by Steve Deeks
There had been no formal plan of how long we would stay in Byron Bay but having heard all the coaches to Sydney were fully booked until after Christmas we had little option but to stay put until after the festive season. In any event, we had got wind of a Christmas Day rave somewhere in the jungle so thought this would be the ideal way to celebrate the lord Jesus Christ.
Having wisely, and somewhat unusually, taken it easy on Christmas Eve – treating ourselves to nothing more than a favourite Swedish pastime of dark chocolate and red wine – we were all feeling surprisingly human when Christmas Day arrived. There was a buzz around the hostel as people raced about getting ready, phoning friends and family back home and buying whatever supplies of drink and food they could get their hands on.
The Swedes and I spent upwards of an hour in a small liquor store as we assessed the merits of every deal against how much alcohol we could possibly consume, in what we hoped, and fully expected, would be the monster of all binge sessions. A giant queue that stretched outside the door and into the pelting rain wasn’t helping our cause, but we didn’t let this blight our very serious consideration of what alcohol to purchase. The door was kindly held open as, finally, we shuffled out to quizzical looks as we each underwent what effectively amounted to a strenuous weightlifting contest, thanks to the mountain of booze we were straining to hold onto.
Without waiting a second longer than was necessary we cracked open some beers in the lounge area once we had dropped off our weighty alcohol supplies with sweat and rain dripping off us. The room was, by now, heaving full of merry people. With the rain still smashing down outside, a group of daring individuals had made a bold statement that the weather would not deter from their festivities by sitting on the sheltered outside benches in the courtyard area. Not wanting to be outdone this seemed to provoke Sam. “This is fucking boring,” he suddenly announced. “I’m going in the Jacuzzi. With beers.” In need of some refreshment I decided there was no other option but to join him. After changing into some shorts and grabbing a delightful four pack of cold beer I marched through the lashings of rain and plunged straight into the hot tub, which looked extremely inviting with glowing warm air floating from it.
The only drawback was that two men were now luxuriating in the bubbly water, both of who looked slightly disturbed about the prospect of us joining them in such an intimate confine, especially as you could not see below the froth at surface level. This fear was undoubtedly exacerbated by the fact they had in all likelihood assumed no one else would dare use the hot tub in such treacherous weather conditions, with doing so potentially being seen as some kind of “come on”. Feeling slightly awkward that those in the hostel, as well as the men in the tub, may view our encroachment as distasteful, I quickly moved to clear any lingering doubt of our intentions. “It’s ok we’re not here for any botty love,” I joked, making sure I smiled in a manly way in an attempt to put us all at ease. However, they looked at me anxiously and back at one another, clearly puzzled by my colloquialism.
“It’s ok, we don’t like men…you know in that way,” Sam, quickly jumping to my rescue, added before doing an upward fisting motion with his arm, while adamantly shaking his head. But, if anything, the strange men, who spoke little English, now looked more scared.
The tension was rife, with them giving us the odd distrusting look as we knocked back our beer like a couple of menacing reprobates, at least this was how it felt we were viewed. Devoid of a sense of humour and looking increasingly uncomfortable, particularly as the decibel levels increased with every gulp of beer, it became clear the odd males weren’t entering the Christmas spirit. Finally, to our utter relief they could bear no more and got out of the tub without even so much as a goodbye. As soon as they turned their backs Sam and I spontaneously turned toward them and raised our middle fingers, followed by a healthy bout of fist pumping, to indicate what we thought the men would soon be engaging in with each other. “Fucking peasants, I bet they have sore arses in the morning,” Sam declared with a scornful smile.
At last, though, we had the Jacuzzi to ourselves, allowing us to stretch out and relax wholeheartedly. I noticed the water, although comfortingly hot and bubbly, had a slightly odd smell to it. I had been in blissful ignorance until Sam alerted me, having accidentally swallowed a mouthful. “I think people must have been pissing in here,” he spluttered.
