An Uncertain Grace

by Krissy Kneen

  PRAISE FOR KRISSY KNEEN

  Praise for The Adventures of Holly White and the Incredible Sex Machine

  ‘The combination of sexual awakening, secret societies, and lost technology, wrapped up in Kneen’s loving treatment of her subject, character, and story, makes for a remarkably pleasing read. The conclusion is wildly imaginative and surprisingly satisfying. The characters are delightfully varied, including many from groups that are underrepresented in erotic fiction, and each is more fascinating than the last… Kneen encourages the reader to delight in sexuality that is by turns innocent, gleeful, and cheerfully obscene.’ Publishers Weekly US (starred review)

  ‘A hilarious joyride that nods to a wide array of erotic literature.’ Book Riot US

  ‘I have long been an admirer of the work of Brisbane writer Krissy Kneen, who I believe is one of Australia’s hidden literary gems. With each new book, I find myself hoping that readers will finally discover her quirky, sexy and incredibly beautiful writing…A riotous romp through the imagination of one of Australia’s most accomplished sex writers.’ Books+Publishing

  ‘Kneen’s outrageous erotic imagination fuels Holly’s sexcapades but at its molten X-rated core, this explicit novel is a celebration of the lust for literature as much as for physical debauchery.’ Caroline Baum, Booktopia

  ‘Kneen once again shows her mastery.’ Daily Telegraph

  ‘Krissy Kneen writes about sex with nipple-stiffening zest. Her latest is consistently lewd and amusing.’ Brisbane Times

  ‘A joyful and ambitious mix of science fiction, coming-of-age, adventure story, literary fiction and, of course, erotica. It revels unselfconsciously in bringing these different elements together and is always playful and quirky.’ Australian

  ‘Like a love-child of Barbarella and the Brave New World, it’s a refreshingly confrontational mix of sci-fi surrealism, sexual stirring and erotic honesty.’ Stuff NZ

  ‘Nobody writes sex like Kneen…her finest book to date.’ QWeekend

  ‘It’s a rare book that seems to drift like smoke away from the printed page to rewrite the physical world…[Kneen] wants us to strip naked and be transformed.’ Melbourne Review of Books

  Praise for Steeplechase

  ‘Kneen’s dark imagination and sharp intellect give her erotic writing an edgy quality that reminds the reader, with a genuine shock of recognition, of what sex can be like at its most extreme: ravenous, dangerous, chaotic and transformative.’ Sydney Morning Herald

  ‘With her most recent work [Kneen] has cemented her place as an author to be read because of the promise, sensual or otherwise, signified by her name on the spine.’ Australian

  ‘Krissy Kneen’s deceptively simple prose careens towards a startling and horrifying denouement; her talent for strikingly vibrant imagery shines…Her fans will continue to relish Kneen’s vivid imagery and fearless prose.’ Books+Publishing

  ‘Absorbing writing with a menacing undertow that drags the reader deep inside a dysfunctional, disturbing relationship.’ Hoopla

  ‘Densely plotted and compelling…an accomplished work that will not easily be forgotten.’ Advertiser

  ‘A compelling tale with a brilliant climax…hypnotic, powerful, stirring.’ BookMooch

  ‘The voice is strong, the writing vivid, the prose disarmingly frank…Verdict: Lyrical, persuasive and intriguing.’ Courier-Mail

  ‘Understated and potent. Kneen’s restrained prose is elegant in its simplicity.’ Australian Book Review

  ‘A strange and intricate work that, like any excellent work of art, creates its own tight world whose engine is anxiety and suppression.’ Age

  Praise for Affection: a memoir of love, sex and intimacy

  Shortlisted, Queensland Premier’s Award for non-fiction 2010 Shortlisted, Biography of the Year, Australian Book Industry Awards 2010

  ‘Sex in Affection is well written, but it’s the contemplation in between that really shines. Insightful, evocative and bluntly, but never gratuitously, honest…Sexy, sad and deeply satisfying.’ Emily Maguire, Age

  ‘Sexy and beautifully written…An unforgettable book.’ James Frey

  ‘To focus on the prurient aspects of this memoir… is to miss its gorgeous heart.’ Courier-Mail

