Praise

by Andrew McGahan

  ‘I want to watch your face.’

  She depressed the plunger.

  For a moment there was nothing. Cynthia unwrapped the belt. She was smiling. ‘You feel it?’

  And then I did. It rushed into my head.

  ‘Oh, you feel it all right,’ she laughed. ‘Your pupils just screwed down to dots.’

  I kept staring at her. It was rebounding down through my arms and legs. Finally I had to sink down on the bed. If this was what it was like for women when they came, then they had it a lot better than men. Cynthia bent over me and stroked my face and for a time we all lay there. Heroin.

  After a while though the first rush faded. Cynthia began talking to Helen and Dave. Small talk. I didn’t pay attention. I sat up again. I felt a little dizzy, a little nauseous. My mouth was dry.

  We decided to go out onto the verandah. Helen cleaned up before we left. She capped the syringes and put away the other things. I stood up. My balance was gone. I reeled along the hallway. The others laughed.

  ‘It’ll go away,’ said Cynthia.

  We sat on the verandah. It was late afternoon. The sun was setting over the city and the hills and television towers. We sat and chatted, off and on, for an hour or so. The conversation wasn’t important. It was good just to sit and look. Everything looked fine.

  I rolled and smoked. I decided a beer was in order. I got up and moved down the hall. I was still dizzy. By the time I got to the kitchen I was feeling sick, and then very sick. Battery acid, I thought, washing powder. Overdose. Death. I bounced along the wall to the toilet and kneeled over the bowl. I opened my mouth, gagged. Nothing came. I put my finger down my throat. I gagged again. Nothing.

  I felt a little better. I stood up and unzipped. There was pressure in my bladder, but I couldn’t piss. I gave up and went back to the fridge. I got a bottle of beer and four glasses, then went back to the verandah.

  ‘I can’t throw up.’

  They nodded.

  ‘We should’ve told you,’ Cynthia said. ‘Sometimes you can’t. It’s the heroin. It does something to the stomach. It can also stop bodily secretions. Is your mouth dry? You won’t be able to shit or piss either, not unless you really have to.’

  So that was that. I was still nauseous, but nausea didn’t seem so bad if you knew nothing could come from it. We drank the beer. It swilled around in my stomach. I had the feeling that nothing was being digested down there.

  ‘How about a bath?’ Cynthia asked me.

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Not here though. Let’s get back to the hotel.’

  ‘Okay. But I don’t think I can drive.’

  ‘I’ll drive. I know what I’m doing. I used to have four or five times this amount in a day, when I was using.’

  ‘That much?’

  ‘That’s nothing.’

  We said our goodbyes to Helen and Dave and climbed in the car. Cynthia started up and drove as well as she ever did.

  ‘It’s when I’m on acid,’ she said, ‘that’s when things get scary. Traffic lights start talking to me.’

  ‘We should stop off somewhere,’ I said, ‘and get some nitrous.’

  ‘Nitrous?’

  ‘Nitrous oxide. Laughing gas. You buy it in supermarkets. It comes in little cylinders that they use to make fresh whipped cream. The little cylinders also fit into soda syphons, so you inhale it from one of those. It’s great if you’re already stoned or drunk. But it only lasts a minute or two.’

  ‘Minutes? Is that all? Why bother?’

  ‘They’re very weird minutes.’

  But Cynthia wasn’t interested. It sounded like kids’ stuff to her. Like sniffing glue or petrol.

  We got back to the hotel and snuck into her room, in case her parents were around. Cynthia filled the bath. She poured in some shampoo to make bubbles. It was a big tub, with taps at the side, not at the end. Built for two. I got us a beer each. Cynthia went through her bags and found some scented candles. She put a tape on the stereo and switched off the light. We undressed. Climbed in.

  It was good. We sat with our heads at opposite ends, with our legs entwined. Mostly we talked, smoked cigarettes. My toes were playing with her cunt. Her hands were around my penis and balls. For long periods we kissed and stroked each other. I’d never enjoyed kissing, but this time it was everything it was supposed to be. Cynthia’s lips and Cynthia’s tongue and Cynthia’s teeth — I could taste her. Nothing grotesque at all. This was a person, a good person that I liked a great deal. This was Cynthia. It was better than fucking.

