Personal Demons

'A fuck's just a way of celebrating life, princess, like a champagne toast. Look, you asked to come along with us.'

'I know, I just didn't realise I was going to end up in the House of Testosterone. Who's Jack talking to?'

Bax looked over his shoulder. Behind him stood a vague, thin-limbed boy of about nineteen. He had carelessly cropped blonde hair, watery blue eyes and the self-absorbed stance of a piece of minor Victorian statuary. He also had a dog-chain tightened around his pale cigarette-burned neck. 'His name's Simon. He knows us from evening classes. Gives me the creeps. He's into humiliation. Likes to take punishment. They say his dad sexually assaulted him for years, and nobody found out about it until after the old guy was dead. I don't know why Jack talks to him. I never do.'

'You mean he's a masochist?'

'Yeah, why? You wanna interview him for your thesis?' Bax drained his beer and set the glass down on the cigarette machine. 'He won't be very interesting. People who are into role-playing never are.'

'Why's that?'

'Because they're selfish, working out their childhood shit. They just take what they want from sex.'

Woody peered around Bax's chest. The boy was flirting shamelessly with Jack. 'Perhaps he has no choice.'

'You're right there. Kids like that are just whipping boys, put on earth to suck up all the bad vibes and take the blame.'

'Don't you get jealous when guys flirt with Jack?'

Bax looked surprised. 'Me? We've been together for six years. I hardly think he's about to run off with someone else, and if he did I'd like to think he'd choose someone attractive. Besides, we have a deal. It's simple; if he ever leaves me, I'll kill him. You want another beer?'

'I can keep pace with you, no problem,' she said defensively.

'Come and give me a hand.'

The two bartenders were ignoring customers in order to conduct some kind of odd argument with each other. Something was clearly wrong for them both to look so worried. 'What's going on?' Bax shouted over the music as one of the boys distractedly took his order.

'They found some little kid on the wasteground this afternoon,' explained the barman. 'Dead. Raped. A little boy.'

'Christ. That's terrible.'

'Yeah. One of the customers just told me there's a crowd hanging around outside.'

'What do you mean?'

'A bunch of people who live on the estate. At least, that's where he thinks they're from.'

Bax was appalled. 'They don't think the person who did it is in here?'

The barman looked at him as if he was stupid. 'I wouldn't be surprised – would you?'

News of the boy's death had swept around the estate with electrifying speed, and as it passed along each street it gained gruesome new details. The boy was local and liked by all. Some other kids had seen him talking to a man, not someone from around here, a visitor, a stranger. The only people who came to this area did so to frequent that pub across the road. The pub was just five hundred yards from the wasteground, the perfect sanctuary. They were shielding him inside, protecting one of their own. In the minds of the growing mob, deviants of that nature knew no difference between love and rape, between adults and children.

At first there had only been a handful of people on the pavement outside, but over the last hour the numbers had swelled until there were more than a hundred restless men and women. The police had been called to control the crowd, and at the moment were nervously discussing the problem in the next street while they awaited the arrival of the two Armed Response Vehicles they had requested. Their relationship with the estate residents had never been an easy one, and at this point one wrong move, one misunderstood command, would start a riot.

They lingered outside, the dark faces of the multitude, muttering to one another, cupping matches in their hands to light cigarettes, shifting back and forth from one group to the next trying to glean details, waiting for news, waiting for action, and not prepared to wait much longer.'

When you think about it, this is really silly. A bunch of grown men standing around in their underclothes.' Woody slid her arm around Bax as they watched the dancefloor, but her eyes kept straying to the dark recesses beyond. Jack was still at the counter having an intense conversation with Simon and the barman. 'Oh, I don't know,' said Bax. 'It's kind of like having X-ray vision. Didn't you ever see Ray Milland in The Man with the X-Ray Eyes? Anyway, nobody's hurting anyone else, so where's the harm?'

The noise of the brick cut through even the fuzzing bass sound of the track playing over the speakers. It clanged against the steel shutter next to the entrance and the bruit echoed through the club. A moment later the DJ cut the music. Muffled shouts could be heard outside. A chunk of concrete resounded against another of the shutters. Scuffles and angry yells broke out behind them as the rear door to the bar was hastily slammed shut. One of the barmen crashed a heavy iron rod across the door and locked it in place.

'What was that?' Woody looked back, shocked by the noise.

'They've broken in through the window of the corridor between the bar and the cloakroom,' said Bax. 'They can't get in here. But we can't get in there.'

'What does that mean?'

'It means, my dear, that we can't get our clothes back.'

'Let me get this straight,' said Woody, raising her hands in rising panic. 'We're locked in here, in just our underwear, with what sounds like a lynch mob outside howling for someone's blood.'

'Our blood,' said Bax. 'You're one of us now. Congratulations. You always wanted to be one of the boys.'

'Well, someone will have to go out there and tell them there's been a mistake.'

'Good idea, Woodson. You wanna handle that?'

Jack reappeared beside them as another hail of rocks clanged against the shuttered windows. 'I don't think they can get in. This place is built like a fortress. Besides, the cops should be here in a minute.'

'Well, that's reassuring. I feel better already. Let's have another drink, turn the music back on and dance.' Bax raised his glass just as – incredibly – the technotrack really did resume, bleeding a thudding beat through the speakers. 'Jeezus, I don't believe these queens!'

'It's like I said, they could tango their way through the stations of the fucking cross.'

'Somehow I think it's gonna take more than a sense of rhythm and a pair of cha-cha heels to get us out of this situation.' A few guys had returned to the dancefloor, mainly the ones who were tripping. Everyone else was standing back by the bar, watching the sealed-up windows with increasing nervousness.

'How many of them do you think are out there?' asked Woody.

'A couple of hundred by now,' replied Simon, who had appeared beside them.

'Oh yeah?' Bax wasn't prepared to allow the newcomer into their circle just because Jack sometimes spoke to him. 'How do you know that?'

'I'm sensitive to shifts of mood. A bit psychic. My mother, my real mother, was a medium.'

'Just great,' moaned Bax, 'we've gone from the Twilight Zone to the X-Files. I'm gonna see what's happening.' He headed off to the entrance, where the club's bouncer was watching the street from his peephole in the door.

'What's going on outside?'

'Some kids just climbed that pole over there and cut our phone lines. Now they're all just standing around like a bunch of – lemmings – or something. Like they're waiting for a signal.' The bouncer motioned him away. 'I'd get back from the door if I were you.'

Another hurled chunk of concrete hammered against the panels, shaking the air. The noise level on the street was rising as the crowd gained confidence and found its voice. 'Can't someone call the police on a mobile?' asked Bax.