Paper Dolls Read online

  Right now his eyes were closed, his lashes almost touching his cheekbones. He seemed to be asleep, his chest rising and falling steadily.

  He moved again and this time I knew he had meant to do it, his finger curling around mine, tucking securely around me, a small sign of possessiveness, one that I relished. I let my finger curl around his too. Even though it was the only place we were joined, in that moment I felt an utter contentment.

  A muffled musical tune broke through the peace, making me frown. He sat up, searched around in his bag and pulled out his mobile just as the call ended.

  I recognised that tune. It was one of my favourites from a band called Evanescence. “Is that ‘Bring Me to Life’?”

  He grinned. “Top five bands, ever.”

  “Best band ever.” I sighed. “Amy Lee’s voice is so…haunting. It’s like she’s singing to me.”

  “Should I be jealous?”

  “I’ll let you come to our wedding.”

  A beep sang out from his phone, signalling a text. He tapped his phone, his eyes scanning the screen, and his face fell to a frown.

  I lifted myself up onto my elbows. “What is it?”

  He shifted. Did he just tilt the screen so I couldn’t see the message? “Nothing.”

  “It doesn’t look like nothing.”

  He tucked the phone back into his backpack. “We should go,” he said. “The light’s beginning to dim.” He got up, pulling me up behind him but he wouldn’t meet my eyes.

  Back in the car, we drove through the outskirts of town, the radio playing low. I stared out the window, watching the passing Queenslanders, the weatherboard houses raised on stilts, the open front lawns, neighbours keeping boundaries through flower beds and bushes. Or brickworkers’ cottages, squat amongst the ghostly trunks of the gum trees, the smell of eucalyptus on the air coming in through my partially open window.

  We drove past a hunched cramped-looking car the colour of dried mustard. Without thinking I spun towards Clay and smacked my fist against his upper bicep, yelling, “Punch buggie baby vomit.” My hand just bounced right off him. It was like hitting a wall. It probably hurt my knuckles more than it did his arm.

  He glanced over at me, a questioning look clear on his face. “You have a bit of a violent streak, don’t you?”

  “I’m not being violent. It’s punch buggy.”

  “You can call it a widdle punchie-wunchie and it doesn’t make it any different.”

  “I didn’t hit hard enough to hurt you.” I doubted a cannonball could hurt him.

  “No, you didn’t. But you still hit me. It’s always the quiet ones who have the secret violent streak,” he teased.

  This, for some reason, twanged on my nerve as if it were an out-of-key guitar string. “You don’t know punch buggy?”

  “Is that a cartoon character?”

  “It’s a game. Salem and I would play all the time. The first person who sees a Volkswagen Bug gets to call it and to hit the other one.”

  “And…baby vomit?”

  “That’s our own version. You couldn’t just say the colour - yellow, green, blue - you had to make up the weirdest colour reference you could think of.”

  “You were close with her, weren’t you?”

  I sank back into my seat. “Yes.”

  “Tell me about her.”

  That’s when I stopped listening. My eye was stuck on the dark sedan that I could see in the rear-view mirror. We turned right down another street and the car behind us did too. A creeping sensation trickled through my body.

  “Aria?” Clay’s voice broke into my thoughts.

  “That car is still there.”

  “What car?”

  “That dark one with the solo driver.”

  I spun in my seat, hiding my face as I peered around the headrest to the car following behind us. Even as I squinted I couldn’t see the driver well enough that I could make out whether it was a man or a woman. I couldn’t see the make or model from here but it was such a common car anyone would have just brushed it off. But not me. The hairs on my arm rose. “They’re following us.”

  “Who would be following us?” I could hear the disbelief in his voice.

  My eyes darted to the side mirror. How could I possibly explain it to Clay without revealing the truth? I couldn’t tell him. Even if I wanted to explain myself, how would I do it without sounding crazy?

