Loaded (14 page)

I became a slut. It just happened. First time, the first time remains crystal clear. A middle-aged guy in a tracksuit blowing me in the bushes at Burnley Oval after school. The first time with a girl, a bedroom at some party. Getting off on licking her breasts, she wouldn't let me fuck her, coming on her stomach. A parade of men in toilets, cousins of friends or friends of girls at school. Getting fucked once by a good-looking Turk with a big cock. Hating it, it hurt. Not using a condom and going into an anonymous surgery to do tests. Finding out the results, feeling like I received a
second chance and going straight down to a toilet block and getting sucked off.

Fucking Betty, a condom splitting and worried about her getting pregnant. On the phone every day, hoping to hear the magic word: period.

Going to clubs, straight clubs, gay clubs, mixed clubs, grunge clubs, wog clubs, skip clubs, black clubs. Asian boys. Contemptuous Greek and Arab boys. Scared Greek girls, wanting you to bugger them so they can maintain their virginity. Stoned Anglo girls, their cunts smelling of fruity perfume.

Fucking in bedrooms, toilets, cars, under railway bridges, on the beach, in strange lounge rooms, in the back row of porn cinemas. Coming home, late from school, Mama asks Where you been? You answer, out with friends. Having a shower to get rid of the smell of perfume, of aftershave. Getting rid of the smells that linger from a five-minute thrashing of bodies.

Fucking, not falling in love. I'm not much for conversation. Even with girls (and it's easier to converse with girls) I don't seem to have much to say. The more they talk the more you realise you are not the same. Sometimes, it happens, you are in the middle of a fuck-looking into the eyes of a girl on top of you, her hair framing her beautiful face; a young guy on his knees in front of you and he looks up and smiles-and I have felt a certain tenderness, have felt I want to just lie on a bed and talk to this person, share jokes, fantasies, share some time. A tenderness that while he is sucking me, she is thrusting her groin down on me, I think, this tenderness, this must lead to love. Then I blow, I come and the tenderness goes. Then all I want to do is go away. Put on my pants, wipe my dick and go away.

I ask myself how many people I've had sex with. I've lost count. I've become a slut.

They are playing bad Abba.
Dancing Queen
. I hate this song, I say to Con as we walk back in. Johnny and Crystal have moved from the bar and have found some seats near the entrance. Maria is with them, and a striking woman with platinum-coloured hair. The Abba song is playing but they have a Madonna video on the screen. A black and white video in which some Latino guy is licking her out.

I go up to Johnny and put my arm around him. A sign that I want a truce. Maria pecks me on the cheek and introduces me to her friend, Serena. Italian? I ask. Croatian, she replies. Johnny winks at me and whispers, no relation. Maria hears. Relation to who?

–A guy Johnny's been dating. I shuffle. Maria notices my frown. What's up? she asks.

–I hate this fucking song. Serena is asking Johnny what it's like dating a Croatian man. Johnny is weaving bullshit. Maria tells me I'll never make a good faggot. You hate Abba and love early Rolling Stones. She shakes her head at me. What kind of queer are you? Crystal giggles in my face. The Rolling Stones, he squeals, how boring.

–Early Stones, I correct him. Even more boring he replies. He is no longer friendly. Con comes up with both our drinks. Crystal glares at me. The Abba song is finishing and some good Detroit house comes blaring through the speakers. I grab Maria's arm and we move to the dance floor.

Dancing with Maria I can lose myself in the music. She is a smooth dancer, uses her hips, as if she can hear the call of the
tsiftiteli
in the music. To keep a rhythm with her I incorporate some belly dancing into my moves on the dance floor. She glides up to me, moving seductively around me. The other dancers are jumping around the floor, aerobic movements to the compelling beat. Maria and I ignore them. Another Madonna video is playing on the small TV monitors
that decorate the club. My eyes stray to the flickering images on the screens. The song we are dancing to ends and Maria grabs my hand. Who is the boy you came in with? she asks.

–Crystal's boyfriend. I leave it at that. He's cute, she tells me. We are heading back to the table.

–You probably can have him. Maria laughs. Is he worth it? she asks. I turn around to her. She presents an innocent face to me. I don't answer, sit at the table next to Johnny and gulp down my drink. I smell my hands. A strong odour of semen. I wipe my hands on my jeans.

Serena is making conversation with Johnny, Maria is chatting up Con, Crystal looks uncomfortable and I watch music videos on the screen. A parade of faces pass by me, I am being checked out, assessed, been given a score. I'm doing the same thing. There is a party game Maria and I play sometimes. Drunk, we'll scan the people in the room, Yes, No, Maybe. Yes I'd sleep with him, No, I wouldn't sleep with her, Maybe, if I was drunk enough. Most people are Maybe. But neither she nor I am completely honest. Most people are Yes but we don't acknowledge the truth because we don't want to appear desperate. In a bed, with the lights out, good drugs circulating through my body, I'll get a hard-on with anyone.

