by John King
‘Did you use a rubber with all those three birds?’ Mango asked Carter.
‘Course I did. Well, I did with the first one, but I was a bit pissed last night and let it go. I’m not bothered though. Wouldn’t want to do it too often but she seemed clean enough, not some smelly hippy or scrubbed trendy who specialises in queers. Mind you, I didn’t bother with that woman I was delivering to, but she was married so she must be safe enough.’
‘What about when a bird gives you a blow job?’ Mango asked, worried. ‘Do you use one then as well?’
‘Leave it out. What are you going to catch that way?’
Mango felt relieved.
‘You should do,’ Balti said, leaning forward. ‘I read that if a woman’s got a cut in her mouth then AIDS can spread through the end of your cock. That’s the weak spot.’
‘They’re not going to get stuck into a lump of stinking rubber, are they?’ Carter laughed. ‘It’s all to do with blood and that. I mean, it might be possible to get it from a cut like you said, but the chances are small.’
‘It would be a fucking horrible way to die,’ Balti muttered from the back, his eyes closed and head leant back. ‘Getting HIV or AIDS, whichever one it is that comes first. Withering away like a skeleton. I feel sorry for people forced to die like that. Poor bastards. No-one deserves that.’
‘You could die of anything though, couldn’t you,’ Carter said. ‘As long as you’re careful you’re alright. I mean, you can’t stop having sex just because it might kill you. How would the human race continue? It would be a bit boring as well.’
‘It’s a time bomb waiting to go off,’ Balti said. ‘It’s blokes like us who are next on the list.’
He sounded like something from a documentary. Mango checked the mirror, Carter turned round and Harry moved back in the seat and looked sideways. Balti just sat there with his eyes shut.
‘You miserable cunt,’ Carter accused, not appreciating the tone. He didn’t like thinking about AIDS too much because he’d been through a fair number of birds over the years, and if the propaganda was true, that it wasn’t just queers and junkies condemned to a miserable death, then by rights he should be shitting it. But it wasn’t in his nature to think like that. You had to live right now. Forget the past and not worry about the future.
‘You could die under a bus tomorrow, or that lorry over there could skid and wipe us all out. How many people die of cancer, heart attacks, blood clots? It’s only because it’s sex that they go on about it. Fucking hell, lads, live and enjoy it while you can. At least if you die on the job then you’ve gone out with a bit of style. I mean look at that bird over there. You’re not telling me you wouldn’t risk death for a poke at that.’
The other three looked at a tall, thin blonde, moving at the same speed as the traffic. Carter rolled down the window and hung his head out, trying to attract her attention. She smiled his way and went into a shop.
‘I was thinking,’ Harry said, once they’d got past the lights and were moving again. ‘Maybe we should get Balti to write a report, like Taylor did for football. He could look at the safety aspects of the game and make certain recommendations.’
He saw Mango’s eyes move in the mirror and a smile on the side of Carter’s face.
‘It would be for the good of everyone involved in the game. Look at Carter. He picks up some bird in Blues, goes home with her and gives her a good seeing to, but the main problem is that he’s a bit casual about the whole thing and doesn’t take any precautions. He’s putting himself at risk, not to mention the woman concerned. Not that he’s carrying any tropical diseases or anything like that, but he’s taking a bit of a chance. Now say the Balti Report insisted that points couldn’t be registered unless the person concerned had used a rubber. Carter would be about to get stuck in when suddenly he’d realise he was going to lose out in the league and make the effort, tell the woman to hang on a second, walk to the other side of the room, go through his clothes till he finds the custom-made, pigmy-size condoms, coated of course, chinky spare-ribbed efforts, then slips one on his knob and returns to the business in hand. That way he would be looking after himself and doing his bit for the human race at the same time.’
‘Makes sense,’ Balti said, ‘but I don’t see why I should have to write the report. Let Will do it. He’s the sensible one. He’d enjoy doing it as well. I’m shit at writing.’
‘You could limit the kind of birds as well,’ Mango said. ‘No junkies or those ones who go with dodgy blokes. No slags either.’
