O’Byrne nodded at the shelves. “You get some reading done here.” The old man exhaled irritably. “It’s all rubbish. It ought to be banned.” They moved on. At the end, as he was signing the invoice, O’Byrne said, “Who you got lined up for tonight? Madam in the office there?” The warehouseman was pleased. His cackles rang out like bells, then tailed into another coughing fit. He leaned feebly against the wall, and when he had recovered sufficiently he raised his head and meaningfully winked his watery eye. But O’Byrne had turned and was wheeling the magazines out to the van.
Lucy was ten years older than Pauline, and a little plump. But her flat was large and comfortable. She was a sister and Pauline no more than a trainee nurse. They knew nothing of each other. At the underground station O’Byrne bought flowers for Lucy, and when she opened the door to him he presented them with a mock bow and the clicking of heels. “A peace offering?” she said contemptuously and took the daffodils away. She had led him into the bedroom. They sat down side by side on the bed. O’Byrne ran his hand up her leg in a perfunctory kind of way. She pushed away his arm and said, “Come on, then. Where have you been the past three days?” O’Byrne could barely remember. Two nights with Pauline, one night in the pub with friends of his brother.
He stretched back luxuriously on the pink candlewick. “You know… working late for Harold. Changing the shop around. That kind of thing.”
“Those dirty books,” said Lucy with a little high-pitched laugh.
O’Byrne stood up and kicked off his shoes. “Don’t start that,” he said, glad to be off the defensive. Lucy leaned forwards and gathered up his shoes. “You’re going to ruin the backs of these,” she said busily, “kicking them off like that.”
They both undressed. Lucy hung her clothes neatly in the wardrobe. When O’Byrne stood almost naked before her she wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Is that you smelling?” O’Byrne was hurt. “I’ll have a bath,” he offered curtly.
Lucy stirred the bathwater with her hand, and spoke loudly over the thunder of the taps. “You should have brought me some clothes to wash.” She hooked her fingers into the elastic of his shorts. “Give me these now and they’ll be dry by the morning.” O’Byrne laced his fingers into hers in a decoy of affection. “No, no,” he shouted rapidly. “They were clean on this morning, they were.” Playfully Lucy tried to get them off. They wrestled across the bathroom floor, Lucy shrieking with laughter, O’Byrne excited but determined.
Finally Lucy put on her dressing gown and went away. O’Byrne heard her in the kitchen. He sat in the bath and washed away the bright green stains. When Lucy returned his shorts were drying on the radiator. “Women’s Lib, innit?” said O’Byrne from the bath. Lucy said, “I’m getting in too,” and took off her dressing gown. O’Byrne made room for her. “Please yourself,” he said with a smile as she settled herself in the gray water.
O’Byrne lay on his back on the clean white sheets, and Lucy eased herself onto his belly like a vast nesting bird. She would have it no other way, from the beginning she had said, “I’m in charge.” O’Byrne had replied, “We’ll see about that.” He was horrified, sickened, that he could enjoy being overwhelmed, like one of those cripples in his brother’s magazines. Lucy had spoken briskly, the kind of voice she used for difficult patients. “If you don’t like it then don’t come back.” Imperceptibly O’Byrne was initiated into Lucy’s wants. It was not simply that she wished to squat on him. She did not want him to move. “If you move again,” she warned him once, “you’ve had it.” From mere habit O’Byrne thrust upwards and deeper, and quick as the tongue of a snake she lashed his face several times with her open palm. On the instant she came, and afterwards lay across the bed, half sobbing, half laughing. O’Byrne, one side of his face swollen and pink, departed sulking. “You’re a bloody pervert,” he had shouted from the door.
Next day he was back, and Lucy agreed not to hit him again. Instead she abused him. “You pathetic, helpless little shit!” she would scream at the peak of her excitement. And she seemed to intuit O’Byrne’s guilty thrill of pleasure, and wish to push it further. One time she had suddenly lifted herself clear of him and, with a far-away smile, urinated on his head and chest. O’Byrne had struggled to get clear, but Lucy held him down and seemed deeply satisfied by his unsought orgasm. This time O’Byrne left the flat enraged. Lucy’s strong, chemical smell was with him for days, and it was during this time that he had met Pauline. But within the week he was back at Lucy’s to collect, so he insisted, his razor, and Lucy was persuading him to try on her underwear. O’Byrne resisted with horror and excitement. “The trouble with you,” said Lucy, “is that you’re scared of what you like.”
Now Lucy gripped his throat in one hand. “You dare move,” she hissed, and closed her eyes. O’Byrne lay still. Above him Lucy swayed like a giant tree. Her lips were forming a word, but there was no sound. Many minutes later she opened her eyes and stared down, frowning a little as though struggling to place him. And all the while she eased backwards and forwards. Finally she spoke, more to herself than to him. “Worm…” O’Byrne moaned. Lucy’s legs and thighs tightened and trembled. “Worm… worm… you little worm. I’m going to tread on you… dirty little worm.” Once more her hand was closed about his throat. His eyes were sunk deep, and his word traveled a long way before it left his lips. “Yes,” he whispered.
The following day O’Byrne attended the clinic. The doctor and his male assistant were matter-of-fact, unimpressed. The assistant filled out a form and wanted details of O’Byrne’s recent sexual history. O’Byrne invented a whore at Ipswich bus station. For many days after that he kept to himself. Attending the clinic mornings and evenings, for injections, he was sapped of desire. When Pauline or Lucy phoned, Harold told them he did not know where O’Byrne was. “Probably taken off for somewhere,” he said, winking across the shop at his brother. Both women phoned each day for three or four days, and then suddenly there were no calls from either.
O’Byrne paid no attention. The shop was taking in good money now. In the evenings he drank with his brother and his brother’s friends. He felt himself to be both busy and ill. Ten days passed. With the extra cash Harold was giving him, he bought a leather jacket, like Harold’s, but somehow better, sharper, lined with red imitation silk. It both shone and creaked. He spent many minutes in front of the fish-eye mirror, standing sideways on, admiring the manner in which his shoulders and biceps pulled the leather to a tight sheen. He wore his jacket between the shop and the clinic and sensed the glances of women in the street. He thought of Pauline and Lucy. He passed a day considering which to phone first. He chose Pauline, and phoned her from the shop.
Trainee Nurse Shepherd was not available, O’Byrne was told after many minutes of waiting. She was taking an examination. O’Byrne had his call transferred to the other side of the hospital. “Hi,” he said when Lucy picked up the phone. “It’s me.” Lucy was delighted. “When did you get back? Where have you been? When are you coming round?” He sat down. “How about tonight?” he said. Lucy whispered in sex-kitten French, “I can ’ardly wait…” O’Byrne laughed and pressed his thumb and forefinger against his forehead and heard other distant voices on the line. He heard Lucy giving instructions. Then she spoke rapidly to him. “I’ve got to go. They’ve just brought a case in. About eight tonight, then…” and she was gone.
O’Byrne prepared his story, but Lucy did not ask him where he had been. She was too happy. She laughed when she opened the door to him, she hugged him and laughed again. She looked different. O’Byrne could not remember her so beautiful. Her hair was shorter and a deeper brown, her nails were pale orange, she wore a short black dress with orange dots. There were candles and wine glasses on the dining table, music on the record player. She stood back, her eyes bright, almost wild, and admired his leather jacket. She ran her hands up the red lining. She pressed herself against it. “Very smooth,” she said. “Reduced to sixty quid,” O’Byrne said proudly, and tried to kiss her. But she laughed again and pushed him into a chair. “You wait there and I’ll get something to drink.”