  My fingers gripped at the seat and my seatbelt. The car accelerated behind us. My scream lodged in my throat. It was going to ram us from behind. My nails dug into the seat and I grabbed the handle above the door, bracing for the hit.

  It swerved around us at the last minute into the opposing traffic lane and zoomed around us. As it passed us I could see the driver, an older woman with dark sunglasses on. She didn’t even glance at me as she passed.

  Not following us. Not after me. Just some crazy bitch who needed to be somewhere.

  She turned off at the next left and I let out a sigh of relief. The rush of air into my lungs made the ends of my fingers tingle and I only realised then that I had been holding my breath. As we drove past the intersection, I spotted the dark sedan roaring away.

  Paranoid or what, Aria? Careful, or you’ll become just like Salem.

  I sat focusing on steadying my breath and calming my heartrate down. Keep it inside.

  “Aria.” I felt a hand slip onto my knee. I snapped my head towards Clay only to see him glancing at me, concern crinkling through his features. Concerned for my mental health. If only he knew. I’m not the crazy one. “Are you okay?”

  “Fine.” I sat there, fists tight in my lap. “Just…I was stupid enough to watch a scary movie last night. Had a nightmare from it. I think that’s why I’m jumpy.” I forced a laugh. “It’s nothing.” I’m just being paranoid. “Do you have any siblings?” I asked him, just to change the topic. I don’t know why I picked siblings. I didn’t want to talk about Salem.

  Or maybe, I did.

  His jaw twitched. “Um, no. It was just me and my dad…mostly.”

  “What about your mother?”

  “She was sick most of my childhood.”

  “Oh, sorry. Is she okay now?”

  “She’s…dead.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s fine. It happened years ago.”

  “My mother died suddenly when Salem and I were young, really young.” I remembered hiding in the cubby house, curled into a tight ball, holding my mother’s necklace in my hand, Salem’s warm body wrapped around my back. It’s okay. We have each other. Only each other. We’ll be okay.

  “It sucks,” he said. “But you grow up and move on, right?”

  “It still hurts though,” I said quietly. “Everyone you lose is a piece of you gone that you’ll never get back.”

  He didn’t say anything but his hands tightened on the wheel, his fingers going white. Then he answered, his voice sliding into the air like water across glass. “How many pieces do you have to lose before there’s nothing left?”

  He pulled up in front of my apartment and turned off the ignition. For a second we both just sat there in silence.

  “Thank you for−” We both started at once.

  He smiled. “Ladies first.”

  “Thank you for today. I had a really good time.”

  “No worries.”

  “Even if you did blackmail me into coming.”

  “It wasn’t blackmail. I won the right to take you out, fair and square.”

  “And even if you did blackmail me into kissing you.”

  “That I won as well.” He made a pursing motion with his mouth. “Lucky I have such a healthy self-esteem or I’d start developing a complex over you.”

  I rolled my eyes. A healthy self-esteem was something he didn’t need any more of. “What were you going to say?”

  “Thank you for letting me take you. It’s the first time I’ve ever taken anyone there. It’s the first time…I’ve wanted to.”

  Oh. The way his
voice took on a hushed tone made me realise how much that spot must have meant to him. “You’re welcome.”

  The silence grew heavy and every time I glanced at him he was staring at me intently like he had something more to say. The inside of the car grew hotter and hotter until I could barely stand it.

  “Okay, then,” I said, pressing the buckle to my seatbelt loose.

  His large palm slid over mine. “Wait.” His voice was low and full, weighted with a sound I didn’t recognise.

  I turned to face him. This time he didn’t wait for me to tell him to kiss me. Or perhaps I begged for it in the way my breath hitched when I saw his face move in closer. Or the way my lips parted, drawing in breath so hard it was like I was trying to suck him closer.

  His mouth moved across mine, crushing my lips. This time the kiss was harder, the softness from earlier was gone. Tenderness replaced with something…hotter…more intense. Darker. Like there was life in my lips that he was trying to drink from. Like it had been months or perhaps years since our last kiss and he wasn’t sure whether we would ever get another one. His desperation poured into my mouth, his tongue pushing between my lips, fighting with mine.

