Obsession (x)

Part X
Max Sharam: Coma (1.5MB)

Another weekend, another night out, another torment as I kept my eyes on the door, checking for the tall gangly figure as each new group came into the room. I was so used to having half my attention to the door that I didn’t even really notice I was doing it any more.

I had no idea what Sam was up to. He had said that he had to spend the evening with Joanne’s parents, but I was becoming suspicious. His mates would talk about parties that they had been to, that Sam had been to, when I was sure he had said he was just staying at home. Little niggling doubts followed me about, tugging at me, snagging me like tiny cat claws. But when we were together and the fit seemed so right, it was easy to push those doubts away. For a little while, at least.

Evan came back from the bar with some more drinks for the group of us, and I relaxed into the rhythm of the music, the push of the people in the crowded room, the laughter of my friends. The warmth of the alcohol loosened my joints and encouraged me to sway with the bass line that vibrated through the floor, through my feet, into my blood. I danced and teased Evan into a half hearted shift of his feet. I was losing myself into that wonderful place where my body and the music and alcohol all merged and I was aware of only my body making perfect sense to the beat. I could dance all night while the music held me in its sway.

And then I saw him.

Or should I say them.

Sam had walked in with Gunther and two women that I didn’t know. They were laughing, and loud, and Sam was draped over the dark haired woman in a way that betrayed an intimacy that was only too familiar.

Evan had turned to see what had stopped me dancing, what I was staring at. "Oh shit," he said. And he darted away before I could ask him anything. From where Sam was standing, he wouldn’t have been able to see us. But I could see Evan pushing through the crowd towards the door. See him speaking with Sam and Gunther. See him yelling. See them peering into the lights trying to see into the direction he was gesturing. And then I saw them talking to the unknown women and they turned and left.

When Evan returned he was very obviously flustered.

"Who were they?" I asked him, yelling over the music, over the buzz of voices, all trying to be heard.

"I don’t know," he said. "I’ve never seen them before. I can’t believe Sam would be so stupid as to bring them here." He tried to take my arm, to pull me back into the circle of friends, but I pulled away.

Was I surprised? I’d be foolish to not expect something like this. I told myself this. But it was like what I had seen had torn away the scab and showed the pus that was everything I didn’t know about Sam. All the things he would never share with me. All the ways I obviously wasn’t what he wanted.

I stumbled out of the club and towards my car. I wasn’t crying, I was just numb. I had planned to leave the car overnight and stay at Evan’s place, but now I fumbled with the keys and got in. I was so far over the limit that if I was pulled over, I would surely lose my licence. But I had to know. I had to see. Where were they. What were they doing. What did she have that I didn’t, do that I didn’t, give that I couldn’t?

I drove around to his place and parked out the front, across from his house, in the shadow of the unit block that towered over the area. The house was dark. No lights on. Normally from the front you can see the kitchen, and off to a side, hidden behind the lattice and trees, was Sam’s room. I sat in the dark, willing him home. Willing him to show me what he was doing. After an hour, I suppose it was about 4am by then, I got out of the car and crept up to the house. Quietly stepping up the driveway, and around the trees, I sat beneath Sam’s window. Straining to hear a breath. A moan. Something. But the house betrayed nothing. There was just a mocking silence.

Obsession (ix)

Part IX
Beasts of Bourbon: Chase the Dragon (link retired)

"What the fuck do you mean you lost your job. People like you don’t get sacked!" Sam’s agitation only grew as I explained to him that, indeed, people like me did get sacked. It struck me as ironic that someone who could walk away from jobs without a word, who was frequently the source of frustration to his mate, who gave him work, due to his unreliability, would get so upset about this.

I explained to him that I was okay, that I had enough money to tide me over, plus I was able to pick up extra shifts at my second job, so in fact my income wasn’t dropping at all. I actually saw it as an opportunity to spend a lot more time with my best friend, Tony, who was due to fly to America in a month’s time. Tony was going to study, and I didn’t know when I’d get to see him again once he moved there, so I wanted to see him as much as I could.

Once I’d gotten over the initial shock, I wasn’t at all sorry that they’d given me the boot.

Sam couldn’t see it from my perspective though.

"I can’t handle it" he shouted. "It’s too much. I can’t be responsible for you too. I have to look after Simone. And fucking Joanne keeps asking for more and more. I just can’t fucking do it."
I sat next to him and took his hand. "You don’t have to look after me. I’m fine. Really. This is good news. I don’t want looking after. I just want to spend time with you." He snatched his hand away irritably. "You just don’t fucking get it."

