People were always sitting beside Sarah on the bus. She found it annoying but had long ago decided to take it as a compliment – she obviously looked like someone who wouldn’t bother you and was hygienic. Sometimes, even when there were other seats available, seats without a passenger already, still, they opted to sit with her. Sarah had always attributed this to her big breasts, which were E cups at nineteen years of age. She had read somewhere that once you turned eighteen, they stopped growing, and really hoped that was true. When she was younger, she used them as a way of enticing male attention, as she wasn’t a particularly attractive girl otherwise, but now, most of the time, she covered them up with high neck tops and oversized jumpers. Today that hadn’t been an option. Sarah sat squished into her seat by the large man who had decided to sit beside her, so her shoulder was stuck beside the window like a starfish in a tank. The man’s arm shoved into hers, pushing her cleavage together even more, creating a deep vertical line down her chest, that anyone who got on the bus couldn’t help but gawk at before finding somewhere to perch for their journey.

Sarah had been sick of being conservative. She’d ordered a dress online that cut into a V-neck, and though she knew it was a risky option, she didn’t want to be the ugly one in the photos for once. The model on the website she ordered the dress from was “curvy” – meaning she had boobs bigger than A-cups and she had a big bum but likely only had a twenty-five-inch waist. It had showed off the model’s modest cleavage elegantly, whereas Sarah looked like she was about to star in a porno, and not a high end one either. Sarah considered wearing her round-neck t-shirt dress instead, but once she caught a glimpse of Charlotte’s outfit on her Instagram story, she changed her mind. Her mum dropped her to pre-drinks and Sarah had to use one of her thick winter scarves to cover up her exposed chest, to avoid her mum having a conniption. When she arrived at Charlotte’s house, she unwound the scarf slowly and carefully, soaking up the gasps of her friends, who were made to feel inadequate about their considerably smaller breasts. There was a not so subtle pulling down of dresses and tightening of bra straps. Sarah had spent years doing the exact opposite.

A stray bottle came clattering down the steps of the bus, rolling every time the bus took a corner, or moved in sharply to let passengers on or off. Everyone was slightly irritated by it, this was clear in the twitch of necks and shifting of eyes. Those with headphones couldn’t drown out the stark banging, like it was a bowling ball. Sarah gritted her teeth every time she heard the plastic bounce up and down on the floor. Every time it knocked from side to side, there was an inaudible groan of annoyance shared by everyone on the bus, but no one got up to take responsibility for it. Sarah felt it mocking her every time it hit against someone’s feet.

The large man sitting on the bus next to her might have been hammered the night before too. Maybe he had also been at Diceys. It was filled with older men, a fug of Hugo Boss aftershave following behind them, some avoiding going home to their nagging wives, some avoiding an empty apartment, or trying to make something for dinner out of some gone off vegetables and a frozen steak pie. The man smelt ripe with whiskey; the musky stench of it turned Sarah’s fragile stomach. When the bus took a violent turn, so did her innards, and she bit into her lips, creating a seal in case any vomit tried to leak out. She’d been sick four times, once just moments before the bus had arrived at the stop and had been sure there was nothing left. The last thing she needed was to be removed from the bus, especially in her sequin black dress and matching heels, at 10AM on a Tuesday morning. Her first lecture of the day had begun and finished, and there was no way she was getting to her proceeding three. Normally Sarah would be fretting about the lost 10% attendance marks, though her record was otherwise flawless, but today her mind was on other things.

A couple got on at Aungier’s Street, clutching bags of doughnuts, the brown paper going translucent. The girl had a pink cord hat, and the man had a beard that was balding. Sarah tried to avert her gaze, but she was compelled to keep watching. Their affection to one another was tangible and wet. The man planted a kiss on his girlfriend’s shoulder, of all places, leaving a bit of a damp patch that Sarah couldn’t take her eyes off then for the whole journey. The light kept reflecting off her pale skin in this area. It made Sarah want to grab a tissue and wipe it away; it reminded her of the wet patches between her legs this morning. Sarah sealed her lips once more.

