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It’s funny, Sam thinks, all the little details nobody else sees. The ways the air shifts. Nobody else in the room looks like they can hear the Jaws theme playing. Nobody else sees glasses of water vibrating on the bartop. Sam’s got her back to her, hasn’t even seen her approaching yet, but she knows. She can sense her presence, can sense the light, exhilarating danger that Bert brings with her everywhere she goes.
The guy, a guy she was genuinely enjoying talking to a few minutes ago, until he put his hand on her thigh, shifts in two very specific ways, one after the other. Sam knows them well. The first, Bert catching his eye. The second, him (and his hand) catching Bert’s. If she was thinking about it, she could count down from that second shift to the very moment Bert slips into the space in front of her.
“Don’t get too attached, mate. She’s leaving.”
Apparently, Sam’s leaving.
“What are you, her guard dog?”
“Let’s see, shall we? You try your chances, and we’ll take bets on whether I can rip your throat out with my teeth.”
And then Bert just smiles at him. Wide and terrifying. She looks, Sam thinks, like a cartoon wolf. Like any second now a little glimmer will appear in the corner of her mouth. It’s terrifying. She fucking loves it.
He looks at Sam, then. Peers around Bert’s shoulder as if to ask if she’s for real. Sam just shrugs. A few years ago, this would’ve pissed her off. Never allowed her own moment, allowed her own space. Never allowed to talk to someone under neon lights without Bert watching, but expected to sit and wait while Bert drags men or women or anyone she likes the look of into alleys and bathrooms. Now, though. Now Sam knows her part in this. Bert likes being a guard dog. Sam’s more than capable of fending for herself, but if she needs to give Bert something to guard, so be it.
“Thanks for the drink, yeah.” Maybe it’s intentional, the way she keeps contact with Bert as she slides off her stool and away from him. Marco, or Julio, or fucking Brian. Whatever his name is.
“See you again sometime.” He’s clearly confused, Sam could almost feel sorry for him.
“You won’t.”
She assumes he’s left after that. Sam simply blocks him out because she doesn’t think she sees him for the rest of the night. There are nights, not all of them but more and more, where she only sees Bert. She needs to knock it on the head, really. This thing they’re doing will only grow and grow if she doesn’t cut it off now. She doesn’t want to, though. She really doesn’t want to and she likes it. Likes Bert when she’s making her laugh and when she’s making her come and when she’s snarling at anyone who dares look at Sam, whether they deserve it or not.
She’s so focussed on Bert for hours that it throws her, when they’re leaving and he’s standing outside smoking. He mutters something, something Sam doesn’t hear clearly but sounds suspiciously like words they’ve been called before. Words there may be truth in, but that she doesn’t think she likes the sound of, spat out in anger.
She’s not really listening, not following the thread of whatever Bert says in response before Sam feels herself being dragged away. She’s still going, ranting, fifteen minutes later when they’re back at Sam’s flat. She doesn’t even realise they’re home until Bert shoves her hand into the pocket of Sam’s shorts and says “I’ll open the door then, shall I?”
“Sorry.” It’s not the right time to pick this fight, really. This could be saved for an evening where there’s a nice guy, one she likes. “You don’t need to start fights, you know?”
“Start fights?”
“Not start fights. Just, you don’t need to bite.”
“You like when I-”
“Stop it.” Stop making me smile when I’m trying to make a point. “Thanks for standing up for me, but you don’t need to react when men- when people- say things like that.”
“And if he hadn’t already pushed his luck, I wouldn’t have.”
“Yes, you would.”
“Damn right. Anyway, fucking sweaty perv like that? Didn’t want him thinking he had any right to even look at you let alone touch you. Not that he could’ve found your clit with a map even if he hadn’t blown his chances.”
“Has it ever occurred to you that I might just want to have a conversation with someone else?”
