Sushi Central Page 9

  ‘Yeah, well,’ I say, trying to sound cool. ‘Sobriety is the most overrated option.’

  ‘I go crazy on this stuff.’ He smiles. ‘We have to dance later … When it gets a bit more crowded,’ he adds hastily as a qualifier.

  ‘Absolutely. Sounds like a fucking blast.’

  ‘You sure you want to?’

  I nod, go to take one of the pills from him, but he shakes his head, motions towards the side of the room.

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  We’re standing in one of the bathroom stalls together, and it’s kind of gross, but I suppose that’s beside the point. The echo coming from outside is strange and sinister, a distant thumping, as though the music is playing through cotton wool. Anthony takes one of the pills, lays it gently in my hand. I go to lay the pill down on my tongue, but Anthony stops me. He puts his between two fingers, moves it towards my mouth. He grins at me. Evil grin. I realise I’m expected to do the same. I do. His fingers taste salty. When we kiss, his lips on mine feel cold.

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  A weird moment: A thought occurs to me. That gesture was so simple it was deceptive. Feeding me his pill; getting me to feed him mine. Kind of intimate, you know. Sexy. It was cute because he did it. Fun. But how many guys have done it before; I mean, where did Anthony learn that move?

  It’s like me. I think of myself as not one, but like, the culmination or the accumulation or whatever of all the guys I’ve been with since the first time. Sebastian. However long ago that was. There were little things he taught me, with or without his being aware of it. When we kissed, Sebastian sort of bit my bottom lip. Not really bit, but kind of nibbled it. You know what I mean. It felt good.

  After Sebastian, I started doing that too. I tried it on the next boy I kissed; this guy called Trent, someone’s cousin. He was blond and cute and he told me he liked me and stuff but he could never go out with me because I was too weird. I think that’s what he said. Anyway, that bit’s not important. What’s important is I tried that little trick of biting Trent’s bottom lip — not really biting it — and it worked, and I think he liked it.

  I’m sure he went on to use it on other guys. I used it on Patrick. Patrick probably uses it on whatever guy he’s with now. Anyway. They probably teach him things too. And so the cycle continues.

  The point is that nobody’s moves are really their own. Everyone has to learn them from somewhere. So I mean, when Anthony fed me that pill before, was it really Anthony feeding me the pill, or was it the boy before me or the boy before that boy or the boy before him?

  Thinking about it makes my head spin. I don’t want to think about the guys before me. I’m not in the mood for that. I try to block it out.

  I think way too much. I shouldn’t think. I should just do. I let myself slip back into the moment.

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  ‘How long’s it going to take … To come on?’ I ask him.

  ‘A little while.’ He motions outside. ‘Hour maybe. Want to wait outside until then?’

  The two of us get a few looks as we emerge from the stall together, especially from an Asian-looking guy who is standing by one of the sinks, but … fuck him. I follow Anthony out. There’s a balcony, where you can sit and talk or chill out or whatever if you don’t feel like dancing. There are trees around the edges, these little topiary-style ones, in big terracotta pots. There are fairy lights strung up in the branches and out here in the night they look lush, beautiful.

  Adam and Jodie are already out here, sitting at a table with two other guys I don’t recognise. One of them is wearing a sleeveless shirt and the other isn’t wearing a shirt at all, they’re both young and good-looking. Everyone out here is young and good-looking. Anthony and I pull up two more chairs and sit down. We’re introduced but it all kind of goes over my head. The boy in the sleeveless shirt, who has dark hair and is really cute, is Lawrence, I think, and the boy he’s with, who is less cute but still pretty hot, is Ben, and Adam tells me Ben — I think it’s Ben, though it might have been Lawrence, I’m not sure — is an ex-boyfriend of his, and Ben rolls his eyes when Adam says that, then they both laugh and Ben says something I guess must be a private joke and the two of them laugh again and Lawrence, who I assume must be Ben’s boyfriend, doesn’t laugh either, and when Ben leans over and kisses him on the mouth I figure I’m probably right about the boyfriend thing and then when Jodie starts talking, sends the conversation off on a new tangent, something to do with Winona Ryder, I try to piece it all together.

