by Kay SEXTON

“Is that a bul­let?” Bill Sander­son says, peer­ing at my key-ring through the bar’s low-lit intimacy.

“It is,” I say, hold­ing it lev­el with my breasts. His eyes get wider — much wider. “It’s a mag­ic bullet.”

“Yeah?” He leans clos­er to stare at the bul­let. It’s a mag­num car­tridge. It used to be a .243 Win­ches­ter but I had to get a big­ger size.

“Yeah … it reads minds. Watch.” I put the bul­let in­to his hand, pulling the key-chain down through his fin­gers so it hangs be­low his hand and the bul­let rests in his palm. He looks at the bul­let, then at me, and as he grins I twist the key­chain so that the links tight­en up and the bul­let ris­es slow­ly in re­sponse, un­til it’s stand­ing straight up in his hand. Sim­ple but ef­fec­tive — and very crude. I’m gaz­ing in­to his eyes. Fi­nal­ly he re­mem­bers to look down at the car­tridge, sees it stand­ing at at­ten­tion and laughs. I’ve got him.

I’ve been watch­ing the Ladies toi­let, and as Sonya comes out, I get up, brush­ing my nip­ple against Bil­l’s arm as I squeeze past him through the packed bar, us­ing my el­bows where men’s wide backs block my jour­ney — they nev­er get in my way if they can see me, it’s al­ways a big smile and a hand on my shoul­der, or hip to ease me along. Men can’t re­sist touch­ing me. As I pass Sonya, I jig­gle my rear for Bil­l’s ben­e­fit and she smiles, pout­ing in his di­rec­tion. I can’t see him but his tongue must be hang­ing out. Men are so pre­dictable. She looks over at him and shakes her head gen­tly. It could be a teas­ing telling-off, a way of re­mind­ing me that I’m be­ing naughty, but it’s not. She’s telling me he’s not on her list. Even so, I go in­to the Ladies, sit down and un­screw the bot­tom of the bul­let. Two long strips of tight­ly rolled pa­per fall out. I read through them slow­ly. Bill Sander­son is not there. Sonya was right. It’s our ma­jor risk; that one of us will pick up a guy the oth­er’s al­ready been with — that’s why I have a list of her pick-ups, and she has a list of mine. I’m go­ing to have to up­grade bul­let size again soon.

“Who was that?” he says when I get back. It’s a good thing I don’t re­al­ly fan­cy him, or I’d be jeal­ous. Lust has made him rude, as well as stupid.

“My flat­mate,” I say. His lust in­creas­es as he thinks about go­ing home with both of us. Good. Lust­ful men are gullible. On top of the idea that he could find him­self alone with two wicked women, he’s leav­ing on a ski­ing hol­i­day to­mor­row, ear­ly flight from Heathrow. He’s been telling me all about it. He thinks his luck is too good to be true. He’s right.

I give Sonya and her pick-up a half-hour start, then steer Bill to our flat. Sonya’s door is closed, Mat­t’s is open, telling me he’s gone out. It’s his night off anyway.

I check the fridge, pop­ping the ring on a Miller Lite and drop­ping in a pow­dered Stil­noct. I’ll give it to him in a while, so he does­n’t fall asleep too ear­ly — I like a one night stand as much as the next girl. Sonya’s pick-up favours rum: she’s tak­en him a Breez­er. He’ll chill out with a sleep­ing tablet he did­n’t know he’d drunk. Dream­land will have him soon.

Bill is en­thu­si­as­tic and coöper­a­tive and we have a very hot time. I’m im­pressed by the way he can sup­port his weight above my body so that the on­ly part that touch­es is his cock, in­side me. It’s like Tom Cruise hang­ing from the ceil­ing in Mis­sion Im­pos­si­ble. He says it’s a ski­er thing. I say I’ll have to re­mem­ber that.

Lat­er I bring him his beer and sit on the bed, dressed in his shirt, drink­ing one I’ve opened for my­self. We fool around for a bit, but with­in half an hour he’s snor­ing. I pick up his trousers and mo­bile and head for the lounge.

Sonya’s al­ready there, sort­ing through her bloke’s wal­let. She smiles briefly and goes back to work. I check through Bil­l’s cred­it cards and find his P.I.N. writ­ten on the side of his donor card. I take his Visa. It’s hard­ly been used com­pared to his grub­by Mas­ter­card; he won’t miss it for a while. Then I lib­er­ate the Top­Man card I’ll bet he would­n’t want his mates to know about. I can use it in Prin­ci­ples — there’s a coat I’ve been lust­ing af­ter. I check his mo­bile’s stored num­bers in case he’s a trainee cop­per or some­thing — that hap­pened once. Fi­nal­ly, I take his clothes back to the bed­room and curl up be­side him.

The alarm goes off at six.

Bill re­mem­bers he’s got to get home and pick up his bags for the flight, kiss­es me and runs. By the time he re­turns from his hol­i­day, we’ll have emp­tied his ac­count. If he man­ages to work out it was me and re­mem­ber where I live, he’ll find Matt an­swer­ing the door. That will stop him in his tracks — Mat­t’s a big lad.

I yawn and won­der how much sleep Sonya got. I’ll buy that coat to­day, and if I can with­draw enough of his mon­ey from a cash point I can pay this ter­m’s course fees. I wish I knew what Bil­l’s cred­it lim­it is. Matt has a stu­dent loan pay­ment due and Sonya needs phi­los­o­phy texts for her MPhil. It’s tough be­ing uni­ver­si­ty stu­dents these days.

Filed under Fiction on November 22nd, 2005

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