It was after the night that I went to The Long Room and met Ella. Veto said to me “I’m going to go home – work tomorrow. Want a lift?”
I was feeling a little off. I looked around and thought “There’s nothing here for me tonight.” So I got a lift home.
Veto had classical music playing in his car, Beethoven’s Ninth. His dad liked to call it “Beethoven’s Last Movement”. Thought it was shit. I wondered what possible context you can have for considering Beethoven shit. Kind of a standard by which we judge music nowadays. Maybe he liked Gregorian chanting or his Middle Eastern Moods CD better.
Veto dropped me off and said “Back at the Commission, ey?” My apartment block looked ghetto. Once some filmmakers knocked on my downstairs neighbour’s door and said “Wow! Your building is so brilliant! It’s the ugliest on the street! Can we use it to make a film?”
I got out and went upstairs.
Eliecer texted me and said I should come over. Last night she’d hung out with the girls as well, and now she was looking for some masculine energy. I wondered if it meant she wanted sex, or -
When a bunch of guys hang out together, after a while there’s shenanigans. Guys making foul dick jokes, humping each others’ heads with pillows. The men become the lads. Like when you pass the Equator for the first time in the Navy. Or fraternity pranks in the States. I wondered what the analogy would be for girls. Listening to Britney and talking about periods?
I remember once when my friend Aara was in the middle of a story, and tried to make a joke. “So just when I was starting to get into the flow of things – and speaking of flow!”
“Huh?”
“Oops I forgot you’re not a girl for a second.”
Months later, I asked Angelique what Eliecer meant. Was it just too much feminine company that needed balancing. Angelique said no, that girl wants cock.
I took a taxi to Footscray. I walked in the door and sat down. Eliecer was all over me. She told me a little about the frustrations of her job. I remember telling her about The Power of Now. She said “Wow! All my life I wanted to learn to be in the moment! Now this book can teach mean how! I have to read it!” It’s a great book, but she was a bit too excited. Her friends gave her a side-glance.
I just came over to hang out really. She wanted sex. When it got to about 4 a.m., and we were sitting on her bed, and she was telling me all about her sexual frustration, desire running through her body like a wave, I leaned in and kissed her just to shut her up.
At first I thought it was weird because she’d had sex with Aster. Actually, she never did. I just assumed she did because I heard some strange sounds coming from the next room.
I was getting it on with her, taking her shirt off, rubbing her nipples, making out, grabbing her hair -
“Whoa! Don’t grab my hair!”
I said okay, sure. By this stage she’d pumped me so full of alcolol I hardly knew which way was up and which way was bathroom.
I kissed her again, stroked her neck, her back, put my hands on her waist, tugged her hair. She pushed me off and ran out of the room.
When she came back she told me she’d just been in an abusive relationship and please could I not do anything like that, and she didn’t think we should have sex tonight.
I wish I’d said “okay,” and fell asleep. I didn’t want to have sex with her anyway. I just felt it was somehow my duty because she was so hard up for it. As if I would somehow be less of a man if I didn’t finish the deal, that I would be a hero if I rescued her from sexual frustration.
I said “Heh. That’s what girls say when they want to have sex.”
She said “You know what really turns me on – if you gently stroke my back. No, slower. Really gently. Keep going.” We fell asleep.
I hung out with her and her friends the next day. We went to Northcote Music Festival. Every time she talked about how horny she was, I felt emasculated.
