Weirdo

'I feel cold,' she says. 'Please hold me.'

But I don't want to hold her. I think that if I touch her, I will
irrevocably dirty my hands and be sucked in by her and her scheming
ways again. I feel strong enough not to do it.

I haven't always felt like this. I met Julie in a queue outside a dingy
basement club in Kingston. It was a warm summer night and I was dressed
in my favourite brown shirt and was alone. She turned up with a female
friend and pushed in front of me. She was a bit drunk and very sure of
herself.

I tapped her on the shoulder. She turned round, an interesting, pretty
face supported by high cheekbones.

'Excuse me, the back of the queue is actually behind me.'

'Congratulations on your knowledge of queues,' was all she said. She
turned back to her friend and they started giggling.

This kind of behaviour made me bloody annoyed. My mother brought me up
to respect other people in all situations, whether they were loved ones
or complete strangers. This girl had not only decided to disrespect me
by pushing in front of me, she had then deliberately tried to humiliate
me after my request. I decided that she needed to be brought down to
earth.

'It's often the most beautiful people on the outside who have the most
rotten, ugliest souls,' I said. 'What they don't realise is that while
their exterior beauty is slowly fading as every day goes by, the core
of their soul is festering at a far quicker rate.'

She turned around again.

'Fuck off, weirdo.'

'It's easy to counter a challenging remark with an insult based on an
insinuation of weirdness,' I persisted. 'I must have struck pretty
close to the bone.'

She was rising to the bait. She launched a few more expletives and then
turned her back on me. I was enjoying it. You see, I knew that my
intelligence was my main weapon. People like Julie relied on their
looks and a misguided confidence that people admired their
attractiveness. I am different. Of course, I know if a person is good
looking or not, but I don't let it prejudice me one way or the other. I
have learnt to be icily calm with everyone I meet, because I can look
beneath the surface. If you look beneath the surface of anybody,
there's a good chance you'll never be scared or intimidated. Julie was
a good case in point.

But I have to admit, she did interest me. That night, I was hooked.
Inside the club, I made a point of keeping an eye on her. I didn't make
it obvious. The place was heaving, and there was a mass of sweaty
bodies on the dance floor. Julie and her friend were soon in the middle
of them. I didn't like to dance. If ever I tried, my big hulking body
always seemed to be a beat and a half behind the music. My body
deserted me on those occasions so I soon gave up trying. But I liked to
watch people dance. So I bought myself a lemonade and soda and stood
there on the periphery. I'm taller than most people, so I got a pretty
good view of her. Julie was good to watch. She danced with a ferocious
juvenile energy, like a lion cub gambolling on the savannah. Her hair
was a shiny blonde and swished around as she moved. She was wearing a
light, sleeveless blouse which ended just below the curve of her
breasts. I could see her belly button. I looked over that skin a lot
and thought how fine it would be to touch it. I imagined that it was
warm and soft. Just thinking about it made me tingle all over.

I was still standing there holding my glass, when she threaded her way
through the crowd towards me. My heart was beating fast. I'd been
sucking an ice cube but my mouth still felt dry. She stood there in
front of me. She had to crane her head a lot to look up at me. Then she
brought her face up as close to mine as she could. I guess she must
have been standing on tip-toe to do it.

'Can you stop gawping at me please?' she shouted, so she could be heard
over the music. I could smell the noxious alcohol fumes on her breath.
It wasn't so nice. It reminded me of my mum's brother who used to come
round the house when I was a boy. My mum said he always smelt like a
pub.

'I wasn't aware I was.'

'You know you were.'

'What's your name?'

'None of your business.'

'Can I buy you a drink?'

She retracted from me, closed her eyes and shook her head from side to
side. She was smiling and little creases appeared on her forehead. I
suppose she was thinking. Then she opened those eyes. She had her head
slightly lowered and was gazing up at me. Her lashes were blinking
steadily. She raised her forefinger and drew circles in the air with
it, beckoning me down to her, enticing me. Her eyes seemed to be
reeling me in. I bent down towards her and put my ear up to her mouth.
I could feel her hot breath circulating around my eardrum. I was
thrilled.

When she spoke, the words were like three jabs of a knife.

'Fuck. Off. Weirdo.'

She swivelled around and walked back into the throng.

I could feel myself going red. It was like a red mist was coming over
me and I couldn't escape no matter what I did. Those words of hers had
really hurt me. When she'd said them the first time, in the queue, I'd
put it down as an off the cuff remark, induced by her drunkenness. Or
maybe it was the verbal defence mechanism of someone who knew they
couldn't express themselves. But this second time was different. It was
premeditated. She had taken the time to think about what she was going
to say and then said it. Those words hung in the air around me, just
like her stale breath. I felt unclean standing in that spot. I moved
away from the dance floor and found a place to stand near the
bar.

