Distortion

by Gautam Malkani

  I stand up and put on my jacket.

  “What’s the matter?” goes Naliah. “Can’t face facing up to any more of this?”

  “No, actually, Naliah, I’m pretty comfortable doing that. What I ain’t comfortable with is you pretending that you’re trying to straighten me out when you’re clearly scoping after something else. So how about you just tell me straight why you’re so interested in my father?”

  “Who said I was interested in your father? I’m just trying to help Ramona. Although she did happen to mention that the reason she couldn’t meet me for lunch yesterday was because she went with you to meet him. In McDonald’s. Apparently you didn’t even know what he did for a living. Is that true, Dillon?” Then she looks at Ramona. “So now that we’re on the subject, tell me, what’s the deal with his dad?”

  22

  TOXICITY DEPENDS BOTH on dosage and the individual exposed to it. For instance, even water can be toxic if you drink too much. Mum’s medicines ain’t toxic enough if they don’t make her sick. Scroll back to that time I somehow convinced myself that one quick fix to cut down my own toxicness was to find the one person in the worldwide world for whom my toxicity level was as low as possible. Check my relief back in my first year at uni when I realised that person was probly Ramona. And the whole epiphanation was all down to some random fool named Johnny.

  Johnny fronted like he was in some unspecified contest with every guy on campus. Like as if somewhere along online, his mission to be some biggest swinging dick had gone full bareback and become a competition to be the biggest asshole. Kind of masculinity asshole I’d point to whenever some quick-fix counsellor or therapist suggested I try and “cultivate more male friendships”. (Though don’t be getting fooled by all them gentle-souled hipsters either.) (Trust me, they got their own schemes and ploys.) (Only reason they grow big beards is cos apparently the symmetry makes a guy’s general genital areas look less repulsing.)

  Johnny came up to me and introduced himself after seeing Ramona storm off in Starbucks one time. Didn’t know jackshit about me or nothing, didn’t even know if I was at LSE, King’s or UCL. Just a backslap outta nowhere and some big declaration that he was more toxic than me. Like as if the fool was on some kinda bragging trip. Wouldn’t ease up, even – was like he really, really needed to hear what an asshole I’d just been to Ramona. As if he wanted to compare notes or someshit. I remember thinking maybe he pulled this same routine with other random anonymous strangers. I tried clicking away from our convo but he kept backslapping me, pulling at my arm and that. And so, fuck knows why, but I ended up telling him that the reason Ramona had stormed off was cos I’d been trying to pressure her into sleeping with me. Even though, truth is, I’d actually been doing the exact opposite. Truth is, I’d actually been telling Ramona that I weren’t ready to take things to that level yet. She hadn’t brought it up or nothing – I just wanted to get pre-emptive cos I was angstipating about that whole student sexpectation thing. But then things got proper messed up cos it turned out Ramona wasn’t ready for it either but she thought I was trying to pressure her by not pressuring her.

  Anycase, soon as I falsely fessed up to this random Johnny guy that she’d bounced cos I’d been pressuring her, he started telling me how he “handled” his own girlfriend. And let’s just say he didn’t use the term “girlfriend” – not even the “GF” bastardbreviation. Told me his “problem” was that his girlfriend had two completely clashing goals. On one hand, she wanted to hang onto her virtue and innocence until she found potential husband material. On other hand, she wanted to have the grown-up undergrad street cred that came with having a sleep-in-the-same-bed boyfriend. Johnny’s fix for his girlfriend’s dilemma? Said he’d convinced her to “preserve her virtuousness and good wholesome goodliness by only taking it up the butt”.

  The fuck do you even say to something like that?

  Told him I was late for lectures.

  He grabbed my arm again, started longing out his bullshit – like as if there was some secret, anal-only student society for girls who wanted to stay virgins. “I also told her she could remain as pure as a snowflake by only sucking my cock.” Next, he reached into his rucksack and pulled out a flyer for a “men’s rights advocates” forum, a story about “female social justice warriors”, a print-out of a blog post about women being locked into their “sexual market value”. An article about single mothers on welfare.

