Steven. Crazy on You

“No, Zargos’ is not a gay club. That’s a fallacy created by its popularity, you know, straights go in and find a few gay people so they instantly label it a gay club, and they tell others that weren’t able to get in and then it snowballs from there. Anyway, Diane, she was by herself near the ladies, just sitting there all by herself, and she was nursing a drink as if she had just crawled out of it, and actually might have, oh Steven, you should have seen the way she looked!”

Monica stopped dead and Steven swiveled around in surprise. They were facing each other and Steven could see that her eyes were brimming with tears, not enough yet to spill over, but tears all the same. He put his arm around her this time, and gave her the sort of hug he hoped she would see as a friendly and sympathetic one, and nothing else.

“Go on, what happened?” he urged.

Monica dropped her head onto his shoulder as they walked, and they went up the stairs into the railway station. Steven steered her to one of the benches, and she began again as they seated themselves. Steven still had his arm draped across her shoulders, and she did not appear uncomfortable with his continued physical contact.

“She was married for twelve months, just over in fact, because she told us about her anniversary. She and her husband, Mick, had been going out since high school and though he drank a bit, she said he hadn’t been physical with her, up until about six months after the wedding. Fancy knowing somebody so well for nearly seven years and then suddenly they change, well I know it couldn’t have happened like that, she is still so so naive in some ways that maybe she just didn’t see the warning signs, you know, the indicators that something was wrong with him?”

She glanced at Steven as she said this and he just nodded at her and then shrugged his shoulders.

“So what did he do that was so bad, how could it have made her so bitter that she acts the way she does now; he hit her right?”

“He more than hit her Steven, but let me tell it in order okay, so that you can understand it properly. What time does the train come?”

“Don’t worry, every 20 minutes until midnight so you’ve plenty of time to get your message through to me”.

Steven was curious, but he thought she was starting to lecture him a bit. He pictured Diane sitting on the lounge room floor again, her dress hitched up and those black panties framing her crotch. Once again he felt his erection looming, but Monica was only sitting back against his shoulder and was oblivious to the forming bulge in his jeans. She began to talk again, and moved her left arm to sit along the top of his right thigh. Steven’s eyes looped skywards as he thought ‘that helps’, but tried to concentrate in what she was saying again.

“…got drunk a bit when they were going out, more so than some of the other kids at school, but not that you would think he had a problem or anything, or so she reckoned. And no one else apparently mentioned it either, so it was just one of those things that nobody recognized. They got married just like everybody thought they would, just as they knew they would. Di’s parents liked Mick, and his really doted on her of course, and everybody assumed it was one of those marriages that was meant to be. But after they left school, Mick got an apprenticeship with his Dad, a plumber I think, and he used to go out with his mates every afternoon for a drink before going home, so sometimes Di would hardly see him all week, and when she did, he’d always had a few, you know, enough to make him outgoing, but not drunk.”

Steven nodded, he had seen it often enough, people thinking they were just drinking socially, but really not able to get through the night unless they had a couple under their belt first. He was not a drinker, not a teetotaler either, he had a drink, one or two with Harry and Marc after work two or three times a month, and he didn’t mind sharing a bottle of wine with dinner.

“Yeah I know, go on” he said quietly.

“Anyway, apart from petty jealousy because of the amount of time he spent with his mates, they never really had a problem with anything, or so she said. They moved in together in his last year of his apprenticeship, got a little flat and she did the girl thing and waited for him to come home every night. And he did come home every night, usually early, which she said surprised her because she expected him like …well, after dark, when he’d had enough with his mates down the pub. But as time went on, he got a bit later, and a bit later, and was coming home a just a little bit tipsier every time. But still everything was okay, they still got on famously, he loved her and they didn’t argue about anything seriously. Money was good because they both worked and they did all the things that a young couple in love would do”.

Monica hesitated and looked around at Steven as she heard the approaching train. Steven looked at his watch and told her once again to “go on”.

“What time is it?”

“Plenty of time” he said” two more trains until midnight”.

She waited for the train to stop, and they both watched as several people got off, some with shopping bags. “Thursday night shopping” Steven thought. The train disappeared into the dark. They were alone again, only the slight traffic noise from the main road, and the odd vehicle in a closer street disturbed the night, and the sound of a too loud TV from the block of flats across from the station. Steven wondered how amazing it was that sounds traveled so crisply in the night.

“Anyway, one night, she must have just said the wrong thing at the wrong time, he might have had a little bit too much and all that, but whatever it is that she said made him all of sudden up and yell at her, calling her all sorts of names, and then he just walked out. He came home pretty late, because she found him asleep the next morning on the couch. He apologised to her and they made up, you know how it goes?” She looked back over her shoulder at him as she asked the question. She went on again straight away when she saw him nod. “That night he came home early with a bunch of flowers, apologised again, sweet talked her into bed, and then took off down the pub, all within about half an hour. She was very distraught, because from that night on, he didn’t start coming home until after closing time, and he was always dark at her, but he didn’t yell or anything, at least until again, she must have said the wrong thing, because he just up and whacked her one across the face.”

“Some guys just don’t know when they’ve got it good” Steven said.

“Di was a mental wreck, it was affecting her at work, and in desperation, she tried to talk to her parents, but they simply wouldn’t believe her! So she went to see Micks parents who had, as I said, really doted her. They didn’t believe her either. All they ever saw was the perfect son and the perfect daughter-in-law. Micks Dad even told her that it must have been something she had done and that she had to sort herself out if there was something wrong. And she believed that, so she worked hard to be good to him and ignore what was going on, and then a week or so later, on their first anniversary, he had booked them into this motel up the Tweed. They traveled up after work, everything seemed to be going just fine, they had a romantic dinner and went out to a club further up the coast.”