From the moment Sarah and her friends had entered the club, it was already unlike any other night. Instead of awkwardly shuffling, pretending to be drunker than she was, while Charlotte and Annie flirted outrageously with the boys from Commerce or BESS, Sarah was the one being flirted with, and the more she drank, the easier this became. She wondered why she never had more than two drinks normally – the light and numbing tingle in her veins was far more pleasant than the hummingbird of anxiety that normally beat inside her. She stumbled over her first responses, but it didn’t seem to matter. The boys laughed heartily and made sure her hand was never without a glass bottle of Smirnoff. Charlotte tried to butt in a few times, shamelessly waving around her high pony-tail like a horse, but only the gawky skinny lad in the group paid her any attention, and though she indulged him with a quick shift, she left for Coppers without saying goodbye to Sarah.

Sarah checked her phone, careful not to unlock it; she was only on 5% battery. She was still thirty minutes from home, not including the twelve-minute walk from the bus stop. There were no messages from Charlotte or Annie. She’d gotten one of her new lad friends to type out a “get home safe? x” message last night, but neither responded, or enquired to whether she had gotten home safe too. Later that night they had both uploaded Instagram stories from Toni’s Diner, and Annie had one up at about 5AM of Charlotte conked out on her sofa.

Sarah knew she should be flattered. Girls only act that petty when they are jealous, and Sarah had never been the kind of girl who ever had anything to be jealous about. She’d spent much of her own life being jealous of girls like Charlotte and Annie, or even the less cool girls in her history classes, but the ones who were smarter and more independent than her, who could keep up difficult and intriguing conversations about Home Rule in Ireland or The Korean War. Jealousy was a feeling she knew all too well.

As much as Sarah loathed the PDA the couple in front of her were displaying, she was jealous of them too. She wondered where they were going, maybe into Dundrum, although they didn’t strike her as the shopping type. They looked more like people who went hunting in charity shops for hidden treasures; the mustier the clothes smelled, the better. Sarah then felt guilty for assuming – she hated the assumptions people made about her. Though they were normally correct. She was quite sure any assumption made about her on the 14 bus that morning would be completely accurate. Out drinking the night before? Check. Wore a tight dress for attention? Check. Probably had a one-night stand? Sarah felt bile roll around in her stomach, like someone was churning butter in her intestines.

The large man got off in Rathmines and Sarah felt herself sag to the side. She tried not to be obvious about stretching her limbs as her former companion jollily sauntered off the bus, lifting his face into the fresh morning air, and literally began whistling on his merry way. A cold breeze rushed in before the bus doors closed, creating a cluster of goose-bumps all up and down Sarah’s arms and legs. She hadn’t been able to feel her toes for about an hour now; she peeked down at them and saw her big toe was completely white, plain against her red nail polish. Her baby toe she could not see, and could not feel, but she knew it was crushed against the inside of her shoe in a way it shouldn’t be. Sarah only got two stops of freedom before a girl fell into the seat beside her, but at least she wasn’t taking up half of her seat like her other companion.

The girl was thin and pale with choppy orange hair and eyes that darted like a paranoid deer. A message pinged on her phone, and she unlocked it with the swipe of an unmanicured bitten thumb, and tried to lock it again just as fast, but not before Sarah saw the words in the message. It was a short message, with a very direct request.

Blow me.

Romance, indeed, was not dead.

Only the previous night Sarah had been asked by not one, but two separate men, for the very same thing, though she had turned them both down, gently. She was walking with one of the boys from Commerce, or was it Sports Science? He might’ve been in DCU, at this stage she wasn’t sure. She had kind of flitted between groups of boys, enjoying the initial flirtation but then quickly feeling the awkwardness of chatting with someone she knew nothing about, and being reminded by a joke not landed that she was not as cool as she thought, or as her dress might have suggested. Eventually she’d ended up in a group of lads who were about to leave, and one of the quieter ones, the “Sarah” of the group, she liked to imagine, suggested she get in the taxi too. It didn’t occur to Sarah that they were going in the opposite direction of her house, and that it was 3AM by this stage, and it would have made more sense to just go home, but she needed water. She felt like no one had ever been as thirsty as her in their whole life, and in the moment, she’d near enough done anything for a bottle of water. She’d meekly asked the quiet boy if he had water in his house, and he laughed, lacing his fingers with hers, and said he would get her some water. His name was Phil, though he didn’t offer his second name.

