You'll Be Sorry When I'm Dead

by Hardy, Marieke

  ‘Why no red wine?’ I asked my boyfriend.

  ‘I don’t know. It might spill on the carpet or something.’

  ‘It might spill on the carpet? What about all the semen??’

  There was also the matter of ‘small’ amounts of alcohol. In our world, ‘small’ meant a bottle of wine every weekday. And why would anybody want to watch a stranger bounce their testicles up and down on their wife’s face if they weren’t at least mildly intoxicated? Liquor was an equaliser, a relaxant, a gateway to recklessness. Without liquor we would be sober and uptight. We would be curious bystanders.

  Dress code: smart evening wear ONLY, with ‘scanties’ and lingerie for the ladies and briefs/boxers for the gentlemen later in the evening.

  We knew Alan and Cara’s idea of ‘smart evening wear’ differed wildly to ours. We had seen their photographs online. They tended to favour satin corsets and leather thongs. My boyfriend’s idea of smart evening wear involved suit pants and his only pair of Converse without holes.

  And finally: NO MEANS NO!

  It’s not as though I was afraid of being naked in public.

  When I started working for a certain youth radio network I felt it only right and fair that I preface my potential employment with a warning regarding my shady past. ‘You should probably know,’ I told my future employer with downcast eyes and what I hoped was a genuinely humble expression, ‘there are naked photographs of me all over the internet.’ I told them in part probably because I wanted them to think they were getting a real livewire, a tearaway handful at least seven times more fun and interesting than Jane Gazzo; someone who would provide value for money and always keep them on their toes (within legal boundaries). Also I supposed that I feared the moment partway through the year when I felt a tentative tap on the shoulder and heard the words ‘Listen, we just got a phone call from Sydney Confidential . . .’

  We must all learn a lesson from all those poor idiotic Big Brother contestants who walk into a camera-laden compound with a secret and exit two months later to find that a blurry photograph of them topless astride a Weber barbecue has been taken from a Picture magazine back issue and plastered all over the newspapers. There were to be no surprises for my employers, no threatening missives made out of cut-out letters arriving in the post and promising to ‘reveal all’ unless certain demands were met. I would tackle this head on, with aplomb, and with the unspoken and vainglorious suggestion that by posing for naked photos I was somehow that little bit more interesting than anybody else ever.

  ‘She’s been a naked model?’ I imagined my bosses exclaiming to themselves in scandalised tones once I’d swanned from the office in a cloud of deluded bohemian self-worth. ‘Aren’t we desperately lucky to have acquired her wide-ranging and provocative talents? Aren’t we getting ourselves the real deal? I can’t wait to hear what she has to say about the new Dizzee Rascal single between 6 and 9 am weekdays!’

  I left the pictures online for a long time because I couldn’t really care less who saw me naked. The most humiliating photograph was one that showed me rolling around in my underpants pretending to read The Australian. The too-tight knickers didn’t cause me major concern, but there’s no way I wanted to be seen in public reading anything that Greg Sheridan is paid to write op-ed pieces for.

  My parents were often naked, and in conversations with friends even now I’m surprised to hear tales of their folks scurrying self-consciously from room to room covering their flesh with oversized beach towels or stretchy t-shirts. Our household was a naked one and I had grown up with a fairly broadminded view on the human body. I found sexuality curious rather than titillating—what people chose to do and why in the privacy of their own homes was of great interest.

  Bored one night, my boyfriend had filmed me giving him a blowjob. We watched the footage back together, silently. It wasn’t an erotic experience by any stretch of the imagination. I had never seen myself at that angle before, not least partaking in that particular activity. It was like getting the chance to see yourself onstage. After the video finished, my boyfriend turned to me.

  ‘Well? What did you think?’

  I studied my face on the screen.

  ‘I never realised,’ I said after a thoughtful moment, ‘how much I look like my dad.’

  Alan and Cara’s party was in Kew, near my old high school. I looked out the window of the taxi and watched the hall, where I’d danced onstage with Christie McKay to Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes’s ‘The Time of My Life’ for the subdued enjoyment of the entire junior school, pass by. I wondered how many people from that assembly hall had taken the path that I was taking now. Perhaps some of them would be in attendance tonight, creating a situation that would rate on the awkward scale somewhere between ‘excuse me, I do believe you’ve taken my umbrella by accident’ and ‘darling, that was Mr Grainger from number seven. He said you sleepwalked again last night and shat in their hall cupboard.’