He was right. I didn’t get it. He was ricocheting around his life, from Simone, who he still adored, to Joanne, who he seemed to have resigned himself to, but still resented, to his mates. His behaviour was becoming more erratic. He’d become moody, He lashing out at me, and his mates. Just verbally, he’d never be violent, but still, it was so unlike him.
His already rather enthusiastic drug taking and partying seemed to be moving beyond recreational. He was wound tighter and tighter.

From the beginning, we’d come to an unspoken agreement. I accepted that he liked to get high, often. And he accepted alcohol was my preferred intoxicant. Acid, speed, dope, I figured he knew what he could handle. And he had always said how much he hated heroin, that he wouldn’t touch it. Regardless, I made sure we were ‘safe’. I might have been awestruck by him, but I wasn’t completely stupid.

One morning, as I came back into his room from the shower, I called back to Sam, who was still in the bathroom. "I’m going to melt in what I wore last night. Can I borrow a t-shirt?" "No worries. Grab one from the wardrobe", he called back.

I reached in to the back of the wardrobe shelf to get one that wasn’t a shredded work shirt. As I pulled it toward me, a couple of bundles fell to the floor. Clear plastic with an orange strip seal. And inside were syringes. I bent to pick them up just as Sam came into the room.

"What are these?" I asked him, showing him what I was holding. "Where the fuck’d you find them?" he hissed, snatching the packages from my hand.

"I wasn’t snooping, for God’s sake. I was getting a shirt. So…"

"They’re Herb’s", he said. I knew Herb was a diabetic, so it wasn’t a surprise.

"What are you doing with them?" I asked.

Sam gave me an evil grin. "Herb gives them to us so we have clean needles. Speedballs. Man, what a fucking rush!"

It was like a punch in the guts. Shit, Sam. What are you doing to yourself? Where are you heading? One part of me wanted to hold him, like a little boy, and part of me wanted to shake sense into him. And another part wanted to run away as fast as I could. But I knew, no matter how far I’d run, I’d still be looking over my shoulder, hoping I could still get a glimpse of him.

He was too far under my skin.

Obsession (viii)

Part VIII
Headless Chickens: Gaskrankinstation (link retired)

The warehouse was always cool. The windows that lined the top of the high walls let in a cold light, a blue light. It dully lit the rows and rows of metal corridors created by the shelving. The corridors muffled the sound of footsteps, distorted them, refracted them around the enormous room. Lining the shelves that loomed over me as I walked along them were stacks of books. A light dust coated them, so we carried a cloth tucked into our belts to wipe the books down as we picked them from the shelves. Books on cooking, on parenting, novels, coffee table books with glossy images of endangered animals, small cheap novels typeset so tightly, on such cheap paper, that the words were sometimes difficult to decipher.

The women who worked down here in the warehouse were in their early fifties. They all had grown families and enjoyed this job as it required little stress and the hours suited their lifestyles. They didn’t need to work; the income was devoted to yearly overseas holidays and extensions on their homes. They enjoyed the camaraderie of their coworkers. They were neighbours, their children had gone to the same schools. They could more easily be imagined meeting every Tuesday at the local social tennis club.

Their goodnatured banter filled the cold, stark building. They teased the storemen who drove the forklifts. The storemen snuck out the front for sneaky cigarettes with the truck drivers between packing jobs.

I loved to come down here. I would walk through the corridors and trace my fingers along the stacks of books. I could lose myself here for a quiet time, a refuge away from the constantly ringing phone and incessant demands of my manager.

Upstairs, I worked. I loved the books coming in, fresh from the printers, knowing their history, the painstaking efforts that went into taking them from typewritten pages sent in by the author, to these final glossy texts. It was exciting.

However, my job I found a lot less satisfying. I worked in the publicity department. Well, there was me and my manager. We were the department. A career that initially had appeared glamorous quickly became repetitious and draining and unrelenting. I loved the books we were promoting, as a rule, but the constant demand for interviews, for press releases, for mail outs, for cold calls to producers, were all taking their toll on my happiness and my health. I just couldn’t imagine doing anything else though, and I couldn’t imagine anyone else wanting me. After four years without a proper holiday, I was running on empty.

And then my manager resigned. I kept the department running for two months while they found a replacement for her.

