Altar Ego (12 page)

‘But what about all the green ones I’ve stopped at over the years? Doesn’t that balance out? … Do you like ice-cream, by the way?’

Unable to contain my curiosity, I left Anouska to her bribery and my ice-cream and leapt on to the tube – which was just as well because at Charing Cross, in the advertising space usually reserved for warnings against casual sex, was a poster of Zachary’s face, grinning wickedly. And a slogan, that said, simply ‘Be My Love Goddess’. A squadron of butterflies took flight in my stomach.

In the third drawer of my desk was an envelope. Flustered with anticipation, I ripped it open. Inside was Thomas Pynchon’s signature. And a phone number.

All afternoon as I sorted out gum and dung pessaries, I told myself that I wasn’t hot and bothered. No. ‘Hot’ was definitely not the word. It was more like the surface temperature of the sun.

Kate accosted me by the bar. ‘You’re still thinking about Him, aren’t you?’

‘No.’

‘Liar.’

‘Okay. I am. But Jesus Christ, haven’t you ever entertained the idea of wild, inventive, dangerous sex?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘No. I mean,
with a partner
.’

‘Ha de ha. You’re not seriously considering seeing this … this
boy
again, are you?’

‘No. Our paths will never, ever cross. We lead completely different lives.’

‘Do you mean it?’

‘Of course I do. Put it this way – he calls his penis a “love lance”.’

Kate laughed. ‘Say no more.’

‘I never, ever want to see him again, okay?’

Sure, I could walk past the door of opportunity without knocking. But nobody said anything about not taking a tiny, teeny peek through the crack …

11
Eating The Arm Candy

KNOCK! KNOCK! WHO’S
there? Opportunity. The very next day, Tuesday, Julian announced that he was off to Prague for two weeks to do some laps in a legal think-tank.

But in fact, Zachary opened the door
before
opportunity knocked. Who should I glimpse across a Tesco’s pagoda of mangoes on Wednesday but the Rap God himself. Thursday, by a surprising twist of fate, he materialized in the bra-fitting section of Marks & Spencers – the natural haunt of a man. Friday, apparently, he was due for his cervical smear test. I looked up from my copy of
Hello!
magazine to find him standing over me in the Women’s Health Clinic, in his scuffed workmen’s boots, rodeo belt buckle and sideburns sharp enough to shave even Kate’s underarms. Zachary always gave the impression of having
been
born in whatever he’d chosen to wear on any given day.

‘Can’t you ever turn up somewhere looking just a little mediocre? Do you have to look sensational at all times? I mean,
must
you?’

‘Yer never rung me up.’ He sweetened his impertinence with a dimpled smile.

‘That’s because I don’t want to see you,’ I said, dwelling on the delicious contours of his behind.

He just smiled, a warm, rich smile that made everybody else’s smile look faded.

In the same way that mums tidy the house for the cleaning lady, I fully intended going to the gym more often once I’d lost weight; but I thought a workout might burn off some of my lust. The YMCA in Central London is Work-Out Heaven. All the men are gay. Which means you never have to bikini wax and there’s not a matching leotard-tight ensemble in sight … at least not on the girls. Entering the building from Great Russell Street and walking down the sloping gang plank is like boarding an underground ocean liner. The brightly lit auditorium yawns before you, abuzz with basketball and squash games. The tiled grotto of a pool lies, blue and inviting, behind a long glass wall in the cafeteria.

I pressed my nose up to the smoky window, searching the lanes for Kate’s lime-green swimming cap … my heart skipping a beat at the sudden sight of
Zachary
Phoenix Burne. I watched him decant himself into a black Speedo. Undressed, he looked like Michelangelo’s David, without the pigeon poop. I thought of Julian’s detestation for swimming. ‘Any pastime that requires you not to breathe for much of it fails to pique my interest,’ he always said. But Zachary arced through the water with supple elegance.

Avoiding the pool, I attended a circuit-training class instead. He conjured himself up, bench-pressing effortlessly, while I panted asthmatically at his side. Belly dancing, beginners Judo, Tighten That Butt! – no matter what class I attended, he enigmatically surfaced, an avalanche of sexuality at my elbow waiting to engulf me.

‘Why is it that every time I come to the gym, you’re here exercising?’ I finally acknowledged him, my voice saturated in sarcasm. ‘I mean, what are you? A
hamster
?’

Oh no. Here it came again. The Look. His black hair flopped over one eye, giving him a piratical air. Unlike the other men in the club, Zachary’s ‘street’ look wasn’t assimilated. There really was something dangerous, something wildly intriguing about him.