  My penis rose from time to time.

  I lifted my hips out of the water so we could look at it.

  ‘God,’ said Cynthia, ‘look at the circumcision scars. That must’ve hurt.’

  ‘Yes, it’s a nasty tradition.’

  ‘Uncircumsised penises are great. You can play little games with them. Poor things, they should leave them alone.’

  It stood there between us. Not terribly proud.

  ‘Show me how you do it when you wank,’ she said.

  I showed her, moving my hand and thumb the right ways. She watched me and then tried it herself. The sensations were distant. The heroin, I thought.

  ‘You can do it a bit harder,’ I said. ‘You don’t have to be all that gentle with it. I’m not.’

  She pumped it. She said, ‘A lot of men don’t wank this way, y’know. They don’t like using their own hand. They like to fuck things. Pillows and sheets and mattresses.’

  ‘I’ve heard that. It’s a matter of taste. I don’t think I’m so much into the psychology of actually fucking something, I just want the sensation and the fantasy. The hand seems a lot easier. Maybe that’s significant. Maybe if I was more into fucking pillows I’d be more into fucking women.’

  ‘Maybe. Someone should do some research. A survey of the masturbatory habits in males, and their consequences as regards fucking ability.’

  ‘Hey. We could do it. We could really be on to something here!’

  ‘I’d say it’s already been done.’

  ‘Don’t be so sure.’

  After a while Cynthia stopped pumping. It was pleasant, but an orgasm was light years away. We went back to kissing. My hands moved over her face and her back, testing out the skin disease. It all seemed beautiful, even the little scabs and the bleeding. There were small spirals of her blood in the water.

  Finally we crawled out of the tub. We’d been there for four or five hours. It was after midnight. Cynthia sat on the toilet and tried to urinate. I knelt between her legs and watched.

  ‘Fuck,’ she said, ‘I can’t.’

  ‘C’mon, you can do it. Push.’

  She pushed and the piss trickled out. She rose. It was my turn. I stood over the bowl. My penis was shrivelled from all the time in the water and very small. Eventually it came.

  ‘Bedtime,’ said Cynthia.

  We went and lay on the crisp hotel sheets. We began fucking. It was hard work. I couldn’t come. Definitely the heroin. But Cynthia could. As easily as ever. She clocked up the orgasms. She was getting me back.

  ‘You arranged this!’ I said.

  ‘Why would I? My fanny hurts.’

  I began fucking her again.

  ‘You bastard,’ she said, but she dug back. Pain wasn’t enough to stop her, nothing was. I got angry. She swore at me. ‘You prick, you prick, you prick.’ We plied at each other until she came again. Then I started again. She came again. We sweated and hurt and it went on for hours ... I was power mad. I was the ejaculation-less male. I had this woman under my control. I could do anything. I was merciless.

  Dawn approached. My penis was bright pink and felt raw enough to bleed. By then we were trying other things, mouths and fingers. It wasn’t working. We set to one long last time, grunting and swearing at each other, pounding the flesh. And I was close at last. I was gonna do it. Cynthia was below me and she deserved the pain. She started coming. ‘I’m not gonna stop,’ I said, ‘I am not going to stop!’

 
‘You bastard, you BASTARD.’

  I came. It was magnificent. The fire ran through.

  We collapsed. I rolled off. Lay there.

  ‘It hurts,’ she moaned. ‘I won’t be able to walk for a week.’

  ‘Stiff,’ I said.

  The sun was coming through. We organised our various cigarettes and smoked.

  We slept for a few hours. Then someone was knocking on the door. Cynthia climbed out of bed, wrapped a towel around herself and answered it. I heard a male voice. It was her father. I lurched out of bed and threw on my clothes. Then I sat on the bed and waited. Cynthia finally closed the door and came back. She saw me and started laughing.

  ‘He’s not coming in,’ she said.

  ‘Well what d’you expect? You’ve got me very nervous. One of the most decorated soldiers in Vietnam, and here’s me sneaking into his daughter’s hotel room.’

  ‘You’re hardly the first.’

  ‘I know.’

  Cynthia climbed back into bed. ‘Just one day to go. What’ll we do with it?’

  ‘I’ll get out of your way, if you want.’

  ‘No! What gave you that idea?’

