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".