  I kissed him back just as hard, startled at how quickly this wanting turned to an ache. I found the hem of his shirt and I pushed my hand up along his warm body, thrills rushing through me as my fingers explored every hard bump and dip of his stomach, then his wide chest. Only when I heard him moaning, did a shiver of hesitation shoot through me. What were we doing? This was too much. Too fast.

  I pulled away. And he let me go. We sat in our seats, our chests moving in and out, our unsteady breaths filling the car with hot, sweet air. What had just happened? I had been groping him like a woman of no morals. Two kisses and he was turning me into an animal.

  My fingers found the car door handle. “Thanks again for today.” I had to get out of the car. It was too hot in here.

  “Aria...”

  I paused at the longing in his voice and looked back at him. Don’t go, his face said.

  “I…I’ll see you tomorrow. Okay?”

  I nodded.

  I slid out of his car, a deep red older-model Mustang, and walked up my driveway, feeling his eyes on me the whole way inside.

  * * *

  When I first wake it’s like I’m born again, unburdened by life, new and fresh and unfettered behind fluttering eyes and cotton mouth, until the memories reorder themselves, falling into place like frames in a movie, and the flickering ghosts from the past reach out to grip me in their bony fingers again.

  And her face. Always her face. Always Salem.

  Salem rising out of the depths of the lake water to greet me, laughing at my fear and tear-streaked face. Salem’s defiant glare, fierce eyes and her sharp promises. And Salem’s pleading gaze, her glassy pupils, and her trembling bottom lip, the only sign of the broken doll within.

  And of the last time I saw her…

  Six months ago, in front of the Starbucks in Broadbeach, getting into a strange black sedan, my protests stuck in my throat, separated from her by a busy street, cars flashing between us so that she flickered in and out of my sight like she was under a strobe light. Had she seen me, across the road yelling and waving and ignoring stares from passersby?

  Did she see my frantic dash across the street, cars braking, angry horns blaring and loud cusses from the open driver-side windows?

  But by the time I had reached the other side, Salem was gone. And I was left, a grey speck on the sidewalk as the sounds of the city and the crush of the pedestrians and my grief swallowed me up.

  Since that sighting in Broadbeach, I had followed my instincts north, taking a cheap overnight bus up along the Queensland coast. All I had to go on was the crumpled shred of paper, torn from a journal, left in the ashtray of the table that I had last seen Salem at. The shred of paper I still have, that I carry in my wallet with me:

  rage Falls Mirage Falls Mirage Falls Mirage Falls Mirage Falls Mira

  This was how I ended up a few months ago in this Sunshine Coast hinterland town called Mirage Falls. I hadn’t seen a sign of her since.

  You and me. My words to Salem rang out in my mind like a taunt. It’ll always be you and me. We’ll protect each other.

  What a liar I had turned out to be.

  * * *

  If this woman knew that I, the girl who was pointing out the different features and benefits between the two brands of vibrators she couldn’t decide over, had never had sex, would she laugh or just walk out?

  “It really just depends on what you like,” I said. “Do you prefer clitoral stimulation which the Aphrodite provides with this vibrating surface or do you prefer a G-spot stimulation which the Paris will give you because of its curved end?”

  The customer was in her mid-forties I guessed, coarse hay-coloured bob framing her plump cherry-flushed cheeks. She had been in here a few times before, only ever browsing the lingerie, but I had noticed her eyes flashing more than once to this section up the back, the one hidden behind a partitioned wall of black and white damask wallpaper.

  She hadn’t been game enough to ask for what I knew she really wanted but I had taken a chance and had casually mentioned our latest offer: buy an underwear set and get ten percent off our range of boutique toys. She had stammered, trying to repress the excitement I could see twinkling in her eyes, before saying, “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to look.”

