Meatspace

by Nikesh Shukla

  AZIZWILLKILLYOU: @Gogo Girl 322: patience my Padawan apprentice

  GerryMander: Fuck you, this is bullshit. I was with you till that superhero bullshit.

  GustaveGrime: Exactly. It’s just all bullshit. No way this happened. This guy is a fraud.

  GerryMander: Why are we reading this?

  GustaveGrime: I’m keeping a Tumblr documenting the death of the internet. And this is one of my case studies. Bullshit people write to make their lives sound better. Fake blogs. Constantly updating people on a life you don’t lead. The pointlessness of our existence. Fucking hell, Aziz should kill himself.

  AZIZWILLKILLYOU: Yo, Gustave, why don’t you go troll someone else. You know why? I WILL KILL YOU.

  GustaveGrime: If this is an actual threat, I am reporting you to the authorities. Remember: I am a lawyer.

  GerryMander: Chill Gustave, it’s not that bad.

  AZIZWILLKILLYOU: All I know is, you love me too much to ever just let me get on with it. Why don’t you fuck off? You don’t have to read it.

  GustaveGrime: But I do, mate. This is exactly the opposite of why the internet was invented. You are ruining our world. One blog at a time. There’s Wikileaks. There’s Guardian Comment Is Free. There’s NetMums. Then there’s you. Right at the bottom of the pile, trying to get everyone’s attention with your bullshit. If the world was just, I’d have this blog shut down in a second and you reported to the European Court of Human Rights for crimes against art.

  AZIZWILLKILLYOU: aaaaaaand … blocked.

  df325: I love the suspense. When’s the next one up?

  History:

  Kitab Balasubramanyam penis – Twitter

  Kitab Balasubramanyam cock – Google

  Kitab Balasubramanyam nude – Twitter

  I’m having breakfast with Hayley the next day when I start wondering why she’d texted me late last night to request a meet-up over bacon and eggs and freshly cooked hash browns in my local organic café.

  Maybe she thinks she’s seen my penis. Surely, otherwise she’d never want to hang out. Maybe she saw something she liked. In someone else’s penis. Because she’d never just ask me out just to ask me out, would she?

  We’ve only ever seen each other at events. We’re each other’s go-to emotional crutch when the room is filled with publishing types and ‘aspiring’ writers.

  ‘I hate other writers,’ she’d told me once. ‘All they want to do is talk about writing.’

  We’d been having a discussion about what roles we would take in the zombie apocalypse. I had decided that based on my skill set, I would be in Comms, tweeting zombie locations, but in reality, in a dystopian at-war society, we would need soldiers more. ‘I’d have to gun up and hit the front line, right?’

  ‘See? That’s why I love you, Kit,’ she’d said. ‘Writers are desperate to debate the death of the novel and you’re the only one brave enough to acknowledge the threat of zombie apocalypse.’

  It had been one of those moments where we could have kissed. I was holding my phone the entire conversation, and a picture of Rach was my background.

  My phone stays in my pocket this time. I’m so nervous about breakfast I don’t dare bring it out. I want to plug in. But I can’t. This is the first time we’ve been alone together. It feels more intense than usual. I have to work hard to be like I usually am with her when there’s other people around to be a counterpoint to.

  We talk about the trials of being jobbing writers. She sighs. ‘Every fucking day I’m contacted to write something, usually for free, about my favourite handbag, or where I get my hair cut. Have these people not heard of the Women’s Prize? Do they not follow Caitlin Moran on Twitter?’

  ‘As a feminist, you’re above handbags and haircuts?’

  ‘Well, of course not,’ she says, cupping her tea in 2 hands. ‘I love a handbag and I love a haircut. But does no one want my opinion on the welfare cuts? On how bad the new Mumford album is? It’s so boring. You must get it too, being, you know …’ she stage-whispers, ‘an ethnics. I used the plural on purpose.’

  ‘Yeah, of course. I get asked in online Q&As repeatedly what my parents think of my work. Who gives a shit what they think? Also, if I get one more email from Esquire asking me to review my top 5 curry spots in the city, I’ll lose my shit.’

  ‘Literally?’

  ‘Literally. I’ll be like, “Hayley, I’ve misplaced my shit. Can you help me find it?”’

