[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.We can’t fucking afford them.4Chocolate CityAfter his first visit to a whore Tommy was convinced that the encounter had soiled him forever.He tasted syphilis on her mouth, licked gonorrhoea off her skin.Her cunt was venereal.Tommy washed and washed when he got home, washed the whore off his skin.He scrubbed and washed, to get rid of the sickness.Tommy had adored the whore, her size, her age, her beauty.She must have been in her mid-forties, weighed about seventy-five kilos, and her face was a crazy jigsaw maze of lines and wrinkles.But pale, a face painted white.Tommy had closed his eyes and dived into her, the ferocious splendour of her breasts, an unquenchable thirst for her cunt.Seventeen and still a virgin, though he had managed to force two hand-jobs from a disapproving girlfriend, it had been Dominic who had shouted him the extravagance of a prostitute.Drunk on a bottle of bourbon and the thick oily smoke of hashish, Tommy was initiated into the pleasures of women.He came thrusting above the whore, his elbow hard on the back of her head, pinning her down on the massage table, fucking her from behind and inserting two of his fingers far up her arse.When he first stripped, unzipped, as she took out the flaccid cock, and asked, Have you washed? he had a moment of panic, a fear of his inadequacy.But she breathed on his cock and he scrambled across her body, snatching flesh.He had dreamt her, called out to her, had been waiting, an excruciating waiting, for years.For this fat old slut’s breath.On his cock.When he exploded inside her, Tommy opened his eyes and looked down at the weary blubbery shoulders of the woman.He shuddered, his desire had evaporated to loathing, and he quickly lifted his trousers.Embarrassed, he left the room, rushing, gathering shirt and socks, and stumbled into the foyer of the brothel where his brother and two mates were waiting and laughing, laughing and waiting for the boy.That was 1979 and a prostitute cost fifty dollars.He had quickly forgotten her face, the contours of her skin.He could not recall her at all.What he did remember was the smell.Her perfume, her cunt, and that the massage table smelt of disinfectant.And her voice, he could still remember her voice.Soft, not the harshness he had expected.A little girl’s breathy glee, but the hard consonants of a difficult life.Tommy was preparing the artwork for printing, the mail room was nearly empty and that same voice was now on the radio.The newsreader’s well-enunciated expression lacked the whore’s vigour, but the accent was familiar.They’d found the girl’s body in a stretch of bush in Pakenham.The body was poorly concealed under scattered branches and torn shrubs.Her face had appeared on newsprint, on television screens, had made the glossy pages of the magazines.Eleven, dark, pretty; and her distraught weeping parents.The mother, Filipino and extravagant, had broken into howls, a reminder of wolves, when she had been interviewed on ‘A Current Affair’.—My daughter, please.Please God, bring my daughter back safe.The father, stoic, the ruddy coarse skin of the Irishman, had wept quietly, holding tight to his wife.She had been missing for four months; her tortures were referred to obliquely and therefore seemed even more tantalising.Was her corpse sodomised? The torture is unimaginable, thought Tommy.His eyes were moist, her suffering was tragic.But it was also perverse.His eyes were moist, he was conscious of his cock.The story ended.Christopher Skase to buy United Artists.Oliver North on trial.Eleven million gallons of oil in Prince William Sound, somewhere off the Alaskan coast.Football and the prediction of rain, rain throughout the weekend.It’s six o’clock and seventeen degrees in the city.A truck has overturned on the South Eastern Freeway near the Toorak Road exit and cars are advised to avoid Punt Road.A commercial for a tyre specialist, a commercial for Pepsi, a station promo.A blistering thrash of guitar, a burst of heavily bassed rap, then a cut.Proudly announcing, No weird new sounds, no rap, no heavy rock, just Golden Oldies.3TT FM.And into the first song.‘When You See A Chance’, Steve Winwood.Tommy lay down his scalpel, looked at the clock.6.05.That fucking prick, he’s doing it to spite me.Pathis was in his office, clear behind the glass, working on his computer.His tie was still tight around his shirt collar.Tommy had loosened his own once the rest of the shop had begun to leave.It was Friday night and he wanted to head off, to make work disappear.But he also wanted to be the last to leave, to leave after Pathis.But the wog wasn’t moving.Tommy was working on a brochure for the electronics unit, a sale on stereo equipment.The brochure was cheap, black and white, to be printed on a lazy cream paper stock.The task was finished and Tommy was not in the mood for starting new work.He rolled the artwork, placed it in a plastic envelope and walked towards the offices.Pathis did not look up at the knock.—Come in.Tommy handed him the envelope.—The job’s finished.Pathis nodded.Thanks.His eyes on the computer.—See you.Pathis farewelled him in Greek.Gia sou.Tommy grimaced, he hated that.He made no answer.The daylight had begun its surrender to night.In the park, secretaries and clerks were scrambling towards the station.The wind was slight but it brought drizzle and chill.Tommy stuffed his hands deep into the pockets of his bomber jacket.The rough cotton lining tickled his fingers.At the entrance to Flagstaff Station the kiosk that sold papers and magazines was shutting up.Three posters.The dead girl’s pretty face.The oil on the icy waters.The tall lean body of a footballer.Her face, she was grinning, in her school uniform, a self-conscious joy for the camera.Sexually assualted and murdered.Tommy spat on the ground, stepped onto the escalator and descended into the bowels of the station.When they find him, he thought to himself, hanging his bag over his shoulder, I hope they crucify the arsehole, I hope they make him suffer.I hope he pays.Tommy would have him fucked, arse, mouth and cock, with a broken bottle.An eye for an eye.The carriage was not full.Tommy avoided the drunk youth up the back and plonked himself down next to a couple, Indian, the man with his arm around the woman’s shoulder.Across the aisle a drunk old man with a red and veined nose, dribbling.A man in blue overalls stood in the doorway, a large bushy blond moustache, a tattoo of a snake creeping up his exposed right arm.Tommy glanced behind him.The drunk youths, making noise, he avoided their eyes.A beautiful woman.Dark.Thick red lipstick.He turned back around.The Indian couple.She too was sweet.At Richmond the door opened and a woman fell into the carriage.Windcheater and faded blue jeans.She was not young, she was not old.Drugs had lacerated her face.She was shrivelled and ugly.Thin.She staggered through the carriage.The train started to move and she fell onto Tommy.Sorry, love.Her breath stunk, cheap nasty wine.He assisted her to her feet and she sat hard next to the old drunk man, who groaned, shifted his weight and rested his head on the window.—What are you looking at?The Indian woman had been staring [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]