14. Showcase horror
13. Ambitious horror
12. Undisputed centre of luxury horror
11. Effortlessly accessible horror
10. Fast and efficient horror
9. Heart of the capital horror
8. Crossrail, a casual stride away horror
7. Better connected horror
6. Carefully managed horror
5. Tailored package purchase horror
4. Being part of something special horror
3. Professional personalised horror
2. Property sale aftercare horror
1. Taylor Wimpey Central London customer journey horror
I JUST WANT TO PULL DOWN YOUR PANTIES AND FUCK YOU
In the ten years they’d known each other there’d been countless opportunities for them to do it. Times when neither were attached to anyone else, when there was nowhere to go and nothing doing. Like the night they broke into the derelict church on Walworth Road or the time they drove up to Nottingham for the Stop HS2 protest and slept in the trees. But for one reason or another it never happened and after a certain amount of time had passed any friction that might’ve existed between them on the basis of him being a boy and her being a girl vanished. In its place friendship blossomed. A friendship where bad behaviour, lewd comments, racist jokes and other non-PC parlance were permissible and where the micro-politics of every social situation going was scrutinised to the extreme. Sometimes they argued, like when he had a go at her for doing an event at the Serpentine because, he said, the Serpentine was funded by the Sacklers. She told him she didn’t see what difference her doing or not doing an event there made to the millions of people addicted to Valium. Or when she had a go at him for tagging the walls of Old St. Pancras churchyard, which, she said was just a dickish thing to do. But on the whole, whether in agreement on a subject or not, they always arrived at the same conclusion: that while her politics were in theory libertarian and his anarchic, in practise there was so much overlap in their ways of thinking, so not being friends would be mental.
Any sexual tension that might’ve reared its head was kept at bay by the stories he told her about his frequent (and sometimes bizarre) sexual encounters. He always had a couple of women on the go. Around the time in question he was sleeping with one of the head honchos in XR who was, he said, the first ʻblack blackʼ person he’d ever had sex with. (ʻBlack blackʼ meaning her skin was dark, a clarification that needed to be made in view of the increasing popularity of the American ʻone dropʼ definition of black, more expansive and including quadroons, octoroons, high yellow, etc.) XR Woman flew him to eco-conferences in Austria, Belgium, Italy, France and fucked him in hotel rooms, claiming him on expenses as her assistant. He said he thought it was ʻhotʼ because it made him feel ʻobjectified, like a girlʼ but also used it as evidence for the total fraudulence of XR’s claimed agenda.
— The sex was amazing, he said. — But afterwards she feel asleep on the bed like this. He flailed his arms and began to grunt. — Snoring like a big, black pig.
His slapstick impression was funny and she laughed briefly and involuntarily. She hated XR as much as he did and had no difficulty believing the people with access to their coffers were not halal, but she also thought it wise to warn him (in case he didn’t know) that comparing black people and women you’ve slept with to pigs was no go.
— You should be careful, she said.
— Why’s that? he said.
— Well, she said, — People are getting cancelled left, right and centre for far softer statements.
— Are you saying I’m racist? he said.
— Maybe, she said. — I don’t know. But it’s a bit Vice magazine circa 2006…
— Fuck Vice! he said, his face reddening. — They don’t pay their journalists you know.
— Again, she said, — old news. Why d’you even write for them anyway? They’re clowns.
He shrugged. — A lot of people read it. I’m trying to get my message out.
She raised an eyebrow. — A lot of morons, she said. — But whatever, all I’m saying is you should be careful. I wouldn’t want to see all the good work you do undermined over something stupid.
— Oh yeah, he said, jibing her, — I forgot you think you’re black.
— It isn’t that, she said. Then left it.
Then there was the Italian with the boyfriend who ran a food stall in Elephant & Castle. He’d dated Elephant & Castle woman years ago but had fucked her around so much that she'd eventually ditched him and started seeing someone else. Which is when he decided he was in love with her. He harangued the Elephant & Castle Woman with suggestive texts and eventually coerced her into a clandestine meet in a countryside hotel for (his) birthday sex.
