The Cheek Perforation Dance

by Sean Thomas

  — You know … I was walking up the Cally Road the other day and a tramp pointed at my hair and said ‘you should put some gel in that’

  Joe laughs; Patrick sighs a burp; the two of them walk on: through the garment district; the BBC district; the doctorly purlieus of Harley Street, where they have to step off the pavement to get round an old Arab man sitting seemingly stranded in a wheelchair by the Wimpole Street watch shop.

  Finally the two of them are approaching the door to Patrick and Rebecca’s flat. Patrick looks at the door, at the dusty door, then at the African restaurant opposite, then at the Japanese noodle café beside, then at the pub where the local au pairs drink. Patrick wonders how and why he ended up here: dadless. Clubless. Cashless. Jobless.

  — Rebecca …

  Joe gives Patrick an I’m-still-your-friend-but-this-is-wank expression:

  — Nuff’s enough, Patch

  — But I want you to do this

  — Nope. This is rubbish

  — But I mean this, please

  — Just sleep it off, can’t you?

  — No, soon, come on

  The two of them cross the road, overtaking a woman with a Waitrose bag, and a pair of Korean girls sharing a copy of Hello! Then Patrick says:

  — S’weird, isn’t it?

  Joe, his voice edged with impatience:

  — What?

  Patch clocks the edge; opts to ignore it:

  — Love. It’s … weird, it’s like … – Stroking his own jawline, he says – A lover is like a friend … whose piss you have to taste

  — Skivington!

  — … And a girlfriend who you really love is like a friend who demands you put your finger in their arse

  Joe is silent. Patrick gathers himself, determinedly he pushes himself and his friend towards the door. At the door Patrick taps his pocket, uses his key. Side by side the two of them push the door, heaving against a snowdrift of post.

  — Fan mail

  Stepping over the parking fines, tax demands, notifications of bankruptcy, bailiffs’ letters, and a single holiday postcard, the two friends climb the stairs.

  Upstairs is empty. The bugle shines in the sun on an undusted windowsill. Three uncleared wineglasses sit on a glass table showing dusty white lines. Patrick looks around, feeling he should be surprised by the squalor and mess of his and Rebecca’s flat. Then he says:

  — She’s still asleep …

  — … then he said he reckoned she was still asleep

  — And then?

  Joe reaches to his right for a water glass. Patrick looks at the purple cotton-knot cufflinks in Joe’s shirt cuff.

  Somehow reassured that Joe is taking this so unseriously as to think it not worth borrowing proper links, Patrick lowers his chin to his supporting fist and watches, tense, from the dock, as Joe gulps some water; twice. The glass set down, Joe turns, smiles wanly at the prosecuting counsel, and says:

  — He went upstairs and then he … – The court leans forward; Joe goes on, slightly quieter – Then he called me up. So … I went …

  — You went upstairs?

  — Yeah

  * * *

  From the top of the bedroom stairs Patrick looks down at Joe as Joe reluctantly climbs the stairs. At the top of the bedroom stairs, Patrick steps back to allow Joe ingress to the bedroom.

  At once Joe hisses, looking over at the bed:

  — She’s fast asleep

  Ignoring, burping, tasting again his morning’s beers, Patrick grabs his friend by the arm and firmly leads him over to the bed, to where Rebecca is lying. The duvet cover is a deep, desert-noon blue. Patrick watches Joe as Joe looks, half aghast, half curious: at Rebecca’s blonde sleep-tously hair: all that is visible of Patrick’s girlfriend under the duvet. Patrick tries to grin, casually, although his heart is racing. His friend looks now like he is going to quit, to run off, so Patrick keeps a tight hold of Joe’s arm, as with his other hand Patrick reaches over to the top of the duvet.

  Slowly, as slowly as he can, Patrick lifts back the duvet and pulls it down and away, down to Rebecca’s waist.

  Rebecca does not stir at this. She twitches, moans tinily. Patrick feels proudly possessive.