When I first met my new manager, my immediate impression was that he was unimpressive. He was shorter than me, and shook hands with that ‘dead fish’ handshake that patronising men tend to reserve for women. He took every responsibility I had away from me, so he could rebuild the department from the ground up. Or so he could repeat practices that my manager and I had already tried and dismissed as unworkable. That didn’t matter. HE hadn’t tried them, so we would do it the way he said. I couldn’t have been more unhappy. Or confused.

I had assumed initially that he was gay. He was incredibly effeminate. But I began to wonder if I was wrong. He had a tendency to stand in my personal space, so a conversation with him would result in me slowly backing across the room as I would take a step back, to gain a more comfortable distance, and he would take a step forward into my space again. He would talk with an almost false setto voice, softly, so I would have to step in to him to hear him. When I worked on the computer, he would stand behind me to read over my shoulder, and I would feel him pressing against the back of my chair, against my shoulder. I was incredibly confused by what was happening. But I must have been imagining it. And even if I wasn’t, there was noone I could tell. This was a company where the general manager blew you kisses as he walked past, and he had once given his secretary and me lace underwear in the office Secret Santa. I had cried in my office after that. It felt so humiliating. But his secretary had laughed. Obviously I was just too sensitive.

Things became increasingly difficult once I returned to work after my hospital stay. My manager and I were clashing, and rather than pressing up against my chair, he would simply snap things at me from my office door. I preferred that. At least I had my space back again. But it was obvious things were heading to a crisis.

I was called in to the general manager’s office on a Friday afternoon. With him, the Financial Director stood, looking at his feet, shifting uncomfortable. I shut the door behind me, and the general manager said that, due to the problems my manager was having with me, they were letting me go. But in recognition of the time I had been with the company, they were going to give me a generous payout, and a very good reference. I was to clear my desk that afternoon and leave. I didn’t get to say goodbye to anyone.

I was stunned, and yet deep down I knew this was the only thing that made sense. I walked out and walked into the publishing offices next door, where a friend worked. We had met when she had worked for the same company, and she understood its machinations better than anyone. I cried and cried. And then I stopped. I realised that it felt like a huge weight had lifted off me.

I was free. Or I had one less reason to keep control.

Obsession (vii)

Part VII

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds: (Are You) The One I’ve Been Waiting For? (link retired)

Sam’s ex-girlfriend, Joanne, gave birth to a healthy baby girl. Sam was there to welcome his daughter to the world. They named her Simone.

When Sam told me about the first time that he held Simone, he shone. His eyes had a deep quiet in them, a warmth I had never seen before. He had opened his heart and this tiny baby had made him complete.

Sam endeavoured to spend as much time as he could with his daughter. Joanne had said initially that she didn’t want anything from Sam. His friends had scoffed at the idea. One of them told me he thought she would do anything to keep Sam. I didn’t like to contemplate the inference.

Joanne was asking for help and I encouraged Sam. This was his child and I wanted him to have as easy a time as possible sorting out a routine for access. If Joanne needed help shopping for baby furniture, then he should help her. If she needed help setting up the nursery, then he should do it. I didn’t let him know how I was feeling. How I felt was irrelevant. He had to be there for his daughter.

But the truth was that it hurt that there was so much in Sam’s life that I wasn’t able to share. I didn’t want to lose him, but I was feeling him slip away.

I had once asked him if Joanne knew about me. Sam had said she knew there was someone.

Someone.

It became more and more difficult for Sam and me to find free time to see each other. And when we did, our plans could be cancelled in a heartbeat with a single phone call from Joanne. The help she had never wanted from him had now transformed into an expectation for family dinners every weekend. People began to talk that she had got exactly what she had wanted all along.

And what could Sam do? She was the mother of his child.

Obsession (vi)

Part VI

Morphine: Sharks (link retired)

Sundays were my favourite days. I rarely worked then, so I could laze about on the beach, sleeping off my inevitable hangover.

My flat was part of a block that was originally built as holiday units, an old red brick building with a clunky metal stairway that spiralled up, exposed to the elements in the centre of the u-shaped building. Some of the units were still kept by families as holiday units, and the noise of children clambering their way up and down those steps announced the beginning of summer holidays. The beach was only a block away, and it was my favourite place to be. My little beach (and it felt like mine) was protected by headlands on both ends, which meant I could swim there and be confident that I would be seen if I was washed away, unlike the exposed beaches to the immediate north and south.

