Eat Me

by Linda Jaivin

  “That we were,” agreed Chantal, tapping a cigarette out of her pack. A memory welled up of the first time she went to hear Bram read. It was at the university. She’d gone early to get a seat up front. When it was over, she felt like she wanted to say something to him, though she wasn’t sure what. Silly young thing that she was, however, she found herself intimidated by the cluster of beautiful young women and pale, thin boys who thronged around him. She stood a few paces away as he talked to a blond girl who seemed to Chantal to have reached some plane of desirability that didn’t even exist in her personal geometry. At one point he looked over at her and the intensity of his gaze caused her to turn and walk away as fast as she could without actually running.

  “You know,” said Philippa, “you were always very mysterious about what happened between you and Bram.”

  “Oh, darling,” said Chantal, lighting a cigarette, “it was all a bit sordid, really.”

  Philippa interrogated Chantal with her eyes. It was hard to read her expression behind the Ray•Bans. Chantal wasn’t giving anything away. Philippa motioned to a passing waiter to refill their glasses.

  Chantal had gone to all of Bram’s readings after that. One evening, as she was heading out the door, she felt a hand on her arm. For some reason, she knew it was him. Turning, she blurted out, “You’re my idol,” and then blushed to the ears. He smiled.

  To cover her embarrassment, she asked about the tattoo on his arm. He explained that it was an alchemic symbol. He asked her if she believed that common metals could be transformed into gold. He didn’t pay much attention to her answer. “Come on,” he said, taking her hand. It didn’t occur to her to ask where they were going.

  “So,” Philippa broke into Chantal’s reverie, “what happened last night? Any reigniting of old flames?”

  Chantal rolled her eyes. “More like the final scattering of the ashes.” Though she was making light of the whole affair, the memory made her feel momentarily queasy. She put down her refilled glass on the bench beside her, but picked it up again quickly as Bernard pounced, landing precisely where the glass had been.

  “What a beautiful cat,” Philippa marveled.

  Chantal cocked one stylized eyebrow and treated the creature to a look of high disdain. “I suppose. If you like cats.”

  Before Chantal could react, Bernard jumped onto her lap and picked his way across it to Philippa’s, stopping briefly as his front paws reached Philippa’s jeans to lift and stretch each back paw in turn, waving them offensively close to Chantal’s face and exposing his little asshole to her view. Then he curled happily onto Philippa’s lap and began purring loudly. Philippa made clucky noises and tickled Bernard behind his wispy ears. He closed his eyes and arched his neck. You’d almost swear he was smiling.

  Some men are like that, reflected Chantal. Complete bastards to you and perfect pets to the next woman. Why did she always seem to catch them on the first half of the cycle?

  She recalled that first night with Bram as though it were yesterday. When they’d reached the fringes of Darlinghurst, he had led her without speaking into a side street crammed with ramshackle terraces and then down the narrow steps of one to a cramped basement flat. The lounge had a makeshift kitchen in one corner, a sofa with several springs poking through the upholstery, and messy stacks of books and vinyl records. The other room featured a bed, snail trails of dirty laundry on the floor, and a low table on which sat a makeshift bong and an ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts. The only other furniture was a wooden folding chair. The whole place stank of stale smoke, mold, and sweat. Bram opened the ancient fridge and ferreted in it for two bottles of beer. Opening them with a practiced gesture on the edge of the counter, he handed one to her and ambled without further comment into the bedroom. She noticed he left the bottle caps where they lay on the floor.

  “Well?” Philippa scratched Bernard’s tummy. The purring rose to a crescendo. “Aren’t you going to tell me anything?”

  Chantal narrowed her eyes and sighed. “I’m not sure, darling. What do you want to know?”

  “All about last night, of course. But I’m also curious about how you and Bram got together in the first place. You’ve always been most secretive about that.”

  “Oh, darling, it hardly bears thinking about. He dragged me home to his wretched little hovel after a reading of his that I’d attended. I remember my first reaction was, like, could I live like this? And my second was, Jesus, I haven’t even slept with him and I’m already fretting about the housekeeping. Next up I’d be worrying about whether this is really the best place to raise our family. I do so hate it when I discover I’m conforming to stereotype.”

