Friction

by Joe Stretch

The machine calmly and carelessly fucks off, collapsing gently on to the floor. It won’t be returning, it won’t be speaking again. Steve turns again to Carly, she looks as if she’s lost consciousness. Poor girl. She’s lost so much blood, the bed seems as if it’s covered in a plush velvet tablecloth. Her eyes open, like nuts cracking, they flicker in the direction of Steve, her lover: ‘Steve . . . there are things I like about you . . . ouch . . . of course there are.’

  Steve looks at his lover with total disgust. Machine, he thinks, you shagged that bastard machine.

  ‘I thought I could change the world once, you know?’ he says, standing, groping self-consciously at his acutely fashionable shirt. ‘I thought I could pick holes in its policies, the way it tricks and trades.’ Steve’s voice is scarcely audible. He wills tears to his eyes, but he’s as dry as a bone.

  He walks to the doorway and is greeted gloomily by the man with black beady eyes. Che Guevara. Beady eyes tells Steve that the ambulance has arrived. The living room is illuminated by paramedics, a well-washed man and a well-washed woman in green outfits. Steve beckons them into the bedroom, the paramedic with the thin hair and the creased face addresses Steve, asking, ‘Thank you, sir. Are you the boyfriend?’

  In the interests of consistent human behaviour and because he understands English, Steve says, ‘Yes.’ Then watches as the paramedic rushes to Carly’s aid.

  ‘Hello, Carly, my name’s Jonathan, I’m a paramedic. We’re gonna get you in the ambulance as quickly as we can, OK? Jesus, what happened here, mate?’ The paramedic turns to Steve, noticing the extent of Carly’s injuries.

  Steve shrugs and expels a breath of air: ‘She was having sex with a machine and they fell into my glass coffee table. It broke. It’s really ruined.’

  Carly’s shredded body is wrapped in plastic and lifted on to a stretcher. Steve gathers some of Carly’s clothes and takes them out to the ambulance. On the way back, he passes Carly and the paramedics on the stairs. He stands and watches as she’s carried to the rear of the vehicle and put into place. Carly, so beautiful and strong, even when she’s covered in cuts and blood. Oh Carly, Steve runs out to the ambulance. Carly, Carly, my love.

  ‘Will she be OK, mate?’ he says, tugging at the green uniform of the paramedic.

  ‘She’ll be fine. Are you coming, mate?’ A door slams.

  ‘No, I’ll follow in the car. It’s an Audi TT. Carly’s my girlfriend. She’s fit, isn’t she?’

  The paramedic places a hand on Steve’s shoulder and looks seriously at his face: ‘Yes, mate, she’s fucking fit.’

  Steve opens the ambulance door and ventures in, crouching over Carly’s beautiful face. He runs his hands through her matted hair. He looks at her eyes in such a way as to suggest that, in this instance, forgiveness is possible without recourse to anal sex. It’s romance, it has to be. After all, she only shagged a machine, it’s an unfortunate accident, that’s all. He leans in and kisses a bloodless portion of her forehead. The seal of her mouth breaks, she speaks.

  ‘Steve?’

  ‘Yes, my love?’

  ‘Keep the machine safe.’

  ‘What? But . . .’

  ‘I mean it, Steve. Keep the machine safe. Clean it.’

  ‘What?’

  Carly’s thin eyes, shot and crisp with blood, spear Steve with a stare. Slowly and carefully she says, ‘It is incredible. So please, clean it and keep it safe.’

  Steve edges out of the ambulance, a door slams, within seconds his brain is floating in the sound of sirens. In his mouth there are sirens, in his eyes, too. The evening falls down to earth. A bad light. Silent cars smudge the streets. Steve climbs the stairs, enters his flat and closes what remains of his door. She chose this device over me, he thinks, sitting on the bed, prodding the excellent Sex Machine with an outstretched toe.

  21

  Another Tremendous Moment in Time

  THERE IS A click, then there is a flame, it is bright against the night. Sheltering it carefully, Justin guides the lighter towards Rebecca’s mouth and the cigarette is lit. He sees to his own, inhales, exhales, and laughs.