‘Hold on, you were the one who wanted points for shafting prossies the other day,’ Carter said. ‘That’s interfering with freedom of choice. I mean, I can see the point of rubbers and all that, maybe even avoiding junkies, that’s common sense, and I mean, anyway, they’re not going to be walking around with a sign round their necks, but just because a girl puts it about shouldn’t be enough to cancel the points.’
‘You’re only worried because it would put you bottom of the league,’ Mango said, turning off the Fulham Palace Road.
‘Fuck off. You’re slagging off some dirty old tart for shafting anything that moves just because she’s a woman. That’s sexist. I fucking hate sexism.’
The others laughed.
‘Dear oh dear,’ he said. ‘Look at the tits on that.’
Mango parked and waited for the others to get out. He had a quick look at the passenger seat. He was thinking about the stain and whether to clean it himself or get it done professionally. All that talk about death and disease had put him off the idea of an escort girl, though to be honest he didn’t have the nerve to get someone round the flat. He was tired. It was all catching up with him and he wouldn’t need his prescription. The thought of curling up in bed like a kid, getting into the foetal position again with the doors locked and everything shut out, that’s what he fancied more than anything.
‘Come down The White Hart after the game,’ Carter said, ‘and you can give us a lift back. You can doss round my place tonight if you’re coming down The Unity. We’ll be in there till seven or thereabouts.’
Mango went indoors and Carter kicked a puddle of water at Harry who told him he was a fucking donut and tried to grab him, but the sex machine was too fast and ran ten yards down the street, then kept his distance till he reckoned Harry had forgotten about the wet jeans he was wearing. They turned towards the ground and a pre-match pint, building up for the kick-off.
BLACK VINYL
There was a break between bands and the DJ was busy mixing sound effects. Will had ordered two pints of snakebite and was weaving his way through the crowd towards Karen. There was a thin film of sweat covering her face and arms, red cardigan wrapped around her waist, black mascara very slightly smudged. The snakebite had been her idea. Will hadn’t had the potent mix for years. A lot of pubs had stopped serving it, though Club Verbal didn’t seem too bothered by the bitter-cider potential for aggravation. But it was a peaceful, largely anarchist gathering. He handed Karen a plastic pint and sat down next to her on the stairs, returning to their conversation as she folded the copy of Two Sevens she had been reading.
‘My mum died three years ago today,’ Karen said, Will noticing the mist in her eyes. ‘She had a hard life, you know. All women her generation had hard lives. They say it’s different now, and I suppose it is in some ways, but it’s still a world built by men for men. My mum had to graft almost till the moment she died. She had a faith, though, that never left her. She was raised a Catholic. Believed in God and heaven and a better life in the ever-after, bearing everything as though it was her fate. Like an all-loving God would invent something as wicked as cancer.’
Will nodded. He couldn’t disagree, though he didn’t go along with the line that every male in the country had an easy ride. He thought class was more important, sexism one more element in a strategy of divide and rule. But he didn’t want to argue. Will loved women. Maybe he even loved Karen.
‘You take a man and if he has sex with lots
of different women he’s admired, but you catch a woman doing the same thing and she’s a slag. Where’s the sense in that? Why shouldn’t a woman be able to go off and have sex with whoever she wants, when she wants?’
Will agreed. It was nonsense, but try as he did there was still something there in his head. He’d heard that it was to do with the male’s in-built biological function, the need to keep his genes flowing through the generations. It was like a computer chip. A basic battle for survival. Genetic programming buried so deep in the circuits that any amount of reasoning and self-disgust would never be able to remove it entirely. Maybe there was truth in the theory. Will didn’t know. But it was something worth considering. A woman could always be sure the kid in her belly was her own, but what guarantee did a man have? He vaguely remembered publicity surrounding the marriage of the century between Prince Charles and Lady Di, rumours of royal checks on the future princess’s virginity. In the bad old days that kind of thing had been up front. Kings had their wives-to-be examined because they didn’t want any doubts about parentage when it came to succession to the throne, no tainting of the divine DNA. He couldn’t really believe that kind of stuff still went on though.
