Five: In Bed with Californian
…and I’m lying in bed with the girl from California but have already decided that she’s completely vapid and dull, that’s she’s a total vacuum. Her flatmate, a PR type in fashion, is out of town for the weekend, leaving her all alone, and at first it’s nothing but heavy petting but I still like it as she is really good-looking, one of the hottest girls I’ve ever been with, her hair a perfect blonde-blonde, like very blonde, hair that’s soaked up all the rays that the Golden State of California has to offer. Basically, she’s got one of the best bodies I’ve ever seen on a girl who wasn’t in a magazine or in a movie but in bed, in front of me, naked, kissing me and touching me, letting me touch her.
But I feel no nourishment; I feel like I’m treading water badly, like I’m drowning…
Saturdays: Walking through West London in the early afternoon, drinking can after can of Diet Coke, trying to wash away the taste of cocaine cut with too much detergent, strolling past the Furniture Cave where Fulham segues effortlessly into Chelsea, the building huge, turquoise and green, wondering if there’s any treasure inside, cruising past the World’s End on the King’s Road where the average age of females drops to nineteen, younger if it’s half-term, gangs of girls roaming the street, wealthy daughters – ripe. Drinking coffee or iced tea in the West Cornish café, music blaring out of countless Porsches stuck in traffic, boxed in by buses, all of them metallic silver, one car in five a Carrera, a 911 Turbo. Getting calls from people saying that they feel bad, asking them where they are, being told “McDonalds in Kensington”, replying in turn, “That’s why,” being told in their defence that it’s, “Possibly the nicest McDonalds on the planet,” that all the staff are friendly and helpful, that they actually speak English, that the floors are polished hardwood and the seats leather sofas, the clientele shinny and happy, good-looking and well-dressed. Running into kids from St Martins, all of them either talking on their phones or listening to iPods, some guys with girlfriends that are just stunning, others that are not. Always with my notebook, pausing to watch confetti showered over Wedding parties coming out of the Chelsea town hall, stopping to make notes, put pen to paper, commit ideas, continually working on the new book, taking mental still-lives, dazed the whole time, as if in a trance.
…and I’m looking at her lying next to me, reading a magazine, her red t-shirt cut-off at the waist and partially split down the middle from the top, her soft, tan skin glistening in the heat, glinting in the shaded light. The yellow lettering on her t-shirt spells out CALIFORNIA, as if to pre-empt some question, and is stretched in places, obviously a couple of sizes too small, and I start thinking that it’s all a bit pre-Baywatch Pamela, it’s like the ‘Coors Extra Cold’ ad Pam did when she was nineteen that got her noticed, back when she was a brunette. It makes me think of cheerleaders in TV movies and I get hard.
Without looking up from the magazine, California starts telling me about which tennis players she fancies, which serve-volley types she thinks are hot, where she went shopping today and what the girl who did her nails said to her about Madonna. When she starts complaining that her implants are killing her I zone out.
Fake left, fake right…
The first time I had called the Californian I had intended to ask her for coffee or a movie but we had ended up meeting for a ‘late dinner’ at her place. It had seemed almost by default in some way, like it was always going to happen. I had been out drinking with the boys and had called her up to see what she was doing the next day but she had asked if I had wanted to come round to her flat in Notting Hill right then, without giving a reason, even though it had been nine thirty in the evening.
I had turned up anyway, wanting to fuck her brains out, fuck my brains out.
…and the Californian’s still flicking through Vogue, saying, “Look at her, she’s pretty,” her thumb smudging the ink as she leafs through it, smearing the pages with perspiration, the heat in the room intense, making me feel lazy and bored, the airflow from her open bedroom window minimal, the atmosphere a stagnant pool.
“I like that,” she says absently, turning the pages slowly, absorbing the images as I skin up, the rolling papers sticking to my thumbs, sweat riveting them together. The situation is this: we’re alone and it’s hot. I’m feeling agitated lying on her bed, the pink duvet covered in stuffed toy animals that I dare not push to the floor.
“She’s not very pretty.” She points at one of the models but I’m too focused on the low din of late night traffic coming from outside, listening to the occasional sound of activity from the street below, a rushing sound pouring in through the window’s gaping hole, noise swirling in the still air. It’s hard to breath.
She turns the page. “Here’s Heidi Klum.”
“Don’t you have an internal dialogue?” I mutter but she’s not listening, caught up in the magazine.
“Do you think my hair would look good like that?” She looks up at me, pointing a picture of the latest Hollywood hairdo. “Think I could pull it off?”
“You’re testing my patience.”
“I like that,” she says, oblivious to my comments, noticing something on the page, once more back in the magazine.
I ask her for a light, trying to pull her away from the pictures, from the handbags and shoes, the Prada this, the Gucci that. I motion with the reefer.
“Ooh, that’s a pretty joint,” she coos, handing me a lighter from her purse.
I flip the zippo, light up.
“Can you show me how to roll a pretty one like that?”
I nod, tell her I can.
“Oh yay!” She says clapping. “I wanna roll a pretty one. It’s so pretty.”
“So are you,” I reply, deadpan.
“You’re such a sweetheart,” she says, ruffling my hair, seeming genuinely pleased, her thick Valley accent sweet like too much candy.
Forcing a grin I decide to put off the decision to leave until I’ve fucked her at least once more; there’s a need get it out of my system, maybe videotape it for posterity – something to show the grandkids.
Reaching down for a kiss, anything to stop her talking, I rest my hand next to her crotch and start fingering her tattoo: a couple of red cherries on her hip bone…
Earlier this week I had been playing tennis with Mark in the park near our house. We had been talking about Freddie’s new girlfriend, a Dutch girl that he had met at Charlie’s Gig. As Mark had unzipped his tennis racquet cover, pulling the head out, I had told him that all I had known was that the Dutch girl had been extremely leggy, good-looking but utterly dull.
“Can’t believe Freddie’s started seeing someone,” Mark had told me as we had warmed up in the sidelines of the court, waiting for a couple of middle-aged semi-milfs to finish, keeping his voice low. “She’s fucking hot.”
“She’s fucking boring, mate,” I had replied, watching the ladies serve out their final set. “You’re honestly telling me that he likes her? Dude, she’s Eurotrash?”