  The motorway lay-by is bathed in heavy orange light. Cars go by at speed, lorries too, like shots from a futuristic firearm. Colours painted on black, quick streaks of light. Rebecca leans on the bonnet of the car, seemingly indifferent to her hair, which is airborne and circling her scalp, dancing wildly with the wind. It’s as if neither of them is quite enough, neither is able to be larger than their surroundings. Neither can outdo the atmospheres and the subtle boredoms with exceptional living. Having begun an experiment and having taken risks, Rebecca and Justin reacquaint themselves with a sinking sensation. Like weak children in quicksand. Sinking. They experience a deepening despair. Shit, they think, once again we’re dwarfed.

  Justin edges towards the road and blows smoke at the cars and their loud sounds. You only have to stand by a motorway to realise how precarious our situation is, how easily we are fooled and what tightropes we walk.

  ‘It was another failure, wasn’t it, my love?’

  A few shards of Justin’s question are blown into Rebecca’s ears, just enough. There is a sense. She understands.

  ‘Yes. It was another failure,’ she shouts back. Shit. Rebecca turns and scrapes the soles of her shoes through the grit of the hard shoulder, irritated that she’s having to shout to make herself heard. On top of everything else that has disappointed and malfunctioned, she is forced to shout in order to be heard. Sensing irritation, Justin turns from the road to find Rebecca strutting and angry by the rear spoiler. He traps her against the cold car. The traffic rages at superhuman speeds. Life is cinema.

  ‘I suppose we should try something different, think more carefully and be more discerning about who we deal with,’ says Justin, a hand on each of Rebecca’s shoulders.

  ‘But it has to be fun, Justin, it must be enjoyable, in some ways at least. What happened tonight felt like fucking rape. Bill Clinton was trying to get up my arse and Thatcher was really chewing at my tits. It felt like fucking rape.’

  ‘I know, I know.’

  ‘Gandhi refused to wear a fucking condom.’

  It is unheard of for Justin and Rebecca to kiss, except as part of the experiment, when they’re working and researching. But they kiss now. Justin’s right hand journeys from her fringe over her head and down her back to where her hair stops. He leans in and so does she. Now they’re kissing by the motorway with gentle, dry lips. Rebecca melts a hand into Justin’s chest, another reaches up and kneads his cheek, his neck, his hair. There is a growing warmth, a defeating of the wind and the cold air.

  ‘So how did it feel?’ asks Justin, pulling away and framing Rebecca’s face like a rather twee painting; an all too realistic portrait of a breaking youth. ‘So how did what feel?’ Rebecca replies, disappointed that the kiss is already ended.

  ‘When you thought you were being raped, was it good? Is it an answer?’

  ‘Oh, Jus, you don’t really believe that we’re saving the world, do you?’

  ‘Yes, I do. I want to know if it felt good. If it did, then we could orchestrate a rape, somehow I’m sure. How did it feel, Rebecca? Because if you want we could—’

  ‘No good, Justin,’ she interrupts. ‘It felt no good.’

  Rebecca escapes under Justin’s arm and makes for the door of the car. A light rain begins to fall, introducing new sounds to the atmosphere; slimmer sounds. A thin hissing that slides under the clatters of the traffic.

  ‘You are a beautiful and wonderful girl, Rebecca. I’m glad that I met you,’ Justin shouts through the weather. A handful of seconds fall silently to the ground.

  ‘I don’t want a boyfriend.’

  ‘I don’t want a girlfriend.’

  ‘We should get back on the motorway.’

  They spent the evening at an event called ‘Fuck Power’ hosted by an eccentric group of people from Cheshire. ‘Fuck Power’ invites people to come along and partake in protracted orgies consisting o
f people dressed up as major political figures of the past and present. It’s billed as a way of venting frustration, political as well as sexual, getting your own back. But it turned out to be about a dozen people, all in possession of a dense desire for aggressive sex.

  Thatcher, Clinton and Gandhi were there. Tony Blair, of course. Nelson Mandela, Churchill, the Queen, Nixon, Princess Diana, Lenin. Bushes Snr and Jnr (they 69ed, in fact). But the masks were poor and the likenesses implausible. Motivation was also lacking. Mandela’s mask came off at one stage, mid-screw, and he didn’t even bother to put it back on. He just kept hammering away at the Queen. He wasn’t even black.

  Rebecca and Justin were not required to dress up. They played themselves, as usual. They were simply meant to take the opportunity to have sex with world leaders, to fuck power. Jesus, the whole situation was dreadful. I suppose the dominating desires of the politicians should have been expected. It was unlikely that Blair was ever going to be submissive. He was always going to bend Rebecca over, was always going to hold her in place while Thatcher probed.

