was a boy’s room, the floor strewn with unlaced Doc Martens and Army-surplus jumpers and record covers. Daniel looked flushed and gorgeous, and his friend started laughing and said, ‘Sorry, sorry, it’s just nerves. I thought you were the cops. It’s not funny, sorry.’
The Red Squad burst in and hauled him crucifixion-style from the room, feet dragging, a clatter of shields and batons dividing the air.
‘Daniel? What’s the story?’
He reached an arm out towards her but didn’t move from thebed. ‘Dot – there’s no story. Bryce, this is my sister, Dorothy.’ His voice was fantastically slow.
‘I’m not really his sister.’
Bryce said, ‘Sorry, I just, I’ll stop in a minute.’ But before he’d finished saying it he had stopped laughing.
‘I’m not your fucking sister, Daniel.’
Daniel leaned forward over the sheets as though he might be going to get out of bed or reach for Dot but then he sank down again flat on the bed like a mannequin and said in a long almost sung note, ‘
Aahhhh
.’
In the communal living room that guy Andrew, the house scapegoat, was practising karate, slow-motion punching the air, his legs in a lunge position on his purple mat.
‘Can’t you do that in your own room?’ Dorothy said. ‘Your breathing is so loud.’
The scapegoat closed his eyes. ‘You don’t even live here,’ he said. ‘And by the way is your brother smoking drugs? Tell him my stepmother’s a cop.’
In the communal kitchen the scapegoat’s frozen yoghurt was defrosting on the bench.
‘It’s just the same as ice cream,’ Dorothy shouted through the wall. She tipped his Fresh Up down the sink, put her face right under the tap and drank, and coughed until she could breathe freely. One of Daniel’s sweatshirt sleeves rode up and she licked a finger and rubbed at the stamp mark still there on the inside of her wrist.
4. INSTINCT
ANDREW HAD BEEN surprised the first time he saw Dorothy pluck her eyebrows or floss her teeth, but the cheese toasties and wine on the couch while they listened to albums together was the right kind of intimacy, and maybe a few clipped toenails on the bathroom floor was the price you had to pay. He had never before lived with anyone he was sleeping with. The fact of her being there, lesson plans spread over the table when he came back from work, the ponytail swing as she rose to hug him, was astounding.
They lay in bed in the middle of a Sunday afternoon. It was an old apartment building, the bed covered in sunlight, the sheets a buttery yellow. And finally, after he asked and asked again, she told him a lot of juicy detail about her sex life with the man before him, which included, in a roundabout and quite tortured rendition, so that it took Andrew ages to work out what she was saying, she and this
bean
, this
joke
, this
guy whose name she wouldn’t say
, trying out tying each other up.
‘Not at the same time,’ she said. ‘Obviously.’ The sound of traffic rushed through the rooms like wind through leaves. Andrew sat up, thought for a minute and announced that he wanted to fuck her.
‘You did just fuck me.’
‘With something else.’
She lay there breathing, her eyes on his, and it was apparent that after what she’d just told him she had to go along with it. He banged in and out of the bathroom and the kitchen, everything he looked at, plates and bowls and her bunches of dried flowers, uselessly shaped. That was the part he remembered later, the bouncing panic, returning to the room terrified she would be laughing at him, unprepared for the erotic charge of her body lying there on the bed in the goldy heat being fucked with some implement or another. And he remembered his cheeks hot with the sense of expansion, of these are the ways we can be with each other, there are not any limits.
There was no food in the apartment. While a record spun on the stereo, Dorothy and Andrew sat on the floor with their bank statements spread in front of them,
The Red Squad burst in and hauled him crucifixion-style from the room, feet dragging, a clatter of shields and batons dividing the air.
‘Daniel? What’s the story?’
He reached an arm out towards her but didn’t move from thebed. ‘Dot – there’s no story. Bryce, this is my sister, Dorothy.’ His voice was fantastically slow.
‘I’m not really his sister.’
Bryce said, ‘Sorry, I just, I’ll stop in a minute.’ But before he’d finished saying it he had stopped laughing.
‘I’m not your fucking sister, Daniel.’
Daniel leaned forward over the sheets as though he might be going to get out of bed or reach for Dot but then he sank down again flat on the bed like a mannequin and said in a long almost sung note, ‘
Aahhhh
.’
In the communal living room that guy Andrew, the house scapegoat, was practising karate, slow-motion punching the air, his legs in a lunge position on his purple mat.
‘Can’t you do that in your own room?’ Dorothy said. ‘Your breathing is so loud.’
The scapegoat closed his eyes. ‘You don’t even live here,’ he said. ‘And by the way is your brother smoking drugs? Tell him my stepmother’s a cop.’
In the communal kitchen the scapegoat’s frozen yoghurt was defrosting on the bench.
‘It’s just the same as ice cream,’ Dorothy shouted through the wall. She tipped his Fresh Up down the sink, put her face right under the tap and drank, and coughed until she could breathe freely. One of Daniel’s sweatshirt sleeves rode up and she licked a finger and rubbed at the stamp mark still there on the inside of her wrist.
4. INSTINCT
ANDREW HAD BEEN surprised the first time he saw Dorothy pluck her eyebrows or floss her teeth, but the cheese toasties and wine on the couch while they listened to albums together was the right kind of intimacy, and maybe a few clipped toenails on the bathroom floor was the price you had to pay. He had never before lived with anyone he was sleeping with. The fact of her being there, lesson plans spread over the table when he came back from work, the ponytail swing as she rose to hug him, was astounding.
They lay in bed in the middle of a Sunday afternoon. It was an old apartment building, the bed covered in sunlight, the sheets a buttery yellow. And finally, after he asked and asked again, she told him a lot of juicy detail about her sex life with the man before him, which included, in a roundabout and quite tortured rendition, so that it took Andrew ages to work out what she was saying, she and this
bean
, this
joke
, this
guy whose name she wouldn’t say
, trying out tying each other up.
‘Not at the same time,’ she said. ‘Obviously.’ The sound of traffic rushed through the rooms like wind through leaves. Andrew sat up, thought for a minute and announced that he wanted to fuck her.
‘You did just fuck me.’
‘With something else.’
She lay there breathing, her eyes on his, and it was apparent that after what she’d just told him she had to go along with it. He banged in and out of the bathroom and the kitchen, everything he looked at, plates and bowls and her bunches of dried flowers, uselessly shaped. That was the part he remembered later, the bouncing panic, returning to the room terrified she would be laughing at him, unprepared for the erotic charge of her body lying there on the bed in the goldy heat being fucked with some implement or another. And he remembered his cheeks hot with the sense of expansion, of these are the ways we can be with each other, there are not any limits.
There was no food in the apartment. While a record spun on the stereo, Dorothy and Andrew sat on the floor with their bank statements spread in front of them,
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