by Les Zig
She deposits him into Julie’s hands. Julie sits Oscar on her knee, then bounces her knee up and down. Oscar watches her with a serious face, then laughs and points at her.
‘He’s adorable,’ Julie says.
‘August didn’t confirm you were coming until it was too late to cook,’ Gen says, ‘so I hope pizza’s okay?’
‘Pizza’s great.’
Julie continues to bounce Oscar on her knee and coo at him. He laughs and reaches for the finger she uses to tease him. That Gen has a same-sex partner hasn’t flustered her. If Lisa was sitting here now, she wouldn’t say anything, wouldn’t even frown, but the disapproval would radiate from her like solar flares.
Gen orders pizzas, and we fall into small talk—or Gen, Pat, and Julie do. They cover the usual suspects: what Julie’s doing, what she wants to do, her dreams. I don’t know what to contribute. I’ve heard it all before, but as I listen now—as I truly listen—it’s all so grand and worldly; it’s every bit as intimidating as her past. We finish dinner and Gen bounces Oscar on her knee while Pat refills our wine glasses.
‘So that’s it?’ Pat asks, after Julie’s told them about studying, nursing, and the places she wants to visit. ‘Nothing else …?’
‘Pat,’ I say.
Julie stiffens, as if expecting an attack. ‘You told them?’
I shrug.
‘You don’t have to talk about it,’ Gen says.
‘Why not?’ I say. ‘We’re talking about everything else.’
‘August, come on—’
‘No,’ I say, and slam my glass down so hard some of the wine sloshes onto the tablecloth. ‘Secrets are killers. You know that, Gen.’
Gen grabs a sponge, and soaks up as much as she can of the spillage, although a pink splotch remains. She scowls but I finish what’s left of my wine.
‘Fine,’ Julie says. ‘Yes, I work in porn. Worked. It’s a cliché; the reason I got into it was because it was the only way to quickly solve some financial issues. Nothing else would do it—my job didn’t pay enough, I had nothing to sell, and banks turned me down for loans. It was meant to be a stopgap measure—my aunt’s ill, and the insurance didn’t cover all the costs for the home she’s in because she needs special care. Every cent I’ve earned has gone into that. This wasn’t a career choice; it was a job. Like the film I just worked on: it’s a job—’
‘You just worked on something?’ I ask.
‘Yes.’
‘While you were with me?’
‘These are like week-long shoots.’
‘But we were together?’
‘My last job, okay?’
‘Fine.’ I shrug. ‘Fine. What the hell!’
Julie’s chair screeches as she gets up. Jet lifts her head from where she’s sleeping in her bed.
‘I have to use the bathroom,’ Julie says.
‘Sure,’ Pat says. ‘Take the left in the hallway, first door on your right.’
‘Thanks,’ Julie says.
Pat waits until she’s gone and we hear the bathroom door close before she says, ‘She’s lovely.’
‘She is,’ I say, and can’t work out if what I hear in my voice is ambivalence or lament.
‘No, genuinely, she’s lovely.’
‘You’re not what you do, August,’ Gen says. ‘You’re who you are.’
I squint at her. ‘Does that even make sense?’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘Yeah.’
‘She is lovely,’ Gen says.
‘Better than That Cunt Lisa,’ Pat says.
‘Oh yeah,’ Gen says.
‘I saw Lisa,’ I say.
‘What?’ This from Gen and Pat simultaneously.
‘The other day, after I finished work. I walked out of the building and there she was, at the lights with Bobby.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Gen says.
‘I ended up talking to Julie.’
‘Oh, you ended up talking to Julie.’ Gen’s tone is flat, even a little bit patronising.
‘Not about Lisa, but it just didn’t seem important to talk to you after that.’
‘Doesn’t that tell you something?’ Pat says.
Both Gen and Pat wait for a response, and I clamp down on the temptation to tell them about today’s debacle at the school. Julie returns from the bathroom and pauses, her body rigid, in the doorway of the kitchen. Her eyes go back and forth, like she’s measuring the tension in the silence.
‘Everything okay?’ she says.
‘I was telling them I saw my ex,’ I say.
‘That Cunt Lisa,’ Gen and Pat say.