  We reassured ourselves, in the cab, we weren’t committed to doing anything. That we could remain curious bystanders at all times.

  ‘If you’re in any way uncomfortable,’ my boyfriend said, holding my hand, ‘we just leave. No questions asked.’

  ‘We’re not committed to anything,’ I repeated.

  ‘Not a thing,’ he replied. ‘No contracts, no signatures. Alan and Cara don’t know where we live. Let’s just go in, have a look around, and see how we feel.’

  The house was a tidy, warmly lit terrace. Unobtrusive. We asked the taxi to drop us a little way up the street, as advised.

  Please be discreet when entering, the list of rules had reminded us, and think of our neighbours.

  My friends Sugar and Hotman lived in Collingwood and were convinced their neighbours were swingers.

  ‘What makes you so certain?’ I asked them.

  ‘Visitors coming and going at weird hours,’ Hotman replied.

  ‘And lots of couples,’ Sugar added. ‘And there are all these . . . weird, awkward hellos at the front door. Like they don’t know each other well. Except from, you know. Kinky web chats.’

  This was a lot of assumption based upon what could simply be a Tupperware party or prayer group and I was too kind to ask Sugar and Hotman what the fuck they were doing watching the door of their neighbours’ house with such unnerving intensity anyway. The fact is that we always suspect something weird is going on with our neighbours. We hear them fight or have sex and then lie awake under the doona giggling to ourselves about their messy, chaotic lives and how lucky we are not to live there or be in that relationship.

  I was once in my study at night having a long and involved phone conversation with Gabi and just as we’d moved onto the topic of what we might be eating for breakfast the next morning there was a startling bang of someone’s fist on the window facing the street. Fearing a gang of rapists, street urchins or John Hopoate admirers I raced to the back of the house in a mild state of panic.

  Tim, I hissed. I think we’re being burgled.

  I had seen the bang as a sort of kindly yet ominous warning; that our home invaders were giving us a chance to neaten ourselves up before they kicked in the front door and beat us to death.

  Tim hauled himself reluctantly into action, familiar as he was with late-night proddings along the line of, ‘Tim—I think I might have diabetes’, and, ‘Tim—I think the music of Fleetwood Mac may no longer be relevant and that fills me with a quiet yet searing sense of despair.’

  ‘Nothing,’ he said with a long-suffering sigh when he returned. ‘There was nobody there. Can I go back to bed now please?’

  He later told me he’d received a visit the next day from our neighbour, Brent, who had come over with a sheepish expression.

  ‘My wife told me to apologise . . . I didn’t mean to scare your girlfriend,’ he mumbled.

  Tim was confused. Brent continued.

  ‘It’s just that I’m giving up smoking, so my temper’s a little . . . you know. And our bedroom is joined to your house. A
nd I know it wasn’t that late at night but I was just trying to sleep and she was talking for a long time and I . . . well, when she started talking about rye toast I guess I lost control. I punched the wall. And I’m sorry.’

  This should have been comforting—the gangs of rapists and street urchins disappeared in a little overdramatised and slightly embarrassing puff—but all I could think about were the other loud and obnoxious conversations I’d had in my study, unaware that there’d been an audience all along. I’d cried in there—blubberingly, gracelessly, in that way you do when nobody’s around to monitor your dignity or admire how pretty you are with one solitary crystalline tear sliding down your porcelain cheek. I’d watched pornography on the laptop not bothering to turn the sound down because Tim wasn’t at home. I had confessed secrets and given medical details to doctors. And Brent had been listening all along. How mortifying. To this day I don’t know who was the worse neighbour.

  Alan and Cara’s front door was opened by a stony gentleman wearing a dark grey suit. This was clearly ‘security’. We presumed that he was paid extra to turn a blind eye. There was likely a whole niche market for sex party security. For the right price they wear an apron and wash up afterwards.