“Well maybe it was mine you could taste, as I just took a leak in here.” I was joking, of course, but there’s nothing like putting doubts into people’s heads. Our fun was rudely interrupted when the two weirdoes, surprisingly, returned from whatever it was they had sneaked off to do. As they entered the water we decided now would be as good a time as ever to get out. “Be careful not to swallow the water, people have been pissing in there,” I helpfully warned the pair, leaving them shuffling uncomfortably after I’d reinforced my message with graphic images, just so nothing would be lost in translation.
Once changed, we went back downstairs and started slurping on our beer, with anticipation to the Christmas dinner now firmly underway. But Sam seemed agitated and before long began lamenting about his illicit relationship with Jane. “She still wants to keep things quiet,” he said, rolling his eyes.
I needed no encouragement to offer my agony aunt services. “Sounds to me like she wants to have her cake and eat it mate. If she feels that you’re too young for her then what is she doing slurping your tool like a lollypop? She’s being a hypocrite and you should let her know that.” Sam nodded, he knew I was right but I sensed that being such a diplomat and not wanting to forego his guilty pleasures on a regular basis, he would not say anything to this manipulating cougar in case she called off the clandestine fling.
I felt angry for Sam and attempted to lighten his load with a further few suggestions, “Why don’t you deny her access to your loins until she does the right thing and comes out into the open about your relationship? Or perhaps you could threaten to tell everyone if she doesn’t play ball?” He didn’t seem convinced by my wise advice and it was, sadly, all too obvious that he would continue to trundle along unhappily with the situation.
A short time later Simon and Ben showed up, as we sensibly stepped up our drinking prior to the bonanza Christmas meal, with it now officially decided that we would be attending the nearby jungle rave later. We were joined by Jane and her friends as we made our way to the large outside table that had been assembled for the 50 or so people who were attending the meal. Although I had fully anticipated being royally ripped off I was pleasantly surprised to see the well presented layout, which to my amazement included crackers, candles and a high quality festive table cloth, fit with pictures of Father Christmas himself emblazoned all across it. Added to this there were candlelights and white foam spray across the windows letting everyone know, just in case they were unaware, that it was indeed Christmas, which was just as well, as apart from the rain it felt nothing like the traditional day.
We progressed sumptuously through our surprisingly impressive feast, which included a personal old favourite of pawn salad for starter, before moving on to the less than festive sausage, pasta, chicken and salad main course. All of this with seemingly endless amounts of goon supplied by the hostel, which was going down a good deal faster than the gassy beer that had left me with a vast bloated stomach that made me look like I was pregnant. Spirits were rising as people jovially chatted while munching on their food.
But as good a show as the hostel had put on, the truth was that it still felt like what I’d imagined Christmas in a homeless shelter would be; a large gathering of assorted strangers with no money and a great love of booze – many of whom, coincidentally, hadn’t come across the invention of a shaver judging from their furry faces - who’ve been thrown together to eat a mediocre meal that somehow comes to feel like you’re eating caviar at The Ritz Hotel because it’s a massive step up from the usual daily grind of eating plain noodles with stale bread.
&nbs
p; It’s all about expectations, and having spent nearly a year away living in some of the biggest shitholes known to mankind, this was undoubtedly a vast improvement to what I had been used to. But, in saying that, had my mother delivered this on my plate at Christmas then I would have looked at her with withering disappointment while slowly shaking my head before having no choice but to march outside and give it to the dogs in a state of unbridled disgust. However, under my current circumstances with my lifestyle more akin to that of a modern day peasant, the meal was refreshingly decent.
While the friends I’d been sharing my Christmas experience with had made the evening fun, unfortunately the same could not be said about me by Sam’s cougar, Jane, and her friends. Having consumed more than my fair share of alcohol throughout the course of this holy day, I had reached the stage where dementia kicks in; whereby you forget what happened all of five minutes ago. Sure, forgetting stuff the next day was part and parcel of a heavy night of drinking but when it happens before you even go out you always fear the worst.
