Chapter 11: The Dark Trail

She sat herself squarely between the two men on the bench, and exuded an aura of a secret plan, like a wife glaring at a husbands secretary. “So, boys,” she began, and Sebastien groaned, picked up his drink and left to go stare at the bar next to Dresden. “Whats his problem?” Russell asked angrily. “We were talkin' just fine, and then he goes off an-” he squinted at Belle. “Do I smell or something? Is that why he left?” She purred at him “You smell just dandy to me.”

Russell said nothing for a moment.

He was vaguely aware that Belle was flirting with him, sinking through the viscous fog of his drunken brain. He remembered Sebastien warning him that... what was it, “when she says she wants to get to know someone, she means it biblically.” Russells head giggled, because he knew that that meant sex. It had been a while since he had flirted with anyone, but not doing something just cos you've never done it before... well, he used to do shy away from doing shit all the time, but he used to be teetotal as well. Life goes on, he thought to himself. But how to prepare a flirt? His mouth curled into a vapid smile and he thanked her for her compliment, and they sat a short while in the ambient awkwardness that Russell became used to from everybody. He licked his dry, cracked lips and made to speak, but Belle stopped him. “Your names Russell, right?”
“Uh-huh-” Russell slurred.
“Whats your kids name?”
“My- my kid?” what kid?

Oh
Melanie.

“M-Melanie.”
Belle looked at him for a moment, then looked away and heaved a deep sigh. She toyed with her sleeves and bit her lip. If Russell was sober (or a famous film director) he would have noticed she was overacting, but as it stood, he reached over and put his hand on her shoulder. He gazed into her as best he could with the awkward angle and asked, “Are you alright?” Her lip trembled vigorously and she thrust herself away. “Absolutely! I'm not crying!”
Now, Russell could see that from the lack of stains on her cheek, but the fact that she said it with such conviction made it a little weird. “You're crying?” he murmured.
“No!” She stuck her chin up away from him.
“Why are you crying?!” he tried to turn her around, pushing on her beautiful shoulders, but to no avail. “Ben! B-Belle!” he pleaded, beating his fists against her stand-off back. Slowly, she turned. Her eyes burned and swam with the tears of someone who tried really really hard to cry. The redness around her eyes, the tremble of the lip, the tears – she was crying! “You are crying,” he said, a little obviously.
“I... I'm sorry,” she murmered, burying her head into her breasts, “It-Its just...”
“What?” he asked, leaning closer into her.
“Its... its just...”
“What?!” as he leant his face against hers, and felt the wetness of her face on his.
“Oh!” She cried and threw her hands melodramatically into the air. “Its just you remind me so much of...” she seemed to be struggling for words. Was she too overcome by emotion? “...of Bill.”
“Bill? Who's Bill?” Russell asked, entirely non-plussed.

“Bill was my ex-husband.”

Lester, Sebastien and Dresden watched from afar. “What is she doing?” Sebastien asked angrily, beating his bottle into the tabletop.
Dresden said “Maybe she likes him.”
Sebastien glared at him. “Maybe. Or maybe she just wants to get her goddamned rocks off on that poor guy. I tried to warn him!”
Dresden muttered “You got a bad impression of her. She's not so bad.”
Sebastien turned to him. “Oh yeah, and what would you know of it?”
Dresden started angrily, pushing his bench backwards as he stood to throw a punch but Lester threw up his hand to stop them. “She wants a baby.”
Both of them stopped in their tracks, Sebastiens lapel wrapped in Dresdens pinched fists, unbalanced and shaking as they threatened to fall over.
“What do you mean, 'she wants a baby'. Are you serious?” Sebastien asked, almost in a whisper. “Thats...”
Dresden slackened his grip and Sebastien descended.
They all looked at Belle as she seemed to burst into tears.
“That poor girl... It must be hard, with all the men here...”
All three men looked at each other, then down at their own groins.
Somebody coughed.

Belle sniffled a trickle of well-acted snot back into her nose and turned to Russell. “Oh, you must think I'm such a mess...” she mused. She knew he didn't.
He didn't. “I don't. I think you're beautiful.”
She smirked and her eyes narrowed. Now he was in her sights.

“Oh...” and with that she threw her arms round him. Her fingers clutched his neck – she could feel the base of where his spine met his skull. It was like she was inside of him. One arm fell down to his waist and she made to 'fall'. He caught her. He gazed into her eyes and he was in love again, for the first time. He could take her to the beach, and sift the sand through their fingers, and run with her through the grass, and land and get dirty in the mud. They could kiss in the rain, they could touch fingertips, they could rip each other clothes off because clothes weren't important when you both knew there was beautiful, warm skin underneath and run yourself all over her. They could be together and intimate and wonderful forever. He saw it in her eyes, in the way they bled tears. He lifted her up so they faced each other and then nothing happened for a short while. He wondered if there had been anything there but then he saw her lips twitch and felt an electric crackle between hers and his, like they were drawn together. He moved forward urgently and awkwardly and she moved to kiss him as well, but withdrew at the last moment – leaving his lips hanging in the air and feeling the wind run in between them.

