‘Like a car chase?’
‘Yeah, but not as exciting as what you see in the movies. We just headed along the highway and turned onto a street and crashed into a wall. I was in the back, though, so I didn’t get hurt or anything.’
He rests his open palm on the centre of my chest. He skims the surface of my skin as he moves his hand down to my stomach. He uses the tip of his finger to draw circles around my bellybutton. It tickles, but I force back my laughter.
‘Why’d you do it?’ I ask. ‘Why’d you steal the car with your mates?’
‘I dunno. Just for fun, I guess. Something to do. I was just stupid to go along with it.’
He lowers the rest of his fingers to my skin and teases the side of my stomach. My toes are curling and my legs are twitching. I clench my fists, trying not to squirm. I’m so ticklish, but I don’t want him to stop.
I hold my mouth closed as tight as I can, but a laugh threatens to escape. Tomas rests his palm on my stomach, over my bellybutton, and I steady my breathing, relax my arms and legs. My heart is racing, and I can almost hear his racing with it. The butterflies flutter in my stomach.
I feel his eyes on me, on my face, to see my reactions, as he moves his hand down to the brim of my football shorts. He stretches his pinkie underneath the elastic waist. I keep my face frozen still. I wonder if he can see my pulse racing on my neck as he moves his hand underneath the elastic and into my shorts, into my underwear. He holds me and it feels like my stomach is churning. I fight back a smile on my face, but he still holds me. I wonder if he’s ever held anyone like this before, apart from me. It’s an exciting feeling as I grow hard in his hand. I feel like we’re breaking the law, doing something wrong, something terribly naughty. But I don’t stop him.
‘What are you doing?’ I ask. He uses his fingers to walk back up to my chest.
‘Nothing,’ he says.
I rest my hand over his and hold it against my chest. I want him to feel my heartbeat, to know it is beating for him; to know we are both alive and that neither of us is dreaming.
‘I wonder what your dad would say if he saw you like this,’ I tease.
‘Dunno,’ Tomas says. ‘He’d probably just look the other way and never mention it to me. Then he’d probably stop coming to our visits. I don’t know, don’t care.’
My heart begins to slow, and I know he can feel it.
‘What would your dad think if he saw us?’ he asks me.
‘Probably knock me out, tell me to stop being a poof,’ I smile. ‘I reckon I could take him now, though.’
Tomas moves his hand away from my chest and takes his fingers to my face. He brushes the resting water droplets on my forehead with his thumb, and I can’t help but dwell on the thought of my dad’s face. He had spiky stubble, always. Blue eyes. Dark skin.
‘He used to drink a lot,’ I say. I don’t even know why I’m talking about him. ‘He’d get drunk and lose all his money at the TAB, then he’d come home and get more from Mum. He used to hit her a bit. I tried to stop him once, and he hit me too. Mum got rid of him after that, and I haven’t seen him since.’
‘What will you do if he comes back?’ Tomas asks.
‘Dunno. Probably use the kitchen knife this time.’
We both giggle. I open my eyes and look up at Tomas. I imagine Kalyn and Jarny seeing me here on this towel, with Tomas’ hands on my body. I wonder if they would hate me, if I would disgust them. I wonder if they would still want to be my friends, if they knew how I feel when I’m with Tomas. I picture their faces, leering through the trees. I picture them shaking their heads, frowning. I picture them walking away, and me never seeing them again.
Tomas takes his hand away and rests back on his towel again. I take the sketchbook out of my backpack and open it to Tomas’ drawing of his superhero. I find the pencil and sketch some details onto his face.
‘What you doin’?’ Tomas asks.
I glance up from the page. ‘Your superhero didn’t look Aboriginal enough.’
‘Didn’t he?’
I keep drawing. The pencil is loud against the page, blending with the birds and the breeze through the trees.
Tomas arches up to see the picture. ‘You’re a better drawer than me,’ he says. ‘Can you illustrate the whole thing for me?’
‘Yeah, sure.’ I finish adding the veins to the superhero’s muscles.