Unbeknown to me there had been an incident at the dinner table, which I was suddenly reminded of by Sam shortly afterwards. “You probably shouldn’t have said that,” the Swede politely quibbled.
I thought hard for a few seconds but my thought processes kept being sharply interrupted by the feel of a sledgehammer grinding on my skull from the grand concoction of alcohol I had guzzled. After looking blank for several seconds I finally replied, “Shouldn’t have said what?” He looked at me with a mixture of amazement and sorrow. At first he thought I was feigning not remembering until realising I genuinely had the brain of a sieve. “You don’t remember?”
“Remember what?”
Sam raised his eyebrows, “At the table?”
“What at the table?”
He took in a deep breath, while I braced myself for the worst. “At the table you got everyone to be silent and then stood up in front of all 50 or so people and asked what people’s views were on an older woman ‘rogering’ a man who’s ten years younger than her –“
“- Did I?”
“-Yes…,” Sam winced at the recollection. “But then, even worse than that, you asked if everyone thought it was right for the older woman to force the younger man to keep it a secret just because she was embarrassed, or as you actually said, ‘was being a selfish manipulator who was having her cock and eating it’.”
I paused in stunned silence and put my hand over my mouth as I sought with all my waning power to dig out the memory from my mind. “Really? I said that?” I glanced back at Sam hoping he was joking, but the deeply troubled look on his face made it abundantly obvious that, regrettably, this was not the case.
“Yes you said that,” he continued, disappointment absorbing his eyes. “And then, in front of everyone, you specifically asked Jane what her thoughts were on the subject. That’s when everyone started laughing. Well, everyone apart from Jane and her friends. And me of course.”
I rubbed my stubble thoughtfully as I continued my vain attempt at accessing my memory recesses, with my palm also serving the added benefit of shielding the smirk that I could feel impulsively trying to force its way across my face.
“You’re not making this up are you?” I enquired desperately, as if to also imply that there may have been a case of mistaken identity.
“I wish I was,” Sam shook his head disconsolately. “You might as well have just shouted out ‘hey look Jane’s shagging someone ten years younger than her’. She was pretty mad about what you did. I don’t think she wants to talk to you ever again, especially now everyone knows.”
It was a lot for me to take in and while I could understand Sam’s frustrations I reminded myself that the whole sorry mess was really Jane’s fault. Feeling emboldened, I struck back with a passionate defence. “Well maybe she got what she deserved, after all she was treating you like a bit of meat. Someone had to stand up for you and I’m glad it was me.”
“I know, but did you have to do it in front of the 50 people at the Christmas party?” Sam asked despairingly.
I rallied myself before going on the front foot once more. “Look, I can appreciate that, perhaps, it may not have been the ideal place or time and that things are a bit awkward at the moment, but now it’s out in the open it will be a lot better for you. You need to remember that she can’t just help herself to your sausage when it suits her.”
I could see he agreed and that emotions were just a bit raw. “Well, I hope when it settles down she still sucks my dick,” Sam shrugged, with a hint of a smirk once again appearing across his face.
“I’m sure she will be more than keen to suck like it’s a lollipop and if not then who cares? I’m sure there’s plenty of others out there who are willing to have a good old slurp if she doesn’t play bat and ball,” I replied comfortingly. Sam laughed and took a large gulp of goon, as if to mark moving on from the episode. “You’re right,” he added, his mood brightening further still, “There will be plenty more looking for a feed …come to think of it I shagged that Finnish girl in the room the other day. I didn’t tell Jane about that.” He laughed again.
Chapter 14 - The Christmas rave
With excitement building for the Christmas rave, I rounded up the Swedes and Ben before we briskly headed to the Arts Factory in a taxi. Eating a sizeable amount of food and then pouring a gallon of water down my throat had taken the edge off the alcohol intoxication I had been nursing and given me hope that I would not end up in a bush before the rave had even began.
