back to the street where he got lucky whistling up a passing cab.
He walked the couple of blocks to where the Alfa was parked, paid the ransom
money to get her under the boom gate and back on the street and peeled the top
down for the ride out of the city. At least his old girl was faithful. He
drove to the beach, parked her under a street light and walked a couple of blocks
back to Son of a Beach Bar. The plan was to get smashed, walk home and come
back for the car in the morning after a surf. The plan was to forget Bree
bitch Robinson existed, hook up to some equal opportunity with a random who
wouldn’t mind positive discrimination in Ant’s favour. As plans go it was
foolproof, battle tested, honed and perfected over years, so the outcome was predictable.
What was shocking, bone jarringly awful, was how it made him feel.
Empty.
11: Suicide Zone
Bree eyed the penalty
box. It was only a bench seat positioned at the side of the track, but it was
where roller girls who’d pulled something illegal got sent for a minute.
Perhaps if she looked at it hard enough she could avoid going there during the
bout, because her mood could best be described as savage. She felt like
pushing, punching, elbowing, head-butting. She felt like ignoring safe contact
zones and doing some damage.
Last night with Ant had
been out of bounds, off the track, and she only had herself to blame. She’d
acted like fresh meat who didn’t know her arse from her elbow in a jam. She
knew better. She’d known players like Ant all her adult life. They were heart
crushers. They were sanity wreckers. They were a plague of bad skin and
hideous weight swings. They were the stain of regret that never quite washed
off. They were a good reason to skate alone, because they’d whip you into a brick
wall soon as a better option showed up, or you challenged their notion of the
world.
She did not need a man
like Ant in her life. A colleague. A competitor. A stickyfoot. He made Tom,
with his demands and his assumptions, look like a safe option, a reasonable
person.
But she’d wanted him.
She’d wanted his big sticky paws all over her. And now she wanted some
violence with a capital Vee.
She arrived at the track
way too early, but she’d been so restless there’d been no point sitting around
at home. She sat in the stands and watched an intake of newbies in a fresh
meat tryout. They were running an obstacle course relay around thick ropes, chairs,
scuffed witches hats and tatty boxes. Each participant had to use a variety of
skills from sidestepping and tip toeing to jumping and manoeuvring at speed. If
she’d have been in the mood there were plenty of laughs as skaters who thought
they knew a thing or two found their expectations and skills levels challenged
and discovered how much harder being a roller girl was than it looked.
The league needed all of
these girls for their fees and all of their friends and family to fill the
stadium. And it needed sponsors for teams and for bouts. Knowing that only
made Bree feel guilty on top of cranky. She’d promised to help find a new
sponsor for the Tricks, but had done nothing about it. Partly because she didn’t
know how long she could keep up the double life of weekday financial market
analyst and weekend derby doll without coming unstuck, but mostly because she
had no idea where to start to find the money they needed to keep competing.
The newbies moved on to
learning how to take the knee and fall small, keeping their hands in close to
their bodies so not to get run over and getting to their feet quickly without
using their hands to avoid causing a bigger stack. Bree knew these skills like
she knew how to blink and swallow, but not last night. She’d fallen big last
night in an ugly way, emotions all over the place, by losing herself completely
in Ant’s honesty and unexpected chivalry, and then
He walked the couple of blocks to where the Alfa was parked, paid the ransom
money to get her under the boom gate and back on the street and peeled the top
down for the ride out of the city. At least his old girl was faithful. He
drove to the beach, parked her under a street light and walked a couple of blocks
back to Son of a Beach Bar. The plan was to get smashed, walk home and come
back for the car in the morning after a surf. The plan was to forget Bree
bitch Robinson existed, hook up to some equal opportunity with a random who
wouldn’t mind positive discrimination in Ant’s favour. As plans go it was
foolproof, battle tested, honed and perfected over years, so the outcome was predictable.
What was shocking, bone jarringly awful, was how it made him feel.
Empty.
11: Suicide Zone
Bree eyed the penalty
box. It was only a bench seat positioned at the side of the track, but it was
where roller girls who’d pulled something illegal got sent for a minute.
Perhaps if she looked at it hard enough she could avoid going there during the
bout, because her mood could best be described as savage. She felt like
pushing, punching, elbowing, head-butting. She felt like ignoring safe contact
zones and doing some damage.
Last night with Ant had
been out of bounds, off the track, and she only had herself to blame. She’d
acted like fresh meat who didn’t know her arse from her elbow in a jam. She
knew better. She’d known players like Ant all her adult life. They were heart
crushers. They were sanity wreckers. They were a plague of bad skin and
hideous weight swings. They were the stain of regret that never quite washed
off. They were a good reason to skate alone, because they’d whip you into a brick
wall soon as a better option showed up, or you challenged their notion of the
world.
She did not need a man
like Ant in her life. A colleague. A competitor. A stickyfoot. He made Tom,
with his demands and his assumptions, look like a safe option, a reasonable
person.
But she’d wanted him.
She’d wanted his big sticky paws all over her. And now she wanted some
violence with a capital Vee.
She arrived at the track
way too early, but she’d been so restless there’d been no point sitting around
at home. She sat in the stands and watched an intake of newbies in a fresh
meat tryout. They were running an obstacle course relay around thick ropes, chairs,
scuffed witches hats and tatty boxes. Each participant had to use a variety of
skills from sidestepping and tip toeing to jumping and manoeuvring at speed. If
she’d have been in the mood there were plenty of laughs as skaters who thought
they knew a thing or two found their expectations and skills levels challenged
and discovered how much harder being a roller girl was than it looked.
The league needed all of
these girls for their fees and all of their friends and family to fill the
stadium. And it needed sponsors for teams and for bouts. Knowing that only
made Bree feel guilty on top of cranky. She’d promised to help find a new
sponsor for the Tricks, but had done nothing about it. Partly because she didn’t
know how long she could keep up the double life of weekday financial market
analyst and weekend derby doll without coming unstuck, but mostly because she
had no idea where to start to find the money they needed to keep competing.
The newbies moved on to
learning how to take the knee and fall small, keeping their hands in close to
their bodies so not to get run over and getting to their feet quickly without
using their hands to avoid causing a bigger stack. Bree knew these skills like
she knew how to blink and swallow, but not last night. She’d fallen big last
night in an ugly way, emotions all over the place, by losing herself completely
in Ant’s honesty and unexpected chivalry, and then
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