Sushi Central Page 19

  Anthony: … So he was standing there looking down at me, and I remember thinking how handsome he looked, how normal, like someone’s father or something, like my own father even, and we’re up very high all of a sudden and he’s unlocking the door to his room, and I’ve stayed in hotels with my parents heaps of times before and it’s just like that, that feeling, but it’s not, and we’re in his room, which is bigger than any of the hotel rooms I’ve been in before, and there’s a smell in there, new car smell, you know, clean like the kind of smell that’s meant to make you feel safe and comfortable, which is funny, and I can see the view, the city, all the lights and whatever, and he tells me to sit down on the bed, asks me if I want a drink or something, and he pours me one anyway, I can’t see what but when he hands it to me it’s vodka, and it’s really good vodka, and I just sort of down it, and he touches the back of my neck, asks me if I want to take off my shirt for him, so I tell him yeah, okay, and I sort of slip it off and he stands there looking at me, like, amazed, and touching me, my body, and saying, ‘Look at your chest … your young chest’ and it sounds weird with the accent and whatever, but he kisses my chest, then he gets up to pour me another drink, and it’s more vodka and I drink it and I start to feel really weird, I mean, because I was stoned anyway and now I’m drunk too and he asks me if I’ll take off my shoes — if I want to is what he actually says, I mean, it’s like, do you want to do this or that or whatever, like it’s something I’ve chosen to do, because I mean, I’ve followed him up there, he didn’t force me, so I slip them off and he, like, picks one of them up and he’s sniffing it or whatever, and it’s kind of funny, I mean, if you think above it, and then he asks me if I want to take off my pants and I don’t know if I should but the vodka’s really starting to kick in, really sudden, and I take them off, because it feels like there’s nothing else I can do, and I slide out of them, and he’s still fully dressed, like in his tie and everything, and I’m feeling really blurry by this point, like I’m really out of it, sort of swaying on the bed, and he starts touching me all over, like, kissing me and whatever, and his face is rough, and he just keeps saying, ‘Such a perfect young body … a young … young body … so perfect’ and it was freaking me out a bit but thanks to the pot and the vodka I was kind of into it, I mean, I probably would have been into anything, and I’m still in my socks, which seems kind of weird to me, but anyway, he comes forward and slips my boxers off, and he’s rubbing himself against me and everything, touching me, and I’m suddenly hard, like, almost against my will, and then he asks if he can suck me off — that’s exactly the way he puts it — and he’s almost begging, and like, what else am I supposed to say? so I let him, I mean, he gets down on his knees and makes this big ceremony of it, like, he takes my cock in his hands and kind of feels it for a while, kissing it, and it feels pretty good; he’s just kind of licking it at first, like these doggy licks or whatever, slurping at it, and then he sort of moves further down onto it and starts sucking me off really hard, like, he’s totally into it and he’s using a lot of tongue, like, sucking it and I mean, he’s growling, it’s like these animal noises he’s making, and he’s digging his fingers into my back and it kind of hurts but at the same time it feels good because he’s sucking me off, and I have no idea how long it goes on for because I’m really drunk at this point and sort of drifting away, but I remember thinking, I’m just about to cum and should I warn him or something … I’m sure you know what I mean, Calvin …

  He breaks his concentration on the screen, flashes me this look — quickly, like we’re in the middle of a shared secret or something — and then he returns to the game.