He was good on his word. Sarah didn’t know where they were, she’d been focusing on not being sick and hadn’t once looked out the window, but they ended up in a cul-de-sac with small but neat semi-detached houses. The grass was slightly over-grown, but there were an array of daisies peeping through that made it look quite beautiful. There was no car in the drive-way to Phil’s house.

“My mum works nights,” he said, by way of explanation, and Sarah was relieved that the introductions of the night were over. Her head had begun to pound, and when Phil presented her with a sweating glass of water, complete with ice-cubes, she downed it so quickly that the pounding turned to freezing.

“Shall we go upstairs?” Phil asked shyly, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. Sarah wasn’t sure what else there was to do, so she agreed, removing her heels first. She’d been sitting on top of the kitchen counter and had noticed the calendar pinned up by the fridge. April had a series of snapshots of Phil and a woman Sarah presumed to be his mother, and another boy. She was curious about him, but didn’t ask, and followed Phil up the stairs. His room was tidy besides a few t-shirts that looked like they had been vomited out of his press.

“Couldn’t decide what to wear,” he said, and Sarah laughed breathlessly at the thought of boys worrying about that kind of thing.

She sat at the edge of his bed as he made a half-assed attempt to organise the clutter, which meant piling up all his clothes and shoving them into an over-flowing hamper. She considered offering to help but thought it would be strange. She let herself fall back onto the mattress, exhaustion taking over.

Sarah was still exhausted as they passed through Churchtown. The girl sitting beside her was furiously tapping at her phone and looked irritated. “Blow me” boy wasn’t getting anywhere, Sarah decided, as she forced herself to look away and face the window, her eyes straining to take in the blur of coloured houses and cars, almost fluorescent to her. The couple who had been sitting in front of her had got off at the next stop and were walking towards a housing estate – so her assumption about their thrift-shopping had been incorrect. The girl in the cord hat pulled aggressively on her partner’s arm until their lips, and then their tongues, collided in a flurry of uncooperative, squelching motions. On their seat they had left the doughnuts, presumably by accident, and there was about a ten second window where Sarah could have alerted them to this. The bag was still full. Sarah was glad when the bus pulled away and forewarned the next stop. She was only five stops away from her own now. The bottle struck the wall with the force of a pinball, and Sarah looked at the remaining six passengers on the bus with crossness. Her body was shaking terribly with shivers now – she didn’t know why the windows were always cracked open on the bus, even when it was cold outside. It seemed whenever the weather was good the windows were fastened shut so tight you’d need a crow-bar to jimmy them open.

Phil’s window had been open when Sarah had first sat down but closed when she came to. At least she thought so; she was extremely hot. It took her a few moments to realise he was on top of her, kissing her. She tried to shove him off – she was far too warm – but he didn’t seem to notice, and he didn’t shift his weight aside.

“What’s that?” he said between kissing her neck. Sarah had mumbled something, she wasn’t sure what now, but he hadn’t heard her, and by this stage he was into her thong. It wasn’t unpleasant, Sarah decided, and she thought it was better to just go with it. She was a guest in this house and she didn’t have enough money to get a taxi home – she would need to wait for the buses to start running.

By the time he’d finished, Sarah was close to finishing too, though he climbed off her before she could tell him this. He pulled off the condom – at least he’d thought of that – and gone to have a shower, while Sarah lay there, a wet patch beneath her, her dress rolled up past her belly button. She didn’t pull up her thong right away. It was uncomfortable. She considered taking it off entirely, but she felt sticky and wrong between her legs, and upon further inspection there was a bit of blood too. She looked around Phil’s room for tissue but couldn’t find any. She’d have to wait for him to come back.

When he did come back he had tea; Sarah’s was milky and without sugar, which was the exact opposite of how she liked it, but she didn’t say so. Phil threw a whole toilet roll her way, and she tried at first to gently dab at the blood, only to find there was too much for such tenderness. She wiped with big motions and tried not to look appalled at the darkness coming out of her body. Phil pretended not to notice and turned on Netflix. They both watched an episode or two of the newest sitcom, which was cheesy and not nearly funny enough to dispense the awkwardness that had descended clumpy and fast, like dust floating down from a high surface, over them both.