There had to be some kind of logic behind jealousy. Either that or men really were chauvinistic slavers. He was glad Karen didn’t hear the way his mates spoke about women, birds, slappers, whores, tarts, grinders, slags, whatever. He tried to imagine her sitting in on a session with Carter and the rest of the Sex Division crew. At least they’d tone it down a bit if she was around. It was all about respect. She would have to put a bug somewhere, in the bottom of Carter’s pint maybe, and record everything without moral constraints. Karen was right. She was beautiful as well.
‘Don’t get me wrong,’ Karen smiled, the odd crack splitting her face, something Will was already used to and which seemed to fit her personality, a lop-sided grin that cut through her right cheek. ‘I’m not into sex with strangers like some people. I mean, what’s the point of having sex with someone you don’t know when you’re drunk or stoned or whatever drug’s flavour of the moment, because it’s not going to be much good, is it? I mean, this friend of mine, Leoni, she goes through two or three blokes a week, but she never gets anything out of it except a hangover and when she’s careless too often a visit to the STD clinic.
‘I went down the hospital with her once and the unit was just a mobile home on the edge of the hospital grounds, like something off a rundown caravan site. It put it all into place. It was raining and we got soaked, and the nurse was a right old hag, and I was just thinking all the time what a waste of something that should be full of feeling. Even so, there shouldn’t be any judgement, should there? We should all have the freedom of choice. There shouldn’t be all these religious relics weighing people down, covering up the truth. We’ll all be dead one day, whether it’s from cervical cancer or old age.’
Will nodded and said nothing. He had never had a venereal infection, at least not as far as he knew, but Carter had been down the STD a few times. He was a regular customer in fact. He should get himself a season ticket. Then there was that time Balti shagged some bird at a party, his first bit of sex in seven or so months, and it was just his luck that he picked up a dose. It was the lack of alcohol that almost killed him. Leoni sounded like a bit of a raver. Carter’s long-lost cousin following the family trait, spreading peace and love and one-on-one masturbation techniques through the community. If Will was feeling generous he’d fix them up and let them bang each other into the next century, but he wanted to keep Karen separate from his mates. The drink was obviously going to her head a bit, because she kept talking without waiting for a response, as though he wasn’t really there.
‘I’d rather make love with a man. One day I suppose I’ll find someone who’s the other side of the same coin and we’ll live happy ever after in our own little flat, and when we’re together there’ll be nothing like it in the world. It’s the difference between making love and having sex. I suppose it sounds old-fashioned to you, but that’s the way I look at things. You get more out of something if you build up to it and have some emotion. I mean, we’re not machines are we, and we’re not animals just interested in reproduction.’
It was strange, but all this talk about love and romance and emotions wasn’t turning Will off. It didn’t even sound that dated. If anything it was drawing him in. It was turning into a bit of a lecture but he stayed with her as she got scientific. He wondered what exactly progestogen and oestrogen did to a woman. Thrombosis was something to do with blood clots, but he didn’t see how that connected with babies. She was ahead of him. He watched Karen’s mouth move and thought how feminine she was, yet she had a punk look about her and was no damsel in distress, no frail caricature in a frilly dress picking wildflowers on her way to church. She must’ve thought things through a bit further than the usual kneejerk reaction. He felt his eyes drift down to her T-shirt and focus on her breasts, then down to her crutch. He tried to imagine what she would look like naked, and whether he would ever see her in that state. Maybe tonight would be the time, but he doubted it somehow. He didn’t mind. It was nice to keep the thing going.
‘What’s old-fashioned anyway?’ she asked, leaning her head back. ‘Things are never how they appear. What’s conservative and what’s liberal? You look at the people here, and you could say that a good number of them are liberal in their outlook, whatever liberal is supposed to mean, but when it comes to an argument their views might be just as entrenched as those stuck-up bastards passing laws for themselves in Parliament. How many of the so-called alternative preach free sex and everything and dismiss love and faithfulness as conservative values? They wouldn’t be able to even talk about the subject without sinking into worn-out rhetoric. Their own locked-in approach makes them the real conservatives. It’s just another version of materialism. Communist or fascist, what’s the difference. Where’s the soul?’
