Sushi Central

by Alasdair Duncan

  51

  Liam’s mouth: He’s kind of an aggressive kisser. He sticks his tongue right into my mouth, presses into it very hard, and his hand is on the back of my head. It’s difficult to describe, but he kisses with his whole body — he moves until he’s against me and then he sort of grinds, moves in closer and continues to kiss, and his mouth is extremely warm and wet and all of it, his warmth against mine, is making me incredibly hot for him. He pushes his face into mine. He’s making these little noises. I don’t know what you’d call them, but they’re … Cool. It’s nice to know that a guy’s making noises when he’s kissing you.

  52

  Something about before — before, the way he checked in the hallway before shutting the door — something about that look kind of bugs me. As we’re kissing, it suddenly occurs to me that guys like Liam have a reputation to keep up. If we have sex it’s going to mean nothing at all to him, and tomorrow morning he’ll probably pretend that none of it ever happened. His friends will assume he’s, you know, met a girl or something, maybe even that Jessica girl, and taken her into his brother’s room. That’s what brothers’ rooms are for. It’s different for boys like Liam. Part of me knows. Part of me wants to be upset, but a larger part doesn’t even care. Still, I don’t want to think about it for too long or it’s going to fuck the night right up.

  53

  He breaks the kiss of. Looks right into me again. This serious kind of look on his face.

  Liam: My brother’s gone. It’s okay if you crash here.

  Me: Great.

  Liam: Listen.

  Me: What?

  Liam: I’m not a faggot, okay? I’m just doing this because … I don’t know. I think you’re pretty hot. You know what I mean?

  I do.

  Me: Okay … So are we going to …?

  He kisses me again. Longer this time. It feels … if not right, then nice.

  Liam: Okay.

  Me: Okay.

  Liam: … I’m not a faggot, all right?

  Got it.

  Liam: My brother’s not here.

  54

  The lights are off and he’s kissing me, and the whole thing is just like … Well, you know. It’s really cool, and he’s wasted and I’m wasted and the feel of this moment totally wipes out everything that’s come before it. Blank. Over. (He’s not a faggot.) The kind of boy I’d never get to have under normal circumstances. Hell, he probably has a girlfriend. But right now, in the fact that I’m so totally hot for him and in the look of hunger that he has in his eyes, we’re equals. That feels good. He’s sitting on the bed. Unzipped (I think I did that). I’m sort of, well, kneeling close by. You know.

  ‘Okay. Go ahead,’ he says. I go ahead.

  55

  … random, scattered images of the rest of the night …

  … I’m down on my knees, kind of choking on Liam’s cock. It’s the old familiar routine, and I keep going, I really don’t want to stop, because …

  … Liam’s hands in my hair. His fingers kind of rough. He hurts me a bit sometimes, but I really don’t care. I’m so hot for him by this point that …

  … he scrambles around in his clothes, finds a condom in one of the pockets, and he’s opening it with his teeth, looking me right in the eyes, and his eyebrow sort of …

  … breathing, and he’s trying not to breathe too loud, because …

  … blank here …

  … we’re both on the bed again, and he looks into my eyes for a second, seems almost like an accident, and it’s like …

  … the curve of his cheek, in the dark …

  … we’re kissing again …

  … he’s going down on me and then suddenly he’s not and then I’m sort of lying on my front and …

  … that brunette boy from the net, no, wait, blocking it out, blocking it out, blocking it out …

  … I kind of black out again here …

  … he’s saying something to me and maybe it’s because I’m drunk or, I don’t know, but I don’t hear what it is …

  … his breath, in my ear and on my neck, warm, wet, makes me want to die, and it …

  … and he’s sort of biting my shoulder, not really biting but I can feel his teeth, and he’s pushing himself in and out and in and out and again …

  … a noise he makes, a breathing noise, and it’s almost like he’s crying, an almost desperate kind of a noise, and I know it’s for me, because of me, and it’s impossible to explain but the significance of it, the fact that he made it for me, suddenly hits and it’s almost …

  … and for a second I’m not there any more, because I’ve lost myself completely in Liam, in how drunk I am, in the hunger, and I’m gone, and it feels …

  Over.

