2
Sunday Morning.
The sun was hot against my eyelids. Bringing my hand to my neck I felt only one dog collar. Hers? I ran my fingers over its worn leather and stiff stitching, touched the tiny rips at the edges, its cold circular tag. Then I traced my fingers over its engraved letters: DH.
So where was Ashlee’s collar?
And what time was it, anyway?
I patted down my chest, felt over the mattress and pillow. Nothing. But I’d caught her. We’d gone all the way, just like she’d promised. So why didn’t I have her collar? Or why didn’t she have mine? I tried to force my brain to think, remember. Her sweet rosey perfume was still stuck inside my nostrils. I tasted mud on my teeth, in my gums; I tasted Ashlee’s fairy dust. Forcing my eyes open properly, I made my gaze move across the bed, looking for Ashlee’s thin, shiny pink collar. It wasn’t on the floor either, hadn’t fallen off me in the night. I was curved like a banana on top of the sheets, still in my dad’s old combat shirt, still muddy. There was dirt and leaves everywhere, and I was wet . . . soaked through. Sweat? No, rain. There’d been a storm last night. I must’ve been pretty fucked up not to remember that straight up. Even my boots were still on.
But there was no collar . . . nowhere. Maybe I’d dropped it in the woods? Ashlee would kill me if I’d lost it. They all would. We’d have to get her another before we could play the Game again.
I sat up, immediately wishing I hadn’t. My collar felt too tight around my neck and I fumbled to get it off, my hands still drunk and awkward. Touching my neck made me feel even sicker. I chucked my dog collar on to the pillow, then pulled my shirt off too. Pressing my hand to where my tatt started on the base of my spine, I tried to breathe deeper. Everything about me stank, but there was no sick, or piss, on the carpet, not that I could see. I remember Ed boasting once about being so drunk after the Game that he’d pissed in the corner of his room. He’d said something about being as drunk as Mack’s dad, then he’d had to duck quick from Mack’s fist.
I knew I should text them, find out who won.
I should text Ashlee.
I felt down my damp, clinging combat trousers, but there was no phone there. Had I lost that too? My head hurt too much for thinking, maybe I’d drunk away my brain cells. We’d been going at it pretty hard in the car park first, and then, of course, in the woods. After Ashlee had given me that fairy dust, the woods had changed into something mixed up.
‘Fairyland,’ Ashlee had said, giggling. ‘Just slip down into it.’
But what else had I slipped down into? Ashlee?
I stared at my boots like they could give me memories. Mud was all over them, a leaf caught in a shoelace. They looked about as battered as my brain. I could remember my face against something damp, the smell of earth . . . there were still bits of leaf and bark in my hair. I pushed the boots off me rough, kicked them under the bed. I grabbed the covers and pulled them over my face to stop the sunlight, burying myself. I wanted sleep. I wanted Ashlee to touch me and do what she must’ve done the night before all over again, but this time so I could remember it. I wanted a cuppa.
I lay there, but no cup of tea or Ashlee magically appeared, not even sleep. Too much head pain. I kept my eyes closed anyway. Last night hadn’t been like the other nights, and it wasn’t just because of the sex Ashlee had promised. For a start, there’d been that fairy dust. Ashlee had spun some story about fairies in the woods, how we’d see them once the dust kicked in.
‘Just go with it,’ she’d said, rubbing that stuff into our gums.
She was good at getting drugs, but she’d never got this shit before. Charlie had laughed like a hyena. I’d seen his face stretch into a snout.
‘You get special treatment,’ she’d whispered to me, dusting my gums so much I’d gagged.
And later, we’d been on the forest floor. We’d been going all the way. I tried to remember the feel of it . . . the feel of her. The softness of her skin around me. Her warmth.
Nothing!
What was the point of fucking if you couldn’t remember it? What was the point of any of it if you got head pain like this? Had someone punched me real hard at the end of the Game? Was that why it wasn’t coming back? Was that why I didn’t have her collar, neither? I squinted ’til I finally saw my phone on the table beside the bed. Punched out a message to her.
What you doing sexy?
Did it sound too keen? Like I didn’t care about her at all, just wanted the sex? Did I sound like an arse?
I sent it anyway. Then I put my head back on the pillow and waited for her reply. She’d send me something cute, maybe even a photo. She’d been doing that a lot lately: letting me see her in her bed, in her pyjamas, showing me the undies she had on. But right now with the way my head was, even if she just told me she’d had a good time last night, even that would do. Even if she just told me who’d won the most collars, who’d won the Game.
I dreamt she was touching me. I felt her bitten-down fingernails across my stomach. She tasted of sugar, and her tongue darted around my teeth like a fish. Then she was putting me inside her mouth and she was making me warm. I was having her . . . almost. Then I was almost letting go. I dreamt ’til the sunlight heated me up again and a text message beeped beside my ear. I smiled. I was hard from the dream, ripe, ready for her cute words. Perhaps I’d call her and she’d talk low and dirty in my ear. Perhaps she’d remind me what we did last night.
But it was from Mack.
I read it anyway. Leaning on to my elbows, I stared at the words for ages. The longer I read them, the more I started to wake up.
You heard what’s happened? You OK? Come round mate.
What was he on about?
Did I do something stupid? Was I that drunk and high? I checked through my other messages, nothing from Ashlee since last night. No reply to the message I just sent her either. Was she in a mood? It wasn’t like her to ignore me for long.
I frowned. Because there was a word in my brain, coming at me out of nowhere.
Useless.
Why?
Had she called me that last night? Is that how I’d been when we’d been doing it? Too fucked on the drugs to get it up? Too fucked to care?
In the end I typed to Mack: What you mean? I’m OK. Headache.
Mack called. His voice was husky and lacking sleep, had an edge. ‘You don’t know anything? No one’s been round to you or . . . nothing like that? The police?’
‘Know what? What d’you mean?’
I heard him breathe in. ‘You don’t know about Ashlee?’
I was silent. So fucking confused!
‘Come round, mate,’ he said. ‘Just come round. We need to work something out.’