Taming the Beast by Emily Maguire Page A

from a bar fight though: he was too clean cut.He was about three years away from being past it. He had nice ears. Small, neat ears.
    ‘I mean…’ he glanced at her legs again, ‘I could be an axe murderer, or a serial killer.’
    ‘You could be, but you’re not, are you?’
    He chuckled, revealing a double chin. ‘Well, I’d hardly tell you if I was, would I?’
    Sarah smiled. ‘You wouldn’t need to. I have an inbuilt psychopath sensor.’ She touched the top of his arm, briefly, as a test. He gasped, then tried to cover it by clearing his throat. She touched him again, this time letting her hand rest on his forearm. ‘I’m perfectly safe with you, I can tell.’
    He looked at her face for the first time. ‘How old are you?’
    She skimmed her palm along the soft fur of his arm. ‘Old enough.’
    The man frowned at the windscreen. ‘Where do I turn off?’
    ‘Left at the next lights.’
    He drove on in silence. Sarah wondered what he had been doing, driving this family wagon around the suburbs so late on a weeknight. She suspected he had been heading for one of the Sorrel Street brothels. Either that or he actually was a psychopath looking for his next victim.
    ‘So where are you off to tonight? After you drop me off, I mean.’
    He licked his lips. ‘Oh… nowhere.’
    They were nearly at her place. She was so tired; she really should just go to bed. The man was biting his lip, concentrating way too hard on his driving.
    ‘Pull up in front of that truck.’
    He did as she asked. Leaving his hands firmly at ten and two o’clock, staring straight ahead. She was tired, yes, but that was theleast of what she was feeling. Waitressing robbed her of herself; she became a girl in a uniform who would smile perkily at the twenty-something blokes who asked her if hospitality was a fulfilling career; a cookie-cutter waitress who would not pour beer over the head of the old man who pinched her arse every time she walked by his table; a sturdy competent pair of hands moving from wiping to stacking to scribbling order codes to scrubbing. Fourteen hours of being closed to the world left her bursting to be opened.
    ‘I’m going to have a beer before bed. You want one?’
    The man gripped the steering wheel with shaking hands. ‘I do, yes.’
    He babbled while she unlocked her door – he had been to a work function, couldn’t stay long, his wife was expecting him home – but once inside he fell silent.
    Sarah watched his face; she could always tell how a man would fuck by the way he reacted to her flat. Raised eyebrows and a turned-up nose meant the bloke would go on to screw her like he was the prince and she the scullery maid; sad eyes and pitying sighs meant she would be the little lost girl getting fucked by her kind protector; open disapproval at her housekeeping skills warned her she would be the naughty daughter getting punished by Daddy; and hesitation, fear even, meant she would be driving the action, showing the poor fellow that everything was okay. Her favourites – and the rarest by far – were the ones who didn’t react at all, didn’t even look around. The blokes who had her on her back as soon as the door was closed, who could spend a day and night in her slum and never discover the colour of her walls or the layout of her kitchen.
    ‘Is this…’ The man squinted at her. ‘You live alone?’
    ‘Yep.’ Sarah walked past him, reaching her arm to the right to turn on her bedroom light, then to the left to light up the bathroom. The one in the combined hallway/kitchen/living room wasalready on. The man continued to squint through the gloom. She really should get a lamp. A tall, bright lamp to stand next to the sofa. But then what was the point? All she did here was sleep, screw and study, so as long as she could see her books, she didn’t need much light at all.
    ‘Have you lived here long?’
    Sarah handed him a beer and opened one for herself. ‘Forever,’ she told him, which felt true. It