Friction (24 page)

And of course the healthy snorting sound that should accompany the taking of cocaine fails to materialise. Justin and his celebrity crouch over the powder and draw it up their nostrils. There is a silent gasp, like watching wind. The celebrity rocks back to lean on the bed, her lips flicker, silent words. You moved your lips without saying that, thinks Justin, as he crawls towards her fame and kisses at her numb gums.

Shit, the dreadful routine of life, thinks Justin, as he performs all his tired moves on the celebrity; a kiss to the neck, a finger gently circling the haunted regions of her inner thigh, the curdled flesh of her loins. This is celebrity in my hands, this is famous skin, this is fantasy and my world-weary foreplay has no place here. Justin wrings out his brain, desperate for a drop of inspiration. The drug begins to take hold.

The time is probably something odd like 1:27 a.m. when Justin stands the celebrity up in the middle of the room and begins to circle her slowly. The silence remains intact.

He kneels down at her feet and removes her black high-heeled shoes. He reaches up into her dress and pulls down her tights. He places the sagged fabric to one side. Her legs and her feet are naked, her face is candle wax, features pressed by thumbs into the warm substance. Justin dims the light slightly.

He goes round the back of the celebrity and takes down the zip of her dress. He frees her shoulders and the dress drops to the ground, maroon silk at her feet. Still standing behind her, he unfixes her bra and casts it forward, sensing the relieved lurch of her tits as they're freed. On his knees
again he pulls down her knickers of black cotton. They feel like a spider's web. She's completely naked now, silent, standing still. Justin fights the urge to run his tongue over the celebrity's anus.

He stands, facing her. Periodically her lips move but there is no sound; it's all swallowed by the silence. His eyes watch every section of her body. Her large feet, muscled thighs, her patchy sprouting pubes, the dip of her hips, her praying tits, collarbone, neck, whatever else. Slowly, and with complete self-assurance, he approaches the celebrity and carefully removes her left arm. There is no blood and, of course, there is no noise.

Having arranged the arm neatly on the hotel bed, he returns for the other. It detaches as easily as the first; the celebrity is entirely bloodless. Next go the nipples, then the breasts themselves, eased off her chest and placed on to the bed beside the two arms. The features of her face provide the biggest challenge. It's with a steady hand that Justin peels off the eyes, nose and mouth of the celebrity and places them in an unused ashtray next to the bed.

Now he's able to really get to work on her body. The legs are easy, a modest yank and they drop off. But they're heavy, because of the fat in the thighs. Justin lugs them over to the bed, then pauses, breathless, running fingers over her severed calves. Next is the arse, which he dismantles buttock by buttock. Then the midriff, which drifts away from her back when pulled. Finally he's just left with the little fiddly bits: feet, vagina, ears, hair. It takes about fifteen minutes, but it's certainly worth it. As he pours himself a whisky and Coke, Justin can't remember the last time he saw a celebrity so expertly taken to bits. He wishes Rebecca could see what he's done. She'd be proud of him.
They could have played games with the different parts of the celebrity, fucked amongst them.

How big is this silence anyway? wonders Justin as he slaps one of the separated buttocks to no audible effect. Is it all over Manchester? If Rebecca is caught up in it, she will certainly be frustrated. She'll be dying to say something about free trade, how it's got nothing to do with freedom, how the silence is the silence of protest and dissent, how we've been dumbed, senses dulled by senseless lives. But, of course, if the silence has got her, then she'll have to keep quiet and just waggle her lips at the world.

Using the celebrity's midriff as a pillow, Justin begins to drift off to sleep on the bed, surrounded by bits of body, thinking about the celebrity and the silence. A green light on the dehumidifier illuminates. I suppose the air must have changed a little.

Then finally a noise, a sniff, Justin's nostrils hiss, snot gurgles, then the distant sound of a woman's voice. Shit. Oh God, thinks Justin. His pulped brain bubbles inside its papier mâché skull. Shit. He's dribbled gozz into the midriff's belly button. He turns round, knocking a hand on to the floor with his leg. Where's the voice coming from?

