Wicked Game

  March 2003 We are on the way to the bus in the morning. Steve is walking a little way ahead of me.    'I take it you're on the Jack and Jill,' he says.    'No.'    'No?' He stops and turns to stare at me, his mouth open wide.    I was wrong. He does care. He just assumed. But why would he when the first time I refused because of the lack of a condom?    'But I probably won't get pregnant,' I say, trying to justify my recklessness, 'because of being so skinny.'    'Aren't you worried?'     I can only shrug. With Steve time, boundaries, everything is blurred.     We play hangman on the bus.    'Why have you got the best legs in the world?' he says.    'I'm just perfect.'    We walk to see the Devil's Marbles, huge round rocks that seem to balance precariously. Like my life.    The heat is around forty degrees. Steve sweats, his t-shirt soaking. I stay dr...

  March 2003 The trip to Uluru begins. We are on a minibus with a small group. Steve and I can't sit together because most of the seats have been taken. He sits next to another man called Steve. We refer to him as Steve 2. I sit next to a Canadian woman who takes an instant dislike to Steve.    Because he's with me, I think. All the girls hate me.    Steve calls her a hobbit. Not to her face. Her name is Lizzie.    There is something about being with Steve that blurs time.     We swim in a gorge, splashing through reflections of the sky and the surrounding rocks. There is more water here in the outback than I expected. It's refreshing to wash the heat off my body.     We gather wood for a campfire in the evening. We are told by the guides to pick up pieces the size of our forearms. One of the other women, Anna, and I come back with twigs. Steve is dragging something the size of a tree trunk.     Steve smokes as we sit...

  March 2003 We put our backpacks down and choose our beds.    'It must be fate that we met again,' Steve says. 'And it wasn't even a one night stand because we didn't have sex.' He seems delighted by this, as if it makes the potential relationship at our fingertips more legitimate.    He stares at me, his face hungry. We kiss, falling onto the bed. As our clothes come off I think I should ask him about condoms but he doesn't say anything so maybe he doesn't care, and if he doesn't care then I don't care.    Anyway, it's unlikely I'll get pregnant. I've used contraception maybe twice in my life and it's never happened. I barely weigh seven stone and have spent so much of my life since my teens intermittently starving, I doubt this body could carry a baby. I shake my premonition out of my head. Premonitions never come true.    He swears a lot, loudly during sex. Afterwards he thanks me. I am confused by this. Does he see it as some...

March 2003 I'm on the Oz Experience bus waiting for the three day trip to Alice Springs to start. I'm looking forward to seeing the outback, Uluru, the red centre of Australia.    I look up at the other passengers boarding. A dark haired man walks past     Steve.    It's Steve from the night I arrived in Cairns. My neck still hurts, still bears his teeth marks, now faded to yellow. I sink in my seat and look out of the window. I don't think he saw me. Maybe he won't recognise me. It was dark and he was drunk.    The bus leaves the city behind. Everywhere is dry. Foliage is sparse and grey. I have a sudden wish to see grass, a lush meadow or even a neat lawn. Just something to remind me of life.    The bus stops in the middle of nowhere. All that seems to be here are toilet cubicles. We queue up to use them. A scream comes from one of them. We all look but we're too hot to care. A girl rushes out.    'There's a frog in the ...