Kiss Kill

by Mawter, Jeni

  Not much of a talker? “No.”

  Elle gave me a look as if to say ‘wrong answer’ so I pulled out all stops and added, “What about you?”

  I was stoked when she threw back her head and laughed. “Oh yes,” she finally said. “I’m a talker.”

  At this point I thought it best not to bring up my babble theory. It goes like this: Boys talk, girls babble. When boys talk, 100% of the words are important. When girls talk, about 5% of words are necessary, the other 95% is drivel. When boys talk, it’s short and sweet. Plans are made. Deals are struck. Goal achieved and it’s over. When girls talk they seem to have this great need to describe what they ate for dinner, to tell you every word of the fight they had with their mother, to describe their dreams in the most minute-est of details so all you can say when they’re finished is “Guess you had to be there.” But we do listen through all that babble because at the end of the day we always know there may be something in it for us. We get your attention, your affection. We’ve put runs on the board by listening, even though we know we could’ve achieved the same thing with only two words: arm-wrestling.

  It was at this point that Elle asked a killer question. “So, what are you thinking, then?”

  Now a boy’s thinking is much more elaborate than his talking. We’re thinking about sex. Wondering, how can we get it? Who’s having it? Is she a goer? Check out the size of those breasts! But of course, I couldn’t say anything like that. I gave the standard answer, meant to put a lid on that line of questioning. “Not much.”

  Elle leaned closer. “Is it true that boys think about sex every seven seconds?”

  How was I going to get out of this? I couldn’t lie and say that the last five minutes hadn’t been consumed by thoughts of kissing and biting. I felt like I did the time when mum discovered I’d eaten 72 chocolates out of her birthday box in a fit of the munchies last year. But then I thought, ‘Hang on a minute. Elle doesn’t know what I’ve been thinking.’ And the nuclear reaction in my face settled for a rosy glow.

  Elle went on, “Or is that seven second thing some stupid statistic that makes boys sound like they’re pathetic morons completely controlled by their knobs?”

  “Yes.”

  At this point Nadia butted in. “Of course it’s silly. When watching Match-of-the-Day or reading the sports section, they’re not thinking about sex.”

  “No,” I agreed, although my mind was a jumbled mess of fuzzy thoughts about cheerleaders and short skirts. And I knew that if Elle moved any closer, I’d get funny tingles in a lot less than seven seconds.

  Elle did move closer, then said, “It’s true isn’t it? I can tell from the look on your face.”

  “My face always looks like this,” I snapped.

  Jonno made a show of inspecting my face. I tried to communicate in pupil dilations and tell him to leave it alone, but he didn’t get my drift. “It does,” he said.

  Thank you, Jonno!

  “He always looks like a prune-faced ferret trying to run up a trouser leg.”

  I looked at Jonno, thinking of somewhere else I’d like to put that ferret.

  “Actually, he’s very handsome,” said Elle to Jonno.

  Jonno snorted. “At a blind people’s convention.”

  Some friend!

  “He looks like he could be on TV,” Elle went on. “Or lead singer in a band.”

  This talking about me in third person as though I wasn’t in the room was a bit off-putting, but I kind of liked where Elle was heading so decided to leave them to it.

  “Jonno could be in a sports calendar,” said Nadia, clearly seeing a need to defend her man.

  “Maybe,” said Elle. “But Mat could be a male lead in Hollywood.”

  I felt swamped with confusion. I wondered if Elle was taking the mickey or if she really meant it. She was smiling as she said it so it could’ve been all bull – but why would she say it if she didn’t mean it? I racked my brains to think of all those Hollywood heroes who weighed over eighty kilos and realised I was in good company. But as leading man?

  “If you were a lead guy in Hollywood,” asked Elle, sidling even closer, “who would you want as your leading lady?”

  At times like this, my two word response repertoire seemed sorely inadequate. Name the movie star I had the hots for and I’d never live it down. Name Elle and I’d never live it down. I sat there, tussling with the question, damned whichever way I went.

  Elle leapt to her feet, taking me completely by surprise. “If you can’t answer one simple question, Mat, there’s no point hanging around.” And without a backward glance she grabbed her bag and took off.