Usually the very idea of jogging makes me break out into a sweat, but with Zachary haunting the gym I reluctantly took to running in Hyde Park after work; staggering down past Kensington Palace, hyperventilating around the Round Pond, dragging my weary bones along Rotton Row to Speaker’s Corner.
One
evening I was collapsed on the grass by the Serpentine, praying for death, when the membrane of sky split open and rain pelted down. Cursing, I crawled into the wood and crouched under a leafy canopy. Zachary was not far behind. For once I was happy to see him.

‘I hope you’ve got a car?’

‘Naw.’ He hunkered down beside me.

‘How’d you get here then?’

‘Hitch-hiked.’

‘You
hitch-hiked
?’

‘Yeah, well, it’s just like walkin’ only sittin’ down, ya know.’

Smartass.

‘Can’t even afford the tube, after forkin’ out for that goddam signature. Had to track that Pynchon dude down through the internet. Search public records – yer know, for drivin’ licence and birth certificate. Jesus. Why can’t yer read comic books like everyone else?’

I bummed a cigarette off him – that’s the kind of health nut I am. ‘So, how’s the case going?’ I small-talked.

‘Some motherfuckers called the Broadcastin’ Standards Commission say my words are too fuckin’ crude to play on air …’

‘Fuckin’ cheek …’ I heckled. ‘So, tell me, are you one of those singers who the critics all go apeshit over, or are you any good? … I mean, what sort of music
do
you play?’

‘There’s only two kinds of music. Good an’ bad. But if the rap don’t cut it back home, I’m gonna move into retro rock with soul elements.’

‘So what does your mum make of your filthy lyrics then?’ I said, in an effort to get away from the rock’n’roll Esperanto.

‘Mom’s dead. When I was ten. OD.’

My interest in him rose meteorically. But I wasn’t going to say I was sorry. ‘Is that what gave you the determination to succeed?’

‘Naw … It just gave me an instant way in with women.’ He grinned broadly. It was the sort of smile that made you wish you were wearing Polaroids. ‘They feel sorry for me, know what I’m sayin’?’

I shook my head in disbelief. ‘Hardship
can
be character building, sure,’ I said, a tight-lipped frugality to my tone. ‘But you really require a character to begin with.’

‘My family taught me everythin’ I know. My Granmama was the first person I saw thievin’ – robbin’ candy for me. My Old Man bolted. Brought up to fight and steal and survive by a family that’s as far from two-point-four cosy Bill Cosby land as you can imagine.’ He fires up a joint.

I glanced up at the grey cauliflower clouds. Suddenly, it was as though a hole had been punched in the sky. We were drenched in pale sunshine. Steamy heat rose from the soil around us, which gave off a pungent, visceral smell.

‘And what about you?’ He offered me the joint. Usually I don’t smoke dope. It dulls my sarcasm. Besides, Julian didn’t like it. I surprised myself by taking a toke and even more by answering.

‘Hated my parents. Dropped out of school. Travelled. Around Asia, backpacking. Grew a new layer of skin. A taste of something else.’

‘Yer dropped out? How come yer talk so uptown then? You’re such a lady. I mean, I can’t even imagine yer takin’ a crap. I bet when yer do, they’re just tiny, delicate little party frankfurters.’

The man was a poet. I laughed, despite myself. ‘I finally went to art school, on a grant,’ I explained. Though really it was Julian who’d ‘refained’ me.

‘That’s what I wanna do. Grow a new layer of skin. An’ play Madison Square Garden, of course.’

The horizon was fevered. Crimson welts scarred the sky. Beyond the line of trees, Telecom Tower rose like a swizzle stick in an exotic cocktail.

‘See, that’s one of the reasons I like yer. ’Cause yer know all them big words, an’ ’cause yer one of the sweetest women I’ve ever had the pleasure to suck.’

I held my breath. Just as well we weren’t sitting indoors because I would have just set off the smoke alarm. This had to stop.

‘Look, I’m flattered, Zachary. Really I am. But it would never work between us. We’re too different. I mean, you’re American. You have perfect teeth. I’ve
got
fillings. Look.’ I opened my mouth and turned towards him. ‘Five.’

‘Yer look pretty damn good to me.’

‘And that’s another thing. Americans are so polite. Whereas I’m a loudmouthed old slapper.’

‘A slapper?’

‘You see? You don’t even speak my language.’

‘I wanna fuck you. Is that plain enough English?’

I stubbed out my cigarette. Holy Hell.