‘Hey, you’ve got Oscar there,’ I say.
Oscar twists his head at his name and smiles. Julie sits back down alongside me, but there’s a ravine of hardwood floor between us.
‘Oscar’s fine,’ Pat says.
‘You really want to be talking like that in front of him?’ I ask.
‘Oscar should know Lisa’s a cunt.’ Pat scoops Oscar out of Gen’s lap and holds him aloft. ‘Shouldn’t you?’ she asks and gives Oscar a little shake. ‘Shouldn’t you? You need to know she’s a cunt-cunt-cunt-cunt-cunt-cunt, don’t you?’ He laughs and she cradles him to her chest. ‘Have you heard about That Cunt Lisa?’ Pat asks Julie.
‘A little,’ Julie says as she sips from her wine.
‘So you probably got the abbreviated version.’
I slump in my chair, swill my wine down, and pour myself another.
‘The abbreviated version?’
‘You saw the kid in that picture I keep on my coffee table?’ I ask.
Julie nods, but lines begin to form from her eyes and across her forehead as she starts putting the pieces together.
‘He’s the son of the guy she cheated on me with—Alex. But I didn’t find out until last year. That’s when I found out everything. Came home from my illustrious job at the Carpet Duke to find the locks changed, my stuff packed and left on the doorstep, and Lisa telling me it was over, that she was seeing somebody else, and that Bobby was his kid.’
‘She’d planned it out, the cunt,’ Pat says. ‘Something else she gave him was the results of a paternity test to prove he wasn’t the father.’
‘So she left me with nothing but my stuff, a chunk of our savings, and … well, where do you go from there? She’d finalised in one day what it’d usually take a settlement to do, so she must’ve been planning it for a while. The benefit of cheating with a lawyer, I guess.’
Julie reaches across, takes my right hand in hers. ‘People can be shit,’ she says. ‘They can really let you down.’
‘That’s not letting you down,’ Pat says. ‘That’s fucking you over.’
I look down at Julie’s hand holding my own, see the sympathy on her face, feel the concern emanate from her and, for an instant, in my misery at how pathetic my life was, everything’s okay because I have this person who cares for me.
And then, again, like before, I think of where her hands have been and the feeling’s gone.
23
On the drive home, I sink into my seat, my head resting against the passenger door window, feeling the vibrations of the car. Julie holds the steering wheel one handed, her other arm folded against her door, like she needs to prop herself up for support.
‘Your sister’s nice,’ she says.
‘Gen’s the best. I wish I had her strength.’
‘You do okay, all things considered.’
‘People do okay, they surprise themselves at how they keep pushing forward, but everybody has a breaking point, and sometimes, all it takes is a little trigger. When I slashed my wrist, it wasn’t because of what happened with Lisa; it was a while after. I’d gotten my place, Ronnie had gotten me a job at the call centre, and I was setting my alarm that night when it hit me: this is it?’ I brush at my eyes. ‘I have this dingy little place, I’m going to a job I don’t want to do, I have nothing to come home to, nothing to look forward to, everything I thought I had and everything I wanted w
as taken away, so what was the point? Can you ever really have those things? For real? People are just houses of cards.’
‘You ever build those multi-storey houses?’
‘What?’
‘Those houses—you start with the two cards leaning vertically against one another, like a pyramid, then build the house around it. Then you’d build another storey on top of it, and you’d keep going. Did you ever build those?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And you’re always careful to choose just the right card, make sure it’s not bent too much, or too glossy. You’d even flex the cards to try straighten out any curve.’
‘Yeah, Gen and I used to do that—one time, she actually ironed the cards.’
Julie laughs. ‘Most times when you built those things, you’d only ever get three or four storeys up before screwing it up. Every now and again, though, you’d build a skyscraper.’ She smiles. ‘My mum and I once built like a thirteen-storey house—it was taller than me. Mum had to pick me up to see the top.’
‘Gen and I did something like that, too, when we were kids.’
‘You surprise yourself sometimes.’
‘Still, they always go down in the end.’
‘They do. Everything does, in the end. But you can try reach for something beyond your grasp before that happens.’
