Lolito (8 page)

‘Haha.’

I don’t know what to say.

‘Where are they?’

‘Bed.’

‘That’s great.’

‘I think we should do a voicechat,’ she says.

‘Do you?’

‘Would be hot.’

‘I think my mic is broken. Or I don’t have one. I don’t know.’

‘Let’s try.’

‘Maybe later.’

Macy is calling you.
Oh God. She’ll be able to tell. She’ll realise that I’m a child masquerading as someone worth talking to and she’ll call the police. I’m shaking. I’m drunk. I press
accept.
A female voice comes into my room. It’s gentle and perfect, like the voiceover on a
tourism advert for a country where people take afternoon naps and eat outdoors.

I’m scared. The voice says my name. It says, ‘Are you there?’

‘My mic isn’t working,’ I type. ‘I am shouting into it.’ ‘Yes, it is,’ the voice says. ‘I can hear you typing.’ ‘Oh,’ I say out loud. ‘Sorry. I was scared. I haven’t ever done this.’

‘Your accent is sexy.’

‘Yours is nice.’

‘Don’t be scared. I won’t bite.’ She laughs. I try to laugh with her but it sounds quiet and stuttered. ‘You’re nervous. Relax.’

‘I’m trying.’

‘Big scary yacht thieves have nothing to be afraid of.’

I laugh.

‘They get scared of extremely attractive Scottish women.’

‘I’ll protect you from any if I see them.’

‘Ahoy! You’s a one.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Um. Nothing.’

‘Will you describe where you are again?’

‘Okay, wait. I’m going to carry you downstairs. I need to get another drink.’

‘I’ll get one too.’

I pick up the laptop and push open my door. Amundsen’s waiting outside. He rears up and presses
his paws into my belly. I try to bat him away without making any sound. It doesn’t work. I whisper his name and flick his ears.

‘Who are you talking to, hon?’

‘No one.’

‘Who is it?’

‘It’s my dog. Say hi, Amundsen.’ I let him lick my hand next to the computer.

‘Aw. Cute. Okay, getting a drink too.’

I put the laptop on the living-room table and look through the alcohol cabinet. I’m bored of White Ace. Dad’s Famous Grouse is almost gone. There are two more bottles of red wine, half a bottle of Baileys, something lumpy and made of coconut, something called ‘grenadine’, sloe gin, sloe vodka, sloe tequila (all made by Dad for Christmas), and port. I decide I want red wine. People like red wine. One of the bottles has a church on it, the other has autumn leaves. I choose leaves, because churches are for people who are dying or dead.

‘Have you got one?’

I jump. I forgot there was a woman here.

‘I’ve got one. Have you?’

‘Yes. Some good Shiraz.’

I look at the label on mine.

‘I’ve got some great Cabernet Sauvignon.’

She laughs. ‘You mean Cabernet Sauvignon, hon.’ She says it like Cah-bern-ey Soh-vin-yon. I said it like Cab-er-net Soh-vig-non. I said it correctly, I feel.

‘It’s how we say it down here. Aren’t cultural differences so interesting?’

She laughs again. ‘Cute,’ she says.

‘Um.’

‘Tell me what it’s like now. You aren’t in your study?’

I hold the bottle between my legs and uncork it. I take a deep swig. ‘I’m lying on the sofa in my living room. My living room is bare wooden floorboards, a Persian rug, a large television, and some erotic statues and other sexy things. The sofa is huge. It’s a seven-person sofa.’ That sounds too big. It sounds creepy. ‘A seven-children sofa,’ I say. ‘That’s a joke I like to make. I don’t actually have seven children. I don’t have any children.’ I think, slow down. Relax. Nothing bad is going to happen.

‘Haha. Okay. It sounds pretty.’

‘Your turn.’

‘Okay, well, I’m lying in bed with my black lace bra and panties on. I can see a few stars outside and what I think is a gibbous moon.’

I have a boner already. Gibbous moon. That’s so sexy. I want to tell her to make sex noises but she is a fully grown woman so I have to be slow and seductive like in films. I have to make her feel special. I want to. I feel somehow that she feels like I do and that is how we’ve ended up in the same room.

‘That sounds great.’

‘What are you wearing?’

I blink and flex my toes. I’m wearing grey, paint-flecked jogging bottoms and a t-shirt that says
Malta
over a cartoon palm tree.

‘White Y-fronts and a dressing gown.’

‘Maybe you should take it off.’

‘Okay,’ I say, my voice sliding up. I pull the jogging bottoms down to my ankles and cup my balls. ‘I did it.’

‘I wish I could see. Will you send a pic?’

