The Man He Needs Read online

  I remain where I am. Sigh. “Yep. Same nasty little place. Still, it’s better than the alley I thought I’d be sleeping in.” I laugh, trying to lighten the mood.

  He doesn’t join in. Doesn’t even smile. Instead, he frowns, stares down at his hands. “How come you keep losing jobs?”

  That was an easy one to answer. “Ted. I reckon it’s him. Got to be, hasn’t it? Solicitor and all that, he knows how to keep tabs on someone. I think each time I get a job he finds out and makes sure to tell them I’m a thief. I’m not, didn’t take fuck all or fiddle anything, but they’ve only got to check the employer I had just before I left Ted to have his claims confirmed. Maybe they take me on without looking into my past work placements until I’ve been there a while. They find out why I was sacked before and get rid of me too. Whatever way you look at it, it’s a nightmare.”

  “Sounds like it. And then this.”

  He looks ashamed, as though he feels guilty. I don’t like the expression on his face, mouth downturned, eyes sad, cheeks flushed. I want to take it away. To get up and smooth the frown lines with my thumbs, to kiss him until he can’t think of anything but me.

  “I’m so fucking sorry,” he says. “I shouldn’t have done this. Done that.” He gestures to my wrists. “Kept you here. Fucked you the way I have.”

  “But I wanted you to fuck me. Still want you to.”

  He doesn’t acknowledge what I’ve said, just frowns some more. Looks like he’s about to cry.

  “It wasn’t supposed to be like that. I—” He stands. Walks to the mantel and ferrets about in a black ceramic pot, bringing out a pair of fingernail clippers. “I’ll take that off. The cable tie. Just got to hope these cut through it. If not, I’ll get the scissors in the kitchen.” He pauses to give me a sideways glance, eyes full of worry, guilt and regret. “You’ll stay, won’t you, if I cut you free?”

  I nod, not knowing how I can make him believe me. I’m tired, too damn weary to do anything as energetic as fighting my way out of here, and besides, he was good company that first night, a right laugh, someone I can see myself getting along with really well. If only he’d give us a chance. Give me a chance. All right, we have this little blip standing between us, but it isn’t anything we can’t overcome, is it?

  I can keep secrets.

  Yeah, I’m a fuck-up. Whatever.

  He hunkers down, begins clipping the tie, which proves stubborn until he puts some effort into it. The plastic breaks, the release making my hands spring apart, and despite knowing the skin’s sore as hell, I can’t help but rub my wrists. Wincing, I flex my fingers, rotate my hands, then place them in the diamond space between my legs. I want to say so much but choose to keep my mouth shut. I want to raise my arms and have him fill them.

  He moves to the sofa, watching me over his shoulder as though waiting for me to bolt. It must be difficult for him, to have cut the tie. For all he knows, I could be biding my time, my mind full of getting to the police station and telling them some crazy bastard kept me locked in his cellar for weeks. He sits at one end, bringing his legs up and under him. He looks nice in those dark blue jeans and that red T-shirt. His feet without socks.

  “Come and sit up here with me?” He pats the settee, watching me the whole time.

  I never thought he’d ask, and I get up, shuffle my way over to the seat and sit at the opposite end. The comfort is almost too much, this little bit of freedom too, and I bite my bottom lip to stop it trembling.

  You’re like a fucking girl, you know that?

  I rest my head back, close my eyes, and wonder what Alfie’s thinking. Is he on pins and needles, poised, his relaxed posture belying the fact he’s ready to spring up and catch me if I decide to make a break for it? It doesn’t matter if he is—I can’t be arsed to think about running off. All I want to do is sleep, make the tale I told him go away. Reliving it, thinking about it, always takes it out of me.

  The heat from the fire soothes me, his breathing a soft accompaniment to the crackling, popping logs. It isn’t long before I give in and let sleep start to claim me. If he turns nasty while I sleep, well, I’ve been in bad scrapes before and come out the other side.

  But something tells me it won’t be that way. Not now.

  Not when he knows a little bit about me.