  We had done our best not to get there too early (‘There’s no way I’m standing around for four hours making small talk with Cara about her hall throw,’ I had insisted beforehand) and already mingling in Alan and Cara’s tastefully decorated living room were about five well-dressed couples, holding glasses of champagne and speaking in polite, muted tones. Alan greeted us like long-lost friends. We’d clearly passed the test.

  ‘Don’t you both look lovely,’ he said, beaming.

  Alan himself looked very interesting. He was wearing a pair of leather pants that clung like terrified orphans to his muscular thighs, and a revealing black mesh t-shirt. The outfit seemed at odds with the cream-coloured settee and floral-print curtains.

  ‘Champagne?’

  He was carrying a tray laden with flutes. In his leather and mesh outfit he looked like a waiter on a BDSM cruise ship.

  ‘Thanks, Alan, that’d be very nice.’

  I didn’t know about my boyfriend but my plan was to get as drunk as possible before anything weird happened so I’d be in a better headspace to deal with the absurdity of it. We accepted a glass of champagne and looked around the room with courteous smiles.

  ‘What a nice lounge suite,’ my boyfriend said, wisely ignoring the fact that at that moment, directly next to said lounge suite, Alan and Cara’s widescreen television was showcasing a video of a not unhappy lady being stuffed full of penis by some willing pool chums.

  Outside of the pornography on the television—which, like a racist uncle, the guests seem to be doing their best to ignore—the place was intensely normal. It wasn’t gaudy and it wasn’t bland. There was no plastic sheeting on the floor. Just a few expensive looking lamps and a mahogany dining table covered with platters of dips and crudités.

  ‘Is that . . . a cold meat platter?’ I whispered to my boyfriend.

  Alan had heard my question.

  ‘Cara loves to feed her guests,’ he explained.

  I’d never given much thought to the sort of food one would serve at a swingers party. I hadn’t really thought about anything but The Moment. That tiny click of transition after everyone had arrived that signalled it was time for the small talk to be over and for the descent into lustful depravity to begin. I was obsessed with The Moment. How did everybody know when to start? Was there a bell? Did one particularly forthright partygoer stand up, clap his hands together manfully and say, ‘Well, I suppose I’d best get stuck in’ before coyly revealing his erection?

  In pornographic videos, I had seen The Moment occur seamlessly when some doe-eyed blonde giggled naughtily and unzipped a fly, saying ‘Why don’t we get these off.’ None of the people around us looked as though they were close to unzipping a fly, their own or anyone else’s. They stood around, chatting amiably, like colleagues enjoying a welcome break at a Gold Coast sales conference. It was as though they had no idea they were at a swingers party. They just seemed happy to be at a social gathering with new friends. For a brief moment I wondered if perhaps Alan and Cara had tricked them into coming and we were all about to be a part of some horrifying sex slave ordeal, but the pornography and Alan’s revealing outfit seemed to put that theory to bed.

  ‘I won’t be playing tonight,’ Alan told us with an expression not far from disappointment. ‘These nights are more . . . Cara’s thing. I’m just the host with the most!’

  He looked across the room to where Cara stood, laughing outrageously at some quip a strapping young man in a pinstripe shirt had just made. She was wearing a leopard print negligee, a feathered bed jacket and high heels.

  ‘Yeeeep . . . Cara sure loves to play,’ he said flatly, not taking his eyes off his lively wife.

  Eventually he took us for a tour around the customised downstairs ‘area’, a lavishly converted basement that would have been the envy of Josef Fritzl.

  ‘So here’s our famous circular bed . . . the stripper pole was my wife’s idea. She’s a playful little thing, like I say! Just you wait and see! Ahahahahaha!’

  His leather trousers rubbed together and made a noise like a poorly lubricated goose honking for urgent medical attention.

  Lord knows how long it had taken him and Cara to put their sex basement together. One got the sense that Alan had put in all the hard yards while Cara stood in her leopard print negligee, barking instructions. It was a windowless room, decked out with wooden Chinese screens and silk wall hangings. On one side an enormous modified bed—‘kingsized’ doesn’t really do it justice, this thing was essentially two king-sized beds put together—took pride of place, with a chaise longue at its end. (‘For the observers,’ Alan winked.) The stripper’s pole was surrounded by comfortable couches. At the back of the room, the famed ‘circular bed’—white leather—sat in dim, foreboding light.