  Philippa laughed. “Don’t we all.”

  “Mmmm.”

  Philippa waited patiently for Chantal to continue. But behind her Ray•Bans, Chantal had closed her eyes and was back in memory land.

  She’d followed Bram as far as the doorway. He sat down on the bed, cross-legged, and rolled a joint. What am I doing here, she wondered. Is this really what I want? To be seduced without ceremony, or romance, or even the pretense of either? She was nervous, and excited, and a little peeved as well, more with herself than him. Peering at him over her beer, she lingered indecisively, leaning on the door frame.

  He took a puff and held it out to her. “Come here, little girl,” he said, patting the bed next to him.

  “Natasha,” she said, her voice coming out in a whisper. She felt humiliated. He hadn’t even asked her name. “My name’s Natasha. And I’m not that little.”

  She looked down at her feet. Her face felt flushed.

  “Come here, Natasha.”

  Still she didn’t budge. He shrugged and took another puff.

  In her fantasies he’d tried a bit harder to win her. In her fantasies, he had pretended to be interested in her own poetry. In her fantasies, he had at least asked her name before he asked her home.

  As Philippa studied her friend, an awful thought occurred to her. “You weren’t,” she said, breaking into Chantal’s thoughts, “you know, a virgin or anything, were you?”

  “Sorry?” Chantal looked momentarily lost. “Oh, God no. No, no. I’d had several boys by then. Boys our age.”

  “Oh, of course. I remember now. There was one who used to trail you around like a pageboy to a princess. As a matter of fact, if I remember correctly, they were all a bit like that. Besotted.”

  “I think,” said Chantal, drawing on her fag, “I liked Bram because he was different. He seemed, I don’t know, stronger, less malleable, and more defined.”

  Philippa sucked a few globules of caviar off the top of a cracker and waited for Chantal to continue. “So, did he seduce you or what?”

  Chantal considered the question. “I suppose you could say that I seduced him.”

  Bernard rolled onto his back. Philippa blew on his tummy. His head hung off her lap and almost touched Chantal’s silver satin-covered thigh. His eyes closed, and a thin train of saliva dribbled down onto the shiny fabric. Absorbed in her memories once more, Chantal didn’t even notice. All she ever needed to do, she was thinking, was turn around and walk out. Bram was still beckoning to her. She shook her head. She nearly did walk out then.

  The reason she didn’t was because she decided that she would neither give in nor give up. No. She would have him, but on her terms, not his. She drew herself up to her full height. (She’d been stooping slightly so he wouldn’t seem shorter than her, which he was.) She looked him straight in the eye. A smile played across his features, but she greeted it with a cold sneer.

  “Take your shirt off,” she ordered.

  He looked surprised.

  “Or should I just go home?”

  She could see from his eyes that this new game excited him. He put the joint out in the ashtray, pulled his shirt over his head, and leaned back on his elbows. “What next, Natasha-girl?” he asked.

  “Trousers. Boots. Socks.”

  He did as he was told.

  �
��Good boy,” she said.

  Chantal had noticed candles stuck to saucers or jutting out of candlesticks around the room. She put down her beer, fished her lighter from her purse, and walked around the room, touching the flame to the wicks and watching them sizzle to life. He watched her, trying to appear cool—though it’s hard to look cool when you’re just wearing little red briefs. She could see he was getting a hard on.

  He’d switched on a lamp that rested on a shelf above the bed when he’d come in. She knelt on the bed to turn it off. When she did that, he wrapped his bony fingers around her leg just above the knee. She stared down at his hand. “Off,” she said. He relaxed his grip and looked at her with a curious expression on his face.

  Men. Treat ’em mean and keep ’em keen. How true it is. Chantal sat down in the chair and crossed her legs. “Take off your jocks.”

  He took off his jocks.

  “Good boy,” she repeated. She liked the patronizing sound of it.

  He was horny as a toad. Chantal laughed. This seemed to make him even harder.

  “Play with yourself,” she told him. Her heart was pounding. She was on unmapped territory here. She’d never actually seen a man spank the monkey before. She found herself hypnotized by the rhythm of his hand and the incense of the scented candles. She uncrossed her legs.