No.

‘Yes. Will you?’

‘Of course.’

I turn on the webcam and step back to look at myself in the screen. I undress to my boxer shorts. My body is pale and lacking in muscle definition. It isn’t short, but my BMI is noticeably below average. When we have to line up in height order for school photos, I fall around the middle.

By rolling my shoulders forward, tensing my neck and pushing out my jaw, I make my body look more substantial and alluring. It still doesn’t seem particularly alluring. It seems upsetting. I want Gok Wan to appear and tell me how beautiful I am. I want him to introduce me to new ways of thinking which make me shine like the star I am.

I’m stupid.

I’m nothing.

I’m a slashed hovercraft, stuck in marshes, miles from the nearest town.

Macy’s the nearest town.

Macy’s Scotland.

‘Did you take one?’

‘Yes. Did you?’

‘Sending.’

My dick beats. The woman in the picture has large breasts and well-distributed curves. Shafts of toned muscle divide her skin like sand dunes. She must work out on a daily basis. She must be capable of prolonged and rigorous sexual activity. Once, I had sex with Alice for forty-five minutes. I was extremely drunk and failed to cum.

‘You’re so sexy,’ I say. I have never said ‘sexy’ in a serious context before and it makes me choke a little. I’m a person who says ‘sexy’ now. I’m a person who calls other people ‘sexy’. A little more wine, please, sexy. Okay, sexy, here you go. ‘You must work out.’

‘Thanks. Yeah. I like to run. Send yours.’

‘I look stupid in comparison. I don’t run. I should run. My body is ugly.’

‘We all think that sometimes, trust me.’

‘Okay.’

I send it.

‘You’re sexy too. I love skinny guys.’

And children?

‘Thanks.’

‘So, are you going to turn up here any time soon?’

‘Um. I don’t think so. Scotland seems far.’

She laughs.

‘Oh, you meant. Yes. I am. I am lying underneath your bed. I am pressing my face against the shape of your body through this mattress.’

‘Come up and kiss me.’

‘Okay.’

‘Are you hard?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m wet already. I can feel it through the lace. I’m wet.’

‘I can feel it too. Against my knee.’ What? Against my knee. Jesus. Knees aren’t sexy. Say a different body part. ‘And my thumb.’ Good one.

‘Take off my bra.’

‘Your nipples are hard. I’m sucking and biting them. I’m squeezing your ass.’ ‘Ass’ is another very difficult word to say. Ass. Ass. Ass. I need to practise that.

‘Your balls are in my hand. They feel full.’

‘They are full.’

A bit gross, but fine. Go with it.

‘I’ve turned you over and pinned you down.’

‘Okay.’

‘Taken off my panties and climbed onto your face.’

‘Your pussy is in my face now.’

I give up.

‘It’s so wet.’

‘My tongue is inside of you. It is flicking against that bean at the top.’ I can hear a wet slapping sound coming from Macy. The same sound is also coming from me.

‘Mm.’

‘I am holding your thighs and rolling you back and forth.’

‘Fucking eat my pussy, you pathetic asshole.’

‘Um. I’m not really into that either.’

‘Oh, I just thought . . . because you did it. Okay. Keep eating.’

She’s moaning. She’s moaning in long, low bursts, like a zombie. There are no sounds coming from my mouth. I don’t make sex noises. I’m anxious about sounding retarded.

‘Your turn,’ she says. ‘I’m kissing from your chin down. All the way down your naked body. Down your chest and your belly. To your hard cock.’

‘Great.’

I’m terrible at every kind of sex ever invented.

‘Do you have hair?’

‘Yes.’

Not really.

‘Good. I don’t like men who look like babies. I’m licking around your huge balls. Kissing up your shaft. Taking it in my mouth.’

Why does she want me to have big balls so much? It doesn’t matter, I guess. I can have whatever she wants me to have. I can be her dream man.

‘Yes, my giant veiny balls. It feels good.’ I make my hand go slower. I’m scared of cumming. ‘On my massive balls. Thanks.’

‘Taking you all the way into my throat.’

‘I am pushing you off and bending you over.’

‘Fuck.’

‘Pulling your legs apart and pushing myself into you.’

‘Fuck, hon. It feels amazing.’

‘Putting my fingers between your fingers and my face into your hair.’

‘I’m pushing against you with my ass. Faster.’

‘Okay.’

‘Go faster. Fuck. Harder.’

‘I am fucking you.’

‘Harder.’

‘I’m trying.’

‘Harder.’

‘I’m honestly trying my best.’

‘Fuck me.’

‘I am.’

I’m not.

‘Fuck.’