  This is when I finally fronted with some toxic masculine assertiveness and told him to fuck off. Not that I was in any position to judge his little anal-only racket or whatever – but maybe that was the whole point. That random Johnny bloke made me think I could maybe take some kinda easy-fix shortcut to being less of an asshole, less toxic – even nontoxic. Neutrality through a parity of hang-ups. Find the one person for whom your toxicity level was as low as possible, like as if to make it their issue.

  Next time the whole sex convo came up with Ramona was after I’d moved into student halls. Outcome: I promised not to pop her cherry and she allowed me to lick her feet way beyond normal foreplay. That’s been the basic deal between us ever since. Everyone’s a winner – and butt-fucking don’t even need to come into it because buttocks remind me of breasts.

  Two nights later, Ramona was in my bed, washing my cum off her hands with a bottle of diluted bleach solution that she’d brought to my student halls especially. As for my saliva on her feet, she made do with one of them bumper packs of antibac wipes my mum had planted in my suitcase. Protein smell of cum and cleaning products filling the vacuum of post-non-coital awkwardness.

  “Dillon,” she threw me an antibac wipe. “I just wanted to say thank you.”

  By then I was sitting at my desk, firing up my laptop or fone or whatever while savouring the vinegar taste of her toe cleavage. “Thanks for what?”

  “For respecting me. Thank you for respecting my chastity or whatever. Pretty sure most guys wouldn’t be so patient.”

  I told her she was welcome. Told her it was a pleasure.

  Ramona had wanted to crash in my student halls that night so that in the morning she could slip back into her dress and do a proper walk of shame back to her own halls. She’d checked when her friends were meeting at the front desk for brunch so that she could make some perfectly timed entrance. “Please, Dillon?” she’d asked. “It’ll be so much better for me if they think I’m a slut rather than them thinking I’m frigid.”

  “Fine,” I’d said. “But just so you know, if you dare try to have proper sex with me, then I’ll tell everyone that we didn’t.”

  When she was done with her bleach solution, Ramona put on a pair of pyjamas like as if to make me feel more comfortable. Not trackie bottoms and a T-shirt, we’re talking an actual pair of pyjamas. Night socks to seal in her scent. (And in case you’re wondering, it’s completely wrong to assume a woman will have sweaty-tasting feet at the end of a long day.) (Turns out sometimes they still taste of feet – like the sweetness that stays between the toes of freshly washed feet.) (Other times, they taste of whatever lotions and creams she uses to keep the skin beneath her ankles smooth.) When she was done buttoning up more buttons than her pyjama top actually had, Ramona started throwing down some random convo.

  “Dillon – since when the hell did you play cricket?”

  I kept this random cricket bat strategically placed on top of my drawers to help create the general impression I could afford to fuck around playing poncey sports. Could see it from my pillow whenever I woke.

  “You know, it’s wrong to hide something like that from your girlfriend – that you’re secretly into sports.”

  Couldn’t figure out if she was trying to get all up in my business or if she was just feeling awkward or anxious, i.e. I didn’t know whether to help her. If it’s just anxiousness you can still safely tuck her up in bed. Tell her to be calm – help her with her meds, sedate her with a story. But if it’s awkwardness, it’s best to just go chill with your laptop or your fone.

&
nbsp; I told Ramona that the cricket bat was just there for random acts of violence.

  Next, she started flicking through the mags by my bedside. My teenage stash basically just student-discount copies of The Economist. Nothing even remotely dodgy. Not even softcore or arty. Not even them lads’ mags for guys too pussy to buy proper porn. Maybe a couple of women’s shoe catalogues and my hardcore brochures for underfloor heating solutions. Ramona’s groan of relief as she realised that I really wouldn’t be trying to get my jimmy into her jenny.

  Weird thing is, even though I was on some fone or tablet or laptop, Ramona didn’t try to eavesread my screen. Didn’t even move from my bed. I was reading a random blog post from a random month four or five years back – back when the blog I wrote from my mum’s perspective first started contradicting whatever reassuringness she was saying to my face. Just reading it like some children’s bedtime story that I wrote for myself. Weighing up whether to click open the ads and recommended articles, or whether to first wait for Ramona to fall asleep like how all those online-porn addict husbands do.