  Still pulling away, his eyes bulging, he watched riveted as Chantal slowly pulled off her own shirt and then wriggled out of her long skirt, which she let fall to the floor. She then unlaced and toed off her Docs and pulled off her socks. Black socks, of course. She still had on her favorite slip, a black satin number she’d got in an op shop. It had a rip at the hem. Leaving the slip on, she reached up for her panties and snaked out of them as well.

  She sat and watched him for a while like that.

  Spreading her legs a bit more, she inched her slip up until she was just exposed to him. She was very wet. She inserted her fingers into herself and then pulled them out and sucked them.

  “Natasha, please . . .” he moaned.

  She ignored him. Taking her time, she stroked herself to orgasm. She felt powerful and attractive and sluttish, a truly wonderful combination. She threw her head back as she came and closed her eyes. She didn’t hear him get up but she felt warm lips on her neck and another hand stroking her cunt. Bram was kneeling in front of her, caressing her and kissing her face and eyes and hair.

  They stumbled over to the bed and fell on each other with such an intense passion that they were both amazed. He bit her nipples hard, and then she went for his and punished them with her teeth and her nails. She rolled him onto his back. She liked the way she could make him gasp by teasing the head of his dick with the lips of her cunt and then, in one long smooth motion swallowing it whole, squeezing it tight. After a while, she eased herself down onto his chest and they rolled onto their sides, still locked together and humping away, now penetrating each other with their tongues as well. By now they were sliding on mingled sweat, and she couldn’t tell the beating of his heart from her own. He moved her body like his poems moved her head. Suddenly, he grabbed her buttocks hard and, with a stuttering moan, came inside her. The sensation of his hot jetting sperm caused her to crest again. As they lay there panting, wrapped in each other’s arms, Chantal knew she had just had the best sex of her life. Being a woman of insufficient experience, she naturally confused it with love.

  When they reluctantly untangled their limbs for a smoke, he stroked her hair with his hands and kissed her forehead. “Well, well, little Natasha,” he chuckled.

  They saw each other often after that. The sex was hotter than Parramatta in January. Bram initiated her into vampiric rituals where they’d suck each other’s blood and even talked her into shooting up with him a few times, the asshole. God. Chantal remembered when AIDS awareness took hold. She had a sickening vision of herself as one of those human tenpins on the telly. She became the first one of their little group to have an HIV test. Miraculously, it was negative. He called her Little Natasha and declared her his muse. He never did ask to see her poetry.

  Because Chantal was in love, she never protested at the fact that he never wanted to stay at her place. Nor did she complain (much) that he had no interest in meeting her friends. Or, for that matter, introducing her to his—except when they ran into them by chance, and then only if one of them asked her name. He didn’t ever care if she had an exam or a paper due; they met and mated according to his needs and schedule. But the sex was phenomenal, and she worshiped his genius. She could never admit to anyone how humiliating it was at times.

  The worst, of course, was that night she thought they’d had an appointment and went over to his place only to find some blond girl in his bed. With him. He hadn’t even tried to conceal what was going on or apologize. Worse, he’d laughed. Not a good look from where she stood. Nor did he run after her when she turned and fled. Later, he told her he needed his space and his freedom and if she “couldn’t deal with that” then she should just “find a nice bourgie boy and move to the ’burbs to drop bubs.” Later, one of his mates told her that Bram had said to him that he was in danger of really falling for her and had to end it before it became too serious. His mate thought this was a perfectly logical position. Then again, he was male too.

  “Hello hello? Earth to Gorgeous. Earth to Gorgeous.” Alexi had returned to find Chantal sitting perfectly still with her head thrown back and her eyes closed behind her sunnies. Next to her perched Philippa, Bernard sound asleep in her lap. Philippa, having given up on the conversation, had finished the whole plate of hors d’oeuvres. Mellow with food and champagne, she was absentmindedly stroking Bernard and watching the other guests flit about the garden.

  At the sound of Alexi’s voice, Chantal’s eyes flew open. She blinked. “Oh, dear,” she said. “Have I been off with the fairies?”

  “No, darling, I have. And I’ve got a date with a particularly delicious one who’s waiting by the front door. I’ve just come to say too-roo, sweetie.”

