August Falling

by Les Zig

  As I get up, a deadweight in my shoulders spreads down my arms and torso and almost drags me down to the toilet seat. The cubicle veers and I put my hand on the wall to steady myself. The white scar on my right wrist gleams. I clench my hand into a fist. That was then. This is now.

  It doesn’t matter. That’s one thought among the many that whiz through my head, explode in a fury, then fade to nothingness—but it’s the one I hold onto, want to hold onto.

  19

  I open the cubicle door and the first step I take out is like I’m falling. The next isn’t much steadier. Others in the toilet wash their hands at the sinks, or piss at the urinal, and I’m peripherally aware—or maybe I imagine—that they’re staring at me, like I’m a zombie who’s emerged from the grave and is still coming to grips with motion.

  The doorhandle’s another problem. I miss it the first time, then the second time yank at it and sling the door open into my knee. I bite back the grunt that almost escapes my mouth, and force myself out, a stabbing pain in my knee.

  Bodies press at me, faces jeer at me, mouths twist into mocking laughs. I plough my way through, detour to the bar, and order two scotches, which I gulp down one after the other like medicine I don’t want to taste. The bartender frowns at me and I know there’s no chance I’ll be getting another from him, so I head back out to the balcony, each step getting heavier.

  Everything hits at once: the night, the cold, and the openness of the sound. The people from Ronnie’s birthday are ghosts. I retch, almost vomit, and balance myself against the jamb. My legs tingle—except for my knee, which has begun to throb.

  I return to our table, grab a spare glass and pour myself a beer, but miss the glass and splash the table. A warm hand closes on mine—Julie’s. She smiles. It’s the same smile. But they’re not the same lips. They’re lips that have kissed who knows how many men, fellated who knows how many men—and maybe women.

  ‘You all right?’ she says as she helps me pour the beer.

  I nod and sit down at the table. ‘I had to go to the toilet,’ I say.

  ‘You don’t look too good.’

  ‘Something I’m struggling to digest.’

  ‘Do you want to go?’ Her smile’s gone, large eyes narrow. ‘I’ll take you home.’

  ‘Give me a minute or two.’

  I gulp from the beer. After the scotch, it’s like ice in my throat and makes my rear teeth ache. I cough and splutter until Julie thumps me on the back and when I settle, she sits alongside me, and folds an arm around my back. That scent that’s uniformly her … what is it? Like a faint lavender. It’s not perfume. It must be soap. That’s the scent of her. Soap—soap that’s tried to scrub away god knows what else. Cum? Maybe that’s what I’m smelling. Maybe it gets ingrained in skin, like chlorine from a pool you swim in every day. No, that’s stupid. And unfair. And mean. But these thoughts keep jumping out.

  Boyd comes over and rests a hand on my shoulder. ‘You’re looking a little pale, August,’ he says.

  ‘I’m okay—really.’

  Julie waits for an introduction but when I sip from my beer instead, she rises up and offers her hand. ‘Julie,’ she says.

  ‘Boyd. Nice to meet you.’

  He leans in, kisses her cheek, and I see her in his arms, see her open to his touch, see the boundaries we’re meant to have as partners erase. Jealousy surges through me until my muscles lock, but it’s good because it’s articulating why I’m shocked, or at least part of the reason—this woman who is so amazing and seemed like mine doesn’t seem like mine anymore, or at least not safely. Is that all it is? I can’t get it straight in my head. We’ve only been going out a little while so that assumption—and claim—seems premature. But sometimes, something just seems right.

  Until it isn’t.

  I finish my beer, pour myself another, and stand, but dizziness hits—perhaps the scotches catching up. Boyd and Julie study me as if I might pass out. I smile back, although it feels like the expression you might see on a corpse, so I take another drink.

  Ronnie comes over, still carrying the beer I’d given to him before I fled. ‘Hey, I’ve been holding this for you, but looks like you got yourself another,’ he says.

