Herbert lay
in bed that night, hearing a chorus of cicadas whine in the distance, while
above him, the ceiling fan chopped incessantly at the hot air. The breeze it
gave off froze the beads of sweat on his brow, tightening the skin there,
giving rise to a tension headache. He ignored this however, listening instead
to the steady rise and fall of his chest as he breathed, each breath stained
with beer fumes. The last can of the six-pack he had chugged earlier was still
scrunched inside his fist, a painful edge of aluminium digging into the soft
pad below his index finger. Whether it drew blood or not was immaterial. He was
too drunk to notice, anyway.
At length, a tic in his right eye
made him release the crushing grip on the can, and it fell over the edge of the
bed and landed with a rustle amongst its emptied and crushed companions. With
his free hand, he rubbed at his eye, aware for the first time that the can had
indeed cut him, and he was bleeding.
He saw the blood reflected in the
crude light of his black and white television, which was turned on and
unwatched, its horizontal hold not quite aligned, so that at any moment, there
were several views of the same shot on the screen. In the light of the
flickering television screen, his blood looked more like ink, dripping from a
tiny flap of skin ground out by the twisted beer can. He stared at the flap of
skin for ages with a curious detached manner, moving his hand this way and
that, in and out of the light. A single dollop of blood fell onto his white
singlet and formed a rose pattern there. He absently poked at it with his other
hand, succeeding in only rubbing it further into the material. As he did so,
another drop prepared to fall free; this time, he stifled it with his free hand,
noticing the warm, squishy feeling of wet blood against his skin.
Unperturbed at this realisation, he
sat up groggily, aware for the first time that he was alone, possibly for good.
Samantha had left last Monday morning, not bothering to say goodbye, just
merely packing as much of her stuff into a sports bag that she could and
heading for the door. She gave him no reasons why she was leaving, but Herbert
knew all along that their time had come. Ever since he lost his job at the mine,
which was no more than a month ago.
Ever since then, the two of them
could barely stand to be together. It was an alien concept for them both to be
at the breakfast table at nine o’clock, when Herbert would usually at that time
be into his third hour of work. It was even more alien that they shared dinner
at the early hour of six. For Herbert, dinner was usually reheated in the
microwave when he got in after dark, usually around nine o’clock. But what made
matters even worse was that now Herbert had literally hours of nothing to do
between waking up and going to sleep except sitting around and feeling sorry
for himself. The promise of two hundred and four dollars a week for the dole
was hardly comforting, considering Herbert got the money for doing nothing but
sitting on his arse. It did nothing to motivate him, to assist him in his quest
with morning newspapers, scanning the employment section in vain for a vacancy
that required no real skills, considering the only skills Herbert had involved extracting
coal from the earth.
Last Monday was five days ago. It
was now the small hours of Saturday morning, and Herbert was hammered like a
fart, lying in his own sorry filth, unshaven, stinking of booze and cigarette
smoke, with a single dollop of crimson blood smeared into his singlet. And all
he could think about, all that occupied his mind, was a single image that meant
very little to him, but formed the very crux of his life…
…the water
tower stood over thirty metres high, right in the middle of town. It pointed to
the heavens, an obscene thumb gesture, or the world’s largest metal cock. It
dwarfed everything else in the town, standing like a beacon in the sky,
Gulliver in the land of Lilliput. In the daytime, it was an eyesore, demanding
no attention other than a hurried glance at the crude red arrow that indicated
the present level of the water. At night, however, it shimmered with ethereal
beauty, a huge ghostly creature that clanked and whistled with the breeze.
To gain access to the winding steel
steps leading to the tower’s peak, you had to jimmy up one of the struts. Once
in position, you simply swung over to a steel ladder that hung some two metres above
the ground. Up this ladder you’d scurry, conscious of the slippery, scuffling
sounds your boots made, and two metres later, you’d reach a platform. From
here, four sets of steps wound around the perimeter of the water tower’s base. They
were made from rigid welded steel with little patterns on them that resembled
fallen grains of rice to stop feet from slipping. They made little noise as you
walked on them, though you walked on them with care, because if anyone heard
you, then you could be arrested for trespass.
But trespass was the last thought in
Herbert’s head whenever he dared take a nocturnal trip along those four flights
of steps. In fact, the very idea of trespass added to the sensations of coming
up here in the first place! What could
be more thrilling than sneaking your date onto the highest plateau in town, and
going for it hell and tongs underneath the stars? Herbert often fantasised about being sprung
with his pants down, mounting a local girl—one of the rich farmer’s daughters
who, despite their nefarious ways, were always beyond reproach—and causing a
furore. But anybody who was somebody in town would be fast asleep in bed at
this hour; and white trash like Herbert couldn’t score with a rich farmer’s
daughter even if he paid one of them. But that didn’t stop the fantasies, nor
did it detract from the thrill of sneaking a lusty vixen onto the highest
monument in town and fucking like teenagers.
The stairs finished with a platform
similar to the first, and was where Herbert usually stopped to take a gauge of
the situation. For first timers, this was the moment when their doubts reached
their zenith, given that they were now something like twenty metres above the
ground. Quite often, in a fit of drunken bravado, a lot of girls make it this
far, only to find out that they have no head for heights, or that in their
state of intoxication, the world spun out of control. It was here that Herbert,
through slurred words of honey, convinced his date to advance before him
through the “Tunnel of Love,” as he liked to call it. The said tunnel was at
the very centre of the water tank, and consisted of a hole about a metre in diameter.