“Mate, she’s gorgeous.” Mark had shrugged, knocking me a practise shot, as the women had vacated, clearing the court for us, gathering their things at the far end. “Who cares if she’s dull? I’d love to get a bit of her. She’s lush.”
“You’ve got to be out of your mind” I had said, stretching for a low volley. “Five minutes alone with her would be too much. It’d be painful.”
“You’d definitely fuck her,” Mark had told me, coming to the net. “She’s sweet as.”
“She has got a great body,” I had admitted, joining him at the net cords. “But she’s got all the personality of a newt. I’ve met her…I know.”
“Wait,” Mark had said, shaking his head, disbelieving. “You’re telling me you wouldn’t bone her if you had the chance?”
“Sure I would,” I had shot back. “But she’s too annoying to date and, without dating her, you’d never get to fuck her. Freddie’s not slotted her. He had her naked in the back of his car, primed and ready, but she told him what the deal was: only if he promised to go out with her. Only if he promised.”
“And what happened?” Mark had asked, interested for sure.
“Dunno,” I had replied, shrugging. “But he didn’t fuck her. Said it was hard to stay conscious long enough to get hard.” I had grinned at him, trying to demonstrate the point.
“I don’t care,” Mark had said playing with the netting. “I’d do anything to fuck a bird that hot.”
“Really?” I had leant over the net cord. “Even if for every minute you spent shagging her you had to spend thirty talking to her? If you had to take her out for picnics and romantic meals? If you had to put up with every little detail that made her life complete? Make her dinner and watch movies that only she likes, listen to her boring Dutch banter?”
The sun had beat down hard, a glare coming off the black-top court. Mark had grinned, flashing teeth, shrugging with a knowing smile.
…and it gets hot quick. I’m in mid stride, a frantic pace built from cold, clinical foreplay, when the Californian whispers in my ear, “Don’t worry. You don’t have to worry about me,” and I’m forced to wonder what she means as I’m not worrying about her, about anyone but myself. I ask her what she’s talking about, trying to keep the pace going, blocking her out, trying to focus on her breasts, concentrating solely on her body. Look at the tan lines, I’m thinking, she looks like a young Pammy, I’m thinking.
“I’ve never…you know? I never have,” California tells me and I’m blown away into asking, “What? Never?” And I can feel my concentration slipping, this is not good.
“It’s just…never happened,” she says quietly, looking distracted, bored or maybe embarrassed, her hand clasping the edge of the pillow. “It doesn’t matter.” She half turns away.
The fact is: she can’t come. She is defective, I realise.
But then, so am I.
‘What the hell am I doing here’ I ask myself, ‘when I could be at home watching re-runs of Cheers?’
Why not just rent an old Demi Moore movie, buy a box of tissues? Just tune in, drop out.
Why not go someplace where everybody knows your name?
“What happened before, with…?” My voice tails off, it comes out in a semi-squeak, “Other guys?”
She holds back for a second and then all at once starts telling me that she enjoyed it but that it was usually over within a couple of minutes, that afterwards they cuddled, that she always liked that, that it was enough for her. It makes me think of little girls at sleepovers watching ‘Care Bears the Movie’ together. It’s all I can do to stop myself from pulling out, leaving, opening bomb-bay doors, evacuating, pulling the ripcord on the parachute.
“Okay,” I say, still attempting to keep some activity going, still sliding in and out of her. “It’s okay, I won’t, um, hold out for your sake,” I say and go crazy for a while, collapsing, grunting loudly and lying still.
Fake left, fake right…
After tennis I had gone to visit my friend, Rebecca. We had been sitting in her kitchen with the light streaming in. Outside it had been just too humid, just too heavy, oppressive, and Rebecca had padded about wearing the skimpiest of skimpies: cut-off white t-shirt and shorts, the t-shirt riding up, showing just enough of her smooth, tan belly, some slight but forgivable puppy fat.
“How are the boys?” Rebecca had asked, rustling through a pile of magazines, looking for something. “Charlie?”
“They’re all fine,” I had replied, reaching over to the coffee table, sticky from perspiration, lifting the jug of Pimms. “Shouldn’t we be outside enjoying the sunshine?”
Rebecca had paused her ruffling and I had gotten a stare. “Sunshine? You could fry an egg on the front of my car. That’s not sunshine, that’s the Gobi desert.”
“Desert?” I had said, pouring myself some Pimms, apple chunks bobbing over with little pieces of orange. Isn’t that more a dry heat? This feels more…humid?”
“Humid,” Rebecca had shot back, rattled, her face flush, hair and forehead damp from the exertion. “This isn’t humid. This is…muggy.”
I had been grinning, sipping the Pimms and lemonade; warm, needing ice.
“Where is it?” Rebecca had exploded. “Where the fuck did they put it?”
“What?”
Rebecca had looked at me, opened her mouth, closed it. “Never mind.”
Giving up on her search, Rebecca had stopped looking and sat down, exhaling and wiping her brow, cheeks glowing pink.
“So, what’s the sex like?” Rebecca had asked, changing the subject, suddenly curious. She had poured out a glass for herself, condensation covering the jug, the glass looking frosted.
“The sex?”
“The Californian? You have had sex?”
“The sex was good,” I had lied, shrugging, giving no details.
“She enjoy it? Honest answer.”
“You’re asking what I think you’re asking?”
Rebecca had smiled and raised her eyebrows, drinking some of the Pimms, but not letting me off the hook, eyeing me continuously, expecting a response.
“She loved it,” I had told her, face blank, meeting her eyes.
“How can you be so sure?” Rebecca had settled back into the sofa, evidently enjoying herself and I had looked over onto the patio, the air outside wavering over the surface of the ground, shuddering in the heat wave, pounded by the sun, cooked. Pull the rip cord – open the parachute.
“You can tell.” I had said finally but with certainty.
“Oh yeah?” Rebecca had laughed at me, like I was fooling no-one. “You realise women fake it all the time? You do know this?”
I had looked right back at her. “You realise that men fake too?”
Rebecca had twitched. “How…how can they?”
I had leant back in my chair, my turn to grin again, tables turned. But she had pressed me. “Seriously, are you for real? I don’t believe you, I mean, we’d be able to tell.”
“Don’t worry,” I had said soothingly in a low, soft voice, layered with patronisation. “I’m sure it’s never happened to you.”
