There was nothing erotic about this.
The leather of the couch stuck to the bottom of Isaiah’s thigh. The class was in the middle of a cleared cafe, an old building, with wooden flooring and the drone of cars ever-present past the window. It was trendy, full of mismatched mugs. The cafe’s manager, an aproned, worn-looking woman named Francine, rang a bell. Isaiah shifted position, wrapping his arms around his legs, moving his feet to the edge of the pillow. Paper flipped over easels. He had to sit like this for ten minutes. He wondered what to think about. He tried to name every Pokemon in order and got to Weedle before he couldn’t remember the name of the yellow one it evolves into. Next, he tried the periodic table, only he couldn’t even be sure what came after Helium.
Isaiah longed for the white robe currently lying on the arm of the couch.
The middle-aged lady in the rainbow kaftan kept grinning at him after he inadvertently caught her eye. The slip of a boy with a curly undercut and a denim jacket was looking a little guilty as he drew – but it might have just been because he was taking too long just staring at Isaiah, trying to capture his angles, his bumps, his contours. The burn running up his torso. Nobody was thinking about sex, he reminded himself. They were all too busy working. Francine emphasised it before he started his first session. The light from the streetlight outside the front of the cafe reflected on her glasses. He stared at her. Now and then she stuck her tongue out at him and he had to fight the urge to smile.
Nobody was thinking about sex, he reminded himself.
The bell rang. “Okay, good, we’ll have a bit of a break.” Francine said.
Isaiah put the robe around himself and got off the couch. He wanted to look at the pictures of himself, but also could not think of anything he wanted to do less. Francine slipped him two gold notes and told him he was doing a good job. The woman in the kaftan smiled at him some more and told him he was exquisite to paint – “It’s good, when I saw you walk in, I didn’t see the – I didn’t notice, er, but I was thinking, I’m so bored of drawing all these skinny arty boys.” She couldn’t name the burn; that was funny. “But you’re different.”
Isaiah remembered the night the accident happened as a blur, maybe composed of memories of what he termed internally as his “hedonistic days”. He’d been invited to a New Year’s Eve party the year he graduated from the acting academy, and was drying off from a dip in a pool with his arms around a deck’s black fence in his boardies.
The house was huge, a McMansion nestled within bushland, and it had a pool. He was with a bunch of other men, mostly, and was high out of his mind. His only awareness of fireworks was a dim memory of someone mentioning that they’d brought back a bunch from Canberra, before he was watching them streak into the sky, bursting into pink and gold and green. He was having fun. Noah had been around. Other boys were leaving the pool, water dripping off their slim tight bodies and splattering black onto the wood below. Thinking that he needed another drink, he walked the deck. There was laughter coming from the yard as more fireworks rose into the sky.
His first awareness of the firework that did it was when he turned. Someone had yelled out, and he saw the sparkling rocket. Later, he would find out, it had been set in the ground wonky, had fallen, and shot directly at his upper torso. Of course, as it happened, he was only aware of an almighty bursting sound from in front of him, followed by an all-consuming sensation of heat. In a way, he didn’t know what actually happened. He passed out from the pain. When he opened his eyes he was aware of someone hosing cold water onto his skin, and that he had been laid down in preparation for the ambulance.
Isaiah was curious about what the boy with the undercut had drawn. He was struck by what he saw. Isaiah in charcoal was rendered hot. The strength of his jaw accentuated, for instance; the way his round hairless gut accumulated over his skinny body; the oddness of him. The burn that could be mistaken for a shadow drawn by an overzealous amateur. “I like yours,” he said, coming over.
The man blinked dully at him, then gave a practised smile of self-deprecation. “You’ve got a nice body.”
“Thanks.”
Before he could get back to his seat, the boy said, “You’re Isaiah, right?”
He did a search for a match in his memory to the guy’s face and came up blank. “Yes. I’m sorry, I –”
“Lee.” He said. “From NIDA.”
“Oh! Right, yeah, sure.” Isaiah said. He vaguely recognised him from some of the parties, now that he thought of it.
The bell rang. “I’ll see you, then.”
Isaiah went back to the couch and stripped again. He stuck his elbow on the leather and flexed like he had muscle to do so. Grinned at Lee as he was drawn. If he asked himself why he did it, why he made this affectation, most of the time he couldn’t say why. But as Lee looked at him, he had a suspicion that it was something to do with that look; one of interest. He wanted to be looked at by a man with no recoil, the way Noah had once looked at him. Weeks spent in a hospital with a face that looked like most of it had been scrubbed off with a scour broke his fitness regime, and when he got discharged, he felt like a machine that had forgotten how to function. Even if the burn magically disappeared, his body would still exist in the realm of the ordinary.
In a way, he didn’t know what actually happened. He passed out from the pain.
“We’re not fucking tonight, are we?” Isaiah asked that afternoon, in their shared bedroom.
He’d been wearing just the trackies he’d slept the night before. Maybe that was part of Noah’s irritation — he wasn’t bothering to cover up what he looked like now. Noah’s slablike, muscular body was still encased in his Bunnings uniform. His Xbox controller was in his hands.
“Not tonight.”
“Can I ask why?”
“You’re not obligated an answer, no.”
“Well, I would like one.”
“I’m just not in the mood. Babe.” He added the last word like an afterthought, like he’d forgotten they were in love and just remembered.
Isaiah only resented him a little: he’d been promised a relationship that was smooth and easy, presented to the world as a carefully curated series of photographs of the two of them in aesthetic locations. He’d gotten trauma and complexity instead. Noah was putting up with it, and only hinted at it sometimes. The really painful part, the part which made Isaiah not want to touch him at all, either, was the note of pity in his voice.