  * * * *

  I know I’m asleep, but this is one of those dreams where, even though I’m aware nothing is real, it feels real just the same. I’m in this tunnel, a canal with choppy water to my right, and at the end stands some bloke, light surrounding him. He’s a bastard, I can feel it, the bastardness emanating off him in waves, reaching me like a scent on the breeze, a breath on my neck.

  I think of Ted’s breath that final night, how it smelt, and wonder why such a thing went through my mind when I’m facing a nasty piece of work here. All right, it’s a dream tunnel, but this setting, his figure looming in the distance is something I have to deal with. I read a lot. Know that dreams are your subconscious trying to work things out, to show you what the problem is and how to deal with it.

  So what does he represent? Every bad thing that’s ever happened, I reckon. He’s an amalgamation of all the people who turned on me, made me feel worthless. His hulking size… Stands to reason he’d be big. He’s got quite a few wankers to represent.

  I walk forward, bold as brass, hands in pockets as though his presence doesn’t bother me one bit. It does, of course it does, but he doesn’t need to know that. Monsters in nightmares—and in life, when you think about it—feed off of fear, use it against you.

  The tunnel seems never-ending, but I reach him eventually, stand before him and look up at his face much like I have to with Alfie. The light behind him prevents me seeing his features properly, but I just make out the blackened teeth in his mouth—the same shaped teeth as on that hacksaw—and the whites of his eyes.

  “What do you want?” I ask. A dumb question, really, but what else is there to say? I’ve got to sort this shit out, create a clean slate. I can’t keep thinking of what went on before. The future’s where it’s at, right?

  “I want you. To break you. See how you deal with that. You’ve been an embarrassment. Hurt us. We just want to hurt you back.”

  His voice, it’s like a file rasping on a hunk of wood, all rough edges and splinters. I wonder why all those people want to see me fail? If I’d treated them like shit I could understand it, but all I’d done was admit to being bent. Hardly something to be broken for. Not in my book, anyway.

  “Nice,” I say, shrugging to show him I don’t give a toss. I have to, don’t I? The minute he smells fear he’ll come down on me like a sack of shit.

  “Come with me.”

  He turns and I follow him into the light. Nothing but brightness surrounds us until he lifts his arm and flicks his wrist. The light dissipates, and a torture chamber comes into view. Dark and dingy, the room has mould growing up the walls and the stench of dampness is overwhelming. I breathe through my mouth, holding back the urge to gag, throw my guts up on the manky floor.

  “Go and sit over there.” He points to a wooden chair beside a table.

  Chains are draped over it, heavy-looking sods that could keep a body captive, no trouble. I do as he asks, curious as to what he has in store for me, hoping that whatever he dishes out will help me make sense of everything. If this wasn’t a dream I’d make a run for it, because this bloke isn’t anything like Alfie. He doesn’t make me want to stay with him.

  I sit and the man secures me to the chair, chains wrapped around me so it’s like I have a breastplate on. Strangely, it feels safe, me being hugged by the metal. Weird, that. Sometimes even nasty things can make you feel okay, especially when you’ve endured them before, when you know what’s coming. Familiarity, that’s what it is. The fear of the unknown is much worse—things coming at you out of the blue.

  But me in this chair? Ted’s done something similar, except he used rope. Said it was a sex game, that we were playing, but when he shoved his h
ard cock into my mouth and rammed in and out regardless of me trying to turn my head away, I knew it wasn’t any kind of game I wanted to play. Yet play I did. Better to have attention like that than none at all, right?

  Right?

  I know the answer to that now, and it isn’t yes. The months since I left Ted taught me that. The one-night stands, brief as they’d been, had never thrown up a monster. No man had his mental switch flicked and treated me like shit. People like Ted weren’t the majority—it just felt like it sometimes. I mean Mum, my mates, Ted, all of them had turned out to be mean cunts in the end. I’d just been unlucky to encounter them all at once, that was all.

  And this guy here, this dream guy, he’s going to be a cunt as well. I know it just as I know I’m going to wake up to a better way of thinking, a new way of coping.

