Bud...

Merley's the Shark, my Sister's the Guppy and I'm known as The Fish Tank; but we're all valuable members of the pub's Pool Comp Team...

Tonight we are playing at Home; meaning it's our pub's turn to host a rival pub's team. It's supper-time- tonight the kitchen ladies have kindly prepared us plates of Curried Egg and Devon and Cheese sandwiches cut up into little triangles- though they're not all mixed-in together, of course.

There's a gorgeous guy on the other team; he's got jet-black hair and a fantastic smile. We haven't seen him before and my Sister and I both fancy him straight away. She's nineteen and I'm seventeen; but not for much longer. It's my birthday tomorrow. Most of the regulars know my real age but Gary- the Publican- thinks I'll be turning nineteen at midnight. My Sister has to play the first game of pool; and she beats the good-looking guy by three balls.

Afterwards, he joins us at our table where he tells us his real name; though I've decided that I'll call him Bud for the purpose of this story- it's close enough. I'm drunk and flirty and he buys us both a drink- one because it's my birthday tomorrow and one for losing the game to my Sister. You can tell he feels quite put out being beaten by a girl- but he needn't have. My Sister played Snooker against Edward Charlton (Eddie's son) in a State comp once- and beat him in two out of the three games that they played...

After the Pool Comp has finished up for the night we head off to the next pub- I'm asked for ID but they decide to let me in anyway- it's only ten minutes now before I'm legal. Bud buys us a round of drinks and tells us that he's just moved here from Orange, where he was, aptly, the Manager of a Fruit Co-Op. He's twenty-five and gorgeous; he looks Mediterranean in appearance but he tells Me he's an eighth generation Australian when I quiz him about his exotic looks. My Sister wants to go home by now- and Bud tells he he will give me a lift home later.

Much later, as we are sitting in his car kissing, he asks me what I am doing tomorrow night- and I tell him I'm going back to my local pub for the first time in six weeks after being banned for being under-age; and it finally dawns on him that I have only just turned eighteen tonight; and wasn't nineteen like he thought I was. He's acting like I had told him a lie but I didn't really see what the fuss was about- if I had lied, it was only to the Publican.

We see quite a lot of each other over the next six weeks; until the 'relationship' ends. I remember the first time we had sex was after we had been to the beach one day- and he kissed me in the surf and told me how hot I looked in the swimmers I was wearing; though I didn't have the heart to tell him that they belonged to my Sister...

We only had sex about ten times before he said he didn't really want to keep seeing me anymore. Sex with Bud never really 'worked' for me; it was always over before I was even 'warmed up' and I Never would have thought to finish the job by myself in front of him- I didn't do those sorts of things in front of anyone back then. But as usual- I cried and lost the plot and needed to know why we had to break up; but the only reasons that he could give me were that his mother didn't like the fact that I had twelve piercings in my ears and that She thought that, at eighteen, I was too young for him.

The same night we broke up Bud came over to my house to see Me; to check I was okay I suppose. I don't know why the house was empty except for us and the cat; I can't remember now where my Parents and Sisters were. I could tell he's been drinking; he's acting a lot different than usual. He finds the battered copy of The Hite Report that I have beside my bed; and as he starts to read it becomes increasingly agitated that I am reading this 'pornography' as he calls it. I tell him it's hardly porn and that I've been reading it since I was five years old; which only incenses him further. He starts ripping out the pages by the handful; telling me what filth it is.

He grabs the small paring knife that was beside my bed, the one that I had been using to cut the apple I had been slicing earlier into slices. Jokingly- or so I hoped- he pins me down on my bed with the small knife at my throat and tells Me not to read that 'sort of stuff' anymore; and I agree- to keep the peace. Anyway, I can't- it's all ripped up on the floor now...

I can tell he's enjoying holding me at knife point; he starts undoing his pants with his free hand but is having trouble with the belt. I can tell he's going to fuck me like this- it's his intention to do it to me with the small knife pointed to my throat- so I slyly tell him to put the knife down on the floor so he can use his fingers on me. Thinking that I'm just really horny Bud does as I ask, and while he is fucking me I reach down from the bed to the floor- my hand searching out the small weapon fingertip by fingertip- even while he's kissing me hard.

I don't like this game Bud's playing- it doesn't feel like a joke to Me anymore. When my grasp finally settles on the knife I flick it, backwards- further under my bed, so that he can't find it- amongst all the other rubbish that lives under there. He doesn't ask me where I put it; he just finishes up and leaves, acting normally again- as if nothing had happened. And I suppose it hadn't. I hadn't asked him to stop. I wasn't even that scared once the knife had been taken out of the equation. There just really wasn't that much to say; after all- we had already broken up...

The next time I saw him was a few months later at the pub. No surprises there. We got on the piss together and he apologised for the whole 'knife thing'- admitting that he hadn't even thought about the fact that it might have scared me to be fucked with a knife pointed in my neck.

Then we walked across the road to the Tattoo Parlour and I watched as he got a Black Panther with intense jade eyes drawn on his shoulder blade. It looked like it was jumping from his skin. Afterwards, he told me that every time he looked at that tattoo he would remember that I was there with him when he got it.

I wonder, sometimes, if He ever does...