Free Taming the Beast by Emily Maguire

street I didn’t vomit or piss in last night. Plus you’ve got to love a bloke who doesn’t let go of his bottle even while he’s fucking a girl.’
    ‘Jesus, Sarah!’ Jamie looked like he was going to cry. ‘Why do you do these things?’
    She shrugged. ‘
Nostalgie de la boue
.’
    ‘I’m not even going to ask what that means, because I don’t care. You know it’s only a matter of time before one of these blokes cuts your throat.’
    Sarah rolled her eyes. Jamie gave her the same lecture at least once a week, although sometimes he predicted a bullet to the head or a stocking around the neck, rather than a cut throat. She knew he was right, but she also knew he would never understand that it was necessary. To reach ultimate bliss, one must face grave danger.
    ‘I wish you would at least get a mobile phone. That would be some security.’
    ‘Good idea. Excuse me while I pluck some spare cash out of my arse.’
    ‘Well if you didn’t spend all your money on booze and cigarettes.’
    Sarah sipped her beer and then lit a smoke, ignoring Jamie’s glare. ‘Seriously, I’ve been doing extra shifts all week, and I’m still fifty short for the electricity bill. I’ll have it by next week, but if I get cut off I’ll have to pay for the reconnect–’
    Jamie put a fifty-dollar bill on the table in front of her. ‘Are you sticking to your budget?’
    Sarah shrugged. Jamie wrote her a new budget at least every six months, and every time she told him there was no point because she would never stick to it, but he was in serious denial.
    ‘Something must be wrong there… Has your study allowance decreased again or something?’
    ‘I don’t know. It’s always going down. It’s way less than what I got back at high school, and I was barely making rent then. If it wasn’t for all the overtime I would be totally screwed.’
    ‘You know, Sar, Mum’s offer is still open.’
    Ever since Sarah and her parents had parted ways, Mrs Wilkes had been auditioning for the role of Sarah’s mother. And although the Wilkes family were the most generous people she knew, and the spare room in their house was bigger than Sarah’s whole flat, she had never been seriously tempted to join their family. For one thing, Jamie and Brett were both ex-lovers of hers and the idea of them being her de-facto brothers was too creepy. Also, she needed emotional space more than physical, and the Wilkes were the kind of people who had deep, touching conversations over dinner and told each other they
cared
. Having these people prodding at her brain, trying to get into her psychic pants, put her off her food, and if she didn’t eat, they all started thinking she was anorexic and wanted to mindfuck her body image. And she couldn’t tell Jamie any of this because he would want her to talk about why she felt threatened by emotional intimacy.
    ‘Thanks, Jamie-boy, but living with your family would totally kill my sex life.’
    Jamie smiled, but in the tight, tense way that he did when he was frustrated. ‘Do you ever wonder if maybe your priorities are out of whack? I mean, really, Sarah, it’s just sex.’
    That’s what Jamie didn’t understand: it was never
just sex
. Even the fastest, dirtiest, most impersonal screw was about more than sex. It was about connection. It was about looking at another human being and seeing your own loneliness and neediness reflected back. It was recognising that together you had the power to temporarily banish that sense of isolation. It was about experiencing what it was to be human at the basest, most instinctive level. How could that be described as
just
anything?
    And aside from all that there was the possibility that maybe,
maybe
she would find another man like
him
. The other half of the beast that scratched up her insides, kicking and roaring.
    Sarah finished her beer and stubbed out her cigarette. ‘Haven’t we had this conversation before?’
    ‘Yep. Every time you need to ask me for money because