“Not really, no.” She’s laughing but Sam’s not. Bert rolls her eyes and the gesture is so familiar that Sam almost forgives the whole display. “Jesus, Sammy. I’ll go back and tell him I was all wrong if you want. Put your shoes on.”
“Fuck off. You know you weren’t. It was just… a big reaction, that’s all.”
Like it wasn’t about him at all, she thinks. Like maybe for once it was about me.
“Yeah. Well. I’ve had a few, I guess.”
“Must be it.”
“Thought I’d better put him right off too. Stop him thinking about your tits in that top.”
“And that takes a threat?”
“Probably take more than that to be honest. It’s a great top, by the way.” Bert raises an eyebrow, and Sam knows she’s testing the waters. It takes all of her willpower not to smile. “I’m just hoping the memory of being shown up in front of his dickhead mates ruins the hard on.”
“Jesus.”
“I just don’t want anybody touching you.” It lingers, just for a second, before she sets out on a course correction. “Anybody you don’t want touching you. I don’t want anyone thinking they can.”
“So if I wanted him to touch me?”
“Did you?”
“No, obviously not. Horrible fucking clammy hand on my leg. But if I did want him- want someone- to touch me, you’d leave it? Let them.”
“Course.”
“Liar.”
“I would.”
They’re so close, Sam leaning against the kitchen counter, Bert closing in on her. It’s a fine line, she knows, between trapped and free. She should feel trapped. She doesn’t.
“Tell me more about how much you like this top.”
“Thank fuck. Thought you’d never ask.”
–
He’s nice enough, whatever his name is. She wants to say Luis. Leo? No, definitely Luis. He’s nice and he’s pretty enough, no facial hair. He’s polite and he’s funny and he is - crucially - only in town for a weekend. So she never has to think about him again after tomorrow morning, if that’s where this leads. He’s nice and he’s making no secret of the fact that he wants to take Sam home. Sam likes that, sometimes. Likes to just be openly wanted without any mind games or shy and bashful flirting. He’s just about to buy her another drink when she feels hair against her cheek and a hand on her shoulder.
“Sorry to cut in.” That same hand, trailing down her arm to reach her hand. A vague awareness that the words aren’t being directed at her, but at Luis. “Mind if I borrow her?”
“I’m busy.” But she says it at the exact same time that Luis says “Of course”, so Bert chooses which answer to hear.
“Thanks, I’ll give her straight back. Promise.” Bert’s got one hand in hers and the other on her waist, steering her toward the door.
“I’m leaving, you coming?”
“What? Where you going?”
“Don’t know. Carmen’s place, probably.”
“I might stay here.”
“Fine. I’ll go to Carmen’s and you stay here with-“ Bert looks over to the bar, gestures less than subtly to Luis, “him. I’ll see you in the morning?”
“Yeah.” If Bert goes to Carmen’s, she thinks, if Bert goes to Carmen’s then she’ll go home with some girl. She might even bring her back to their flat and Sam will have to see her in the morning. If Bert goes to Carmen’s then Sam won’t be focussed on Luis anyway, really. She’ll be wondering who and what Bert’s doing that doesn’t involve her. If Sam goes, too, then Bert might still take a girl home. But she might not. “Wait. At least let me tell him I’m leaving.”
“Good girl.” Bert kisses her cheek, and Sam hates the way she knows she’s red in the face. “I’ll wait outside. Don’t be long.”
And she’s right, in the end. Well, she’s wrong because Bert disappears for forty minutes with a girl who looks nothing like Sam ever could, but she’s right because they still leave together. Bert still walks away with Sam’s hand in her own, trying her best to make Sam laugh on the walk home.
“Oh come on, you’re not complaining because I saw off that little weirdo are you?”
“He wasn’t-. Saw him off, dragged me to a gay bar and-”
“Thought you’d like that.”
“And then promptly left me to cop off with a stranger.”
“Cop off? Are you 12?”
