Kimberly

~ Chapter Three ~ Meth and Mew

Beyond the open door were a set of grey stone stairs which led up, on quite a steep angle, to a battered red door at the top. The walls that cased the stairs were just like the street, covered in names and slogans. As I followed Jack up the stairs, like some little kitten who's afraid that it might become lost, one of the slogans caught my eye.

"Jack Rydon Ownz Yor Ass" in brilliant red. But when I looked for a second time, I soon became aware that somebody had tried to cover the "Ownz Yor Ass" part in a sickly shade of green and had written: "Is a GaY FUcker" beneath it in the same grassy colour, along with the prominant name "Tar".

As I wandered up the stairs behind Jack, staring around at a few of the names which had been plastered about, "MEW woz Eya", "METH", "Rob iz HAWT", I began to wonder what it was that ever so famous Jack Rydon actually did for a living. Soon another thought struck me. "Jack." I said, as we reached the door at the top of the stairs and he began to fumble with the handle. It seemed that it was jammed. "So, err, do ya always take in kids from broken homes, then?"

Jack struggled with the door, thrusting his shoulder against it in swift movements. But it didn't budge. "Nope. Ya the first." he answered and all of a sudden I got an awful feeling in the bottom of my stomach. If he had never taken in a kid before, then why was he helping me? Instantly I got ready to bolt down the stairs and out into the street.

Jack must have noticed my fear and took a few steps back from the door, cursing quietly under his breath as he did so. "Ya looked like ya needed a friend." he told me sincerely and then charged back at the door. His shoulder came into contact with the wood in a loud "THUMP" and the door flew open on its hinges, sending the raven and blue haired boy stumbling into the room beyond.

For a moment I stared on in perplexity as the heavy sound of a rock band, that I had only heard a few times on the radio, greeted me from the inside. The room, it seemed, was a living room, for there was a three seater sofa along the back wall and two, rather tatty, cream armchairs on either side. On the front wall was a decent size t.v, which was switched off, and beside it stood a large stereo, full of flashing lights. There were two figures in the room and a rectangular glass coffee table was situated in the centre, bundled with all sorts of junk and odd looking contraptions.

One of the figures was Jack, who was now grinning at me with an odd glint in his eye that I'd not seen before and gesturing for me to enter. The other was slouched in the nearest armchair.

Warily, I stepped into the room. Jack gave the fellow in the armchair a swift flick of the ear and he startled, spinning around to face us. The first thing that I noticed was the guy's hair. Long choppy lengths of bright pink hung over his face, concealing his eyes completely. The only features of his face that were visable to the eye was the end of his pointy nose, the lower half of his cheeks and then his lips. "Kimberly, this is Mew." Jack told me over the sound of the music. I smiled in what I hoped was a friendly way and nodded. "Hey."

"Yo." was the pink haired boy's reply as his black fingernailed hands struggled to remove the hair from his view, in order to peer at me better. Frowning, he shot Jack a look of confusion and let his fringe drop back down over his face. "I thought ya were goin' to see Shade 'bout that new batch he's jus' got shipped in?"

Jack turned that strange grin to Mew and in the process fished a clear plastic bag, full of white powder, out of one of his many pockets. Waving the bag temptingly in front of Mew he said in a silky voice: "Twenty quids worth, my friend, as a tester." But Mew had snatched the bag from him and in the same instant was dipping his finger into the powder.

"An' this is that stuff from France?" he asked, finger pausing half way between the bag and his mouth, lightly coated with the mixture. Jack nodded and took his patched leather jacket off, throwing it onto the sofa. "Yup. That's the one. We get that lot as a free trial an' if we like it we can buy three 'undreds worth off 'im for two-fifty. Special offer." he told him.

"Yeah?" asked Mew, putting his finger in his mouth.

"Yep." Jack answered and motioned for me to sit down.

I perched myself onto the edge of the sofa and Mew spoke again. This time his voice was hushed and only just hearable over the thundering of the music. "An' . . . what 'bout Tar?" Jack's dark blue eyes narrowed at the mention of the name and flashed from Mew to me and then back again. Lips curled into a sort of snarl, he answered, "Wha' 'bout 'im." But it was no more of a question than it was an answer and from this I gathered that Jack had ended that particular conversation, for now Mew had fallen silent.