I finished my drink. Then I scooped the crescent of lemon out of the
glass and sucked on it till it was dry. The tangy, sour taste crept
over my tongue. There were still a couple of ice cubes left, so I
tipped them into my mouth and crunched them till the inside of my mouth
was burning dully.

I was ruminating on things. I couldn't forget those words, especially
the last one. It's a taboo word with me, if I'm honest. I used to hear
it a lot in the playground, and I never liked it. It hadn't been
directed at me for a while though. I sometimes wonder how people can
have the gall to label me a weirdo. I live a solitary life. I'm not
very sartorial, I wear clothes that I like, not the latest fashions. I
sometimes use long words when I speak. Maybe it's because I challenge
people. It's easy for them to call me that word, because then it makes
them feel as if they don't have to chew on what I've said to
them.

I didn't want another drink. To be honest, I didn't know what to do. I
knew that she was still on the dance floor and I didn't want to see
her. I skirted around the periphery, just looking around. There wasn't
much to see. Most of the clientele were getting drunk. In an isolated
cubicle there were a couple kissing. Well, they weren't only kissing.
They had their arms everywhere, groping, getting a handful of each
other. I think it's disgusting that people can lower themselves to such
standards in public. I felt like someone looking into a cage at a
zoo.

I went back up to the bar and decided to buy myself another lemonade
and soda. It cost me another one pound fifty, so I told the barman not
to fill it with so much ice this time. Just a couple of cubes would do.
I could still see Julie's blonde head bobbing up and down on the dance
floor. I thought about that naked belly button again. I'd seen films
where actresses had men slide ice cubes over their navels. It was
supposed to be very erotic. I wondered if the ice cubes left a hot, wet
trail on the skin as they slid over the surface. Maybe it made them
have goose bumps and that was the erotic part.

I was getting a headache from the pounding music. Or maybe it was from
all those ice cubes I was eating. I could feel a slight throbbing in my
right temple. A wayward vein. I should have left the club then. But I
didn't. I watched that blonde head for a bit more. She had her back to
me so she didn't see me watching her. In a while I forgot about the
headache. I noticed that Julie was completely surrounded by young men.
I couldn't see her face but they all had stupid smiles on their faces,
their eyes locked on her. She wasn't telling any of them to stop
gawping at her. From where I stood, it looked as if she was enjoying
all the attention.
I was on my third lemonade and soda. The barman had already forgotten
me and tried the ice cube trick again. I had to remind him to take a
few out of the glass. I drank down a few gulps even though I wasn't
very thirsty. People were crowding around the bar as the DJ had
announced that last orders would be called in five minutes. My bladder
was getting full. It felt like a dead weight hanging in my crotch. The
annoying thing was that it never gave me a warning before it wanted to
be relieved. I would just feel a sudden pressure down there and would
need to go as soon as possible. I finished off the lemonade and soda,
popped an ice cube in my mouth and squeezed through a couple of bodies
to leave the empty glass on the bar. I'd even left the slice of lemon
intact, I was so desperate to go.

The toilet was small and smelly. There were two queues, one for a lone
cubicle and the other for the urinals. I joined the queue of men in
front of the urinals. This was something I really disliked about clubs.
It didn't feel right to have to wait for the privilege of urinating. I
just stared at the back of the man in front of me. He had a dark
leather jacket and untidy hair. Someone ahead of him was making jokes,
trying to raise a few laughs from those of us queuing up. I tried to
shut his voice out. I was concentrating on keeping it all in before I
burst. The queue got shorter and soon I was at the head. I really
needed to go now. There were just two urinals. As soon as one of them
was vacated, I was in there, unzipping. I took it out and directed it.
I thought about running water. Nothing happened.

My eyes edged to the person at the urinal next to me. He was in full
flow. It was the man in the leather jacket. Not only was he gushing
merrily, but he was also whistling. I looked back down. I just couldn't
do it. There was laughing behind me. I wanted to urinate so badly, but
it felt like the entire queue behind me were all looking on, amused. I
was sure the man next to me was smaning, having spotted the absence
of even the faintest trickle coming from my nether regions. I felt
myself turning red.

