Read Online Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances by Neil Gaiman - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Neil Gaiman
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remember.”
“Going to the seaside when I was three, with my mum and my dad.”
“Do you remember it? Or do you remember being told about it?”
“I don’t see what the point of this is . . .”
She stood up, wiggled, stepped out of her skirt. She wore a white bra, dark green panties, frayed. Very human: not something you would wear to impress a new lover. I wondered what her breasts would look like, when the bra came off. I wanted to stroke them, to touch them to my lips.
She walked from the chair to the bed, where I was sitting.
“Lie down, now. On that side of the bed. I’ll be next to you. Don’t touch me.”
I lay down, my hands at my sides. She looked down at me. She said, “You’re so beautiful. I’m not honestly sure whether you’re my type. You would have been when I was fifteen, though. Nice and sweet and unthreatening. Artistic. Ponies. A riding stable. And I bet you never make a move on a girl unless you’re sure she’s ready, do you?”
“No,” I said. “I don’t suppose that I do.”
She lay down beside me.
“You can touch me now,” said Cassandra.
I HAD STARTED THINKING about Stuart again late last year. Stress, I think. Work was going well, up to a point, but I’d broken up with Pavel, who may or may not have been an actual bad hat although he certainly had his finger in many dodgy East European pies, and I was thinking about Internet dating. I had spent a stupid week joining the kind of websites that link you to old friends, and from there it was no distance to Jeremy “Scallie” Porter, and to Stuart Innes.
I don’t think I could do it anymore. I lack the single-mindedness, the attention to detail. Something else you lose when you get older.
Mister Postie used to come in his van when my parents had no time for me. He would smile his big gnomey smile, wink an eye at me, hand me a brown-paper parcel with Cassandra written on it in big block letters, and inside would be a chocolate, or a doll, or a book. His final present was a pink plastic microphone, and I would walk around the house singing into it or pretending to be on TV. It was the best present I had ever been given.
My parents did not ask about the gifts. I did not wonder who was actually sending them. They came with Mister Postie, who drove his little van down the hall and up to my bedroom door, and who always knocked three times. I was a demonstrative girl, and the next time I saw him, after the plastic microphone, I ran to him and threw my arms around his legs.
It’s hard to describe what happened then. He fell like snow, or like ash. For a moment I had been holding someone, then there was just powdery white stuff, and nothing.
I used to wish that Mister Postie would come back, after that, but he never did. He was over. After a while, he became embarrassing to remember: I had fallen for that .
So strange, this room.
I wonder why I could ever have thought that somebody who made me happy when I was fifteen would make me happy now. But Stuart was perfect: the riding stables (with ponies), and the painting (which showed me he was sensitive), and the inexperience with girls (so I could be his first) and how very, very tall, dark and handsome he would be. I liked the name, too: it was vaguely Scottish and (to my mind) sounded like the hero of a novel.
I wrote Stuart’s name on my exercise books.
I did not tell my friends the most important thing about Stuart: that I had made him up.
And now I’m getting up off the bed and looking down at the outline of a man, a silhouette in flour or ash or dust on the black satin bedspread, and I am getting into my clothes.
The photographs on the wall are fading, too. I didn’t expect that. I wonder what will be left of his world in a few hours, wonder if I should have left well enough alone, a masturbatory fantasy, something reassuring and comforting. He would have gone through his life without ever really touching anyone, just a picture and a painting and a half-memory
“Going to the seaside when I was three, with my mum and my dad.”
“Do you remember it? Or do you remember being told about it?”
“I don’t see what the point of this is . . .”
She stood up, wiggled, stepped out of her skirt. She wore a white bra, dark green panties, frayed. Very human: not something you would wear to impress a new lover. I wondered what her breasts would look like, when the bra came off. I wanted to stroke them, to touch them to my lips.
She walked from the chair to the bed, where I was sitting.
“Lie down, now. On that side of the bed. I’ll be next to you. Don’t touch me.”
I lay down, my hands at my sides. She looked down at me. She said, “You’re so beautiful. I’m not honestly sure whether you’re my type. You would have been when I was fifteen, though. Nice and sweet and unthreatening. Artistic. Ponies. A riding stable. And I bet you never make a move on a girl unless you’re sure she’s ready, do you?”
“No,” I said. “I don’t suppose that I do.”
She lay down beside me.
“You can touch me now,” said Cassandra.
I HAD STARTED THINKING about Stuart again late last year. Stress, I think. Work was going well, up to a point, but I’d broken up with Pavel, who may or may not have been an actual bad hat although he certainly had his finger in many dodgy East European pies, and I was thinking about Internet dating. I had spent a stupid week joining the kind of websites that link you to old friends, and from there it was no distance to Jeremy “Scallie” Porter, and to Stuart Innes.
I don’t think I could do it anymore. I lack the single-mindedness, the attention to detail. Something else you lose when you get older.
Mister Postie used to come in his van when my parents had no time for me. He would smile his big gnomey smile, wink an eye at me, hand me a brown-paper parcel with Cassandra written on it in big block letters, and inside would be a chocolate, or a doll, or a book. His final present was a pink plastic microphone, and I would walk around the house singing into it or pretending to be on TV. It was the best present I had ever been given.
My parents did not ask about the gifts. I did not wonder who was actually sending them. They came with Mister Postie, who drove his little van down the hall and up to my bedroom door, and who always knocked three times. I was a demonstrative girl, and the next time I saw him, after the plastic microphone, I ran to him and threw my arms around his legs.
It’s hard to describe what happened then. He fell like snow, or like ash. For a moment I had been holding someone, then there was just powdery white stuff, and nothing.
I used to wish that Mister Postie would come back, after that, but he never did. He was over. After a while, he became embarrassing to remember: I had fallen for that .
So strange, this room.
I wonder why I could ever have thought that somebody who made me happy when I was fifteen would make me happy now. But Stuart was perfect: the riding stables (with ponies), and the painting (which showed me he was sensitive), and the inexperience with girls (so I could be his first) and how very, very tall, dark and handsome he would be. I liked the name, too: it was vaguely Scottish and (to my mind) sounded like the hero of a novel.
I wrote Stuart’s name on my exercise books.
I did not tell my friends the most important thing about Stuart: that I had made him up.
And now I’m getting up off the bed and looking down at the outline of a man, a silhouette in flour or ash or dust on the black satin bedspread, and I am getting into my clothes.
The photographs on the wall are fading, too. I didn’t expect that. I wonder what will be left of his world in a few hours, wonder if I should have left well enough alone, a masturbatory fantasy, something reassuring and comforting. He would have gone through his life without ever really touching anyone, just a picture and a painting and a half-memory
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