should let him in. I’d
been doing so well, ignoring his existence and had thought he was
doing the same. It was nothing unusual for him to slip in an out of
my life at a moment’s notice. His absences always went unexplained,
and I’d learnt never to question.

“
Hi
Blondie
.” His shoulder was leaning
against the doorjamb, his black t-shirt stretched across his broad
chest and arms. His dreadlocks hung tantalizingly over his face and
his musty scent was still a force to be reckoned with. His grin was
slow and sexy. “Can I come in?”

“
I’m sure you’ve got better
things to do than hang around with me. You’ve been out of touch for
so long, I thought you’d been abducted by aliens.”

My sarcasm was not lost on
the Lizard King, who chose to ignore it and slid into my tiny
lounge. He eyed me up and down, raising an eyebrow, I was unsure
whether in approval or disapproval, until he pulled me towards him,
disregarding anything I could have said or done to stop
him.

“
You look like
shit.”

Pushing him away, I smoothed
my hair and tucked the loose strands behind my ears, not knowing
why I should care what he thought. “How dare you come in here and
start telling me I look bad, you don’t look so shit hot
yourself.”

I’d have had to be blind not
to notice the bruising on his arms. He’d started using again, I
didn’t know or care what, as long as he didn’t ask me to do it with
him. “I think you should go…”

“
What do you
mean?”

“
I mean that my life almost
came to a resounding end, no thanks to you. I lost control Mark, I
gave my life to you and you filled it with drugs and alcohol and
sex and I nearly lost everything.”

“
Fuck, Bella. It was a bit
of fun. I thought we were having fun.” He slid closer and began to
nuzzle on my neck. “I thought you enjoyed it.”

I pushed him off again, with
two hands this time. “I did enjoy it but that’s not the point. The
point is I almost got chucked out of Uni. Luckily, they gave me
another chance, so I’ve been working night and day to catch up on
all the stuff I missed while you were shagging me
silly.”

“
Fuck.”

I walked into the kitchen
and began to rummage through a stack of loose papers, sort of
insinuating he should leave, but he didn’t. He followed me. There
were papers, strewn across the floor of the tiny kitchen and over
every available surface.

“
What’s with the mess?” he
asked.

“
I’m looking for some stuff
I wrote a while back, when I first met you, before you turned my
brain into pulp.”

“
What for?”

I paid no heed to his
question, hoping he’d go away, and continued to sort through the
jumble on the bench. He walked over and slipped his arms around my
waist from behind.

“
You’ve lost more weight. I
can feel your ribs poking into my forearms.”

“
That might have something
to do with the fact that I haven’t eaten in months. Have you
forgotten that we spent most of our time in bed, stoned or drunk?
It’s a wonder I’m not a raging alcoholic.”

Mark moved closer. “Don’t
be angry,
Blondie
. I know I’ve been missing in action for a while but there’s
never been any expectation between us, so what’s the
problem?”

“
The problem is I’m sick of
not knowing what day it is or where you are. I’m tired, I ache all
over and you don’t give a shit. And some expectations would be nice
for a fucking change!”

Mark took a step back, a
first for him, and eyed me cautiously, waiting to see if my tirade
would continue. “Come to bed, then. Let me take your pain
away.”

“
You can’t just waltz in
here and expect a fuck, Mark. It doesn’t work like that
anymore.”

“
Why not? You know you
always feel better afterwards. We could do some speed, have a bit
of fun.”

“
You didn’t hear a word I
said did you? I don’t want you to make me feel better. I don’t want
any drugs. I’m busy.”

“
What’s so important that
you can’t come to bed with me? I want to feel you near me and hold
you while you sleep.”

I could feel myself
wavering. To feel his chest, strong against me would be so
soothing. To be wrapped in his dark embrace.

He stood expectantly in the
doorway but I wasn’t going to yield.

“
Prof. Philips is sending
my work to Sydney. He says its good enough to be published in a
book of student works their putting together. I have to find that
poem. It’s my best one.”

“
Does the poem have a name?
I’ll help you look. Then we can go to bed.”

“
Oh for fuck’s sake. I’m
not going to bed with you. This is my life.”

Sheepishly, Mark moved away.
He looked as if he didn’t recognise me. The Bella he knew was not
in control. The girl he knew was easily led, always at his beck and
call, a slave to his pleasure. This was another girl and I didn’t
care whether he liked her or not. She was me.

The rustle of papers and my
tired sighs were the only sounds in the room for the next twenty
minutes as we continued our fruitless search until, exasperated, he
held his hands up in hopelessness, “It would help if I knew what I
was looking for….”

“
It’s called
‘Euphoria’.”

Cursing, he tossed more
papers to the floor. Then everything went silent. He had stopped.
In his grasp were some handwritten sheets, filled with my loopy,
girly handwriting and decorated with jagged, morbid doodlings.
“This it?”

“
Please don’t read it,” I
begged. The wall clock ticked like a drum, where I hadn’t heard it
ten seconds before and I could hear him breathing with it as he
frowned onto the page.

Euphoria

He comes to me, my Dark
Prince

And wraps me in his hellish
embrace, but never in his love.

I flounder

I sink

I drown

In the night time ocean of
his eyes, but never in his love.