Pubescent boys appear on the video screen, lip-synching. They look like some of the boys wandering the club. Three boys come up to Crystal and she starts squealing. A young Thai boy in bicycle pants, a blond drunk boy heaped in chains and hippie symbols, a black guy with his hair shaved wearing a see-through silk shirt. The Thai boy keeps throwing me glances. I avoid his eyes and concentrate on the screen. I've done too much fucking already tonight. Part of me would like to go home but I'm too wired from the drugs and all I'd do would pace the bedroom floor and watch music videos past dawn.

Maria is talking about some party, she's assuring Johnny that it will be still raging. I know I want to move on, go
elsewhere, leave the dark insular club. I'll come, I tell her. Crystal introduces me to the three boys. I don't catch their names except for Rudy, the one with the see-through shirt. I ask him where he's from and he tells me Chicago. I tell him I'd like to go there one day. He's not very interested and I turn back to the screen. Maria tells him she has relatives in Chicago. Lots of Greeks in Chicago, aren't there? she asks. He looks bored. Maybe, he answers, I didn't hang out with them. I turn back to him. How come, I say aggressively, you a racist? He tenses up, his face hardens. I flash him a smile. Joke, I say. He smiles back and Crystal laughs. Rudy taps me on the shoulder and lowers his voice. I notice an erect nipple under the white silk of his shirt. A large purple nipple on a muscled chest. Crystal says you can get speed. How much do you want? I ask. He asks for a couple of grams, hands me the money and I go searching for Rat.

Rat is necking with a guy I don't recognise at the back of the club. I tap him on the shoulder, and we start a conversation. His pick-up for the night keeps kissing him, stroking his chest throughout the conversation. Some fucked-up blond Aussie guy; too many drugs, all he can focus on is Rat's body. I slip Rat the money and he slips me the drugs. The bank's closed, he tells me, you're the last customer. Rat goes back to his fuck and gives me a thumbs-up for a farewell. I take the two packets of drugs into the toilets and scoop a small amount of the powder onto my finger and snort it. Someone is getting fucked, or getting beaten in the next cubicle. Loud banging, soft groans. At the urinal a bald guy has his dick out. I wash my face and look into the mirror. My skin is stretched taut across my bones, my hair is wet, splattered across my forehead. I comb it back into place, gargle with some water and exit the toilets. I'm looking good.

I hand Rudy the drugs under the table. Crystal's friends immediately depart for the toilets. They ask me along but I'm not interested. Maria and Serena follow them into the
Ladies and I buy another drink.
Temptation
comes blaring through the speakers. My foot starts tapping and I get a speed rush. Wanna dance? I ask Johnny and Crystal, but they decline. I head off to the dance floor on my own. I'm in the middle of the crowd, swooping and shuffling to the song, raising my hands to the lights of disco Heaven. Rat and his boyfriend join me and Rat passes some amyl. Intoxicated, I dance with him while his boyfriend sways drunkenly, out of rhythm with the song, looking at himself in the full-length mirror at the back of the dance floor. When the amyl rush subsides I turn to Rat and ask where he picked him up. He's a bit of a dickhead, I say. Rat throws me a pretend punch, lightly knocking my chin, and tells me to shut up. They're all dickheads here, he shouts. I keep dancing till the end of the song, slap Rat's palm farewell and head back to the table. Maria and Serena are back. The boys are still in the toilet.

–Let's go, I say, let's get out of here. Johnny asks Maria if she'll drop him off home and she agrees. Crystal wants to stay. I shake Con's hand. A strong, masculine handshake. See you around, he says. Sure, I answer. I'm impatient to go. The bouncers open the doors for me and I'm into the night. The hot-dog stand is still there, so are the taxis. The cool night air strokes my flesh. I no longer want the night to end. Home is the last place I want to be.

Another world is unfolding outside the club. The man at the hot-dog stall is talking about his girlfriend to one of the taxi drivers. A drunk teenage couple are walking down the street, the boy supporting his staggering girlfriend. They stop for a hot dog and the girl goes on a rave about how much she likes dancing with gay men. Australian men can't dance, she tells the hot-dog man and his driver friend, they can't fucking dance for shit. Poofters can dance. Her boyfriend tells her to shut up.

I wander across the street from the club, looking into the windows of the taxi cabs. Some of the drivers are hanging out, looking desperate. They're waiting to pick up some stray fag from the club, someone who couldn't get a fuck. Someone who'll suck them off down by the river. I light a cigarette and look at bored faces. They ignore me. In one cab two Greek drivers are playing cards in the front. I stand and watch them. One of them rolls down the window and asks me what the fuck do I want. Nothing, I answer and walk back to the door of the club. A police van crawls slowly past the strip. The drunk girl starts to yell abuse at them. Shut the fuck up her boyfriend hisses at her and shakes her a little. The hot-dog man, the driver, we all look away. Maria, Serena and Johnny join me on the steps. The girl starts giggling at Johnny. Honey, you're beautiful, she jeers. Johnny gives her a dagger look. Honey, you're a mess, he replies. Fucking faggot, she calls out and nestles under her boyfriend's arm. We head off to Maria's car.