“If you’re going to stop me from meeting anyone, you can’t fuck off and leave me.”
“You were more likely to meet someone at the gay bar, Sammy.”
She’s discovered, after a fucking long time of learning, that there’s a look that shuts Bert up instantly. She doesn’t pull it out very often, afraid of it losing its impact. This moment calls for it.
“Alright, fucking hell. Fine. I won’t leave you and cop off with other girls any more.”
“I’m sure you will. But thanks for the well intentioned lie.”
“Welcome.” As simple as anything, the way she always does, Bert starts to move. Rolls on to her side and grabs Sam’s hand over her stomach. “Sorry you had a very unexciting night.”
“Hmm.” Same as always, Sam thinks. Same as always and she wishes she’d started to get fucking sick of it but it sends a thrill through her every time, when Bert stands in front of her, pulling fabric over her own head and flicking open the top button of her own jeans, never giving Sam the option to undress her.
“Sorry I went off with whatever her name was. Wasn’t even a particularly good time, if I’m honest.”
“Shame.”
“Careful, Sammy. Someone might think you were jealous.”
“Me?”
It’s dangerous territory. Bert’s eyes flash and Sam decides not to push it. She pokes Bert in the side instead. Seems to do the trick.
“Would’ve had more fun staying with you.” She’s kneeling now, straddling Sam and leaning about as close as she can without actually making contact. “D’you think?”
She lets it happen, for a while. Pulls her down and trails her fingers across Bert’s ribcage, drags her fingernails over her hipbones. Then shoves her away.
“Probably. Next time, eh?”
–
Sometimes, oftentimes, a man is a means to an end. Sometimes it’s just fun, sometimes it’s free drinks, sometimes it’s escapism and a reminder that she can have something different. She can. When she chooses to. Sometimes, and she’d be lying if she said otherwise, it’s because when Bert is jealous, she fucks Sam like their lives depend on it. Sam tries not to do that one too often. Partly because even she can recognise how fucked up it is, partly because she thinks Bert will realise what’s happening. And stop.
Sometimes, a job revolves around the mere fact that nobody and nothing is stupider than a man who thinks he’s on a promise. Sam’s managed to get wallets, watches, several sets of car keys and Christ knows what else, sometimes just from a low cut top, strategic hand placement and the offer to meet someone in the toilets in five minutes. Bert’s taken hundreds of Euros from bedside tables, desks, insecure safes, all because a blissed out man simply cannot be woken when she’s done with them.
It works, is the point. It works and they can easily take more in one night than most people earn in a week if they’re just the right level of distracting.
Which is why Sam is here, sitting on a bar stool with just enough skin on show to draw men over, but enough hidden to keep them there. She’s being plied with drinks, most of which sit half-empty while she laughs and leans in and makes the right amount of physical contact. A few arm touches, one quick but cautious hand on the knee. Interesting conversation (not too interesting, she knows. Men like this hate for a woman to be too interesting.) Get him to lean over, mumbling something a little bit too quiet for him to hear, give him the perfect opportunity to look down her top and he’ll never even notice the wallet being slipped out of his back pocket. Bert orders a rum and coke from her space behind him and there, all done.
It’s a well practised routine. They’ve been doing it since they were teenagers. They’re better at it now, but it took less work when they were jailbait. Sam chooses not to think about that too much. It’s more fun, now, maybe. They’ve done bigger and better jobs, so this doesn’t top the adrenaline charts, but there’s a thrill that comes with it. They move from one bar to the next, switch their prey and predator status, rinse and repeat.
It’s a fun night, it always is. It’s only when Bert decides to swipe a bottle of Cava that things take a turn. Of course.
“Hope you’re going to pay for that.”
There’s a bartender, one they hadn’t noticed sneak out, smoking by the back exit they’ve tried to escape from. Bert stops in her tracks, falters for just a second, but Sam sizes him up. He’s no threat.
