A Tiger in Eden Read Online Free Page B

something sure it would be the last thing he done. The fat one kicked me in the shins from the ground and the other one not Dave had gathered himself up and was trying to rugby tackle me to get me down.
    I lost the bap then, fuck they were dead annoying, I balled up my fists and started in with the muaythai on them like I’d learned and the aul red mist came down over me. I can’t even ‘member what I done to them, all I know is next thing Som was pulling me back shouting that’s enough, Billy, you’re going to kill them. I calmed down quick as fuck after that like nothing had even happened, walked back to where I was sitting and took a wee sip of my drink. Our Claire was even paler than usual. I winked at her and says, are you all right.
    Never mind me, she goes, what about you?
    No bother, I goes, sure it’s all in a night’s work.
    You’re not even shaking or anything, Claire says.
    I held my hand out and right enough it was rock solid, I hardly even had an aul adrenaline rush or nothing. I glanced down at the floor of the bar where the three English cunts were lying and I says to her, hold on a minute, one last thing.
    Billy, she goes, I think they’ve had enough.
    Aye, I know, I says, it’s just a wee something to make them think twice in future, sure you have to teach them a lesson otherwise they’ll never learn, lads like that.
    I kneeled down and bent the little finger back on the right hand of each of them until it broke at the knuckle. It was a bit nasty but that was one of my trademarks from back home. Claire didn’t even turn away, she only grimaced a wee bit, I was quite surprised and I started thinking that maybe I’d underestimated her, she was maybe tougher than I’d given her credit for and here was me treating her like she was a piece of fine china in a museum or something.
    We had a brilliant aul ride that night, she thought I was the bee’s knees after that. I was a bit sore in places where the English had hit me, didn’t feel it at the time of course but there was a couple of big bruises on my arms and back and a purple one forming on my leg where one of those twats kicked me with his aul pointy toes, probably hurt himself more. Claire ran her fingertips over them, her nails was dead short sure you can’t hardly keep good nails clean in the Thailand when you’re bumming around the beach and that. She traced the outlines like they were wee islands on a map and it was quite nice so it was just feeling the gentle touch of a woman after all that aul scrapping. Once in a while she pressed in on a bruise and I jumped and goes fuck sake you’re hurting me more than they did, she liked that but then she’d kiss me on the bruise and I’d forgive her.
    It was funny seeing her long pale body crawling like an explorer over my aul tan hide, it made me dead rampant, but when I tried to roll her over she’d bite her lip and hold me down. I let her, knowing it was making her wet. Shefound a couple of aul scars I’d forgotten about from when I was in a fight outside a pub and fell on some broken glass. She asked how I got them and I told her but then she asked about the big one down my side and I just said it was a long story. We’ve got all night, she goes.
    Aye, I says, but I’ve got other plans.
    Your tattoos are wild, she goes, pretty scary.
    I didn’t say nothing, what can you say to that anyway?
    She draped herself on me and was lying all quiet with her head on my chest when out of the blue she goes, you’d never let anyone hurt me, would you, Billy?
    Love, I says, if any man laid a finger on you sure they’d be digging his bones up out of the desert in fifty years wondering who the fuck he was.
    She goes, I’ve never felt so safe in my life.
    No idea what happened to the English cunts. Last I saw them they were limping off crying to get First Aids, that’s not me being funny by the way that’s what it actually says on the sign, the Thais are a right crack-up so they are. Suppose they