After getting home from Evan’s place, or my friend Tony’s, after a marathon video night, I’d try to shower away the smeared make-up of the night before. With a book and a towel, I would head down to spend the day surrounded by laughing families, watching the local teenage boys trying to catch the attention of the groups of girls who had already mastered that art of focused nonchalance.

My skin would warm, and at the point where the heat would become too strong to ignore, I’d pull up the top of my cossie and trot down to the water for a swim. Beyond the breakers, I would turn and face back into the beach. Floating on my back, the sound of people would be muffled by the breaking waves just ahead of me. The wind would carry off any meaning to the catches of sound that reached me, leaving it as meaningless as the seagulls squawking. The swell would gently lift me, lower me, lift me, and I would surrender myself to its slow rhythm.

Friends didn’t like to swim out with me. They feared sharks. I had looked into the eye of a shark and knew I had far more to fear ashore than in the water.

Sunday was the night for the World Music programme on the radio. Gypsy women would sing their songs in harmonic minor, to the erotic rhythm that had guided bodies to sexual bliss for generations.

And with Sam in my bed, our bodies would flow and shudder as the women wailed.

Obsession (v)

Part V

Breaking from the Australian theme for a moment...
The Buzzcocks: Ever Fallen in Love (with someone you shouldn't've) (Link retired)


Being around Sam had never been predictable. But it degenerated to a point where we could spend a weekend together and seem inseparable, and then he would disappear for a fortnight on a binge, not answering calls, noone sure where he was. I would come home from a night out and there he’d be, out of the blue, at 3am, sitting on my lounge, talking to someone, god only knows who, on my phone, the TV blaring, the curtains pulled askew from where he had broken into my apartment. I would be furious, and he’d be indignant. Didn’t I realise that he just wanted to see me? And then the next day he’d be gone again.

Even if he had the best intentions initially to meet up with me in the evening, after a day of drinking and snorting he was going to go wherever the party took him. And if that meant he found himself north of Newcastle after a weekend, then he thought nothing of staying there until he got bored, or the drugs ran out.

I found myself spending more and more time with other friends that I would meet up with on the weekends. In particular, it became usual for me to meet up with his friends Evan and Justin. They shared a place not far from our favourite pub in Manly, and so a group of us would end up there after the pubs had closed, to continue drinking until we all crashed for a few hours.

Evan and I got on particularly well. He had a black humour, and depressive outlook, that few appreciated. However, he enjoyed conversation – combative, quick, brutal conversation. We would tear each other to shreds, and then put each other back together again. It was a game, but most people didn’t understand the rules. It was like a private language between us.

Unfortunately for Evan, his manner tended to alienate people before they had a chance to get to know him. In particular, women found his manner unnerving. He was quite attractive physically, and his smile, on the rare times he shared it, was lovely. Yet night after night he ended up alone.

Evan and I started to talk one night after everyone had passed out. He didn’t understand why I was with Sam, what I was attracted to. How could I explain to him the way Sam could lift up my spirits, my body, my soul, and how he could just as easily leave me gasping for air with a simple thoughtless word. I understood why my friends were confounded by my attraction to Sam. I just couldn’t do anything about it.

We both began looking forward to our quiet talks. The fact that he trusted me with his feelings meant a lot to me. They weren’t something he talked about easily.

Evan had his secrets from his mates. He had given his heart to someone that he knew would never return his feelings. He had fallen in love with his prostitute.

In a moment of desperate loneliness he had visited a brothel. Perhaps he was surprised, when he told me this, that I wasn’t judgemental. I have never been squeamish about the idea of working girls. What I had learnt about Evan, in the time I’d known him, was that he deeply wanted a connection, an intimacy, with someone, and he, for whatever reason, didn’t seem to be able to develop that in a relationship. Who would I be to condemn him for finding a little tenderness where he could.

Evan had been seeing one woman regularly for over a year. He had fallen in love with her, and he had told her that. It was unrequited. She had a boyfriend.But he couldn’t help his feelings, and he couldn’t stop himself visiting her, even though he knew in the long run it wasn’t doing him any good.

Our chats gradually migrated from the lounge, to me curling up on his bed, talking as we fell asleep. It was always a very proper arrangement, always fully clothed, always one of us under the cover, one of us over, and always with the bedroom door open. No one was going to question our decorum. We would lie side by side on his bed, talking quietly in the dark, each wishing that we didn’t wish it were someone else lying beside us.