‘Fuck.’

‘Fuck.’

‘Yes’

‘Jesus.’

I cum. I pull off the sock and throw it at the television. Macy does a high-pitched moan and a sigh. I go to shout ‘spilled wine’ and slam the computer but she says something that makes me stop. She says, ‘Oh, I wish you could snuggle through the computer.’

There’s a pause. We’re panting.

‘You can sort of fuck. But you can’t hug afterwards. You’re alone. Even if you forgot for a second.’ She’s talking in between fast, windy breaths. ‘It’s like. I don’t know. Hon, that was great. I love doing this with you.’

‘Me too. It’s good. I’ve got to go. Um. I’ve got to do something.’

‘Do you have to?’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Email me. Please.’

‘I will.’

‘Goodbye, hon.’

‘Bye.’

I roll a cigarette, light it and sit on the living-room carpet hugging myself. Why did I go? Macy’s nice. She doesn’t make me feel small. She wants to hide too. The Alice Gulf. I push my eyes into my arm. They’re heavy. Amundsen wakes up, shakes himself and comes over to put his tongue in my ear. My arms fall and I turn to face him. He licks my bruises.

15

I finish the bottle of wine in the bath, surrounded by Radox clouds, loudly singing ‘Drop The World’ to a rubber duck. I hold my breath underwater, pretending that I’m a giant squid at the bottom of the blackest ocean. The part so deep that it will never meet the sun, only hear about it in whispers from passing whales. No human will ever see me. I will die and my bulbous body will be picked apart by creatures that have not yet been discovered.

There’s an orgy happening in my head.

Alice sucking Aaron Mathews’ dick. Aaron Mathews fisting Alice. Alice sliding a finger into Aaron Mathews’ ass. Aaron Mathews enjoying it. Aaron Mathews cumming on Alice’s face. Alice enjoying it. Aaron
Mathews being immediately ready to begin again. A third person entering the room. The third person being invited to participate.

I wish I was the third person.

No, I don’t.

I’m drinking neat gin.

Staring at the ceiling.

I slip twice when I get out of the bath, cracking my head against the sink. Everything’s being dragged down. Everything’s being weighed down by the weight of Alice’s disappearance. She didn’t disappear. She made me make her disappear. She’s gone. I’m one human in the world. I don’t want to be one human in the world. I want to be Alice and Etgar in the world.

I don’t dry myself. I climb straight into old clothes.

I take thirty pounds from the box in my parents’ bedroom, drink more cider, and leave. Doing the key is hard so I leave the door unlocked. The rain outside has settled in small pools dotted along the pavement. It’s half-light. A single grey bird loiters by the roots of a tree. I scream and chase it into the sky. I follow the street down and to the right, onto Denton Lane, where there are three shops the colour of old fax machines. One’s a dry cleaner. One’s a hairdresser. One’s Shanghai Palace.

The waitress who seats me is familiar from times I’ve collected takeaway. She is short and perfect-looking in the way that any young female who is not Alice is now perfect-looking. I want to ask if she’ll come home with
me, to build a blanket castle and drink rum and watch Judd Apatow films. The thing that makes me do heavy weather most is when you see someone and you can tell they want to be not alone and you know you want to be not alone but you can’t be not-alone together because of things like how she’s forty-two and you’re fifteen, or how she’s got kids and your mum’s waiting for you at home. That’s what makes me do heavy weather the most. It’s fucking retarded.

I don’t say anything.

I let her direct me to a table next to the tank of clownfish.

I do an Irish accent. I say ‘top of the morning to you’ in it. I immediately feel severely retarded and like I want to climb into bed and never climb out.

‘Are you okay?’ the waitress says.

‘Yes,’ I say. I’m still doing the accent.

‘Yes?’

My body sags. Bodies aren’t supposed to be this heavy. ‘No,’ I say. ‘Alice lied about being raped with kisses by Aaron Mathews. He’s got tribal tattoos. He punched me and I don’t know what to do. I want to get drunk. I want to disappear.’ The fish in the tank drift past each other like blimps. They don’t fight and don’t lie and are never alone. ‘Yes,’ I say.

‘To drink?’ she says.

‘To drinking,’ I say. ‘I mean yes. Drinks. Wine. Gay wine. Rosé.’

She nods and disappears.

I think about Macy. I imagine her having a midlife crisis that manifests itself in the form of a large, expensive coffee machine. I imagine her worrying about her children being bullied because their shoes don’t light up. I imagine her hiding under a duvet and sighing and masturbating over me, a twenty-six-year-old mortgage broker who owns a briefcase and knows the rules of golf.