  “Have a good one, darling.” Chantal smiled.

  “Exactly what I’m planning to do.” Alexi puckered and air-kissed both girls good-bye. They watched his lithe form weave through the garden.

  “He’s a scream,” Philippa observed, smiling. “And so are you, Chantie. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you flake out so badly before.”

  “Oh, darling,” Chantal said. “I really am not myself today. Have I been gone long?”

  “Nearly filed a missing person’s report,” Philippa replied. “But no worries. I’ve been having a good time people watching. You know me. I get a bit shy at these things if I actually have to mingle.” She suddenly looked down at the furball in her lap. “Oh, yuk!” she exclaimed.

  “What?”

  “It just farted,” Philippa said, curling her lip and forcefully evicting Bernard from her lap. He landed on his feet, shook himself, and meandered off to see if he could score some of the smoked salmon off the buffet table. He’d had enough of her anyway.

  “Where were we?” Chantal frowned and lit a cigarette.

  “You said you saw Bram last night,” Philippa said.

  “Oh, God. I ran into him at a party over at my new neighbors’ flat. It was a jungle party. You know the sort of thing. African music, ambient jungle mist from a dry ice machine, drinks in coconuts. Everyone in leopard-skin prints and cat masks.”

  “What were you wearing?”

  “My new zebra-stripe minidress. Leopard skin is so five-minutes-ago. Unless it’s white leopard, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “Anyway, Bram just sort of materialized in front of me. Wearing a pith helmet and a safari suit.”

  “Oh dear.” Philippa’s hand flew to her mouth. “Not a safari suit. How totally naff.”

  “Totally. There are few sights more tragic than that of a poet in a pith helmet. But, you know, I didn’t recognize him at first. He’s aged pretty badly.”

  “He must be what, forty-three? Forty-four?�
�

  “Forty-four. His eyes were red and puffy, and his lean frame had filled out in all the wrong places. Wrinkles fretted his skin. He even had that awful line that slices from the middle of the eyes straight down the cheek that longterm smack users all seem to get. Not that I know that many of them. But you see it on aging rock stars a lot. And his skin was even more sallow than I’d remembered it. A steady diet of drugs and alcohol doesn’t exactly do wonders for the complexion.” Chantal gestured ironically with her champagne glass and cigarette. “Not that I’m exactly drug-free. But at least I use mud packs and have a facial whenever I can afford it. And getting enough sleep is very important too, of course.”

  Philippa didn’t want to hear a beauty lecture. “And then?” she prompted.

  “Anyway”—Chantal paused to blow a smoke ring—“before I twigged to the fact it was him, I’d said something like ‘Dr. Livingstone, I presume?’ and he responded by singing that silly Moody Blues song. He was quite drunk and the words came out all slurred: ‘Shtepping outta n jungle gloo . . .’ Suddenly, there was this shocking moment of mutual recognition. He stopped singing, and gasped, ‘Li’l Nas, Natasha!’

  “You know, darling, for years I’d held imaginary conversations with Bram in my head in which, with haughty wit and perfect composure, I’d assassinated his character so thoroughly and so devastatingly that he’d died and come back a new man. But now that he was there in front of me, I felt only pity.”

  “As you would.” Philippa nodded.

  “I mean, I’ve progressed. The last torn slip I wore was made that way by Comme des Garçons. And I gave up poetry when I met Alexi, which was soon afterward, and he made some comment about it being on the ‘whiffy’ end of literature.”

  “That’s a bit unfair,” Philippa protested.

  Chantal shrugged. “Darling, life is unfair. Anyway, we talked about the old times. He made some mumbling apology about what a shit he’d been. Then he talked me into showing him my flat, which, after all, was just next door. By then I’d had quite a few of those violent coconut cocktails and was feeling a little unsteady on my Patric Coxes. If I felt any foreboding, it was coming from some distant, anaesthetized place. I led him inside. ‘One for the road, eh, Little Natasha?’ he belched. While I was trying to figure out whether he was referring to alcohol or sex—and I was quite horrified by the thought of either at that point—he just stumbled past me and made a beeline for my bedroom.”