I close the book and rest it back inside the backpack. I lie back on my towel, close my eyes again, and I am in heaven. I don’t want to leave. It’s perfect, to just be here with him at the river. I think I’m figuring this whole thing out, but I want to go further, see if I can handle it.
We get dressed and walk to the river’s edge. I know where to go next. I grab the pushbike and wheel it to the flowing water. Tomas grabs the carriage at its rear, and we carry it over the water. We walk with the flow, downstream.
16
The long branches of the willow trees hang low over the river. Dragonflies buzz close to the water – close enough to get wet. I keep carrying the head of the pushbike, and Tomas carries the tail. As I move my legs through the water, my feet sink into the sand below.
An island rests in the middle of the river. It is covered in bushes and vines, trees stretching high. The stream divides in two around the island, and Tomas follows me down the left stream. The water grows deeper, reaching up to our waists.
We stay on our path down the river, going further and further. The sun moves in the sky, peeking through the treetops. My legs are growing sore beneath me. I imagine Tomas’ are the same. The heat leaves me with a coat of sweat on my skin, which bleeds through the white of my singlet.
I step out of the water and Tomas follows me onto the sand. I push the bike through the bushes, and we make our way along a dirt pathway. The bushes around us, dense and green, buzz with insects.
We come out of the bush onto a long-grassed paddock. I start through the grass, wary of hidden snakes, and spot the building ahead. It’s abandoned, broken and graffitied. As we approach, we can see the broken windows and collapsed roof.
I shove the jammed front door open and Tomas follows me inside, into a small hall. I wheel the pushbike along the carpet, past various doorways, to the other end of the building, where there’s an open floor, like a meeting area. The carpet is ripped in places, exposing the wood underneath. There’s a smell of cockroaches in the air.
I rest the pushbike against the wall. Tomas creeps to the window, slowly, his eyes inspecting everything he sees. He stops at the window, which is broken. Shattered glass has been swept to the corner of the room in a heap.
‘This is the old racecourse,’ I say, gazing out to the paddock. ‘They used to race the horses out there.’
Through the window, we can make out the dirt-paved racetrack circling the paddock. The grass grows over it weakly, in patches.
‘We used to skip school and come here to smoke. Sometimes we’d bring girls here at night if we were in town drinking,’ I say.
Tomas turns around. He stares at me with his brown eyes, standing still, his face moist with the humidity of the building. My legs are trembling. I can’t decipher his expression. He looks almost worried, like he’s about to tell me a deep dark secret.
I think he’ll turn away, but instead he takes a step closer to me. I take a step closer too. I can hear him breathing, though the silence is loud in the room and my heart is beating in my throat.
I reach for the bottom of my singlet, pull it up over my head, drop it onto the floor beside me. Tomas watches as it lands, soft and quiet. His eyes pan over me, from my bare feet to my body, to my face. It feels like it’s the first time I’ve shown my bare chest to him. It’s exciting, but my stomach is fluttering.
I find his eyes again. They are so brown, browner than I’ve ever seen them before. In the dark of the room, they shine to me. I see him realise what I’m doing. I can feel it in my whole body, and we are speaking to each other without even saying a word.
Toma
s grips the bottom of his singlet and pulls it over his head. He drops it to the floor beside him, just as I did. A smile appears at the corner of his mouth, and one grows itself on my face too. I reach to my waist and Tomas’ eyes follow my hands. I slide my thumbs under the elastic of my black football shorts, pull the shorts past my thighs, down my legs and to my feet. I step out of them and they join my singlet. I now stand here in nothing but my black underwear.
My palms are sweating, and I’m sure Tomas’ are too. Hell, my whole body is sweating. Tomas’ eyes wander over my body and I stay there, waiting for him. It’s his turn now. He peels his shorts down, takes them to his knees, then pulls them out from under his feet. His thighs are exposed to me, more than they have ever been. The darkness of his skin grows lighter the further up his legs my eyes travel.
He still has that smile threatening at the corner of his mouth. I hope he likes me, what he sees of me. I can feel the tips of my fingers shaking. I’m sure if I try to speak, my words will be broken and my voice will fail me.
The excitement is growing inside me. My face wants to wear that excitement. I try to hold it back, but the smile comes over me and I laugh. I hold my lips tight together, hide my teeth.