  ‘“No, Kitab, that’s just disgusting, but where did all that shit come from?”’ Hayley throws back her head and laughs.

  ‘“I reviewed all these curry spots and now I can’t stop shitting …”’

  ‘We’re just avatars, Kit,’ she says, sipping on her tea to illustrate a point well made.

  ‘Everything your Twitter bio tells the world about you, that’s what people want to know. Gender, ethnicity, likes.’

  ‘I think it’s more than that … I think we’re at a stage where no one cares what authors think. We used to be spokespeople, opinions for hire,’ Hayley says, looking over my shoulder to see if our food is coming. ‘When did we get boring? When did people stop caring what we thought and asking footballers instead?’

  ‘When Cantona became a poet …’

  ‘When middle-class people swapped paperbacks for season tickets …’

  ‘Classist.’

  ‘How can I be a classist when I support Leyton Orient … team of the people, Kitab, my lad?’

  ‘If I see one more picture of a footballer leaving a club with a blonde girl …’

  ‘Speaking of pictures,’ Hayley says, getting her phone out. ‘Is this your cock? Cos if it is, then it’s very embarrassing.’

  She shows me Kitab 2’s penis, its messy manscaping ingrained in my brain for ever more.

  ‘I got hacked.’

  ‘I figured. It seemed a bit too brash for you. I imagine you’re the flowers, dinner and a movie type, right? Before anyone gets to see anything.’ Hayley leans forward and taps me on the arm. I let her hand rest there.

  ‘You have to really romance me,’ I reply. My voice is dry and I cough over my words, nervously. It’s rare we’re by ourselves, chatting, not surrounded by others. It feels more intimate than I can cope with.

  ‘Who hacked you?’

  ‘It’s a bit of a weird long story. Remember that Indian guy I was with at that book event?’

  ‘There were 2 Indian guys, at a book event?’

  ‘Yes, well, the other guy …’

  ‘What was he called?’

  ‘Kitab.’

  I let the answer hang there.

  Hayley smiles. ‘Right.’ She laughs to herself.

  ‘What?’ I ask.

  ‘It’s just … I dunno. You spend all this time not wanting to be defined by your ethnicity and then you’re saying some Indian guy with your name rolls into town and puts your cock on the internet.’

  ‘His cock.’

  ‘Well, it’s weird,’ she says, laughing.

  We’re surrounded by yummy mummies. We’ve gone for breakfast in the post-school run at the only time you’d see artists eating breakfast. We’re the jobless paid. We eat after the rush hour and before daytime television gets going. We eat between the first of the morning coffee and the pre-lunch coffee. Before we take meetings about abstract projects at abstract art venues that want us to channel our inner-douchebag. The yummy mummies coddle their babies and coo to each other about their spawn’s achievements, from first steps to first words, from bon mots to hilarious ‘kids say the funniest things’ anecdotes. They bray and guffaw at each other like seagulls fighting over seaside scraps. I hate this awkwardness. It’s the first time Hayley and I have done anything away from other people, just us, not at an event. I don’t want it to be awkward.

  ‘How do you live?’ Hayley asks me just as our food arrives.

  ‘What do you mean? Like, how do I sleep at night?’

  ‘How do you sleep at night, Kitab Balasubramanyam?’ Hayley laughs. ‘No, I
mean, like, we hang out at things and I know I don’t know you well enough to ask this, but if you’re on your publisher with the amount you sold, how do you live? I only ask because I’m about to need to find a job and all the jobs I can find involve writing about handbags or haircuts. What’s your secret?’

  ‘I’m a rich kid,’ I say, smiling.

  ‘Oh.’ Hayley looks around the room, disappointed.

  ‘I mean, like, my mum died when I was young, from cancer. When my book came out, my dad gave me a chunk of my inheritance to keep me going in case the book didn’t set the world alight. The book didn’t set the world alight. So here I am, burning through the money and contemplating jobs writing about top 5 curry spots. Because the book didn’t set the world alight. Whoops.’

  ‘At least you know where your shit is.’

  ‘True. But yeah, it’s not like writing’s paying the bills. I might as well write what the people want. News stories about engaging web content or something.’

  ‘And thus, the rich kid becomes a hack.’