  Missed my big opportunity.

  Ouch!

  Love bites.

  The Very Hungry Caterpillar

  I see this in the shop front as I walk past Vinnies. I think of Elle and how much she likes purple bugs. I go into the shop, pretending to check out the men’s shoes. I nudge closer to the bug, scanning the place to make sure there’s no one I know. But just as I reach for it this voice pipes up, “There’s more toys out the back if you’d like.”

  The sales lady thinks I play with toys. “Oh, um, it’s not for me.”

  The sales lady looks at me as though she’s seen all sorts and heard every line in the book.

  I can feel my face smoulder. “It’s for my sister.” Now, she’s looking at me as if I’m holding a purple bra, not a purple caterpillar.

  “Amazing how many boys have sisters …” She lets the words dangle, like bait on a hook.

  And then I remember something. “She loves this book called The Very Hungry Caterpillar. It’s her favourite. We have to read it over and over again.” I watch to see if I’ve convinced the saleslady but she’s still looking cross-eyed. I plough on, “It’s about this caterpillar that’s an eating machine and every day he eats more and more food, and then one day …”

  “A dollar.” She cuts me off at the best part.

  I plunge my hand into my pocket and hold out the money.

  The sales lady thrusts it in my hands and turns away.

  “What about putting it in a bag?” I ask.

  “That’s fifty cents extra.”

  A silver coin joins the gold one. “I’m in a hurry,” I add.

  But the old cow has the last laugh. She plops it into a clear plastic bag and hands it back. “Will there be anything else, dear?”

  I shake my head.

  Then sweet as, she holds open the door for me to slink through.

  Manscaping for Dummies

  Caterpillars are cool. They morph into things of great beauty. My caterpillar is a thing of beauty.

  But not according to Elle.

  We’re not talking the purple caterpillar here, we’re talking furry ones. David Beckham has a lot to answer for. Posing for that commercial with a physique like a streamlined seal. Not a body hair in sight. That mug’s what I put Elle’s comment down to – the reason for that crucifying question at the swimming pool today. Why do you have a caterpillar crawling up your stomach?

  So I sit at Jonno’s place after school and stare at the goat track that’s causing the problem. “You reckon I should shave it?” I ask.

  Jonno peers at my body and tallies my manhood. Two back hairs. No chest hair. Minimal facial hair. But this pathetic runway south. “Waxing would be better,” he announces.

  I envisage lying on a trolley, being manhandled by a harsh Russian woman under questionable sanitary conditions. “Pouring boiling hot wax on my belly, then ripping the hairs out is better?” I ask. “I’d look like a dermatological Chernobyl disaster – all lumps and red bumps.”

  Jonno laughs.

  “Nadia make you do it?” I ask.

  “Do what?”

  “De-hair. You know. Get the carpet cleaned.”

  “Carpet?” Jonno pulls a face and says, “Of course, not. She says I’m her teddy bear.”

  I stare in the mirror then back at Jonno. “I guess teddy bears are cuter than caterpillars
.”

  We sit for a moment, me stroking my caterpillar as if it’s a cat called Fluffy. “How can I tame this?”

  “Wax it,” Jonno says. “I suggest you go for a full deforestation.”

  “A what?”

  “Back, sack and crack.” He chuckles like a little kid who thinks he’s said something original.

  “You’ve got to be joking.” My eyes mist at the thought.

  Jonno points to my dacks, saying, “There’s a whole tropical ecosystem tucked between those thighs. Who knows what’s down there: lice, mould, monkeys maybe.”

  I throw the first thing I can reach at Jonno. The shoe clips his shoulder then does a double pike in the air. Jonno lunges and wrestles me to the floor where we spend a good few minutes doing The Hulk and Terminator impersonations before The Hulk concedes to ‘Brains over beauty’ and Jonno wins.

  “Being manscaped has some benefits,” says Jonno, still sitting on top of me. “Makes your old fella look huge.”

  I push him off me and twist to sit up. “How would you know?” I ask.