“How?” She had asked sharply. “Tell me how?”
“If the guys wearing a condom…” I had left it to her imagination.
She had blanched, looked hesitant. “Have…you?”
“Reb,” I had offered an easy smile, stringing it out. “That’s private stuff.”
She had thrown me daggers with her eyes. “Tell me.”
“Sure,” I had admitted, shrugging. “Couple of times.”
“Recently?”
“Sure.”
“When? Who? Tell me.”
“Sweetie.” I had smiled at her again, holding up my hands in mock protest, offering nothing.
“How do you know that they…?”
“Most women contract quite heavily. They get, um, tight.” I had shown her, leaning over to grip her index finger like a new born baby does a pinkie, the comparison giving me no inner pleasure. Shock value only.
“Clamps down like a vice.” I had squeezed. “Not all girls, but most. Stronger the orgasm the stronger the pressure.”
Rebecca had pulled her hand from mine. “You’re lying.”
“Would I make this up?”
“You’re just trying to freak me out.”
“Alright, I’m trying to freak you out.”
“You’re telling the truth?”
“Reb,” I had said.
“How long have you known this?”
“How long? Since the first time I needed to fake it.”
“Who was that?”
“Please,” I had said to her. “No names for the firing squad.”
“I still can’t believe this.”
“Ask Freddie.”
“Freddie’s a faker?”
“Freddie’s the king of fakers.”
Rebecca had looked away and down at her drink. I had grinned again. “Don’t worry, I’m sure he didn’t with you.”
Rebecca, deer caught in headlights, had looked up and stammered something, smiling eventually.
…and the doorbell goes, the outside world rushing in. Lying with California by the dim light of her bedside lamp, I check my watch and discover that it’s almost four in the morning.
Curious, we go downstairs, a little surprised at the interruption, wearing only bedcovers, a pink bedspread wrapped around my waist. The Californian opens the door to two policemen outside, standing out on the street, on the road almost.
Blocking the doorway, she is, I’m sure, as bewildered as me, and probably glad we hardly got round to smoking any of the big bag of grass lying just inside the hallway.
The first policeman asks her name, makes sure he’s got the right place, short brown hair, standard police uniform.
“Yah?” She says slowly. “Like, how can I help you officers?” Looking at her in the thin, pink sheet, I can tell they’re as embarrassed as us, the first policemen saying, “We’ve had a call from your boyfriend. Apparently he’s worried about you. You’ve not been answering your phone.”
“I had to turn it off,” she says, looking at me, but I’m just standing there in the background, the second bobby giving me the once over, not knowing what to say, deciding, in the end, that it would probably be better if he said nothing.
“I’m fine,” she tells them, smile on full beam, letting the sheet slip a little. “Everything’s okay.”
Earnestly, the police seem to agree, and apologise for disturbing at such a late hour, going on their way. She shuts the front door and turns to me, clearly embarrassed.
Embarrassed, it seems, not because her ex has been calling her all night, or because she’d had been forced to turn her phone off, but because the guy actually sent the police round to check on her. Psycho would not be understating it.
“They must have known what was going on,” I say, looking at her in the almost transparent bedcovers.
“Uh-huh.” She nods. “It must have looked to-dally dodgy.”
We go back upstairs and I say, “Maybe I’d better go,” and when she doesn’t respond I put my clothes on and leave, feeling that the mood has literally been clubbed to death, telling her that I’ll call or something…
Six: Mischief
…and it’s afternoon and we’re camped out in Penny’s bar watching Italian football, drinking chilled beers with Jack chasers and listening to Robert Stennings tell us about the new flat he’s moving into. Looking over at Freddie, however, I can see from the look on his face that it’s obvious he thinks it’s with another guy, a boyfriend maybe.
“Know what you should do before you move into the new place?” Freddie asks Robert suddenly, cutting him off from telling his story, waving the Corona in hand, his full concentration shifting to Robert from the big screen TV. “Should take a girl back to your old flat – don’t tell her your name or anything about yourself. Say you’re on holiday, pretend to be American, make out that you’re from Iowa. Say you’re house sitting for a mate who’s outta town, whatever.”
Freddie pauses and stares at Robert but he says nothing, waiting for Freddie to finish, not sure where he’s going with this sudden outburst.
“Then you take her home and screw that bitch senseless.”
“Um…?” Robert stammers, caught off guard, starting to look a little edgy as he stands next to our table.
“Ever fuck a girl in the arse, Rob?” Freddie asks, silencing him again. “Ever fist-fuck some bitch whose name you didn’t know? Stick your penis in her ear?”
“What?” Robert looks at me but I shrug.
“I asked if you’d ever plugged some bitch’s ass with your cock.” Freddie leans in, using his presence, playing on it menacingly. “And if you ever used your fist to fuck a girl?”
“Um…?” Robert stammers again, standing there looking utterly helpless.
“Cos if you never have then this is the time. When you move she’ll never find you to complain.”
“Er…” Robert says and Charlie starts giggling in his seat, still high from the joint he smoked a little while ago on the way over.
“You gotta make sure you pick up some real skanky bitch though,” Freddie’s telling Robert. “That’ll guarantee she’s up for some dick-in-butt action.”
“Dude…” I start, seeing Robert go pale, but Freddie rolls on over me.
“—And, once you’ve reamed that tight, pink, little ass of hers, stretched the fabric of what she’s willing to do.” Freddie stops for a second. “You gotta blow it in her face.”
“Dude,” Mark says, looking quasi-appalled but still finding it funny somehow. “That’s sick…”
“—Ever blown your load in some bitch’s face?” Freddie asks Robert directly.
“No but...”
“—Then you gotta drench that bitch in your gism. Shower her in your spunke. Rub it into her skin. Tell her it’s good for it, that cosmetic companies use semen in anti-ageing facial creams. Tell her its something about the protein it contains, some shit like that.”
Starting to laugh, Mark shakes his head, the sound coming out staccato, and Charlie giggles along with him. Both of them are doped up – I’m embarrassed by their condition.
Freddie grins at them then turns back to Robert. “Tell her it’ll make her skin healthy and shinny – tell her you use it yourself sometimes. You’ve a good complexion, I think you could pull that off, I think she’d buy that.”
“Freddie…” Robert tries, shifting his weight nervously.