  So the experience was a failure. No answers. Still no closer to sexual happiness and self-knowing. The problem with most of these fetish groups is that the participants rarely possess much in the way of taste. They rarely live in exquisitely lit apartments or grand mansions. It’s all very well being granted the opportunity of sex with Richard Nixon, but if you have to wait in a narrow, brightly lit corridor watching Gandhi wank himself hard beforehand, then it hardly seems worth it. Fuck Power took place in an atrociously furnished bungalow in Chapel-en-le-Frith. Lenin and Nixon discussed the hazards of applying creosote to their rotting garden fences. Churchill offered Bombay mix and miniature gherkins to those about to fuck. Where do all the brilliant moments occur? Please, where?

  There is hope on the horizon, however; a gloriously smudged sun full of purples, yellows and blues. The hope relates to Justin’s firm belief that he can meet, seduce and shag a celebrity. Rebecca is coming round to the idea, too. She’s beginning to realise what an enormous goal it is. What the possibilities and the potential findings might be. Incredible. Shagging a celebrity is like shagging a unicorn, or shagging Helen of Troy or Zeus. It’s like shagging the Virgin Mary, Joseph, Jesus, God. It would be glorious, a biblical gang-bang.

  Rebecca and Justin don’t exchange words on the way home. The heater is on full; it’s incredibly stuffy. They arrive back at Rebecca’s flat at about eleven thirty. As they approach the front door, the sound of a warm and gentle sobbing can be heard, like a mouse singing softly. They follow the sound. It’s coming from a pile of clothes and body that has been deposited on the doorstep of Rebecca’s flat. The pile of clothes and body is drenched in rain and flinches intermittently.

  ‘Who the fuck is this?’ asks Justin, delivering a light kick to the wet bundle.

  ‘It’s Johnny, Justin, this is Johnny,’ says Rebecca.

  Yes, it is Johnny, and he’s hammered. He rolls clumsily on to his back and stares up at Justin, like an unarmed character in a film preparing to be riddled with point-blank bullets. His face is wet and red, as if he’s not made of skin and bone but of a more malleable solution. Silicone or blubber, milky porridge. His eyes are dots, drawn quickly with a Biro.

  ‘Hell . . . o.’ Johnny’s Biro eyes disappear, recoiling swiftly into the mush of his face.

  ‘He’s drunk, let’s get him inside.’

  Johnny doesn’t notice being picked up. He’s not aware of being lifted in Justin’s arms and carried to the living room. He feels the warmth of the house, the gold light, the soft furnishings, the distant sound of Rebecca’s deep, concerned voice. But his thoughts are of childhood games: hide and seek, ping pong, tig.

  ‘Nice house,’ slurs Johnny, as crystals of yellow and red rotate before his eyes. He’s fucked. He spent the afternoon sipping lager in his bedroom, spent the evening sipping vodka in numerous hideous bars.

  ‘Where’s the experiment? Where is the sex?’ he demands, because he wants to have sex and wants to know about the experiment. He is a small piece of paper, dropped from a balcony on a windless day. He flutters and turns like a quickly winking eye, slowly making his way down through stationary air. Then he lands. Content. Then he is violently sick all over his chest.

  ‘Fuck this, Rebecca. I’m not cleaning him up. I’m going to make a call.’

  Justin watches Rebecca as she begins to scrape and scoop at the sick on Johnny’s jacket. He runs his hands through his hair and suddenly wishes it was shaved again. Can you imagine a simple life? he asks himself. Basic actions. Solid sex. Interesting thoughts. Energy. What a joke. He watches as Johnny embarks on an untimely squirm; vomit runs on to the upholstery, eager to stain.

  In the hall, Justin picks up the telephone and punches in a number. In the living room, Rebecca and Johnny play about with sick, half listening to half a conversation.

  ‘Hello? . . . All right, mate, you know that film premiere you’re working on? . . . No, no, it’s cool. I’m not bothered about the film, but who’s going to be at the after party? . . . Which celebrities? Anyone famous? . . . Really? . . . Fuck . . . You’ve gotta get me some tickets, I may need as many as six . . .’

  Johnny’s clothes are almost clean. What little vomit remains will grow crusty overnight and be brushed off in the morning. Rebecca removes his jacket. His mustard polo shirt is full of rainwater and must be removed as well.

  ‘Johnny, stand up, I need to get you out of your clothes,’ she says, tugging at his top.