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  Six Degrees of Fornication: The theory that within a particular control group, every person can be traced back to every other person by virtue of who they’ve slept with. This works especially well in a small city like Brisbane. Here it’s more like one or two degrees.

  (Note: Faggots are the ultimate control group for this kind of experiment. The Brisbane gay community is basically a petri dish, but with a danceable soundtrack and bacteria that happen to be cute and have names like Ben and Lawrence.)

  117

  Trying to work this one out: Lawrence is sleeping with Ben. If Adam is to be believed, then he has slept with Ben. Adam has also slept with me. So really, I might as well have slept with Lawrence. Or with Ben. With both of them, I guess, but Ben more than Lawrence. I think. Things start to go fuzzy. They’re still talking but it’s all going over my head. I catch about one word in every ten, and I lean in, get this look of very deliberate concentration on my face, as though I’m hanging on every word they’re saying, but it’s all flowing over me like so much water.

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  Something appears in my peripheral vision and it’s demanding attention. I turn and realise it’s Lawrence. He is asking me a question but I can’t quite make out what he’s saying, partly because of the noise of the music and the conversation out here, and partly because everything I’ve taken so far tonight is leading me towards a kind of crescendo that makes it difficult to focus on anything. Lawrence has this look on his face like he’s waiting for an answer. I shake my head, look sort of quizzical and cute at the same time. Maybe about sixty percent quizzical, forty percent cute. I don’t want to appear as if I’ve misunderstood; I don’t want to look dumb in front of him, because he’s really good-looking. (If he were not good-looking, would I mind appearing dumb in front of him? I file this one away for further examination and then forget all about it.)

  I lean in further. ‘Sorry?’ I say. ‘Didn’t hear you.’

  ‘I asked how you know Adam.’

  I hesitate a bit before I answer. ‘He’s just … Um … A friend.’

  Lawrence smiles at me. ‘Yeah. Ben’s fucked him too.’ We both laugh at this. I think we each laugh because the other does. Because we have to laugh.

  Anthony puts his arm around my shoulder.

  ‘You haven’t fucked Adam, have you?’ Lawrence asks him. Lawrence is drunk.

  ‘No.’ He might or might not be lying.

  ‘Everyone’s fucked Adam,’ Lawrence says. ‘Everyone.’ He’s smiling but there’s something not at all humorous about his tone. The look in his eyes. Something. I don’t know. But whatever it was that Anthony gave me is starting to take hold and I’m reading way too much significance into everything and it’s disturbing me and I don’t want to be here any more, and there’s a drink sitting near Lawrence, fizzy, cathode red, and he ignores the straw sticking out of it and takes a huge chug from the glass even though I don’t think it’s his, and Adam and Ben are still talking, and Adam’s fucked everyone, everyone, and I don’t want to be around this just now. I want to be dancing. I want to be with Anthony. Suddenly that’s the only thing that matters.

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  Anthony’s arm is still on my shoulder. I turn and look right into his eyes. ‘Feel like dancing?’ I ask.

  He nods. ‘Definitely.’

  He takes my hand or I take his hand or we both take each other’s hand, I’m not sure entirely, but after a few seconds of fluid motion we’re both standing up. I sort of lean, fall into him. His T-shirt feels
soft. The flesh below it is warm. He’s warm. I put my hand on the small of his back. I really really want to dance with him now, right away.

  The trees and the lights have suddenly taken on a whole new level of beauty, intrigue. I feel like I could get lost in them just by staring at them. Lush. Glowing. A thousand fireflies. Being a little kid. On my father’s shoulders. There are so many lights it’s all I can do not to trance out on them completely.

  Things are beginning to blur. Anthony is saying something: ‘We’re going inside.’ I look down at the table, at Adam and Jodie and Lawrence and Ben, and suddenly I wonder whether Lawrence has fucked Adam. Adam has fucked everyone. Everyone.

