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Carrie Page 31
Author: Stephen King

He turned around and looked at her, his eyes flat. 'You bring it or I ain't taking you to the f**kin fights tomorrow night.'

'I hate the fights!' She had never been, but her anger and outrage required absolutes. Her fraternity dates took her to rock concerts, which she hated. They always ended up next to someone who hadn't bathed in weeks.

He shrugged, went back to the front end, and began jacking.

She brought the toolkit, getting grease all over a brandnew sweater. He grunted without turning around. His teeshirt had pulled out of his jeans, and the flesh of his back was smooth, tanned, alive with muscles. It fascinated her, and she felt her tongue creep into the corner of her mouth.

She helped him pull the tyre of the wheel, getting her hands black. The car rocked alarmingly on the jack, and the spare was down to the canvas in two places.

When the job was finished and she got back in, there were heavy smears of grease across both the sweater and the expensive red skirt she was wearing.

'If you think-' she began as he got behind the wheel.

He slid across the seat and kissed her, his hands moving heavily on her, from waist to br**sts. His breath was redolent of tobacco; there was the smell of Brylcreem and sweat. She broke it at last and stared down at herself, gasping for breath. The sweater was blotted with road grease and dirt now. Twenty-seven-fifty in Jordan Marsh and it was beyond anything but the garbage can. She was intensely, almost painfully excited.

'How are you going to explain that?' he asked, and kissed her again. His mouth felt as if he might be grinning.'

'Feel me,' she said in his car. 'Feel me all over. Get me dirty.'

He did. One nylon split like a gaping mouth. Her skirt, short to begin with, was pushed rudely up to her waist. He groped greedily, with no finesse at all. And something - perhaps that, perhaps the sudden brush with death - brought her to a sudden, jolting orgasm. She had gone to the fights with him.

'Quarter to eight,' he said, and sat up in bed. He put on the lamp and began to dress, His body still fascinated her. She thought of last Monday night, and how it had been. He had

(no)

Tune enough to think of that later, maybe, when it would do something for her besides cause useless arousal. She swung her own legs over the edge of the bed and slid into gossamer panties.

'Maybe it's a bad idea,' she said, not sure if she was testing him or herself. 'Maybe we ought to just get back into bed and-'

'It's a good idea,' he said, and a shadow of humour crossed his face. 'Pig blood for a pig.'

'What?'

'Nothing. Come on. Get dressed.'

She did, and when they left by the back stairs she could feel a large excitement blooming, like a rapacious and night-flowering vine, in her belly.

From My Name Is Susan Snell (p. 45):

You know, I'm not as sorry about all of it as people seem to think I should be. Not that they say it right out; they're the ones who always say how dreadfully sorry they are. That's usually just before they ask for my autograph. But they expect you to be sorry. They expect you to get weepy, to wear a lot of black, to drink a little too much or take drugs. They say things like: 'Oh, it's such a shame. But you know what happened to her-' and blah, blah, blah.

But sorry is the Kool-Aid of human emotions. It's what you say when you spill a cup of coffee or throw a gutterball when you're bowling with the girls in the league. True sorrow is as rare as true love. I'm not sorry that Tommy is dead any more. He seems too much like a daydream I once had. You probably think that's cruel, but there's been a lot of water under the bridge since Prom Night. And I'm not sorry for my appearance before The White Commission. I told the truth - as much of it as I knew.

But I am sorry for Carrie.

They've forgotten her, you know. They've made her into some kind of a symbol and forgotten that she was a human being, as real as you reading this, with hopes and dreams and blah, blah, blah. Useless to tell you that, I suppose. Nothing can change her back now from something made out of newsprint into a person. But she was, and she hurt. More than any of us probably know, she hurt.

And so I'm sorry and I hope it was good for her, that prom. Until the terror began, I hope it was good and fine and wonderful and magic ...

Tommy pulled into the parking lot beside the high school's new wing, let the motor idle for just a second, and then switched it of. Carrie sat on her side of the seat, holding her wrap around her bare shoulders. It suddenly seemed to her that she was living in a dream of hidden intentions and had just become aware of the fact. What could she be doing? She had left Momma alone.

'Nervous?' He asked, and she jumped.

'Yes.'

He laughed and got out. She was about to open the door when he opened it for her. 'Don't be nervous,' he mid. 'You're like Galatea.'

'Who?'

'Galatea. We read about her in Mr Evers' class. She turned from a drudge into a beautiful woman and nobody even knew her.'

She considered it. 'I want them to know me,' she said finally.

'I don't blame you. Come on.'

George Dawson and Frieda Jason were standing by the Coke machine. Frieda was in an orange tulle concoction, and looked a little like a tuba. Donna Thibodeau was taking tickets at the door along with David Bracken. They were both National Honour Society members, part of Miss personal Gestapo, and they wore white slacks and red blazers - the school colours. Tina Blake and Norma Watson were handing out programmes and seating people inside according to their chart Both of them were dressed in black, and Carrie supposed they thought they were very chic, but to her they looked like cigarette girls in an old gangster movie.

All of them turned to look at Tommy and Carrie when they came in, and for a moment there was a stiff, awkward silence. Carrie felt a strong urge to wet her lips and controlled it. Then George Dawson said:

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Stephen King's Novels
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