Sarah wondered how they did it – the couple, weird as they were, who were so comfortable with one another. For most of the bus journey they had sat in silence, occasionally, without uttering a word, gesturing at something that made them both laugh irrepressibly. The girl beside Sarah now was still typing, but more slowly, and to the same boy, a boy called Dom with a black heart emoji beside his name. Her shoulders were relaxed, and there was the whisper of a smile on the corners of her lips, though she refused to give into it. There was an ease, an ease Sarah did not feel in the company of other boys, or of other people in general. When she stood next to someone, or got too close, she felt like her body was inside out, her nervous system exposed, every feeling of anxiety and nervousness amplified. She thought this must be what dogs feel like, when they’re too close to something loud, or an over-zealous child with clunky movements and wandering hands.

The bus, at last, came to her spot. Sarah tried to not notice the stares as she pulled the back of her dress down as far as it would go, which was just an inch away from her bum, and walked, with as much dignity has her high heels would allow, to the front of the bus. She tripped over her words thanking the driver, and the whole twelve-minute walk home, which was nearly eighteen minutes given her footwear, Sarah had his face imprinted in her mind, the smirk, the sarcastic “you’re welcome.”

“You sure you don’t want me to phone you a taxi? I’ve got an app on my phone here,” Phil had said courteously, but quietly. His mother had returned home from work at dawn, though Phil hadn’t disclosed her occupation, and he was going to sneak her out. Sarah would have liked to borrow a pair of tracksuit bottoms, or some flat shoes, but by the way Phil was talking, in such hushed tones, she realised she was hardly going to see him again. She didn’t know his last name, and by this stage could not remember what college course he was doing, and in what college. She theorised that his name might not even have been Phil, but thought she was probably overthinking things now. Sarah told him she would be fine, and tip-toed down the steps and out into the morning air, four hours after she had first stepped into the house. Neither of them had slept, besides Sarah’s nap at the beginning, and she wasn’t sure where the rest of that time had gone.

Sarah arrived home to an empty house although the alarm hadn’t been set – her parents had presumed she’d come home last night and was still sleeping. By now it was just after 11AM, and Sarah put her phone in to charge before shedding her clothes onto the bathroom floor and sitting down to wee while the water in the shower heated up. She felt like she was sweating alcohol.

A photo from the night before hadn’t uploaded due to her 4G failing. She had only noticed this morning, when her phone charged enough that she could click into Instagram, and there was a red exclamation point alerting her to this. She clicked into it and stared blankly at the caption. BEST NIGHT WITH THE BEST BITCHES. It showed herself, Charlotte, Annie and Mary in the Diceys bathrooms, before they had even stowed away their coats. Sarah could admit to herself she looked good in this photo, and she knew others would think so as well. She tapped it again, and it reuploaded, this time successfully. As Sarah weed, very much aware of the stinging she could feel as the pee was emptied from her bladder, she wondered how many people had seen it now, and would anyone have messaged her directly. She knew Charlotte would demand it be taken down – she was facing the camera full on and not pulling a proper pose, but before she inevitably had to remove it, Sarah hoped to get some attention from it.

She wiped and looked into the toilet bowl, where bright red blood was spooling around in the water. The pain hadn’t subsided. Sarah didn’t flush right away, worried it would affect the temperature of the shower, and hopped in, furiously scrubbing her face to remove all the leftover foundations and glittery eyeshadow, and tore at her skin with an exfoliating glove to take off the false tan she’d plastered onto her luminously pale body the day before. She hiked up the temperature of the water until she was steaming and when she finally got out of the cuboid prison, her skin the colour of blushed cheeks. Sarah’s beady, naked eyes were small, once more, and utterly basic, her mouth decreased in size with no lipliner, and Sarah wrapped herself in a towel, thinking maybe next time she would wear the conservative t-shirt dress, wincing at the stinging she could feel spreading between her legs, as she inserted a tampon that she had thought she would not need for another two weeks.

KATY THORNTON recently graduated with an MA in Creative Writing from University College Dublin. She has been published with Headstuff, Cold Coffee Stand and JCS Press and is currently working on her debut novel. She spent last year as the Fiction Editor of The HCE Review, a quarterly literary journal.

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He wants me. He told me he did. He drives by each night at 6:00PM. The officer said old guys tend to stick to routines. Ralph is proof.

There is, of course, nothing to be done. Depending on the season, it’ll still be light out or it’ll be dusk and his hatchback will cruise by real slow and his head will turn towards my closed blinds. He doesn’t know I watch for him from the dark upstairs bedroom. Or maybe he does. Perhaps he is so good at this game all my moves are void.

