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  ‘So you’ve never been out with him or anything?’ he asks.

  ‘Not really. Have you?’

  ‘I don’t really know him at all. Friend of a friend.’

  ‘Cool.’

  ‘I came with Jodie. I think you met.’

  ‘Oh, cool. We did.’

  This is not real.

  96

  The group has splintered. Anthony and I now occupy our own space underneath this poster for a foreign movie. We take solemn turns with the joint, say nothing.

  ‘So Calvin,’ he asks after a while. ‘Do you smoke like this all the time?’

  ‘I smoke it a little.’

  ‘I like being stoned,’ he says. He takes another drag, holds it in for a long time. I watch as the smoke curls out of his lips. ‘I forget who said this, but of all the modes of consciousness, sobriety is the most highly overrated.’

  I smile. We both laugh at that, though for a second I forget exactly why I’m laughing. Though it doesn’t matter. I’m hopelessly caught up in Anthony, and at this point that’s enough. He hands me the joint, offers it to me slowly.

  It’s him.

  For a second our fingers touch. He keeps his on mine, and before he pulls away, he rotates his hand a little so the surfaces of his fingers and mine rub against one another. His fingers contain an electric current. This is not real.

  ‘I agree.’

  ‘With what?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  97

  Cut ahead about an hour. The Valley. We’re making our way down the mall. To the left of us is a line of cafes and bars, and to the right is an ocean of tables, people. Too much to take in, too many faces, too much conversation, too many looks, so my mind assimilates most of it into a big drunken noisy sweaty Friday night out in the Valley kind of a blur.

  I take in the occasional vague detail of people at the tables we pass.

  1. A waitress: Her long red hair is tied into two loose twists. She’s carrying a tray of drinks, and gives me this distracted smile as we narrowly avoid walking into each other. Her lipstick is really dark. Purple. Almost black. The colour of it stays with me for a few seconds after she’s walked away. It’s so deep. Her lips were so deep. The kind of colour you could sink into.

  2. These three guys at a table: One of them is young, about my age. Haircutted and dyed to a certain level of alternative/cool. One of those boring Valley faggots who knows he’s cooler than you because his hair sticks out at a certain angle, because he holds his cigarette in a certain way. He looks bored. The two guys with him are a lot older. They have the same cropped blond hair. They’re both dressed in black. They’re making the same kinds of gestures, facial expressions. They’re both staring really hard at the boy. He blows smoke at them as though he doesn’t care. The whole tableau is rather creepy and I’m wishing now that I hadn’t seen any of it.

  3. Princess Peach: She has long, golden hair. A pink dress. She’s pretty, you know, in a pixellated sort of a way. But she’s always getting kidnapped by the Koopa family, who are these giant turtles, and Mario’s always having to rescue her. She’s kind of defenceless, you know. But still. She’s pretty. I blink. It’s just some girl in a pink dress. Vinyl, aggressively pink. It clings to her body. Her hair is cropped short. She looks nothing like Princess Peach. I shake my head, look at her again, to make sure I’m only staring at a girl in a pink dress, which I am. Which is a good thing.

  98

  Dean, who is walking ahead of me, waves at someone — a boy in an FCUK shirt, smoking a cigarette and floating at the edge of a conversation. The boy sees him, waves back, this look on his face that’s kind of … slutty. This makes me feel tense for some reason and I walk on, ignoring them, trying to keep my balance.

  99

  We walk through a big group, and people are passing us by too quickly to take in any of their details. The other sensory information I’m receiving by way of lights and noises is all bleeding together. Every cafe we pass has different music playing — hip-hop beats, icy new-wave synths, a woman singing, then a man, rapping, jazz, then breakbeats, then the two mixed together — and it’s impossible to differentiate individual songs, so the elements of all of them come together like some weird new composition. Something that would probably sound incredibly scary if it didn’t sound so cool.

  I’m almost totally out of it, following the line of my friends — I hope they’re my friends — ahead of me. We might have been split up. I might be following a totally different group of people. I couldn’t tell in this crowd. The one certain thing is Anthony. He’s following me. His hand is in mine. For some reason this feels like an incredible amount of responsibility. Or something. I don’t know. But I really don’t want to let go of his hand.