I watched as Jack knelt down in front of the coffee table and began scouting for something, his pale fingers rifling across the various objects atop it. He soon produced an illaminated card of some sort - possibly a fake ID - and then cleared a reasonable space in front of him. Glancing once at me, he took the bag of powder from Mew and tipped it over the table, pouring half of the contents onto the glass. Using the card, he manipulated the powder into two thin horizontal lines and then produced a five pound note, which he rolled up into a sort of tight tube.

I wasn't stupid. As soon as I'd seen Jack hand Mew the white powder I'd had an inkling that it was some sort of drug and even if I hadn't, their talk would have certainly let me in on the idea. Add to that Mew tasting it, both of the guys' unusually short fingernails and then Jack's little preperation on the coffee table and by the time that they'd come to actually snorting the stuff, I knew that it was cocaine. Not only that, but it seemed that they were dealing it too.

Don't get me wrong, I didn't have anything against drugs. I had a few friends back in Wikemsburg who thought that it was cool to smoke dope and another who claimed that he lived on solvents. But none of them were on the really hard stuff and I guess that's what surprised me the most.

I'd heard about people on cocaine and heroin, but I'd never actually met anyone that did them. So I think I can safely say that I was somewhat put out by suddenly finding myself in the residence of two coke sniffers.

Just as Jack poised himself above the first line there was a voice from the back of the room.

"One day you two are gonna wake up in hospital lookin' like good old Michael Jackson, ya know that." Both Jack and Mew looked up. I followed their gaze.

A girl was standing at the door to one of the bedrooms, staring on in disgust at her two flatmates. Her cherry red hair hung in jagged lengths about her shoulders and her face was decorated with dark make-up. Lots of it. It was her outfit, however, that captured my attention . . . possibly for all the wrong reasons. A black t-shirt displaying the phrase "Life's too short to dance with ugly men" led down to a tartan mini-skirt which stopped a few inches short of her knees and a pair of chunky New Rocks rose halfway up her shins.

In an instant Jack was on his feet and dusting himself down. Adjusting his tie for perhaps the one hundreth time that day, he winked at her. "Aww c'mon Meth, don' be 'arsh on us. We're jus' 'avin' a bit a fun."

The girl's brow wrinkled, "Fun? You call destroyin' yourself bit by bit . . . Fun!" She shook her head at them in disbelief and then added, "Man I hate to see what you're idea of "not-fun" is, then." The girl's eyes suddenly fell upon me and she glanced to Jack. "'Ave you been raidin' the highschool again, Jack?" she asked sarcastically.

Jack rolled his eyes and gave her an I-don't-find-that-funny look. "Meth, this is-" but he was cut short by the girl who was now holding her hand out at me.

"Hey kid, I'm Mandy Cole, but call me Meth."

I stood up and shook her hand, thinking about how odd it was that everybody I'd met so far, apart from Mew, introduced themselves by using their full name. But then I guess you had to tell people your full name, for in a city as big as that one, there were plenty others with the same first name as yourself. "Kimberly Black." I told her.

She too gave me that amused look that Jack had done some few hours before and then repeated, "Kimberly?" asthough she wasn't entirely sure on what she had just heard. I nodded and she shrugged, "Well, welcome to the neighbourhood, Kim." She paused a moment to check her nails, before adding, "I'll be off then, otherwise I'll be late for Tar."

As she started for the door, Jack whisked around the coffee table and was at her back with incredible swiftness. He placed a hand on her shoulder and she turned to him, rolling her own eyes asthough she knew exactly what was coming. "Meth, why do ya go out wi' that wanker, when ya could be wi' a guy like me?" he asked, his voice was quiet now, but the music seemed to have quietened off too.

"A guy like you, Jack?" she said softly, fiddling innocently with the bottom of Jack's tie. Jack nodded, "Yeah. I don' understand it, Meth."

"You don't?" She asked.

Jack shook his head and she went on. "Because what the hell would I want with a lyin', cheatin', self-absorved pervert like you?!" She dropped his tie which she had neatly unfastened, "I wouldn't go near you if it was a choice between you an' a pigeon." She took a satisfied step back and I watched as a look of utter hate washed across Jack's face. "An' ya still 'aven't paid Tar yet, 'ave you."

"I'll pay 'im as soon as the takin's for the last batch are sorted." Jack told her.