  ‘I can’t even … I can’t even find a job writing for B2B sites. I got rejected from writing for a tourism site because I seemed “ambivalent”.’

  This is the first time I’ve felt honest about anything in months. I feel sweaty.

  ‘I like your tattoo,’ Hayley says. ‘It’s like the ultimate statement for analogue, for printed books, for objects to touch.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I say, hollow.

  Hayley places her hand on my wrist, where my arm is resting on the table. My mind flashes between her and Kitab 2, finding him and finding her, this girl I’ve liked for a while, showing me the ‘sign’. It’s distracting. Kitab 2 Kitab 2 Kitab 2. But Hayley. But Hayley. But Hayley. I look at her hand on my arm. She has orange nail polish on short cut nails. Like her toes. Instagram has made me obsess over people’s nails. Which reminds me, I forgot to take a photo of my food. Her fingers are long and feminine. Rach had small, stubby digits. We’d never hold hands because my meat fists would feel like they were spreading her fingers too far apart.

  ‘So, you’re single …’ she says.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘How’s single life?’

  ‘I don’t know. I haven’t really done much with it, to be honest.’

  ‘It’s hard to meet people. I mean, how do you set up a dating profile and put your profession as writer? It means people can judge you before they date you.’

  ‘They can judge you anyway. In Google Search, veritas,’ I say. ‘I set up a dating profile. I didn’t really get any responses so I closed it down.’

  Hayley pulls my arm over so my forearm is pointed upward and pulls the sleeve up the tattoo.

  ‘Everyday I write the book,’ she says. ‘Like Elvis Costello.’

  ‘Chapter one, we didn’t really get along …’

  ‘Chapter two … I fell in love with you.’

  She laughs, as if that might be a possibility. I laugh back, because to not would be awkward. I’m not good at these situations. I haven’t had to flirt with anyone since before Rach and even then I was never that type of guy. She’s beautiful. I’m out of practice. How do I advance this? It’s impossible. Ghost protocol. Black ops. Call of duty. It’s an impossible mission.

  ‘I don’t really like Elvis Costello,’ I say, like an automaton, pulling the mood-killer parachute. ‘My mum did. So did Aziz. So does Aziz.’

  ‘Me neither,’ she replies and smiles. ‘Well, not as much as I’m told I would, given the other bands I like. He sounds so 80s.’

  ‘I guess that means something to some people.’

  ‘Not me. But when a band in 20 years’ time reminds me of Nirvana and I tell young pups that, I bet they’ll hate me as much as I hate the nerds who tell me Elvis Costello “is my jam”.’

  Our food’s getting cold so I get my head down as I arrange eggs on toast with bacon on top, drizzled with beans, before I get ready to tear it apart and devour it. Hayley takes 3 bites of her bacon butty and puts it down. ‘I’m full,’ she says. Looking up, I see Hayley looking at me like I need to hurry up. Maybe she hates eating. ‘Wanna go for a walk?’

  *

  We’re walking home and I’m telling Hayley about Aziz and Teddy Baker.

  ‘So, he’s just packed off to America?’

  ‘Yeah. He lives dangerously.’

  ‘What if he gets hurt? What if he meets this guy and he’s such a massive disappointment, he regrets his tattoo?’

  ‘I don’t think he really thinks like that. He’d be like, “If you’ve lived such a cool-ass life, you don’t give a fuck anymore.” Probably.’

  ‘He sounds fun.’

  ‘He is and he isn’t. I mean, he’s obsessed with looking as cool as possible. He has this … this inbuilt necessity to read blogs, tweets, Tumblrs and magazines to find out exactly what’s the next hype. Aziz’s website favourites, his bookmarks and his RSS feeds are filled with images of coats, t-shirts, shoes, bands, comic strips, words of the day and new takes on acronyms so he could imbibe, constantly, absolutely everything, simultaneously. He could be into a band and declare them a sell-out in the same afternoon. He will stop everything to go and hunt the vintage and charity shops around us for a new hat or cut of shirt that harks back to whatever trend is coming back in fashion. Every band he likes is a band you won’t have heard of. On purpose.’

  ‘That sounds exhausting. I barely have time to keep up with the news.’

  ‘I dunno. Without him, I wouldn’t like half the stuff I like.’

