Jenni rolls her eyes. — Certainly not. I’ve no intention whatsoever of doing that. Do you?
— Naw, bit ah probably will.
She looks a wee bit pit oot by that. — Why?
So ah try tae explain, without seemin too sorry fir masel, thit ah’m jist no like her, or even Kravy. — Cause ah’ve no been able tae accrue the type ay skills thit might help ays function somewhere different. Ah’m jist a short-ersed wee bampot fae Fife thit cleans oot stables.
— Well, I think you’re cute, she says, like she’s a wee bit drunk. No used tae black gold or tarry, ah’ll wager. Well, no in the quantities we’ve been daein it ower the last few days. Ma quantities.
— Aye, but in a short-ersed wee bampot fae Fife thit cleans oot stables sort ay wey, ah laugh, then git serious. — But ah’m gaun tae Spain, ah’ll tell ye that much. That’s fuckin defo n—
— Shh, you talk too much, she says, n ah’m aboot tae take umbridge when she goes, — Kiss me, and her lips brush against mine n then wir snoggin. Ya cunt, it’s like ah’m gaunny shoot ma muck thair n then, in ma troosers in the corner ay the Goth!
Whin we back off, ah glimpses across tae see certain parties at the bar tryin tae look everywhaire but wir wee corner. Then Jenni picks up the vibe cause she says tae ays, — I don’t suppose we could go back to yours?
N ah croaks oot, — Aye, n ah’m worried aboot bein able tae staund wi this thing in ma troosers — fower n a half inches muh erse — but ah gits tae muh feet. Ah dinnae look acroas tae the bar as we leave the Goth (ah even leave half a pint ay black gold!) but ah’m hopin thit the boys huv clocked everything. Jason King, Depertment S, ya hoor: the ‘S’ bein fir Shaggin!
Wi git intae the hoose n ah pops muh heid intae the front room where the auld boy’s watchin the eftirnoon nags on Channel 4, racin pages oan ehs lap. — Dae you never git any tips fae thon stable ye wir attached tae? eh asks, turnin roond tae regard ehs sole offspring (or so ah’ve been telt).
— Naw… no fir a while… eh, look, Faither, jist gaun upstairs wi Jenni tae listen tae some sounds.
— Christ, Jason, yir twenty-six years auld, eh scoffs. — Ye dinnae need tae use bairns’ euphemisms fir sweepin lum!
Ah’m hopin thit Jenni didnae hear or pick that yin up, but wir up the stair n intae the King boudoir n things ur movin fast. Wir pillin oaf oor clathes n she’s goat wee spots on her chist but no the actual tits, if ye ken whit ah mean, n a big mole oan one ay the paps. She’s goat that wee rid thong oaf n aw; game as a partridge, this yin, n thir’s a hoor ay a sight mair bush thin ah’d speculated aboot; bit ay a surprise, thon. Still mibbe it wis Kravy’s ma’s shaved blat that pit they thoughts intae muh mind.
Ya hoor, it’s a wee bit ay a sensory overload…
24.
SNOGGING
I JUST WANT to fuck him, I like him and I want him: his skinny light body, his crazy eyes and his barely repressed air of madness. Also, the history with the bitch Lara makes him even more appealing. She confessed that when she was younger she actually wanted to shag him.
But Jason seems a bit weird, like he doesn’t want to get undressed, and I’m sitting here in the nude and he’s not even made an attempt to take his clothes off. I’m wondering if he finds me too fat, too repulsive, because he’s so thin. — Don’t you like me? I ask.
— Naw… you’re gorgeous… he pants, open-mouthed.
— Get undressed then, I urge.
— Thir’s somethin thit ah want tae show ye first, somethin thit ah did for ye, he says, and he opens this large cupboard which houses a water tank but he reaches down to a boxed-in shelf underneath. He pulls out what looks like a human skull!
Of course…
— Alas, poor Kravy, he says, then he lights a candle on a plate and carefully places the skull on top of it. The flame burns through the eyes, sending a yellow glowing light across the room. It looks beautiful; the amazing light is back on in Ally Kravitz’s eyes. — It’s… so… lovely, I tell him. And it is.
— Ah hud tae dae it, Jenni. Jason’s dark eyes glint in the candlelight. Yon blue flesh wisnae daein um justice. Eh wis mingin. The maggots… it wisnae him. Ah biled they hoors tae death. The skull, but. It hus a kind ay… purity.
— It does, Jason. It’s what he’d have wanted. I know it. But what did you do with the flesh, brain, eyes… all that stuff?
— Took it in a Co-op bag n buried the hoor under the turf behind yin ay the goals at Central Perk, Jason smiles sadly, then falls back on the bed. He kicks off his shoes and pulls down his jeans and shuts his eyes.
I move over to him and pull off his T-shirt in one motion. His body is the colour of milk. He’s shivering, trembling, but still just lying there. As the light glows and flickers around us, I suck at his nipples, biting into one until he gives out a sharp yelp of pain and the dark red blood trickles down his chest.
Then I pull off his pants and take his penis in my mouth. It firms up under my touch, and I can feel it expand in my head. It tastes briefly salty but that goes as I work it, tongue on its tip, mouth and hand moving down the shaft. After a bit I think he’s going to come so I stop and whisper to him, — I’m the jockey, and I can’t make out his gurgled response.
I climb on him and edge him into me. I start to ride him slowly, taking him further in, moving up and down on him in the candlelight from Ally Kravitz’s burning dead eyes.
Jason is the most passive boy I’ve ever been with, although, I suppose, he’s only the third I’ve had full sex with. He lies back muttering deliriously and I ride him until I start to come in small bursts, ending in a demented crescendo. I want to just keel over but Jason holds me up under my armpits (he’s deceptively strong and the sinew and muscle strains in his lean body) and then he comes in juddering, eye-popping convulsions, so violently that for a second I worry that he’s having some kind of fit. — Ya hoor… he gasps.
As I feel his spent prick deflating inside of me and falling out, like a ripe piece of fruit from a tree, I roll off and curl him into me, wrapping his thin frame in my arms. — That was… so… good, I tell him, as we cuddle together on the single bed.
— Ballingry lass… she once said the same thing, he mumbles, drifting off into sleep.
25.
TWELVE INCHES TALL
AH WALK INTAE thon Goth Tavern, a guid twelve inches tawer in height n jist aboot the same again in the trooser department, ya hoor ye! Ah’m at the bar but no really listenin much tae the Celibate Club ay Neebour Watson, the Duke ay Musselbury n Reggie Comorton cause ah’ve made a connection wi Auld Erchie the bigamist, whae normally drinks in Jimmie’s.
Erchie wis a long-distance lorry driver. Eh hud twa faimlies fir years, yin here in Fife, the other one doon in Hull. Hud tae come clean, whin Kenny, ehs son up here, met this bird oan holiday in Tenerife. They goat it oan, wir drawn tae each other beyond the usual hoaliday romance, so she came up tae see um. Erchie’s jaw fair droaped awright whin Kenny brought her hame; turned out it wis ehs daughter fae Hull! Aye, Nadia, her name wis. Sparks fuckin flew awright, but baith wives reasoned thit as eh wis the breedwinner thir wis nae point in grassin the cunt up. So they basically shared um; kept the same arrangement gaun, half the week each. They agreed thit Erchie wis awright fir half the time but any mair wid’ve been too much.
Erchie’s tellin ays about history, it’s ehs favourite subject, or ‘Scottish History S’ as eh calls it. The boy’s a fuckin PhD in post-war ridin in Caledonia. — When they hud that Cuban missile crisis the number ay illegitimate births nine months later went through the roof. Bastard bairns everywhaire!