The evening air, mysterious and satiny, was threaded with possibilities. Our thighs pressed conspiratorially together.

‘This is just impossible. I’m in love with Julian. I can’t see you again.’ I said, holding on to him as though we were both covered in superglue. I smudged my heated face into his hot neck with a sigh.

But even as I spoke sane and sensible words – You’re pubescent; I’m pensionable. You’ve got groupies; I’m practically married – my hormones were betraying me. The fact that I was now wearing nothing but a pair of Adidas running shoes should have been a clue.

‘You had sex with him, didn’t you?’ Kate interrogated when I went back to the office to shower and change. She always worked late.

‘How do you know?’

‘The fact that you have half of Hyde Park in your hair is a teeny-weeny give away, you big boofhead.’

‘Isn’t sex the best, most wonderful thing in the entire world?’

Kate glared at me over her spectacles. ‘Have you tried skydiving?’

‘Don’t tell Anouska, okay? I don’t want it getting around.’

‘Okay.’

‘She rooted him.’ Kate announced when Anouska dropped by the office half an hour later to return the ice-cream the cop hadn’t eaten.

‘No. What was it like? Are you going to tell Julian?’

‘No. Absolutely not. Look, I had to do it once, just to get him out of my system. Okay? And now I’m cured. I’m not ever going to see him again.’

‘Good,’ said Kate.

‘Good,’ said Anouska.

‘Yes,’ I reiterated.

‘So,’ said Kate, after a pause. ‘When are you going to see him again?’

‘Just as soon as we finish this conversation,’ I replied.

That night we made love in one of those seedy No Tell Motels in King’s Cross. ‘Can I see you again?’ he asked.

‘No. Absolutely not.’

‘Can I just make ya come then?’

‘Oh. Okay.’

* * *

The next day, we clung to each other in the sauna at the YMCA as though drowning.

‘Do you know how long purely physical attraction lasts?’

‘Um … I dunno. Five to six hours?’

‘We’d better get cracking then.’

And, dissolving in an exchange of salty, smouldering kisses, we jammed the door

Over the next week, we had sex in every conceivable place and position. Only lab rabbits had more sex than us. We had phone sex – but
in
the booth. We did it while listening to music – but in the back row of Wembley stadium. Believe me, I was an FBI agent’s wet dream – I had fingerprints all over me.

Zachary’s hands located places on my body I didn’t know existed. Whole erogenous topographies, as yet unconquered. Through all our fevered grapplings in twisted sheets, storeroom cupboards and on car bonnets – I had a BMW car-hood emblem imprint on my back for days – we lost grip on the passage of time. Mornings, afternoons, midnights … all telescoped into one another. Our warm, tangled toes became the edge of the world.

When I did return, reluctantly, to normal life, I felt groggy and disorientated, like a scuba diver leaving the bed of a spectacular ocean. The world seemed grey
and
drained of sensation; the air clammy. I missed the pure oxygen of lust.

‘So, Beck, will you have an affair with me?’ Zachary asked superfluously on day seven.

I was in a steady relationship. My fiancé was urbane, intelligent, sensitive, compassionate. This punk was a rap star, the lowest of the low. His hair was snarled; his tatty T-shirts torn. He smelt of Johnny Walker and had never read Thomas Pynchon. I told him –
hell yes
.

12
How Many Rock Stars Does It Take To Screw In A Light Bulb? One: Rock Stars Will Screw Anything

‘AN AFFAIR?’ KATE’S
face fell, as though I’d just told her I had terminal cancer. ‘I thought you said that once you screwed him, he’d be out of your bloody system?’

‘It’s only a fling. I’ve got my return ticket, okay?’ Who knows? Maybe after this burns itself out, I’ll be able to finally settle down?’

The black refracted lines on the bottom of the blue pool shimmied as Kate plunged into the ‘fast lane’. As most of Australia seems to be situated outdoors, Kate, a dedicated sportswoman, was always hijacking us off to the pool. In my opinion if God had meant us to swim he would have given us waterproof cigarettes.

‘But he’s so young,’ she chastised, as her head broke
the
surface. ‘I mean, what are you going to do? Date him or adopt him?’

‘An affair! My God, doll. How grown up!’ Anouska said, cringing at the insalubrious surroundings. (It was her first time at the YMCA. Darius was proving such a drain on her finances that she’d had to give up her Chelsea Harbour Club membership. Kate had greeted this economy drive with scorn. ‘Don’t you have a spare palace to fall back on?’) ‘I mean, Adulteress! It sounds so deliciously decadent, doll!’