"Two hundred and fifty pounds, Jack." Meth said pointedly, "An' if 'e doesn't get it you know what he's goin' to do, don't you. He's a well known man, Jack. He'll 'ave you tracked down and killed in a day, an' that's even if you try to run away."

Jack's face suddenly became deadly serious and I watched as he shook his head slightly. "I don' do runnin' away, Meth." he told her slowly. But Meth wasn't listening.

"G'bye Jack." She mused, ruffling his hair with one hand. Then she whirled out of the flat door, leaving master Rydon looking somewhat awkward and confused.

There was an air to Meth. A strange aura that seemed to cling to her wherever she went. I felt it as soon as she entered the room. It's difficult to describe to you if you've never felt, or experienced, it before. It's sort of like when you meet somebody for the first time and you instinctly know that they're going to become famous one day. Or like those certain members of the Royal Family who just seem to ooze supremacy - not that I'm much of a Royal fan myself though . . .

At first I was so niave that I confused the feeling with love. But it wasn't love, in fact it wasn't even adoration. It was a sort of odd power that emanted from her and I guess I wasn't the only one who could sense it for Jack and Mew, it seemed, could feel it too. Jack suddenly became impressive and self-concious, whereas Mew became somewhat polite and respectable. But then I suppose that could be because she was hot and they wanted to get her into bed . . .

Either way Jack was stood at the door, looking like an ass, for a good three minutes after Meth had left.

The rest of the day was spent chatting with my two new rebel friends about where I had come from and why while that distinct rock band, that I couldn't for the life in me remember the name of, pounded around us. The talk soon turned to the others however.

I learnt that Jack was an orphan who had escaped the hostel he had been living in at eighteen in order to make something of himself. He rented a flat and started work stacking shelves in a supermarket. He stayed there for three months and then began ask himself if there was anything better than that. Of course there had to be. He'd seen guys in huge flash cars driving around the city all the time - so there had to be something, somewhere.

Jack moved from stacking shelves to bar work in the local punk nightclub. In the year that he spent there he came across Mew, a pink haired eighteen year old who had come from River Dale to leave behind the hassle he was getting there and make a brand new start. The two of them became buddies and Mew soon moved into Jack's flat. They started up a drug selling business and before long their profit was growing wild and high.

Ever since then the two have been in business together selling whatever it is that they can get their sticky little paws on.

Several times that evening either Jack or Mew offered me a line of cocaine and several times I shook my head and obeyed my instincts. Mum had always told me never to take drugs, so had the teachers at school and other rather prominent people in my life. You see it all the time, t.v programmes about "Just saying no" and those lovely little educational ones that explain all the bad things that can happen to you if you take drugs. All of those were imprinted on my rebellious little mind and I followed my common sense and said "No thanks".

Of course I knew that the longer that I stayed with my two new friends, the less and less that I was going to be able to find myself actually being able to say "no", but then I guess that's what becomes of those who dabble in dangerous affairs.

"Ya remind me of me brother." Jack told me in a vague voice. His glazed eyes traveled over me for a moment and then he nodded and repeated, "Yeah. Ya remind me of me brother."

I said nothing. I didn't know whether the likeness of me to Jack's brother was a good thing, or a bad thing, seeing that Jack hadn't yet mentioned his relationship with him and therefore I kept silent, watching as he pulled himself up from his spot by the cluttered coffee table. But my quietness didn't seem to matter, for it looked as if Jack had other things on his mind at that particular moment.

"Mewww . . ." he drawled in a relatively irritating baby-voice, starting towards the pink haired fellow who was still sprawled in the armchair and managing to almost fall over the coffee table in the process. "James Mewton . . ." He halted in front of the boy and held out an upturned palm. "S'more?"

Mew opened one eye and lazily surveyed the scene in front of him. He shook his head. "Nope." Jack's eyes widened and I watched on in mystification as his bottom lip jutted out a little and began to quiver. "But you 'ave some. You always dooo . . ." he whined in the same annoying tone that made me want to seal his mouth shut with super glue. But Mew shrugged. "No means no. S'all gone. All of it." His curtain of fuschia hair parted a little as he moved his head, revealing one, rather expressionless, eye.

"James don' fool wi' me . . ." Jack whimpered. And to my utter surprise he climbed into the armchair, lowering himself over Mew's knees so that he was straddling him. Mew didn't move.