  ‘A rare feat…Beneath the surface sexuality, Affection’s triumph is that of an assured novelist of any genre.’ Sunday Age

  ‘Affection is that rare beast: a sexual memoir that is not only uniquely interesting and daringly explicit but is also poetic, offbeat, confronting and funny.’ Linda Jaivin, Australian

  Praise for Triptych

  ‘This is an astounding look at different sorts of love and Kneen is, above all, a sensualist.’ Adelaide Advertiser

  ‘With nods to Anaïs Nin and Vladimir Nabokov, Kneen writes with tenderness, joy and delight…Delightful, courageous and juicy.’ Big Issue

  ALSO BY KRISSY KNEEN

  Affection: a memoir of love, sex and intimacy

  Triptych

  Steeplechase

  The Adventures of Holly White and the Incredible Sex Machine

  Krissy Kneen is a Brisbane writer. Her memoir Affection was shortlisted for the Queensland Premier’s Literary Award in the non-fiction category and for the ABIA award for biography. In 2014 she won the Thomas Shapcott Poetry Prize for her collection Eating My Grandmother.

  www.furiousvaginas.com

  @krissykneen

  For Anthony, from now into the future, in any incarnation of ourselves, with love.

  PART 1

  CASPAR

  ‘FIRST PERSON IS a very narrow and limiting point of view.’

  Jane looks up, half-smiles. Her fingers scuttle over her keyboard. It looks like she is listening, typing down every breath of the wisdom I am imparting. Only minutes ago I held a copy of The Year of Magical Thinking in my hand, tilting the crisp pale jacket towards the class to display the marketing department’s monochrome vision, and they all glanced, all nodded. But when I took a slow walk up the aisle and looked down at Jane’s computer, there was the familiar blue Facebook F in the corner of the screen and a chat-box open in the bottom right. I couldn’t see the words but the sentiment was clear. Caspar Greenwald does not hold my attention.

  ‘If an author uses first person, a reader is trapped in her or his perspective. You can only learn new information when your character learns it. And most limiting of all? First person, present tense.’ I pause, as if deciding whom to call on; as if I didn’t already know. ‘Jane? Can you tell us why?’

  Jane’s smile is open, unaffected, the smile of a multitasker. She pauses in her Facebook conversation, moving her hands to surreptitiously angle the screen of her laptop down.

  ‘Because you only know things your character knows as he finds them out himself?’

  ‘Thank you, Jane.’

  She grins and adjusts her laptop so that she can see the full screen again. Her fingers return to the keyboard; I imagine the words flashing up on the screen. Sorry. Dr Greenwald is so boring. Her own narrative, first person, present tense.

  I often have trouble remembering the names of the students on the first day. I draw a map of the classroom and write names next to the corresponding chairs. This rarely works. The students shift around to participate in group work, evading their identities for the duration of the exercise, and then by the next class they have forged alliances with other students and swapped chairs to sit, like with like. Jane’s was the first name I remembered. It was easy. Plain Jane, I thought when she first raised her hand as I read down the class list. She used the raised hand to flick her long dark hair away from her face. She was wearing bright red lipstick and a dress that plunged down towards a thick gold belt, revealing just a hint of lacy red bra easing out towards the perfect
V of her neckline. Plain Jane she is not.

  Yet the nickname has stuck as surely as my attention, which constantly tracks her movements around the room. If I could tell this story in third person, past tense, I would foreshadow the delicious transgression of our sexual relationship. But no matter how impatient my nature, I am stuck fast in my glacial journey, pinned to my own point of view.

  ‘First person, present tense, or past tense,’ I say, trying not to address my words solely towards Jane, ‘are the preferred voices for memoir, but—and I stress but—they are not the only voices available to you for this genre. Does anyone have any examples of memoirs that stray from the norm in this regard?’

  A young Indian student in a paisley shirt raises his hand. Patel? Maybe that was the Indian student in last semester’s class. ‘Yes,’ I nod, leaving him nameless.

  ‘Boyhood. J. M. Coetzee.’