  I grab the beer from him—splashing some in the exchange—and alternate between the two glasses. Julie—now chatting to Sam and Boyd—frowns at me. I see the three of them naked. There’d be chatter. Then sex. That’s the way it’d work in a porn movie. Of course, this is real life. But I don’t know the way porn actresses behave when they’re not working. Maybe it’s that easy. Maybe it’s not. I don’t know. But it’s something I continue to see over the next couple of hours as I drink, although I drink slowly now, pace myself, try to regain some semblance of control. Julie’s frowns at me grow progressively sterner, but whoever she talks to—be it man, woman, or group—I see them naked, imagine them degenerating into sexual activity.

  I put my beer down and close my eyes as nausea hits and I’m sure that I’m going to throw up. There’s the lavender again, mild and assuring. Julie’s warmth against my body. Her hands under my arm. I open my eyes. She looks at me with real concern.

  ‘We should go,’ she says.

  I let her lead me from the balcony and back through the second floor without even saying goodbyes. She excuses her way through people until we get to the stairs, then guides me down. I miss one step and am flung forward. It’s a miracle I don’t fly down the rest of the way, and equally miraculous that Julie manages to steady me. She gets me to the bottom floor. I close my eyes and focus on putting one foot after the other. The hubbub grows muffled and there’s cold night air all around us. We’re outside.

  ‘Come on,’ Julie says.

  I still don’t open my eyes and instead let her pilot me, the ground hard under my feet, cars passing, the change and keys in my pockets jingling. We take our first turn and I finally open my eyes to see the back of Julie, us linked simply by hands, the way elephants link trunks and tails. She says nothing. I feel embarrassed to have made such a spectacle of myself, although I guess that’s hardly new—in a world of freak-outs, I’m the main attraction.

  We finally arrive at her car, and she unlocks the door and eases me into the driver’s seat. I shuffle across to the passenger seat, but now that I’ve stopped moving the nausea’s resurgent and the car’s cloying. I roll down the window to feel fresh air as Julie gets into the driver’s seat. She starts the car and pulls out onto the road. I let my head loll out the window the way a dog would.

  ‘I don’t want to be a nag,’ Julie says, ‘and I don’t want to fight. I don’t mind casual drinking, but I have a problem with binge drinking. My stepfather was a binge drinker. That’s when he … Look, I don’t like what I saw tonight. It’s destructive.’

  I lean back in the chair. Julie glances at me.

  ‘I know you become nervous in some situations,’ she says, ‘but drinking’s not the answer.’

  I shake my head. Bad idea. The nausea fires up my throat. I thrust my head out the window and vomit a stream of liquid that hits the side of Julie’s car. It doesn’t even come from drunkenness, but the shock.

  Julie pulls over and I wrench the door lever, which doesn’t work, so I thrust half myself out through the window and continue to vomit. It splatters into the gutter. Cars pass us. Some honk. Somebody shouts something insulting. I don’t care. My throat gags, but now it’s like a gun without bullets. I wipe the cuff of my sleeve across my mouth and ease myself back into the car.

  ‘You all right?’ Julie asks.

  ‘I think.’

  ‘Any more?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Julie pulls back onto the road and we resume the drive to my place. I sink back into the seat and close my eyes, listen to the car’s rattling engine, feel the tyres grip the road. I must drift off because there’s a sense of peacefulness, marred only by the gnawing sense there’s something wrong, like I can’t be sure that I have
n’t misplaced my wallet or keys.

  ‘Your friends are nice,’ Julie says.

  I grunt noncommittally.

  ‘Are we doing dinner with your sister on Monday night?’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  Something taps the roof. Then something else. Then it’s drumming—rain. Followed by the squelching of wipers.

  ‘Have I upset you or something?’ Julie says.

  ‘What?’ I open my eyes and see the rain splatter across the windshield. We’re passing the Carpet Duke. The neon caricature of the duke lauds over us.

  ‘You’re distant. What’s going on? Tell me. Talk to me.’

  I take a deep breath. ‘You work as a PA for Don.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Is that your only job?’

  Now Julie’s unblinking as she focuses on the road. Her hands tighten around the steering wheel. There’s nothing for a long while and I don’t even see or hear her breathe. I want to press her, but I also want her to tell me of her own volition—if that’s possible now.

  ‘You know,’ she says finally.

  ‘I found out tonight.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And? You’re a porn star!’