The day after his birthday they met for supper at Chilli’s, a very cheap and very good Indian caff in London Bridge. He spilled the beans on the nookie.
— It was so good, he said. — Really messy.
— Dude, she said, pausing the spoonful of daal on its ascent to her mouth.
Later, they’d finished eating and were standing outside on the pavement, he got a touch of the birthday blues. He stood gazing towards the roundabout, bike lock in hand.
— I feel like my life is at a crossroads, he said, straightening his posture and staring wistfully at the passing traffic.
— How you mean? she said, licking a one-skinner for the walk home.
— It’s, like, if this girl could just see that me and her are good together then I know I could sort my shit out, he said. — I can be a really good boyfriend, you know. I can commit… But it’s like, if she doesn’t, if it’s never gonna happen, if she’s gonna stay with that focking prick then, I don’t know, I think it’s just gonna be just this for me, forever.
What he meant by ʻthisʼ was graffiti, hating the police, prison abolition activism and more graffiti.
His shoulders sagged. Seeing him so forlorn, she stepped forward and gave him a hug.
— Don’t worry, she said. — I love you. She patted him lightly on the back. — Plus ʻthisʼ is not so bad. I mean, you’re not doing any damage.
— I don’t know what’s up with me, he said. — I never feel like this.
He rested a hand on the top of her head.
— My advice, she said, pulling out of the cuddle, — is if you love her you need to show her.
— How do I do that? he said.
— Act like her boyfriend, she said — even if you’re not going out. Be there for her, don’t fuck other women… She’ll notice. I mean, if she’s still fucking you then she definitely feels something for you. She wouldn’t be if she didn’t. She probably just doesn’t want to have the piss taken out of her again.
— Why wouldn’t I fuck other girls if she’s giving that prick shiners every night? he said.
— Mate, she said. — Come on.
— What, mate? he said.
— Really? she said.
The two of them looked at each other expectantly. She sighed.
— Who is fucking who, she said — has fuck all to do with love. Love is not transactional like that. Either it is, or it isn’t.
His melancholic expression morphed into a Cheshire Cat grin.
— You know, when I’m fucking her, her pussy make these squelching noises, he said. He makes several rhythmic thrusts with his pelvis and a gross slurping sound with his mouth. — I swear, that never happens when I’m fucking anyone else.
Squelchy cunt comment aside it seemed he took her advice to heart because the next few times they met up he had no new conquests to report. But then, by the following week, things’d changed again. The first update came over the phone. Another ex-girlfriend had got in touch, they’d met up and fucked then when he called she blanked him.
— She’s such a basic bitch, he said. — It’s so obvious what she’s doing.
— What’s that? she said.
— She just wants to know that I still want to fuck her, he said. — T
hat’s it.
And two days later, when they met near Kings Cross, there was more.
— God, he said as they walked up York Way deciding where to go. — I’m so hungover.
— I thought you didn’t drink, she said. (He was diabetic.)
— I only drink when I feel like I’m on holiday, he said.
He launched into a tale of the night before. A house party in south London with some of the Palace lot (rich kids with a skate emporium that needed shutting down).
— They got me fuuuuucked, he said.
— I hate those wankers, she said.
— Yeah, he said, — They’re pricks. But fuck, it was mental… I mean, the party was whack. Full of Goldsmiths students, but there was this one chick. She starts flirting with me, like hardcore flirting. Like, ‘your hands are so big’ and shit like that. Then outta nowhere she’s like, ‘I’ve gotta go’. So I was like, ‘cool, whatever, nice to meet you’, and I guess we must’ve exchanged numbers but I was so pissed I don’t remember doing it. But we must’ve cos when I decided to call it a night at, like, five in the morning, I went to order an Uber on my phone and there was this text. A picture of her arse, red, like it’d been spanked and ‘wanna fuck?’ But I was so wasted I couldn’t remember chatting to her so I texted back like ‘who is this?’. Lol. Not the kinda reply you want to a picture of your fucking butthole. So then I opened Uber to order a car but they were doing that surcharge thing and it was like forty quid back to mine, so I’m like maybe I should walk it but then this bitch texted a picture of her with one of those gimp ball things in her mouth.