Threaded through this was a ladder, which shot straight up through the hole,
for at least two metres, though from underneath looking up, it looked as if it
went all the way to the heavens.
If Herbert played his cards well
enough, then his date would gladly accept that if she slipped or looked as if
she would fall, then Herbert would catch her. So she would climb the ladder
before him, leaving him to trail behind. Nine times out of ten, his date would
wear a dress, and inching slowly up the ladder—the process sober would probably
take a little over thirty seconds—Herbert would have an untainted view of his
date’s intimate apparel.
Only one girl was able to thwart
what he considered a masterstroke of genius. And that girl was Samantha Moss. Mind
you, it was the third time out of the four that Herbert took her up there that
she cottoned on to his ploy… Her revenge, if you dared call it that, was to
walk up the ladder on the fourth time in a pair of jeans. But before that, she
was keen to lead the foray up the ladder, allowing Herbert to enjoy the view as
he eagerly clambered after her. The first time had been really special—it
always was with a fresh date to impress…
Their
drunken giggles punctured the still night as they stood at the very base of the
tower. Looking up from here, with the night sky as a backdrop, the tower looked
much, much taller. With the amount of bourbon and cola Herbert had sizzling
around his body, the tower seemed to sway back and forth, tossed by some wind
that Herbert couldn’t feel. Beside him, swaying a little herself from
drunkenness, Samantha stared up at the looming tower.
“Ever been up there before?” she
asked, her voice barely above a whisper, though it sounded like a shout in the
still night.
“Yeah, once or twice,” Herbert lied.
Once or twice, per date, he should
have said; and it was true. He couldn’t count on his hands how many times he
had clambered up the steel ladders with someone in tow, someone eager, full of
drink and hormones in that crazed hotchpotch broth of excitement.
Samantha was looking good tonight,
and she was wasted beyond belief. What surprised Herbert was how little alcohol
it actually took to get her wasted. Of all of his dates, she was the cheapest. He
told her so as they wound their way here from the pub.
“Cheap, eh?” she drawled, leaning on
him when she was about to crash to the ground. “You think I’m cheap, eh? You think a nice gal like me is gonna let a
creep like you call me cheap?” She then
flipped up her dress, the moonlight catching the soft silk of her panties,
which were white, glistening like morning dew. Through them, Herbert could see
the narrow patch of shadow that was her sex. She held her dress thus for the
quickest of seconds, before lowering it again, a smirk printed across her face.
“Now that’s cheap,” she told him, nodding with herself in agreement. Then she
turned around to look at the tower. “How do we get up here?” she asked.
On top of
the tower, the town looked like a child’s Lego village. From here, you could
see every possible building in town. Samantha surveyed the tableau below her
with glazed eyes, her hand on Herbert’s shoulder to balance her. She had
insisted that they go to the edge of the tank to look out over the sleepy town.
It wasn’t until they were there, no more than a few inches from the lip, that
Samantha realised just how high up they were.
“Wow,” she whispered. “It feels like
you can reach out there and touch something with your hands!” She whistled softly between her teeth before
turning to face Herbert, her excitement high. She jumped up and down on the
spot a couple of times. “This is wonderful!” she cried, throwing her arms
around Herbert in a bear hug. “Thank you for sharing this with me!”
“No problem,” Herbert replied,
returning the gripping hug, revelling in the feel of her firm bust pressing
against his chest. Through the skimpy fabric of her dress, he felt her heart
thumping in a machine gun pattern.
They kissed softly, Samantha’s hands
running along Herbert’s back, plucking his shirt from where he had tucked it
into the seat of his jeans. His hands explored the length of her back, from her
thin hips, right up to the base of her neck. His fingers pressed and kneaded,
stroked her silky tresses, ran up, and down along her back, bringing to his attentive
mind the information that she wore no bra. This information engorged his
already eager organ. By the time her nimble fingers delved down there,
stealthily sliding down the zipper, his rigid cock pulsed with every beat of
his heart.
As quickly as they started, they
disengaged, but only for the time it took for Herbert to steal inside his jeans
pocket for a condom. No sooner had he produced the rubber did Samantha take
down his pants, her eager hands holding his stiff organ like a club. Mesmerised,
she watched him roll the rubber over the length of his cock, and then, he eased
her onto the cold metal of the tank.
He thrust her dress up high over her
thighs, hearing her gasp as the cool night air tickled the inside of her legs. Almost
instantly, the sweet, warm smell of musk rose to his eager nostrils, and he
could feel the aching inside his groin. She wiggled her hips as he eased her
panties off, wincing as the cold steel of the water tower claimed her bare
white buttocks.
They made love then, beginning
quietly, lest someone overheard, but then, as their eagerness climbed like a
barometer with their passion, they began to moan and grunt. Five minutes later,
Herbert blew his biscuits. He slid off her, feeling the cold on his own naked
bottom as he lay on his back, his hands manipulating the rubber sheath off his
swiftly fading erection…
…the scene
played over and over in his head now; more so than it did when Samantha shared
his bed. Only now, the erection that accompanied it was hardly pleasant. Every
throb of his heart was reciprocated by a thump of pain in his groin. He looked
down and saw the crimson head of his cock peeking out from the fly of his
crinkled boxer shorts, the fronts of which were stiffened with dried semen from
previous ejaculations.
Without thinking, almost like a
robot, he tugged his shorts down to his knees, and with the fleeting images of
Samantha lying atop the water tower with her dress pulled up over her hips, he
jerked himself off and went to sleep.
