I

Published in Unthology 9

“The thought that I might kill myself formed in my mind coolly as a tree or a flower.” Sylvia Plath

Apparently drowning is the most euphoric way to die. The brain starves of oxygen and thinks back to every memory you’ve ever had – even ones you’d thought you’d forgotten – to see if there’s anything to save you. It recalls everything, completely out of your control. I think of it as getting to watch a movie of your life for free. I slip out of my dressing gown; the bath is ready. A bottle of gamma hydroxybutyric is placed inconspicuously amongst my shower gel and shampoo (the man I bought it from said its street name was ‘Soap’ and I can’t deny the sense of satisfaction it gives me). The water embraces my body, wet and warm. How much of this ‘Soap’ am I meant to use? It’s dripping from the flannel now, thick droplets falling from the cloth into the bathwater. I think I’m using too much… Though it’s not like it’ll matter, in the end. The now-damp flannel is cool against my skin. It smells like hospitals; its clinical aroma claws its way up my nostrils. I close my eyes and imagine the Soap wringing my nerves, turning my muscles limp. I can hear the steady hammering of the builders working next door; tang, tang, tang. I can still wiggle my toes. How long does it take to work? Tang, tang, tang. The relaxing motion of my head bobbing in the water makes me feel sleepy. My arm starts to feel numb. I can’t move my fingers. My toes spasm before they start to tingle, and I watch them as I submerge under the water. Tang, tang, tang. I feel warm. My dark hair wraps itself around my neck and face as my body slowly floats and sinks; floats and sinks; floats and sinks in the water. If I could smile, I would be smiling. If only I’d thought to put some music on. I can feel my limbs jolt and jerk as the water burns in my lungs but I ignore it and watch the birds outside the window. The door is unlocked so I can be found; windows ajar, food thrown out, rubbish in the outside bins. I don’t want to be any trouble. But damn – I didn’t hang out the washing to dry. It’s too late to go and do it now. The water begins to sting my eyes and I can’t close my eyelids, now the water’s turning grey and ashen, thickening around my body and morphing into concrete-

I’m walking down some stairs – I’m in a rush – why didn’t I take the elevator? Somewhere to go… but where? No time to remember. I’m practically running, taking two steps at a time and, shit, yes, that’s right, the elevator was broken so I had to take the stairs. I’m just out of the building door when a flyer is shoved in my face, a burst of red and green pillaging my eyes. What the fuck? I remember yelling, anger and frustration and there’s somewhere I’ve got to be. A do-gooder, yes, that’s it, hence the table with the boxes and bags and what looked like a pair of heels belonging to a transvestite – bundles of clothes for donation. A name badge – what did it say? Marvin. Well, Marvin, thanks but no thanks. Beggars can’t be choosers and they certainly can’t choose to ask me for what I damn well earned. Charity? Where the fuck is charity this morning when I’m running late for this sodding meeting in – where the hell is this place? Yelling, anger, frustration spinning around my head with a blur of noise accosting my ears –

(Thank god I’m under water; I dread to think of the racket I’m causing)

– My clothes are my clothes, numbskull. If they want some they can bloody wait until some woman who’s just lost seven stone chucks out her old wardrobe and buys new clothes with her money so she can throw her titbits to your dogs. I don’t want to help them out or do you a favour or give that away. It’s mine. You got that? Mine.