We’re passing the landmarks that tell me I’m coming home—the Kmart and the Carpet Duke. Then it’s the community theatre. My head spins. Too much to drink, again; but also a feeling of driving into something inescapable. This is what I felt that night I cut my wrist. Then I climbed into the tub, like the porcelain shell could protect me from the world. Just like after Lisa told me the truth, I know now something’s irrevocably changed.
Julie pulls up in front of my place but doesn’t kill the engine. I’m certain now if I let her go, that will be it. I’ll think about her tomorrow, but I won’t call. She’ll want to contact me, but won’t impose. Although the thought of it makes me feel petty, I realise I need to try and accept her—just as she’s accepted me with all my quirks and idiosyncrasies and history.
‘Want to come inside?’ I say.
‘You sure?’
‘Yeah.’
I don’t know what I’m hoping for—maybe it’s to see how she fits in my life now, and whether I can be with her, but within minutes we’re in my bedroom. There’s no desperation or urgency about removing our clothes, but instead a trepidation, like we’re about to unbandage a wound. Julie pulls my shirt and T-shirt over my head, kisses my chest, and sinks to her knees to unbuckle and unzip my pants, then pulls them and my underwear down to my ankles. She takes me in her mouth and her head bobs back and forth. This would be a fantasy for so many men. She’s gorgeous. She’s a celebrity of sorts. She’s a porn star. And she’s going down on me. But all I can think about are those videos and the men who ejaculated on her face. I clench my eyes shut, feel a complete lack of responsiveness.
Julie rises up and pushes me to the bed. ‘It’s all right,’ she says.
She lets her jacket fall from her arms, then undoes her jeans and pulls them down—no underwear, as usual. A couple of days ago, that was arousing; now it seems insidious.
My hands claw into the bed as she straddles me. She pulls her blouse over her head, unclasps her bra, and throws them to the floor. The streetlight showers her in a glow through the window that makes her nudity ethereal.
She kisses me and I taste the red wine on her tongue, on her mouth, but I also taste myself, that she’s gone down on me—I’m wet and sticky and obscene, although nothing has happened.
I turn her so that I’m on top, kiss her cheek, her neck, but almost leapfrog her breasts. Still, her breathing grows heavy. Is that real? I’m hardly doing enough to be arousing. Her back arches as I run kisses down her belly, into that small tuft of pubic hair. I stop when I reach her crotch, can only see the men who’ve thrust inside her, can only see their cocks glistening as they piston back and forth. It shouldn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter. Most partners have a sexual history, yet this one intimidates me, repulses me, overwhelms me.
‘I’m sorry.’
I lift myself from her and sit on the side of the bed, elbows on my thighs, head perched in my hands. She sits up, runs a hand up and down my back, but all I feel is every single other person she’s touched.
I storm from the bedroom, into the darkness of the lounge, and open the fridge door. The light illuminates the kitchen and the lounge. Bottles of beer beckon invitingly.
Julie’s footsteps follow me. I imagine I smell her—it’s not the lavender, but the body odour of men, the stench of their sweat, their lust, their disregard. She doesn’t deserve this. She doesn’t. But I can’t stop myself—it’s like Ronnie’s attitude towards porn magnified through some instinct I can’t deny.
‘I shouldn’t have,’ I say.
‘Shouldn’t have what?’ Julie asks.
‘Ronnie came over and we talked—’
Julie’s exhalation is deep and knowing.
I turn, but don’t close the fridge door. Julie stands there, arms folded under her breasts.
‘This is not going to work,’ she says. ‘It’s just who you are.’
‘What?’
‘August, I get it, you were hurt and it’s made you wary, and I understand this is a lot to accept, a lot to process, and for you it’s probably almost overpowering. You want to be somewhere you’re safe; I get that—’
‘Wait a minute!’ I say. ‘Who I am?’ I rise up. ‘Who I am? What about who you are?’
‘I wasn’t condemning you. I was just saying this is the way things are.’
‘There’s been a lot going through my head,’ I say. ‘That relationship with Lisa, I never knew if it was real.’
‘And you don’t think this is real? Why? Because of what I do? What I did.’
‘How do I compete with that?’