David hates it. Hates him. Hates a lot of things but really hates feeling powerless. Wants to move me in but it’s not that simple. There’s my lease and this isn’t new and I’m not in danger. At least that’s what I tell myself. Old guys and their routines. There’s no need for Ralph to escalate anything because look how easy and predictable it’s all become. Why shake anything up. I know to start dinner by his slow crawl outside.

So when he doesn’t show, Wednesday, April, the year of our Lord 2016, I don’t open the can of soup until deep evening. I find myself tapping the wall. I have not left for the bathroom or shifted focus to my phone. I have waited, as always, at my black window. Until my neck aches and my stomach is a loud hurt.

David calls. Wants to know why I am late. Flu, I say. A bad one. The worst one. I hang up. It is my first day without Ralph.

Walking to my car, I am weak-kneed. When I pull out of the drive, the sweetest song is on the radio. I can’t make out all the words, but it’s something like, Look at the moon, it watches you.

This is a small town. I hit the major subdivisions in an hour. First down one Holly Acres, then one Green Valley View. Up Deerwood.

I watch for Ralph’s hatchback. It’s dark but there are dozens of streetlamps ramped up like Christmas. I pay mightily in taxes for this sort of thing.

A half tank of gas, but I run out of roads. Coalfell is half an hour over. Ralph could be a citizen of some separate city, and I never put it together.

And the miles to Coalfell open to patchy fields. It’s overcast, but I can still see the moon pushing her glow through the clouds. The radio’s acting up. Can’t catch anything out here, and the streetlamps stopped miles ago. Me and the road, a quick flash of light out the left side of my vision. I know I am almost home.

LAUREN DAVIS is the author of Each Wild Thing’s Consent (Poetry Wolf Press). She holds an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars, and her work can be found in publications such as Prairie Schooner, Spillway, and Lunch Ticket. Davis teaches at The Writers’ Workshoppe, and she works at The Tishman Review.

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The first iteration basked in simplicity.

A subatomic particle no scientist in the entire Virgo Supercluster had ever detected before appeared one day in anybody’s version of a quantum collider. Elusive but still traceable, it travelled through the superconducting magnetic structures faster than the light had ever been. Violating the Heisenberg Principle or any other law of the physics, it was matter and energy at the same time, a wave and a particle, a beginning and an end. A wonder of symmetry plagued by inner instability and still enchanting to look at, it glowed as a rainbow before disappearing in a blaze of pristine light, leaving its many observers in a dismayed puzzlement.

The particle’s omni-powerful Makers decided to up the antes.

The second iteration was a pretty one, something all sentient creatures could admire in its ravishing beauty: a silicon-based organism, strong and graceful, thriving in liquid methane and rare gases pools. Slender in its conception and gorgeously limbed, it rose on its forelegs a few seconds after creation and tottered over the slab’s immaculate surface in a parade of ravishing beauty. Transparent wings to hover and watch, shining blades to kill a prey, the creature selected leaves of luxuriant vert as its favourite dwelling and nested away. It attracted stares of appreciation and smiles of support and was quickly released on a brave new world, to live long and prosper.

Encouraged by their two early successes, the Makers kept working.

Iteration number three was a masterpiece of complexity. It was the most articulated creation the Architects had ever attempted since the Big Bang, and together the least satisfactory; its accuracy didn’t leave any space to improvisation, surprise, or growth. It was not unexpected for them; they already knew the sibling of perfection is death, something that can’t be altered any longer. After having remained in its stunned immobility for millions of years, the astonishing creature was discarded without qualms and forgotten soon after.

The fourth iteration made its creators think of the face of gods.

Essential, compact, and mighty, it crept out of the nourishing pond with the implacable assurance of the conqueror. And when they release it over a life-sustaining planet, the virus-like creature immediately started its colonisation process. Invisible to any other living being and so much powerful than all of them, it began self-replicating at a geometrical pace. It invaded and raged and destroyed, leaving nothing behind but a graveyard of ashes and gnawed-down bones.

Creators are not supposed to destroy their own creations, not even when they turn to be unfit or nasty, but this time the sheer power of the Fourth One made even the Makers waver. They sealed off the ravaged planet, and made sure the dooming agent was never to see the light of another sun.