  They are both staring at Rebecca’s breasts. Her breasts that are so … there; so in front of them. Patrick looks at his girlfriend’s glorious, firm, sizeable, nipple-tipped breasts, thus revealed. Something about Rebecca’s snoring makes these lovely large breasts even more beautiful. The unselfconscious beauty. Patrick feels his mouth go dry and his stomach tumble as he looks at Joe looking at his girlfriend’s cold bare breasts. Rebecca snores again, a small girlish sound; then Rebecca turns, slightly, her lips wet, half a centimetre apart. Joe whispers:

  — OK man they’re fucking excellent can I go now?

  — Hold it!

  — No, Patch, c’mon

  — Just hold on. Just … Stay there

  Patrick is lifting the duvet again. Joe breaks free from Patrick’s grasp and says:

  — Enough!

  But Joe does not leave. He does not go. Joe stays at the foot of the bed as Patrick pulls the rest of the duvet down down, away, down: to show Rebecca’s hips, her legs, her feet.

  And her cunt. Patrick looks in rapt fascination at his girlfriend’s exposed … cunt. Its cuntness. Its being-looked-at-by-Joe-ness. Staring down at the coils of hair, the mysterious thing, Patrick feels an inexplicable upsurge of desire, fear, self-hatred, pride, nausea, as he senses Joe also staring with rapt plebeian admiration at his girlfriend’s … cunt.

  The two of them keep staring. Transfixed. Patrick’s girlfriend stirs slightly, and moans, as if sensing the cold air on her skin; she shifts her legs apart until her suntan thighs are apart enough to let the two men see inside her cunt. To see the TV snooker pink, the inner flesh, the violin case interior.

  Patrick swallows.

  Oh God: the cunt, his girlfriend’s cunt: this cunt, this cunt. This Aztec Playstation; the Devil’s Christmas present to men. Look at it. At its black and pink. Its plush de luxeness …

  — Touch her, Joe. Go on. She’s asleep. Touch her

  Patrick is taking Joe’s hand, and pulling it towards his girlfriend’s loins, towards her cunt, the cartwheeled rose …

  — Go on go on go … go on … do it, touch it …

  But no. Joe snaps his hand away. Turns. At the very moment Patrick and Joe reached towards Rebecca, Joe has turned. And run. And disappeared.

  — I ran off …

  — Just like that?

  — Yes. I’d had enough

  — And …

  — It was all too much. His obsession with her … With Rebecca – Breathing deep – I couldn’t, like, handle it

  Stefan nods, grimly. He looks down at his desk, although it is empty. Then he looks up again and says:

  — Thank you, Mister Blackburn

  In the bedroom Patrick looks at his girlfriend, her naked five-foot-threeness, so shapely on the sheets. Then his girlfriend opens her eyes and says:

  — He’s gone?

  — Yes

  He smiles sadly at her. She smiles, strangely, distantly, and says:

  — Poor Joe …

  Patrick laughs, tasting bitter tastes in his mouth …

  — Well, maybe

  Stretching, shaking her head, Rebecca looks directly at Patrick, and says:

  — God … what are we like?

  — What are you like you mean

  — But … it was Your Idea – She grimaces – Bad idea? Maybe?

  — My idea? Mine?! It was yours!

  — We shouldn’t have, Patch …

  — You didn’t enjoy it of course, oh no … God no

  — Nnno! I didn’t!

  — Oh Jesus

  Patrick feels too much. Sad, angry, aroused, unmanned. He is thinking too hard; worrying how this will affect him. This little scenario. What will he think of what has just happened: in the future? What will it mean? Will this mean he will now always have t
o deal with this, with what has just happened? Will he always want to masturbate about it, always try and forget it, even though he will never be able to forget it? Will he always bear the neocortical scar of this traumatically arousing incident, this disturbingly erotic scenario, even as Rebecca, in that womanly, unobsessed, grounded, not so hypersexual way, will pretty soon forget it?

  Then Patrick says:

  — Stupid Jewish slut

  and he slaps her, hard, across the face.

  22

  — He’s drinking too much

  Rebecca says. Murphy nods, stands, goes to the window. At the window she pouts smoke from her cigarette, exhaling professionally, like a Slovenian whore in a Mayfair hotel bar. Rebecca looks at the smoke her friend is fwwwwing into the air; the imperial featherplume of blue; Murphy says:

  — And the drugs?

  — Some

  — Just some?