Thrashing, air bubbles, spasm upon spasm and my eyes are wide open-

WHERE IS THAT NOISE COMING FROM? Bright lights are flashing, my chest vibrating, my best friend holding my wrists and jumping up and down – 24. 24 years old. Can you believe this? I can’t believe it. I haven’t seen her in years. We’re at a bar – by the bar – orders given, drinks received (too many to carry; we had to drink some as we stood). Get some more. My body can’t breathe so let’s drown it some more. Vodka, rum, tequila, schnapps. One o’clock, two o’clock, three o’clock, four. Minutes passing but I can still smell that fucking Soap – get me something, babe, I’m thirsty. (It’s not as if I’m surrounded by water, right?) She gets me a shot of something – tastes like bleach – burns my throat but sweet mercy it’s more fun than thinking where my body really is. We take a pill – I can’t remember if it’s blue or purple but I just swallow it like aspirin and don’t give a fuck – dancing like I’m in a Madonna video, thrusting and grinding and not caring that my skirt’s around my hips it’s my fucking birthday. Paying for a round on my credit card for us and the cute guys dressed up as Ancient Greeks – nearly a month’s wages – money never better well spent. Drink after drink after drink until I feel so full I may burst or it’ll start spilling out of my ears. Someone spills their drink – all over my hair – ice and all – like a wave of water lapping at my feet when I was eight years old. Mallorca, I think. A fuzzy-framed memory, rose-tinted, sea-side holidays and family fun, going back to a time when I didn’t care about anything apart from wasting time. There was some Spanish boy with his family beside us – but we had deck chairs and he didn’t. I sat in my chair like a throne. I should have had a crown. Go and ask him to play. An annoying buzz, a fly, maybe? Go and ask that little boy to play with you. Just the wind and the crashing waves. Did you hear me? My eight-year-old self stares my mother in the face, her jolly smile illuminating her tanned features. I do as she says, I always do; there’s no arguing with my mother. He doesn’t speak English – surprise, surprise – but I start making a mound from the sand and he understands. The universal language of ‘child’. He uses his hands, like an ape, an un-evolved caveman. I go back to my family and pick up my bucket and spade – he takes no notice, now fully immersed in my mound. I start another one; sculpt it into a castle, now with a moat, now with turrets, now with water in the moat, now with shells as windows, and mummy, look! A sandy wall protecting my creation. No one will harm it under pain of death; I will look after the keep until the sun sets and we get cold. The Spanish boy looks at my masterpiece. He wants to copy it. He can’t copy my castle. He’s just a stupid caveman. He comes over and gestures towards my spade. No, you stupid ape, you can’t have my tools. I am a sculptor and you are a brute. You don’t deserve it. When no-one is looking I kick sand at his face and he doesn’t return after that but I don’t care, because every person who walks past admires my castle and I am sitting beside it beaming with a smug smile because it’s my castle and it’s mine until the sun sets and we have to go home.

I look out of the window. The birds are gone. The hot water scalds my eyes as I’m pulled down –

I’m in my office, my prison, my cage. That smarmy girl with the see-through blouse and the rouged cheeks is parading to the front of the crowd. How dare she? She shakes hands with our boss and I can practically feel his erection pressing against his trousers. He doesn’t even try to disguise his eyes looking through her shirt. That sodding tart with my sodding promotion. (I don’t remember being this angry.) She acts like she doesn’t expect it and oh my god, I got it? No way! Fake and conceited and smug, so smug, rubbing it in my face. Blood boiling and brimming in my skull, pushing red through my skin. Hotter and hotter, my skin feels like it’ll ignite any second. Everyone sits down at their desks and I fight my way through the crowd congratulating her – a friendly congratulatory coffee? Oh I’d love some. Coffee it is; with a little extra that I’ll give you for free. In the company kitchen – with the door shut firmly behind me – the kettle boils – I’ll make the coffee extra strong in case she tastes it. Damn, where’s the first aid drawer? I had always laughed when I saw the laxative sachets in there whenever I went to get a plaster but dear lord it’s a blessing right now. One sachet – enough? No, two, always go for more if unsure. Two sachets in her mug of coffee: extra strong, extra sweet – extra sweet revenge that is. I almost bring it to my lips to make sure the taste is undetectable, whoops. I stop myself just in time. She won’t know what’s hit her. I hope she doesn’t even make it to the toilet. Public humiliation for the newly-promoted air-head. Coffee handed over – thanks, doll – and I wait. The people disperse; she’s waiting for it to cool; I can barely contain my irate glee; first sip. She’s drinking it steadily now; sip, sip, sip, sip, come on, she finishes the mug. Sweet mercy. I cannot stop letting out a cackle behind my notebook – I become the smug one now. Her eyes are bulging as she clasps her stomach and runs out of the office, down the corridor – I can imagine her locking the toilet door now – I hope she took some air freshener in with her. I tell the boss I’m leaving early, walk past the toilets, congratulations again on the promotion. I could practically hear her breakfast and my extra-sweet coffee spill out of her, eyes bulging and cheeks flushed-