  ‘I’m not really a star.’

  I don’t know if she’s being genuine or if she’s joking to try defuse the tension. It doesn’t matter. Only the truth matters now.

  ‘So you are?’ I say.

  ‘Was.’

  ‘Was?’

  ‘An actress, yes.’

  ‘An actress.’

  ‘An actress.’

  ‘And is that it?’ I ask.

  ‘What do you mean and is that it?’

  ‘The whole career?’

  ‘I’ve danced. I’ve stripped, okay? And I’ve shot photos.’

  ‘And …?’

  My indignation grants me a courage I wouldn’t usually have, fuelled by the anger that, for the second time in my life, I’ve been in a relationship where something secret has been going on, where the truth I’ve known hasn’t been the truth at all.

  ‘I don’t appreciate this becoming an interrogation,’ Julie says.

  ‘I’m just asking, because I’m wondering what else has been left out.’

  ‘That’s it. I wasn’t a prostitute, wasn’t an escort.’

  ‘Like there’s a difference?’ I ask, imagining Julie trolling seedy streets, dressed in something skimpy and garish—again, it’s unfair of me, but I can’t stop the thoughts.

  ‘There’s a difference.’

  ‘What?’ I ask. ‘You’re having sex for money.’

  ‘There’s a distinction.’

  ‘What? Tell me—what?’

  Julie blinks. Maybe she’s blinking back tears. But her face is hard, her body rigid. She’s not crying. She’s equally indignant.

  ‘I’m being paid to act, okay?’ she says. ‘I’m not being paid to have sex. I’m being paid—or I was being paid—to act.’

  ‘You’re being paid to act that you’re having sex.’

  ‘It’s not what you think you see. It’s like a magician. All you see is the end result. You don’t see the work that goes into making that illusion.’

  Her words seem carefully chosen, but all they do is strike me, and dissipate—a wave crashing on the shore. I’m indomitable. A lighthouse. Unassailable in my fury.

  ‘And we’ve had sex!’ I say. ‘Unprotected sex.’

  ‘Do you realise how insulting that is?’

  And she’s right. It is insulting. And even though deep down I want to trust her, I can’t help being worried.

  ‘I’ve been checked periodically,’ she says. ‘That’s the way the industry works.’

  ‘The industry.’

  ‘I appreciate that you’re hurt, but don’t attack me. I don’t deserve to be attacked.’

  The shock of it all has kept me remarkably sober, or at least kept my thoughts lucid, and the vomiting has done wonders for the nausea. Now there’s only what’s left, although I don’t know what that is.

  ‘Jewels Chaste,’ I say. ‘Jewels Chaste.’

  ‘I got the surname “Chaste” from the protagonist in an erotic science fiction novel I once read,’ Julie says, as if she were telling me about a pair of jeans she picked out. ‘The character’s name is Purity Chaste. The “Jewels” is obviously an abbreviation of my name.’

  ‘How can you be so calm?’

  ‘What’s getting upset going to accomplish?’

  ‘You get upset! Dragging me out of Don’s launch, pushing that guy over—’

  ‘Granted. And I don’t like that in myself. But we have a chance to talk here.’

  ‘This is like when I used to argue with my ex,’ I say. ‘No matter how wrong she was, somehow I always felt like I was at fault.’

  ‘Firstly, don’t compare me to your ex. That’s unfair. And secondly, there is no fault—at least not in that way. I was planning to tell you. I told you this morning I had stuff I wanted to talk about. I was planning to tell you. I wanted to tell you.’

  The drumming on the car grows heavier—thick pellets that splatter on the windshield and slide begrudgingly down the glass. The wipers whine pitifully, ill-equipped to deal with the deluge. Although visibility’s limited, I can still see us pass the community theatre.

  ‘You should’ve told me you’d found out,’ Julie says.

  ‘You should’ve told me.’ My hands tighten into my hair. ‘I’ve never dealt well with things. Gen got all the initiative and adaptability. When I was with my ex, she was the lead, and being with her, I think that got even worse in me. I can’t handle confrontation.’

  ‘This isn’t confrontation. It’s a discussion. That’s what I want to have with you over this: a discussion.’