— What!? she said.
— Yeah, he said. — Mental. ‘Take me as you find me big boy’. That’s what she wrote.
They both get the giggles.
— So I’m like ‘fuck it’, he said, then stopped.
— Fuck what? she said.
— She texted me her postcode, he said. — And it was literally round the corner… So, yeah, I get there and the front door’s open. Anyone could’ve walked in. I go inside and there is this chick, naked, on her knees in the middle of the living room, tied up. Tied fucking up!
— Yikes, she said. — So what did you do?
— I’m a man, aren’t I? he said.
He didn’t divulge any more of the story than this and she didn’t press him for details, assuming ‘I’m a man’ implied he stuck it in.
They roamed the back streets, him stopping every now and then to do his tag or add an ‘A’ to parking signs that said, ‘CAB’. But that night in bed she thought about his sexcapade. She imagined him arriving at one of those terrifying terraced houses that make up most of south east London, imagined him naked in its living room, knees bent. She tried to picture the girl, casting a version of herself in the role but no, she couldn’t imagine being the sort of person who hogtied and blindfolded herself and left the front door open in the hopes that a random would come round to fuck her. Even if she wanted to be the sort of person who hogtied and blindfolded herself and left the front door open in the hopes that a random would come round to fuck her, she wasn’t sure she’d know how to go about it. It all seemed a bit extreme and she couldn’t help but wonder what horribleness had happened to this anonymous woman that meant she needed to go to such lengths to get her kicks?
But because the woman was anonymous her thoughts on the matter couldn’t progress beyond speculation. Something that made it easier for her to dismiss any concerns she might’ve had in regards to his behaviour… Not that she had a problem with fucking around, necessarily. She’d had her moments after all, working her way through entire social circles before vanishing to leave groups of bemused lads to work out what their new closeness to one another meant for themselves. No, she had no objection to casual sex or general slagginess as long as no one was getting hurt. Only in her experience, someone generally was, which is why she’d stopped doing it.
The first time she felt uncomfortable was with the Indian girl.
— Fucking fit, he said. — I made her wear a bindi while we had really naughty bum sex.
Asides from the ʻmadeʼ, all well and good, until they ran into said Indian girl in the street. He was right, she was beautiful.
An awkward hello was followed by an even more awkward silence during which the Indian girl looked at them, clearly assuming they were fucking. She looked at the Indian girl and couldn’t hide the fact that she knew about the naughty bum sex. He stood back with a smile on his face.
It was a short meet. The Indian girl broke it off, walking speedily away before turning into a side street with a Dead End sign at its corner.
— Told you she was fit, he said.
— That was odd, she said.
— What was odd about it? he said.
— I mean, she was obviously upset, she said.
— What’s she got to be upset about? he said.
— Did you not just see her run away? she said.
She wasn’t sleeping with anyone. There was no particular reason for this other than she had started to find sex a bit grim. All the spit and sweat and spunk and silty hairs. All the straining and humping and grunting. And it wasn’t just the physical act. There was the issue of what sex did to her brain. It made it soft, fat, preening, lazy, puddleduck. Satisfied by the knowledge that her body was desirable because it had just been had, her brain gave up the ghost and stopped thinking the things it was supposed to be thinking — at night all cats are grey / every act of destruction is an act of liberation / armed love means the future has no future / tactical pig symphony / up against the wall motherfucker! — and instead fixated on what the naked man wandering around her flat was thinking about: pussy, ass, Call of Duty. No, she liked her brain and preferred it in its alert, defensive, rational state to when it resembled a bowlful of jelly.
