Rose Leopard by Richard Yaxley Read Free Book Online

guiltlessly with Midori.
    â€˜Could’ve been School Captain, but she told one of the nuns to jam it. Some stuff-up with a late Chemistry assignment. So Katie got black-listed. Sister Mary, I think it was. Silly old bitch. You know, she used to masturbate each morning behind the Chapel. Half-past ten on the dot … so to speak.’
    â€˜Katie did that?’
    â€˜No — Mary, you idiot! Actually, it was Katie who caught the old cow. Flat on her back she was, habit over her head, shamelessly indulging.’
    It was a particularly bilious image — some ancient crone, face split with ecstasy and dribble while the eyes of God drilled Their gaze towards her frantic flickering.
    But Brianna’s story had an effect: I knew then that I was utterly committed. I had to meet her, had to woo this nunstalking bug-like lass with the translucent fingers that reminded me of Mercutio’s Queen Mab and her ‘moonshine’s wat’ry beams ’.
    I could’ve walked straight up and said hello. Asked her the time, complimented her hands, ravished her with the electrodazzle of my wit. Could’ve initiated any number of greeting rituals, all dignified, all worthy.
    Instead, I chose to break her ankle.
    We were in the bar — I seemed to reside there during my latter University days. Yet another has-been band was playing support act to yet another up-and-coming bunch of nihilistic junkies with screaming electronics and songs called Erogenous and Shit On The World .
    I was pissed, eyes spinning about my skull like pinballs, beer sloshing my shirt and soaking into my Hush Puppies. So pissed that my world had slowed and magnified; people hovered and swayed like Thunderbirds and the music was nothing more than a sluggish repetitive bass.
    Kaz appeared next to me, bought a drink, made my insides slither.
    Without thinking, I turned to her and slurred, ‘Yer so bewful. Yer so bewful I wanna take you ou’side ’n make love ’neath the staaaars.’
    She actually smiled, tight, neat.
    â€˜Maybe you should zip your fly before we leave,’ she said.
    I looked down. I’d been to the toilet some time ago. My penis was poking through my Bugs Bunny boxers like a small pink mushroom, alone and vulnerable in a paddock of Disney.
    â€˜Oopsh. Sorry.’
    â€˜Don’t be. I like a man who’s prepared to openly advertise. It speaks volumes for your self-assurance.’
    â€˜No … sorry ’bout the, um, dimensions.’ I held my thumb and forefinger close together. ‘I don’ have a cock, I have a bantam fowl.’
    That was the first time she laughed at one of my jokes. I loved that sound, still do. If laughter could be coloured, hers would be the same as the cherry-blossom, a shower of soft bright petals carried on the breeze.
    So it happened that I zipped up and we lurched out together, just two schooners, fifteen one-liners and a packet of pretzels later. She was still laughing but, best of all, one of her lovely hands had slipped delicately into mine. The warmth surprised me; any beauty that is so ethereal, so fragile, is rarely warm. But Kaz’s hands have always felt wonderfully cosy, like curling up in front of a fire with someone else’s good book.
    â€˜Come back to my flat,’ she whispered as we weaved up the road towards a taxi-rank. ‘I make great coffee.’
    â€˜Don’ wan’ coffee. Wan’ make love .. ’
    She admonished me with the lightest touch.
    â€˜Tonight — coffee,’ she commanded. Then, in a growl that was soft enough to drive me crazy: ‘Tomorrow — sex.’
    I wanted to kiss her as we walked. Wanted to lose myself in smoke-scented hair and skin like alabaster. Trouble was, my body couldn’t co-ordinate. I leaned across, swayed towards her chest then stumbled, pirouetted to the footpath in agonising slow-mo, wondered why her leg was trapped beneath me. ‘Fuck it,’ I said. It