You'll Be Sorry When I'm Dead (3 page)

After a long and involved discussion about the best place to position a microwave in a crowded kitchen, Matty clapped his hands together like a pleased quiz host and asked if I'd like to join them in the bedroom.

‘Oh, that's okay,' I said. ‘I've probably got some vacuuming to do anyway. You two go right ahead.'

He insisted, politely. I could see his eyes daring me into the experience.

‘You wanted this,' they seemed to say. ‘I've set it up. Now stop being such a pussy and let's just get into the bedroom and get it over with.'

Inevitably I allowed myself to be led back into the bedroom and our generous soul of a callgirl led us through the motions of an unbearably awkward and somewhat sweetly naff threeway, which was interrupted only a couple of times by the sounds of a very unhappy and confused dog howling the blues in the laundry. I'll refrain from discussing the act itself in too much detail as while I have many life ambitions, becoming the next Nikki Gemmell is not one of them, though I will mention that if you're looking for the perfect Valentine's Day gift nothing says ‘I want to get close to you' quite like no-name-brand lubricant and a dental dam.

‘DO YIS MIND IF I USE YER BATHROOM?'

Possibly not quite on par with the soothing sound of listening to one's parents pootling about in the kitchen drying the dinner dishes, it is nonetheless strangely comforting lying in bed hearing a prostitute use your shower. There may even be a moment of fretting that you haven't left a clean towel out, before you remember that the guest in question touches genitals for a living and may not mind sharing your Expo 88 bathroom set for a few festive minutes.

Matty and I lay in my bed regarding each other in vaguely stunned silence.

Where were we supposed to go from here? What increasingly sick, depraved scenarios would we find ourselves in as we tried to top this particular arrangement? Would we push each other further into the depths of experimental hell and end up hanging naked from door handles like Michael Hutchence? Is that how these kinds of things worked? Would I turn up on the front page of
New Weekly
—‘Relatively obscure ABC scriptwriter in trans–gender amputee octopule daisy chain shock'?

Eventually the shower stopped and, employing an alarmingly twee technique that I would repeat in many a twisted, drawn-out relationship argument over future years, I decided that my best course of action at this juncture was to pretend to be asleep, thus avoiding any further awkwardness or possible exchange of phone numbers and promises to meet up for Hanukkah or however these sorts of barter arrangements worked. I may have even faked a delicate little snore. Matty duly followed suit. This scenario worked wonders on melting the heart of our new friend, who stood fondly at the bed's end watching us for a smidgen longer than was entirely comfortable—like a kindly grandmother musing privately to herself about how fast they grow up these days before heading out to her recliner and knitting a glove. She even became so caught up in the emotion of the moment she leaned over and whispered to us.

‘
Youse two are going to sleep like angels
,' she said in hushed, sweet tones. Presumably it was all she could do to restrain herself from giving us a kiss on our cheeky little foreheads and reading us a chapter from
James and the Giant Peach.
When we'd heard her let herself out and clip-clop down to her minder's car two hundred and fifty dollars richer, we opened our eyes and looked at each other.

We should have left it at that. We should have chalked it up to experience and moved on with our lives leaving only a few minor emotional scars and a vaguely bawdy story to shriek over in moments of obscene intoxication. I don't know if
less
sex with prostitutes would have saved our already careening-out-of-control relationship, but in the end amid the chaos of perceived slights, furious arguments over money, and screaming, alcohol-fuelled street battles I doubt the two other encounters helped much. Matty and I were on a path to annihilation.

The second—months and months after our debut tryst with Mrs Ling; it took us both a while to wash the abject awkwardness from our scarred retinas and talk ourselves back into the game—was during an utterly obscene blowout weekend in Melbourne's Grand Hyatt where we indulged in the sort of idiotic orgiastic display that even Shane MacGowan would baulk at for being ‘slightly over the top'. We draped ourselves all over the room with that mixed sense of daring and ownership that comes with paying ludicrous amounts of money for a hotel stay, ate club sandwiches in bed, spilt red wine on the complimentary robes and made a nuisance of ourselves with the overnight duty manager. We also—and Dear Starving Children of Africa I apologise profusely in advance for this piece of information—paid a thousand dollars for a hooker to visit our room. Perhaps it was the recklessness of being away from home that led me to believe that this would be a good idea. There was no dog to worry about, there were no gym clothes, no library books. Just a gaping suitcase trailing stay-up fishnet stockings and a torn Wheels & Dollbaby dress that made me look like an oversexed Christmas cracker. To be honest I think the only reason I was talked around—again, this man was persuasive to say the least—was an intense curiosity over what a thousand-dollar hooker might look like. Would she be seven hundred and fifty dollars more attractive than our ginger pal? Would we be paying top dollar for political debate and knock-knock jokes? Would fireworks fizz forth from her vagina on point of climax? A thousand dollars was a
lot
of money.

‘Let's just stop talking about it and
book it
,' cried Matty, displaying what would eventually become an all-too-familiar enthusiasm for spending somebody else's money. And I, beholden to his spiky allure, had no choice but to comply.

The poor girl. She was lovely. She looked like Dawn from
The Office
and at the hotel-room door she regarded our two drunk, sweaty, over-eager faces with the sort of mild contempt usually seen on an
X Factor
judge directly following an off-key rendition of Lady Gaga's ‘Paparazzi'.

‘Hiiiiiiiii,' she breathed with forced enthusiasm.

‘Do come in. Can I get you a drink? Gin and tonic?'

Matty was a genial host when he chose to be. He was like the Noël Coward of the prostitute set.

‘I'm right, thanks.'

‘Might get one myself, then.'