  The rest of the room was filled with cushions, mattresses, and two slightly rigid looking massage tables. There was a doorway off to a side room which Alan told us was the ‘smoking room—we don’t allow cigarettes in the house’. It was so dark we kept bumping into each other, which may have been the intention.You had to admire the effort, though. The place looked terrific. We weren’t at some run-of-the-mill, let’s-put-the-wipe-and-wear-Twister-mat-down-and-take-it-from-there sex night for amateurs. These people had done this before. A lot. When it came to swingers parties, they were the Calvin Kleins of the scene.

  Upstairs, the conversation twirled in light, balletic circles. Obviously people wanted to know each other well before the night unfolded, but not too well.

  ‘So you work in . . . ?’

  ‘Media.’

  ‘Right.’

  It was as though we were spies, trained in the art of speaking around a conversation. Or enjoying a game of Hangman (‘Is there a letter . . . A?’). I didn’t want somebody I was having a conversation with to suddenly widen their eyes and say, ‘You mean Marieke Hardy from The Age?’ So I sidestepped. And so did they. A handsome older man wearing expensive jewellery told me he ran a live music venue in St Kilda.

  ‘Oh, I see a lot of live music,’ I said enthusiastically. ‘Which venue is it?’

  He looked instantly cagey.

  ‘Just a venue,’ he replied. ‘You probably wouldn’t know it.’

  Eventually the conversation about what a nice apartment we were in ran dry and we both looked away awkwardly, which was no small feat considering the most prominent thing in our eyeline was Anal Invaders 8 on the wide-screen television.

  I pointed, figuring I may as well acknowledge what was going on directly in front of our faces.

  ‘She certainly seems to be enjoying herself,’ I said clumsily. He looked at me and edged away. Perhaps I had committed a faux pas. Nobody was allowed to talk about sex until the sex was actually occurring. This was a fairly impossible task.

  It
came as a relief to know my boyfriend and I weren’t the only ones new to the experience.There were about eight other amateurs, all looking as nervous and inept as us. One younger couple picked us as newbies—possibly due to the fact I had started giggling hysterically—and sidled up, sensing with relief that we would be from that moment on friends and confidantes.

  ‘All I want to know,’ whispered the girl to me, ‘is when it starts.’

  She was wearing a tight satin evening dress and heavy eye makeup. I took her to be about twenty-four years old. Her boyfriend was shorter than her, one of those boys in their mid-twenties who look about twelve. He had acne and was wearing a dreadful comedy tie. His leg jiggled nervously.

  ‘I mean, is there a bell or something?’ he said impatiently.

  Around the room, all the other newcomers shifted shyly with sidelong glances. They had come here for a deeply pornographic experience, not a garden tea. And yet here we were, chatting gaily about our day jobs, or aspects of them (‘I’m not going to tell you exactly what I do, but you can guess. Here’s a clue. It rhymes with Pairplane Filot’), and passing around trays of finger sandwiches. It was like being at dancing classes in year seven when all you could do was gaze agonisingly across the room at all the members of the sex you weren’t allowed to touch. One young man was offered a breadstick by Alan and actually blushed.

  Swingers parties have a fairly low rate of returning guests, which is both a comforting and alarming fact. Obviously the majority of couples only dip their toe in the depraved world of partner swapping once and return to their ordinary lives, curiosity sated. They carry on their existence, allowing the memory of group sex to fade to a comfortable anecdote. This was clearly preferable to those who made a career of it, selling precious family heirlooms in order to fund their latest kinky episode. The last thing anybody wants to see at a swingers party is a pair of sixty-year-olds wearing vinyl teddies and saying, ‘Don’t worry, you’re in safe hands’ with leering, suggestive smiles.

  Then again, I wondered why there were suspiciously so many fresh faces at Alan and Cara’s soiree. What occurred in that downstairs garage to ensure that over half of last month’s guests hadn’t come back? Were we to skin a goat alive and stand in a circle singing Skyhooks songs while Alan sodomised its corpse? ‘I’m just the host with the most!’ The question ‘what exactly constitutes “too far” at a swingers party?’ kept rattling through my brain. I wished I’d kept a copy of the rules handy.