  56

  Early morning.

  ‘That was fun,’ he says.

  ‘Yeah … I had fun too.’

  ‘We should … Get together … Sometime … I mean … Coffee, or … see a movie or … . Y’know. Um. Whatever.’

  ‘Definitely. I’d like that.’

  ‘Look … I’m not … like … gay … or anything … but I’ve got my mobile here. How about I, umm … program your number in?’

  ‘My, um. Number.’

  ‘If you don’t …’

  ‘Cool. Here … Let me do it.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘There you go.’

  ‘You want mine?’

  ‘Do I. I mean. Um. Yeah. What is it?’

  His phone is very slim, and silver. Almost identical to mine.

  ‘Well. I should go.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘My car’s out on the street. My brother’s car, I mean … but he lets me drive it, so … I can … give you a … lift if you like.’

  ‘I’m fine. Thanks.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘I had … fun last night.’

  ‘Definitely. It was fun. I had fun too.’

  ‘I … like you.’

  ‘Yeah, totally. You’re really hot.’

  ‘And last night … It was really good. I mean seriously.’

  ‘I know. It was great.’

  ‘We should … see each other … again some time.’

  ‘Oh, totally.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Well … I should really … go …’

  ‘Yeah. Good luck … with the rowing … or whatever.’

  ‘Oh, thanks.’

  ‘… So … See ya round.’

  ‘Yeah. See ya.’

  57

  Front verandah: I walk out, unsteady, bleary-eyed, hoping to escape as fast as possible. Edward is sitting on a deckchair, barefoot and hunched over a very large bong. A girl — different from the girl last night, prettier — is sitting back against the nearby wall, passed out. Edward’s hair is a mess, and as I walk past, he lights up, takes a very big hit and then leans back, exhaling slowly. He doesn’t seem to see me, but as I stand looking at him, wondering if he’s conscious, he holds up the bong, offering it to me. I shake my head and he shrugs, disappointed almost, setting it down on the floorboards instead. He asks me if I’m Gretchen’s friend, asks if I have any more of that speed. I tell him no, sorry. I have no idea who Gretchen is. He mumbles something, runs both hands through his hair, and I leave.

  58

  Saturday morning: Kind of hung over. I don’t really feel like going home, but where else would I be going? My head’s vaguely fuzzy. I can still taste Liam.

  I head back home. There is a woman on the bus who keeps talking to herself, and she’s old and ugly, and I can’t even say why but after I’ve looked at her for a while I can’t even breathe. Gives me the feeling that last night was the exception, and this morning — dirty, overcast, crazy woman on the bus, incoherent, dry mouth — is the rule.

  59

  Big empty house when I get home. My dad said something about being on call this weekend, so I guess he’s at the hospital. I don’t know where Mum is but I don’t really care.

  I put on the mix tape Margot gav
e me, then I collapse onto a big armchair in the living room, the Psychedelic Furs blasting — I find this song really comforting for some reason — and roll this clumsy but adequate joint with what’s left of my emergency pot. Within about ten minutes I’m wasted enough to deal with life in general. I eat a grapefruit, which tastes disgusting but I eat it anyway, and I end up spending about four hours playing this stupid video game I used to be into when I was about six or something. Playing it always brings back a bunch of memories of being a little kid. Weird memories. I don’t know, of more innocent times or whatever.

  60

  This particular game that I’m playing is, I have to say, kind of cool. The electronic music on the soundtrack is so much better than it has any right to be that it’s almost ethereal or something, like synthesiser lines you might hear on a dance floor with a thudding click-track underneath, drumbeats, something you can dance to, lose yourself in.

  61

  I can still taste Liam.

  62

  This giant tiger thing keeps falling on me, and I keep trying to kill it but I get distracted or lose my focus and it always ends up killing me. It’s really annoying, and after a while the game starts getting to me. I start wondering if the little boy who used to love playing this is the same boy who got blasted and let himself be used and fucked comprehensively by Liam from the rowing team last night. Shouldn’t think about things like that but I do. Can’t help it. For a second the feeling overwhelms me.