He veered off drunkenly to the minibar. Dawn and I regarded each other with shy, comradely smiles. I suddenly could see where this was heading. We were going to be like best girlfriends, spending the night swapping stories and giggling and occasionally pausing to lightly hit each other over the head with soft pillows. Only instead of tagging her in Facebook photos I would pay her a grand to have sex with my boyfriend while I sat on a chair drinking glasses of champagne. What could be more bonding?

The final encounter—and I say that with no small sense of weariness, as even writing about it makes me feel tired and slightly nauseous—was a year later, after an eight-hour drinking session (there's a pattern here, yes) at the Retreat Hotel in Brunswick, during which time Matty and I had wondered aloud what it might be like to have a threeway with a male friend. The obligatory ‘Which of my mates would you want to fuck?'/‘No, which of your mates would you be
okay
with me fucking?' conversation followed, along with a long list of people we could ask who wouldn't laugh us out of town. We then undulated back to his bungalow and tittered to ourselves for a long and involved while before he lunged for the Yellow Pages and called for a male escort.

‘Matty, you
mustn't
,' I murmured in the unprotesting voice of someone quite prepared to see how this next faintly ridiculous turn of events would unfold.

Male prostitutes—the final frontier.

And the one we eventually got was on his ‘L' plates.

‘I'm a bit nervous,' he confessed as he arrived at the bungalow, all sweaty palms and apologetic smiles. Which is exactly what you want in a male whore, isn't it? A bashful type, eyes downward, looking for all the world like he'd spend the rest of the evening politely losing games of backgammon and making fruit whips with Matty's housemates in the communal kitchen. Lord knows where these people get their licences. Is there a TAFE course?

Our guest perched uncomfortably in the doorway. I sensed his trepidation and flew into mother-hen mode.

‘Would you like a cup of tea?' I proffered brightly, while Matty shot me a what-the-fuck-do-you-think-you're-doing look. How could I help it? The poor, slightly built manchild appeared to have wandered off the set of
Oliver!
and into his worst nightmare.

Nonetheless, we persevered. We were practically professional perverts by this stage. At any rate, we were clearly at least two times more experienced than our perspiring, terrified escort. It was all I could do not to take him by the hand and murmur, ‘There there, dear heart. We'll look after you.' It was like having sex with Bambi.

I was bold after my two previous encounters, imperfect though they had been. I took charge of the situation and pointed out who should go where and at what exact moment. I may have even haggled. I'm not proud of it.

Our new friend—bless his face, he should have been nominated for a bravery award—duly mucked in (‘all hands on deck now, there's a good lad') and things seemed to be progressing nicely until at one point I looked up and Matty wasn't there. He had just . . . disappeared. Further investigation found him brooding outside the doorway of the bungalow, smoking cigarettes and scowling. He couldn't handle it, he said, seeing me with another guy. It was all fine
in theory
. But there we were, right in front of him, in his bed, on his sheets. It was enough to make a man fair lose his erection, which is precisely what had happened. And now he was furious with himself. No, wait, he was furious with me. Or our hapless visitor, who was by this stage standing naked and awkward in the corner of the room desperately wishing he was at home with mum and dad watching
Hey
Hey It's Saturday
.

‘I could . . . go,' he offered helpfully, and Matty, awash with feeling, stirred up and sickened and upset in a way he'd never imagined, dismissed him with a curt nod. I don't remember our escort getting dressed. To this day there must be some random neighbour in Brunswick who in 2004 bore witness to a shrieking naked twenty-something running from a house and into the night.

I felt ridiculous. Vulnerable. I lashed out.

‘I thought you
wanted
to try it.'

‘I did!'

‘So what happened?'

Matty, who had seen it all. Matty, who had lived a life of girls and drugs and fist fights. Matty, who talked up the beautiful knife edge of our existence but was suddenly wishing the whole damned thing had never happened and we could go back to being a normal couple who did things like going to the laundromat or eating toasted pides at Ray on a Sunday morning with the papers spread-eagled out in front of us.

He was nearly in tears.

‘It was too . . .
real.
'

We stayed together for a while after that but to be honest the whole notion of dangerous experimentation was growing increasingly hollow. I still loved that terrible glint in Matty's eye when everything was about to get wild, when the ground would disappear beneath us and we'd wake up two days later in his dark and sticky bedroom above the Chinese restaurant on Sydney Road, crying and apologising and swearing to each other we'd never let it get so fucked up again. And then we did, of course, we let the cycle continue, because we were both damaged little flowers who seemed to bring out the worst in each other. We never mentioned what had happened in the bungalow or joked about paying for whores again, and eventually I called time on the relationship. Or he did. The details are hazy. There were some snotty, undignified tears on the carpet of my Northcote home and somebody slammed a door and that was it.

He ended up with someone even crazier than me and I briefly fell for a dreamboat with a mohawk who embodied calm and sunshine, and after some months of snarling and spitting at each other from a safe distance Matty and I decided it was best to drift apart and cease contact altogether. Occasionally I would look at his blog and read between the lines of all the long, poetic posts he published late at night. (‘We ate croissants and cheese, and drank red wine though it was barely 11 am. We felt very French.We were sophisticated. I told her we were two halves of a broken star.') I wrote a story for
The Age
about our painful time at a music festival and he bombarded me with angry texts for an entire afternoon before calling a truce.

‘I guess you have the right,' he conceded eventually, ‘to tell our story how you want.'

There's only so many times you can break your own heart with the helpless, fumbling, all-consuming humanness of sexuality before you realise that there's something profoundly odd about the entire race itself.We seek out these pleasures of the flesh in such a sweet, confused, hypothetical fashion. I had wanted to live in the moment, and yet plunged into some sort of depraved and slightly comedic fantasy world instead.