Will nodded his head. He thought he understood what she meant. He was beginning to feel like a puppet having his strings pulled in time to Karen’s words. He wondered where it was leading. It was a line of argument he didn’t mind hearing because it added to her attraction, gave her strength of personality and independence, but he could guess the reaction of the rest of the lads. Carter would shake his head listening to such blasphemy and piss off, not bothering to waste precious seconds on a dead end, back on the trail of a quick knee-trembler. Balti and Harry would go along with a bit of the chat, liking the virginal princess angle, which would probably be the way they’d misinterpret Karen, a bit of a novelty, before getting bored with it all, just wanting the quick presentation and an instant succumbing to the fine love-making skills of the beer-bellied elite, or preferably a visit to Balti Heaven. Will didn’t have a clue what Mango would think. He’d either walk away in disgust or set the woman up as a piece of prized property worth pursuing purely for the pleasure he’d get from charming his way past her resistance. Maybe he’d even fall in love with the imagery.
‘This stuff makes my head go funny,’ Karen said, leaning into Will. ‘I haven’t had snakebite for a while. Last time I drank five pints and threw up in the sink at home. That was soon after my mum died and I haven’t had it since.’
The lights went down and the band came on, and a mixture of punk and rap kept them going for the next hour. They didn’t wait around for the encore, hurrying to Brixton tube to catch a train to Victoria. The buildings were rundown and dark, the pubs kicking out, police vans patrolling the back streets. The wind screamed as it blew over dustbins and scattered flyers. Further along and a young raggamuffin had been stopped by a patrol car. Will was glad he wasn’t black. The poor bastards didn’t have a chance. Then they were in the sharp light of Brixton station past the Nation of Islam boys preaching fundamentalism and the avoidance of chemical distraction. The escalators dazzled under their feet, churning up warm snakebite, running for a train about to depart, the carriage almost full with people from the Academy. The blend
of sweat, drink and happy faces made it a quick roll to Victoria where they had to wait ten minutes. There was more room and a different mix of office workers on the train, pissed and loud. Once in Hammersmith they took a bus to Karen’s flat. Will followed her up the stairs. She fumbled with the key and then they were inside.
‘What do you do for a job?’ Karen asked, once she’d made two cups of tea and was sitting on the sagging couch next to Will.
He wanted to pull her forward, but had to be careful, all that talk about making love instead of having sex. It made sense right enough, but it also made him hesitant. That’s probably what it had been like in the old days in high society. The gentleman had to go through the routine and get things just right for the lady. They must’ve spent a lot of time making themselves blind; morning, noon and night. At least that’s how period dramas presented life. Will couldn’t stop his eyes straying and felt guilty because he was sure Karen could read his mind. She was peering into the place where his soul should be, deciding whether his intentions were honourable, reading the cartoon bubble above his head, words etched in scratch black ink. He looked away and her words connected.
‘I run a shop, halfway between junk and antiques. I make a living and do my own hours. You soon know what to buy and what to ignore. Before that I worked for a cab firm. I saved up enough to buy some secondhand gear, rent premises, and I haven’t really looked back. I’m my own boss, though it hurts when the tax bill comes round. I do the odd market. It’s a good life. I’ve been lucky. What about you?’
‘I work in the housing department at the council dealing with benefits. I get to help people at least.’
Will stood up and went over to the singles stacked next to the two long rows of albums he’d examined on his first visit. Karen had a good five hundred or so seven-inches. He sat down and pulled a few out at random. First was Gary Gilmore’s Eyes by The Adverts. Next Penetration’s Don’t Dictate. He remembered seeing both bands when he was a kid. Gaye Advert speeding through Bored Teenagers. Pauline Murray fronting Penetration at the Roundhouse. Female vocals fitted punk to perfection. That had been a night out that one. He’d gone along with Mango’s brother Pete, lying about his age to get in, taller than his mates then. Black Slate and Fusion had opened the bill and the place had been stacked with skinheads all going on about the forthcoming Slade reunion gig, the original skinhead band. Sham’s barmy army was definitely mental. It had taken Pete twenty minutes to work his way through the shaven heads five deep at the bar.