Night Trip

  "…BLINDING DRUNK ONE NIGHT AT HER HOUSE…"

  I'd thought the big tires on this vehicle would make the ride comfortable. They didn't. It wasn't smooth, and the engine's roar seemed to bounce back at us, amplified, as if the black sky that enshrouded us was nothing but dark walls of matter just out of reach. Eventually, when I thought my teeth were going to judder out of my mouth, I tapped Tattoo-guy on the shoulder and shouted a question.

  "I left my girlfriend tonight. She shagged my mate. I'm going to see her in the morning. What should I do to her?"

  He gave me a look. Girls? that look said. Don't waste my time with such creatures. I figured he was either gay or uninterested in either sex. But this guy didn't really like females. Guys like that either beat or raped them, or suffered their taunts and their rejections with outward nonchalance and inner seething. At his age, in his condition, way out here - yeah, this guy struck me as the rejected type.

  "You ain't from here, are you? What's that accent? Down south?"

  "Half-right," I answered. "Half the distance, anyway. I sent her home. We were on holiday."

  "And she slept with your friend? Why'd you bring him?"

  I laughed. I still felt high, but at least I wasn't still travelling upwards. The cold was threatening to sober my mind.

  "No, he's home. She told me today. First day on holiday."

  He shrugged. "Great," he said, not caring. "So what do you mean, what should you do?"

  "Can't let her get away with it. She wronged me."

  "Ah, retribution?"

  That sounded strong. "Maybe not. That's why I'm asking. We have time to talk." I pointed ahead, at the black before us. The road unrolled out of that gloom with no break or change or new feature. There was no reason to believe we were even moving. Again that feeling of being on a conveyor belt.

  "I met some guys earlier tonight. They said I should get votes."

  "Votes for…?"

  "Action. Action against my girl for emotional damage." I had remembered Surfer-dude's words. I gave Tattoo-guy a brief overview of my night. I left out anything regarding video tapes, drugged alcohol, potassium chlorate and decapitated bikers. And when I was finished, this guy patted my shoulder, as if he were an old friend trying to nurse me through turmoil.

  "So she slept with someone, and now you want revenge? Something to kill the pain?"

  "I don't know." I regretted having spoken at all. Suddenly this skinny teenager sounded all too sure and mature. So getting burned once didn't do the trick, eh?

  "So do I vote that you should get revenge on her? That's what you're asking me? You have any ideas how yet?"

  "Give her the silent treatment?"

  "Sure, if that's good enough for your ego. That do it for you?"

  I stopped to think. I actually stopped to think about that one. I saw myself at home, ignoring her. I'd enter the kitchen only after she'd left it. I'd watch Coronation Street on the upstairs TV, away from the TV downstairs, where she would be sat on the floor with her back against the sofa, her usual relaxation position. I'd ignore her for a few days, and then she'd come round.

  Only, we didn't share a house. We each lived with our parents, she just her dad. And I couldn't very well go round to see her, enter her parents' house, and then ignore her! No, silence on this occasion, after recent events, would probably spell the end of us, and a simple break-up through lack of communication was not what I wanted. Maybe a -

  "- telling off?" I said.

  Take her somewhere, a place we knew and loved. Rorchester Park, a local lovers' haunt, where we first got close by cuddling in the same big coat when it rained on ten picnicking families/couples. A nice day. I'd take her there again, but this time there'd be no bag of food, and no first kiss. We'd find a tree if it was raining again, and I'd sit her before me, take her hands in mine, hold them up close to our faces, so our eyes met above them, and I would open my soul to her:

  "What you did hurt me. I hope you know that. It betrayed my trust in you, and trust is something we cannot take lightly as humans. Trust is a person's ability to give themselves wholly to another, to submit everything to them. It is like carving out a piece of your heart and soul and giving it to someone else to take care of. That piece of me was like a key to a door or a password that you could use to get inside a computer. With control over such an integral, fragile piece of me, it becomes so easy to do irreparable damage. I think you did that when you cheated on me, and my brain seems to have clamped down, beefed up its security. It could take some time to allow you back into my life in such a way as we once knew. You did that, but I hope I can forgive you one day. I hope so."

  I tried to absorb that idea, but it wouldn't happen. My brain seemed to reject even considering it, as if such a plan were ludicrous.

  This guy seemed to be able to read my face as if words were printed on it. He laughed at me, right at me, the kind of way a man might laugh if he were watching people caught on camera falling over on ice or toppling off chairs.

  "Yeah, I see that'll do it for you. A stiff talking to, and remorse will drip from her face every minute she's awake. But she's still had the man. She'll still mention him if her mates and she talk about sex one girly night out. He's still been inside a treasure chamber that was given to you and you alone. He's been where only you should go, and you'll never forget that, even if you forgive it." That laugh again.

  He was right, bloody right. And now she was getting me angry again. No, words would not do here. Words hadn't been good enough for her when she unveiled her secret, and so they wouldn't be now. No.