Their age, maybe younger. Slipping out to smoke when there’s a full bar and nobody else around. He clearly doesn’t care about his work. And good for him, she thinks idly.
“Probably not.”
She feels powerful, when Bert turns to look at her. She always feels powerful when she takes control of a situation like this.
“No?”
“No. Can I have one of those?” She doesn’t wait for an answer, takes a cigarette from the pack and plucks the lighter out of the pocket in his jeans, stepping a little bit closer than strictly necessary. “Thanks.”
“Do you have a habit of taking things that don’t belong to you?”
“I do, actually.” She’s not sure, in this exact moment, how long he’s been watching them. He could be talking about the Cava and the fag, or he could know about the Rolex in the pocket of Bert’s shorts or the wad of cash Sam has sitting in her cleavage. “Thanks for the smoke.”
“I could report you, you know.”
“You could.” Bert’s not stepping in, and Sam can’t decide if it’s stupidity or if it’s because she believes Sam can handle it. To Bert, that’s the same thing. “But I don’t think you’re going to.”
“What would I get out of that?”
Of course.
“Nothing. I’ve just got a feeling.”
“I won’t report you if you blow me.”
Sam’s just about to tell him to fuck off when he falls to the floor with a bloody nose.
“I was handling that.”
“I know. He was boring though, wasn’t he? A blow job for a fucking bottle of cheap Cava?” She steps over him, groaning on the floor, and extends her hand towards Sam like some kind of twisted drunken knight, defending her honour. “Home?”
Bert can never sleep after a fight. Or a night of little scams and thefts. Even more so than a big job, really. As if she gets a series of tiny adrenaline rushes that mess her up more than one big one. Sam’s learned to live with it now, that nothing calms her down. Sex used to, but now it seems to be yet another rush of energy that keeps her body and brain buzzing. So when Sam feels a flick on her arm, she’s not surprised.
“What?”
“I’m awake.”
“That’s nice.”
“It’s fucking not. Entertain me?”
“Knock knock.”
“Who’s there?”
Sam grumbles in response. It’s her own fault for engaging.
“Oi. Who’s there?”
“Nobody. Come back in the morning.”
She feels an elbow in her back and a mumbling that she’s pretty sure is Bert calling her a dickhead. She deliberately stills, knowing how this will escalate. Like clockwork, there’s arms wrapping around her ribcage and a nuzzling in her neck that she knows, knows, is Bert pretending to fall asleep. She’s never sure exactly what Bert’s trying to achieve here but she lets it happen every time.
Just like clockwork, Bert lightly bites her ear and whispers for her to wake up.
“Why do I have to be awake just because you are?”
“Just how it works, sweet cheeks. What’s mine is yours, insomnia included.”
“You do know we’re not married?”
“I do.” Bert laughs at her own joke. “Married people can get divorced, kid. What we’ve got is forever, I’m afraid.”
“Yeah.”
–
She’s used to little marks left. They’re not exactly gentle with each other, her and Bert. For every red mark left on her neck, her chest, Bert has one that matches. She knows this. Tonight seems to be different. Every time Bert’s near her, near the bar, ordering a drink or looking out at the room for someone to scam or snog or god knows what, it’s like the bite mark on her shoulder burns. Bert’s tracing it with her fingertips, or else she’s searing it in with her eyes. As soon as anyone even thinks about approaching Sam, she’s there, grinning as if to show the teeth that left their perfect mark on Sam’s body. It’s possession like Sam’s never known.
“Buy you a drink?” Sam doesn’t get approached by women often. No. No, Sam gets approached by women a lot, when they go out or sometimes just when she’s out and about. Bert tells her she’s got that look about her and it’s never meant as an insult, but it sends a chill through her every time. Sam gets approached by women and she usually just gives a polite thanks but no thanks, if she acknowledges it at all. It’s not like she’s never been there, with someone other than Bert. She’s kissed other women, slept with a few, she just- she doesn’t do it often. She used to be afraid of what it meant, if it was women in general. This way, it’s casual enough that it’s both or anyone and she gets to tell herself she’s actually just very relaxed about sex and attraction.