The morning
light stabbed his eyes, infiltrating through the moth eaten curtains that he
was going to replace before the mine closed. Just the weekend before, Samantha
and he had gone material shopping; something Herbert had never considered doing
before, or ever again. He felt utterly stupid as Samantha dragged him around
textile shops, choosing colours and comparing textures and asking if Herbert
wanted a floral pattern in his bedroom.
“Of course I don’t want pansy
flowers in my bedroom!” he roared, but seeing her face smile as her trap
ensnared him, he could only love her.
Her enthusiasm carried him
begrudgingly from store to store, where he smiled shyly at clerks who talked in
the arcane language of curtain making, a language far removed from that used by
miners. Samantha not only understood the language, but also spoke it fluently. It
was on that day that Herbert learned that a bobbin was a spool of thread in the
bottom of a sewing machine, and not a British cop.
At home, with various doodles on a
leaf of A4 paper, Herbert asked, “Where do we get the money to cover this?”
Samantha had smiled, her eyes
locking onto Herbert’s, riveting them in place. “Why that’s easy,” she almost
whispered; when she talked like this, Herbert was compelled to concentrate on
what she said, simply because if he didn’t, he wouldn’t be able to hear her. “I’m
going to get me a job at the corner store. The owner just advertised yesterday,
and I put my name down.”
“Oh you did now?” Herbert smirked,
captivated by her delicate features. She had lovely brown eyes, doe eyes, wide,
and innocent. Dark hair framed her face, which was oval shaped, with a thin
nose with a few stray freckles here and there. She was a thin girl, though
large in the bust area. Most of the time, however, she kept her bust under control,
wearing large shirts, or bust reducing bras. It was her one hang-up, having a
large bust, and she was self-conscious whenever Herbert’s gaze lingered there
too long.
Most of the time, she was also shy,
not taking Herbert’s compliments without colour flushing her cheeks. Like many
women these days, she believed she was ugly, and no matter how hard Herbert
tried to tell her otherwise, it was one argument he could never win. With
thoughts such as these flittering through her head, she often dressed down,
choosing clothes that all but hid her figure, clothes with dour colours and
plain patterns.
If he knew naught of Samantha’s
sexual history, he could almost swear that she was still a virgin. It was a
rare skill for a country girl to give this impression without wearing a throat
to ankle dress with an impenetrable bodice. Not unlike their city counterparts,
country girls experimented with carnal pleasures, more so than country boys it
seemed. But that was only because country boys were too knackered after a day’s
work to do more than drink beer and fall asleep somewhere. This lethargy more
than anything else was the reason why country boys are often dubbed “slow.”
“Whose car are you gonna use to run
into town every day, eh?” Herbert had asked, though he was not really
suspicious. He just wanted Samantha to get that impression, because just like
her, Herbert liked playing little games of entrapment.
“I thought I’d get a lift into town
with Martin Price,” she said calmly, not taking the bait, for unlike her,
Herbert’s baits were never subtle.
“Mm,” he mused, or pretended to muse.
But he was no fool. To afford all the changes Samantha planned, Herbert would
need extra money from somewhere. Besides, he was sick to death of hearing how
bored Samantha got when Herbert was working in the mines like a slave—it was
like they were married or something!
Herbert
gunned the motor of the ute with the odd door. The original sat in the shed
with a huge dent in it where Jumpy Jones had kicked it with one of his engineer
boots. He had kicked it not once, but four times, each time harder than the
last, so hard that he had broken the big toe in his right foot. But he hadn’t
felt it at the time because he was as pissed as a fart. Only in the morning
would he have realised the sense of his folly and felt the pain, as Herbert
felt his now, squinting into the morning sun as he drove towards town.
His breakfast churned steadily in
his guts, almost as if his intestines were in the spin cycle of a washing
machine. The two aspirins he had taken with his morning coffee did little to
stem the jackhammer that spliced his temples. Neither did the faulty suspension
of his ute, another victim of his drastically reduced salary. As of the same
day Samantha did a runner, Herbert’s ute was due for servicing. It was yet
another raw twist of the thorn called life that dug deep into his skin.
Town was five miles away; a long
drive with a hangover. He felt every bump and corrugation in the road, and no
matter how he tried to dodge potholes, his vehicle seemed determined to find
them all. By the time he was in town, his forehead was flushed red with heat
and sweat stained neat circles in the armpits of his shirt. Summer was a real
bastard in these parts, unless you were rich enough to have air conditioning in
your car.
Herbert made a beeline to the pub,
intent on restocking the beer he had chugged down the previous night. Two
hundred and four dollars a week, minus bills, minus the food bill and the cost
of petrol for his ute, left him with about thirty-seven dollars, which was just
enough for a carton of beer, some smokes, and a newspaper. Presently, that
meagre sum of cash was burning a hole in his pocket, as much as the hangover
was burning a hole in his forehead.
The pub was quiet even for a Sunday
morning. Its worn façade of plastered cement, yellowed with age, looked like a
sick old man in the bright sunlight. In fact, the building had next to no
charm, other than the promise of ephemeral bliss on a Saturday night. Looking
at it in the sobering light of Sunday morning—when all godly people should
actually be in church—Herbert could see through the illusion it had supplied
for most of his adult life. Nevertheless, such truth could hardly dispel his
needs.
The ute door whined as he wrenched it
open. He glanced briefly around the car park, wondering why the steadfast
barflies weren’t in residence. The answer was written in black marker on a
sheet of paper taped to the front door:
Closed due to a death in the
family.