‘August, I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘You slept with me on our first date—’
‘Whoa, wait, wait. Wait. So what? So what? That had no correlation with what I do. You think I’m easy because of what I did? Is that it?’
‘That’s the point. I don’t know. Sex on an open road—that’s never—’
‘Couples do things together, August, and sometimes they get risky. That mightn’t be the experience you had in your previous relationship but you’re wrong to twist it into something it’s not, like it makes me decadent or easy. I did those things with you because I wanted to do those things with you.’
‘I’m … You …’ I shake my head, the way you might shake a remote control that’s not working. ‘But that’s the point. I don’t know. I don’t know where I stand. Where you stand. And me … You’ve seen how fucking inept I am. God, I’m pathetic. It’s like that word’s become synonymous with me. I think about the way I’ve been with you and I cringe.’
‘You think that stuff I did is real? It’s not love. It’s not sex. It’s not even lust. It’s mechanics. There’s no connection there. I don’t open myself up emotionally to what’s happening. I don’t connect with my partner.’
‘Or partners.’ I regret it the moment I say it, regret the way Julie flinches, the way her jaw goes hard and there’s that first gleam in her eyes that shows she’s trying to hold back tears.
‘You switch off.’ Julie’s voice is a whisper. She swallows. ‘You switch off, okay?’ she says now loudly, defiantly.
‘How the fuck do you switch off?’ I can’t stop myself pressing on.
‘I didn’t want to do this, okay? I never wanted to do this! Do you think as a little girl my aspiration was to work in porn? Do you think I do this because I’m sex crazed? That all I want to do is fuck? I told you, my stepfather molested me—for two years, he molested me!’ Julie sniffles. ‘When I turned fifteen, that night, that fucking night, he’d gotten drunk as usual and he fucked me. By that time, I’d grown dead to this happening. I couldn’t work out how the w
orld could kill my mother and leave me in the hands of this diabolical cunt! So I closed down. That’s what it comes down to. You switch off and wait for it to finish. But, no, not this night, this night he brings in his two sons, and he tells them, “Here, have a go at her.” Those were his exact words: “Here, have a go at her.” I will remember them to my dying day.’ Tears trickle down Julie’s face, but her voice is hard. ‘After they were gone, I decided that was it. I packed one bag, and hitchhiked out to my Aunt Zoe’s and begged her to take me in—she’s never been a strong woman, and her pension barely supported her. I went to school, came home, worked where I could find jobs, tried to finally make something for myself, but then Aunt Zoe had her stroke and I couldn’t keep up. That’s all it came down to—I couldn’t keep up. I tried. I tried everything. So this is what I did. After years of being used as a sex object, I used sex to get me out of trouble because it meant nothing to me. That’s what my stepdad did for me. I did it and even as I did it, I tried to retain some sense of integrity, but you don’t always have a choice. Sometimes you have to do what you don’t want to do to survive. You think I wanted to fuck multiple guys and get treated like shit throughout? You think I wanted to blow a room full of men? Or have sex with women? If there were any other choice I would’ve taken it, but I had no choice. I did what I had to do to keep me and Aunt Zoe alive.’ She steps up to me, grabs my right wrist, and holds it aloft so the scar gleams between us. ‘You think I couldn’t have done this?’ She throws my hand down. ‘I had Aunt Zoe counting on me, and I couldn’t abandon her after she’d taken me in. She doesn’t even know I did this.’
She glowers at me. I don’t know what she wants—my understanding, my forgiveness, or my apology. It doesn’t matter, because she lowers her head. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,’ she says. ‘But I hoped we could work through it. I’m not going to apologise for who I am. This is me. I hate what I’ve done, what I had to do! It shreds me up inside when I think about it. I’m not perfect, but at heart I’m a good person. People aren’t perfect. Most people are fucked up. Life is a journey to un-fuck yourself. If you want to be with somebody, you accept them for who they are. That’s what it comes down to. But I guess things are the way they are.’ She takes a deep breath, and now her voice is quiet, broken, and almost unintelligible—she sounds, I imagine, like the young girl who lost her mother. ‘I wouldn’t hurt you, like the world did me.’