  Fucking deal with it, I tell myself. Get over it.

  Message on the screen: Unfortunately, no trace of the heroes was ever found … Play again?

  I return to the game. Try to focus on it. The giant tiger keeps killing me and my head is filling with thoughts of last night and after a while I can’t cope with any of it any more and I switch the thing off and start having this minor freak out.

  63

  We’re young and pretty Calvin. We might as well have as much fun as we can before we’re old and gross and nobody wants to touch us any more/Unfortunately, no trace of the heroes was ever found … Play again?/ ‘So … See ya round’/the sound of Liam breathing, that one breath he took, for me/that brunette boy from the net/See ya round/See ya round/See ya round.

  I stand up and breathe deeply until the worst of the panic attack is over. I find myself leaning on the bathroom sink, staring into the mirror. Everything in the bathroom is clean. I stretch the elastic at the neck of my T-shirt, trying to see if Liam has left teeth marks in my shoulder. Turn around and look back at the mirror. I can see a vague red mark there, but it’s not really that noticeable.

  I stare at my face for a long time; I stare at it until I don’t recognise it any more, and I don’t even blink and my vision goes all weird and everything turns black then I blink and shake my head a little, and when I look, it’s me in the mirror again.

  Fuck it. Whatever. I had fun last night. That’s all that matters. All the rest of it I can block out.

  64

  On IRC chat the following night:

  bô¥ KïLlê®™: so … … …

  sweet*Prince: so?

  bô¥ Ki'Lle®™: how’d it go? come on, I saw you guys disappearing.

  sweet*Prince: did anyone else see?

  bô¥ KïLlê®™: your secret is safe. I see everything. come on Calvin, fucking *spill*. you know you want to tell me. I might as well get fucked vicariously through you.

  sweet*Prince: that’s a charming thought

  bô¥ KïLlê®™:

  sweet*Prince: well, y’know. it was fun. he was really fucking hot. that’s about it. he told me he was a rower. don’t know if it was true. could have been. he had the build for it.

  bô¥ KïLlê®™: = )P*

  bô¥ KïLlê®™: nice. how far’d you get?

  sweet*Prince: far enough

  bô¥ KïLlê®™: ooohhhhhhhhh. I’m impressed = )

  bô¥ KïLlê®™: god. why do you always get guys like Liam?

  sweet*Prince: cuz I’m so cute and innocent and shit.

  bô¥ KïLlê®™: oh yeah, of course

  bô¥ KïLlê®™: seeing him again?

  sweet*Prince: probably not. it was kind of a one-nighter.

  bô¥ KïLlê®™: ah well. it’s better that way. boys are boring when they start following you around.

  sweet*Prince: I guess. sorry I abandoned you. I mean like seriously. I wouldn’t normally run off just for the sake of a guy. I was drunk.

  sweet*Prince:

  sweet*Prince: doesn’t it ever bother you?

  bô¥ KïLlê®™: doesn’t what?

  sweet*Prince: the fact that. I don’t know how it is for you. but I mean. I’d like to see a guy for more than just sex. you know. I’d kind of like to have an actual boyfriend. don’t you ever think that?

  bô¥ KïLlê®™: not really

  sweet*Prince: don’t you ever get lonely or whatever?

  bô¥ KïLlê®™: I don’t know

  bô¥ KïLlê®™: what are you getting at Calvin?

  bô¥ KïLlê®™:

  bô¥ KïLlê®™: I don’t know.

  sweet*Prince: you brought it up

  bô¥ KïLlê®™: forget it

  sweet*Prince: I had fun. that’s all that counts, right? and it’s not like I had my heart set on seeing him again or anything.

  bô¥ KïLlê®™: yeah. great.

  65

  I lied before. About the other day, I mean. Before I switched my computer off I saved some of the pictures of the brunette boy. Six pictures in all. I don’t know why.