  ‘You, sir, have been reading your course dossier.’ Everyone utters the required laugh. ‘Turn to page nineteen of the dossier.’ I allow myself the indulgence of watching Jane lean to her side, reaching into her satchel, the spill of her flesh, the waterfall of her hair. I try to imagine the ineluctable future in which I have grown tired of watching her. When her flesh holds no mystery for me and her perfume is nothing but a background odour, like opening the door to the tedium of your own home after an exciting overseas trip.

  It is impossible to think that far ahead while she is still leaning, still rummaging, still swelling out of her perennially low-cut top. Not only can I imagine sleeping with her, it seems inevitable. At this point I am still boring her; still unattractively middle aged. But we haven’t got to Rabelais yet. The bacchanal is still to come.

  *

  The envelope has been slipped through the slot in my door, the memory stick so thin I can barely feel it through the textured card. Liv still uses good quality stationery. It is one of the first things that attracted me to her. Her assignment printed on heavy cream paper with a faint watermark on each page.

  Compared with Jane, Liv was less memorable in the flesh, more subtle. She didn’t stand out from the rest of the class; I might have missed her among the blonde curls and ginger ponytails. She handed me her assignment and I weighed it between my fingers, the paper thick and buttery. I looked a second time at the girl standing in front of me and noticed she was pretty. Pixie-faced, with a short dark helmet of hair that made her eyes seem bigger than they were. By exam time I was regularly helping her zip up her linen tunic, her perfume still appealing then; not quite yet the scent of a familiar but uninteresting room.

  It was her exploration of form that kept me entranced till just after her graduation. A double major, arts and technology. She brought a different world with her to the page, a curious experimentation. Tricks, I called them, but she would not be dissuaded from her experiments in narrative. And even before she won the award for the interactive narrative, I had to admit that some of them were quite good.

  I hold the memory stick up to my nose as if I might smell her fingers on it. Nothing. Plastic, a petrochemical base note. There is a piece of characteristically heavy paper in the envelope—Thanks for this—and on the flipside—I value your feedback.

  There is a suit to go with it. A skin. That’s what they call them. I hold the thing up, weighing it, turning it. It is just like a skin that someone might have shed, a whole person degloved, rubbery, flesh coloured, damply cold.

  I pour a glass and sit by the laptop. Liv’s email has instructions. This is a memoir. Ten years in the making. First Person Present Tense. I’d like to thank you for the lessons you taught me. Voice is everything—you were right.

  I sip and tap the memory stick on the kitchen counter. ‘Bach,’ I say and the computer anticipates my track choice: cello suites. I lean back and shut my eyes and Plain Jane hovers in my memory, pushing back her luxurious tresses. Liv was interesting, smart, a handful, but Jane, now Jane…

  I tap my finger on the side of the glass. Even with Bach to calm me I can’t settle. How could this be the future of memoir? How could a memory stick and a synthetic suit replace Nin and Levi and Thoreau? I push the glass aside, barely touched. Suiting up is quite a process. At this time in the evening I would rather be putting on my tracksuit pants. It feels too intimate, the fabric, a little like neoprene but sheerer, softer against naked skin, the little tube-shaped pouch for the penis. It feels almost pornographic to slip myself inside it. I suppose there is a different model for the ladies but I can’t imagine how the crotch would be configured. I think of Plain Jane easing her suit on, rolling the tight fabric up her smooth leg, and I appreciate how the material adjusts for all the slight changes that might occur in the course of a viewing session.

  They use these suits for porn. Of course. Pornography is the driver for most innovation. If it weren’t for the needs of men we would never have shot off into space.

  I press the sliver of plastic into the slot in the machine. I slip the headpiece into place and my eyes adjust to the optical limits. A grey line begins to turn blue, the words pairing suit above it.

  First Person Present Tense.

  Prologue.

  Perhaps the title is a little obvious. I’ll tell her this. Why is it impossible to make notes when you are in this skin? Title, I squeeze my eyes shut to commit the note to memory. Tell her to change the title. Then it begins.