  “Get on with it,” I say, staring up at him.

  I can see him properly now, face lit by the bare light bulb overhead, hanging from a ceiling the same as the one in Alfie’s cellar. Funny how dreams pull things in from real life, eh? And he’s ugly as sin. His face is covered with scars, ravaged by fire I’d say, and his irises are black, no pupils in sight. He smiles showing me those black teeth, stares down at me, a sinister monolith who’s been sent by my mind to help me. I want to laugh, really laugh, because ordinarily this bloke would frighten the crap out of me.

  He steps back, and a baseball bat appears in his hand. The fact that he’s going to hit me with it goes without saying.

  Yep, it’s going to hurt.

  The first strike comes swiftly, barging into my shins, and the second, well, it’s inevitable it would mirror real life. The end of the bat connects with my nose, and this time the bone does shift upwards, does go into my brain. I can feel the bleed, the hot seepage of blood swarming into my head, and for the time it takes to register that I’m going to die, he attacks me some more. Rage, he’s got so much of it, and as I float out of my body and look down on the scene, I find myself feeling sorry for him. Look at the state of him, all angry, expending energy he’d be better off directing elsewhere. On things like smiling, being happy.

  Laughing.

  A bit like me, really. Time to let go. Time to laugh, be happy.

  I return to my body, get the strong urge to bust out of these chains and set myself free. He’s still hitting me, each strike hurting more than the last, my skin splitting with ease. Strength swarms through me, and I push against the binds, the need to get the fuck out of this mess eating me alive. The chains break and I stand, shove past the bastard without shielding my face.

  No hiding behind a barrier anymore.

  I run into the light, then out of it and into the tunnel, my eyes suffering, going from dingy to bright to dark all in the space of seconds. Eyesight fuzzy, I can only hope I don’t veer off the path and fall into the canal, but honestly, it wouldn’t surprise me if I did. Crap always happens to me lately, so what’s getting wet in water full of shit, piss and God knows what else?

  Reaching the end of the tunnel, I stand where I was when I first sensed I was dreaming. I turn to see if the monster has followed me. A figure stands in the light at the other end, but it isn’t the same shape as him. Yep, it’s big all right, wide and tall, strands of his hair blowing in a gentle breeze, but it isn’t the same bloke.

  This man walks towards me, and as he draws closer I see he’s wearing blue jeans and a red T-shirt. My stomach muscles tighten, and a smile breaks out on my face. If only Alfie was really here, in this dream with me. The real Alfie, I mean. He’d know then that I’m pleased to see him, that now he’s standing in front of me he can see how happy he makes me. But he isn’t here, and it’s up to me to let him know I’m not going anywhere.

  And make sure he really believes it.

  I wake, disoriented for a few seconds, expecting to be back in the cellar. I’m not. I’m still on the end of the sofa, and I lift my head to glance down the other end. Alfie is there, concern written all over his face, whittling his fingers as though he’s having trouble keeping his hands to himself.

  “You had a dream,” he says. “Saw your eyelids twitching.”

  “Yeah. Sorry about falling asleep. Must have been the heat.” I sit up a bit, rub my eyes then stretch my arms up. “I haven’t slept that well in ages.”

  “What did you dream about?”

  I tell him, go into great detail about my feelings, my emotions. I may as well let him have the whole of it. What he chooses to do with the information is up to him. I can only hope it makes a difference, makes him see.

  “Jesus,” he says. “I’m sorry, really sorry. What the hell have I done?”

  “You did what you thought was right at the time. Mad as it sounds, I understand what you’re doing. I might not know why, but I understand. We all do crazy shit sometimes. Okay, your shit is a bit crazier than the average person, but I don’t reckon you’re a bad bloke. You’re desperate, that’s all. Mixed up, maybe.”

  I push the thought away that I might have gone too far—again. I don’t get the feeling he’s going to turn mean. Yeah, I’ve been confused, right at the beginning when he first put me down in that cellar, raged at his insanity, at how I wanted to beat the crap out of him for doing this to me, but I’ve had plenty of time to think since then, haven’t I.