“Listen,” Freddie says lowering his voice, almost purring, his shoulders flexing slightly, his physicality a factor. “Maybe you could rough her up a bit. Videotape it. Sell it on as home entertainment for the masses. Make her cry or something, slap her in the face with your dick a little. Make it a sort of snuff movie.”
“Mate, that’s fucked,” Mark says, laughing hard now, unable to stop and Robert looks blankly at him, then back at me, his eyes asking for help that I don’t want to give; I don’t really want to say anything when Freddie gets like this.
“Maybe ask her to go get you a glass of water from the kitchen, then lock her out of your room once she’s gone. Just see what that bitch does when all her clothes are the other side of that door. Just listen to the sound of her nails on the wood.”
Robert looks utterly bleak and again starts to say something but Freddie cuts him off once more.
“—And when you finally let her back in you skull-fuck that bitch.” Freddie says, raising his voice above room level and the tears in Charlie’s eyes glisten, laughing semi-silently, still massively high, and when Robert turns to leave I feel bad and say, “Dude, wait,” but he exits before I can say anything else, mumbling under his breath something about needing to go somewhere, do…something.
Freddie calls out after him, shouting, “You ever do that, Robert? You ever skull-fuck some bitch? You ever stick your dick in some girl’s ear, Robert?”
People watching the game turn to look but it’s Penny’s so we’re money, we’re un-fucking-touchable, but I still feel pretty bad about it and think about chasing after Robert but he’s already outside when Charlie says, sighing, coming down from his giggling fit, “Dude, that was fucking out of order,” Freddie just replies, “Whatever,” caressing his Corona, shrugging. “I hate that little cock sucker…”
We had been lying out on our high, flat roof the afternoon before Freddie’s brother’s stag night, and it had been hot and humid. Sweat had ran down the centre of my chest, covering it in a film, thin and sticky, the temperature building, gradually heating us with a dense, heavy mugginess that had closed in, sapping. All I had done had been to lie back on the sun lounger and soak up the rays, perspiration trickling down the side of my face and neck, eyes shielded by gun metal Ray-Ban aviators. All week hot winds had been blowing through town but on that afternoon there had been nothing, the heat had just sat on top of us with a crushing sensation that parched the throat and scorched the skin.
The whole summer to that point had been a hot one, the predicted heatwave sweeping the country, London, the South East of England, blanketing everything in a high pressure system that had kept the temperature dial constantly in the nineties, peaking at midday at over a hundred. Every morning I had awoken early, roused by the heat, unable to sleep past seven, and had taken coffee and juice up on the roof in my sleeping shorts. If left alone to my thoughts I had found that the hot winds made me constantly suspicious, making me feel on edge for no reason, the constant gusting scattering newspapers and other street debris, the wind catching dust to the point that it had made you choke. In some way, the breeze, heated by its passage over the Sahara, possibly, had seemed like a betrayal of some kind, like it was mischievous and cruel, pulling and shaking at everything while I had lain in bed, unable to sleep, raising a feeling of unease inside me with every fresh surge.
As well as the heat, the lack of rain in the city had left us with a hose pipe ban and the green grass had turned brown and faded in patches and so, at times, the whole town had smelt like the desert – it had been that bad. I had spent afternoons, when not writing, in a friend’s pool, doing lap after lap, kilometre after kilometre of freestyle, the water a cooling experience, imagining the word ‘Evian’ spelt out on the tiling at the bottom of the aquamarine liquid, the brand name signifying something soothing. It had been almost the only reassuring aspect of my existence, the only escape from the pressure of writing, from the phone calls from Cedric, from Forrest, from yet another PR girl relaying questions from journalists. I had gone into my shell utterly at points and refused to talk to anyone bar Mark, Freddie or Charlie, fearing everyone. I had preferred, simply, to spend time with them, acting in as juvenile nature as possible.
“What can you see?” I had asked Freddie, who had been lying across the ice-box from me, the loaded cooler.
“Nothing much,” he had replied, head propped up by an inflatable cushion, binoculars trained out on the communal garden across from our flat. “Couple of sixteen-year olds.”
Without moving or opening my eyes, I had reached under the sun lounger, feeling blindly for my fresh Corona. As I had brought it to my lips the phone had rung and Freddie had answered, speaking briefly into the receiver.
“Mark?” I had asked, still without looking up.
“Yup.” Freddie had replied and, lying on the hot, tarred pitch, music from the radio slicing through the West London air, shimmering above the flat, grey-black surface, reverberating around us, I had sipped my beer, the bottle slightly crusted over with frost, glistening with condensation, lounging on the roof lazily.
“Going to Mark’s Opening?” Freddie had asked, springing me from a daze.
“When?”
“Week Saturday,” Freddie had said. “He not tell you? All he can talk about. Why we’re up here.”
“Yeah?”
“He’s like a little kid, man,” Freddie had said, leaning back, setting the binoculars down next to the cooler. “He’s super hyped-up.” He had slid his Oakleys on, peering down at his chest, cut and golden, totally ripped and buff, a slight trail of hair leading down from his belly button but otherwise completely smooth. “Said some critic’s coming to review it. Some art dude from the Guardian.”
I had looked over at Freddie, his legs long and tan, his red shorts tight and bearing the insignia of the Aussie beach he had spent life-guarding one summer. “That’s…awesome,” I had said. “When did all this happen?”
“Mate,” Freddie had said. “He must have told you. The day he found out he didn’t get the marketing gig.” He had sipped his beer. “Fuck man. Said he was ready to open up his wrists, take a hot bath. He was really down.”
“It doesn’t happen til it happens,” I had said quietly, like I had known something, finding it easier to be happy for Mark than myself.
“Got a call that afternoon from some dealer he knows.” Freddie had adjusted his shades. “Shown some of his work to him.” Freddie had sipped more of his corona, pursing his lips. “They arranged a viewing. Given him a spot at this Young Artists Exhibition at the Art Bar. Opening night a week on Saturday.”
“What about you?” I had looked over at him again, squinting, trying to remain placid. “Didn’t you have an audition on Monday – how’d it go?”
“Still waiting to hear.”
“Ah.”
“Actually Charlie’s got some news,” Freddie had said, turning over. “Don’t think he wants to say anything, doesn’t want to jinx it, but he’s cutting a record on Sunday.”