  ‘Oh, finally, Rebecca . . . finally . . . it’s happiness, isn’t it?’

  ‘No, no, Johnny, it’s just that you’ll catch cold.’

  ‘Oh, finally . . . happiness and Rebecca.’

  Rebecca shrugs, her eyeballs do a loop-the-loop. She could swear that for a second she was staring through the darkness of her skull at her own brain, and that it looked rather fed up. She pulls Johnny’s shirt off his back and undoes his belt with a click of her fingers. A sharp pull and his trousers are removed too. She’s about to place the garments on the radiator when she notices the scent of urine and semen crawling like an exotic insect from Johnny’s underpants. Her nostrils flare.

  ‘Jesus, Johnny. You stink.’

  ‘Just be gentle with me, Rebecca, go slow, please go slow.’

  This is another tremendous moment in time. Johnny stands in the centre of the room, swaying as if under the influence of a mysterious indoor wind. Wearing only his boxer shorts, the ungodly nature of his body is revealed in all its spotted, stooping glory. His endless legs, crooked and splattered in entirely random hedges of horrible black hair. His chest is concaved like a half-dug swimming pool, abandoned due to sudden and shocking bankruptcy. His poor feet. His thin arms. His regrettable face.

  Justin appears in the doorway. ‘What are you doing, Rebecca?’ he asks.

  ‘We’re going to make love, you stupid Justin,’ says Johnny, bending at the knees and waving a poorly clenched fist at Justin. ‘We shall make true love . . . Rebecca and I . . . true love!’

  Justin ignores Johnny completely and looks at Rebecca. ‘Are you going to shag Johnny, Rebecca?’ he asks.

  ‘No, I am not,’ shouts Rebecca. ‘I’m trying to dry his clothes.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes,’ she says, holding up the wet bundle.

  ‘Then why has he got an erection?’

  ‘He hasn’t.’

  ‘He has,’ says Justin, pointing at Johnny, ‘look!’

  Rebecca follows Justin’s finger to the jumbled contents of Johnny’s underpants which have indeed stiffened. ‘Oh, yeh, so he has.’

  Tears leak from Johnny’s eyes. His entire face is waterlogged, fit to burst. His cock tents his kecks, points at thin air. A melancholy erection, dwarfed by the room and the moment. The three people stand in silence as the world composes itself. Time, once again, spares the blushes of humanity by passing. Johnny speaks.

  ‘Who was it that called life life? And couldn’t they h
ave called it something else, like shit?’

  Rebecca places a hand on Johnny’s mossy back. Poor Johnny. She guides him upstairs to bed and tucks him in carefully, brushing the last dried-up molecules of sick from his lips and his cheek. The lids of his eyes droop slowly, like blankets being draped over particularly unsightly corpses. Johnny fumbles a glimpse of Rebecca in her underwear before sleep takes hold irresistibly, like the ending of some world.

  Rebecca secretly squirts Johnny’s groin and chest with perfume. There is a brief battle between the scent of pissy semen and the scent of roses. The scent of roses wins, assisted by unknown chemical compounds invented to make women smell more like women.

  Rebecca lies beside Johnny, wide awake, listening to the noises of Justin downstairs; the dull thumps and the clicks. She remembers the motorway lay-by and how he’d called her beautiful and wonderful. But where do words come from? And how much do people truly care for their meanings? We must take care of the meanings of words, thinks Rebecca, control them if we can. Beautiful and wonderful. Personality. Sexuality. Justin. Perhaps he is honest, his frank ambition to explore the mythology of sex, perhaps this is what honesty looks like. But what of love?

  She stares straight up at the ceiling. She imagines the night sky filled entirely with stars, no darkness whatsoever, just millions and millions of distant suns shining next to one another. Would such a situation fill the world with romance? Would we all give in to the apparent beauty of the blinding natural light, and somehow desire to love? No, she concludes with a quick blink of her eyes, we’d probably continue to fight. I think, she thinks, that Justin is beautiful and wonderful.

  Time elapses quietly out of respect for those who wish to sleep. It’s approaching one o’clock when Justin slinks into the bedroom and begins to remove his clothes. He is close to being a completely silent human. There’s just the sound of the mattress groaning as Justin gets into bed beside Johnny. Who gurgles distantly. Then there is the sound of whispering, as hushed electrical currents travel between the boy and the girl.