  — He says – Rebecca shakes her head – He says sex with me is the best fun you can have … without a rolled-up tenner and a mirror

  Murphy looks down at her friend:

  — Christ you really do love him don’t you?

  Rebecca looks up:

  — What do you think?

  Murphy:

  — I think what ARE you gonna do?

  Rebecca shakes her head and stops looking up and says:

  — Oy oy oy oy OY

  Murphy is now looking out the window, at the road. She is saying nothing. Rebecca regards her friend and says nothing. Then Rebecca looks up again and says:

  — Sit down, Murf

  — Uhn?

  — You’re doing the tall thing again

  Shrugging, Murphy turns, and says:

  — K

  And she sits down.

  Sat opposite, Rebecca watches as Murphy folds her legs beneath her hips, so as to sit cross-legged. Rebecca sees Murphy’s unshaved ankle exposed under the flared hem of her plastic strides. Rebecca says:

  — You really need that boyfriend, Murf

  — K

  — No. You do. Make you shave more often

  — Ooh – Grinning – Coughed up any furballs recently? Mee-ow!

  Rebecca smiles. Says:

  — You need someone to … you know

  — Bring his best mate round to look at me in bed naked?

  Rebecca leans back with her bare arms behind her, her palms flat on the rough carpet, the knee-burning carpet …

  — It was just a game

  — Oh. Just a game, just a game like Cluedo then only with your breasts as … Colonel Mustard in … the kitchen? That kind of game?

  — Just a game, a game I invented, actually

  Murphy tuts, then says:

  — God, Rebecca, can’t you just get over him a little bit?

  — Why?

  — Cause it’s too intense. It’s virtually, like, morbid

  — Morbid?

  — Rebecca … it is, it’s morbid. You are morbidly obsessed with each other – Vehement, now – God’s sake you’ve just been complaining about him for months. So finish it. Why not?

  Murphy pauses for breath; Rebecca looks blank at her friend; Murphy shakes her head and looks away and says:

  — Really. For a smart woman you’re a bit blonde

  Accepting, unaccepting, Rebecca shrugs. Then Rebecca thinks about her blonde hair. Rebecca wonders if Patrick still loves her hair as much as he used to. Again Rebecca pulls some of her blonde hair to her side and looks at the ends. Split ends? Rebecca puts the hair in her mouth and tastes her own hair. And his cum?

  Inhaling hard Rebecca struggles to her feet and gets to stand, and walks across and leans out of the open window, breathing in the sweet summer air that feels fine: nice and affluent, full of southern smells of coffee, perfume, hot cars …

  Whispering a poem to herself, Rebecca looks up and down Marylebone High Street, feeling a vague nostalgia. From behind, Murphy says:

  — I suppose we oughta remember he is going through it

  — ?

  — Y’know I mean his dad did just … die … I guess so maybe

  — Well, exactly …

  — And he’s been ill hasn’t he? And it must have fucked him up, the club and stuff and …

  Window-struck, still, Rebecca shrugs another yes. She is looking at the crap French men’s clothes shop across the road. She is thinking of French men, French clothes, male plumage. Female plumage. The feathers and greenstone we wear. The tiny white shells around our bare ankles. Looking at the shop window with its terrible French versions of Barbour jackets Rebecca thinks of the imperative of sexual display, the imperiousness of female display. Rebecca thinks how much it is like Aztec display, how it is designed to impress the brutish Spanish soldiery: to impress them with the headdresses and the turquoise masks and the golden piercing pins, with the barefoot dances in the plaza and the circles of the eagle warriors, with the strange blood-letting rituals, and the piercing of the genitals …

  and enough, Rebecca thinks. Still staring out of the window Rebecca wonders if she is pregnant; she sits back down, opposite her friend, and says:

  — Tell me about that Tuscan poetry course?

  Murphy looks at her:

  — Nah

  — OK … – Rebecca shakes her head, and smiles – OK – Still grinning – What’s the biggest one you’ve ever seen then, anyway?

  Murphy narrows her eyes, assessingly:

  — Must have been … ooh … nine?

  — Golly!

  — Perhaps even ten

  Frowning slightly, Rebecca:

  — Was it Andy?