Air bubbles gush out of me like an insult you can’t take back. I can only watch as they grow and burst in a mad torrent. It’s beautiful, really. A tragic ending with the gushing and the rushing and the swirling and the dizziness and the thickness of the water as I try to breathe it in, like breathing in honey, sweet and sticky, and-

It even smells like you. Manly and musky and rugged and tough. Stubble, dark, thick; eyes, blue, piercing; hair, lustrous and hazel; tanned and tall and overpower me. Behind the door, lock it, turn around, fuck, yes, you pop off one of my buttons, don’t care – look for it later on the waterlogged carpet but never find it – kisses hot and hard, there. Make sure no one’s watching. I was always ashamed. The cheap fucks in dark corners, never the romantic dinner in soft candlelight. The bathwater fills my mouth and as he kisses me it runs down our chins. I hated him; and I hated myself so much I’d let him to whatever the fuck he liked to me just as a reminder of how low I’d sunk. My knickers don’t even leave my legs, hanging around my ankle so that whenever I looked at them I’d think of the man who took them off. My hand slips on the ceramic walls, the room flickers between being a bathtub and the office supply cupboard. Thick moans escape from his throat. I did that. Me. It’s powerful. I feel powerful and weak at the same time. Open and closed, private and on display. Water is running down the walls as my liquid coffin starts to encase me. Hot skin against hot skin, brush my hair back and god you smell so good – hands here and there and yes – there – sweat and your boxers are around your feet and your dick is swollen and I’m ready god I’m so ready – low tones and I forget where I am and breathe in; water cascades into my lungs and I sink further. You’re whispering in my ear my name, say my name – bubbles float up from his mouth as he speaks – thick and full and pushed against the wall and my hands run through your hair. Eyes are locked and I can’t look away; vision is blurred so I imagine you fucking me on my desk, always have, never will; too obvious. Better to be behind closed doors like a secret you’re proud to be ashamed of. Say it again. Say it again. Powerful hands slipping over my body and strong words making bubbles and a manly man claiming my body and I don’t care because in my mind we’ve done this a thousand times. Every time you walk past me it’s a new position; a new place; a new scenario. Droplets of water pour from the ceiling and I can’t tell if it’s romantic or scary or both at the same time. Bubbles blind me – your hair feels damp with sweat and it’s rolling down your back and your neck – the feeling is starting to come back in my fingers but I won’t scratch my way out – I bury my head in your neck; I don’t want to see it – I don’t want to be there when it happens. I can’t believe I didn’t put the washing out – I draw your arms around me and for the first time since I stepped into my watery escape route I start to feel…scared. You smell of the Soap. My heart is trying to beat its way out of my rib cage and the prickling in my fingertips spreads to my toes and my lungs feel like they’re about to burst and I wish the Soap would numb my nerves as well as my muscles but I’m burning alive and freezing to death at the same time. I can only lie and watch the violent flow of bubbles that are leaving me behind. Say my name, say my name. But you don’t know it. You can’t say it. I can’t tear myself away from your eyes, in disbelief; I start to choke and you laugh. You laugh. I sink my fingertips into your back and I’m panting and gasping and water is tumbling out of my mouth but you’re still fucking me. You’re groaning into my ear and I’m trying to close my eyes and forget about what I’m hiding from but the water is creeping down the wall, intent on catching up with me. My hair fans out in the pool of water climbing up our skin, your wet hands are rubbing against my skin, and you push me down farther. We sink. You’re the weight on my chest that I’d never noticed before. Your hands lock around my throat and I’m closing up, and I’m scared, but I won’t close my eyes. The lights are flickering above us and the photocopier that I’ve always wanted to fuck you on is sparking. Droplets of water spill onto the surface of the water, making ripples, Soap, Soap, Soap. Your skin is drenched, and you’re kissing me, and I want to tell you to stop – to please just hold me – but all that comes out of my mouth is a gush of tepid water, and the tears that I want to cry don’t have time to fall before the water around us turns to ink, thick and black and all-encompassing. It tickles and burns at the same time. I’m drifting from everything I’ve ever known, and I’m glad, because this is the first time I’ve felt anything other than lost.