Herbert stared at the crude message,
feeling his head throbbing in time with his heart. A single bead of sweat broke
free from his hairline and drew a long channel down the side of his face. But
like a true soldier, he swallowed his disappointment, scratched an itch on the
base of his neck, and strode purposely back to his ute. Once inside, he rested
his sweaty forehead against the steering wheel, realising suddenly that he
wanted a smoke and that the only place to get them now was the corner store.
The thought was hardly comforting,
but what was the worse thing that could happen?
So what if there was a chance Samantha would be working today. Did it
matter? He stretched his mind back over
the last gritty month; at no time while they were together did she ever work on a Sunday. Saturday maybe,
but never Sunday. In her opinion, Sunday, being only a half-day’s work, was not
worthy of making the five mile trip.
Herbert smiled. That settled it then.
She would hardly change her mind even if she lived closer to town. He gunned
the engine, popped the ute into gear and drove off, feeling the strain of his
headache finally abating.
The corner store was just that; a
store at the junction of the two main roads that quartered the town. It was a
neat affair, with the typical bat wing doors and the wire cages imprisoning the
blurb pages of all the local rags out front. These flapped in a tiny breeze
that blew in from the east, tossing the scent of the wheat harvest into the
air.
Herbert pulled his vehicle over in
front of the store and eased himself out. He jumped onto the sidewalk from the
roadside, and bounded towards the bat wing doors. Inside, the air conditioner
was working overtime, and tendrils of cool air wafted through the swinging
doors outside. Herbert soaked in this coolness as he plunged into the corner
store. He was about to march straight towards the cigarette counter, but
stopped when a fleeting image tugged at his periphery vision.
She was bending over a palate of
newspapers, a Stanley knife deftly slicing the blue binding strips, and for the
fleetest of seconds, he could see her thighs, clad in shimmering tan pantyhose,
before she rose to her feet, her skirt falling down to a more respectable level.
Though the glimpse was momentary, it was enough to cause Herbert’s heart to race.
“Hello, Herb,” she said, smiling
warmly, though her eyes weren’t committal. They took in the form standing
before her, and Herbert could feel her repulsion emanating towards him, borne
on the waves of cold air conditioned air.
“Sam,” he replied, his gaze now
intently on his scuffed boots.
“Come for yesterday’s paper? The employment section?”
The words floated in the air, loaded
with menace. Herbert moved his gaze from his boots to her shoes, neat little
black leather things with cheap metal buckles. From there, he traced up her
calves, going up only as far as her knees before he dropped his eyes again. He
felt heat spreading over his cheeks.
Samantha turned to a pile of
newspapers underneath the display desk, rummaged nonchalantly through the piles
of yesterday’s news, until finding the one that had Herbert’s name etched on
the top. She passed it to him gingerly, leaning over from her waist in an
unconscious effort to put as much distance between them as possible.
“Could I have some cigarettes, too?”
he asked meekly, and dared a glance into her face.
It was the same face that he
remembered, but somehow different. There was a knowledge there that hadn’t been
there before, a certain look that pierced the façade that Herbert once
possessed when he was employed. The façade of security and dependability, of
being somebody worth knowing, all of which was robbed from him when the mine
was liquidated. He knew she saw through this now, saw through it the same way
the rich girls looked through him. She was above him now, moving up the caste
ladder, while he slid down. In her face, in her entire countenance, came the
look of maturity. She was no longer the innocent fawn, looking untouchable in
comfort clothes. Now she was powerful, intimidating; a new woman.
She led him now to the cigarette
counter, her stride confident. Herbert heard the swish of her thighs sweeping
together, the sound of pantyhose rubbing together. When he lifted his sorry
gaze from the floor, he was staring at her arse, swinging like a pendulum left
and right, a decisive wiggle that was hardly there before.
Behind the counter, her power only
increased. He could only watch in amazement and pitiful longing as she reached
above her head for the cigarettes, not needing to ask what brand. He could see
the outline of her bra as her breasts heaved forward, pressing against her
crisp white shirt. And despite the flushes on his cheeks, he stared, wishing he
could bury his head there once more.
Beyond the counter, where the shop
joined onto the living quarters, Martin Price could be seen talking on the
telephone. At the moment, his back was towards Herbert. He wore a crisp shirt
of the same stark white colour as was Samantha’s, tucked into a pair of navy
trousers. Even as he watched Price’s back, he felt a stab of servility there. Price
was, after all, everything Herbert was not: young, good looking, professional,
the archetype of success. He had neat hair styled with great precision,
straight, white teeth set into a perfect smile. And he had a job.
Herbert scowled, digging a sweaty
hand into his pocket to extricate some loose change for the cigarettes and the
newspaper. He tossed over a ten-dollar bill, and dug inside his front pockets
for some coins for the paper. But the further he dug into his pockets, the
further away the coins slivered. He managed to wrench free a dollar coin, and
one ten cent piece, and passed these sullenly to Samantha’s outstretched hand. It
was at that moment that Price finished his telephone conversation. He glided
into the store, all smiles and pristine pressed shirts, and a fucking Donald
Duck tie for God’s sake!
“Herb,” he said by way of greeting,
the smile smeared thickly onto his face.
The coin, which was almost in his grasp,
slipped away from his thick, sweaty fingers, and plunged deeper into the base
of his pocket. Fuck! Herb’s mind
moaned, and despite the efforts of the air conditioner, found heat standing out
on his face. His hand dug and prodded, creating an obscene bulge in the front
of his pants.