  Anthony: … And I make this noise, but he starts sucking harder and he won’t stop and then I cum, like, really hard, into his mouth and he moans like he’s so grateful and he’s licking it all off and saying, like, thank you, thank you, and I don’t even know how to deal with it, because this is the second time I’ve ever been sucked off by anyone, and I’m feeling really hot and flushed and I start to realise what I’m doing — like, my cock has just been, inside this guy’s fucking mouth — but I have no control over it now and he asks me if I want to lie down on the bed, and I do, because I mean, I actually do, I just want to curl up and go to sleep or something, like really, and I kind of take my time because I’m pretty nervous, even though the vodka and the pot are starting to erase all that, but I lie down for him, and I still have my socks on, which seems really weird to me, and I can hear him saying over and over, ‘Such a perfect young body … such a young body’ and I can’t see what he’s doing any more, but then I can feel him, like this weight on the bed, either side of me, and I feel his hands on me, and I feel him putting this lube on and then, all of a sudden he sticks it in me, and it’s kind of unexpected and it really hurts, and I have to bite my lip to keep from shouting or something, but I think I start to cry at this point, and then he starts fucking me, like, really hard, and it hurts and I want him to stop, and that’s when it happens, I mean, that’s when I become someone else. I couldn’t deal with what was happening as ‘Anthony’, I mean, it was all too much, so I let that part of me go, and ‘Anthony’ just kind of ceased to be there, like, my personality, my worries, conscience, all that stuff was just, like, gone, and I was just a body on the bed with this old guy on top of me, fucking me and breathing, like, these noises, and it wasn’t even bothering me because I wasn’t there, I was gone, and that’s what I mean Calvin. That’s why it’s better not to be there. Because it can break you. Sex can break you. That’s what I realised, but if you take yourself out of the equation, if you’re not there any more, then suddenly it’s no big deal. That’s all you have to do, take yourself out of the equation. You just think to yourself: I’m young, I’m good-looking, someone wants me, and that’s all that matters. And it is. And the man keeps going, but it’s fine, because I realise I don’t feel anything any more. Not a thing. I’m lost in the moment, just a physical presence, and it’s fine. And he goes on fucking me forever, and when he’s done, it really hurts really, a lot, even through all the drugs it’s this incredible kind of pain, and he lies next to me for a while, asks me if I want another drink, and I tell him okay, then I see him disappear, like, into the shower I guess, and I look over and see he’s left these fifties on the nightstand. Crisp ones. There are nine of them. Four hundred and fifty. And I left. I couldn’t stay around, but that was the night I realised … that’s all you have to do. Take yourself out of the equation.

  When he doesn’t talk for a while, I realise the story is finished. I’m silent. He doesn’t look up from the screen.

  237

  A very long time has passed. I don’t know how long.

  I don’t know whether I’m shocked or not. It’s difficult to adequately describe my reaction. I look over at Anthony again, to see if he’s moved, to see if there’s any hint of an expression on his face. I’m thinking, as I look across at him, so maybe that’s Anthony. We all have something horrible we carry around inside us. The story he’s just told me, that’s the thing he’s been carrying around inside of him.

  238

  Me: That’s really … Oh my god.

  Anthony: I don’t know. It’s not really anything.

  Me: Is that how you do it?

  Anthony: How I do what?

  Me: Take yourself … Like you were saying. Make yourself disappear. Take yourself out of the equation.

  Anthony: That’s what I said.

  Me: Is that how you did it? I mean, when that guy … When he took those photos of you, is that what you did? Is that what you were thinking? Take yourself out of the equation?

  Anthony: I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking very much.

  Me: I want to know … I don’t … I mean …

  Anthony: What?

  Me: I don’t understand. How you can ‘take yourself out of the equation’. You must have … You must have felt something.

  Anthony: I don’t know. It didn’t feel like anything.

  Me
: I can’t understand that … That it didn’t feel like anything. You must have …

  Anthony: I didn’t.

  Me: How can that …

  Anthony: I don’t know. I … Fucking … It was just something I did.

  Me: Can we …?

  Anthony: Calvin, I don’t feel like talking about this any more.

  Me: What do you …?

  Anthony: I don’t. Look. Are we going to fuck now or what?

  Me: I guess.

  Anthony: Thank god.

  239

  Out of the equation. Something larger and scarier than I’m capable of understanding.

  240

  Dream: A room. Huge, it seems to stretch on further than I can see, but there don’t seem to be any exits. This doesn’t really bother me. Blue lightbulbs. At the very centre I can see tiny points of red. Blue light. Fills the room. Anthony is there. Or maybe it’s me and I look like Anthony. Maybe Anthony looks like me. Maybe it’s someone else. It probably doesn’t matter who it is. We all start to look the same after a while. All I’m really interested in is the lightbulbs. Blue. Red.