Saddened and disenchanted, the Makers let go of the experiment. It was only after aeons of time that they decided to have one more try to add something unusual to the universe’s table of creatures.

Iteration five.

It had nothing of the complexity, beauty, symmetry, awesomeness or cruel detail of the others. It was per se a mediocre species, with an oversized processing unit and a frail sustaining structure. One glaringly deteriorating over the years, too. But that funny bipedal exemplar had developed something none of others did: the painful awareness of its own shortcomings, the yearning for an unattainable perfection, enough curiosity to sneak a peek at the assembling pad and wonder.

Not every parent is proud of their children, but all do recognise a promising one, no matter how trivial the beginning and how bleak the perspectives. The Architects made no exception. They had no idea whether that clumsy offspring would have ever been able to lift its stare as high as to meet theirs. The universe is a big empty space even when creatures are not tied to an orbiting rock, let alone when they are.

But, somehow, that seemed no longer important.

RUSSELL HEMMELL is a French-Italian transplant in Scotland, passionate about astrophysics, history and speculative fiction. Recent work in Argot Magazine, The Grievous Angel, Star*Line, and others. Find them online at their blog earthianhivemind.net and on Twitter @SPBianchini

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It’s the morning after and I’m quietly sobbing while Isaac lies there, legs outstretched, hat on face, saying nothing. Rain is pittering on the tent and I’m listening to Adrian telling me that Freya will be fine as she’s very forgiving. That the drugs were strong and if anyone understands that, Freya should. That I really shouldn’t worry as it was Just One Of Those Things that happens at festivals.

But in my head I’m back there, putting up the tent in a field glistening with raindrops, sipping straight vodka from a bottle and buzzing. Bumping into friends of theirs and drinking more. Doing more. And listening. To bands and DJs with crazy, kaleidoscopic visuals of mashed up sunflowers, purring kittens and babies chuckling over and over. Over and over. Till the others have drifted away and it’s just me and Isaac, who’s right next to me moving, dancing, smiling. His smell mingling with mine, hips touching mine. Till the sun casts a long, slow languorous beam across the crowd in front, and Isaac’s hands are deep inside my pockets, his mouth on mine, the taste of peppermint gum sharp against my tongue.

So I had a ticket for the Big Chill as Freya couldn’t make it. Too much work she said, plus it could be awkward with Isaac. I’d never met him but they were together for years, him and Freya. Then on and off like a malfunctioning light till the bulb blew for good. Or so she said. So Isaac was going, plus Adrian who I knew a bit but not well so I had a fluttery feeling in my stomach as I wasn’t good with people I didn’t know, especially at a festival where it’s all so mad, where you can’t even have a shower or cocoon yourself away if you don’t feel like speaking, which I wouldn’t. They picked me up at 3 and Isaac was driving, his eyes hidden behind shades and messy hair. My heart flipped when I saw him. He glanced back at Adrian. ‘You didn’t tell me she was fit. Hop in.’ The whole way there it rained. Nasty, squally rain that ran down the windows like tears, and I listened in silence to the metronomic squeal of the wipers while they argued about music and politics and people I didn’t know until eventually we stopped for a bite in a pub where I nibbled a prawn sandwich, gulped down some cider and tried to relax. And afterwards Isaac slipped a pink smiley pill into my hand which kicked in later when we were driving along a dirt track and parking up at the back of Carpark B.‘Feel anything?’ he said. I nodded as he put his warm hand in mine.

‘I know this will be a good night,’ he said.

Mary Thompson works as a freelance teacher in London. Her work has recently featured in journals and competitions including Flash 500, Fish, Retreat West, Reflex, Ellipsis Zine, Spelk, Ghost Parachute and LISP, and is forthcoming at Literary Orphans and Riggwelter. She is a first reader for Craft Literary Journal.

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Noise travels on a lake. It’s the stillness, and it was still that night. I watched her, as I watched them all; an outsider to their togetherness, alone in the shadows. the tip of my cigarette marking my presence for any who cared to look. No one looked. My solitude was an unheard accompaniment to their music. Their high pitched squeals rang like crystal, true and clear. Their frivolity hung languid in the summer air.

She stood out. She laughed harder, danced faster, her cocktail glass an extension of her arm. I allowed myself to imagine her with white limbs splayed wide.