Price by then had turned his
attention to Samantha. “That was my mother,” he said. “She’s coming up from
Melbourne tomorrow, and wants to meet you.”
Herbert glanced up briefly at that,
sweat now stinging his eyes.
Samantha replied: “Oh, that’s
sweet.”
And before Herbert could even hook
his finger around the stray ten cent coin and flee, Price had sidled up to
Samantha, his arm wrapped about her shoulder. He drew her close, planted a
small, but polite kiss on her cheek, which she battered away modestly, as the
Eternal Virgin should.
Herbert swallowed a sick, syrupy
chunk of phlegm that had somehow appeared in his throat. As he did so, his
finger clasped the elusive coin. He wrenched it clear, his motion jerky, like a
Punch and Judy marionette. He reached over the gulf between Samantha and
himself, aware now that the flight of his hand was being watched intently by
all three people in the store. Samantha extended her own hand, palm upwards,
where the dollar coin winked with the other ten-cent piece, both coins catching
the fragmented light of the overhead florescent tubes, reflecting it into
Herbert’s eyes.
He scooped up the cigarettes and the
paper, and without looking up at either Price or Samantha, headed hurriedly for
the door.
Outside, his
hands shakily lit a cigarette, and blew smoke everywhere in dirty, nicotine
stained clouds.
The
motherfucker! the voice in his head screamed, sounding like a foul mouthed
five year old.
In his chest, he felt a
constriction, and it squeezed tight for a few seconds, before ebbing away with
the beating of his heart. He drew cigarette smoke greedily into his lungs,
almost as if it were the last cigarette he was to ever have in his life. Some
short seconds later, he started the ute, his hands still shaking as he popped
it into gear and released the parking brake.
She was only gone for a week, his mind
prattled endlessly. The litany began half way through his journey home, a
journey that passed by with uncanny slowness. He chain-smoked three cigarettes
in that short trip, lighting the fresh ones with the butt of the old ones. By
the time he popped open the door, his mouth tasted like an ashtray, and his
hands and clothes reeked. At least the shakes were gone; he didn’t look like
Mohammed Ali anymore.
He went inside, his mind horribly
lucid as it brought back memories. In his mind’s eye, he could see Samantha
sitting at the table, could hear her laughing, could smell the perfumes she
wore. The memories were like the stinging nettles of a box jellyfish. They
wrapped themselves around every available portion of Herbert’s body and soul
that was free, and stung. In the kitchen, he could see her laying out his
evening meals. In the lounge room, she was sitting in his favourite chair, feet
on the worn ottoman, newspaper spread before her in an impersonation of his
once favourite Sunday morning ritual. And then, he staggered into the bathroom,
and imagined he could smell her soaps and her shampoos.
Lastly, he wandered into the
bedroom, where many times in their relationship they had made love. The bed was
ruffled up, indeed, had the appearance that a lot of wrestling had previously
taken place, wrestling that may or may not have led to lovemaking. But it was
all a lie. The bed had been messed up since Samantha left only because Herbert
couldn’t be bothered making it. The only sexual action he was getting since
then was when he flogged the bishop, and even from where he stood, he could see
the stiffened scuffmarks where his sperm soaked into the sheet.
He leaned against the doorframe,
suddenly weak at the knees. All around him was the evidence of an entire week
of neglect and slovenly behaviour. Clothes were scattered everywhere, along
with crushed beer cans and scraps of food. On the cabinet that had once housed
Samantha’s collection of cosmetics, a plate topped with fatty congealed lamb
chops sat, the meat more than likely rancid, waiting to assault Herbert’s
nostrils with its insidious stench.
She’s
just a woman, he told himself, and not for the first time since she left. Get a hold of yourself, man. But it was
easier said than done. In reality, the main reason why Samantha meant more to
him than any other squeeze was because he had spent more time with her than any
other squeeze. By being unemployed, he was able to spend more time with her. She
wasn’t just a weekend thing, or a quickie on a Friday night, either in bed or…
…or on the water tower.
He had taken her up there four times.
That was the record. Four times. Even the time when she wore jeans, they had
screwed. That last time, she had allowed him to enter her doggy style,
something that she always seemed afraid of beforehand. She was special simply
because Herbert had gotten to know
her. But having done that, they had grown sick of one another, or at least
that’s what Herbert thought it was.
Surely
that’s what it was?
But could he be sure?
Herbert stared down at the
gelatinous mess of lamb chops on the plate, unaware that he had crossed the
room to where they were. They stank too; the dirty, rancid, cloying odour of
putrefaction. Herbert felt his gorge rise, and brought his hands to his mouth,
aware as he did so that he was holding a piece of white cloth in his hands that
at first he thought was a handkerchief.
He stopped then, the need to vomit
gone. Instead of a handkerchief, he was holding a pair of gossamer thin
panties; Samantha’s panties, he realised with a jolt. They had been jutting out
of the drawer where she packed them so neatly, folding each pair into a neat
bundle before laying them down. The little ritual had been magic to watch, as
well as the impressive display of knickers. This particular pair was
transparent enough to read a newspaper through. To prove the point, he brought
them up to his eye level and looked at himself in the mirror.
He smiled then, like a boy sprung
with his sister’s bra hiding beneath his pillowcase. He almost flung the
panties aside in embarrassment, but stopped, not wanting to rid himself of the
lovely texture of silk between his fingertips, or the smell they gave off, the
faint aroma of woman. He opened the drawer they had been deposited in, but it
had been totally cleaned out.