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  Inside. On the dance floor. It’s crowded. I don’t know how long we’ve been here. How long we’ve been here doesn’t even matter. He’s kissing me again, and he’s all over me, and it’s hard to tell through all the noise and interference of the huge speakers all around us and the noise and interference inside my head from everything I’ve drunk/smoked/swallowed so far tonight, but I think I’m as happy in this moment as I’ve ever been. Overwhelmed. He’s beautiful, and I can taste his sweat and feel the skin of his back — because my hands are way under his shirt — and I’m so breathless I can’t think but I know he’s kissing me and he’s all over me and everything else in the world is hateful apart from how desperately we feel for each other. I’m pleading for him to fuck me; like, seriously, right here on the dance floor, I wouldn’t even care.

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  The beats are huge, thick, like candy-coated razor blades. A woman’s voice above layers of keyboards and samples.

  female voice: I want to be a porno star/I want to be a porno star

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  I move with him, and we grind against one another, sharing warmth and sweat, and my eyes are sort of closed, open, closed, open, but when I feel his lips touch mine again and we sink into the rhythm of another kiss, it makes me want to die. He tastes of sweat and lollipops and pot and the night. Bodies undulate around us. My hands are in the small of his back. I’m kissing him as deeply, wanting him as badly as I had ever wanted any boy. In this moment, everything is perfect.

  After that it becomes difficult to focus on just what’s happening. I’m coming and going, sort of like scenes from a half-remembered movie, although it’s all happening in the present tense. A violent and dizzying montage. Lost inside him. We kiss for a long time; sway against one another.

  He breaks off the kiss; looks right into my eyes and asks if I want to go somewhere else. ‘Do you want to go somewhere quieter or something?’ At least I think that’s what he says. It’s so loud in here that I have to read his lips, but he’s motioning away from the dance floor, and when he moves, I follow. ‘… or something.’ I’m sure that’s what he said. There’s an ocean of anticipation in that ‘or something’. I follow him out; we push our way through the crowd, through the flashing orange and red lights, the thundering beats and sinuous bass line, through the throng of girls with butterflies in their hair, boys in T-shirts, girls kissing boys, boys kissing boys …

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  Quiet: For a second, everything goes quiet, and I’m removed from all of this. Everything is blank. Silent. Reality is totally gone. You know, erased, or whatever. It’s just the two of us in the moment, and it’s all white noise, thoroughly.

  I’m happy.

  124

  Taxi. My mind is all over the place, and lights are passing by the taxi in waves of ladybird reds and candy-apple greens, and I want someone to save me. We’re sitting in the back of the taxi, and even though my hearing is kind of fucked up thanks to the club, the silence in here is throbbing, alive, and I’m out of it at this point, thanks mostly to the drugs, I think, and I’m sweating, sort of, swaying all over the place, and I can feel Anthony’s hand on my leg, my head is on his shoulder, and I’m really hoping he hasn’t lost the urge to fuck me or whatever it is he’ll do when we get to where we’re going, because, I mean, the trip seems to be taking so long, and he won’t tell me where we’re heading, he told me he wanted it to be a surprise and maybe I should have been cautious, but I am so hot for Anthony I would pretty much follow him anywhere, and like, the driver’s a Pakistani or something, and somewhere in the back of my mind I’m freaking out because Anthony kissed me before, after we got in, and I know the driver was watching and I’m wondering what he must be thinking and it’s all, you know, too much, although I’m so wiped out at this point it really doesn’t matter.

  ‘Are we getting close?’

  ‘Really close,’ he says to me. ‘We’ll be there soon.’

  Anthony feels warm next to me and he’s squeezing my hand or maybe I’m squeezing his hand and he looks across at me and smiles this dumb smile, and I realise we’re in this together, which is a good feeling, which calms me down a lot, and he says, ‘It will be cool, seriously’, he’s being all mysterious but the smile on his face tells me nothing bad’s going to happen. The lights of the city pass by in a blur, and every now and then an incredibly bright one fills up the whole taxi and I have to shut my eyes against it. I hang on to Anthony’s hand and hope we get where we’re going soon.