I place my hands on the sides of my underwear. I slide them down my legs and then they are off. I drop them to the side with the rest of my clothes and now I’m naked. He sees me for the first time. He sees all of me and I have nothing left to hide. Nothing.
I smile, and so does Tomas, but the smile falls from his face as he realises it’s now his turn. He looks nearly sick in the stomach as he gazes down at himself. He guides his thumbs under the light elastic of the waist of his underwear and holds them there.
‘Can you turn around?’ he begs.
I smile with a sigh and turn around as slow as humanly possible. He takes a deep breath and is quiet for a moment. The elastic stretches as I hear him slide the underwear down to his ankles. He steps forward, creaks the floor, out of his underwear.
‘You can turn around,’ he whispers with a tremble in his voice.
I turn around slowly and tilt my head up. My eyes wander over his body like a fire. I am burning him. I look up to his eyes and they meet mine again. I’ve seen all of him now, just as he’s seen all of me. The desire that comes over me is as real as the sweat rolling down between my shoulder blades.
Tomas looks away, probably scared to see my face, to see my understanding of him, my reaction to him. I’m scared too. My throat is scratchy. My chest is heavy. My heart is racing faster than it has ever raced before. I don’t want to let him down. I can’t bear the thought of disappointing Tomas. I just want him to tell me I’m not hideous. I want him to get inside my head and read my thoughts, so I won’t have to say them.
Tomas starts to move, stepping towards me on the creaky floor. His breath lands on my cheek. Our eyes meet again. He smiles at me. His smile isn’t cheeky or scared anymore, it is warm, it is accepting, understanding, loving. He reaches out and takes my palm as he stands in front of me. His breath feels like wind in my hair.
I close my eyes, trembling. I could crumble like a stale cake as Tomas wraps his arms around me, pulls me against his chest. I can feel his heartbeat again. It calms me, knowing his heart is beating just as fast as mine. Our skin sticks together in the humidity. I feel the warmth of his armpits on the top of my shoulders.
I look up into his eyes, his beautiful brown eyes. He rests his hand on the blush of my cheek. His thumb is moist as it caresses the blackened skin below my eye. He lowers his forehead onto mine and leaves it there. He gently brushes the tip of my nose with his. I can’t believe this is happening.
‘You’re beautiful,’ I whisper. Tomas presses his lips against mine and kisses me so soft, so tender. We kiss for so long standing there.
We spread our towels beside each other on the carpet to make an improvised blanket. Then we are on it, kissing hard and sweating on each other. The spiky hairs of his face are stabbing my cheeks and chin. He grabs my hair, pulls me on top of him and wraps his legs around my waist and we are both so hard.
17
‘Sorry,’ I say. I’m breathless as I roll off Tomas and onto the carpet.
That’s not how you have sex, I think. That’s not how boys have sex with other boys.
We were hardly getting started, then I ruined it. I was too quick, like a damned thirteen-year-old watching porn for the first time with his hands on himself.
‘It’s all right,’ Tomas giggles. He walks to my backpack and pulls out his sketchbook. He rips a blank page out and wipes away the mess I made. He rips another page out and hands it to me. I just wipe it all away. I am sure my face is red as a tomato. I just want the floor to eat me up, so I don’t have to look into Tomas’ eyes and see the disappointment. I’m all sweaty and exhausted now, and Tomas just finds it funny.
‘You’re cute,’ he says, but I just feel so let down by myself. Argh.
We get dressed and leave the old racecourse building. I don’t even look at Tomas as we walk the pushbike back through the long grass and carry it along the river.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ he says. ‘It coulda happened to me too.’
I stay quiet. He can see my shame. I know he can. But he still smiles at me. And it’s a new smile, one I haven’t seen him use before. He splashes me as we travel through the river water again, and I splash him back.
We walk back through the bush and over the narrow bridge. We start riding along the road, past the farmland. The cows stare at us as we pass, and there’s a thick smell of shit in the air.
‘When did you realise you liked boys?’ Tomas asks, and I’m glad. Anything to take my mind off my mistake from earlier.
