Taming the Beast (14 page)

But now he wanted her to shut up, because however much he loved to hear the sound of her voice, he had never in his whole life needed so desperately to
come
. ‘Sarah,’ he said, and that was all. He said her name and then everything he’d ever wanted to say to her coursed through his groin; he shuddered, sobbed and then lay still.

Throughout January and February, Jamie and Sarah saw each other as much as they ever had, but instead of watching movies or getting drunk or going out for lunch, they climbed into Sarah’s bed and stayed there until it was time for Jamie to go home. Sarah was surprised by how much she liked fucking him, but more than that, she was surprised at how easily she fell asleep when he was by her side. His breath in her ear, his hand on her waist, the scent and sound of him, tranquillised her. Many times he had to wake her to tell her it was time for him to go, and she would spend the night trying without success to recapture the serenity he took with him.

Mike came knocking at the end of January. His nose had healed and his tail was between his legs. He told Sarah that he missed her and that sex with Jess reminded him of when he was thirteen and he used to get off by humping a pile of pillows. Sarah couldn’t think of any good reason to not sleep with him, and so their affair resumed. Within a month she was sick to death of him again. She looked forward to his wedding in July. Not so much the wedding, but the honeymoon which would give her a full three weeks break from him.

On the third of March, Shelley gave birth to a baby girl named Bianca. Sarah went to the hospital, took yellow roses for Shelley, a cigar for Jamie and a tiny white bonnet for the child. She held the pink and white bundle Jamie thrust at her, and tried to feel something other than impatience. Jamie walked her to the bus stop, talking the whole time about contractions and epidurals, feedings
and bathings. He did not kiss her goodbye, but instead squeezed her hand and thanked her for coming to see his
girls
. On the way home she tried not to think about the hot, squirmy little bundle, but she felt the weight of it in her empty arms, heard its gurgling sigh above the noise of the bus. She felt injured and confused. Shocked that a heat-emitting, smell-making creature had been produced by Jamie, that it could make her arms ache and her nose twitch, that it could make Jamie blind to her, cold to her desire.

Sarah did bad things that night. Dangerous, painful, unclean things. She did not go home until her body’s memory of the child was all gone. Until her skin was red raw and she stank like a person without a home, without sense.

In the weeks after Bianca’s birth, Jamie stayed away from Sarah. He phoned her nightly, apologising for yet another missed appointment. The baby was unpredictable, demanding, impossible to leave. Shelley was exhausted, sick, impossible to refuse. Plus, there was work and housework and wedding arrangements to make. He would come see her the first chance he had.

Sarah told him that she was busy anyway. The honours program was more demanding than she had expected, and she found her old study routine was inadequate. Now she was in the Arts lounge by seven each morning, drinking coffee, tapping her feet and clicking her pen, with the rest of the black-eyed, black-clad diehards. From seven until nine they argued over whether Slessor was really a modernist and whether Hope was a genius or a bore. Sometimes they helped each other draft papers or formulate discussion points. They ate chocolate biscuits, hash cookies or peanuts stolen from behind the uni bar. At nine o’clock, they wished each other luck, kissed each other, lightly or seriously, and headed off to their classes or meetings. At lunchtime, they would regroup, eat whatever was
leftover from the morning’s session and argue some more. Afternoon was more classes, early evening meant study in the library or typing up a paper in the computer lab, after which Sarah would catch the bus directly to work, where she would wait tables until ten o’clock. Jamie called at eleven o’clock each night, without fail. They would talk for a few minutes, and then Sarah would study some more. Most nights she got to bed around three, and would fall asleep around dawn. On weekends, she slept and studied and saw no one.

So she did not really have time to spend with Jamie, but she was annoyed and distracted by his continued absence anyway. By the third week she was losing the place in her reading and getting caught daydreaming in lectures. She figured she was losing more time to the
idea
of him than she would if she could just
see
him for an hour or so. Not that she could say that to him; he’d go all mushy on her. Instead, she did not answer the phone for three nights running and on the third night, at fourteen minutes past midnight, he turned up at her door dressed in shirt and tie and stinking of baby powder.

Sarah had not been touched for weeks. That was why she felt like weeping when Jamie kissed her neck, why she found the sex painful in its intensity, why she had to bite her tongue to stop from saying something stupid while she lay in his arms afterward. ‘I think you actually missed me,’ he said. ‘Well, duh,’ she said.