  Jonno begins to laugh as he explains, “I saw this web site called ‘Big Noses’ but it wasn’t about the nose on your face.’

  I nod, trying to take this all in. If men were meant to have no body hair, they’d have evolved that way, stuck in some pre-pubescent time zone, living with their mother. But a real man? A real man has pubes and chest hair, back hair and hairy legs. I wonder about this trend to tame our body hair, then realise, the woolly mammoth did become extinct.

  Jonno gets up and disappears for a moment then returns waving two razors. “The Daisy or the Mach3?” he asked. “You can’t be half-assed when it comes to manscaping.”

  I tell myself, Commit! then gulp and squeak, “The Mach3.”

  Jonno places the silver razor in my hand and heads back out the door saying, “I hoped you’d say that. Wasn’t sure how to confess to my mum how her razor got blunt.”

  I now have two of three vital prerequisites to manscaping: one, the determination and two, the means. All that is missing is three, the knowledge. Somehow the word ‘balls’ does not go with soap and water and a razor between your legs. I sit there, wondering if someone has invented a 6-way mirror to handle that valley and the twin peaks. “It’d help to be a contortionist,” I say when Jonno comes back in.

  “With a steady hand.” Jonno crosses his legs and adds, “Imagine if you slipped.”

  Just then the tan I didn’t get in the school holidays fades further, as if I’m doing a Before and After shot in a vampire commercial. I have an image of a hairless cat I once saw, after it had gone one-on-one with a tabby. My other nose jerks. “Changed my mind,” I say, throwing the razor back at Jonno. “I’ll use dad’s clippers at home. Adjustable settings should minimise the risk.”

  “Less rashes,” agrees Jonno. “But you sacrifice the billiard ball look for the hairy prune.”

  “Less gay.”

  Jonno nods. “I’ll give you that.”

  I march home, determined to obliterate my caterpillar with a Number One, and win the girl of my dreams. At home, I lock myself in the bathroom and sit over the bath. This is going to look like a windstorm in a barber shop and I need to contain the mess. The less curls and strays swirling around the bathroom the better. There’s only so much hair you can blame on the cat.

  I begin to trim, starting from the top and working my way down. At first it tickles, but then I get the pressure right and make a go of it. I look like Mr Ted did, when I was five years old and learning to use the scissors! My belly button has five o’clock shadow. I groan, remembering watching my dad shave when I was little and his famous saying, “Stubble is trouble.” Only, I still didn’t get the last bit: “And girls can rot your teeth.” I frown and bare my incisors in the bathroom mirror. I sigh with relief. No rotten teeth there.

  Just as I decide I’ll have to shave with a razor after all, there’s a rap on the door. “Mat?” calls Mum. ‘What you doing?’

  Despite the fact that there’s a good three centimetres of solid oak between us, the colour of my face turns the colour of my inflamed crotch.

  “I’m in the bath,” I call, which is as good an answer as any.

  I hold my breath, waiting for the next question, “What are you doing in there?” because I know that she knows I haven’t had a bath since I was twelve. Thank God wisdom and common sense overcome curiosity. After an aeon mum tiptoes away. All she can manage is a, “Don’t be long, then.”

  I think of Elle and wonder if this is worth it. Am I being a tool or does she put herself through this as well? What do they call it for girls? A brazillian?

  A brazillian to match my boyzillion.

  The thought makes my nose grow.

  I admire myself in the mirror, making up a mantra of my own, “Geeks are the new chic,” but the only words that escape from under the door are, “No, Mum. I won’t be long.”

  A few days later …

  When the swimming carnival comes around, I’m pumped.

  People at swimming carnivals can be classified into two groups: the love ‘ems and the hate ‘ems. The love ‘ems get off on sniffing chlorine and perving at bodies where modesty is measured in millimetres. The hate ‘ems join cheer squads and run errands, anything to keep from stripping off. I used to be a hate ‘em, but with my caterpillar-less belly I feel like David Beckham in a pair of Masterson High swimming dacks. Only minus the tan … and the six pack.