‘Dunno. I think when I was twelve,’ I say. ‘Started checking out boys at the swimming carnival at school. But I never really thought much of it. I thought it was just a phase. You?’
‘One of the foster families I lived with,’ he says, ‘they had an older son. Probably eighteen or nineteen. He was a soccer player and had so many muscles. He would walk around in his footy shorts all the time, sweaty after training.’
‘Yeah? You do anything about it?’
‘No, I was, like, ten,’ he chuckles. ‘I knew for sure that I liked boys when I was in high school. There was this boy I liked, and I tried something . . . Anyway, it turned out he was straight. I got in trouble a lot and after that, ran away from home. I was doing stupid shit with my mates, and it just got stupider and stupider. I thought it was helping me. But the judge said this would be my last chance, so I guess I need to stop.’
There is a sadness in his words. They stretch out and strain, like he’s been wanting to say them for as long as he’s been alive.
‘I started getting in trouble too,’ I say. ‘When I was twelve or thirteen, I started getting in fights at school. Mostly because of racist shit, but I hated that I liked boys, too. I hated myself whenever I thought about a boy or looked at one in that way.’
‘Reckon we’re the same?’ Tomas turns to me with a glint in his eye.
‘Maybe,’ I smile, and we continue past the farms. There’s a tractor in the distance, going through the grass. ‘I sort of just decided I was always gonna be a straight guy. You know – get a wife and kids and all that. Then you came along and fucked all that up.’
Tomas giggles, and I giggle with him.
‘I guess we’re both fucked,’ he says, and we both laugh harder.
We continue onto the dirt track and uphill through the bush. Instead of heading back to the Mish, though, we veer off the track towards the camping ground. Music plays loudly through the bushes, and I’m sure before we even get there that it’s coming from Troy’s campsite.
‘You haven’t properly met the campers, have you?’ I ask.
Tomas shakes his head.
‘They come here every year. We know ’em too well.’ I stop and point through the bushes. ‘Wanna go for a look?’
‘Will they give us grog?’ he asks.
I just chuckle and head towards the noise, Tomas following behind me. Troy’s cooking some sausages over the fire, and sure enough the music is his and the others are there too. He spots us as we duck under his fairy lights.
‘Fellas,’ he says, ‘what a surprise.’
‘This is Tomas,’ I say, pointing to Tomas. He gives the campers a wave.
‘Hey, Tomas,’ Troy, Jasmine, Matt and Andy all say collectively.
‘Youse want a beer?’ Troy asks.
We both nod and take a seat in some of his camping chairs. Troy brings us a beer each from his esky. Matt and Andy go back to their conversation with Jasmine, and Levi comes over with his own camping chair and props himself beside Tomas. He holds out his hand and Tomas shakes it.
‘Nice to meet ya,’ he says. ‘I’m Levi.’
‘Nice to meet ya.’
‘Do you live in the village with Jackson?’
‘Nah, just visiting,’ he says. Just visiting. It hits me like a stab in the heart. I’d forgotten Tomas is only here temporarily; that he’ll be going back to Sydney with Aunty Pam soon.
‘What happened to your face?’ Troy asks, pointing to my black eye.
‘Had a bit of a fight last night,’ I say. ‘Just some racist lads from town called me an abo.’
‘Abo? I thought that was just a short way of saying Aboriginal,’ Troy says.
I roll my eyes. ‘No, it’s racist. He may as well have called me a monkey.’
‘Aw, really? Well, fuck ’em, then. Wish I was there for ya.’
I smile. That’s probably the nicest thing Troy’s ever said to me.
Me and Tomas breeze through our first beers and Troy gives us more. He drops the esky beside us and tells us to help ourselves.
Troy’s father comes out of his campervan and he looks like a true-blue, stereotypical bogan. He has a hard-worked beer belly, which he covers with a torn blue singlet, and his short football shorts highlight his hairy white legs, which clearly don’t see much sun.
‘Hey, mate,’ Troy’s father says as he gives me a thumbs-up, which I return. I realise this is probably the first time I’ve ever given a thumbs-up to anyone for any reason. I quickly drop my hand back to my lap.
The Boy from the Mish Page 13
