Nicola Barker - Reversed Forecast

She tried to swallow and to spit at the same time, staggering sideways, away from him. She put her hands over her ears, as though taste were sound and sound was too, too full of flavour. Something exploded within her, like an engine firing in her mouth, starting up, revving itself, gathering energy, a sensation so violent, so total, so acute, that she could only close her eyes and shake her head and think about screaming, but not scream because her mouth was too full, her head was too full. Again she tried to spit and swallow. Fragments of food choked her, while other pieces flew from her mouth and into the air. She threw out a hand to push them away, further away, then, at the same time, pulled in her hands as if to catch them. Everything was moving so slowly now, so brightly, that she almost felt able to do so.

Connor watched her, alarmed. What the hell is she doing?

She ran forward, straight into his drum-kit, kicking into his bass drum, clutching his cymbals, embracing them, pulling them towards her and then tossing them sideways, like a discus thrower: up, over and against the wall. She fell forward, scrambled forwards, collapsed on to her knees, crawled to the bed, put out both hands to the tray, on to the plate of food and grabbed hold of a fistful of beans.

Tomatoes! she thought. So red, so bloody red and soft and smooth and full of pips and tart.

She rubbed the beans across her cheeks and down on to her neck.

Connor stumbled over the drums, across the room, towards her. She picked up the egg he’d fried, still warm, still soft, pushed part of it into her mouth and the other part she pushed from her ankle to her thigh, feeling it kiss her skin, like a slippery vulva, like the keen, wet lips of a lover.

Connor was standing beside her now, stunned, desperate to say something, anything, but not knowing what.

Sylvia picked up the juice, fresh orange juice with bits of orange in it, tiny fragments of fleshy, tadpole orange in it swamping the liquid. She inhaled it and squealed, throwing out a hand ecstatically, and finding, blindly, Connor’s leg, the coarse fabric of his trousers. She held firmly on to the glass and then yanked herself up, pulling at his trousers, almost toppling him over. Once up straight, she tipped the orange over him, but his clothes swallowed the juice, so she put her hand to the throat of his shirt, grasped it and ripped at it, seeing the buttons pop away like so many tiny white frogs, bouncing from the edge of a pond into thin air.

Under his shirt was his chest — hairless. She rubbed the juice on to it, into it, up his neck, on to his mouth, then pushed her mouth against his to suck it off.

‘Oranges,’ she said. ‘Oh God! Like sherbet, like toothache, like a terrible, terrible aching, like a mouse nibbling, at your lips.’

Connor stood still, his arms at his side, terrified. She’s eating me, he thought. She’s ferocious.

She turned away from him, dropped the empty juice glass and picked up the cup of coffee. He put out a warning hand. ‘Don’t throw it. It’s burning hot.’

She ignored him, inhaled the aroma, smiling widely, and then poured the coffee down her neck, chest and the front of her dress. It was scalding hot but she didn’t scream. The coffee was like a cat’s tongue, rasping at her flesh, tickling her. The smell of it! The taste! She licked her fingers and said, ‘I want to swallow it through my skin.’

Connor saw her clothes steaming and her skin redden. He grabbed hold of her, pulled her pinafore clumsily over her head, then her pea-green T-shirt. Underneath she was naked. She didn’t seem to care. She bent over, picked up a piece of bacon and pushed it into her mouth. He touched her chest, which was staining a bright red. She swallowed the bacon. Her tongue felt alive. Before, she thought, it was only a piece of damp muscle in my mouth. But now I must use it. I must taste everything.

She picked up the coffee cup again and drained the bitter dregs from the bottom of it, then tossed the cup on to the bed. Connor watched her breasts as she threw the cup.

This is terrible, he thought.

She turned to him. ‘Where’s the kitchen?’ but she didn’t wait for an answer. Instead she followed the trail of cooking smells, sniffing them out like a bloodhound, letting her senses lead her there.

She pulled open the fridge. Milk, cheese, butter. In the freezer compartment: vanilla ice-cream. She took out these things and went back to Connor, who was still in his bedroom, bare-chested, immobile. She opened the carton of milk, pulled at the waist-band of his trousers and poured the milk down inside. The milk was cold.

‘Stop!’ He tried to move away. ‘Stop that!’

She laughed at him. ‘I can’t!’

She threw down the empty carton and picked up the tub of ice-cream, ripped off its lid and pushed a handful of it into her mouth.

Connor’s trousers were wet and heavy. He began to unbutton them, but couldn’t help noticing as he did so how the skin on her chest and neck seemed even redder and angrier. He stopped what he was doing and instead took the carton of ice-cream from her, put in his hand and scooped some out. He applied it to her throat and her chest.

She enjoyed this sensation: the coldness of the ice and the warmth of his skin underneath it. She pulled him to her. He still smelled of oranges. She pushed her face on to his neck, into his hair and smelled him properly. What did he really smell of?

She felt his hands on her breasts, her back, but they held no ice now, were simply touching her. She whispered, close to his ear, ‘What do you taste like?’ and took a tentative nibble.

‘Christ!’

He jerked his head away, slapping a hand on to the spot she’d bitten. He checked his fingers to see if she had drawn blood. The expression on her face implied that she had. He frowned at her. ‘That’s dangerous.’

‘You taste like tomatoes.’

He couldn’t help smiling. ‘You’ve still got bean-juice all over your face, it’s probably that you can taste.’

He put out his hand and gently wiped some of the mess from her cheek. She grabbed his fingers and pushed them into her mouth, sucking them, tasting salt and garlic and resin. The feel of her mouth excited him. His trousers felt strange, though, as if prematurely full of creamy semen. He wanted to take them off but was embarrassed by his sudden state of arousal.

She sucked his fingers and then his hand, covering it in speculative licks and nibbles. He was being savaged by an irrepressible toy dog. She ran her nose from his wrist to his armpit, savouring him, chewing at his underarm hair and tasting the nasty bitter taste of his deodorant. She spat and screwed up her face. To quell the taste she grabbed hold of the pat of butter and bit into it. He said, ‘Don’t eat that! It’s butter! Don’t eat butter like that,’ while he tried, at the same time, to pull off his trousers. She watched this and laughed when she saw the head of his penis jutting out from the opening in his boxer shorts. Roughly she shoved him backwards, on to the bed. Her mind was crammed full of buttery things, yellow things, oil and excess.

He lay on the bed, at once hopeful and hopeless. She knocked the remnants of the tray on to the floor, picking up some mushrooms in the process, one of which she pushed into his navel, then straddled him, low down, squatting either side of his knees and staring at his manhood.

She had never seen a penis before and was both fascinated and amused by what she saw. He looked like a pink leek, a radish, a red asparagus. He smelled milky.

His eyes widened as she leaned forward and took the tip of him into her mouth. She said, her mouth now full, ‘You taste like an oyster, like a prawn.’

She was not overly impressed by the taste, but it seemed a natural enough flavour so she pressed down her teeth, ever so slightly. He sat bolt upright — ‘Don’t bite it! Please God!’ — and jerked her head away.