“Not here...” she murmured and took his hand and they left the sanctity and safety and security and boredom of the real world behind. His hand exploded at her touch, ripples running along it and up his arm and he felt more alive now than he had felt in years. He could feel every wave and undulation of her hand as it clutched his tightly, the two of them slipping over bronzed earth towards the beach. The sound of lonely feet clapping the ground reverberated through the sky. The sound of waves lapping against metal is different to how it sounds when it slaps sand. Its not so wet, and it sounds more like a struggle. Water through sand seeps, water through metal battles. Nowhere else does the sea clink gently in the wind, like rolls of chain. It was gentle, and vast, and patient. It had to be. Russell saw its lengths and breadths and depths and realised how massive it was. But before he could think on it further he was drawn into a frantic kiss with Belle, who gripped the back of his head and forced him on her. He wrapped his arms round her and they fell together onto the beach. It cracked beneath them. Waves sopped at their feet. She kissed him, hard, and Russells head swam. His body was electricity and his lips were conductors to the most wonderful pleasures. He was aware of all of his body, and longed to become fully aware of hers, the beauty beneath him. He could feel her thrust herself at him under him, and he wanted to explore her in layers. He kissed down her neck, brushing his lips across the nape. She giggled and moaned, and bit her lip as he moved down. He wanted to be completely enveloped in Belle, and never to have to worry about anything ever again. Everything was dangerous and beautiful and in vivid colour and he could do anything.

She kissed his neck, and bit into it with a moan as he moved his hands about her.

His neck burned. It felt like her lips were acid, like his neck was steaming and bubbling where she had left it. It felt like betrayal. He saw in his head, the car, the kiss, the way-

The way he and Jack had followed the car in Jacks, Russell shaking his head over and over. He couldn't believe what was happening. How could she do this to him? How could she cheat on him, fuck him over, kissing that man-

Belles kisses fell lower on him, onto his exposed chest, her chin nuzzled on his stomach-

“Russell, you're over-reacting. I'm sure theres a rational explanation for-”
“You know, Jack, it would be rational to assume that she wouldn't want to be with me. I mean, look at me. Look at what became of us.” Russell looked back at Jack, in the back seat of the car, small and demure, like the car was too big for him.
“What galls me is the cheating. Its like she doesn't respect me enough to tell me when its goddamned over!” He slammed on the steering wheel and the car squeeled out of control, bumping into the next line of traffic.
“Shit! Russell!”
“I know, jesus, Jack! Shut up or get the fuck out of here!” Russell cried as he steered the car back into the right line of traffic. Horns flared up like a symphony behind him as he cracked the glass beside him with a bleeding fist.
“I don't care anymore, Jack, this is it, this is the final goddamned straw.”
Russells head throbbed like a spluttering heartbeat. It flickered and died, and burst with mad activity. His skin crawled, like it wasn't his own, like he was in someone elses body, the body of someone who had a cheating slut of a wife. He couldn't believe it still, though another part of him told him he had always known it. Every phone call he didn't enough about, every time she left the house. Who knew if she was going shopping, she could be being rammed by twelve strangers for all he knew. For all he cared. This was over. This was it.

The same anger welled up in him, the anger of a life wasted and the guilt of a foreign kiss poisoning the nape of his neck.

He hurt, all over. Laying stock still, like a corpse, the body of a man whose will had long since left him. Guilt coursed through him. He no longer needed blood or food or love when he had been motivated solely by guilt since his wife died and before, even. Guilt for his daughter, guilt for his family. It built up inside him, rising from the tips of his toes, flooding his legs, his knees buckling, and as it rose past his waist he became impotent once more and his stomach twisted over and his throat was ripped out of him. The guilt became almost paralytic, like he was having a moral heart attack. His heart flailed inside him and died.

Belle had noticed that Russell had stopped. For a moment she thought he had passed out or something. She poked him and looked curiously at him. “Russell? Is something the matter?”
Her voice was like nails on a chalkboard, but he searched out for her in the fog of his brain and groped for her. She was the way out of this. She was the key. He could power through this. And with that he grabbed her wrists and split them apart, forcing her open. He kissed her, roughly, passionately, a different man to the one he was before. He ripped the lapel of her shirt, and ripped her asunder, her flesh pouring out from her clothes in torrents and he was with her and he could force himself through the guilt, no matter how tightly it pulled at him.