His head feels like someone's been sick into it. The celebrity's going to kill him for this. Time has passed. He scrambles over to the coffee table and sips from his whisky. The experiment is fucking up, he's wronging society, playing games with the sexual fates of others. And still the woman's voice, tiny and delicate: where is it coming from and what is it saying?

Justin crawls towards the bedside table, following the sound of the speaking. The voice is minute and sounds like footsteps creeping on gravel. He peers into the ashtray at
the facial features of the celebrity. The mouth is leaning against the two eyes; the pink lips move like splintering wood.

‘Put me back together, you prick.'

Oh shit, thinks Justin, I should never have taken her to pieces in the first place. He runs to the bed, picks up a hand and tries to stick it to an arm. Is that right? Yes, hands and arms, classic, legs on feet, where the fuck is her back? Shut up. Shut up.

‘Who the fuck do you think you are? Taking me to pieces, what did you think you were doing?'

The lips are back on her face now and talking loudly. Justin positions the hair on top of her head. She's beautiful again, and furious.

‘What about my stomach?'

‘I know, just give me a second.'

Justin picks up the midriff and squirms his index finger around the belly button. There is a sound – a faint squelch.

‘What's that?' asks the celebrity.

‘Nothing.'

‘It's spit.'

‘It's dribble.'

‘Give it back.'

Justin hands the toned midriff to the celebrity and she puts it back into place, wiping the remainder of the spit from her belly button with her finger. He hands her a drink. She's drinking. Thank God she still works. She lies naked on the bed, gulping at the glass, the seams between her body parts fading. Suddenly she begins to laugh, then she just can't stop, she's lying there just laughing out loud.

‘Hahahahahahahaha.'

‘What's the matter?'

The celebrity can't reply, something is as funny as fuck, surely. Her oinking laughter is causing her body to fold; her stomach shudders and curves. Her eyes are squeezed shut, just creased skin leading to nothing. Justin panics, has he assembled her correctly? Yes, yes, it's fine; her eyes are on her face, and her anus is in place. Justin is fretting.

‘Erm . . . how is your acting career going? Have you thought about film?' he says.

The celebrity explodes once more, squirming about on the bed, laughing uncontrollably, messing up the sheets, clutching her stomach. ‘Hahahahahahahaha.'

‘The progression from TV to film can be made,' continues Justin. ‘Look at Robin Williams, or George Clooney.'

‘Hahahahahahahaha.'

Justin sits down on the bed beside the celebrity. He places a hand on her shoulder, which rocks and vibrates along with her cackling mouth. ‘Please, celebrity,' he says, his voice anxious and containing the untuned note of defeat.

‘Sorry,' the celebrity replies, hands on each of its red cheeks, bracketing its gasping mouth.

‘What's so funny?' asks Justin, causing the celebrity to speak cautiously through her lingering laughter.

‘I didn't like the way you took me to pieces. I have a past, you know?'

‘Yes, of course you do. Of course you have a past.'

‘You shouldn't have done it. You made me look like a right tit.'

‘I agree. But all I wanted was to seduce and have sex with you. I wasn't being political, I promise.'

‘I believe you. I feel sorry for us both.'

The celebrity pulls the duvet over its body. Justin
discovers that his face has frozen into a hideously pulled and uncomfortable grimace. Like a smiling doll, fixed and nasty. He is trying to relax, jittering about on the spot, knees bending, bowels loosening. The poor, poor celebrity speaks.

‘Get undressed, Rudolf. Join me.'

‘Actually, my name is Justin.'

‘It's all lies, of course, isn't it?'

‘Yes, it's all lies.'

Justin gets undressed in a kind of crouching position, with a surprising sense of shame. As he slips under the duvet he's confident that the celebrity would have been incapable of glimpsing his cock. Once in bed, Davine puts her arm around him and directs his head into her chest. Justin's face finds comfort between her stone collarbone and the soft beginnings of her breasts.

‘Is that your . . .?'

‘Yeah, I'm afraid it is.'

‘Weird,' says Davine, lifting up the bedsheets and peering down. ‘I didn't think you'd be turned on.'

She can feel Justin's erection tapping at her kneecap, although it doesn't feel like a cock. It feels more like an object mislaid within the sheets, a mobile phone perhaps, or a vibrator.

