This Book Is Full of Bodies Read online

  But Clayton, who is single—or a bachelor, living it up in his bach-pad as he calls it, a fifth four flat with a large glass wall overlooking the shitty parts of London (as if there are any other parts)—claims that he goes out most nights and picks up women; or birds, as he so chauvinistically calls them; I hate the term, it’s demeaning to the avian population who grace our sky. A bird flies majestically overhead; a woman uses you and leeches off you until she’s had enough to convince herself she is pretty.

  Anyway, Clayton. He claims he has another broad every night—yes, he even uses that term too. Broad. As if we are in a 1940s film noir and he is the antihero getting seduced and manipulated by a femme fatale. In truth, his evening probably comprises him masturbating over expensive lesbian porn.

  “So I had her down on the table,” Clayton is saying, trying to make his voice sound cockney, as if that’s how one speaks with the lads, despite the fact he comes from Northampton. “And I was like, bitch, do not break that table. It’s worth more than you.”

  The others laugh so I do to. I see how Charles’ body kind of convulses, like the shoulder pads of his suit jacket move up and down as he chuckles. I make mine do the same.

  “What about you, Carter?” Clayton asks, and nudges Carter, who looks away. “You been getting any?”

  Carter mumbles something we can’t hear then lifts his bourbon with ice and sips on it.

  “How’s business going, Gerald?” asks Charles, turning to me.

  I’d be fucked if I know. I do nothing with it but receive the checks.

  “Very well,” I tell him, attempting to mimic the intonations of his voice. “Business is going… very well. And yourself?”

  I ask him how his business is doing because you’re supposed to do that; feign interest in the lives of those that feign interest in yours. I have to stop myself from zoning out during his answer just in case he asks me about it later.

  “Oh, brilliant, brilliant!” Charles declares. “We have just had a successful merger with a stationery shop downtown. We now own them and are redesigning and rebranding.”

  “Wonderful!” Clayton declares.

  “Yes, wonderful!” I say, stressing the same O vowel that Clayton does. Clayton smiles and nods vigorously in Charles’ direction, so I do the same.

  That’s why I have these people in my lives, really. So I can look at how they act to know how I should act. If they didn’t have such a function I would discard them completely.

  It is at this point I realise I have half an erection and that the waitress looks quite attractive.

  “Yes, it was trying at times,” Charles said. He clicks his fingers to the waitress who comes over. “Another whiskey, please.”

  I click my fingers at the waitress just like Charles did.

  “Another whiskey, please,” I tell her.

  She smiles a smile I know is not real, takes our glasses away and returns minutes later with another whiskey.

  It’s good stuff. Not the whiskey you’d buy off the shelves in your supermarket. Very occasionally you may find a bottle in one of those shops dedicated entirely to whiskey, but if you enter such a shop, it always seems to put you in the same vicinity as one of those hairy men who dwell in the dark corners of Wetherspoons all day with muddy boots and body odour you can smell across the store—so I’d rather have the whiskey here. It costs more than Lisa’s weekly shop does all together and I look forward to when I don’t have to pretend this isn’t the life I love to live.

  “… and Hector told me it couldn’t be done…” Charles is still talking. “… well I say to hell with you, old chap, there is not a chance I am walking away from this one…”

  I tune out again, but a little later Clayton claps and laughs so I do the same, coinciding my sip of whiskey with his.

  And I tune them out again and look at the waitress. You can see the outline of her thighs squeezed into her fitted skirt and I imagine just reaching my hand up there and grabbing her.

  “… and I said I’d be damned if I know!”

  Another laugh and I join in.

  I always join in.

  Even if I don’t necessarily fit in.

  I LIKE

  I like when my favourite TV show is on—but not just as scheduled; when I turn on the TV and there is a repeat of one of my favourite episodes.

  It makes me just sit back and think… I am one lucky girl.

  I like the way Disney shaped my years growing up, but never turned me into a dainty little princess. I never wanted to be the princess, I wanted to be the warrior; I wanted to be fierce like a dragon and drive every bully and teacher away.

  I like beans on toast.

  I like drama lessons, especially ones where we get to improvise, or create a play from a script.

  My favourite script is called 4:48 Psychosis. It was written in 2000 by a playwright called Sarah Kane. She wrote it whilst she was sectioned, then killed herself afterwards.

  It’s extremely morbid.

  But it’s also so unconventional, and in that way, I can relate.

  It is not written as a play would. There is no indication who says what. Lots of the words aren’t even indented properly. Sometimes there are scenes where lines have bullet points, but it’s open to interpretation.

  There is no set way to perform it.

  But then I got too into the performance, and me and my friends pretended to slash our wrists and painted our skin in with red markers that wouldn’t wash off and it made us late for textiles.

  Our drama teacher never did that play with us again.

  Funny though, how no one thought to ask why there was a faint colouring of red at the end of my arm.

  I like how I get to be myself.

  I like how I can express myself and mum and my stepdad just accept it.

