Gary McMahon - Nightsiders

He was ashamed. He felt terrible. But still, he had briefly entertained the idea…

He drank for a while, watching the steady flow of traffic as people came and went, faces replaced by other, similar faces, bodies brushing up against him on their way to the toilet at the back of the room. He was not aware of how many drinks he had, but he knew the number was great. He had always been a whisky drinker, and could handle it well, but in this volume it was lethal.

The next thing he remembered was playing pool against a tall man with skinny limbs and a pock-marked face. Somehow he won the game and the pock-marked man walked away, shaking his head and waving a hand in the air. Robert watched him as he left the pub, and then looked around for his next opponent.

She was standing a yard or two away, staring at him and nursing a bottled lager. When he saw her, she raised her bottle and winked at him. He recognized her immediately, but could not place her face. Then, abruptly, realisation rushed it. It was Nathan Corbeau’s wife, Monica, and she was alone.

Before he knew it she was standing next to him, a fresh lager in one hand and a whisky in the other. “Can I join you? I’m pretty good at this game. Misspent childhood, an’ all that.”

Robert was numb. He looked at her badly made-up face, her pale blue eyes, and her cheaply dyed hair. Then his gaze trickled down to her chest—the low-cut blouse revealed just a little bit too much cleavage—and her flat belly, then finally to the tiny leather skirt wrapped like a thick belt around her waist. Her legs were firm and shapely and hairless, coated with obviously fake tan. He felt an erection stirring, and grabbed the whisky from her hand just to occupy his mind.

“I’ll take that as a yes. Let me set them up.”

Robert stared at her, taking her in. All of her. “I can be arrested for even standing next to you.” He took a sip from his drink, feeling shut off from his surroundings. The whole room narrowed down to the small area around them: the wet floor, the dust beneath their feet, the scuffmarks on the wooden boards.

“I know. I’m sorry. That wasn’t my idea.” Slowly she walked the length of the pool table, enjoying the fact that he was watching her.

Her sexuality was blunt, vulgar, yet it was also crudely effective. She bent over too far to reach beneath the pool table and retrieve the balls from their slot, and as she arranged them in the wooden triangle, she made sure her breasts were spilling out of that thin blouse. Her smile devoured him, and then spat him back out in pieces.

Robert knew precisely what she was doing, and part of him was flattered; another part of him, the part that ate healthily, slept well, read good books and tried to lead an orderly and productive life, was utterly horrified. The coarseness of this woman made him feel at once unclean and highly aroused. He could blame the drink, of course, but deep down he knew something about her had connected with something inside him. It was a truth he would have preferred to ignore.

Also, deep inside him, the man that was weak and wounded and resentful noted this might be the perfect way to take revenge on Sarah. How dare she send him away? What right did she have to doubt him?

In his past, Robert had experienced many sleazy sexual encounters: he had been drawn to the thrill, and to the filth. He liked dirty women; he loved dirty sex. When he was single, he visited prostitutes out of choice rather than desperation, and even the act of paying for that kind of sex had given him a thrill. Once he was married he started pushing that side of him away, repressing his proclivity for sleaze, but it was still there; it was always there, waiting to be unleashed. This whole situation had triggered something and a door had opened up inside of him, letting out those dark, base desires.

Something inside him was stirring. The shadows of his past were on the move.

“My break,” she said, reaching out to pick a cue from the rack on the wall.

They played in silence for a while, and Robert noted she had not been lying: she was very good indeed.

“I really am sorry about that little misunderstanding,” she said when they paused in their game to take a drink. “Things got out of hand. It was silly.” She licked her lips; again it was such an obvious thing to do that Robert could hardly believe what he had seen, or his response to the action.

Robert did not know what to say. His civilized aspect wanted to indulge her in conversation, to discuss what had happened, why it had happened, and how they could resolve things. His primitive self wanted to grab her by the hair and fuck her across the pool table. Never before had he experienced such intense and unwelcome feelings. It was both terrifying and invigorating. He felt strong. He felt weak. He felt like a man.

His head was spinning; the whisky was taking hold. He was aware of the pub emptying, of people drifting out into the night, and thought it must be getting late. “It’s getting late,” he said, as if confirming his own wayward thoughts. “I should go.” He could hear the slurring of his voice, and was more than aware of his uneven gait as he stalked along the edge of the pool table, but some part of him refused to leave.

“You’re right,” she said. “It’s late. I’ll walk you out. My car is parked in the back. Want a lift?” She walked away without waiting for an answer, nodding at the barmaid as she passed and going through the rear door. Robert stared at the pale patches on the back of her knees, where she’d forgotten to apply the fake tan.

The seduction was so easy that Robert was almost embarrassed. He had not even put up a fight. He stumbled after her, not really thinking about why; he just felt the urge to be out there, in the night, where anything might happen. He felt the hot air on his cheek; he smelled tobacco mixed with diesel fumes; and then he saw her leaning against the back wall, smoking a cigarette.

He stood before her, as if naked. He stared into her damned and damning eyes, and he realized he wanted her—all of him, every tiny element that made up his being, wanted her. He was ashamed; he was thrilled. The night seemed to shift and form a funnel, the narrow end positioned directly above him, vomiting out blackness. He reached up, reached out, and embraced it…embraced her. The cigarette fell from her hand and described a fiery arc as it headed toward the ground. Her lips went to his throat, but not his mouth: that kind of intimacy had no place here.

She spun him like a toy and pinned him to the wall, her hands going to his trousers and pulling down his zipper. She took out his cock and rolled it between her palms, brought her hands to her face and spat on them, and then once again grabbed his twitching member. Slowly, she went to her knees, her warm, wet, sticky mouth enveloping him. He grabbed her head, his fingers knotting in her tatty hair, and felt like punching her, smashing her skull with his bunched fists just to watch her bleed. Again the intensity and horrific nature of these thoughts took him by surprise, and he was instantly ashamed of them. Robert was not a violent man; he was a man of peace. But somehow this woman had reached deep inside him and unlocked a door to reveal a kind of brute carnality that had always been there but never before let out.

She wants this , he thought. She wants this…and so do I .

He came in seconds, and when she pulled away, he saw his seed glistening on her cheek. She laughed, drawing the arm of her blouse across her mouth, her lips twisting into an animalistic snarl as she stood and backed away from him. “Fucking useless,” she said. Then she spat in his face and turned her back on him, walking toward the center of the car park.

Robert sank to his knees, ruined, the potential for violence now gone. He watched as she reached the exact center of the car park, and suddenly headlights flashed on in the darkness. An engine rumbled to life, and a battered Ford Cortina trundled into view from the shadows.