“He’s laying something down? That’s awesome. I mean, fuck, well done Charlie,” I had looked over at the garden for a moment. “Who’s paying for the studio time?”
“Guy he met at a Penny’s gig last month. Over from New York. Small Indie label putting together a portfolio of European sound to take back. Deal is the guy pays for the studio time, takes their stuff back with him and maybe signs them.”
“Not bad.”
Freddie had nodded but had still looked fairly impassive.
“I hope he doesn’t forget us when he’s famous,” I had said grimly and Freddie had grinned, picking up the binoculars again, checking out the park, hearing female voices.
“Get on the phone,” Freddie had told me after a minute’s observation. “Get Mark up here.”
“Something down there?” I had asked.
“I’m seeing hot pants. I’m seeing tight cut-off jeans. I’m seeing bikini tops, towels, even a hamper. Essentially what I’m seeing,” Freddie had said, “Is skin. And the possibility of more.”
…and back in the flat after Penny’s I decide to head into Mark’s room, his door open as he finishes dressing, and he’s maybe still a little drunk from the beers we had while watching the football.
“Hey,” I say, looking at poster boards plastered with photos, wide angled shots and blurred images, the walls in Mark’s room a canvas, a collage of messed-up-looking girls, freaked-out-looking people, secret feelings, private moments captured on film.
“You ready?” I ask him as we’re already a little late but Mark’s still sitting at his desk smoking a cigarette, a little red-eyed from before, a little wild-eyed, starring blankly at the pictures, picking up loose ones with long, lean fingers, attempting to re-arrange the clutter, smoke billowing around him, its tendrils touching and caressing the glossy images, stroking them with its carcinogens.
“Sure,” Mark says. “Just a sec.”
“C’mon on then,” I say, noting how wasted he is, guessing he’s nervous before his exhibition. “Maybe you better eat something before you go.”
“I’m fine.” Mark turns to look at me, his expression clearing.
“Mate,” I say, “You don’t look it. Anyway, c’mon, Freddie’s in the car waiting. He’s got the Landy out.”
“Dude, I’m fine. Honestly.” Mark smiles. “Just…nerves.”
“What’s wrong?” I ask, sitting on the edge of his bed while he leans back in his wicker desk chair, a free hand pausing on the 8’ by 16’ in front of him.
“Think she’s beautiful?” Mark asks me, puffing on the cigarette, filling his lungs with the smoke, weezing, coughing because he doesn’t normally smoke this much.
“Who?”
“Look at her,” Mark says, handing me the photo, only legs and hands featured, the rest cut off, the image set against a black background, a simple action: a girl bent down adjusting her sling backs, fingers delicate and slight. “Think she’s beautiful?”
“They are good legs,” I admit, looking at the photo and shrugging. “Who is she?”
Mark smiles and puts the photo on the desk, joining the growing pile of negatives, Polaroids and sketches, the room entirely strewn with odd images, some provocative, some subtle, all intriguing.
“You know my sister’s coming tonight?” Mark stands, stubbing the cigarette out in an empty coke can. “You ever meet her?”
“Thought she was studying abroad…?” I can’t remember where.
“—In America? She’s back.” Mark moves round to his dresser and picks up his watch, slipping it on. “Had to sometime.”
“I guess,” I say, uneasy about the subject, wary of discussing friend’s sisters.
“You’ll meet her tonight,” Mark tells me, pulling on his jacket.
“Sure,” I say.
“Buddy,” Mark says, putting one arm around me, the redness gone, suddenly evaporated. “You’re gonna love my sister. You two were made for each other.”
“How old is she?” The first question.
“You’ll find out tonight.”
“Uh-huh.” I say as we head out the door. “Is she hot?” The second question.
Mark grins…
Moving as little as possible on the roof, I had reached down under the canvas of the foldable lounger, groping, my phone eventually finding my fingers.
“Mate,” I had said when Mark had answered. “Freddie says there are possible sightings…”
“—Four.”
“Four,” I had echoed before disconnecting, replacing the phone underneath.
Freddie had given a running commentary: “They’ve put down their bags. One is laying out a towel – Union Jack…cool. Small, boyish body, tiny tits but good arse. Good hair…blonde.”
“Out of two?”
“I’d give her one.” Freddie had sniffed.
“The others?”
“A brunette, another blonde, a Shaznay look alike – got that whole mixed ethnicity thing.”
Then, after hearing him stumbling inside, Mark had stuck his head out of Freddie’s window and climbed out onto the flat roof to join us, cursing as bare feet had touched the hot tarred surface, melting on impact.
Freddie had thrown him some flip-flops.
“It’s hot as shit,” Mark had said, gingerly stepping into the rubber thongs.
“Yup.” Freddie had leant back, looking back at him, grinning. “Heat wave, mate.”
Mark had flip-flopped over and taken Freddie’s binoculars, checking out the girls. “Not bad.” He had skewed his vision. “One of them take off her top?”
“—Give me that,” Freddie had said, grabbing at the binoculars.
“Kidding. Just kidding.” Mark had laughed. “Okay, I’ll go get the stuff.” He had handed the glasses back to Freddie and dived back into the house, and slipping on my flip-flops, I had headed over to the catapult, inspecting the ammo bucket lying next to it by the corner of the roof.
“Still can’t believe this shit’s legal,” I had said, looking from the lawn back to the catapult.
“Joys of Ebay,” Freddie had replied and stood, asking for the range finder.
Mark had re-emerged with his camera and tripod. “You boys ready to make some art?”
“Always,” Freddie had replied, grinning, and had watched while Mark had set up, the big, heavy-duty camera professional-looking, all dials and buttons, a huge telescopic lens that Mark had fiddled with.
“All set?” Freddie had asked, playing with the gauge on the catapult, and I had brought the golf range finder to my eye, pressing the button, the infra-red beam picking out the girls sitting on the grass. I had felt a little tingle shoot down my spine.
“Range fifty seven metres.”
“Alright,” Freddie had said, buoyed up, twisting the elevation on the gauge. “How far up are we?”
I had peered over the edge, scoping the pavement, saying, “Just over fifteen metres,” and, murmuring something, Freddie had adjusted the elevation back inline with the new calculation, bringing the catapult’s arm up ever so slightly, reducing the range to compensate for our height above target, Mark’s camera whirring with high speed shutter action as photos had reeled off, the aperture winking, blinking.