  Although, sometimes, I think if my mum asked questions, she’d get to know the real me. She’d learn what really happens when she’s not looking.

  And that scares me.

  …

  …

  …

  I like the moon. Not just in a ‘look at me I’m a free spirit’ annoying kind of way. I just like when it’s dark but the moon is lit, especially a full moon, when they say all the crazies come out.

  But I’m not crazy.

  I just like to sit on my windowsill and watch it and feel at peace and know that everything is all right. Despite what worries and trials I may face at school or at home, I can just look into the sky and know that it is all too small to matter.

  Most people don’t enjoy hearing that they don’t matter.

  And they don’t, when you think about how many forms of life have existed, and not just on our planet.

  But it makes me feel content.

  I like to know that, no matter what I endure, there is no reason to it. It doesn’t scare me that there is no purpose to it all, like it does all those spiritual answer-seekers.

  I like knowing that when it all ends, all the mistakes I have done will leave with me.

  I like knowing that it will end, someday.

  I like knowing that there will be a day when I will not cry anymore.

  …

  …

  …

  I like when we do practical in science. I sit by Pierre, who has come from France to live here and doesn’t speak much English. He still smiles though, and sets up the Bunsen burner, and we need not say much to know what the other is thinking and we work together so well.

  I like Pierre.

  I like being young, although I don’t feel young anymore. I feel like my youth is gone. Taken from me.

  Maybe it was.

  But it was all my fault, really.

  It’s always my fault.

  They say an adult owns up to their mistakes and accepts them, and that is why I feel so much older than everyone else around me.

  No one at school mentions sex, unless it’s sharing what they have done. Some of them have kissed, some of them have fiddled with their hands, some of them
have even seen someone topless.

  For me, I just stay quiet in those conversations.

  I like keeping things to myself.

  I like the secret being hidden away.

  I like to pretend that I am just like them, and I know nothing about it, and it’s all new and exciting, and that I do not have a vast sexual history.

  I like to cry sometimes, too.

  …

  …

  …

  And I like Gerald.

  Honestly, I do.

  I mean it.

  Really.

  I like him.

  I just don’t like what he does to me when he gets home.

  4

  When I arrive home at three thirty-six, she’s already waiting for me on the sofa. She spreads her pubescent legs from one side to the other, revealing white knickers with something on them. Beas, I think. Maybe flowers. Who gives a fuck?

  “Good day at school?” I ask.

  “Yes.”

  I walk toward her. She flinches back.

  “What are you doing?” I demand.

  “I—can we do it differently today?”

  This again.

  Fuck sake.

  Every few days it’s the same old shit. She wants to try making love and she wants to try slow and steady and if I don’t listen to her and acquiesce her request, she’ll tell her mum and then I say go tell her, see what she says when her daughter claims she fucked her husband. See who they think is the crazy one, me or her.

  “Please, Gerry, can we just–”

  “It’s Gerald.”

  I fucking hate it when she calls me that. She thinks it’s sweet, like she has a name that only she calls me, and that makes this special. She overestimates the value of what we do.

  I walk toward her and she closes her legs and backs away. It angers me and arouses me at the same time.

  “I just thought it would be nice if–”

  I jump on her and land my legs either side of her knees and I grab her wrists in my hands and lift them behind her head.

  “If you want to do this, then we have to do it in a way that makes us both–”

  I shush her. It sounds like she’s being doing some kind of relationships education at school and they’ve been told all about their rights. It’ll pass.

  “Please,” she says.

  I lean my head down and bite her neck then run the bottom set of my teeth upwards to her ear where I bite until she flinches away.

  “I just want to–”

  I put both of her wrists into one hand and use the other to cover her mouth. Her voice is muffled, and she moves her head out of it and she looks at me in the same way her mum does when she’s cross and realises I couldn’t care less.

  “Just today, can we–”

  I take off my sock and I shove it in her mouth and she tries to spit it out but I already have the gag in my pocket ready and I tie it around her mouth and I had the rope ready and she tries to resist—it’s all part of the game—and I bind her hands.

  She crawls away and whimpers and I jump onto her back and I love this part. She cries and I ignore her and I tie the rope around her wrists and leave enough of the rope that I can pick her up and drag her around which I do. I don’t put her in any place, I just walk her by the makeshift lead around the leaving room. She looks up to me and her mascara is smudged because her eyes are moist. She shakes her head and makes a noise like she’s pleading and it’s still all just part of the game.

  I let go of the rope and she stands and she tries to run away. She tries to get to the front door, but it's locked and she looks for the key but she won’t find it.

  I walk toward her and she doesn’t move. She looks at me and pleads with her eyes. I grab her hair and I bend her over the table and I rake up her skirt and I pull down her pants and my god her rear end is just damn perfect.

  I slide myself in and she tries to lift her head and I slam it onto the table and hear her wince with the impact.

  I fuck her hard and she screams and I’m not sure if it’s part of the game or if she’s cumming or if I’m hurting her or if it’s all three but I cum quicker than I intended and then I stop, just bent over her, breathing into her ear.

