Read Online Blasted by Kate Story - Free Book Online Page B

it muffled his voice – but oh, on the same day ! It occurred to me to wonder where he found the time. I mean, seduction takes a certain amount of energy – you need sheer hanging-around time, and a sort of focus on each woman to make her feel special, and – well, how did he do it? Feeling a grudging admiration, I bent myself in half to get out the window and almost peed my pants, but I kept backing out, the ledge pressing on my bladder as I let my legs swing free. Then clutching with my fingers, I lowered myself down.
    My shoulders were pulling out of their sockets. I knew I had to start swinging, but I was petrified. Vertigo swept over me. Heights. Can’t stand heights. I’m too young to die. As if I’d die, falling from here. Just break three of my four limbs and look like an idiot. At least my head would be protected by my effing helmet.
    I started swinging.
    It was getting dark so fast I could hardly see the garage roof, and the helmet cut out peripheral vision. I swung with increasing vigour, made a guess, and with one final violent swing tore my hands from their moorings and fell sideways. You’re supposed to relax and roll when you land; I launched myself through the air like I could swim through it. My feet connected with something and my body crumpled, driving my knees into my chest and knocking the wind out of me. By some miracle I didn’t wet myself. I fell over onto my side and lay there, gasping on the garage roof.
    Wings flapped, and a bird alighted before my face. I stared: it was the pigeon, the black one. It puffed out its chest, opened its beak; through the helmet I heard its muffled coo. Feebly I waved a hand at it to go away. It strutted closer. I sat up, feeling for broken bones. A normal bird would’ve flown away, but it zig-zagged from side to side. My father had always hated pigeons. He’d have hated this one for sure.
    I turned my back on it and crawled to the edge of the roof. The drop to the ground seemed relatively small after my derring-do from the window. I waved my arm at the pigeon, now mere feet away, and it favoured me with a half-hearted hop back. Then I repeated my lowering act and jumped to the alley below. My bladder felt as if red-hot needles were jabbing it. I shuffled into the corner, pulled down my jeans, and pissed gratefully among the mango rinds.
    I decided I deserved – nay, needed – a drink. I couldn’t bear to be alone, I’d only wait for Clyde to call me. The thought of a cold beer sliding down my throat beckoned like a mirage.
    I staggered like some wino out of the alley. It took me a moment to get my bearings in the dusk, but after walking in the wrong direction for a couple of blocks I retraced my steps and found my bike. I was about to get on her when I noticed, gleaming fitfully under the streetlamps, something on her black seat, something pale and horrible looking, slimy and poisonous.
    That goddamned pigeon.
    I drove post-haste to the bar where Steve worked. It had been my regular haunt, a little gem of a place, but I’d been banned from it six months previously for punching some blonde chick in the face. I found out, later, that the chick had been dating Steve at the time. I, drunk, had mockingly started asking to feel his muscles as he worked, saying things like, “Ooooh, Steve, your biceps make me so wet ,” begging for “a quickie in the beer fridge, pleeease ?” and grabbing his ass whenever he went by. She took offense, and told me to get out of the bar. “Who the hell are you, anyway?” I asked. When she opened her mouth to answer, I punched her; Steve calmly and sorrowfully threw me out. When he phoned the next day to tell me I couldn’t come around for a while, I didn’t really blame him. “But you could have told me you were seeing her,” I whined. “Ruby, I did,” he replied. Oh. I hadn’t remembered that part.
    I hesitated by the door until Steve