  I am momentarily confused. I am watching myself. I recognise the university, a lecture theatre, probably in L Block although I have never seen it from this angle. I am sitting in an audience of students. I can feel the press of the seat back, the shift of the swivelling lap table across my knees. I never realised how hard these seats are. I never knew how constricted you can feel when the tabletop is swung into place. I look down at the table and there is my laptop. No. Not my laptop. This is a more modern laptop. Mine has travelled with me for ten years—upgrades, add-ons—heavy and silver and uncomfortable. This one is lighter and sleeker. I remember it. This is Liv’s laptop that she replaced with a more powerful model when she graduated. These are Liv’s tight black jeans constricting my hips. Liv’s high heels slipped onto my feet. The left one tapping against the seat in front of me, her. On Liv’s laptop screen there is a flashing red word. Remembering. Remembering. I am pacing back and forth in front of myself, no, in front of Liv.

  ‘Voice.’

  Oh god, the shirt. Do I really look that chubby in it? Do I even own that shirt anymore? Purple check, the warping across the protrusion of my stomach. I try to suck my gut in but I can’t and needn’t. I am slim as a girl. I am a girl. I am Liv.

  I can’t breathe. I fumble for the headpiece, the mask, whatever it is called in this mess of silicon and circuitry. I snap it off and take deep breaths. Parallel lines sit in the middle of my laptop screen, my heavy old silver computer. The universal symbol for a paused feed. It is strange to be back here in my own body. I catch a glimpse of my face reflected in the dull blue of the screen. I am six years older now. That plump version of myself must have been one of the first times we met. I didn’t even remember her name back then. She was one of the many faceless students. I have a whole new batch of them now and each new crop is exactly the same as the last.

  I take a big swallow of wine. I feel myself returning, occupying my body once more. A draft licks at my cheek. I have left a window open somewhere.

  Was I really that old even then? I am tempted to get up, go to a mirror, find myself again. Of course it is just a trick of perspective or technology: a bad lens, a dodgy angle. I know what I look like.

  Below the pause symbol there is a line and the word Contents. I click on the word and there are chapter numbers, Prologue, Chapter 1, Chapter 2 all the way to Chapter 34 and then an epilogue. I hover the arrow over the first chapter and click. The cursor flashes, waiting for me to put the headpiece back on. I take deep breaths as if I were about to plunge into icy water. Then, when my head is spinning from hyperventilation, I slip the mask back onto my head.

  Again
, a moment of disorientation. It is as if I have been swallowed whole by a creature barely larger than myself, a croc or a shark. My muscles tense to cut my way out, emerge like Jonah, triumphant and covered in ambergris. But the panic settles. The new skin eases snug against my own, becomes my own, its eyes my eyes, the mechanical iris making its adjustments. Pairing suit. The new world becoming clear, clearer than the old, real world. Everything leaps crisply into focus. A room, the smell of it, at once familiar and yet unfamiliar. I sniff. That scent, cloves, cut grass and dust. An old-book scent and the reek of unwashed sheets. It smells like…my own bedroom, and yet different. Heightened. I blink and take an unbalanced step into the room. A moment of dizziness, then I reach out and touch the wall. My own bedroom wall. It is solid. I am home. But I’m not, I’m not in my bedroom. I struggle against this new overlap of reality. I know I am sitting in the kitchen, plugged in to Liv’s program, clad in a suit, a second skin. I try to turn, to walk back to where I know I am sitting, but nothing happens. I have no agency in this story. I run my fingers without volition—my fingers are run—over the flock wallpaper. I look down at the piles of books lining the wall. The titles leap into focus as I stare: Knausgaard, Atwood, Orwell, Yuknavitch…Nin, although I know the Nin is no longer there. I lent that book to a student, the one who superseded Liv. Slimmer waist, longer hair, bigger tits. But here is the book, returned to its rightful place in the pile at my feet. I pick up the Yuknavitch, The Chronology of Water, and turn it in my hands. I am wearing nail polish. Green on the right hand and on the left a darker green, almost brown, a shimmering like the carapace of a beetle. I vaguely remember knowing a girl who did this, two different colours at once, who was it?

  ‘You can borrow that. You’d like it.’ It is my voice, close to my ear. Someone behind me. I am behind me. ‘You’ve read C. A. Elphick?’ I can feel myself nodding. It is unsettling to nod without willing myself to nod, to be a passive participant in my own actions. I struggle to shake my head, but no. I have to sit in this body and be moved like a puppet. Nod, nod, nod.