And then he saves
me

We drift in the darkness of
his soul,

In the yellowing of my
bruises he hides his heart

He lifts me up to ride on
the powdery sky

A sprinkling of snowy words
he gives, but never his love

Only this false
euphoria.

He looked at me. “It’s me,
isn’t it?”

“
Yes.”

“
Is this what you think of
me?”

“
Please, give it to
me.”

His mouth had formed an
angry slash, “I said, is this what you think of me?”

“
No, it’s what I think of
myself, it’s what I’ve become. I don’t want to be that girl
anymore.”

He handed me the sheets. “I
have to go.”

Suddenly his mood had
changed.

***

The Dark Prince was singing.
His husky voice traveled across the room, seeping into my bones.
Even when I was straight, and I hadn’t felt the need to take
anything for months, he was still precariously beautiful.
Captivating. That night, he was even more so as his presence filled
the room, his midnight eyes drilled into me and his muscular body
strutted and preened. He exuded sex appeal.

The boys and I were standing
in our usual spot, listening. It was so much easier now that the
affair was out in the open and I didn’t have to skulk in corners
like some person on the witness protection program. I knew they
didn’t approve but at least we were talking and things were back to
normal. Well, as normal as they could be when you had a rock god
for your lover.

Yet, after he’d read the
poem, Mark had begun to avoid me. It was subtle at first. He
stopped calling me at all hours. He began to talk to other girls.
Then his sporadic absences increased until he was hardly around at
all. He still invited me to his gigs, of course, and the sex was
great but it was almost as if our relationship had never happened.
It was okay, I justified, he’d found the things he’d read hard to
accept. I could understand why he’d be afraid. Still, seeing him on
the stage, I knew things hadn’t changed at all. He growled and made
me want him. I was still his slave. I was just doing it with a
clear head.

After the gig, I waited at
the bar. He’d told me to meet him but he was nowhere to be seen in
the jam of bodies. The rest of the band was drinking in a far
corner.

“
Have you seen Mark?” I
asked, over the din of the crowd, “He said to meet him
here.”

The barman gestured to the
stairs. There was a private area, but everybody knew I was with
Mark; I came and went as I pleased. “Thanks, I’ll go
up.”

The stairwell was dark and I
held onto the rail, my feet hesitant on the treads. A crack of
light was peeping from one of the doors at the top and I assumed he
must be there. Sometimes he liked to wind down, have a quiet time
after a gig, just sit and chill alone. I tapped on the door and
poked my head into the room. The lights were off; a lighted candle
on the table the only glow. I stood waiting for my eyes to adjust
to the darkness, an unaccustomed dread swelling in my head. I could
feel my heart pumping, a hammering motion in my chest as I frowned
at the sight of two glasses on the table, a fit and some empty
foils. Someone had been shooting up. I prayed it wasn’t Mark, he’d
worked so hard to get off heroin, to stop the hold it had over his
life. I prayed this wasn’t the reason for the distance he had put
between us.

“
Mark?” I
whispered.

Silence.

I wandered over to the
table, picking up a silver foil, examining the contents. It looked
like speed. Then, I heard a muffled sound from the sofa near the
fireplace. I couldn’t see over its back but I could hear groaning.
Please let him be okay, I thought.

Crossing to the sofa, I
looked down. He was there, in all his naked glory, rutting like an
animal. He was stoned, the girl was stoned and they seemed
oblivious to my presence.

“
Holy shit.”

He raised his head, his
glazed eyes registering my proximity. “Bella. Come join us for a
little three way action.”

“
No thanks.”

“
Sure?”

“
I’ve been waiting for you
in the bar for half and hour, Mark. I don’t want sex. Especially
not now.”

His face was devoid of
emotion as he pulled his jeans up to his slim hips and did up the
fly. Suddenly, he was no longer stoned. “Yeah, sorry about that.
Guess I forgot you were coming.”

“
Were you doing
H?”

He looked over to the table.
“Looks like it, doesn’t it. Once a junkie, always a
junkie.”

“
But why? You could’ve come
to me.”

“
You don’t understand. You
never did. You’re just a baby doing some speed for a few kicks. You
think you’re grown up but you’re not.”

“
But I’m your
friend.”

“
No. You’re a girl to fuck
and I’m a junkie. Now piss off, I’m busy.” He went to the table and
began snort some of the powder up his nose.

My eyes filled with tears.
“Is this because of the poem? It’s only words,
feelings…”

“
Don’t be so naïve Bella,
the whole world isn’t about you, you’re such a fucking
princess.”

“
What about all those
things you said, what about the song? Didn’t it mean
anything?”

“
Not really. I like you but
you’re not my type, you know.”

I could feel my hand
trembling as the realisation surged through me. Mark had used me.
I’d known it all along and I’d let it happen. “But why?”

“
It was a bet. We saw you
at the pub. The boys reckoned I could never get any girl as
straight as you to go for it, to do anything I wanted. You were
good though. You played that innocent chick thing to the
hilt.”

“
I was innocent. I knew
almost nothing before I met you.”

“
Jesus, you’d never know.”
He fished into his jeans pocket and pulled out a
Polaroid.

“
Did you take my
photo?”

“
You write poems, I take
photos. We all keep our memories somehow.” He threw the grubby
instant photo across the table at me. I stared in morbid
fascination. I had no recollection of the photo ever being taken.
It was disgusting. What else had I done when I was too stoned to
know better?