  ‘I know, but I get this nervousness right here whenever I have to face somebody about anything,’ I say as I thump my chest with my open hand. ‘I hate it, but it’s the way it is. It’s there about everything. Like even when you’re late I start worrying.’

  ‘Worrying about what?’ Julie seems bemused.

  ‘About what you’re doing—is something else going on? Are you seeing somebody else?’ Julie starts to open her mouth to respond, so I hurry on to cut her off: ‘But it’s not because of you—it’s because of what happened with Lisa. Now I worry about every moment where I don’t know what’s going on. Because … she was cheating.’

  ‘I gathered that.’

  Julie pulls up outside my building. The handbrake screeches into place. She doesn’t kill the engine and it belches this synchronous beat I’ve never noticed before. The rain is unrelenting as it pounds on the roof, just like the thoughts that thump through my head. I exhale until all the breath’s vented from my lungs, only the frustration and anger haven’t gone with it.

  ‘She cheated on me for five years. Five years with this lawyer who was also married. One Tuesday a month when she was meant to be out with the girls for her book club, she was with this lawyer, Alex. Towards the end, our relationship was getting bad anyway. We were really grating on one another. When I found out, it hit me that the whole marriage was a lie—it didn’t just become a lie. It had always been a lie. That’s … in a way … what I feel now.’ I swallow, press my hands against my temples. ‘Are you?’ The question tumbles out before I can stop it.

  ‘What?’ Then Julie understands. ‘Cheating? You think because of what I did I’m incapable of fidelity?’

  ‘What about that guy?’

  Julie frowns.

  ‘That one who answered the phone?’

  ‘Griffin?’ Julie laughs such a dismissive laugh it’s about the best assurance she could offer. ‘He wants to be my agent.’

  ‘Your agent?’

  ‘There are all sorts of parasites in the industry who try leech off you, exploit you. Griffin’s like a stray dog who keeps following you for scraps. He’s harmless—just a little possessive. He thought you were trying to be my agent.’

 
There. One question answered. But so many more explode in my mind, like a vase that’s shattered on the floor into numerous pieces and can never be put back together the same way again.

  Julie puts a hand on my wrist. ‘Talk to me.’

  I sniffle like a petulant kid. ‘You should’ve told me.’

  ‘I should’ve.’

  ‘You should’ve.’

  ‘You keep coming back to that. So is that it? It’s not who I am? It’s that I lied to you?’

  And like that, all the confusion since I found out coalesces into two individual streams. That is how easy it is: she lied to me, and can I handle her being who she is? That’s all it comes down to. Just like anything else in life, it’s not about the choices we make, but the repercussions.

  ‘You know, you were so clueless that day you tried to hit on me in Charisma’s,’ Julie says. ‘But I liked that. You know how often I’m hit on? Remember the barista at Charisma’s? Guys at school who recognise me hit on me because they think I must be some total slut. Don, as well intentioned as he might be, flirts with me. Do you want to know why he didn’t mention me at his book launch? Because he was embarrassed. He was embarrassed to be associated with me. I was amazed he insisted that I show at all. Then there was you, pathetic, and diffident, and looking at me with this … this … sweet, dumb innocence. I see lust from guys, but from you, all I saw was … you.’ She runs the back of her hand across her eyes. ‘So I’m sorry. I wanted to get to know you on an equal playing field before I had to taint your perception of me.’ She’s not crying, but her eyes are bleary. ‘Look, maybe you should go.’

  She no sooner says that than I’m sure that I don’t want to get out of the car. While I’m here, there’s the possibility of preserving something, although I don’t know what that is. The moment I step out of the car, that possibility’s gone and the only thing left is reality.

  ‘You’ve got a lot to digest,’ Julie says. ‘I’m gonna see my Aunt Zoe tomorrow. But we’ll talk—I guess. If you want to.’

  I nod, try to open the door of the car, but of course it doesn’t open. Julie lunges out into the rain. I scramble clumsily across the seats and fall out of the car, right onto the road. The wet asphalt bites into my palms and there’s another explosion of pain in my knee. I remain there, on hands and knees, as heavy rain pelts me.