  I turn around just to make sure he’s still there. Still following. He is.

  100

  Anthony smiles at me. I think it’s a smile. Hard to tell.

  Looking at him triggers a weird memory. He’s down on his knees, sucking Jeremy’s cock. Jeremy’s doing the same to him. Now he’s with two guys. His eyes are dead. It’s hard to reconcile the look that was in his eyes in the photos with the look that he’s now giving me. Maybe it’s not.

  I turn back around. Try to forget all about it.

  101

  We’re at the end of the mall, approaching our destination. We’re standing around in this loose kind of a group. Anthony is no longer holding my hand. I keep giving him significant looks, making sure he’s still interested. If he was ever interested.

  We’re getting into formation, approaching our familiar outpost of clubland. This place is, at various times, a gay club, a meat market, a scene, a place to hang out, dance, to leave your body behind or get messed up with someone else’s.

  The sign: At the moment, the B is broken, so the sign hanging high up on the facade says ‘EAT’ in glowing blue neon. This seems weirdly appropriate.

  ‘Right guys,’ says Dean. ‘Everyone know what to do?’

  102

  How to sneak into a gay club when underage and without ID: Pretend to be someone’s boyfriend. It helps, of course, if the people you’re with happen to be regulars, if the bouncers are familiar with them already. Choose a friend who is over eighteen and can blend in well. When you’re heading into the club, have him hold your hand, or put his arm around your waist. Put your head on his shoulder. It helps to appear wasted. Or lovestruck. Both of these are pretty easy to fake. Look like you’re in your element. Look as though you have every fucking right to be walking into the club. You’ll get through without them even giving you a second look. Nine times out of ten, this trick will work. Try it.

  103

  As we walk towards the entrance, Dean takes my hand. I lean into him, as though we’re together, as though I’m his lover. The two of us sort of become one. I take hold of his hand and don’t let go. The bouncer recognises him. A little conversation is made. They let us both in. Anthony came prepared with a fake ID. It seems stupid to think he might not have come prepared. He seems like the type who would be prepared for more or less any situation.

  104

  Music: As we enter the club, noise swallows everything. The music hits me, assaults my body, and it’s a pounding force. Narcotic. Suffocating. Beautiful. It’s hard to explain, but it’s like being inside some great, pulsating womb. I close my eyes for a second and let my body dissolve into it, and it’s like being a little kid again. I spent so much of my childhood sitting in front of my Nintendo, and what I seem to remember most about old video games is the music, synthesised, repetitive; I could sit for hours on end and just listen to it build then fade away, sequences of tiny artificial notes endlessly repeating themselves. The thing of it was that although the ambient soundscapes that accompanied the big-eyed anime boys as they went to rescue their princesses, or find their magic crystals, or avenge their dead brothers or save faraway worlds from forces too evil to imagine, were meant to be heard and then forgotten, they somehow transcended that, and anyon
e who ever played those games as a kid now has some small part of that embedded in their consciousness. Electronic music was the sound of my childhood, and as I stand here now and close my eyes and let the ethereal synthesised keyboard lines swirl around me and the beats pummel and assault my body, it’s like being there again, like childhood, somewhere I can be safe and warm, and I’m not even kidding about any of this. And I stand there and sway for the longest time, because the DJ is playing this one particular song, a high, swirling keyboard line, and it doesn’t seem as though it can go any higher, and it swells and then fades away again then comes back and it swells and fades and swells and fades and I’m hypnotised by it. I stand there and sway, lost in the purity and the beauty of it, and for a second it’s like I’m not even there any more. It’s like I’ve disappeared completely into the music.

  105

  For a while I’m lost in the flood of memories. It’s a good feeling. When I open my eyes I see Anthony just near me. He turns. Smiles at me.

  ‘This is cool,’ he says.

  ‘Yeah.’