When Bianca was a month old, Jamie and Shelley got married. It was not the flashy affair originally planned, since money was tight and the happy couple were shockingly exhausted. Shelley wore a pale pink silk dress and flowers in her hair. Sarah thought that she looked quite pretty. Jamie smiled a lot, but mostly at his daughter who slept in her mother’s arms for the whole ceremony. The
reception was held in the church hall, with finger food and cask wine supplied by the bride’s parents and a jukebox hired by the groom’s.

During the reception, when Shelley went to feed Bianca, Jamie pulled Sarah into the supply cupboard. ‘For you,’ he said, handing her a small black box. Inside was a gold band. Sarah stared at it blankly. Jamie took the ring from the box, lifted Sarah’s right hand, and slid the ring over her finger. ‘There, it looks beautiful.’

‘Did you get two for the price of one or something?’ Sarah said, and felt bad straight away. She fingered the thick gold band. ‘What’s this for?’

‘I wanted to show you that me being married doesn’t change how I feel about you.’

Sarah felt like she was suffocating. ‘I know that. You don’t have to give me a wedding ring. People will notice.’

Jamie kissed her hand. ‘No one will notice if it’s on the right hand. And it isn’t a wedding ring, anyway, it’s a…’ He smiled at her, and kissed her ring finger again. ‘It doesn’t have a label, Sarah. It’s like us, like this thing we have. Beautiful and strong and nameless.’

Sarah nearly lost the six glasses of moselle she’d drunk. Jamie was such a soppy pain in the arse sometimes. But though his sentimentality made her sick, his eyes made her sad and she couldn’t be cruel or sarcastic.

‘Come here.’ She caught him around the waist and pulled him to her. ‘Have I told you how good you look in that suit?’ She kissed his throat above his collar.

‘No. Sarah, I have to go back–’

‘In a minute.’ Sarah unzipped his pants. ‘I want you.’

‘How can you be so fucking insensitive? I can’t do this on, oh, Sarah, don’t.’

‘Sssh.’ She took out his already hard cock and worked it with her hands, while he kissed her neck and lifted her skirt. From the other side of the door she could hear
Only You
and the sound of high heels on tile and the white noise of forty people having twenty conversations.

‘Sarah, this is really wrong,’ Jamie said into her ear, as he pushed her underpants aside and drove into her. She fell back onto a box of toilet paper rolls, and for a moment he was apart from her. Then he reclaimed her and fucked her like that, both of them fully clothed, both of them wearing plain gold bands, both of them biting down on their own lips to stop from crying out. A fast song started playing and the noise from the hall increased as the high heels and the heavy leather dress shoes pounded the dance floor and a few beered up men attempted to sing along.

The airless closet stank of bleach. Sarah’s vision – already slightly shaky from the wine – began to blur. She closed her eyes, but that made her feel like she was falling fast, so she opened them. Jamie’s face was red; sweat dripped from his temples and down onto her dress. He smiled, or grimaced really, and touched her face with a hot, wet hand and she felt his cold ring against her cheek and she bit down hard, hard, hard to stop from howling as the orgasm slammed through her.

He left first, after she had checked him for lipstick or wet spots or other telltale marks. She sat on the box and licked the blood from the inside of her lip. She was more shaken than she had been in a very long time. Certainly more shaken than she had ever been after fucking Jamie. An unfamiliar feeling, something true and bright and deep, had hijacked her. It wasn’t love, but it was damn close. Something that looked a bit like love if it was dark enough and you turned your head to the side and squinted. She felt it and knew she was in trouble.

Fucking for pleasure was a difficult, dangerous game. Especially for women, whose bodies were specifically designed to trick them into attachment. Sarah knew how it worked: the surging adrenalin and testosterone creating the desire; the gentle buzz of dopamine, reliably kicking in just as it did after every cigarette; and then all that lovely serotonin. Then while she was on this glorious natural high, the primal, three-billion year old instinct took over and she became nothing but a grasping, sucking mating machine. The delicious spasms of her orgasm were just her body’s way of getting her to contract her cervix and suck that sperm up like a vacuum.