She was a loose woman. The voice in my head was my mother’s. Starched and bitter.

We met at the water’s edge. Her nature was evident. She flirted, coquettish. Up close she wasn’t quite as beautiful as I had thought. Her touch was light, insubstantial, moth like. Her fingers fluttered against my throat; the gentle shape of an eyelash against my face.

When I kissed her, she cut me with her laughter.

She opened the darkness inside me. The bell like tones of her voice, ripped out my jugular and the humid air made way for a hot spill of my blood. Or perhaps it was her blood.

Now I am old and since then I have lived a simple life, in this cottage on the edge of the lake. I take it upon myself to clean the shoreline, particularly after a storm. You might think it a penance I suppose. But we both know that secrets rise in shallow lakes.

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Looking in the refrigerator door late at night
Realizing that the oreos are still in the pantry
There with the dry ritz crackers
And mouse turds behind the box.

So, as with the fresh sleeves of saltines.

A small unopened package
Of canned sardines in mustard,
The paper wrap with a leaping fish on it
Belies the difficulty of opening the can.

RAY WHITAKER does readings around the state of North Carolina [USA], and is a member or the North Carolina Poetry Society, Winston-Salem Writers, and The North Carolina Writer’s Network. He has thrice been a ‘Writer-in-Residence” at the North Carolina Center For The Arts and Humanities, at Weymouth, in Southern Pines,NC. He has two books published, “ACKNOWLEDGMENT: Poems From The ‘Nam,” 212 pages, 03/2015; “23, 18,” 106 pages, 10/2015. He has two other books he is presently seeking publication for: ‘WHITE DOG SPEAKING,” 88 pages, 2016; and “FOR THE LOST AND LOVED,” 93 pages, 2018. Some of his work has been published in American, Irish, and Scottish Literary Journals. raywhitakerblog.wordpress.com.

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My stepbrother had most things I wanted in life.

Mike (that’s not his real name), strolled up that Saturday night with his new girl, Jessy. I swear I stopped breathin’ for a second or two. She was wearin’ the tightest dress you ever saw. Her swaying mermaid hair hypnotised me good. Mike waited for her to catch up. She weren’t in no hurry. I leant all casual against the door, gave her one of my looks. She did that coy thing girls do, when they look away then check to see you’re still watchin’ them. The truth is – the time it took Jessy to walk up to the house – she was already mine.

I should have left it at that. Easy to say now.

They say I don’t have much of a brain, but charm and appeal must have been on special the day I was born. That and watchin’ Ma’s old James Dean films, where he’s giving that vulnerable kinda look. Girls go for that, I learnt early on. Perfected it in Ma’s broken compact mirror as soon as I could quiff my own hair.

Ma was snoring, stretched out on the couch. Mike switched over to The Fresh Prince. I squeezed on the end of the two-seater, sandwichin’ Jessy between me and him. Close as hell we were. I could hear her soft breath and the warm spicy perfume made me dizzy with longin’.

‘Get lost why don’t ya?’ Mike’s nostrils flared and he crossed his arms high on his puffed-up chest.

The inked snake on my arm slithered across the back of the couch. I balled my other hand into a fist, leaned over Jessy and thumped Mike’s skull. Not hard, you know, just kinda playful so his glasses flipped into his lap. While he fumbled about, trying to get them back on, I smoothed my palm firmly along Jessy’s warm thigh. She held me there with her aquamarine eyes, blinkin’ slow and deliberate.

Mike switched off the TV and picked up his car keys. Ma stirred. I grabbed the beers from the fridge and dived in the back of his Chevrolet before he could think of leavin’ me behind. Sure enough he grunted as he caught my eye in the rear-view mirror. Jessy gave his arm a little squeeze.

When we landed at the beach, the party was already swingin’. A fire crackled on the damp sand and the smell of steak wafted towards us in a flag of smoke. A cheer rose up and a wave of Mike’s college buddies swept him out of sight.

I cracked open a beer and strolled down to the sea to watch the black tide lick the sand smoother than sheet metal. Jessy came up behind me and fingered my hair.

‘I thought you were…?’ I said, turnin’ to face her. I weren’t complainin’ or nothin’.