This pair of knickers was all he had
left of Samantha.
He stewed on this for a few seconds,
before scouting the room, randomly opening closets and drawers and wardrobe
doors. He even went out to the laundry to find the dirty clothes hamper. The
only underwear there was his. Returning to the room, he went to the big double
door closet, and flung the doors wide. Inside, he was immediately hit by the
smell of old clothes. Filled with a sudden urge to find anything of Samantha,
he begun tossing clothes out over his back. All sorts of clothes fell out;
jackets, ties, dirty odd socks, a pair of flares he had once worn in the
halcyon days of the early eighties. He found old pictures of old girlfriends,
old editions of stick books like Playboy and Penthouse; he even found some old
dirty pictures he had taken of one of his girlfriends on one of his many
excursions to the fabled water tower. It was her idea, and Herbert was stoned
at the time and thought it would be grand. The only problem was that it was the
middle of winter. Sure enough, his girlfriend of the time had nice tits
(not
nearly as nice as Samantha’s)
but even nice tits looked awful covered in goosebumps.
He couldn’t remember her name. Or
where she went after leaving him. Or if she knew he still had these pictures,
which he didn’t know about until then. He was just about to tuck them back into
the box he had found them in when something long like a walking cane fell from
the very back of the closet and rapped him nastily on the knuckles.
“Shit!” he exclaimed, dropping the
dirty pictures in his haste. He forgot about them the moment he saw the sleek,
beautiful form of his hunting rifle, the barrel pointing its silent black ‘O’
of a mouth right at him. “Shit,” he said again, his throat suddenly dry.
He pulled it out, running his hands
over it. Like a whore on an erect cock, he rubbed it ecstatically. “I thought I
sold you, beauty,” he whispered. Suddenly everything fell into place.
Monday
morning he rose with the sun, fresh and alert. He ploughed through the piles of
clothes on the floor and into the bathroom. In twenty minutes, he washed the
stench of a week’s worth of beer and cigarettes from the pores of his skin, scraped
the long hairs of a week’s worth of bumfluff off his cheeks and chin. He even
combed his hair and brushed his teeth. Satisfied that his body was cleansed of
a week’s depravation, he dressed in a nice shirt and an even nicer pair of
slacks, both of which he rescued from the cupboard where he had found the
hunting rifle.
A new man, he drove with the radio
on, singing along to John Farnham and Cold Chisel and some other Australian act
to make up the threesome. He arrived in town just as the main street shops
began to open. He watched the drama unfold with uncurious eyes, while at the
same time, noting everything. First off the rank, the butchers. They arrived in
separate cars, but as one, moved to where their shop waited, all of them
nodding greetings at Herbert who nodded back.
Next, the auto mechanic strolled
across the street from his house to his workshop, dressed in his immaculate
pair of stained overalls. Following him was the woman who worked in the post
office. After her, the primary school teacher jaunted by in her tiny van, her
six-year-old son gawking nonchalantly out at the world. Many others followed;
the stock and station agent, the fuel station men, the banker in his neat
pressed suit, and the man who owned the Rod ‘n’ Rifle store. Lastly, there came
a red and white four-wheel drive, which eased itself slowly into the parking
bay outside the shop.
Out of the vehicle leapt Martin
Price. He dashed around the other side of the car, where Samantha was dressed
today in a loose dress. Neither of them noticed Herbert, but that was only
because they were late. This was confirmed by Price, who after a quick peck of
Samantha’s cheek glanced at his watch. “We’re late! We’re late!” he cried, too
much like the White Rabbit from Alice in
Wonderland for Herbert’s comfort. They disappeared as suddenly as they
came, leaving Herbert alone in the street.
After a short pause, Herbert
stretched, a yawn escaping his lips. With one last glance at the red and white
four-wheel drive, Herbert followed in the wake of the gun shop owner. But not
before turning sharply on his heel, flicking a cool glance at the water tower,
thrusting like a giant phallus towards the sky.
Every
morning thereafter, Herbert awoke with the sun. He showered, shaved, broke his
fast and dressed in neat clothes. By eight o’clock, he was in town, his ute
parked somewhere inconspicuous. And then, he would just watch the charade of
people going about the process of opening their shops. It was all very
automated, a well rehearsed script.
Herbert watched it from every
direction, and every conceivable angle. He even dreamed it out in his head at
night. The schedule was roughly the same
each day of the week, weekends included. The act became so repetitive that
Herbert could almost set his watch to it. Sure, sometimes some of the actors
would appear a little bit early, or a little bit late, but all that showed to
Herbert was that he was dealing with people. Besides, the comings and goings of
everyone else was not Herbert’s business. No, he could ignore them, using them
only as guide lines towards the important goal he set himself. As far as he was
concerned, the only thing that mattered was that the red and white four-wheel
drive consistently pulled up at the front of the shop near enough to the same
time, which it did, and Martin Price and Samantha Moss got out.
He watched them through the cold
glass eyes of a pair of binoculars. He saw every loving glance, every intimate
touch. He watched them kiss and cuddle. Witnessed one time when Price placed a
loving arm around her waist, and pulled her near to him and nibbled on her neck.
Every day, they kissed before they unlocked the door and went inside. It was as
if they knew that Herbert was watching them and were performing just for him. Only
it was Herbert’s secret alone. Herbert’s obsession, a seed he planted, which
was now germinating, sending shoots up through the surface of the earth,
growing higher every day, under the shadow of the water tower.