“Whenever you boys are ready,” Mark had told us, loading more film.
“Water-balloon weight?” Freddie had asked.
“Kilo – like you said.” I had replied.
“Cool.” Freddie had loaded one onto the arm of the contraption, aiming the mounted cross-hairs.
“Wait,” I had said. “Wind?”
“You feel any? Freddie had replied without looking up, still cocking his eye to the cross-hairs.
I had licked my finger, held it out. “Guess not.” I had shrugged, squinting despite my shades, the light really strong in the mid-afternoon sun.
“I want you ready to reload.” Freddie had warned me, taking one long, last aim. “Mark - you ready?”
Mark had nodded and Freddie had pulled the lever, the catch finally released, the gas based mechanism hissing piston-esque, the arm of the catapult lurching forward, straining at the weights holding the base down, the balloon sailing through the air, the high trajectory cutting through the warm summer afternoon and, at the top of its arc, the keystone of its flight path, it had seemed to hang there, suspended in the air, heavy with anticipation. Fearing a sudden breath from the Gods, a change of fortune, just enough to push it off course, I had stood there watching, holding a second balloon in my hand, fingers making dimples in the rubbery skin. The weight had felt good.
Then, starting to descend quickly, the balloon had built up pace as it had rushed downward, looping in towards its destination.
“Oh shit,” Freddie had whispered, manic, watching the package land just beyond the girls, exploding, light reflecting and refracting off the splashes like tiny shards of glass.
Squeals…the clickety-click of Mark’s camera…satisfaction.
“Soft balloon at moment of first explosion,” Mark had whispered, naming his work, giving a title to the photo, and Freddie had turned the notch on the gauge a half turn, correcting the distance, cranking the paddle. He had told me to reload and I had fixed the second balloon into the catapult’s outstretched fixture, the hungry arm of mischief.
The second balloon had launched but, not stopping to watch, only reloading and rewinding, we had fired mercilessly. The sound of the cranking, the twang of the catapult’s arm punctuated only by cries and screams, squeals from below as we had rained down upon them; delivered it unto them.
Focused, Mark had continued taking pictures, balloons landing every eight seconds or so, the girls scrambling to understand, striving to react to what had disturbed their slumber, their lazy afternoon in the park, their tan skin moist from the soaking. Totally nailed. Drilled.
One, the blonde that Freddie had liked, had pointed up, seeing a balloon descend but it had caught her across the face, knocking her from her feet, drenching her utterly, hair matting to face and neck. She had sat down, dazed…stunned.
Quickly though, we had finished the bucket, our arsenal spent, just as they had managed to seek shelter, moving from range. People in the street and garden had started to look round for the cause of the commotion, hands shielding eyes from the sun’s constant glare. Finished, Mark had packed up his camera and tripod, taking them inside and Freddie had lain the catapult flat on roof, then collapsed onto a lounger, sweat glistening on back and brow, the exertion too much in the late heat of the afternoon sun.
Pulling another Corona from the icebox, sunlight glinting through it, creating trumpets of coloured rings, Freddie had asked, “How many were in the bucket?”
“Maybe twenty.”
“Awesome.”
“The blonde got hit in the head,” I had said flatly.
“She was alright.”
“But still.”
“Hey.” Freddie had pointed at me. “Anything in the name of art…”
…and standing in the Art Bar a waitress walks by, not great-looking, but I still smile at her as I unburden her tray of a couple of glasses of the free Verve Cliquot, handing them to Charlie and Freddie, watching them drain their present drinks and take fresh ones, both of them smiling at her too.
And as the waitress moves away I notice a girl across the bar checking out some of the campus work Mark had done some time before on a trip to the US: photos of Ivy League girls jogging in the rain, their school sweatshirts soaked through, emblemed cotton moulded to bodies running across the campus lawn. The girl’s back is turned to me so I can’t see her face but her perfect, long, tan legs are clearly visible, her skirt ending at the knee, red in colour, a siren of slenderness. Her good, black high-heels cut into the polished wood of the gallery floor, her blouse white and tight with long, brown hair falling over it, heaped onto her shoulders. Someone walks by and I lose her in the crowd.
“I love things like this,” Freddie tells us.
“What?” Charlie asks, seeming confused “Art exhibitions?”
“Yeah,” Freddie nods. “Great places to meet females.”
I laugh and pat him on the back. “How so? Didn’t think you’d been to many before.”
Looking around, nostrils flaring as blonde, tan girls waft around us, Freddie replies that he hasn’t, but that on the few occasions in the past that he has, they’d proven to be goldmines, and the whole time I’m keeping half an eye open for the girl I’d seen, the brunette in the red, in the white, for those long, tan legs, for the good high-heels…
Freddie’s brother, Rupert, had been blindfolded and tied up. His shirt, which had looked expensive, maybe even handmade, had been partly torn by the hooker straddling him. Sitting on the hard backed chair in the middle of the stage, there had been no escaping the lights.
It had been the night after the mischief with the catapult and the hooker, Nurse Naughty, had been Chinese with long, fake-looking, blonde hair and silicone inflated tits that had looked so big on her delicate, slender frame that it had given me pause to wonder how she had kept her balance, how she stayed upright. Not being into the whole Asian thing like Freddie, having never once caught yellow fever, I had just sat there as Freddie had whooped and jeered, calling out at the hooker, cheering on his brother in the centre.
Charlie and Mark had sat either side of me and Rupert’s friends from the US, flown over for the wedding, had sat behind us in the Soho basement bar. There had been old classmates from Law School, colleagues from Rupert’s law firm, distant family members; Freddie and Rupert’s cousins had also been about someplace but it was so dark in the strip club that I had just watched the show, with the many others that I hadn’t recognised.
Up on stage Nurse Naughty had undone the top button of her faux nurses outfit, her bra a couple of cup sizes too small, literally bursting out of it, the curves beneath had seemed to bulge a little, exposing more silky, tanned flesh from the uniform, a deep split down the centre. We had watched, breathless as Rupert, although blindfolded, must have smelt her, his dick like concrete.
Sitting with us, Freddie had continued to whoop and jeer, calling out for more, and in reply Nurse Naughty had hiked her skirt up, short and white to expose her pert bottom to the catcalls and wolf whistles. No panties.
