just_writing | Day Six (Chapter Five - Mistakes

And I'm back up to date. Whew.

Christmas Tree I

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And I'm back up to date. Whew.

<lj-cut text="Behind Door Six">

<big><center>Christmas Tree I</center></big>

<img src="http://webclipart.miningco.com/library/Xmas/tree3.gif";> Do you mind if I preach, for a moment, about trees? I promise not to take too long, and I won't say anything that touches on the profoud. Christmas Trees are a product of the sixth Day. They are part of the one-seventh of creation that will not outlast the human race. We murder them, and we wrap them in pretty tinsel and plastic lights, and we hang glass and plastic from their branches, and we gather around them to sing songs and hide presents (brightly coloured plastic, again, wrapped up, again). Is there a connection between the presents and the tree, I wonder sometimes.

The colours of christmas, then; that's what I wanted to talk about. What are the colours of Christmas? Black wood and black night and green leaf and white snow. Red blood and red meat. Golden sun. These are the colours of Christmas, the only true colours to wrap a tree in, and the black and the green we are given for free.

Forgive me if I ramble. When I see a symbol, it takes my breath away. We take the tree into our home and mummify it, trying to tame it and what it represents. Oh, I'm not going to go on about may-poles or broomsticks. I'm not that sort of writer, I hope.

Maybe it would be more truthful to go out into the woods, where it's dark, where there are wolves and where there are bears; and maybe it would be more honest to hang candles from the branches of a tree that was old when our parents were born, that will outlast our children; and maybe it would be more real to sing our songs there, unaccompanied, in the stillness of the winter that bears no love for us or the things we have made.

There are still eleven weeks of Winter to go.

<big><center>* * *</center></big>

So I spent most of Saturday morning being very uncomfortable while at the same time getting my end away. It was all very confusing. At least this time I used a condom (I couldn't think of a good way to ask if we'd taken precuations the previous night without causing a scene I desperately wanted to avoid). I don't think either Jacqui or I enjoyed the sex, much. There was too much guilt I guess. She insisted that I stayed for breakfast, and all I wanted to do was get out of there. She was staying with Angelica, who I knew only peripherally, in her spare room. The kid was with Jacqui's mother, where Gavin couldn't see him unless he was prepared to travel up to Glasgow. Of course he was prepared to take the time, but Jacqui's mother hated him with a passion, which made things difficult.

Angelica was up and about already. She was rattling tea-spoons and such when I finally came through, dressed (thank Christ) in the gear I'd worn to the club. She didn't speak to me directly or make eye-contact. Jacqui tried to make conversation but it was obvious we stillhad nothing in common apart from gavin which neither of us wanted to talk about, of course. I went to the toilet and agonised for a bit about how long I had to stay before I could leave without being a shit. My reflection was no help, it wouldn't meet my eyes any more than Angelica would. I realised there was just no way I was getting out of this one with my dignity intact, so I just made a lame excuse about needing to meet someone for something.

I don't think Jacqui was taken in, not for one second. It was awkward. Without thinking I said "I'll call you" like I used to when I was a student and she just looked at me with big eyes and said nothing. I saw myself out.

I went and had some lunch near the University (it was later than I thought). There were Christmas decorations up all over the place, the students had that fast and bustly feel to them they get at this time of year, ready to go home and tell everyone how damn exciting their first term at University, away from home, has been. Or else they're looking forward to a few weeks without all that damn excitement, and stress, and all the other stuff that happens in their privileged lives. They have no idea how lucky they are, most of them. I hate them.

Part of the problem was that Jacqui's good-friend Angelica lived in Newcastle, and so I was sort of stranded there. I managed to get a tenner out of the bank eventaully, but it took a lot of effort - more than I want to recount here. I took the Metro back through to Sunderland. But I also spent some time wandering around looking at the decorations and feeling sorry for myself. So it was already getting dark by the time I got back, and I decided to go straight to the pub to meet Gavin.

In retrospect, I guess I wasn't really thinking about anything. I could have gone home, showered, changed and turned up late. Or not at all. It wouldn't have been the first time I'd not joined him when I said I would, not even the twentieth time. Instead I just went to the pub as I was. The place we normally drink is in a quiet part of town, the sort of part I wouldn't have dared wander around in by myself. But they knew Gavin there, and they knew we were mates. I didn't go there alone. I know how far the tolerance of the local drinkers extended where I was concerned.

I should have realised how bad it was going to get when Gavin looked surprised to see me.

<big><center>(Later)</center></big>

Gavin was a bit quiet, and I was a lot guilty, and so I did most of the talking. I told him about work, and about Him and Her Upstairs making my life miserable, and I ranted for three pints about "Call Me Debbie" (the bitch) and all that time I never really noticed that he wasn't matching me pint-for-pint as usual, but was drinking a lot slower. I didn't really register that people kept coming over and asking if he was alright, or squeezing his shoulder, or suggesting that he give their regards to his mam. I was so wrapped up in myself I didn't notice any of the warning signs. I just sat there, covered in his girlfriend's sweat (among other things), still stinking from a night out, in the same clothes I'd picked up off Jacqui's floor that morning, and talked about how shit my life was. Part of me was horrified, trying to attract my attention, desperately trying to make me stop. Another part of me was laughing.