She shrugged. I offered her my can. She took a long slug then slowly ran her tongue over her lips. I must have been staring because her smile widened. I finished off the beer and chucked the can onto the shadowy sand.

‘Race you!’ She gave a little shriek and started strippin’ off her dress like a layer of skin. I fought my way out of my shorts and t-shirt and together we ran into the water, bouncin’ up and down, seein’ who was bravest. Once under, she wrapped her legs around me and I slipped myself in. She clung to my neck and gave measured little gasps in my ear. Her sequin skin shimmered in the moonlight. We held each other tight. None of that awkwardness like with other girls.

‘You’re the best,’ she whispered. I shut my eyes, re-ran the words in my head until they were carved there.

Mike’s outline emerged from the darkness. He waded in, fully clothed, shoutin’ his head off. He yanked Jessy back by her hair and shoved me in the chest with the heel of his hand. I lost my footin’ but managed to hang on to his jacket, pullin’ him under. His clothes ballooned like his face. He surfaced after me, coughin’ his guts up.

Jessy bobbed in and out of sight. I expected her to be half drowned by the time I reached her, but she wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed me.

‘You’re OK?’ I said, catchin’ my breath.

She grinned and dived underwater, a flash of silvery tail flicked out and swished after her. Then she was pullin’ me by the ankles, down, down, down, holdin’ me there in the airless underworld. I managed to kick free.

‘What the hell?’ I gasped, my lungs near burstin’.

She shrugged and gathered her hair over her shoulder. I glanced at the shore, scanned the beach for Mike. I couldn’t see him splashin’ around tryin’ to swim nor standin’ at the water’s edge.

I started swimmin’ back, my body heavy right up to my throat. As I drew nearer, I saw him slumped on the beach. My stomach clenched like a shark’s bite.

‘Shit, man!’ I ran to him, pawed at his bulk. As I rolled him over, his head flopped to one side. I nudged Jessy to give him the kiss of life. We pumped his chest, slapped his back, but it was no good. I buried my face in the crook of my arm.

We pulled our clothes back on. In the distance, the hum of the party had moved to a bar further along the beach where lanterns hung from trees and music thumped at the pace of a heartbeat.

Jessy fished Mike’s keys out of his trouser pocket. She tipped her head and placed the shiny bunch in my hand. I tried my hardest not to, but a grin leaked from my lips.

Mike’s real name was James. I’ve taken that too.

RUBY SPEECHEY is represented by Jo Bell of Bell Lomax Moreton Agency. Faber Academy and Sheffield Hallam university graduate (MA in Writing). Winner of Retreat West Short Story Competition 2014. Ruby’s fiction has been listed in many competitions and is published in various places.   Rubyspeechley.com   @rubyspeechley

Image via Pixabay 

Tio Pablo is waiting for me in the market square of Madre de Dios. His rubber lips part to gold-plated teeth. His serpent tongue flicks a line of spit across his stubbled cheek and when he pulls me close to kiss, he smells of coca leaves and liquor.

‘You’re to stay with me’, he says, before telling me to call him Tio, or uncle.

‘Any family of Miguel’s is family of mine.’

Tio flings my bag on his back with the strength of a man half his age. I feel in my pocket for mother’s rosary.

‘You can pay me later. For now, they need you at work.’

Tio leads me through the snaking streets, past the port busy with boats that take away the bullion. I try to ignore the young women in tight Lycra tops and mini-skirts, who hiss at me through red lips split by rotten teeth.

There’s no sun in the basement bar and in the dark, I can’t spot the Virgin Mary.

That night after I have brushed away the bottles and the bodies of miners who think they can buy me like beer, I walk back through the same streets now empty of the hissing women. I creep up the stairs, pull off my tight top, and skirt, climb into the bed and reach for my rosary.

I wake to a door opening, a beam of light across my bed, blinding, a familiar smell, and for a second, I think I’m back home. Until Tio staggers in.

‘I’ve come to take payment, Maria.’ His words wobble with drink and desire. I clutch my rosary tighter, shaking too.

‘Madre’, I whisper, unsure if I’m calling for my mother or the virgin. Pablo laughs. ‘She can’t help you now. That’s why you’re here, Maria.’

His hand is on my mouth, metal smell. The rosary slips from my fingers onto the floor. I hear it smash, see beads rolling towards the golden dawn.

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