  "Yeah, I see your face. That's not the face of a man who wants to lecture. She got a mate you can sleep with? Eye for an eye. Then you can stare her right in the eyes and let her know how it feels, right?"

  I considered that one.

  Yeah, she had a mate. There was a girl called Zip. I think her name was Zena something-I Peters - hence the acronym-nickname. Anyway, this girl flirted with me whenever we were together, and while my girl knew and accepted this, she would certainly be shocked if I ended up banging her. But would Zip go for it - or was flirting as far as she dared or wanted to go? Alcohol, the ultimate tool of regret. Get Zip blinding drunk one night at her house, which was where my girl and me spent most of our indoor time together. Zip lived alone, loved her career too much (assistant manager at some social club) to bother dating, and didn't mind her friends turning up unannounced or crashing over for a day or two. And she loved to drink. Easy enough to go round, perhaps under the guise of talking to her about my girl. Get her drunk and slowly shift the subject from my girl to Zip - no way she'd do that to her friend if we were talking about her. And afterwards, I could go to my girl, and stare her right in the eyes when I told her. A photo or something as proof would help. And a photo of my girl's own stunned face, so I could show her what such mental anguish did to a cheated partner. And so I could look at it and know daily that my punishment upon her was a sweet one.

  "Sure," Tattoo-guy said. "Crush her soul, kill her relationship with a close friend. Even-stevens, would that do you? Would it do you in a race - cross the line in a draw? Would it do you in a world record attempt - cycle backwards naked for exactly the same number of metres as the title-holder and not one metre more?"

  I glared at him. He didn't look away from the road.

  "Of course, all that depends on your girl being exactly the same as you emotionally, doesn't it?"

  "What mean?"

  "Maybe she doesn't get as jealous as you. After all, jealousy is the primary factor in what makes us feel like shit when someone cheats. Maybe you get all eaten up by it. And maybe she doesn't. maybe you'll shag her mate, and her pissed-off mate will pass it around that you're a wanker, because you would be. And your girl will drip a few tears, get over it, forgive you, and try to get things back to normal. She and her mate will make up talking at the mirror in the ladies' toilets as they agree you're a wanker but that you deserve one more chance, since your girl got one. But y
ou'll still be eaten up by the fact that she did it first, maybe a longer shag, maybe anal and oral and all sorts of dirty shit you don't know about. Oh, and you'll still be a wanker. But hey, if that's fine for you, if that'll ease your torment, then go for it. Go shag, boy. Fetch!"

  This skinny bastard certainly knew what he was talking about, even if he had no experience of such things. Maybe he read a lot. What else was there to do while your friends were out clubbing on their legs and you were in a wheelchair - or a backhoe loader.

  "So what do you suggest?" I asked the omnipotent one.

  "You have to control every action she has for the rest of her life, to make sure this doesn't come back to bite you on the arse. So she can never wrong you again.

  He seemed to be talking about some kind of imprisonment, but what kind? Physical? Since locking her in a basement was out of the question, it left only some kind of surveillance. Guys did it all the time: phoning their partners constantly to know their location, researching stories given about places visited that day, even having people follow the cheats to report on their activities. Maybe I could convince the staff at the places she frequented to sign a card, sort of like the school bad report cards we had as kids, to prove she'd been where she was supposed to be. And where these actions were not possible or practical, maybe… a chastity belt. Bought cheap and easy on the Internet. This guy had mentioned a treasure chamber that was mine alone, right? So, a chastity belt would provide me with a real physical key with which to protect that treasure chamber against infiltration. Perfect.

  Again, he was giving me that look, that smile. He knew what things my mind spun.

  "You'll never know, though. Those few ten minute gaps, because you can't possibly watch her twenty-four-seven, can you? Doesn't matter if she goes into a changing room in a women's clothing store - who says she isn't in there blowing some male cleaner who gave her the eye? Stitch up her cunt tight as you like, she can still toss some guy off - again. And you'll never know. And it'll play on your head, that endless throb of 'What if?' bouncing round and round, pummelling your brain."

  So what the fuck was he getting at? Disfigurement of her chamber so none would wish to enter again? But that would put me out, too. Disfigure her face, so no man would even approach? That too would put me out: every day that she didn't cheat, I would look at her scarred, ugly face and know I'd done wrong. Not to mention what such injury would do to her mentally.

  "You're naïve," Tattoo-guy said, shaking his head. "Oldest way in the world to stop someone repeating themselves, or coming back, or talking, or doing any fucking thing except rotting in hell and forever regretting what they've done." He seemed quite heated and angry now, and I sensed he had some kind of issue with this matter. "You said those people you met wanted you to get votes? And they voted against killing her?" He looked at me for so long I thought we were going to drive off the winding road. "I can't answer that for you just yet. But if you really plan to stick to getting a vote off the first five people you meet, then that makes me one of them, so if you want to hang with me a bit, I'll give you my answer in time."

  That sounded okay. The night was young. The cold wind had sobered my mind a little, but only enough to waken it. I was still feeling strange. "Time to study the facts, you mean?"

  He shook his head. "Time to study you."