  “So, Dillon, how come you didn’t thank me?”

  “Sorry?”

  “Well, I seem to recall thanking you for respecting my chastity just now, but you didn’t thank me for letting you lick my feet.”

  I powered off the fone or laptop and spun the fuck around. Ramona’s mind on my pillow but my eyes to her feet. Like as if her body on my bed was just some idiot e-cig. Sugar-free chocolate. Decaf coffee. Non-alcoholic beer. Been trying to get some support by clicking on them foot-fetish web forums. Worst case, you just end up feeling validated. Best case, you sign in under some different name and upload different personal details – and then it doesn’t validate or non-validate diddly nothing, it just makes you feel like your freakism is someone else’s. Hated myself for clicking on all them other forums. Hated how the web always made me hate myself a little less.

  “I mean, it’s probably important or something, right?” Ramona pressed on. “Essential for our ch’i or something that we thank each other for respecting our respective boundaries.”

  So how the hell were you meant to wean yourself, then? Kick the feet, set yourself free? Apparently there was some kinda methadone programme for shrimping. You were supposed to gradually move from toes to earlobes. From ankles to armpits. From toe-clippings to clits. But, thing is, I couldn’t figure out if you needed clean-cut transitions between each stage or if they could overlap a little.

  “Okay then, Ramona,” I told her. “Thank you for letting me lick your feet.”

  “You’re very welcome,” she said. “Maybe next time I’ll even clean them especially before I come to your room. Wipe them with my love juices.”

  And after that, we couldn’t stop laughing the whole night. And hugging – lots of non-toxic, non-penetrational hugging.

  And that basically was our first time.

  23

  FINDING OUT WHERE he lives was a piece of piss. Buzzing his flat number, even easier. Like as if I already knew he wouldn’t be in.

  Technical term for this shit is “doorstepping”. Probly saw it in some film about a journalist. Clark Kent for the Daily Planet in Superman. Peter Parker for the Daily Bugle in Spider-Man. Vicki Vale for the Gotham Globe in Batman. All of them scooped to the post by Lois Lane. When someone gets busted and won’t talk to the press, go to their front door. When someone’s crying and screaming cos their kid got stabbed and raped, go to their front door. Knock. Talk through the letter box. Your side of the story, sir. But you can’t exactly doorstep your dad if he lives in some block of flats with a twenty-four-hour security desk. All you can do is doorstep the intercom.

  Block looks more like some nursing home or private hospital. Awkward among the terraced houses. I wait for him in a phone booth across the street. Could be any old Zone Four suburb – same road signs, same coffee chains by the Tube station – but feels like I come to some different country. Like if I walk into one of the corner shops there’ll be completely different brands of biscuits, tissues, painkillers. Allow that strangeness – even Mum once said it’d be good for me to reconnect with him. Exact word she’d used was “maybe”. That one time she said it, she’d said “maybe it might be good for you”.

  Phone booth actually contains a payphone. Also a wife-beater brand of beer can, regulation cum-stained newspaper, entrails of old-school audio cassette tape. One side wallpapered with badly printed sex workers’ pap. Photos too X-rated to describe, except for those that look like careers advisory leaflets. We’re talking headmistresses instead of schoolgirls, doctors instead of nurses, policewomen and female soldiers. Rip em all down and find an ad for ChildLine behind them. Look once again at the payphone, pull out my mobile; consider texting Mama to ask for her permission. But, fuck it, she’s already told me maybe this might be good for me.

  This time I’ve wrote down a list of questions to ask him. In his living room or the hallway or the doorstep or the street.

  Your side of the story, sir.

  I’ll even tidy my room and finish my greens, Daddy, if you just promise to just tell me the story.

  Oh, and guess who else gave me permission to do this? Proper green-lit blessings. Like as if I been going round with some cap collecting consent. The botched-Botox man. No lie – dude told me to go ahead and meet my dad.