  — No, it was that Iranian guy

  Rebecca, mouth open:

  — Oh, my God. The Drakkar guy? Really?

  — Khomeini more and I’ll die

  Rebecca giggles:

  — God yes! God yes I remember him!

  — Like you could forget

  — But – Rebecca is nodding, vigorously – Do you remember when we spent that whole day squirting water at his friends in their car and they

  — On Keats Grove, yeah

  — And then there was that guy with the enormous head who you called You With The Head

  — Fucking hell!

  Murphy is laughing aloud, Rebecca pauses, then says:

  — Must say though. Nine inches is a tad excessive

  — Slightly flashy

  — Almost showing off …

  Murphy makes a thoughtful face:

  — He used it pretty well tho. Like a Jedi sword, zhoom zhoom

  Murphy is doing a Jedi lightsword impression, waving the imaginary sword around the flat; Rebecca is laughing too much to reply, so Murphy says:

  — Which is the biggest one you’ve had anyway?

  — Seven and a half, but Patch’s is the thickest

  — Really, he’s really thick?

  — Yep. He’s got the girth

  Murphy:

  — He’s got the girth! He’s got the girth!!

  Both of them are laughing. Then Murphy stops laughing and looks very sober and says again:

  — But you do have to get over yourself, B. You have to stop thinking this way about him. It’s unhealthy

  — Can’t – Rebecca is shaking her head, saying – I can’t. Can’t help it

  — Rebecca you’ve a degree and a … car. You’re all grown up now

  — Yes yes – Rebecca looks slightly sadly at her friend – I … can’t. I would … but

  — But nothing, ditch him

  — O Murphy – Rebecca’s eyes are fast on her friend’s face – Murphy. I love him. I can’t help it. I wish I could but I can’t – Eyes bright, eyes wet, eyes shiny in the sunlight – You have to see that?! He just … he makes me come and he makes me laugh. What more could a girl want than that? Someone who makes you come and makes you laugh?

  — Someone who doesn’t make you sit on all fours and show your private parts to the newsagent?

  — He hasn’t done that

&nbs
p; — Yet

  Rebecca shakes her head:

  — I’d die without him

  Murphy makes a noise:

  — Listen to yourself! Jesus! You ARE gonna fucking die darling you are gonna DIE with HIM – Getting louder – You two are like one of those pervy couples who should never get together cause when they do they get on so well in their perversity they do weird shit like Fred and Rosie West or the Bulger boys or Bonnie and Clyde or

  — Hitler and Germany?

  Murphy comes to a stop. Rebecca shrugs as if to half apologise for what she’s just said. Murphy shakes her friendly head and says:

  — See you are losing it, those are his words his thoughts all that Jewish race crap just try and get a handle. Jesus – Murphy reaches out and grabs her friend by the head; her hot palms feel very hot on Rebecca’s hot cheeks, as Murphy says, louder – Look at me Becs! This is all wrong! You have to leave him! It’s out of hand!

  And as Murphy holds Rebecca’s face Rebecca faces her friend who is looking so friendly and sincere and loving and Rebecca starts to feel like crying; to prevent this she gulps back the tears and she tries to think of other stuff; not him; not them; not their doing it; not her and Murphy sitting here talking about their doing it. So instead she thinks about … the emperor … in his blue featherwork headdress, piercing his genitals, showing the blood to the dumbstruck Castilian pikemen.

  — How bad is it at home then?

  — Bad

  — How bad?

  Turning on his friend, his shorter, kinder, seen my girlfriend’s cunt and not mentioned it since friend, Patrick clicks his teeth and says:

  — Remember, years ago … That day we spent at the Millennium Dome?

  Joe’s eyes go wide:

  — You don’t mean …?

  Grimly:

  — Yep. It’s … almost as bad as that

  — Jesus

  Patrick goes to explain:

  — It’s been like this ever since … well … – Patrick tries again – I dunno … She’s hardly spoken to me, for weeks. I know she probably wants to finish it, wants me out … – Staring down Marylebone High Street, as if at his bleak Rebecca-less future, Patrick goes on – All we do is shag. And read. And shag. We don’t talk

  — That’s a problem?

  — Yes

  Joe looks across: