By the time we reach Royal North Shore Hospital, Val is asleep. Mark carries her into emergency, where the triage nurse panics at the sight of them because it looks as though he is carrying a dead body.
‘She’s only sleeping,’ Mark tells her.
The nurse leads us to a bed where Mark deposits Val, and then we’re asked to stay in the waiting area.
I arch my back against the chair.
‘This might be the nicest thing I’ve ever done for anyone.’
‘Glad I could help.’
There are a few people in the waiting area. A television suspended from the ceiling in one corner. Jack Black being an idiot with school kids.
‘You don’t drink much, do you?’
He takes his time to answer my question.
‘I’m a bit older than you. A hangover is a nasty thing at my age.’
‘How old?’
‘Forty.’
An hour later, the three of us leave the hospital. Val is given tablets and told to drink lots of water. We never find out what had been put in her drink. We are the typical youthful weekend crowd being reckless with our bodies.
Mark drops us off in Newtown.
‘I better take my girlfriend to the airport,’ he says as we get out. The sky is brightening into a faint, meandering blue. A glow on the edges of the trees.
‘Nice to meet you,’ I call out, not turning to meet his eyes.
‘Nice to meet you too.’
‘See you never.’
‘See you never.’
14
Before New Jersey, before the breakdown, I wrote long passages of sex scenes. When I wasn’t playing the violin, I filled pages of graphic details, getting thrashed, fucked, whipped, slurped, nipped, slapped, hit. I’d describe the way a man would take my body; pummel it. I imagined my body as the most desirable thing, a machine to please men. I knew that they had more power and I saw my body as the only way to get closer to them. In my stories, the sex was always rough and expedient. I’d write long sentences and then feel the meat between my legs loosen and pulse. I’d write my stories and then staple the pages closed. When I felt the urge to touch myself, the staples would come undone. Much later, I drew inspiration from the boys I was taking to bed, but they were never as rough as I hoped. I never knew how to make them do what I wanted.
There were days when the boys were not around. Days when I was convinced I was the ugliest girl in the world. I’d read the lines I’d written and make myself come. Afterwards, my repulsion would compel me to staple the pages together again. I’d promise myself that I’d never do it again. But I’d do it again. And again. And again. And again.
Once, I saw Rebecca at the computer looking at photos that appeared as though people had acted out my stories. Solid white flesh colliding. Bodies entangled like weed to coral. I watched as she scrolled through pages and pages of images. Then she cleared the browser history. Later, I went to the computer and typed ‘sex scenes’ in the internet browser.
At first, I watched people kissing. Then I watched people do things to their bodies I’d never seen before. When I heard someone coming inside the house, I closed the browser and grabbed the metronome, which was always next to me. Nobody would suspect me of anything as long as it was ticking.
I spent weekends watching men fuck women in the mouth on the internet. Whole days whiling away the loneliness that felt like a fist inside my throat, always threatening to choke me to death.
I guess living with my father and being a normal teenager was a strange time for me. I had to go to school every day. I’d seen movies set in American high schools, but I had no idea how to act around teenagers. How did one conduct a conversation? And about what? The only thing I knew was how to play the violin and how to perform.
The boys saved me. They taught me I was good. Their hands and mouths taught me to overcome my self-doubt. And I was an open fruit, ready and willing to be consumed.
My father was hardly around. I suppose he was trying to build his dental practice—and start a new life with a woman who was not my mother. I didn’t like her. I’d never spent so much time with a woman who was not my mother. But I thought about my mother so little during those two years in Wayne. Before then, I think our lives had become a single existence. Now I was building an identity of my own, and I wanted someone to tell me I belonged. I didn’t know how to do it without my mother—but I did it. And I have the boys to thank for it.
The morning after Noah’s party, I wake to find a note from Val next to my pillow.
Damien has come to pick me up. Thanks for saving me last night. PS. Don’t fuck the old man.
I take a train and two buses to get to my car, which is still parked in Cremorne.
In the afternoon, I get back to the violin.
At certain moments during the day, I shift my position so my body doesn’t shadow the music on the stand. After a run-through of the concerto, excerpts, sight-reading, scales, I put my violin back into its case and go into my room. I leave the door open because I live alone now and nobody will hear me scream.
I pull out a dildo from the top shelf of my wardrobe, click open the green lube, turn the bottle upside down and let it ooze over the tip of the glass phallus like maple syrup over ice cream. I lie in bed and watch some ordinary, gonzo porn on my phone. Man eats woman. Man straps woman. Man hurts woman. Woman screams in pleasure or pain, I don’t know. I hold the dildo between my legs and slide it in and out. It doesn’t feel deep enough. The position is wrong. I get on my knees and stand the dildo upright, riding it like a cowgirl, reach down and part the lips of my vagina with dry fingers. I rock back and forth, watching myself in the mirror. My body is perfect and museum-portioned.
After a while, orgasm-less, I collapse onto the bed.
I close the porn tab on my phone and scroll through my contacts list. I want someone to make me scream operatically. When was the last time I came like that? Two weeks ago? Who had I been with?
Bass player? Bassoon? Geordie? Maybe I was alone.
At the end of the week, I visit Mike and Jacob’s studio in Marrickville. I decide I am confident about the audition, four days out. I need something to distract me.
From a distance the warehouse looks like an abandoned factory. A mechanic’s shed. A textile mill. A place where basic parts come together, loud machinery churns for hours. Inside, golden lights flicker like small detonating bombs.
Mike and Jacob are preparing for another exhibition, this time in Shanghai. The collection is based on the theme ‘White’, and the curator is from Iceland. Ai Weiwei will be at the opening. I ask if they are excited about meeting him.
‘He’s just another sensationalist artist,’ Jacob says. ‘And he’s Chinese, so everybody has to love him. You can’t not love him. At least, not publicly.’
Val chips away at her hair, which is piled on top of her head in a loose bun. ‘Can you stop China-bashing?’
I ask her how she’s feeling after the other night. She shrugs, tells me she’s fine, and that Damien has found himself an actress to date and hasn’t called her since he drove her home.
She’s wearing khaki overalls, a white undershirt, black canvas shoes. Her wrists are stained with black spots. She never looks entirely clean.
‘Tea?’
She goes into the kitchen area.