  ‘Nothing. I was just offering.’

  ‘You’re not leaving until I’m on my way to the airport, okay?’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘So how do you feel anyway?’

  I stretched out on my back. I felt very good indeed. Tired and sore, but happy.

  ‘Heroin is a wonderful drug,’ I said.

  ‘It’s the best.’

  We lay there, staring the ceiling.

  ‘What d’you think,’ I said, ‘just one more time?’

  ‘What the fuck. You gotta live.’

  She got up, dialled Helen’s number.

  TEN

  The deal was the same. About two in the afternoon we drove over to the house in Spring Hill. Helen and Dave were waiting. The girls went off to make the purchase. Dave and I sat watching TV and drinking beer. It was about an hour before the girls returned. There’d been no pool game this time, but they’d had to sit around and have a couple of drinks before the dealer felt comfortable enough to make the transaction.

  Cynthia was still revolted. ‘I can just tell with some people, y’know. I can pass someone in the street and I get this feeling inside. It’s like I can recognise danger. And that guy today was dangerous. Crazy.’

  ‘Do you get this feeling often?’

  ‘No. But I got fucked once by a guy who made me feel that way. It was like rape, it was evil. I still have nightmares about it.’

  We all went into Dave and Helen’s room and made the preparations. The amounts were the same. So was the order — Dave first. Helen got him ready. ‘So what did you guys get up to yesterday?’ she asked.

  ‘We sat in the bath all night,’ said Cynthia, ‘then we went to bed. How about you?’

  ‘Yeah, we tried fucking. Tried it for hours. I couldn’t come. Neither could Dave.’

  ‘Never can,’ said Dave.

  Helen shoved the plunger in and Dave studied his arm.

  My turn came around.

  I knew what to expect now, and I was ready, I was turned on. There was something deeply sexual about the syringes and the blood and the rush, about having someone else stick it in. Cynthia wrapped the belt around my arm. I looked at her eyes. They were all colour. Pinheads for pupils. She put the needle up against the skin. I wondered what this would be like if we were naked and in bed and fucking. If I was already inside her. If it wasn’t just Cynthia doing it to me, if we were both doing it, injecting each other, in unison. If we were right on the point of coming as we sank the needles in. Not into our arms, but into our hips, our thighs ...

  It pricked. She pulled up the blood and it swirled around the syringe. She was a succubus. I was doomed. She injected the heroin. It came flooding up my arm — who would’ve thought blood moved so fast — into my chest, streaming into my brain like molten gold. I lay back and let it go.

  Later we went out onto the verandah. Dave got us all beers. I was dizzy and nauseous again, but it was better than the first time.

  We sat there for an hour or so, mostly quiet.

  Cynthia was holding my hand, playing with my hair. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘What’ll we do? Another bath?’

  ‘I guess so ... we could try the tub at my place. It’s not as big, but it’d be something different at least.’

  ‘Okay.’

  We got in the Kingswood. Cynthia was driving. The roads were quiet. Sunday afternoon.

  ‘We should get some lubricant,’ she said. ‘My cunt hurts enough as it is.’

  ‘Where do you get lubricant from?’

  She looked at me. Shook her head. ‘You get it from a chemist.’

  We found a chemist. I went in. Cynthia didn’t want to deal with the counter staff. She was embarrassed about her skin. Her face. It was bad, all that contact the night before. Sex was lethal to her.

  The brand she wanted was called K-Y Personal Lubricant. I went in and wandered around the shelves. I was feeling good. I looked at all the colours, all the boxes. I moved smoothly down the aisles. It was all going well. Eventually I found the stuff amongst the tampons and pads. It came in a blue and white tube, in a blue and white box. I took one up to the counter. The woman looked at me.

  I said, ‘I’ll just take this, thanks.’

  I flicked up my hand to show her the box. I was moving faster than I realised. The tube flew out, up into the air. I watched it spin there. It floated. The woman reached out and caught it.

  We looked at each other.

  ‘Fine,’ she said.

  I paid up. I saw that the shelves behind the counter were lined with boxes of condoms. Cynthia and I were not using condoms. She was on the pill. She admitted she wasn’t all that regular with the doses. I thought, because of that, condoms might’ve been a practical idea. But Cynthia said she hated them, and practicality was such an odious thing to labour under ...