  I sit down on the floor, leaning against the door. She falls to her knees and looks away from me.

  I pat the floor next to me and she looks to me like a wounded animal and I pat it again. She moves and sits there.

  I take the gag off and remove the sock but I leave her hands tied.

  She leans her head on my shoulder.

  We say nothing for a while.

  Eventually, I release her hands, and we stay there, in that position. Content and happy. The way one is after an orgasm. Honestly, I reckon politicians should all fuck before parliament so their heads are clearer and they make better decisions.

  “It really hurt that time,” she says.

  “What?”

  “It really hurt.”

  “It’s supposed to hurt.”

  “No, I mean, I was too dry. There was no foreplay or anything.”

  I shrug. Who gives a fuck?

  “Maybe it would be nice if we didn’t tie me up. Just one time. Just to see what it’s like.”

  I move her head off my shoulder and I look at her. She is a state. Her skirt is still riding up her belly from where I hiked it up. She has leaked cum on the floor.

  “I thought you liked it like this?” I say. “I thought you enjoy our game?”

  “I do, really, I do.” She lifts her hand and strokes my face, then leaves it at my chin. She gives me a soft, delicate kiss. Why does she always need to do this afterwards? What we do is awesome, it’s fucking amazing, but she always needs this crap after.

  “I like tying you up. Do you not like me tying you up?”

  “I love it, you know I do.”

  “Then quit moaning.”

  “I’m not, it’s just…”

  I stand. I huff.

  “Please don’t go!” she begs. “Mum will be back in an hour and we don’t have much time.”

  “I said I’ll be late. I have to go before she gets back.”

  She pushes herself to her feet and her legs wobble and she uses my body to steady her.

  “I miss you when you’re gone.”

  You miss me when I’m gone?

  I ignore her. I get the spray and the kitchen roll and clean the cum off the floor. She gets the rope and the gag and she takes it to her room where she hides it. The same routine.

  I double check for evidence. There’s a little bit of blood on the chair next to the table. I don’t know if that was us, so I clean it up, anyway. Just in case.

  I’m halfway out the door when she appears on the bottom step.

  “Don’t forget about the parent’s evening later.”

  “Yes, yes, yes, I know.”

  “I will not be home after school tomorrow,” she tells me. “You’ll have to find something else to do with your afternoon. I have dance class.”

  I scoff. “Dance class?”

  “Yeah. It’s something I’m trying out. Like a hobby.”

  “I am your hobby.”

  “Like a real hobby.”

  I look her up and down. She’d look sexy dancing. If she did it right. Otherwise, she’d look pathetic.

  I shrug and leave.

  Why would I care?

  5

  I drive around for the next hour or so wondering what to do with my last hour of freedom. And it is freedom, before you say I am being dramatic—the only time I can be liberated from the person Lisa expects me to be and Flora pretends I am. The only time I can breathe without those two girls chatting like they are in some kind of sitcom awaiting the canned laughter. They think they are funny because they laugh together and there is a difference between actually being funny and being caught inside a bubble with another person where the only people who find you funny are contained within.

  I stop outside Carluccio’s and let the valet take my car,
watching him as he drives it around the corner, knowing that if he swings those wheels too hard or jars the gear stick I will break his twiggy legs. As soon as I am inside, they take my jacket and welcome me in.

  “Is Carluccio in today?” I ask the woman at the counter. I recognise her from the last few times I ate here. She was new but now I guess she’s not. She has a layer of makeup on that changes her skin colour and it makes me want to slap her until she stops trying to cover up her actual, real, true beauty. Acne scars are beautiful. Wrinkles are beautiful. Birth marks are beautiful. Covering it up with artificial substances to the point it makes you look like you’re some weird yellow ethnicity that doesn’t exist just highlights to everyone else around you how damn insecure you are. Be confident with your body, because if you menially try to change it so much everyone will know what you really think of yourself.

  “Yes, he is,” she says, and I can’t tell if that’s her real voice or if it’s as fake as her face. It’s low and husky like she has a cold or is trying to put on some sexy voice that doesn’t work.

  “Wonderful. Can you send him over to take my order?”

  “I think he’s busy.”

  “Tell him it’s Gerald. He’ll come. I’ll sit at my usual table.”

  I can’t talk to her any longer, so I walk through the restaurant between tables of couples pretending to love each other and friends appeasing each other’s jokes with over-psyched fake hysteria until I find my seat by the window. I sit and put the napkin on my lap and look at the wineglass. I pick it up and look inside. I can see a slight smear from where the dishwasher tab did not quite dissolve.

  “Can I get you any–”

  “Yes,” I say. I don’t even bother to look up as she finishes her question. “You can get me a new glass. One without this shit in it. And you can get Carluccio to bring me out some Pavillon Blanc du Château Margaux.”

  Bordeaux do make nice wines.

  She scuttles away saying nothing else, of which I am grateful for. After roughly a minute and a half Carluccio comes out with his arms out wide.