Canary

Garry Crystal

March 2006

Another small box. Nobody comes up here to the top floor toilet. But I still check to make sure that noone is around before I enter. Sitting down on the toilet seat I light a cigarette and roll up my sleeve. Lunchtime. Time to feel something real.

"Why do you continue to smoke then?"

"Oh it’s a habit isn’t it, I’ve done it for so long now. But I’ve been cutting down."

Talk about fooling yourself. I persist with Karen maybe to get her to stop from asking me more questions about the blood on my shirt.

"Ok it’s a habit I understand that, but you’ve just had a stroke and you know that smoking is not going to help your recovery, but you continue. You used to be a nurse for Christ sake."

"You’ve got to have some pleasures in life or else what’s the point."

"The point is this pleasure will kill you. If you knew a heroin addict was killing himself by shooting up every day wouldn’t you try and stop him, there’s no difference. You’d rather have a hit of nicotine than prolong your life. You’ve told me that a heart attack is one of the most painful things that can happen to a person and yet you’re almost saying, bring it on, bring on the pain. You’re valuing nicotine over everything else in your life."

"I’m very philosophical about the whole thing," she says, glancing at the blood stain on my shirt, "we all have different ways of coping with reality."

"Avoiding it, is not coping with it."

"I’m not avoiding it, I’m facing it the only way I know how."

"Push the knife in harder."

"You’re not supposed to talk, you said it ruins it if you talk."

"I’m just giving you some guidelines, to make it better."

"I’ve done it enough times now to know what you want." I say, getting up off the bed and lighting a cigarette.

"What are you doing? Are you having a cigarette?"

I kneel over her bare chest, adjust the blindfold, tighten the straps binding her hands to the headboard and then slap her hard across the cheek.

"Shut the fuck up you little slut, I’m taking a break, I’ll be with you in a minute."

It’s not even a surprise to me anymore that the act of slapping a woman, my girlfriend, across the face, gives me absolutely no pleasure or feelings of guilt. All I could feel, somewhere, was a gnawing sense of deja vu. I had met her at work eighteen months ago, not even my usual type. She was older than the others yet still younger than me. A librarian, stereotypical. As she was swiping your books you wouldn’t have noticed what was hidden unless you looked closely enough, sensed something that maybe wasn’t even there before she met you. Until that unexplainable chemistry came together and led, to this. I didn’t think we would last this long but it just never seemed to end, and now here we are, at two in the afternoon acting out this little scenario, her favourite.

Rape.

"Hurry up, do the phone thing."

I pretend to call up my friends on my mobile.

"Yeah, she’s totally up for it pretending that she’s not though, dirty little slut but fucking fantastic body, I’ve got her tied up now. Been here for hours. Yeah come round and bring some of the guys. Did you hear that?"

I grab her cheek and bring the knife against her neck, spreading her legs roughly with my other hand, checking that she’s wet, although I know from previous experience that she will be.

"My mates will be round soon," I thrust into her and suck on her nipples, "they’ll be here and they’re all going to fuck you and you’re going to enjoy it aren’t you? That’s what you want isn’t it? I knew it the moment I saw you on the street. That’s why I chose you. That’s why I followed you here."

"No, no please don’t."

"Shut the fuck up." I slap her again and force my tongue past her closed lips, against her teeth, pushing myself deeper inside her, "Open your mouth you dirty little bitch."

"No, no, please don’t, stop, please."

I see the flush creeping up her neck, over her cheeks, her lips swelling, covered in my saliva. I pound harder into her, staring at the black strip of cotton covering her eyes. She was about to come.

"Say my name, say my name."

"Next time we do it I want you to wear my black knickers."

She’s sitting up on the bed smoking a cigarette, pushing back her short, dirty blonde hair.

"And I want to be facing the mirror so I can see us fucking."

"No." I say, looking in the mirror we will use, talking to her reflection.

"Why not?"

"I don’t mind doing it in front of the mirror but I’m not prancing about with your underwear on."

"Yes you will," she laughed, "I’m not asking you to prance about, just to wear them while we’re doing it."

I rake around for my clothes but for some reason they’re not here. I remember, they’re in the shower room, from before.

I get up to leave, walk towards the door and turn to speak to her. She looks at me, smiling contentedly, as if this room and what we just did are all that she needs in her world.

"I can tell you right now, I won’t wear them."

I stand silently on the other side of the door, waiting on her response, keeping the game going, the door still not completely shut.

"Yes you will."

Shit. I had pressed too hard. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I’m trying to pull the knife off of my skin but it’s stuck. A few seconds ago I was in the moment. It was real, everything in my mind was clear, focused and yet focused on nothing. It had all gone. The office, the boss, the painting, my girlfriend, gone, all I could feel was the pain and it was real. Relief and exhilaration in a single moment and that feeling would last until I took the hot knife off of my skin, but I had pushed too fucking hard. It’s stuck. I’m going to have to rip it off in one quick move. I pull it up and see the skin peel off with it, stuck to the knife like melting cheese. It hurts for a few seconds but not too painful. I look at the layer of red skin underneath, crumbled, a tiny burn victim. A reminder more permanent than any photograph and I am glad to have it. I’m back.

She was combing her hair before, I’m sure of it. This is confusing, how can she not be combing her hair? I’ve stood here and stared time and time again and yet now, she’s only looking in the mirror, not combing her hair. I stand back, as if the position I’m standing in and the angle that I look at the painting from will show me something different. Why had I seen her combing her hair?

"I really trust you, you know? To let you tie me up, blindfold me like that. Do you understand?"

I pull the door shut and look for my clothes.

I sit down next to Karen and light a cigarette.

"There’s blood on your shirt."

Garry Crystal claims his influences are Bulowski, Kundera, Thompson.

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