  And now I’ve laid myself bare, told him my fears, my needs, my every-bloody-thing. I can only hope he wants to return the favour.

  “So, you want to tell me your story?” I ask, praying he does.

  “I don’t know. It’s nothing like yours. Mine’s…stupid.” He runs a hand through his hair.

  I wish his hand was mine.

  “Doesn’t matter. It’s bad to you, means something to you. What’s a simple thing to one person is a complicated ball of fucking hell to another.” I shrug. “I’m here to listen. Not going anywhere.”

  He stares at me. “I believe you. I think. But I’m scared.”

  “What of?”

  “Believing. It’s dangerous.”

  “It can be. I get that. Shit, do I get that. But I’ve done it. I’m here, still hoping you’ll want me to stay. Knowing it’s mad to think it but not caring anyway. I’m sick of doing what people say is right. I need to do what I want, what feels right inside, know what I mean?”

  He nods. Slowly.

  The kind of nod that shows he agrees one hundred per cent.

  Chapter Four

  You’re on your own now, Alfie. The end

  “Alfie.” A pause. “Alfie?”

  What does he want now?

  “Where are you, you little cunt?”

  I got up from my bed, the same one I’d had for the past twelve years. The mattress sagged in the middle, box springs knackered, and smelt of the piss I’d released in my sleep ever since Mum and Dad left. They’d never been the normal parental type. You know, the kind who actually give a shit about their kids. Me and my brother John—the one who called me a cunt—had been accidents, so Dad said. The pair of them had been high at the time of our conceptions, forgetting to use a condom, something Dad had great pleasure in telling me he didn’t like. Made him lose sensation, he’d said. Back then, I didn’t know what the fuck he was on about, being eight and whatnot.

  You know, I don’t think I’ll ever get over how they were, what they did. What people in their right minds treated their kids like that? Preferred the bottle, dope and whatever the fuck else they could get their hands on? And I’m their son in more ways than one, aren’t I? I mean, look at me, at what I’ve done.

  I’m as fucked as they were.

  I wonder sometimes where they are, where they went. Whether they think of the two little bastards they made between them, and what became of us. It hurts, doing that, because I know full well they don’t think of us at all. We were nothing but burdens, stopping them living the life they really wanted.

  By rights, I shouldn’t even be here.

  I woke up one day, expecting Dad’s usual harsh cuff to the back of the head as I sat at
the dirty kitchen table—a table covered in junk, hardly any space to put my cereal bowl—but that cuff never came. Neither did his hard voice or Mum’s grating whine. All I heard was John, smacking the crap out of the living room wall—nothing unusual there—then coming into the kitchen, his knuckles bleeding.

  “What are you fucking staring at?” he’d said.

  I’d looked away, ate my cereal—stale cereal Mum had got on the cheap to go along with the soured milk. Didn’t matter much to me. It had always been the same. Wasn’t until only John looked after me that I tasted fresh milk and knew what I’d been missing.

  Still, best get back to what I was originally saying, eh?

  “Alfie, if you don’t get your arse in here…”

  I walked from my room, wanting to drag my feet as I went down the stairs but not daring to. It wasn’t wise to ignore John. His temper matched Dad’s. Nasty bastard sometimes was my brother.

  I stood in the living room doorway, staring at John, who was having trouble closing a suitcase. A distant memory came then, of Mum fitting all our clothes inside it and us buggering off to the seaside for the weekend—the only holiday we’d ever had. They spent the two days in pubs, leaving me and John to get on with it, but that was okay. We’d gone to the beach, I’d seen the sea, paddled in it, and ate more Mr Whippy ice cream than a kid should eat in one day.

  But John packing a suitcase—I’d never seen that before. Were we going somewhere? Were the Social Services coming for me like he’d said they would if I didn’t do what he told me? No, they were his clothes spilling out, not mine. Nerves squirmed in my belly, and I wanted to be sick. Even though John was an arsehole, I knew him. Better the devil you know and all that.