The sound of another train halted her.

“Last one?” she asked.

Steven held up one finger to signify one more to go after this one, and stayed silent so that she would continue.

“I don’t know what club they went to, but it sounded like one of those sleazy mens clubs that have table dancing and that sort of stuff, not the place you take your wife to on your wedding anniversary anyway. Mick loved it, the girls swinging their crotches at him, and at Di too, apparently. You know, like most couples, they had discussed sexual fantasies, and one of Micks was the two women in bed at one time. Di was pretty naive, as I said, and she probably said the wrong thing to him at some stage when they were discussing their fantasies, because, as it turns out, that’s exactly why he had taken her there, to try and pick up another girl. Diane freaked, but she had drunk enough to get silly. She pushed the girl off the table and jumped up and began dancing for Mick, and as it turns out, for most of the other patrons as well. They yelled and cheered her as she turned back to Mick, who she says, was smiling at her and yelling for her to take her dress off. She said she reached down and swigged the rest of her glass of beer, and three or four pairs of hands massaged her legs and backside at the same time. When she stood back up again, she started dancing, lifting her dress up now, higher each time. And Mick was in front of her, still egging her on. She got the dress up in front of her eyes at one stage and probably due to the alcohol and heat in that club she began to feint, or something like that she said. She woke up in the car the next day, parked in front of their motel room. She says she recalled her knickers being taking off and someone going down on her, and then someone on top of her and a dick being shoved into her mouth, and even though it was all at the same time, she still thought it was Mick. She thought he had taken her out of there back to the motel, but it wasn’t until she felt a very bad pain at something that she opened her eyes and realized that she was lying face down, because she really had to stretch her head back to look forward. She saw Mick leaning on a tree, and then she felt a man inside her and looked down and saw some guy she didn’t know underneath her, and he was telling her she was a great fuck, or something really romantic like that, and then she realized that the pain was coming from someone behind her, trying to stick himself up her backside. There were hands all over her, on her hips and legs, and her head, and when she screamed she remembered Mick coming over and putting his dick into her mouth, and that was the last thing she knew before waking up in the car in the morning.”

Monica paused and looked over her shoulder at Steven who returned her look with a wide eyed stare.

“My God” was all he could say.

“Yeah, but that ain’t the end of it. She was mostly naked, Mick had just put her dress over her, she couldn’t find her bra or knickers, or even her shoes, so she just put her dress on and went into the motel room. Mick was in there alright, in the bed pumping in and out of some poor girl he’d picked up somewhere. Di said he looked at her standing in the door way, and without losing a stroke, had asked her to come and join them. I met her two days after that and she hasn’t seen Mick again since”.

“So, did she jump into bed with them?”

Steven asked and regretted saying it immediately. Monica sat up abruptly and turned to him.

“You fucking idiot, what a stupid question, honestly Steven, like I told you before, I can’t believe that someone hasn’t told you that your smart mouth will get you into trouble one day.” She was almost yelling at him.

“Sorry, I’m sorry Mon, but what did she do then, you know after seeing him?”

Steven thought this was the most unbelievable story he had ever heard and he wanted the whole story up to the present. He thought he could hear a train in the distance.

“Quick what happened then?” he urged.

“She apparently ran off, gathered herself together as much as she could and caught a bus back home. She grabbed her clothes and other personal things and was living in a motel room. My girlfriend and I took her home and looked after her for a few days, and when she got better, she started having a, you know, relationship with my girlfriend. We all got on well, we all, to some degree hated men, but Diane more than either if us. Then when Liv, my girlfriend, moved to Sydney, me and Di more or less started, too, more than just friendship. She looked after me I guess, like, dinner ready when I got home, the house neat and tidy and the washing done, stuff like that. She did that for over a month before we started sleeping together, and in all that time, she never heard from Mick or his parents”.

The train was getting close. Monica grabbed Stevens’ hands and stood up. He stood up with her, and she looked gravely up into his eyes.

“Diane and I may not be in love with each other, but in our own way, we love and need each other, and she is adamant that I should not get involved with men ever, even though she herself is attracted to them still.”

She leaned forward and as Steven saw her lips moving toward his, he clutched her quickly to him and kissed her deeply. It was quick but meaningful. She crushed her lips hard against his, and he felt her arms go quickly around his back and pull him ever so briefly against her body. And then they parted, and she turned and was walking, almost running from him. Steven saw the train pull up as she disappeared down the stairs and he jumped into the closest carriage as soon as the doors opened. He leaned against the doors when they closed and as the train started to pull away he peered through the darkness up the street to try and catch a last glimpse of her. He saw nothing but empty streets.

Chapter Five

“The Capitulation of Katie”

At work the next day Steven was in early and, as usual, Kate was there, always one of the first. Steven had not slept well and was too preoccupied to notice Kate. She startled him.

“Good Morning Steven, did it go well?”

“Huh, sorry?”

He looked up at her as if she was some magician that had somehow just appeared beside him.

“Work last night at Monicas’, that’s what you said…”

“Oh yeah great” Steven grasped the line of the conversation “it went okay but we probably didn’t achieve what we wanted to” he lied. Maybe that wasn’t so far from the truth he thought.

“Look, about tonight, we didn’t finish, so we might be working again tonight. Yeah I know it’s Friday and we were going to the drive-in, but let’s have lunch today and I’ll tell you all about it okay?”

She couldn’t hide her disappointment but she replied brightly enough.

“Lunch is fine, I’ll come get you”.

“NO!” He said it so harshly that she visibly jumped. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you, it’s just well, I don’t know when I’ll be going so can you just flex a bit until I come get you?”