It was
Monday morning again; the sun was due to rise in an hour. Herbert had awoken at
midnight, and had walked into town. It took three hours, but the time passed
him by swiftly. He wasn’t nervous, indeed, he felt strangely calm. He felt calm
even with the rifle in a carry bag slung over his right shoulder. The stock
flapped back and forth, whacking him in the back several times. Though it
sometimes hurt, it felt strangely comforting. Over his left shoulder was a
knapsack. Inside the knapsack were all sorts of goodies. His breakfast for one.
Binoculars, some suntan lotion—not that he thought he would have need of this. All
of these things were minor, however, compared to the last two items he had
packed inside the knapsack.
He sat now on top of the water
tower, watching the golden light tease the eastern fringes of the sky. Beside
him, sat the rifle, sleek, powerful, charged with quiet menace. Next to it was
the knapsack, open like a gutted fish. He could make out the shadow of the
binoculars, and the lunchbox that he had packed his breakfast into. The bottle
of suntan lotion had spilled out of the gaping zipper maw. It lay neglected on
its side like some dead animal.
The two mystery objects Herbert had
fished out already, and both of them were sitting in his lap. The first of
these items was the most practical. There were about two hundred of them
sitting in a flip top box, minus the five or so Herbert had practised with on
Saturday afternoon. Two hundred brass capped soldiers, about two inches long,
with hollow tips to extract the maximum amount of damage. Herbert had asked the
owner of the Rod ‘n’ Rifle store for some bullets that could stop a wild pig. The
Rod ‘n’ Rifle guy had been so eager to please. He almost fell out of his pants
to assist Herbert with his order. “You’ll have some happy hunting with these
bastards!” the guy had exclaimed.
“Yeah, you bet,” Herbert answered
stoically. He couldn’t understand the guy’s enthusiasm then, though now it was
steadily falling into place.
The second object of great import
was now crushed tightly in the fist of his right hand. The silk was a continual
arousal, had been ever since he found it. Samantha’s panties glowed in the
oncoming light of dawn, not as fiercely as they had on his first dawn raid on
the town. Gradually, it had lost all of its sheen as Herbert soaked the
translucent fabric with his sweat and his semen. At night, he would lie with it
trapped underneath his engorged cock, and would pretend he was fucking Samantha
as he had on top of the water tower. The only problem with this method of
wanking was that he rubbed his cock raw if he did it too long. Even now, it
chafed in the confines of his underpants.
He sat now, panties squeezed tight
in his hand, nearly two hundred bullets in the box in his lap. The feeling was
odd, and somehow reassuring. He hadn’t bothered to ask himself last week why he
bought so many bullets. As he was walking into town tonight, he allowed himself
to dwell on the question. A rather sarcastic voice in his head had the best
answer so far for it. It said simply, in
case you miss. But that was no real answer.
Only now, with the sun peeping over
the edge of the horizon like a little kid did he think he knew the answer. It was very simple, and yet, portentous.
Last night, just after blowing his
biscuits, he drifted off to sleep. As was usual, his dreams centred on the
events of all of the mornings of the last week. He was watching the people
going about their morning duties of opening shop, and not unlike all of the
times before, they moved like automatons.
But then, something changed. The
change was subtle, but telling. It wasn’t a physical change, but rather, a
change in the atmosphere. Herbert was suddenly nervous, but there was nothing
he could do but allow the procession of people to pass, to move into their
shops. But they didn’t move into their shops; instead, they paused just
outside, and they all turned around to look at Herbert.
It was then that Herbert realised
that he was naked and that he had a massive erection, and this erection was
covered in red blotches that looked like carpet burns. In his hand was a pair
of panties, but they couldn’t have been Samantha’s… could they? For instead of pristine white knickers, the
pair he held were frightfully discoloured, complete with yellow piss stains on
the front, splotches of crusty semen and on back, a dirty, brown-green skidmark.
With a cry of disgust and anguish he tried to cast them away, but they were
stuck to his hand.
“No!”
he cried, shaking angrily at the offensive undergarment, but there was nothing
he could do to shake it free.
And then, he heard a loud rumbling
noise, and as he turned around, he saw the red and white four wheel drive pull
up before the corner store. Price got out on his side, and turned around to
face Herbert. He smiled his infectious smile, before bowing low, a move made
awkward by the bulge evident in the front of his pants. As was usual, he went
around to Samantha’s side of the car, and she got out, one leg at a time.
“Oh,
honey,” Price told her. “You’re the
cheapest date I’ve ever had!”
“I’ll
give you cheap!” Samantha said, and like that time at the base of the water
tower, she lifted up her dress. But instead of wearing white panties, Samantha
was wearing no knickers at all.
She smiled now at Herbert just as
Price had done, and as Herbert watched, she turned away to face the way she had
come, leaning over the bonnet of the car and showing herself to the throng
gathered behind Herbert. Without needing an invitation, Price got behind her,
his priapic prick thumping with pleasure, and began to hump her doggy style.
In that moment, the people behind
Herbert began to laugh. At first, it was a couple of giggles, and then,
splutters of rapture, before it became a full-fledged chorus of ecstasy. Samantha
turned her head around to face Herbert, her eyes half closed in pleasure, but
her mouth curled into a sardonic grin. “They
all know, Herb,” she said, through gasps of heavy breath.
“Know
what?”