  I scan the grandstand looking for Elle, a pearl amongst a sea of pippis. Not a sea. A peck. A peck of pickled pippis. That’s what they remind me of. And then I see her! Her skin shines iridescent under the harsh pool lights. One look and I need a lap towel. Since the manscaping session, everything is soooo hypersensitive down there. I bunch the towel so it won’t look pointy and hope my race won’t be called for another hour or four.

  “You swimming?” I ask Jonno, not from interest but as a means of distraction.

  “Yup. Fifty metres free and fly. You?”

  I think of my specialty, backstroke. “Maybe.” Then a sudden flash of me doing backstroke. “Um, maybe not.”

  “Why not?” Jonno asks. “You swim like Moby.”

  “I know why Moby was called a dick,” I whisper with a grin, then lift my towel to reveal what could best be described as a periscope penis. “Don’t want to look like a show-off.”

  Jonno laughs. “In front of who? You mean Elle?”

  I nod.

  “You wish.” Jonno laughs again, shaking his head at the same time, as if to say, Loser.

  “Wish what?” It’s Nadia. She sidles in to snuggle up to her man.

  “Nothing!” I snap.

  Jonno punches me and in a giggle voice answers, “He wishes he was backstroke champion of the world.”

  “As if.”

  I study the race in progress with the intensity of a style-correction coach, studiously ignoring the two beside me. Sweat pours off my face. I’m flustered and the sauna conditions aren’t helping much. My T-shirt feels like I’m wearing wet moss, but as I yank it over my head, a voice interrupts. “Hi Jonno and Nadia.” My tongue clamps to the roof of my mouth. No mistaking that voice.

  “Hey Elle,” chimes Nadia.

  “Hi,” says Jonno.

  There’s a pause long enough to check out all the exit signs in the building before she adds, “Hi Mat.”

  I try to answer smoothly, suavely, “Hi,” but even to my ears it comes out, “Hai!”, like a Japanese schoolboy during roll call.

  “Nervous?” asks Elle.

  If you only knew, I think, but out loud I say “Nuh!” I could kick myself. I sound like a jock strap. “I mean, um, a little,” I say, trying again. “You?”

  Elle shakes her head. Her dark hair swings like a mermaid’s tail. “Not really.” Then she sits down and leans close to my ear to whisper, “The secret is … Even though you’re packing it, it’s best to look confident. Psychs out the opposition.”

  I know I’m meant to res
pond. To say something intelligent about game plans and tactics, but all I can do is stare at the naked leg beside me and marvel at the sheen on her skin. It looks like a Chupa Chup wrapper.

  “Clever,” I manage to squeak.

  Elle laughs, her teeth like pearls as she says, “Works every time.”

  I glance down, hoping against hope that my towel hasn’t slipped but as she follows the line of my gaze, she gasps. “What happened to you?”

  I can feel myself getting hotter and hotter. I wish I could spontaneously combust. “Would you believe a bellyflop?”

  “Bellyflop on the road maybe. Looks like gravel rash.” Her laugh rebounds around the vault-like stadium, then without a backward glance she’s gone, leaving me to stare miserably at my raw skin and wonder, after manscaping, what comes next? Guyliner?

  How To Tell if Someone Likes You

  I sometimes worry when I hear that a girl wants someone ‘romantic’, like it’s some mysterious thing that I’m not going to be able to figure out. I talk to Nards and tell her I’m all confused. I’m getting such mixed messages from Elle. Sometimes she brushes up against me, presses her breasts against me in a way I don’t think is by accident. But other times when I try to talk to her, she just pushes me away.

  “She’s just teasing ‒ testing to see if you like her,” says Nadia.

  “She knows I like her.”

  ‘Yes, but how much?’

  Nadia sends me this stupid Quiz on Facebook.

  HOW TO TELL IF A GIRL LIKES YOU:

  They always talk about the different kind of guys they COULD have.

  They stare at you with a smile on their face and won’t look away until you do first.

  They ALWAYS seem to be talking about how nice or cute you are.

  They laugh at all your jokes, no matter how stupid they are.

  They will ask you who you like, continuously.

  They talk to your friends about you a lot.

  They always are flirting with every other guy, except you.