  I got back to the car and gave her the K-Y.

  ‘They’ve got a million condoms in there,’ I said. ‘You sure I shouldn’t get some?’

  ‘No! You just can’t do it with those things. I’m not going to get pregnant anyway. I’ve been fucking for years without condoms. I’m infertile, I must be. All those drugs I’ve been on, the cortisone and the smack and the speed ... they’ve ruined me.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘God, what am I saying. I’m never going to have children. Fucking is all I’ve got left.’

  ‘You’ve got much more than that, Cynthia.’

  As for diseases, it was a bit late to be worrying. Anything one of us had, the other had it by now.

  She started up and we made it home. The house and the old men were fairly quiet. We opened up my flat and got some towels and the radio, then went down the hall to the baths. There were two tubs, each one in a small grimy booth. The booths at least had doors. The tubs though hadn’t been properly cleaned in months. Vass, as the permanent resident, received a deduction from his rent to keep the bathroom and toilets scrubbed, but his efforts were haphazard. It was a big step down from the hotel. Still, the tubs were long and deep, the water was hot, and there was a certain gloomy atmosphere that white tiles and soap couldn’t match. We plugged in the radio, closed the door, undressed and climbed in.

  Then we were kissing again. It was glorious. Heroin did something to the mouth, brought it to life. We each had our hands behind the other’s heads, pressing our faces together, melting lips and tongues and teeth ... face fucking, two cunts, two pricks ... the way it should’ve been with Mother Nature, right from the start.

  Someone came in to use the toilets. We stopped kissing and listened. It was one of the old men. We could hear him unzip, hear the piss streaming into the bowl.

  ‘Hey,’ he yelled, ‘who’s in the bath?’

  ‘Me,’ I said, ‘Gordon.’

  It was Lewis. ‘You’re having a fucking bath? ‘No one ever used the tubs, everyone showered. Cyn
thia had my penis and balls in her hands.

  ‘I felt like it,’ I said.

  Our voices echoed around the room.

  ‘Hey,’ said Lewis, ‘you met the new people yet?’

  ‘No. I haven’t been around. What about them?’

  ‘They’re arseholes. They stole my clothes off the line.’

  ‘That’s bad.’

  ‘Fucking junkies is what they are. They’re on methadone. They hit the clinic every day. You know that? Thieves and fucking junkies.’

  Cynthia was now sucking my penis under the water, blowing bubbles.

  ‘Do they work?’

  ‘Course fucking not.’

  He went out. Cynthia came up for air.

  The hours passed.

  From time to time some of the other residents came in to shit or piss. This was life in the toilet. We listened to the farting and belching and liquid gushes. The sounds of creation. No one else tried to talk to us. The afternoon passed into evening. Every half hour or so we let some of the cold water out, poured hot water in.

  Finally I climbed out. I needed to shit. I wrapped a towel around myself, opened the door and went into one of the two cubicles. The toilets were worse than the tubs. Shit stains all over the bowl, piss and wet wads of paper all over the floor. I sat down and strained for a while, but nothing came.

  Cynthia called out. ‘What’s happening in there?’

  ‘I can’t do it.’

  ‘Hang on.’

  I heard the water in the tub swish. A moment later she opened the door of my the cubicle and came in, dripping and naked.

  ‘Get out of here.’

  ‘Oooh, you look so cute. Like a little boy.’

  ‘I don’t need you, Cynthia.’

  ‘Poor little baby, of course you do.’

  She knelt down between my legs and felt under my balls around to my arsehole. ‘So nothing will come out, huh?’ She wriggled her finger in.

  ‘Jesus.’ I was squirming. My prick rose.

  Cynthia took me in her mouth and dug her finger further in. I thought, someone has to come in now.

  I said, ‘All right. Let’s do it, then.’

  She stopped sucking and mounted. We began fucking, started sweating. It was hot in there. We breathed in shit. She lay flat on my chest, reached down and around, and got just the tip of her finger up my arse again. The fucking picked up, short quick jabs. There was no room to move. I pulled her own cheeks apart and wriggled a finger into her arse. She had the tips of two fingers in mine, I slid two into hers. We were both panting and grunting. Our arms were straining. Sweat pooled on the seat.