  After Margot goes offline I click on the first jpeg to open it. Something about the look in his eyes. I can’t work it out. He seems so far gone. It seems wrong that someone so good-looking, healthy-looking, so pretty could end up being so far gone. I don’t know. He could be anyone. He could be innocent or a slut. This time might have been his first. He might have done it heaps of times before. I don’t know. That’s the point.

  I want to be in love with him; like, love in the most intense sense of the word. Whoever he is. I don’t fall in love with the boy himself — not specifically. I fall in love with the idea of him. I fall in love with the fact that he is so beautiful and so fucked up. I fall in love with the fact that I want to save him.

  I put the first on full screen then click through the rest of them. Looking at him makes me want to die.

  66

  Pictures of the brunette boy

  1. Sitting on this sofa, which is red and looks expensive. His arm is kind of extended over the back, and it looks like it should be around someone’s shoulder, except nobody else is sitting with him. His eyebrow is slightly raised.

  2. Still sitting on the sofa, in the same position, but looking to the side, like in profile or whatever. You can see some of Jeremy in this shot. He’s sitting on the arm of the sofa, so you can see his legs; they seem kind of weird in that context, I mean, just his legs, disembodied. But the brunette boy’s profile is the most important thing about this one.

  3. He’s standing now, on his own. His head is sort of cocked to one side, and his hands are behind his back. This is the most complete shot. He’s wearing a tight blue shirt with a picture of a bulldog on it; some writing that I can’t make out. His brown hair is gelled up in this painstakingly casual way and there’s a single earring in his left ear. The whole look could either be deliberate or a total accident, difficult to say. Like the look in his eyes. The look in his eyes is impossible to define. I mean, on the surface it’s all ‘come on, I dare you’, really sexy, but there’s something underneath that. It’s weird.

  4. He and Jeremy are both standing, kissing one another. You can only see the back of Jeremy’s head and the side of the brunette boy’s cheek. His hands are in the small of Jeremy’s back. They’re long and delicate.

  5. He is leaning against a window; his forehead is pressed up against the smooth glass. He looks beautiful. Fragile. It’s an arty kind of photograph. He is reflected back at himself. He is looking down; it seem
s like an unguarded moment, but for all the work and preparation the shot must have taken, I can’t be sure exactly. Maybe the brunette boy is genuinely sad, or maybe he’s just a really good actor.

  6. He’s standing in front of the curtains. His shirt is off. It’s this shot that makes me decide he’s not acting. The frightened confident guarded calculated innocent fuck-me look in his eyes seems too, I don’t know, real to be fake.

  67

  Things written in my notebook: How strangely typical is it that the first person I would pick to get seriously obsessed with is some boy who happens to be on the net? I suppose it’s kind of fitting, the reason being that it’s safe for me to be into him. Think of it in its most basic terms. He’s real enough that he’s totally good-looking, but still distant enough that he can be pretty much whoever I want. I can fill in his personality, his background with whatever little details suit me. I can build up stories about him, about the two of us, in my head and have them progress however I want, because as beautiful and tragic etc as he is, we’ll never have to deal with each other’s bullshit on a one-to-one basis. I’ll never discover how fucked up the reality of him is. He’ll never get bored of me.

  68

  It’s late at night. I stare at the television, half interested, spacing out. There are breakdancers on the screen, a movie from the mid-1980s, new wave music on the soundtrack and a girl in a pink sweater saying, ‘I don’t want to be reasonable … I’ve been reasonable all my life and it’s gotten me nowhere!’ Suddenly a gaping void opens before me and I wonder what it would be like to die, if it would be painless, and how I’d do it, but I ignore those thoughts and keep watching the movie instead.

  69

  Bored. Kind of cold. It’s a Friday afternoon, the week after Liam, and I still don’t have a boyfriend. I’m too young to have a car. I’m still obsessing about the brunette boy and trying to block him out at the same time. Consequently I spend most of the afternoon wandering around the house in a daze, kind of aching for something to happen.