  The dance floor is empty. Always is this time of night. Nobody admits that they want to dance until a lot later in the evening. It’s tradition or something. You see people hanging around the edges of the dance floor. You even see some of them moving in time with the music, a reduced version of what they’ll be doing when there are enough people on the dance floor to justify going out themselves. I don’t know. I’d probably analyse the situation and try to develop a theory of why that is — self-consciousness? drinks/drugs having yet to kick in? — but I’m too busy staring at Anthony.

  ‘Want to head upstairs?’ he asks.

  Upstairs: Upstairs has connotations. Upstairs is the place your friends, if they’re sensible, always warn you not to go. Downstairs is where you go if you just want to dance. Downstairs is neutral. Upstairs is not.

  ‘Okay.’

  106

  The staircase is narrow. Dark. Kind of suffocating. The carpet is nearly purple, like the grape juice I spilled once when I was a kid.

  Grape juice: I remember, it was our old house in Melbourne, this white, white carpet, so clean, like everything else in the house, and when I spilled it, I remember I felt so guilty, terrified, in that way you can only get when you’re a little kid, and I tried to clean it up, which only made it spread and look ten times worse, and there was this hot, prickly feeling on the back of my neck, and I felt so bad for what I’d done that I wanted my parents to yell at me, punish me, but when Mum came downstairs, she did nothing at all, she kissed me on the forehead, told me she would clean it up, and the fact that she wasn’t angry with me, that she barely even noticed, was worse, because then I realised — as far as you can when you’re that age — that something really was wrong, missing, and that Mum was this way because of what happened to Jonathan, and she poured me another glass of grape juice and sat me in front of my Nintendo while she went to do something about the mess.

  There are patches on the carpet that look like bruises, they are so dark. It’s hard to tell what colour they are. It’s hard to tell what colour anything is. The carpet might be black. I don’t know. Too dark to tell. There is loud, tacky pop music echoing from the top of the stairs and suddenly I get the urge to be up there. I follow Anthony’s shadow to the top.

  107

  When we get upstairs, it’s already kind of crowded. Dean is leaning over the bar, talking to the boy who is behind it. The bartenders here all seem to be these tall, bleached vicious/pretty and vacant-looking types who roughly resemble cyborgs. The boy that Dean is talking to is no exception. Adam and Jodie are nearby, talking to a girl in an Astro Boy shirt, and all three of them disappear to a far corner of the room.

  Anthony puts his hand on my shoulder. Leans in. ‘Want a drink?’ he yells. His nose brushes up against my ear. It feels warm. Really good.

  I nod. He asks me what I want and I tell him whatever, because I really don’t care at this point. While he’s gone I stand still, swaying, trying to get a focus on the room. There are strobe lights above the dance floor, shifting too fast to see. I stare up into them — it’s almost as though they’re flashing on the surface of the water. This guy with glasses looks at me like he recognises me, and I look back at him, but he turns and walks away, towards the dance floor, so I guess I’m not whoever he thought I was.

  108

  Anthony comes back holding two beers. He hands one to me and I smile, chug about half of it and then thank him. He mouths a word that I think might be ‘anytime’.

  We don’t head out onto the dance floor. You don’t. Not this early.

  He sort of motions towards the tables; asks me if I feel like sitting down. I nod, let him lead the way. We sit at one of the tables about halfway back, on the borderline between the bright lights of the dance floor and the darker space at the back of the club. The table is high, kind of perilous, and our drinks are balanced on it. There are four chairs around it; I sit down first. Anthony follows. He chooses to sit next to me as opposed to across from me. I take this to be incredibly significant. Every now and then I look across at his profile. He makes me want to die. Somehow — we both shuffle in until we’re right next to one another. Not touching. Not quite.

  109

  Girl: There is a single figure on the dance floor, a girl. She has the whole space to herself. She dances slowly, like a ghost. Every few seconds the strobes flash; in the pure white light — flashes of light/dark light/dark light/dark — she moves backwards, forwards, sometimes with her arms in the air, sometimes touching her face, her hair, her breasts. She glides across the dance floor like she’s suspended on the lights. Like she’s fragile; she might break at any minute. She doesn’t seem real. Her whole appearance; she seems too beautiful. Like an illusion. It’s hard to tell what’s illusion and what isn’t.

