Lover by Laura Wilson

me and tried to push her tongue into my mouth; it made a wet sound, slimy, it didn’t feel right, it wasn’t what I wanted…then, as I lay on top of her in the grass where she’d led me, she unbuttoned her blouse. Chilly, for July. Cloudy and dull. Slack, goose-pimpled breasts. She put my hands on them and they felt cold and lumpy and I could see blue veins between my fingers… I didn’t know what to do—what she wanted, and she lay there staring at me, waiting…
    Up here, none of that matters. She’s perfect. You could fly her with your index finger and thumb.
    I couldn’t do it. She propped herself on her elbows, fumbled at my trousers, and lay down again. ‘Go on…’ Waiting.
    But it doesn’t matter. Not here. She’s happy. Exhilarated. Wants it as much as I do.
    Two thick slabs of thighs. Clammy. Damp grass underneath. Useless object. And made me useless, too. I said, ‘What do you want?’ Not what I’d meant to say, because I knew what she wanted, but she wasn’t giving me anything, just lying there, waiting, knowing … I couldn’t do it. I felt sick. She started laughing and suddenly I was in a rage, pummelling her, her bulging, ugly body and her stupid, grinning face. Big red lips and white teeth. I hit her until it was all a mess of smeared lipstick and blotches—’Shut— up ! Shut— up ! Shut— up !’
    â€˜Leave me alone!’
    â€˜I hate you!’
    â€˜I hate you, too.’ She scrambled to her feet and ran across the grass, lumbering from side to side as she tried to do up her buttons.
    I adjust the trim; keep nice and level. I can still hear the girl laughing, but I know it’s insignificant. She’s insignificant. Let her think she got the better of me—she knows nothing, and never will. None of them do. Always wanting, pestering, teasing, with their stupid conversation, always at you, wanting that , all the same, lying there, holding out their arms, makes me furious… I don’t even like them and they can’t bloody see it. They don’t understand anything. They don’t know the joy of self-reliance, the elation of the chase and the kill, the extraordinary, exultant sense of triumph when the bullets hit home, the satisfaction of a job well done and the entire rightness of kill-or-be-killed—it could so easily be the other way about.
    Corky cuts across my thoughts. ‘ When the moonlight flits —’
    â€˜Shut up, Corky, you’re making me feel sick.’ Prideaux.
    â€˜ Across your tits— ’
    Mathy’s voice: ‘Blue One to Leader, Bandits below, three o’clock.’
    â€˜Buster, buster!’ Prideaux. Maximum speed, now. ‘Turning right, turning right, go!’
    That’s good. Half the time we get scrambled too late, vectored too low. Easier with the buggers underneath us, but I still can’t see… Wait. A dot on the Perspex turns into a cross, a shape…shapes… And there they are: two dozen silver 109s, skating along at a leisurely pace. They haven’t seen us. Prideaux shouts, ‘Tally ho!’
    The taste of fear floods my mouth, my stomach is sick and hollow, my heart is pounding, my ring twitching, and then suddenly, a jolt of adrenalin like electricity snaps my body into the job and I can feel myself taut against the straps of the harness. My teeth clench, my thumb is on the gun button, there is nothing but the chase, the urge to kill, and we dive towards them, Prideaux leading. ‘Pick your own!’
    Spots in front of my eyes for a moment, then clear as we hurtle nearer—choose one, and… Christ! Too fast, too fast, break right and bank—yellow underbelly on the left—flames, smoke—and the air breaks up, shot through with tracer belting straight towards me—haul on the stick… Height, need height… Planes dodging and diving everywhere, not yet, not