And in the blissful moments after the shaking stopped, the oxytocin came flooding in, poisoning her blood with the same chemical that caused mothers to bond with their babies. The more frequent the exposure, the more intense the bond. It was a biological ploy to ensure the survival of the species and it had worked brilliantly in Sarah. This was what she felt now for Jamie. Not love, just a chemical addiction developed after months of recreational use. She vowed to cut down.

Due to a hangover which prevented her from getting out of bed until well after four o’clock in the afternoon, Sarah was late for Jamie’s birthday celebration at the pub. By the time she arrived, Mike and Jamie were half full already, their beer garden table cluttered with empty glasses and full ashtrays. Jamie looked like shit, and Sarah told him so.

‘You try getting half an hour of sleep a night, then we’ll see who looks like shit. You should hear how loud my kid can yell. Thank God, Mum agreed to take her for the day. Shell and I are exhausted.’

‘Poor boy.’ Sarah kissed his forehead and resisted the urge to move down and kiss his lips. She straightened and patted his shoulder. ‘You can always stay at my place if you need a break.’

‘Nah, don’t do it, man,’ Mike said. ‘Whenever I’ve spent the night with Sarah I’ve had no sleep at all.’ He grabbed Sarah by the waist and pulled her down onto his lap. She swatted at him with both arms and slid off his lap onto the seat.

‘What? The girls are in the wine bar, relax.’

Jamie cleared his throat. ‘Yeah, but I’m right here.’

‘You know that me and Sarah can’t keep our hands off each other.’ Mike lunged at her, taking her face in both hands and kissing her on the lips.

‘God, I think you two might need a moment alone.’ Jamie stood up. ‘Drinks?’

Sarah and Mike gave him their orders, and when he was gone Sarah slapped Mike’s hand, which was creeping up her leg. ‘What’s wrong with you? Are you suddenly single and forgot to tell me?’

‘It’s only Jamie.’

‘And anyone else who decides to walk through this public drinking area on the busiest day of the week. You’re so dumb sometimes.’

Mike put his hand back onto her thigh. ‘It’s been ages, Sarah. I’m ready to burst.’

‘Do you
ever
have sex with Jess?’

‘Rarely. And besides, it isn’t the same. She doesn’t do the things you do; she doesn’t know what I like.’

Sarah rolled her eyes. ‘Why don’t you tell her then? Or should I? I’ll have a nice girly talk with her and give her some advice on how to suck your dick in such a way that you won’t grope her friends in public.’

‘What the fuck is wrong with you?’

Sarah didn’t answer him. She had just realised that Mike and Jamie represented her entire intimate world. The last time she’d fucked anyone else was almost four months ago, on her birthday. And Mike she hadn’t seen for over a month, which meant that she had been having sex with Jamie and no one else for all that time. How the hell had that happened?

‘Is this because I’m getting married?’ Mike’s tone was so patronising that Sarah wanted to slap him.

‘You know I don’t care about that.’

‘Right, but…’ Mike stroked the inside of Sarah’s leg. ‘It’s only a couple of months away. Are you maybe freaking out a bit? Maybe even feeling jealous?’

‘No.’

‘So what? You got a boyfriend or something?’

‘No.’

‘Why are you being so cold then?’

‘I’m not. I’ve been busy. If I have time this week, we’ll get together and fuck. Okay?’

‘Jesus, you’re so fucking–’

‘Drinks. Thank God!’ Sarah turned her back on Mike and helped Jamie with the glasses he was juggling. Then she drank both her own and Mike’s drink in two large gulps. ‘Oops!’ she said to Mike. ‘Guess you’ll have to go and get some more.’

‘Fucking bitch,’ he said, but he stood up and headed for the bar.

‘What was that all about?’ Jamie said.

‘He’s pissed off because we haven’t done it in a while.’

‘Oh.’ Jamie sipped his beer. ‘Um, how long since you’ve…?’

Sarah looked at him; he was staring a hole into the tabletop. She worried about how tired he looked, and how stressful his life had become. She wanted to kiss him – properly, on the lips – but settled for another pat on the shoulder. ‘Long enough that he suspects I’ve got a boyfriend hidden away.’

Jamie looked up at her with a worried smile. ‘Do you?’

‘Well, you’re a boy. And you’re my friend.’

‘Yes, I am. Which isn’t the same as a
boyfriend
.’