— I don’t think I’m going to have sex with anyone ever again, she announced the next time they met.
— Bollocks, he said.
— I’m serious, she said.
— Why’s that then? he said. — Enlighten me.
— It’s just different for girls, she said. — Innit.
— Meaning? he said, sounding genuinely curious to hear what she had to say.
— We-e-ell, she said, unsure how to put it, — It’s, like, if you think about the physical act of sex… Putting something inside someone is different from having something put inside you.
— Sure, he said.
— A-a-and, like, when boys cum, she said, — it’s, like, getting rid of something from them and putting it onto someone else. Onto you, the girl, me.
— Are you fucking stoned? he said.
She nodded. — A bit. So what? What I’m saying is serious. When men, you, have sex, you absolve yourself of something, get rid of it, and women, we have to take it on. And then if you take that and run with it and extend it out to the way men are about women, all projection of desire, love, hate, I mean, it’s all gotta come from the physical act of sex, kinda like etymologically. Cause and effect. Because women aren’t the way about men that men are about women. Or maybe some of them are, but it’s only because they’ve copied men’s style because it’s so seemingly successful…
But he wasn’t listening anymore. He was on his phone, typing a message.
Both being self-employed (‘self’ being a euphemism for ‘un’), it got so as they were hanging out almost every day. Late-night bike rides to nowhere places, him stopping to graffiti bus stops, shop shutters, cemetery walls… He’d write his tag and sometimes he’d write his tag and her name side by side. He urged her to have a go with the spray can on multiple occasions but each time she declined.
— I don’t suffer from your addiction, she eventually said. — And besides I don’t have anything concise enough to say.
He appeared to approve of this answer and stopped bugging her about it.
When they weren’t together they’d message constantly. He sent photos of his tag and lots of links to right-on Internet content,
usually related to whichever current affair was making headlines in the tabloids that week. Like the video of the policeman getting his throat cut with a machete in Tottenham (so gruesome she didn’t watch all the way through). He also sent a lot of petitions. Trans rights, workers’ rights, justice for cleaners, defund the police, kind of stuff. She dutifully consumed all the media he sent except for the petitions. She wasn’t gonna sign those. Then, one afternoon he texted a link to a petition for a boycott of the Zabludowizc Foundation, an increasingly irrelevant contemporary art gallery in Kentish Town run by Israeli arms dealers. She was aware of the Zabludowizc problem. There’d been a boycott a few years back. It made a lot of noise but, at far as she could see, had been completely ineffectual. The cunts were still cunting about and wasn’t, she thought, the Al-Anon definition of insanity repeating the same behaviour again and again and expecting different results?
She clicked the link, if only to see what nonsense the so-called left were spouting this time round and was taken to a Facebook event page from 2014. It wasn’t a new ineffectual boycott. It was the ineffectual boycott from before.
She messaged him: Dis page five years old yo.
She clinked a link to the Zabludowizc’s website and scrolled through News and Upcoming Events. All the usual suspects: Mat Collishaw, Marina Warner, Rachel McLean and then, in a list of names for an upcoming group show, his ex-wife’s name. She took a photo of the listing and texted it to him: Noooow I see ;)
One tick, two ticks. Grey ticks, blue ticks. No reply.
He called later, didn’t mention the Zabludowizc faux-pas, just got her to come meet him at an Ethiopian restaurant in Vauxhall. She turned up in a naughty mood and, over shiro, started teasing him about still being hung up on his ex.
— You wish it was you with an exhibition at Zabludowizc, she said. — Is that it?
— No, he said, — I just don’t see why the upper middle class get all the airspace. I mean I’m doing really good stuff, you’re doing really good stuff but no one’s writing articles about you in the fucking Guardian.
Man Hating Psycho Page 10