  Pull out my fone and reread my questions. Kinda dickless to be hiding like this in some phone booth so let’s just say I’m in here cos of the rain or the wind or, whatever, the darkness. Anycase, Botox man already knows I’m doing this so ain’t no need to be on some subterfuge bullshit. Like I say, the man even gave me permission.

  Right after today’s lunch with Ramona and her brand-new best friend, I made a beeline back to the Botox man’s office. Didn’t bother knocking or nothing – just walked straight in and told him he’d sworn down that he’d leave Ramona outta this.

  “That I did. And it appears I’ve even kept my word. After that morning when we visited you in her student halls, no one has ruffled a hair on Ramona’s head. Or anywhere else. So, you see, I’ve even kept my word.”

  Told him to quit beating around the bullshit – that I knew he’d been in on the whole lunch-hour head-fuck. “You was the one who pushed me to go meet Ramona for lunch. And then her random new friend starts grilling me about my dad. Here’s a pro tip, old man: next time you try and plant a spy as Ramona’s mate, you might wanna make it a bit more covert-ops.”

  “You’re suggesting your girlfriend’s new girlfriend is some sort of femme fatale? Seriously, Dylan?” He sat on his desktop like as if he was trying to cover up some secret document/porn mag/X-Ray/CT scan. “A spy? As in a mole? A data-miner? An undercover honeypot, no less. Of course, of course – of course she’s a spy.”

  “So you admitting it, then?”

  “No, I’m ridiculing you, you fuckhead. Why would I need to spy on you when I already know everything about you?”

  He made me explain all the fuckery that had gone down at the café – from Naliah’s OTT foot-model routine to her Congressional Inquiry into my daddy issues. Tried telling me the whole thing was probly just some coincidence. Kinda shit that happens all the time. “For instance, only this morning, Dylan, I was thinking about buying a milkshake blender – doubtless triggered by a recipe or some other kind of story I read. Then a few hours later, up popped an ad for a milkshake blender with free next-day delivery. All I did was think about it and now tomorrow it’ll be on my kitchen counter. So, you see, these kinds of coincidences happen all the time.” Cutting me a look to make sure I’d clocked his ironicalness. “And then just think of all the coincidences that have to happen in movies and plays and novels. For instance, just to take a completely arbitrary example, think of all the coincidences in the story of Oedipus. That he should randomly encounter his real father at a crossroads. Of all the men to run into. Or that he should end up marrying his real mum. Of all the women to ruin.”

  Weren’t no point telling him the coinc
idences only happened cos Oedipus was rolling in response to the oracle’s predictions. We both already knew this.

  That’s all for today about Oedipus.

  “So as for this Naliah-the-Foot-Model, if I were you, kiddo, I’d take her and her feet at face value. Most likely she was genuinely looking out for Ramona. Perhaps she’s even trying to steal Ramona away from you. Or perhaps she’s genuinely a foot model who just happened to find her way to the feet of a foot fetishist. Isn’t exactly difficult to find out what turns a man on – what images his fingers click on or his eyes linger on. Half of you fools now wear fitness bracelets that betray the people and playthings that quicken your heart rate. As we’ve surely already established during our chats, Dylan, with enough digital data and the right algorithms, you can tell if someone’s going to turn into a foot fetishist before they even know it themselves. Same if they’re going to be gay, ungay or a bit of both. Same if they’re going to fall sick. Same if they’re going to go seek out their estranged father like the star of their own pointless soap opera.” Upping his chin at the stool like he knew I needed to sit. All my pumped-up front now hiding behind my back.

  Okay, so the man knew I met my dad. Guess either that girl Naliah had told him or he’d been watching me in the station himself. Standing on the concourse – face hidden behind some old-school newspaper like some parody of a spoof of a spy.

  “Still, at least give me some credit for not obstructing your cosy little lunch date with Daddy. After all, clearly it would be better for us if you didn’t meet that man. Be better for him, too. In fact, everyone would probably be a lot better off if you never met him again. And yet … ” shooting me his most fakest, most badly Botoxed smile “… and yet apparently boys need a father – isn’t that what all your aunties and uncles told your mother?”