Obsession (iv)

Part IV

Hard Candy: Feel You Breath (Link retired)

I was in the hospital for a week. I had developed a quincy (peritonsillar abscess) that had almost closed over my whole throat, effectively suffocating me. Sam had arrived in the nick of time. He’d then left me in the emergency room, delirious with a fever, so he wouldn’t miss his cricket game. But noone’s perfect I suppose.

After a week on an IV drip for antibiotics and rehydration (and almost constant sleep), I was fine to go home again. Sam picked me up from the hospital and life continued on. Only it didn’t. There was a slight shift, and I couldn’t control it.

For Sam, hospitals didn’t hold fond memories. About six months earlier, he had been in one, to have surgery on his hand, which had been injured on a job. His ex girlfriend had visited. She let him know that their recent ‘for old times’ encounter had resulted in her being pregnant. She was financially independent and didn’t want anything from him other than to have him acknowledge the child and be a part of its life. And then she left while he tried to fight through the fog of the painkiller drugs to understand the tremendous consequences of her matter-of-fact announcement.

At night, in that quiet time when we would sit and talk in bed, cigarettes burning, he would confide in me his fears. He was afraid of being a father. He was afraid of his ex being in his life forever. She had been incredibly possessive while they had been together. He just didn’t believe he had anything to offer the child. He was a hopeless human being. How could a baby possibly want him for a father?

It broke my heart to see this side of Sam. No laughter. Just insecurity, and a history of not being good enough. He was only in vague contact with one brother in Australia, and I hadn’t heard him speak of the rest of his family. It seemed to be an area he simply did not want to share, and I respected that. He seemed determined, though, that he would do the right thing for this little baby, as best he could. He would straighten out. He would teach it things.

For most people, sleep is a time of peace. I would wake up some nights and watch Sam sleep. His eyes seemed to have a slight frown, a hurt look, like a child who was being punished and didn’t understand why. As though all the things he was running from during the day had caught up with him while he slept.

Obsession (iii)

Part III

The Falling Joys: Lock It (Link retired)

Sam was nearly 30 when I met him. He worked sporadically. Sometimes as a labourer with his mate who owned his own business. Sometimes building sets with another mate, Herb, at the Film and TV school. As long as he had enough to pay rent and party, he didn’t care for anything more. And if he didn’t have enough… well, the rent could wait.

I was fascinated by the carefree attitude he and his friends had to life. Their one aim in life seemed to be to enjoy themselves. Completely guilt free. They had no concern for consequences. I looked in from the outside and was entranced. My life was vastly different.

Life for me in my early 20s was like a series of snatched moments. I worked long hours in a job I hated, in an industry I loved. It was badly paying, so I worked a second job on evenings and the weekends making and delivering pizzas. I played basketball once or twice a week with my old school friend Trudy and I saw movies and a band once or twice a week with my best friend Tony. I was always on my way somewhere, running late for something. And I went out drinking three or four nights a week, which was when I would usually meet up with Sam. Too much stress, too little sleep, too much alcohol and smoking instead of eating meant I was on a cocktail of antibiotics to combat the perpetual tonsillitis I suffered.

Work had become even more stressful with a new manager being brought in to replace the woman I had worked for over the past four years, and I succumbed again to illness.

Normally I could work through it, but this time it was much worse than usual. I was so weak I had to crawl to the bathroom and lived off sips of orange juice. I lost my voice and my jaw seized shut, so I couldn’t call anyone, and my car battery had gone flat from not being driven. I lived on my own and didn’t know any of my neighbours.

My phone would ring and the answering machine would kick in, but everyone was used to me being busy and never home, so they didn’t think it unusual I wasn’t answering. If I wasn't so tired I would have been frightened.

Sam turned up after about a week of me not answering his calls. The sight of him standing in the doorway, the strong light behind him creating a silhouette, and the small potplant in his hand, was like an answer to my prayers. I wrote a simple note. "Take me to the doctor."

My doctor gave a simple instruction. "Get her to the hospital. NOW."

Obsession (ii)

Part II

Mazzy Star: Fade into You(link retired)

Waking up with Sam, we’d sneak out for the bathroom, hopefully before his housemates would wake up. And then we would huddle back into his bed, quietly talking as we smoked, tapping the ash into an old ashtray on his bedhead, the smoke curling in the morning light that filtered in through the trees and lattice outside his bedroom window. We had a sense of privacy even though his window faced out onto the street.

Noises of doors opening, water gushing from taps, the kettle boiling, clinking of spoons in cups, the shuffling morning noises of his housemates Gunther and Kevin, and anyone else who had stayed the night, nagged us from our quiet intimacy.