“Know
what indeed.” Her smile curled up
some more, before her lips parted, a gasp wrenching from deep within her.
“What?
Tell me!”
“I’ve
been fucking Martin Price ever since day one, Herb. What do you think of that?”
“I—”
“And
do you know something else, Herb?
Everyone here knows, Herb. They
know how I’ve cuckolded you, Herb!”
She suddenly collapsed forward as a
wave of orgasms washed over her, but even as Martin Price began to shudder with
his own explosion, the crowd began to chant a one word phrase over and over
again…
Cuckold!
Cuckold! Cuckold!
…and it followed him up into
consciousness.
At a quarter
to nine, the first movements were made. As per usual, the three butchers
arrived, and crossed the road together. Herbert followed their progress through
the sight of his rifle, levelling the crosshair with each of their heads. The
post office woman was next, walking down the street with a parcel she meant to
post, unaware that it would never make it to its destination. In her haste, she
almost bowled over the banker, who had comically stooped to tie an errant
shoelace.
The auto mechanic crossed the street
at ten to nine, turning back briefly to wave to his wife. In mid wave, he spun
and mock high-fived the school teacher, who nipped past in her tiny van. Of all
the people Herbert observed, only she and her son lived to tell the tale.
The stock and station agent arrived
just before the Rod ‘n’ Rifle guy, who stood for a long time behind his Jeep
scratching his nuts, thinking he would go unobserved. Little does he know, Herbert mused grimly. At length, the whole
charade was played out, and now they only awaited the star and starlet.
They arrived on schedule, the red
and white four wheel drive cutting a dashing figure into the heart of town. Herbert
focused his crosshair on the number plate, watched it stop with brake lights
flashing before the engine was killed. Just as the car stopped, Herbert thumbed
the safety, peering down on Legoland as a scientist would over a petrie dish. His
heartbeat slowed dramatically, his palms and throat dried out. A smile suddenly
parted his lips.
Price, as per bloody usual, got out
first. He stretched his arms at the new trading week, and Herbert was tempted
then and there to blow his fucking head off but decided against it. Something
deeply wicked inside him wanted Samantha to see her lover’s brains smear all
over the sidewalk.
Somewhere down the street, Price
heard a hello shouted at him. He turned briskly and waved, but whoever he waved
at was gone before Herbert could sight them with his scope. Instead, he flicked
back to the four wheel drive, where Samantha had eased one of her stockinged
legs out of the door. Today, she was wearing a mini skirt, and from where
Herbert sat, he caught an eye full of Samantha’s long, lovely thighs. Had he
been standing in the doorway of the corner store, he reckoned he would have got
a most wonderful snatch shot. But he wasn’t here to be a peeping tom. He had
business to do.
At length, Samantha alighted from
the car, went straight into Price’s arms. Along with the short skirt, she wore
a white halter-top that Herbert had never seen before. It hugged her breasts,
lifted them up, giving them the roundness and shape that had always embarrassed
her before.
They kissed, almost as if they
couldn’t stand five seconds without lip contact. Again, Herbert steeled himself
against a premature shot. He instead focused the scope so that he could stare
into Samantha’s unsuspecting face. This too had suddenly changed. She had wore
little make up when she and Herbert bumped uglies. Now, her face was smothered
in it. And setting it off was a deep crimson slash of lipstick on her lips. He
wondered vaguely if she would scream when Price’s head turned into mush, but
decided against it. She was always a rational girl, if now primped up like a
country harlot.
He watched them exchange another
petite kiss, before finally separating, much to Herbert’s immense relief. If
they had continued their tonsil hockey, he would have obliterated them on the
spot. But no, his patience was rewarded when Price fished in his pockets for
his keys. In another few seconds, they would make for the door in single file—Price,
then Samantha—or at least, that would be their plan, but Herbert knew
otherwise.
He levelled the crosshair so that it
was centred on Price. Herbert’s first thought was to make it a clean shot
through his chest, but he realised if he did this, then he’d hit Samantha as
well… and he wanted her to wear a bullet all of her own. So instead, he raised
his aim a little higher than Price’s chest: to his head.
And then, stilling his breath, which
was the calmest it had been all month, he counted slowly to three and pulled
the trigger. The shot rang out, loud and true, a flat resonation in the still
morning. Everyone heard the shot and instinctively flinched—everyone, that is,
except Price, whose head bulged obscenely to one side as the bullet entered
just below his temple. At first, Herbert thought he was not going to fall, but
then, slowly, like a tower of cards, Price’s legs buckled from underneath, and
he fell onto the pavement. Only then did Herbert see the intricate spray of
Price’s blood all over the front of the corner store.
Samantha stood there for a full five
seconds, seemingly unmoved by what had transpired, and then, it suddenly dawned
on her. And despite Herbert’s thoughts to the contrary, Samantha threw her
hands to her face and uttered the loudest of screams, the sound of her pitiful
wailing reaching Herbert long seconds after leaving her obscene painted lips. Her
screaming fit lasted no longer than ten seconds. In that time, just before the
first people flooded the streets wondering what the hell Samantha was busting
her lungs about, Herbert trained the gun onto Samantha’s stricken face, aware
now of a swathe of crimson spattered across her face and all over her tight
halter-top. Herbert pulled the trigger again.
Samantha screamed no more, but
instead, sagged forward, over her new lover, just as the first people arrived
in the scene. And Herbert, steadier than ever, spied through the scope of his
rifle, bringing it to bear again, and again and again… the flat resonant shots
trumpeting the testament of his failings…