But Sam rarely responds to these approaches. So when she hears “buy you a drink?” tonight, of all nights, something in her sparks.
“Sure. Pick your poison.”
It’s exhilarating, really. It’s delicious, she thinks, the taste it leaves in your mouth when someone looks at you and laughs with you and flirts and has fire in their eyes. (It’s even better, the way it feels to have Bert’s eyes boring into the woman sitting in front of her.) And she’s nice, she’s attractive, and the only reason Sam’s not more into this is because she can’t stop thinking about where her night will lead once she walks away from this conversation.
She’s fucked in the head, really. She knows it. She’s bored of fighting it.
It takes longer than she expects, for Bert to finally approach. It happens just as new, full glasses are being placed in front of them and that in itself is a challenge. Are you finishing that, the Bert in her head says, or are you coming home with me? She wonders, briefly, how this is going to go. If Bert’s going to kick up a fuss, start an argument, if she’s going to pretend Sam is desperately needed elsewhere (maybe, Sam hopes, she is desperately needed.) None of the scenarios in her mind include Bert walking over, scraping a nail over the imprint of her own teeth, and grabbing Sam’s hand.
Maybe it’s a fucked up kind of foreplay, the way she holds Bert’s hand in hers as she leans in to kiss the woman’s cheek.
She’s about to at least offer a goodbye, when Bert drags her five feet away, turns back and kisses her. Just stops Sam dead in her tracks and kisses her. They don’t do this. Not in public. Not in front of anybody. They don’t even hint at this in front of people. But this is happening.
Sam doesn’t even know if anybody they know is in this bar. She doesn’t care. She thinks she might care tomorrow, maybe. She thinks Bert will definitely care tomorrow. But that’s tomorrow’s problem.
“Home?”
“Now.”
She expects the usual journey, meandering walks and impatient stops in alleys and all the joys she’s come to expect on the nights they spend together. There’s none of it. There’s a determination in Bert’s actions that means Sam is completely falling apart by the time they reach Bert’s front door.
“She was cute.”
“She was.”
“Seemed nice, too. You looked like you were having fun.”
“I was.”
“Didn’t stop looking at me, though. Which is interesting.”
“Is it?”
The distance between them is agonising. But she can’t break it. That’s on Bert. Has to be.
“Sorry about the bruise. On your shoulder.”
“No you’re not.”
“No. I’m not. It’s nice, actually.” Closer. Not close enough. “Nice. She was funny. Pretty. But you’re sitting there with your eyes on me and that mark there.”
“Is that what’s interesting?”
“Mmm.” She’s tracing again, over the bite mark, down Sam’s arm. Back, back again. Over and over her own bite carved into Sam’s skin so deep it feels like it might stay there forever. She pushes, just a little. Just enough that Sam winces and Bert smiles. There’s a faint kiss, to the deepest purple part of the bruising. A whisper, to match. Meant to be heard, not meant to be questioned. Something that sounds a lot like mine and nothing like a confession.
—
Crumple is the word Bert would use. Sam’s fist makes contact with him and he crumples. It’s probably embarrassing for him, but the sight of it combined with the fifteen shades of fire in Sam’s eyes really, really works for her and suddenly she’s twenty again, snogging blokes in bars and hoping Sam’s looking.
Not that she wants Sam to know that.
“Fuck was that for?”
Sam’s silent as Bert drags her away, both of them leaving Marco on the floor almost completely forgotten.
“Oi.”
“Nothing. Sorry. He was just all over you and-“
“Okay.”
“He just seemed a bit sketchy and off and not in that weird grubby but sexy way you like. Just didn’t like him and he was all over you.”
“Yeah. You said.”
“Sorry.”
“You said that too.”