Eventually the knock on the door would come. "Sam, you up?" "Yeah mate." Gunther would then poke his head into the room, cheekily peering around the corner looking for me. "Morning Hooch", he’d say with a laugh in his voice.

One morning though, there was a burst of excited chatter and laughter. Gunther flew into the bedroom. "Sam, you just have to hear this… oh… oh…" and he froze in his tracks.

I looked at him, and then down at Sam, who was beneath my naked straddling body, and then looked back at the door again. The moment had gone beyond embarrassment or coyness for me. He couldn’t unsee what he had seen. So I just looked him square in the eyes and simply, pointedly, said "Good morning Gunther". "Um" he stammered, blushing. A pillow landed next to Gunther’s head as Sam yelled "Get the fuck OUT, man".

This seemed to snap Gunther back into some form of propriety, and he ducked out the doorway, mumbling something about telling Sam later. We just collapsed into each other with laughter.

Obsession (i)

Part I
He was tall. Very tall. Tall and thin. His hair buzzcut short with a porkpie hat perched on top. He was not trying to look like anyone else in the pub. Just himself.

His eyes were big, brown and soft. There was no malice in him. And he laughed so easily. A laugh that would expose his two broken front teeth. There was no way he could be called handsome. But he was compelling. Anyone that sat with his group of friends found themselves turned towards him.

It was like, wherever he went, he held court. Not consciously, but his personality glowed so strongly that everyone ended up drawn in, like moths we flapped around aimlessly, attracted to his dangerous flame.

I had seen him around in the pubs and clubs where I used to go to party after work and on the weekends. You couldn’t help but notice him. He was so lanky, and yet there was grace. So ugly, and still his beauty was undeniable. Always laughing.

I would often go out on my own after a shift on my second job had finished. I would fly home, shower, and dash out again to catch a band and try to make up the headstart that those around me had made on the path to inebriation. More often than not I would meet up with friends who had turned up at the same place. Or I would make new friends for the evening.

The night I finally spoke to Sam I think I was reasonably sober. The band playing at the pub was good and I was enjoying the music, pushing through the crowd to the bar for a vodka. I probably got a bit of attention. I usually did in those days. Hell, I was a woman in her early 20s out on her own - that was all it took to get attention in these pubs.

Did he speak to me? Did I speak to him? I’m not sure. Words were exchanged at the bar. Friendly drunken chit chat. Over the course of the night we joked with each other as we’d pass on our way to the bar or the toilets. He made me laugh, and by the end of the night he had given me his phone number, in case I was ever wanting to see a band and needed a friend to keep me company.

The next week I gave him a call. My best friend of the time had a new boyfriend and was never free anymore, and I was tired of my own company. He was good value and we liked the same sort of music. It would be fun. And at the end of the evening I would surprise myself when, as he pulled me in to him to kiss me, I would respond so willingly. It was just meant to be fun.

The following week he called me and we went out for a few drinks down at a pub in Manly. I sat opposite Sam and a couple of his friends sat at our table as well. He disappeared for a few minutes and returned, smiling broadly. Leaning forward, he discreetly dropped a small square into my drink. I looked at him as he popped one into his own mouth, and I drank my drink down. "What’d you do?" he asked. "Swallowed it." "You duffer, you’re supposed to chew it." And so my complete ignorance of drugs was exposed. Not that it mattered at that point. We sat and drank and laughed and finally got up to leave. "How do you feel?" Sam asked. "Fine. It’s not having any effect." "Yeah, sure" he said, as he flashed his hand at my face. I threw back my head and laughed loudly, watching the trails coming off him and his friends as they ran up and down the water fountains in Manly Corso.

We caught a cab back to his place, blathering on loudly and probably incoherently, and we skuttled into his room like jostling crabs, hands all over each other, out of clothes, onto his waterbed. Nothing mattered. As we stripped out of our clothes and began kissing, stroking, skin rubbing, heat sparking off us, I felt myself merge into him. I was simply a pulse of energy that was pumping through his bloodstream. Dark blue with lightning flashes, I travelled rythmically through him, into him, until there was nothing else but energy existing in that room. Out of the dark he came towards me, slithering, a snake body, his tongue darted over me. "Give yourself to me" he whispered. "Give yourself". I knew then that he was the devil, but it didn’t matter. He already had my body, but he wanted more. So I whispered back, over and over, "I’m yours".