End of the Street (1)

It’s been so long since we went out.

 

Usually Friday nights are spent alone at home.  Leanna and I will recede into our respective rooms and give into guilty pleasures.  She will watch bad porn and I will write bad poetry.  She will think about customers and I will think about customers.  Sometime around nine we will emerge and decide on a takeaway which usually ends up being some form of chicken.  We will eat the food and then go back until morning comes, bringing work with it. 

 

Today’s different, though.

 

Today’s Christmas eve.  Usually even that makes no impression on either of us, but this year Leanna insisted we go out.

 

“Come on, Daisy.  Don’t be so bloody boring.  Let’s go out.”

 

It was Christmas, so I couldn’t even pull the work excuse on her.  Plus, Leanna is fairly free on Saturday mornings.  Customers usually go and get laid on Friday night, and are asleep or hung-over in the morning.

 

She’s looking at me now with one of her Leanna looks. 

 

“What now?  I said I was going, now move.”

She looks stunning.  She really does.  She’s got these big amazing eyes and a full body.  Sometimes I wonder about Leanna.  The profession she’s in.  The things she could do. 

 

She shakes her head.  “Dice, I’m sorry.” 

Now I’m worried.  She only calls me Dice when she’s either really pissed or really upset.  

“Dice, I can’t go tonight.  Sharma called.  He wants me for tonight.”

“So?  Tell him you can’t do it.”  It isn’t about the bloody party.  I just do not want to cancel things after I so carefully upset my socially bare night.  Just for her. 

“I can’t, man.  It’s that Indian businessman, the one I told you about.   Fucking him once could keep us off benefits for the rest of our lives.” 

Ouch.  I don’t think either of us are ever prepared for the way she puts things, but for some indecipherable reason this hurts.  A lot.  As if she wouldn’t go if I said no.

 

“It’s all good.  Go.  Have fun,” I say, and then bite my lip.  I know how that must sound, but no emotion registers on her face.

 

She’s staring at me hard.  “You know what, Dice?  You go.  You go and you have fun.  You deserve it.”

 

Is she kidding?  I have already begun plans for a good night in with my fuck buddies, Keats and Arnolds.  But I can see in her eyes that it will mean a lot to her if I go.  “Okay.”

She chucks me the keys.  “Go have fun, babes.”

 

“You won’t be needing them.”

 

“No.  He’s coming here.”

 

“Ah.”

 

“When will you be home?”

 

“Search me.   When will you be done?”

 

She makes a face.  “Quickly.  Indians have small cocks.”

 

We giggle silently. 

 

“So I guess this is it.”

 

“Yeah.  See you.”

 

“Bye.”

 

I open the door and step out.  The wind caresses my face.  I look back at Leanna.  Someone’s tree lights cast blue lights across her face.  She looks sad and strangely small in the face of the night. 

 

“Leanna?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Nothing.”

 

*

 

Outside, the city swallows my feelings until they don’t belong to me anymore.

 

After three glasses of sherry, I am a goner.  I dance with Jacqueline until eleven.  I let Mike feel me up, though not on purpose.  We are all laid.  Even secretarial Alisha delegates her night duty and comes to deejay for us.  The first time I feel the feeling is when I sit down to talk. 

 

Something fleeting, across the surface of my mind, something I can’t put my finger on.  Nameless.  Fear.  It sinks from my throat to my stomach as they exchange places.  Jackie sits, talks to me, but I’m not listening.  I hear something about her daughter, or maybe it was her sister, or her fourth husband.  After I while, I just don’t fucking care.  All I can think about is how scared I am. 

 

The ride home is infuriatingly slow.  I get a cab because I am too drunk to drive and I’m shit scared that I will crash the car.  When he stops, I pay him extra.  “Keep the change,” I say.  I am not being magnanimous.  It is because the dread is looming, seeping to every blood cell and pooling at every nerve ending, and I don’t have the time to wait for him to fumble in his breast pocket for the five coins I know he will never find. 

 

The house is silent.  I wait, breath painfully held, my heart thumping blood down to my stomach, for Leanna’s singing to tease my ears, or maybe the lusty sounds of one of her porn stars.  Or, perhaps, a man’s guttural grunting.  Perhaps the Indian businessman never left.  But as I round the corner to the bedroom, I do hear something.

 

My scream.  As it punctures everything I ever thought was right.