  241

  Saturday morning. Early. Overcast. I’m meeting Anthony in the Valley today. He wants to go shopping for a shirt or something. Told me I should meet him in there, that we’d have coffee or something, just hang out.

  Out of the equation.

  I’m standing at the kitchen counter, fuzzy and incoherent. Coffee’s in the pot. Black. I want strong black coffee this morning. The coffee machine matches all the other appliances. Everything matches everything else. Everything is blank and sterile. Trendily vacant. Empty spaces.

  242

  The only points of colour in the kitchen are:

  1. A vase, glass, which sits by the window. There are two flowers in it. They’re both red, and their stems are crossed over, pointing in opposite directions. That vase always has two flowers in it. Different flowers, of course, and usually different colours, but ever since I can remember, that vase has been sitting near the window, and always with two flowers in it. In the morning the water breaks up the light and you can see the patterns it makes on the far wall. This morning, though, it’s too grey for any light to be refracted through it.

  2. A polaroid on the fridge, stuck there with a magnet. It shows the three of us in New York. I look really young, though the trip was barely two years ago. I’m smiling. Mum has her sunglasses on. Dad’s looking out of the shot. I don’t know what he’s looking at. We’re at the World Trade Centre, which is really weird when you think about it. To think that it’s not there any more, I mean. Maybe if we’d known it was going to be destroyed we would have taken more photos. Maybe we wouldn’t have taken any at all. I don’t know.

  3. A copy of French Vogue sitting on the counter. Mum doesn’t speak French but I suppose that’s beside the point.

  243

  My bare feet are cold on the tiles. I pour myself a cup of coffee, but by the time I get to the counter, I don’t feel like drinking it. I’m in a weird kind of limbo. I don’t know what I feel like.

  Mum is sitting close by, looks as though she’s reading. There is a glass of what looks like orange juice on the bench in front of her, but it doesn’t look as though she has drunk any of it. She looks up at me. ‘Black coffee,’ she says. Smiles. ‘Calvin. At your age.’ I try to smile back at her and I think I succeed.

  I’m really into dealing with the real world this morning.

  Mum asks me if I feel like anything for breakfast, and I tell her I don’t. She tells me that I’m starting to look too thin. I don’t say anything. I think maybe I am, but I like being too thin. It makes me, I don’t know, cuter, or more unique or something.

  244

  I sit at the counter, slick, vaguely interested, through the French Vogue. There is a boy standing in a tunnel. A model. I guess he’s a model. He seems to have the attitude down anyway. His black sweater is ripped, and there is a jacket tied around his waist. He’s wearing what look like bondage trousers, his hands behind his back, and I suppose he fits the criteria of good-looking, full lips and an attractively disproportionate nose, but expression-wise, he’s a total blank. It’s impossible to know what he’s thinking, if he’s thinking anything much at all. I guess when you’re that good-looking and you’re being photographed for French Vogue, you don’t have to worry too much about details like that.

  I wonder if this boy is still in the equation. Maybe he’s not. Maybe that’s the preferable option. If I stare at the boy, blur my eyes and then unfocus them a little, I can see Anthony in his place.

  245

  Dad comes into the kitchen, fully dressed. Clean blue shirt and I tie I think I may have given him several birthdays ago. He sees me and pats me on the back, pours himself a coffee and asks me if I have any plans for today.

  I tell him I’m meeting a friend in the Valley, for coffee or something.

  He tells me he’s going into the city this morning, that he has to go to the Mater. Some work thing. Dad’s always vague about his work. But he asks me if I want a lift into the city with him.

  I hesitate. I can already hear the conversation, and it’s already bugging me. I suspect he’s going to want to talk, about me, about how things are at school, my future, whether there’s anyone special — any special girl — and I don’t know what I’ll say to him. I’m not really prepared to answer those questions. But then I think of getting the bus into the city and the idea of that is something I totally can’t deal with. Dad’s Saab is comfortable. Leather seats. I can pretend to be asleep, or at the very least turn the stereo up to nip any attempts at serious conversation in the bud.