I zipped myself up hastily and walked out of there. The pain in my
groin was immense. Every movement of my legs went shuddering up to my
bladder. The tears were building up in my eyes as I went back to the
bar. I tried to exercise a bit of self control over the situation. In a
few moments, I could go back in there and join the queue for the
cubicle, I told myself. Just a little bit of patience was required. I
cast my eyes over the dance floor, looking for Julie's blonde head. A
surge of panic hit me. I couldn't see her. I frantically paced around
the club, forgetting my discomfort. I looked in the cubicles but there
was no sign of her. Then I caught a fleeting glimpse of that shock of
blonde hair by the exit. She was leaving with her friend.

I jostled through a sea of people and went through those doors and up
the stairs. The clammy heat of the club subsided and I was engulfed by
the cooler night air. I could see Julie and her friend walking off down
the pedestrian area in the direction of the station. She must have been
cold in that revealing blouse, I thought. Maybe that was why they were
walking so fast. I started to follow them, careful to keep a measurable
distance between us.

I liked following people. Sometimes when I was bored, I would pick a
person at random and just follow them to see where they would go. I
suppose it gave me a kick to know that they had no idea they were being
trailed. Following Julie gave me an extra thrill, bearing in mind the
things she'd said to me.

They turned past the station, under the railway bridge and then took a
right into the old residential area. They were being quite loud. Every
now and then I would hear Julie shriek with laughter. It sounded like
she'd had a fun evening. They walked down a street full of terraced
houses for a couple of hundred metres then stopped. They were hugging
each other. For a moment, I thought I understood something else about
Julie. Maybe her friend wasn't just a 'friend'. But then they unlocked
and the friend went through a small gate and disappeared inside a
house. Julie waved and then continued on her way.

She was still going at a fair old pace, but I had a long stride and
quickened my steps. Soon I was just a few yards behind her, treading
lightly so she wouldn't hear my footsteps. My heart was banging. I
could feel droplets of sweat forming along the top of my forehead. I
was breathing rapidly through my mouth. My eyes were focused on the
small of her back, naked against the night air. I was creeping up on
her.

She was passing a small recreation ground with a cast iron fence. There
was a small gap in the fence about halfway down. I saw my chance. Just
as she was passing the entrance to the rec, I came up behind her and
clamped my big hand over her mouth. I wrapped my other hand around her
neck and pulled her.

She was trying to shout but all that came out were a few muffled
groans. She struggled for a bit but I was way too strong for her. It
was easy to drag her deep into the rec, until we stumbled up to a low
wooden fence. It was a children's playground. I could make out a set of
swings in the darkness.

We stood there for a while. I imagine that she was frozen with fear.
She stopped trying to scream. I could feel her frail little body
trembling against my huge frame. I quite liked the feel of her against
me. I wondered what was going on in that mind of hers. I don't think
she'd managed to see me, but I guess she was thinking it was me holding
her like that.

Keeping my hand firmly over her mouth, I adjusted my elbow so it was
pressing down firmly on her chest. She seemed to have gone limp with
fear. I decided that she wouldn't move as long as I had my arm around
her. Slowly, I withdrew my other arm and delved into my pocket.

I should have realised that it was a trap. Julie brought a leg up and
kicked me in the shin, then tried to wrestle herself free with her
arms. A searing pain shot up my leg, but it wasn't enough to make me
let go of her. I had the small knife out of my pocket and held it out
in front of her so she could see it. Her resistance stopped.

I can't really remember what I was thinking as I did it. The blade just
came down and went in. Three short jabs. Right in her pretty little
navel.

She made a wretched noise under my hand. I could feel the warm blood
flowing out of her onto my other hand. I withdrew the knife from her
stomach. She was slumped against me. I laid her down on the grass and
took my hand away. Her mouth was making a heavy, rasping sound. Her
body was shaking. I bent down and wiped the blade in the grass. My
heart beat was slowing down, getting back to normal. It was then that I
realised that I needed to urinate. I found a bush and did it straight
away, much to my relief.

Now I'm on one of the swings, swaying back and forth. I'm a big too big
for it really and my hefty feet keep scuffing against the bed of wood
chippings. I've got a tiny torchlight on my key fob so I've been able
to look through her purse. I found her driving licence and a few debit
and credit cards. On the driving licence there's a passport size photo
of her, which I'll probably keep. Her name is Julie. Her surname is
long and unpronounceable, probably of Slavic origin. That would explain
the high cheekbones.

She's still lying on the grass on the other side of the wooden fence.
I've heard some faint noises and a few whispered pleas. I think she may
be delirious.

'I feel cold,' she says. 'Please hold me.'

But I've already made my mind up about that. I'll wait here a bit
longer until there's no more sound. Then I'll be on my way.