Jack brought his head level with his friend's so that both of their slightly-too-big noses were touching. "I told ya not to fool wi' me . . ." he breathed, his voice coming in a husky whisper this time. Quickly, his small pink tongue darted out to run over the skin of Mew's lips and then retreat again.

There wasn't a single gesture from the boy beneath.

Then Jack bent his neck, red lips coming into contact with Mew's collarbone for a chain of deep kisses and the fellow beneath let out a small, amost inaudiable, gasp and sat forward.

I watched on in a mixture of confusion and distaste as the boy's embraced. Jack's gentle kisses making their way upwards now towards his companion's earlobe and Mew, head back and eyes closed, whimpering with pleasure.

I'm not sure of the reason why I kept watching them. I don't know whether it was out of pure interest or some odd feeling of arousal that seemed to creep up somewhere around my groin. Maybe it was a combination of the two. Either way I just couldn't seem able to take my eyes off of the pair and simply regarded them with a strange sense of inexperience.

Jack's teeth bore down onto Mew's earlobe in a series of passionate tugs and nips, one hand clasped onto his associate's shoulder, the other hanging somewhere around Mew's lower back. Mew's own hands were not as still as Jack's, however, groping inbetween their pressing bodies, clearly seeking out the buckle of the blue and black haired boy's belt.

But in the same instant, Jack had leapt free of the embrace.

He was stood in the middle of the room, a large grin of mischief plastered across his pale face. His black studded belt, which had earlier held his tousers in place, was unbuckled and hanging loose. And in one long fingered hand, he held a clear plastic bag half full of white powder which - I guessed - he had whipped from Mew's back pocket in the midst of the seduction.

Mew scowled. His face was slightly flushed, giving a warm lively glow to his skin. "I 'ate you, Jack Rydon . . ." he growled under his breath. But there was a strange tone in his voice that seemed light-hearted, cheerful almost, and I gazed on with furrowed brows as he shook his head in disbelief and headed for one of the bedrooms.

I turned back to Jack, my face screwed up into a look of complete bewilderment. The boy cocked his head to the side and winked. "An' that, dearest Kimberly, is 'ow we do things 'round 'ere . . ." he said.

It seems odd to me now, looking back on everything that's happened and remembering the way that I just sat there taking them in with childish eyes, like a kid who comes across a porn movie for the first time and is unable to tell exactly what the two people (or three even) are actually doing and for what reason.

But I knew what they were doing. I knew exactly what they were doing. The fact was, that I'd never seen two guys so much as give one another a peck on the cheek before and there were Jack and Mew getting all busy right in front of me. Not to mention that peculiar sensation of actual enjoyment that began to pulse somewhere a little too close for comfort.

Then there were Jack's words, "'An' that, dearest Kimberly, is 'ow we do things 'round 'ere . . ." Did that mean that he did this sort of stuff everyday? Baffled thoughts swarmed my mind for an instant and I recall sitting there, totally bemused by the whole affair.

Was the ever so famous Jack Rydon a male whore . . ?

That night I slept on the sofa. Jack said that I could have borrowed Meth's bed, but he wasn't sure on what time she would be back, so it would be a bad idea to shove me in there if she happened to turn up a few hours later, only to walk in and find me dozing in her precious bedroom. Thus I took to sleeping on the settee and Jack brought out a few blankets and a pillow for me, before venturing into the bedroom that Mew had entered a few hours previously.

I guess it struck me as a little odd that the exact two fellows that I'd just seen caressing one another shared the same bedroom aswell and a small part of me began wondering whether they slept in the same bed, only to be deeply scolded by the larger part of me that told me to get real and stop being so nosey.

It certainly nagged at me, the way that Jack and Mew seemed like simple friends one minute and then passionate lovers the very next. The way that they both seemed to adore the glamorous Meth, a female, which seemed to cut out the prospect of Jack being as straight as a circle. It bugged me to hell and no matter how much I tried to work it all out in my head it just somehow managed to tangle itself up again and take me right back to where I started from.

Were Jack and Mew fucking each other?

Was Jack fucking Meth behind Tar's back?

Or were they all simply fucking one other and having wonderous little orgy parties at the weekend?

Jack's words still raced around my brain as I tried to make sense of them - tried to dechiper what exactly he meant by it all. So much so that I fell asleep that night and dreamt about being seduced by both boys who were wearing ever so pretty angel wings and telling me that "That's the way" they "did it" there.