We paid the taxi driver and immediately went to the bar area where we knocked back a quick beer before going to the hut, which was packed out with those attending the rave. If I thought the place was an asylum of freak-shows before then the theory justified its tag even more on this occasion, as I was confronted by a plethora of people guerning their heads off from a concoction of substances. For a second, in my drunken stupor, I thought it was Halloween, with so many tortured looking souls nearby; a healthy proportion of whom were rolling their eyeballs back, eerily showing just the whiteness, while others seemed to have had their bodies taken over by flesh hungry vampires, as they munched incessantly on their own lips, while sticking their chins out in a grinding motion, which certainly did nothing to help the looks of these most hideous of creatures.
To make matters worse, many of these lamentable humans had face paint on, giving the impression they were part of some weird cult, for which the primary purpose remained unclear. I fully expected someone, perhaps an outsider of the group like myself, to be carted off against his will by the congregation and defiantly impaled on a burning stake so they could be sacrificed for the greater good, before everyone took to joyfully dancing about naked in front of my smoking corpse.
Cautiously we sat down on a table with some acquaintances of Ben and continued our drinking amid the weird smells and candlelights that were brightly flickering in the darkness, distinctly adding to the sinister atmosphere. My friend Andy and his girl pals were also meeting us at the Arts Factory for the rave. When they turned up they bore similar facial expressions to the ones we had when first setting foot inside this crazy place – one combining an unusual blend of bewilderment, fear and amusement. “What the fuck is this place about? I’ve never seen so many freaks in my life,” Andy whispered, unable to take in the sites. His female accomplices, the types, it has to be said, who clearly didn’t believe in discretion, were left open mouthed at the flux of odd characters. “What the hell is he doing?” one of the girls laughed like a foghorn while pointing at, admittedly, a rather odd chap who was performing a slow motion trance dance, manoeuvring his legs alternatively – and somewhat impressively, it has to be said - above his head as he glided effortlessly in time with the freakish music from his vantage point on the muddy ground.
Andy looked about as comfortable as a nun in a brothel but, nonetheless, did his best to enter the spirit and knocked back a few beer
s, which began to slowly ease his twitches. A philanthropic woman then suddenly appeared before kindly offering to paint people’s faces free of charge. Simon, fully embracing the evening, signed up straightaway. “But you have to do his as well,” he said, pointing at me cheekily, as a condition of the woman ruining his face for the night.
“I don’t think so,” I objected indignantly. The next thing I knew the whole table, plus a few others, were almost pinning me down telling me I had no choice. “Look I will only do a little on you. It’s just a bit of fun. Where are your balls?” the face painter insisted, suggesting my masculinity was in question should I not go ahead with it.
So with the brute force of peer pressure hanging over me, not to mention that I would look like a coward should I pass the opportunity, I reluctantly accepted. “Ok, ok, but only a little bit,” I specifically stipulated in agreeing to have my face blighted.
“Of course, don’t worry,” she replied in a wholly professional and believable manner.
We all watched intently as she rather artistically, it has to be said, painted around Simon’s face. Showing great powers of concentration, not to mention poise, the Swede soon found himself with a dark glittery circle around one eye, which linked down to his cheek, making him look as insane as one of the Joker’s cronies out of Batman. Remarkably, though, he looked strangely stylish and after looking in the mirror was overjoyed about the job she had done for him.
Now it was my turn. I braced myself as she came in close with a tiny brush, which in truth looked more like an eyeliner. But I least I could comfort myself with the professional job she had done for Simon. I seemed to have the whole hut looking at me as she studiously brushed across my face, only broken up by interludes of her dipping the device into one of her many colours having stopped to closely inspect my face. If you’ve never had this done to you before then I can tell you that it is a slightly disturbing feeling to have a complete stranger stare at you from point blank range and deep within your personal space as you sit helplessly in a chair while they paint, sorry decimate, your face.