  She stared at both display items in either of her hands, chewing her lip. Aphrodite versus Paris. She was already sold, the hungry look in her eyes saying everything she wasn’t. She just needed a little push.

  “They’re both different but wonderful sensations,” I said. “Although if you can’t decide, there is always our greater discount for more than one item…”

  She bought both. I rang her purchases up and packed the items into a glossy pink and black striped carry bag, a tiny whip hanging off one of the silk handles.

  The Whip & Flick was the only boutique lingerie (and a little bit more) store in the small forest-hugged town of Mirage Falls. The store was well lit by crystal chandeliers, and furnished with plush satin damask-covered armchairs, elegant black glass display tables and red satin display pillows carrying Indian silk blindfolds and real Italian leather whips, giving it a distinct boudoir feel.

  “Thank you. I hope you enjoy your purchases,” I said before she tottered off.

  Flick walked up to the counter from the back room, a box of the latest Agent Provocateur shipment in her arms. “Thanks again for stepping in today on your day off,” she said. “You’re a life saver.”

  “Not a problem.” It wasn’t like I had anything planned.

  Flick’s dark exotic features were the best blend of her Mauri father and Australian mother: high cheekbones, sweetheart face, deep-set eyes and caramel skin. I guessed her age to be early thirties but her official stance was ‘real ladies never tell their age’ category and unofficially ‘don’t ask unless you want a punch to the face’.

  Her real name was Felicity Grace; the only way I even knew that was because I read her name on the store lease that I spotted once on the office desk ready to be renewed. Only her mother called her Felicity Grace. She said that her parents named her that because they were qualities they’d hoped their child would have. It turned out they jinxed themselves instead.

  She rested her box on the counter as she snatched the latest sale receipt from my hand and eyed the total price. She whistled. “Nice work. For someone who hasn’t actually experienced the joys of sex, you sell it damn well.”

  I laughed to cover up the thread of discomfort in my belly. I might not know sex. But I knew people. I had learned quickly when I had been suddenly homeless and alone at fifteen how to read people; who they were, who they weren’t, what they really wanted from me…

  “I guess that’s a compliment?”

  “Tell me,” she tapped her chin, “what are you waiting for again?”

  “For the knight on hi
s valiant horse wearing shiny armour.” This was a running joke between us. Only because I never wanted to talk about my reasons why. I wasn’t waiting. I had just been occupied with more important things for the past three years…like trying to find Salem.

  “A knight? Puh-lease, just give me his long, thick lance.”

  I laughed at her crude joke.

  “Or maybe,” Flick said, her voice lowering, “you’re waiting for Mr Dark and Delicious to make his move. He doesn’t have a horse but I bet he’s got something you could ride.”

  I hid my blazing cheeks and waved at her. “This isn’t break time. Stop standing around and go unpack your panties.”

  “I can’t remember,” she said, shaking her head as she picked up her box again, “exactly who is the boss here?” She spun, her thick ebony hair swirling around her head like a shampoo commercial. God, how I envied her hair, falling in rich dark waves the colour of ravens. Not like my straight-as-a-curtain, auburn hair.

  She sashayed towards the front display table, her ample curves swaying hypnotically. Ample curves − something else I would never have. Despite what I ate I remained slim as a beanpole.

  When I had arrived here several months ago, Flick had taken one look at me, loitering on the sidewalk outside her store one early morning, a map in one hand, a single backpack slung over my shoulders, and hauled me into her store and her life despite my initial resistance. She agreed to hire me and house me without references and without a contract, which meant I could leave at any time if I wanted to. Although without any sign of where Salem had gone, I had nowhere else to go.

  I fussed with one of the racks of clothes… Actually ‘clothes’ might not be the right word. They were thin strips of leather, studded or braided, or with indecent cut-outs making them look like lace. I would never wear one of these outfits, but I was there to work, not to judge. “Whatever floats their boat, and we cater for all kinds of boats,” Flick always said with a wink.