Cassie

I never spoke to Cassie. I never heard her voice. I never knew her. I only saw her once, ever, and that was for about ten seconds. I still think about her.

I used to have tea at Darcy Loch’s place constantly, and sometimes we’d get some drinks in the evening, too. From all the time I spent with Darcy, you’d have thought something was going on between us. But I remember those days, and it wasn’t.

Darcy was just not that appealing. She knew me too well, for one thing. Occasionally, I would still imagine fucking her, but I don’t really think that’s so unusual. When you don’t want something, but you know it’s there, sometimes a kind of static builds up. We had that, between us, always. Even at the time, I could tell that Darcy knew what I was thinking in those frozen moments when I spaced out and spent too long following her curves. I think she liked the edge it gave her.

Mostly, though, we drank tea and talked about the things we had in common. We didn’t have all that much in common, though, so Darcy used to just blether on as if I was interested in whatever else came into her head, and I did the same, and eventually I realised that’s just what people do. Darcy really didn’t have any girl friends left, at the start of second year. I reckon I was a nutritional supplement for that, a human vitamin if you will, which is to say that I’m pretty sure that Darcy just pretended I was a girl. This worked surprisingly well, because one of the few things we had in common was Craig and, as far as I can tell, he did the same thing.

So Darcy would have me round for tea, and she’d bitch about her ex-boyfriend, and then talk about food, and not eating food, and going to the gym – all of which were big issues in my life as well, again mostly thanks to the ex-boyfriend. For my part, I got to learn which bits of Cosmopolitan magazine to take seriously, and which bits nobody takes seriously, which is still probably the most valuable object-lesson I’ve had in sex.

[In short, Cosmo is probably a subtle parody masquerading as a garish rag. Failing that insight, the simplest explanation is the best one: it’s just a bit shit.]

We’d sit up in her room and chat because it was, by virtue of being only slighter larger than Pavarotti’s coffin, de facto cosy, but also because Darcy’s flatmates were twisted eldritch abominations of the worst variety. They were not her first choice in flatmates.

All of Darcy’s housing plans had fallen through over summer, torn asunder by broken friendships, and she’d taken what she could get in the first week of term. In St. Andrews, what you get if you’re looking for accommodation in the first week of term is fucked in the trash pipe.

Darcy paid a King’s ransom for a box overlooking the all night garage, with a pair of undead flatmates who ate her food and then left disparaging remarks about its quality though the medium of magnetic fridge poetry.

It was one of that pair of murderously kitsch ghouls who let me in, the day I met Cassie.  We didn’t stand on ceremony by then, so I never gave it a second thought when Darcy didn’t answer the door. Her flatmate waved me inside, all white highlights like the Bride of Hammer Horror. She never said a word to me.

‘Thanks,’ I said.

She nodded, up the way. I looked at the shadowy staircase.

‘Right,’ I said, hoping that’s where Darcy was.

The bedroom door was open, so I knocked casually and stepped into the sunlit space within. Strange eyes met me as I crossed the threshold, deep and green, but what hit me was the contempt. I took a step back.

Cassie was overweight, with milky skin and tired features. She flinched when I moved, her mouth- shape sour with fear and blame. I felt like I’d walked into a wall, it was so strong I was almost dizzy with it.

‘Get out!’ Darcy said, shooing me like a dog. I hadn’t even noticed her, sitting on the bed. ‘Go on, now.’

‘Uh,’ I said, feeling winded. ‘ Should I wait for you?’

‘Just go, fucking go,’ Darcy said. ‘Get out right now.’

Her silent partner stared me into oblivion. Ghostlike, I faded from the room. The only thing I could feel was my cheeks, burning red. I went back downstairs in a jumble, and fell out of the door.  I sat on the steps outside for a couple of minutes, feeling rejected and indignant.

When I got back to Fife Park, the Randoms were playing Monopoly in Gowan’s room, with Frank. Frank was out, but wouldn’t give his share of the money back to the bank, which was causing a minor financial crisis. I sat on Gowan’s bed. It was too late to join, but they passed round the cider. Frank gave me a thousand pound note.

‘You look like you need cheering up,’ he said. ‘Don’t spend it all at once.’