  110

  The music is incredibly loud. I let it wash over me in waves. This kind of saccharine and clingy but extremely danceable song is playing; the beats are pumped up to the point where they’re practically distorted; a female voice, candy sweet, pink, singing over the top.

  Anthony turns; says something to me: ‘— he’s b—ful —s— sh—?’ His voice is kind of obliterated by the music.

  The music goes quiet for a second. The girl/cyborg’s voice echoes; the keyboards begin to build and build and a massive break follows and the strobes go wild and the beats seem to be coming harder than ever.

  We have to shout to be heard over the song.

  ‘What was that?’ I ask Anthony.

  He leans in closer. ‘I said she’s beautiful isn’t she?’

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘Are you still stoned?’ he asks.

  ‘I think.’

  ‘Me too.’

  Silence. A silence and a half. The air is heavy; one of us has to say it.

  ‘Do you have a boyfriend?’ he asks.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Cool,’ he says.

  ‘Do you?’ I ask.

  ‘No.’

  I can’t say how exactly it happens, but there comes a point when suddenly our shoulders are touching.

  The song continues. Endless. Don’t know who the singer is, but it doesn’t matter. I mean, none of what’s happening here means anything, in the grand scheme of things. Anthony and I are two underage boys sitting at a table in a club. Some highNRG anthem is playing over the sound system. He’s just flirted with me, at least I think he has, and if he has, if things progress like they usually do, we’re probably going to have sex sometime later. Take the Anthony and the Calvin out of it and this scene could be playing itself out at any club in the world. In Bristol. In Luxembourg. In Tokyo. The specifics are insignificant — so from here on it really doesn’t matter what we do.

  If we sleep together. If we don’t. Whatever happens. This scene is not unique. We’re young and good-looking and that’s all that matters.

  Thinking about all this makes me feel better. I can’t say why exactly. The girl is still dan
cing by herself. Moving through the strobes as though they’re the only things holding her up. As though she might come crashing down at any second.

  His cheek brushes mine. We are kissing. Just like that; a fluid motion. Hard to explain. The way it just happens. We close our eyes. His mouth is warm. Slippery. It tastes of lollipops and pot and something else I can’t identify. His tongue forces its way into my mouth. I don’t resist. Mine is on his teeth. Smooth. His hand. On my side. It’s warm. Mine on the back of his neck. The skin there is smooth. Warm. His hair. He forces me deeper into the kiss. His mouth. Electricity. These noises he makes. Noises I’m making. Pushing forward and back against one another. Suck.

  He breaks off the kiss. I’m kind of flushed. Kind of stoned. Kind of drunk. And I want Anthony. Totally and completely, and I’m going to die if I don’t get to kiss him again, dance with him, sleep with him, absorb his body into mine.

  111

  Moments like these I forget about everything else. Moments like these, nothing matters. With Anthony, with whoever. I can forget who I am. Forget anything else exists. No future. No past. Just this.

  112

  This moment of uncertainty. I’m not quite sure what he’s going to say next.

  ‘Do you take pills?’ Anthony asks me. Just like that.

  ‘I sometimes sneak my mum’s Prozac,’ I tell him, and smile coyly, even though I figure that’s probably not what he means.

  ‘That’s not really what I’m getting at.’

  ‘I know,’ I tell him. ‘I do.’ I’ve taken ecstasy before. One time was with Margot — we just sort of floated around her house all night listening to her Bjork albums and eating jellybeans and hugging one another an awful lot, playing with her stuffed toys, including this rabbit called Mr Rabbit that I became weirdly obsessed with. The only other time I’ve done it was actually the first night I ever went out to a club, and I was also with Margot. That was good.

  ‘How come?’ I ask.

  He produces this little folded-over piece of paper from his pocket. ‘You want to?’ he asks. He looks right into my eyes; I swear to God there’s like, this, otherness in his face. I hesitate for a second. I really shouldn’t do this. I’m, like, a different person on ecstasy. There’s no accounting for what might happen if I take it. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. In this case, it’s probably mostly bad.