‘The fact is, Davine, I can't help but get hard. You're naked and I'm such a boring boy.'

‘I understand. I'm famous, after all. And, of course, I have a vagina, or rather,
but
of course I have a vagina. And a childhood. I don't know. I feel terrible.'

Justin places his fingers into the glued loins of Davine. There is a smell of sickly chemical, then the sound of a celebrity laughing uncontrollably, preparing to make love.

FRANK AND STEVE
left Justin's apartment about ten minutes ago. God knows why Steve came, the guy's a wreck, he's in no state to be conducting business. He is convinced that fashion is conspiring against him. That designers and retailers are creating and distributing clothes so fast that he's drifting and drowning way out of fashion. He's spending hundreds of pounds a day and his eyes are bloodshot. He can't escape the feeling that he is faintly ridiculous, constantly behind the times, no matter how many new garments he buys.

He and Frank came round to Justin's to collect the sex machine from Rebecca and to collect a ten-thousand-pound investment from Justin. After about an hour of deliberation, Steve chose to wear a trilby with red feathers in it and a T-shirt with the phrase ‘Rape Games' written in geometric text across its front. The trilby is surely a classic piece of clothing and the fact that it has been relaunched by a leading male fashion house put his mind at ease. I'll be in fashion all day with this hat, he reasoned. The T-shirt, he
had hoped, would appear rather controversial. The words ‘Rape Games' ought to suggest to the viewer that Steve is a hardcore and deeply brave young man. A man keen to buck social convention and reorganise the meanings of dangerous words. Steve left the house confident that he was in fashion.

But he can't walk down a street nowadays without a giddy sense of unease. He's scared to turn corners or cross roads, for fear that the act may trigger some hasty cycle of fashion. For fear he'll find himself looking ridiculous. Frank had to reassure him at every step. ‘You look fine,' he kept saying, as Steve dismantled the faces of passers-by, searching for signs of amusement.

They arrived at Justin's at half past four; the transaction was fairly swift. Frank had met with Justin and Rebecca two days earlier and handed over the sex machine. He'd also discovered that Justin had money and had outlined his business plan for the sex machine. Justin agreed to invest, pending Rebecca's opinion on the machine.

Rebecca was meant to keep the machine for a week, so she could really get to grips with it and see how it fitted into her life and her daily routines. But within hours of having the machine confiscated, Carly became irritable and began to shake. She'd been using it constantly since being discharged from hospital. After a day without it, she wouldn't leave her room and started to sweat profusely. Last night she was crying and screaming for hours, calling out for the machine until the sun rose and she passed out through exhaustion. She is addicted to its love and cold turkey was impossible. There was nothing Steve or Frank could do to reassure her. So they came round to get it back, to apologise, to get the money.

‘So, how about my hat?' said Steve the moment Justin
opened the front door. The guy's a wreck, he'd never even met Justin before. Justin stood at the door confused, thinking that the hat looked kind of poncey. A little gay.

‘The hat, the trilby? What do you think about it?' Steve said again, pointing to it with a tense hand.

‘My name is Justin.'

Still confused, Justin held out his hand expecting to have it shaken. But instead Steve quickly undid the buttons on his jacket then removed it completely to reveal his T-shirt.

‘Rape Games,' Steve said, pointing this time at the words displayed across his T-shirt.

‘Sorry?'

‘I've got “Rape Games” written on my T-shirt. Look, “Rape Games”. Don't be alarmed, I'm hardcore.'

Steve was staring down at the text on his T-shirt, his mouth slightly open, the tip of his tongue visible like a dying dog. At this stage Frank interrupted; he squeezed his body around Steve and grabbed Justin by the hand.

‘Let me apologise for my business partner here; he's having a few relationship difficulties.'

So anyway, the transaction went fine. Steve kept quiet as Frank got the ten thousand quid off Justin and had a private discussion with Rebecca about the sex machine. They left ten minutes ago. Right now Justin is giving Rebecca a scalp massage. He's sitting on the edge of the sofa, she's sitting on the floor between his legs, describing the machine.

‘The word to describe it is “fierce”, or I guess you might call it a “white orgasm”, or a wall of orgasm, or like being set in orgasm cement.'