  Hayley grabs my hand as we pass my local pub. Her fingers are cold at the tips and clammy and fat at the base. They feel soft and squidgy, like those bendy rubber separators you use to paint your toenails with.

  She aligns her shoulder with mine so we’re arm to arm. Apart from allowing the hand holding to carry on, I am putting nothing into this situation. And yet my body is betraying me because I am hard and I am flush. I can feel the static sting of embarrassed horniness under the melanin in my skin. I can feel her lean into me.

  ‘How’s the new book coming along?’ she asks me.

  ‘What new book?’ I ask.

  ‘“Everyday I write the book” …’

  ‘Yeah. I dunno. I don’t know what to write. What do you write about once you’ve done your whole coming-of-age tale and life has been plain-sailing since?’

  ‘You have adventures you want to write about. Or you write something with superheroes and gun battles and gangsters. But in the real world. It could be funny.’

  ‘Those are my only 2 options?’

  ‘Yeah. Well, they say your first book is about everyone you’ve met till you write it, and your second is about writers and writing because that’s all you meet afterwards.’

  ‘I’d rather have a cup of tea.’

  ‘There’s always the pan-ethnic novel, set in India, with mangrove swamps and arranged marriages.’

  ‘I’d sell a million.’

  ‘More frangipani literature, that’s what the world wants.’

  ‘I hate it.’

  ‘You hate yourself.’

  ‘What about you? Surely there are more middle-class marriage structures to exploit?’

  ‘You mocking me, Balasubramanyam? I’ll have you know my parents’ divorce was very painful to watch …’ Hayley says, poking me in the side. It tickles. Ripples of a long-forgotten sensation spread across me.

  ‘What’s wrong with writing in some non-white characters once in a while?’

  ‘You’re cocksure for someone who’s shown everyone their cock.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ I say, desperate for someone to believe me. I realise I haven’t checked my phone in the last 2 hours, since I’ve been with Hayley. I have no idea what’s happening in the world. And I feel fine about it.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I don’t know how to write non-white characters. Help me. Do ethnics talk funny or different?’

  ‘They talk like me.’

  ‘You talk like a white guy.’<
br />
  ‘And just like that … his point was proven.’

  We reach the end of my street in an ‘oh, how did we end up here’ way and something comes over me. It’s the potential, the expectation. It’s the knowledge that all roads lead home. It’s the feeling of power. Mostly, it’s because I’ve thought this woman was so beautiful from the moment I saw her, but it’s only now I possess the necessary leverage to pull her towards me. I pull Hayley in tight.

  ‘That’s my flat,’ I point.

  ‘Show me,’ she says, with a slow smile.

  At my door, I fumble for my keys, drop them to the floor and we both go for them. As we rise from our crouches, her hands find my face and she pulls my jawline towards hers. We kiss. It’s tentative at first. We’re sizing up the contours of each other’s mouths, not wishing to overstep the welcome of each other’s lips. We quickly mould the size of our mouth holes to each other’s and we press in harder. I then slowly slither my tongue into her mouth, but she bats it off with her own. Our tongues tussle. I feel a hard, horny stitch in my stomach. She’s the first person I’ve kissed since Rach. It feels good.

  My arms clasp around her back and then move down towards the outward curve of her bottom. It’s like a video I’ve seen. When the guy accosts the girl on the street and convinces her to come home with him. Conveniently, she’s never wearing underwear.

  I feel self-conscious about our public display of affection. The whole of my neighbourhood is watching. Metaphorically. Because realistically they’re at work. Or doing some hip installation at an underground art gallery. But that mutual coyness leads us inside where we press against the closing door, followed by a fall onto the sofa. It’s all tongues and wrapping limbs and awkward exploratory hands and lips. I alternate between her mouth and neck with my lips, and her hair and lower back with my hands. Her focus flits between my face, pulling me almost entirely into her mouth, and the greying shorn bristles of the back of my head hair.

  I want to live-tweet this moment so badly. Just so I remember it.

  ‘She kisses me, pulling me almost entirely into her mouth #50shadesofkitab’

  It doesn’t feel like the videos I spend days watching. There’s too much kissing. Everything flows from one act to another. We don’t jump-cut from kiss to blowjob to anal to her willing face.