  125

  My memories of the next part are kind of scattered, but like, I know enough of what happened to get the general drift. Basically:

  1. Blacking out in the taxi, but the feel of Anthony beside me keeping me grounded.

  2. Having this weird and incredibly meaningful train of thought about Anthony and I, how we are two particles drifting through space and the fact that we’ve managed to find each other, that I’ve found him, is incredibly significant, because … I don’t know. Losing that thought altogether. Being stoned makes you come up with the most unbelievable bullshit.

  3. Anthony’s suburb: Windsor. Large, expensive houses set back from the road. Older houses and newer ones. The city below us. Fragile. Ghostly. Anthony’s house is one of the newer ones.

  4. Getting out of the taxi. Cold air. Walking up this very long driveway, in the dark. These lights that come on as we walk past them. Thinking they were magic or something.

  5. Holding Anthony’s hand, kind of stumbling into him. His hand is warm.

  6. Dark. In my current chemically altered state, his house is huge and threatening except for Anthony.

  7. The sound of his key in the lock.

  8. Sneaking through the entranceway. Whispering:

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  Me: Aren’t we going to … wake your parents or something?

  Anthony: They’re not here.

  Me: Where are they?

  Anthony: At this … Like, this … thing. I don’t know.

  Me: Where?

  Anthony: Fucking … I don’t know. They’re not here though. Trust me.

  127

  Anthony and I are standing against the wall, kissing. His hands are all over me. Something about the act of kissing Anthony brings me back down towards reality. We’re going to fuck very soon, but I realise I am suddenly incredibly thirsty. I need a drink. Like, really. I really need a drink of water immediately.

  Me: Can I have, like …

  Anthony: What?

  Me: Can I have a drink of water … or something?

  Anthony: Sure. Come on. I think I need one too.

  Me: It’s probably the pill. They always makes me thirsty.

  Anthony: You should always drink lots of water after you’ve taken one.

  Me: It’s the responsible thing to do.

  I’m not sure if I was trying to be funny or not but Anthony laughs.

  128

  Anthony leads me into the kitchen. I vault up onto one of the counter tops, sit there and sort of nod my head waiting for everything to slow down, but it doesn’t. Anthony grabs a tall glass, pushes it against a little ice lever on the fridge. The ice cubes clink into the glass. It sounds cooler and more meaningful than it should. He pushes the glass against the other little lever and it fills with water. Hands it to me, and it’s so cold, cold, I suck it down
in one huge gulp and it makes my head spin and I try to put it down on the counter but I miss and it falls to the floor and shatters, and I have no idea how Anthony will respond to this, but he’s laughing when I look at him.

  Me: Sorry, I think I …

  Anthony: Fuck it.

  Me: But I broke the …

  Anthony: We can clean it up later. Come on.

  He motions for me to get down. I slide off the counter. Kind of unsteady on my feet. Swaying a little. He grabs me around the waist. Warm. My mouth still feels cold from the water. Broken glass all over the tiles. I hear some of it crunching under my shoe.

  129

  The living room is huge and white even in the half-darkness. I collapse onto a sofa. Anthony sits down with me. We don’t make any pretence at conversation. He puts his arm clumsily around my chest and then we’re kissing, and his mouth seems hotter and wetter and more, like, immediate than it did before, and we’re both pushing against one another, and he feels so incredibly warm. I forgot that another person could feel this warm. How warm he is, that feels almost as good as the kiss. It’s like I can feel him all over me.

  Our cocks are incredibly hard. His fingers are digging very hard into my back. We’re still kissing and his tongue is going totally crazy and he makes this kind of mff sound, or maybe I make it, I really don’t know. He breaks the kiss off and we’re looking right at one another. He’s looking sweaty and sleepy-eyed but incredibly turned on at the same time, and his face is very close to mine and he kind of breathes on me, and I move up to kiss him again and he shakes his head, like, no, and I know what he means.

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