  It’s not that I don’t want to talk to Dad. I can’t tell him the truth and I don’t particularly want to lie, so we always end up in awkward silences. But he’ll give me a lift to the city. Comfortable seats. Nice stereo. I guess it’s going to be fairly painless.

  246

  My dad’s Saab. City in the distance. Heavy traffic.

  My Father: It’s been a while … since we’ve had a chance to talk.

  Me: I guess.

  My Father: Just the two of us.

  Me: It’s been a while.

  My Father: So … What’s new in the world?

  Me: I don’t know. Not a lot.

  My Father: School?

  Me: It’s okay.

  My Father: What are you studying this semester?

  Me: I don’t know. Stuff.

  My Father: What kind of stuff?

  Me: I don’t know. Physics. Fluid dynamics. Fellatio. (I say this under my breath).

  Beat of silence.

  My Father: Hamlet?

  Me: Yeah, that’s the one.

  My Father: What do you think of it? Of Hamlet? What do you think?

  Me: I don’t know. It’s okay.

  My Father: It’s okay? It’s a classic.

  Me: It’s great.

  My dad decides to abandon this line of questioning and goes in search of another. He reaches down; fumbles around with some CD cases in the side pocket. Picks one and slips it into the machine. Vivaldi’s Four Seasons fills the car.

  My Father: Remember you used to play the violin?

  Me: Yeah.

  My Father: You used to play this. I remember …

  Me: ‘Spring’.

  My Father: Pardon?

  Me: The movement. That I used to play. It was ‘Spring’.

  My Father: That’s right. Wow. That was a long time ago. Do you still play your violin?

  Me: I guess.

  My Father: I haven’t heard you play it in a long time.

  Me: I don’t really play it that much.

  My Father: You were good.

  Me: I guess.

  My Father: Your teacher always used to say you could have played professionally.

  Me: I don’t know.

  My Father: You could. If you’d practised.

  Me: I used to practise.

  My Father: You …

  Dad can sense th
at this is getting him nowhere. He’s silent again. I hate that I’m doing this to him. He’s making an effort. He really is. I don’t know why I’m behaving this way. Spoiled brat is as spoiled brat does, I guess.

  My Father: What do you want to do?

  I know exactly where he’s going with this. I wish he wouldn’t. I wish he’d change the subject. I wish he’d crash the car right now or a four-wheel drive would plow into us and kill us both so I won’t have to answer that question. I’m serious. I’m not even kidding.

  Me: What do you mean?

  My Father: After you leave school. Do you have a plan?

  Me: I don’t know. Not specifically. Nothing yet. I’m thinking about it.

  My Father: You’re thinking about it.

  Me: I really am.

  My Father: You need to have a plan Calvin. Life’s not going to wait until you’re ready. I mean, if you don’t step up and take your place in the world, there’s always someone waiting in the line behind you and that person’s only too eager to take it for you.

  Me: I know, Dad.

  My Father: You have to start planning for your future. You need to start now. I mean … I mean, where do you see yourself, say, ten years from now?

  I don’t know. Death. Gaping void. All of the above. I wish I wasn’t in one of these moods.

  Me: I don’t know, Dad.

  My Father: You need to have a plan. You need a direction. What are you thinking about? For university? What do you enjoy?

  Can I do a BA maybe? Double major in spliff-toking and oral sex? Media production: gay porn; several units dealing with obsessional neurosis.

  Me: I don’t know. I … Seriously … University’s a long way off.

  My Father: It’s never too early. To start thinking about these things, I mean. You have to consider making a future for yourself.

  Me: I know.

  My Father: Think of it as … I mean. Your brother never had a chance at a future. Think of your future as though you’re doing it for him.

  Me: Don’t bring Jonathan into this, Dad.

  My Father: I’m sorry.