HE WAS ALL over Sharns from the moment he locked eyes with her across the (seedy) bar. Average height, handsome part-Polynesian, all flowing movement, those intense eyes that say fight and screw, either will do. And Sharns feeling her heat rising. Well, why not?
The courting game was their own here at Jojo’s. A guy gave a woman the eye, and unless he was held in low regard by his male peers she was expected to give it back if she wasn’t spoken for. No talk of equality here. You could be out in the back of a guy’s car within minutes of meeting, or doing it in the toilets, men’s or ladies it didn’t matter, because that was the way you connected, since you lacked words and concepts to exchange and investigate each other to any depth. No relationship could afford the luxury of complexity, and if you had a mind, if you owned sensibilities, what then were you doing in a joint like this?
The sex was always urgent. Everything was, even borrowing twenty bucks from someone: you had to have it that instant. And spend it in a stretched-out instant of several hours on drink. Everyone was urgent over a personal matter in need of resolution: booze, drugs and love, or rent arrears, debts and soured friendships. Whatever. Same old same old.
Over he came, glancing back at his mates throwing remarks at him, impossible to tell what with the jukebox going and the tortured, mostly brown, souls right by the coloured light machine, transporting them to other places their hearts thought they were, but minds knew otherwise, as they sang along with a song, thick with sentiment, oozing emotion on a catchy melody. But okay here in Jojo’s, most anything was.
His name was Leti. A Samoan, born in New Zealand but prouder to be Islander, even though he spoke English like a white Kiwi. You with anyone?
Nope, can’t say I am. Not t’night. You?
Not for quite a few nights. What’d you say your name was?
Is.
Hi, Is.
Very funny. It’s Sharneeta.
Is Sharneeta, my true Samoan cuzzies would shay.
Which got Sharns smiling. This dude had a sense of humour.
I’ll buy you a drink. ’Nother KBG?
Thanks. Watching his (beautiful) firm butt in tight jeans as he sauntered up to the bar, not buying into the challenging stares his being a stranger invited, polite in moving through the crowd. Sharneeta at that firm butt remembering she hadn’t had a man for, what, a couple of months. Feeling it register down there, the stickiness, the tingle, the ache (for love).
Leti invited her over to join his mates, said they were down from Auckland, on the cruise, checking different towns out, heard about Jojo’s and what they say is true. It’s a cool place, Leti’s smile reaching right into Sharns’s heart. So is Two Lakes cool.
They were of Samoan extraction, three of them, which might have brought them trouble if the mood of the predominant Maoris went that way. Or it could have turned out they were like brothers, Polynesians separated by centuries of relocation not (wild, happy) genes. The mood. In this world mood dictated so much.
Must’ve been Leti’s smiling charm and unthreatening manner got them invited to a party, where else but Pine Block. Sharns assuring Leti and his two mates it wasn’t a set-up, she knew the dudes who lived there, they just liked a good time. But don’t play on being the coconuts from the Big Smoke, boys, or they’ll have you.
All night Sharns couldn’t recall such a sustained period of being free of her gloom. She danced the night away with Leti, and he got more handsome, more desirable by the minute.
When the sun came up on the still-raging party, Leti was showing signs of tiredness and Sharns asked if he needed a bed to grab a few hours’ sleep, as he’d said he was from out of town. He looked around for his buddies and they’d split, found them asleep in their car; so he and Sharns walked round two corners to her place.
Back at the flat Sharns found Alistair and Kayla’s bedroom door still shut and silence behind it. She was hot to trot but found Leti wasn’t. He insisted on sleeping on the sofa and of course she had to say sure. Throwing a blanket over him, she pecked his cheek good morning, and went off to grab some sleep herself, a little bit frustrated, a bigger bit pissed off, feeling rejected, she stood in front of her mirror every which way, asking if it was something undesirable about her. But she was dying to sleep, too.
She woke up with a dream she was being raped. Dream became reality. The handsome face of minutes ago was someone else’s. Felt worse when she’d wanted to have sex, maybe even make love as they’d got on so well this long night. But not this kind of sex.
Leti honey, have a sleep and we can do it at our leisure. Please? Don’t let it happen like this.
But Leti was too far gone, and clearly he found a willing sex partner not to his liking; he wanted control. To be boss man. In charge. Taking his pleasure.
So she lay back and let him do it, which didn’t take long but still it didn’t satisfy him. She guessed he never could find satisfaction, not if he could do this to her.
The arsehole slapped her. The next was a punch. And he spoke a kind of pidgin-English, Samoan style in abusing her. Her blood went all over her nice clean pillowcases, sheets and bedspread. Effin’ lowlife. Why did he have to do it like this?
She asked why he’d hit her.
Because you treat me with disrespect, he said. Not a woman’s place to ask for sex — ish a man’s.
He must be drunk and/or high on some drug from the party. Such a handsome man, too. Jabbed a finger in her face and warned she better say nothing to anyone about this or he and his mates would be back.
Got off, calmly put on his trousers — or until her looking at him with obvious hurt had him whack her again. Don’t look at me like that, bitch! Then he was gone. (And he might’ve left something behind.)
She sat there waiting in the living room, away from the scene of violation. Till Alistair got up, for him two, three hours early and saw her, sitting there, huddled into herself, legs drawn up, shivering, not daring to think longer than a few seconds lest she crack.
Al went down on his knees and said, What’s happened, Sharns? His voice so genuine in its concern, face so genuine. But still a man, so she pushed him away, swore at him, asked him what would he care. That sort of stuff. When she didn’t mean it and how was her poor judgement of men any of Alistair’s fault?
Naturally he wasn’t staying down there, on his knees, offering help and friendship if she was going to be like this.
Alistair stood and shrugged those skinny shoulders. He looked rather appealing, vulnerable, an innocent and rejected unjustly. I’ll go wake Kayla up. Okay?
(Kayla? Kayla?) What would Kayla know about living in my head?
Well, she’s a woman. She likes you. But the darkness was coming in for Sharns. This time living, like a flying beast homing in on her, blotting her out in its wide-winged shadow, talons drawn, tearing beak on its way. All she could do to stop herself from screaming. Instinct telling her another life had begun inside her.