It happened without any warning at all. I'd just put a half-finished pint down, and Gavin had turned slightly to give a clipped wave to someone (actually a mutual friend) who nodded to us both on the way past. I'd just stupidly (really, really stupidly) said something about his brother, about soldier-boy Miles. Nothing derogatory, just mentioned him.

He back-handed me across the face.

I guess my reaction was partly shock, but it was mostly terror. I was paralysed. Gavin's face hadn't changed particularly. He put his glass down, and then he hit me again, this time full in the face, and I went backwards off my stool onto the filthy ground, spilling beer all over myself. Gavin stood up and the landlord yelled "Take it outside" and the next thing I know he's grabbed me and hefted me up like I'm nothing and we're outside. Don't get me wrong - he didn't manhandle me himself. Oh no. Two of our mates (his mates, I guess) helped. They got me outside, and through the back door, not the front.

I can't remember what I said; well, that's another lie. I remember it clearly, I just have few enough shreds of self-respect left that I'm going to destroy more of them by describing how I whined, covered in blood and snot, as Gavin kicked the shit out of me. I begged him to stop, I told him I was sorry (after a while you say it so often you might as well be talking about the weather. I think I'd reached that stage a few weeks previously).

Gavin did the kicking himself. His two mates didn't join in, although one of them moved to stomp my hand at one point and Gavin pushed him away. He did it efficiently, and after he'd finished, he grabbed me by the scruff of my t-shirt and he told me, quietly, that he didn't want to see me again and if I knew what was sensible, I'd not want to see him, either. Then he and his mates went back into the pub.

I lay there, and I cried a little. I was waiting for someone to have phoned the police or (the way I felt) an ambulance. But then I sort of realised that nobody was going to call the police. Nobody had frantically run to phone an ambulance when they saw Gavin come back in with my blood all over his skinned knuckles. Nobody cared. And I'd deserved what I'd got.

I managed to make it a little further down the alley, not very steadily, before I collapsed. I'd pissed myself, and of course I threw up as well. I think I'd thrown up nearly every day this week, why would the weekend be different. It was dark, and it stank, and I stank. I sort of lay there, and I cried a bit more and I wish I could say that it was anything other than self-pity. I held onto myself and I swear I thought I was dying, that Gavin had killed me. And it was no less than I merited, I guess.

I don't know how long I was unconscious for, but I know it was a while. I came round slowly, the pain once again a novel experience, like I had glass in my chest and my face, like my brain was a foot behind the back of my skull. I was lying half-propped up in a doorway, and I'd been sick again.

I heard a rustle, and I looked towards the mouth of the alley.

There was something there, low, peering around the corner. I thought it was a dog for a second, and then slightly more of it moved into view. It was a man. He was yellow-skinned, as if he were stained with nicotine from head to foot. He had no hair, and he had a sort of black coat on, and he was sniffing the air like a dog. I began to whimper.

His head snapped round, straight towards me. His face was man-like but feral. His eyes were too large, they were yellow-tinted. He opened his mouth slightly, and I could see he had no visible teeth, just a sucking hole. He scampered - that's the only word I can think of - scampered with terrible speed down the alley. I tried to get my legs under me but I was in too much pain and I just wanted to scream for help, but nothing came.

He was on me in a moment, his coat flapping, and I could see that he was naked underneath the coat - and the coat was stained with filth. He leapt the last few feet, landing heavily on me, driving the air from my lungs and causing black-sunbursts behind my eyes. I tried to struggle away but I had no strength left in me, and the pain was just too much. The . . . the stench of him was incredible - as if he had never washed, ever, as if he bathed in shit every day, rubbed himself with offal. I gagged, and then his hand was on my chin, dragging my head up towards his and I knew in that moment that I was not going to live through this, that this was a thousand times worse than anything Gavin had done to me, and that the worst part of it was that I had no idea why this freak was going to kill me. I prayed, for a second, that he killed me first and raped me second.

The weight on my stomach and legs shifted, as he pulled my head up, and I was left staring into his eyes for a moment, long enough to see that the left one was bloodshot and swollen, and had a pupil shaped like a clover-leaf. Then he was forcing my mouth open. I tried to push him away, but I'd just received the kicking of my life so what was I going to do? He caught my wrist, and held it against the brick wall, effortlessly, his finger-nails drawing trickles of blood and ripping my skin like glass.

I realized he was going to kiss me. I tried to scream again, the pain in my jaw incredible, but that just made it easier for him. He leant forward, shifting his weight a little, hunching over me, his shollow chest freezing cold against my damaged body. He leant in, a parody of a kiss, and as he opened his mouth wide his tongue lolled out. It was a foot long, easily, and dripping with golden syrup. It quested against my chin, then my over my bottom lip and my mouth flooded with the taste of peppermint and shit. I desperately tried to close my mouth, to bite him, but his tongue was past my teeth, questing like a snake, over my tongue (rasping as it went, rough like a cat's but so much more slimy). I felt it forcing it's way further into me, and the whole time he was staring into my eyes, his black tongue forcing itself into my throat, down into my belly, squeezing rhythmically like a worm, and I just surrendered.

I felt a rushing around me, my vision tunneling down until it was nothing but his eyes, and I let it take me. I had taken as much as I could, and I knew that the best thing to do was to get it over with. SO I passed out, the last sound I heard being the slobbering of this . . . thing as it tasted the contents of my stomach.

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