Page 34 of Reckless

Elias glowered at him.

It was a long trip to the mainland. When we started out, I stretched out on the cushioned bench seat and took my book out of my backpack. I read a few chapters, then dozed for a while, and around midmorning Button John broke out the sandwiches and tea. I sat up carefully because my arse was still a little tender from the spanking Alastair had given me a few nights ago. It hadn’t helped that I’d been poking at the bruises whenever I got the chance to make them last as long as possible.

I couldn’t settle into the book. The words blurred on the page, swimming in the soft morning light that filtered through the cabin’s salt-crusted windows. I kept reading the same sentence over and over—I couldn’t even tell you which book it was—and each time I reached the end of it, I’d realise I hadn't absorbed a single word. My mind was elsewhere, returning over and over to Alastair’s house like Sam to a salt lick.

Button John came through with the tea, and I took the mug just to have something to hold. The warmth seeped through the ceramic into my palms, grounding me. Button John didn’t say anything, just gave me a nod that could have meant anything, and went back up to the deck. The dog at Elias’s feet stirred, resettled, and I watched the lump on its side rise and fall with each breath. The dog didn't seem to be in pain. It just seemed tired. I knew how that felt.

I shifted on the bench seat, trying to find a position that didn’t press the bruises. The ache was a dull, spreading warmth across my arse, and every time the boat rocked and I had to brace myself, I felt it flare. I’d been pressing my fingers against the marks in the dark of my bedroom over the last few nights, chasing the memory of Alastair’s hand, of the sharp sting that had dissolved into something I still didn't have words for. It wasn’t just the pain I wanted to hold onto. It was the feeling of being handled. Of someone knowing exactly what to do with me. Of not having to think.

I’d spent the past few days pointedly thinking about Alastair’s touch but trying my hardest not to think about the man himself. Whenever my thoughts had pulled him into my mind, I’d pushed him out again. Katrina commented on my bad mood and told me it was obvious I was due a trip to the mainland. Any other month she would have been right, because that was how it worked for me. I got increasingly antsy as the weeks wore on, and went to Newcastle to get it all out of my system and hit my reset button to start the whole cycle again. Alastair had messed all that up by showing me there were other ways I could exhaust my body and quiet my mind, and now I was worried that what I usually looked for in Newcastle wouldn’t be enough.

There was only one way to find out.

I wished that⁠—

And there I was again, pushing Alastair from my thoughts.

I just wished I knew where things stood, that was all.

I spent the rest of the journey trying to sleep, but I couldn’t. I wasn’t great on boats. The sea might have been in the blood of every Dauntless Islander, and in my case I preferred that’s where it stayed so that I didn’t have to bob around on it. I didn’t get seasick or anything, but I couldn’t roll with the waves the way Young Harry Barnes could. Even Button John was as nimble as a goat as he moved through the boat, and he could usually stub his toe on thin air.

It was just after noon when we made it to Queens Wharf. Young Harry and Button John tied the boat to the mooring points. Elias Dinsmore left the boat without a word to anyone, the dog at his heels. I dragged my feet when I got off the boat, because I didn’t want to walk with him. By the time I’d made it to the interchange, where I could catch a taxi to the feed store, there was no sign of him or the dog.

There was a familiar shiver in my gut as I climbed into the taxi. Anticipation. My Newcastle routine was so ingrained in me now that even if I was in two minds as to whether or not I’d go to a club tonight, my body expected it the moment I hit the mainland.

Business at the feed store didn’t take long. I paid the farm’s bill in cash and arranged to have everything delivered to the barge tomorrow. Then I asked them to call my next taxi for me and headed back into the city with a lot of hours to kill until tomorrow morning.

I went to a pub and sat in the beer garden for a while. Ordered some lunch and a beer. Everything was expensive here on the mainland. Maybe that was because this pub seemed like it catered for tourists, or maybe that was just because I wasn’t used to paying for lunch. But it was nice to have something that Kat or I wouldn’t make at home.

I ordered a second beer I didn't really want, just to have something to do with my hands. The first one had gone down easy, but the second sat heavy in my stomach, mixing with the chips and the residual queasiness from the boat. I forced myself to drink it anyway. That was part of the ritual, too. Drink until the edges softened. Drink until the voice in my head that kept asking uncomfortable questions shut the fuck up.

The beer garden was fenced in with wrought iron, and potted ferns hung from the awning, wilting in the afternoon heat. A few other loners sat at tables around me—a man reading a newspaper, an older couple sharing a plate of chips, a woman texting on her phone. Everyone tucked into their own small worlds. I tried to tuck into mine, but it kept springing open.

The woman with the phone laughed at something on the screen, and then looked around, as if startled she’d made a sound.

I wondered what it would be like to have a phone. I wondered who I’d call. Maybe Kat, just to hear a familiar voice. But I didn’t have a phone, and neither did Kat, and even if we did, I wasn’t sure what I’d say. Hey, I’m on the mainland, I'm about to go get shitfaced and fuck a stranger, and I'm doing it because a man I barely know fucked up my entire concept of what I need.

That would go down well.

Just drank my beer and wondered if it could fill that hollow feeling in my chest that I was determined to fill with something, even if it was the wrong thing.

The public bar was busy, and loud rowdy laughter spilled in bursts out into the beer garden. It felt strange to be here instead of home on the island where every day was like the one before it. On the island, that frustrated me, and that old tension built and built until I could get away. But today, I didn’t feel the relief I normally would at being here on the mainland, filling my stomach with food because I’d need the fuel for whatever the night brought. Hard drinking first, then a hard fuck. It was supposed to be enough, but now, as I picked at my chips, I wondered if I was about to discover just how much Alastair had ruined everything for me.

Probably only one way to find out.

The club wasn’t a nice one. It was loud and crowded, and the floors were sticky from too many spilled drinks. The darkness was broken up by the flashing strobe lights. Apart from that, the only light in the place was the blacklight behind the bar, and the harsh white lights of the toilets when you stumbled in there. I caught a glimpse of my face in the cracked mirror at some point and looked as wrecked as I felt. My eyes were bloodshot and my hair was stuck to my temples with sweat. My reflection was framed by the graffiti on the walls. There was a smear of something brown on the tiles that might have been a streak of shit or old, dried blood.

Two guys were fucking in one of the cubicles with the door open.

“What the fuck are you lookin’ at, cunt?” one of them said, and I pushed my way outside into the darkness and the flashing lights again.

I hadn’t had anything. Just alcohol. But I’d had a lot of it. So much that I had difficulty navigating my way back to my drink. The crowd jostled me like a rough sea buffeted a boat, and I washed up against the bar seasick and storm-tossed. Threw the dregs of my drink back and ordered another one.

I remembered, in a distant, detached way, that I’d had this feeling before. The first few times I’d come to Newcastle, before I learned how to manage it, before I learned the clubs that would give me what I needed without taking more than I was willing to give. That dizzying loss of control, the sensation of the world slipping away from me while I was still standing in it. I’d thought I’d outgrown it. I’d thought I'd learned to drink without drowning. But tonight I was drowning, and part of me didn’t even mind.

The bass thumped through the floor, up through my boots, rattling my teeth. I leaned against the bar and let it vibrate through me. The bartender slid another drink toward me without being asked, and I didn’t remember ordering it, but I picked it up anyway. The glass was cold. I drank.

Somewhere in the crowd, someone shouted. A glass broke. The sound was swallowed by the music before it could register. The club didn’t stop for anything.