She lights a cigarette and passes it straight over. They’ve both stopped, of course. They only smoke when they’re stressed or to be sociable or when offered one in a bar or on Tuesdays. They’ve stopped. Bert watches Sam take a long drag and thinks fuck it, it’s inevitable.
“Grubby and sexy?” Sam smiles then. It warms her up.
“Yeah. You’ve always liked grubby and sexy. In men, anyway.”
“And what do I like in women?”
“Dunno. Attention.”
“Fuck off.”
“No, you do. You like to impress. Half the time you spent planning a fucking heist was about showing off to a fancy art dealer.”
“The other half?” Confirmation, Bert thinks. Confirmation that she knows Sam exactly as well as she thinks. That she can still make Sam jealous.
“Actually planning the heist.”
“And that’s where you’re wrong. A quarter on the art dealer, a quarter on planning.”
“Other half? Killing and hostage taking?”
Bert feels herself lean forward, take the cigarette directly from Sam’s lips and place it between her own.
“Something like that.”
They set off, walking through back streets they don’t know as well as they’d like to a shitty cash-only, no questions asked hotel somewhere in the North of Italy. They’re still darting around until they feel sure enough that nobody’s looking for them wherever they are. Still plotting. Still spending every day together and pretending they’re not friends.
“She wasn’t as fancy as she wanted us to think. Being an art dealer might seem posh but stealing and cleaning up toddler piss isn’t exactly glamorous.”
Sam just hums in response. Not looking at Bert but not looking away either.
“Would’ve had more fun with it if I’d known you were paying attention.”
“You knew.”
She did. Still.
“Funny that you were jealous of her-“
“I wasn’t jealous.”
“And not the person I was actually fucking.”
She wanted, somewhere deep down (or not even that deep, somewhere just below the surface), for Sam to have not realised. Not worked it out. Sometimes she thinks she underestimates her.
“Blas wasn’t just to piss me off though, was he?”
“So you were pissed off.”
“Fuck off, Bert. God, I should’ve left you with that grubby guy.”
“So why didn’t you?” It’s been ten years, but Bert fell back into Sam’s patterns, Sam’s habits, quickly. Too quickly. Which is how she manages to stop her walking away without Sam ever really standing a chance. “Why didn’t you leave him to be all over me instead of decking him? Why not leave me to stay there and have a bit of fun. Why not find someone or something to do. If you really think you should’ve then why didn’t you?”
Which is how she finds herself slammed against a wall, Sam’s palms pushing her shoulders against grit and brick and Sam’s leg between her own and Sam’s warm, furious breath tickling her cheek.
“I didn’t like him.”
“You don’t know him. Might be lovely.”
“I’m not doing this. I’m not spending the rest of my life waiting around in bars and dingy hotel rooms while you fuck god knows who in an alley. I’m sick of it.”
The rest of her life. Romantic, Bert thinks, in a twisted way. The rest of their lives.
“You’ve just had a very nice decade off from it, if I remember rightly.”
“Either fuck off and do your own thing, or come with me. But no more disappearing with strangers, no more letchy dickheads, no more trying to make me jealous.”
“I wasn’t”
“None of it. We’re not twenty anymore. Go out on your own if that’s where you want it to lead. I’m bored of it.”
“You could never be bored of me.”
She’s begging, almost. Nobody else would pick up on that. Nobody else would hear the desperate need for reassurance in her voice. Just Sam. Always Sam.
“Maybe not. But I’m bored of this.”
“Can I try and make you jealous sometimes? I’d forgotten how much I like when you’re angry with someone else.”
It’s dark out, but Sam’s cheeks turn ever so slightly pink, so Bert leans forward to kiss one. Sam doesn’t pull away.
“I choose you, then. Coming with, I think you said.” Sam shifts, pushing Bert closer into the wall. “If it’s you or grubby but sexy dickhead strangers.”
They both knew she would.