Leaning in, she had smothered Rupert’s face until his whole world had been tit. Then, taking his hand and applying pressure to her pussy, she had made his palm and fingers roam up and down her labia, taking up moisture till they had glistened from the spotlights above. Finally, she had put his hand in her mouth, licking the fingers slowly, guzzling the liquid, and then had shoved it into his face, making him taste her.
…and then I see the girl again. She’s over by the bar talking to someone I can’t make out, their face hidden by a pillar. She’s smiling and nodding, throwing off friendly vibes, her chin and cheekbones cut and continental. She looks a little Teutonic I think, Black Forrest maybe. A ski-bunny on the slopes, bobbing and weaving down the piste. Maybe the total tennis type. Good genes, an internationally recognised hotness – symmetry. Her teeth pearls, flash out, her smile parting her lips, perfect shape and size, full and soft looking.
Freddie says something, bringing me back, “…Any event is a good start. They’re restricted to a perimeter.”
“So, you’ve got them penned in?” Charlie tries to clarify.
Freddie nods, grinning. “Also an exhibition provides plenty of talking points. I mean, you can just stroll up to any unattended female, ask her what she thinks…”
I’m nodding and smiling; Freddie’s talking but I’m not listening. My neck is straining out into the crowd, eyes traversing the walls, and then I see her again and little waves of pleasure course through me, travelling my vertebrae, hitch-hiking my spine. The girl glances over and sees me, fixing the moment into a repeat cycle, time cut short and replayed over and over, an endless loop. We stare at each other and her words hang loose, her sentence cut short, the buzz of the bar whittled down, everything else on the verge of consciousness. Her eyes lock onto mine across the room, people like obstacles between us, and thoughts whirr as she looks over, her mouth parting slightly, the supple moisture of her lips holding the sides together as her words trail off.
“…Ask them about the art?” Charlie’s asking Freddie, the world rushing back in as the girl turns away to retrieve her conversation, the tattered remnants stuck between synapses.
“Yes, about the art,” Freddie agrees, nodding, having not noticed my episode. “God forbid you ask a girl what she thinks on any other occasion.” Freddie looks over idly across the room. Does he see her?
“So, that’s all you really need. Their physical presence and an in. Anything will do but what a situation like this delivers though is a little pre-fabricated, ‘here’s something we made earlier’ discussion on the artist, on whatever the display is like, um, displaying.” Freddie pauses again, eyeing the champagne flute in his hand, grinning mischievously. “Plus, girls always drink too much if A: it’s champagne and B: it’s champagne paid for by somebody else.”
“Tell me, Freddie,” Charlie says, shaking his head and laughing, “Why you over here talking to us and not out there employing this expertise?”
Freddie looks at him. “Well, it’s Mark’s exhibition. Don’t want to be shooting off with some girl. Besides,” he adds, shrugging. “I don’t come to these things when I know the artist.”
“Okay,” Charlie says, smiling, looking puzzled. “When do you go if not, y’know, when you know the person?”
“Mostly if I see some ridiculously hot female heading in from the street. I follow them inside, see what’s going on.”
“Freddie, that’s a bit worrying,” Charlie says. “Even for you. Don’t you normally have to be invited?”
“Yes and no,” Freddie says slowly. “You can always blag your way in. You want to buy some of the artists work. You’re over from some South African Gallery and want to check out the collection before you leave for JoBurg the next day. Anything works – it’s ninety percent confidence.”
Freddie pauses, sipping his champagne, eyes again surveying the room. “Plus,” he says, leaning in, hushed. “You can get away with a lot at a thing like this. The odd comment about how fabulous a girl looks, what great cheek bones and definition they’ve got. That shit’s all good. The more outrageous you are the more they think you’re a fashion fag – you can say anything if they think that.”
“That’s good is it?” Asks Charlie, twisting his face up. “Girls thinking you’re gay?”
“Just a first impression,” Freddie replies, grinning. “You dispel it later.” He waves his hand like a magician and I turn away for a moment, suddenly seeing the girl alone, watching her browsing over by Mark’s most recent work.
Unattended female, I am thinking.
“You think that’s how Robert Stennings gets his women?” I ask off-hand. “By pretending to be gay?”
Looking at each other, Charlie and Freddie shrug and admit it’s a possibility they hadn’t previously considered but will give serious thought to in the future and, with one eye across the room, I tell them that that I’ve just seen someone I know, someone I’ve gotta say hi to, almost mumbling as I say it, already walking over to her, my focus already shifted, making my way over past the bar, rounding a pillar slowly, gliding into place, approaching a photo. Soft Balloon At Moment Of First Explosion.
“Like it?” I ask, nestling in next to her, touching my chest gently, stiff slightly from working out too much, a little tender.
“It has shocking quality to it,” the girl says, unsurprised by my question, looking straight ahead and considering the picture. “Wouldn’t say I like it – but do I think it’s art? It makes a statement. Suppose that’s all you can really ask.”
“I guess,” I say, smiling, pointing at the next one. “You like any of this stuff?”
“Some of it,” she replies, moving slowly along the wall, from one part of the display to the next. “The paintings more than the photos. Even with the faces covered I think it’s an invasion of privacy.”
“That’s important to you?” I ask, gently rubbing my abs.
“Privacy?”
“Yeah.”
“I suppose so,” she says, still moving along the wall, coming to another of Mark’s. Girls In The Gym. “You don’t think privacy’s important?
Turning to answer, I catch sight of her properly, up close. Full magnification. Dazzling.
“What’s your, um, name?” I ask, staring at her, tall and slender, long auburn hair still cascading onto her shoulders. My mouth suddenly feels dry.
She smiles at me. “Guess.”
“Guess?” I look away, back at the painting, confused. “That’s your name or you, um, want me to guess what your name is?”
She turns to look right at me and the sound of her heels make crisp, curt noises on the hard wood floor of the gallery. “I want you to guess.”
Need to buy some time I turn away, back to the wall, but looking at the girls in the photo, I find myself imagining her working out: sweaty, damp and flushed. I feel myself watching us from above, like there’s a shield around me and nothing can get through it. It’s like I’m studying her legs from a protected height, the calves strikingly defined, rising to her knees, enveloped in a light, red skirt, betraying the deft features of her thighs and derrière. I want to wax it – wax her.
“You’re not going to guess?” She goads as we move to the next piece, the two of us locked in a dance. She leads; I follow.
“You’re not going to tell me?” I reply, catching a glimpse of her breasts out of the corner of my eye, swelling up through the tight, white blouse, presenting cleavage like exotic fruit on a display rack. Tender, juicy, imported. The air conditioning in the gallery leaves the nipples hard, pressing through the material. I want to tweak them, tease them, dial in my favourite radio station.
“You’re not going to guess?” She says again, looking at the large-scale photographs before us. Couple During Sex. Hands tied, faces blacked out, the reflection of the photographer just visible in the bedroom mirror.
“No,” I say, starring hard at the photo, the mirror giving me chills, the conversation just trailing off. And so the question remains: Who is she..?
My attention had been caught by an addition to the show, something extra on the bill. A Perverted Policewoman had appeared on stage, her uniform tight, black vinyl, wipe clean. She had strutted around the couple, pulling up her skirt and removing her top, leaving only the Cop Cap.
On stage with a stool and pail, a silver bucket she had deposited by the groom-to-be, Nurse Naughty still writhing in his lap, the Perverted Policewoman had squatted next to them.
Smiling at the crowd, lips twisted up at the sides, sneering through the corners, Perverted Policewoman had reached down into the bucket, pulling out a quart of lube. Golden and glistening, she had squirted it all over herself, over her bare, hairless vagina, rubbing it over and in, taking her time with slow, deliberate movements. The Perverted Policewoman had reached again into the bucket, withdrawing a small furry object, dark brown and oval. She had peeled it, making explanatory gestures to the crowd like a foreign magician, unwrapping the outer skin of what had looked like a banana. ‘A plantain’ someone had murmured in the crowd, then she had licked it slowly, her tongue wet and full.
The Perverted Policewoman had reached down again for the lube, slick and water based, smearing it all over the plantain, then rubbing the fruit up and down her crotch, hips facing away slightly as she had given the whole room a show. When she had turned back the banana, the plantain, had gone. I had looked on the floor but had not seen it and, leaning back, her legs in the air, pointed toes creasing her calves into two separate muscle masses, her pussy had winked at us in the spotlight, contracting.
The Perverted Policewoman’s vagina muscles had trained out, a projectile lurching, arcing across the stage and into the crowd. She had reached into the pail, pulling out pre-peeled, pre-lubed plantains, inserting them, firing them, every time shifting her aim a notch, taking a new target, spinning slowly on her stool.
Guys had been laughing and ducking, some picking the spent rounds up and hurling them at each other as she had swivelled closer and closer to us, doing a full three-sixty. Aiming in our direction, one had looped out at us, her muscles working overtime, and Freddie had reached out and caught it two handed, holding it aloft, stadium cameras searching him out for his fly-ball close up, glad he had taped the game. His cousins and his brother’s friends had clapped as he had grinned out at the room. The Perverted Policewoman, seemingly spent, had turned to watch him, dumbstruck.
Taking the plantain, Freddie had sniffed and bit into it, the tip chewed clean off, grinning as he had munched, the room not knowing whether to be sickened or thrilled.
Distracted and more than a little surprised, the Perverted Policewoman had moved over to Rupert, who had still been blind-folded and had knelt in front of him, unbuttoning his trousers while Nurse Naughty had used his hands to fully unbutton her shirt, unleashing two enormous puppies, shoving them in his face, making him lick the nipples and aureoles, the skin firm-looking and hard, strained and taut.
The Perverted Policewoman, short, dark hair, Malaysian-looking, a small, hard body, eyes Caucasian, maybe Euroasian, had opened his flies, his penis, swollen and certain, unburdened. Grabbing his cock with both hands she had taken the whole length in her mouth, her head bobbing, really pumping his veiny dick with her throat.
Rupert had not lasted.
“…Hey,” Mark says, coming over to where I’m standing with Freddie and Charlie from a bunch of students he knows from St Martins, acquaintances more than friends. They’re milling and mumbling, drinking, debating the quality of his work, the statement he’s making, the subject of voyeurism. His back turned, they’re probably trying to tear him apart.
“Have a good night?” Mark asks us, leaning on the bar, the crowd in the gallery starting to thin.
“Met an awesome girl,” I say. “Absolutely perfect.”
“Uh-huh,” Mark says, not listening, high on tonight’s success. “You meet my sister?”
“Wait,” Freddie interjects. “I heard she was hot.”
“You, arsehole, don’t get to go near her…okay?” Mark puts his hand on Freddie’s shoulder. Mock serious, “Off limits to you, Fred-er-ick.”
“Mate?” Freddie says, playfully surprised, shock horror. “What you think I’d do to her?”
“Nothing. I don’t think you’re gonna do anything. You’re never gonna get close enough to try.”
“What? I’m not good enough for her?”
“Freddie…mate,” Marks says. “You know it, I know it, half the girls in Chelsea know it. I just don’t want to hear some disgusting rumour about how you gave her a Freddie enema.”
“Dude’s got a point,” Charlie says. “You are a colossal slut.”
“Whatever,” Freddie says, turning to catch the barman’s attention. More scotch please.
Mark takes my arm, directing me off the side. “Say something about a girl?”
“Maybe.”
“Something about, um, perfection?” Mark is baiting me.
“Something like that.”
“Well, whatever. Listen, my sister’s coming over in a minute. She’s cool, you two are going to love each other.”
“Putting a fuck load of faith in your match making skills,” I say. “Remember the hottie from Cali with the Baywatch body? Can you better that?”
“Dude, you said she was as interesting as Beavis and Butthead re-runs.”
I shrug, grinning.
“Just meet the sister, man.” Mark puts his arm around my shoulder. “Trust me…I’m an artist.”
“You’re an artist now?” I laugh, grabbing him. “Hit the fucking big time, eh?” I tease, shaking my head, and we grapple a bit, laughing, spilling drinks over the place, play fighting.
“Hey.” A female voice, an arm on Mark’s body. “Would you boys quit it?”
We straighten. I spazz out.
Still laughing, still gurning, Mark says, “Mate, this is Alexis.”
We shake, Alexis and I, my central nervous system doing the hokey-kokey. “Hey,” I say, mouth dry again suddenly, tongue thick and heavy.
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(Pages 1-29 show above.)