Grouchy, Isaiah got up and dressed, going to the clothes horse and putting on a print shirt of black denim emblazoned with little pizzas. It was expensive even on sale, but he’d bought it in a moment of despair at his new form and the sales assistant had called him cute so he liked it. He wore it with denim shorts, and a pair of white sneakers.
“Where are you going?” Noah asked.
“Been invited out for drinks,” Isaiah said.
“Is Tuesday night drinks becoming regular for you, now?”
“I guess,” Isaiah said.
“Oh, cool.” He said, squinting at something on the screen. “Wait – can you afford it? I’m sort of running out of money, so…”
“Centrelink came through last week,” he said. After he’d stopped getting shifts at the grocery store where he worked, he couldn’t face the prospect of fatalistic applications. They only lead to interviews where they’d see what he looked like. Why would they hire him when there were dozens of other willing workers with the same skills as him, but without a face and a neck which looked like his did? But he had the life drawing classes. It wasn’t much, but enough to get him out of the house now and again. Isaiah reminded himself that he couldn’t be that mad at Noah’s distance. And yet, and yet. To be invisible in his own home.
He wanted to be looked at by a man with no recoil, the way Noah had once looked at him.
As always, the feeling of having clothes on was strange afterwards. Like having an itchy and unwieldy second skin. He sat on the couch, drinking wine Francine had produced, chatting to her, and exchanging tired goodbyes with the artists who bothered to give them. Afterwards, Isaiah thought about how he was to get home. The cafe was about 30 minutes walk from his sharehouse. He could call Noah, but then Noah might be angry. He was drained of defences, and any disapproval – of any sort – might crush him. Uber? Nah, he would walk.
He looked at Lee some more, gathering his pieces, and played out a fantasy in his head. They’d go to one of the bars on this street afterwards; find out they have mutual interests and things in common; sleep together. He looked like the type. But then this was Newtown so most of the men did.
Outside, the cold seemed to rush him through the fabric of his hoodie. His body felt more like a body than usual. Lee was walking away under the amber streetlights and the awnings of the bars and restaurants with his rolled-up drawings of him in his hands. He was seized with a sudden urge to run to the boy, steal the drawings of himself, take them home and burn them. Instead, he decided he might as well get a bus.
As he turned down the street, an old blue Commodore pulled over. It was Lee. He rolled down the window. “Need a lift?” He asked.
“Sure,” Isaiah said. He told him his street name. “Is it on your way?”
“Sort of,” the guy said. He opened the door and climbed into the car.
In the ensuing quiet, Isaiah readied himself for the usual questions: How’d he get the job? Was it hot for him? Did he ever get an erection? Halfway there, he thought he should say something: “Sorry for forgetting you,” he said. “It’s been a while. How’s acting going?”
When he got discharged, he felt like a machine that had forgotten how to function.
“Oh, I’m not an actor. I studied design.” Lee said.
“Well. How’s that going?” He asked.
“Not well enough to pay the bills, just yet, but the jobs keep coming, so I must be doing something right,” he said. “And how’s your acting?”
How do you think? “Sort of dried up,” Isaiah said. “After the burn.”
“Oh, right,” Lee said. They drove on. Then, one of Lee’s hands crept to Isaiah’s thigh, as they were driving.
“Got any plans tonight?” Isaiah asked.
“Nah.”
They were coming up to Isaiah’s house. He thought of getting out, going to bed, sleeping back to back with Noah. Lee withdrew his hand. Maybe he was embarrassed, maybe Isaiah should have done something. Him and Noah did not sleep with other men. But was it such a sin if they didn’t sleep with one another either?
Lee looked at him. Then a part of Isaiah went, ‘Oh, that’s going to happen.’ It was excruciating. Just kiss me, Isaiah thought. Impossible things to say sprang to mind: do you have some place we can go to, let’s just do it here, you can look at me naked all night.
“You really don’t remember?” Lee asked. “Would’ve been three years ago.”
“Remember what?”
“I asked you out, once.”
It would’ve been during the era where he escaped from his parents in the form of a student apartment and drinks. “I don’t know. A lot happened that year. A lot of guys.” He said.
“Look, fair enough,” Lee said. “Christ. Seeing you naked for that long was tough. Without being able to do anything about it. I realised I was gay ‘cos of you. When I saw you in one of the plays. A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
‘We’re not fucking tonight, are we?’ Isaiah asked that afternoon, in their shared bedroom.
Isaiah had been Puck. He’d worn a costume that featured a wreath of fake ivy leaves and a skimpy skirt. “I helped with the set and I was obsessed with you. I’d close my eyes and there you’d be. I came every night, just to see you.”
“Oh,” Isaiah said. “Well, glad I could help. Now look at me.”
Lee shrugged. If something was going to happen it’d happen now. “It’s not so bad.” Lee replaced his hand on Isaiah’s leg. At his touch, at the sight of Lee’s head moving towards his, Isaiah moved backward.
“No. No, we can’t.”
Lee nodded, his eyes sad. “Well, then. See you ‘round.”
Isaiah left the car.
At home, nobody else was up, and he poured himself another glass of wine. He went outside afterwards and the moon was out and he felt so little and small he was sure its silver beams would come right through his fleshly form. He took a seat, and sensed that somewhere tonight a threshold had been crossed. He tallied up all the thoughts he’d had that night, and for the first time saw clearly that ‘The End’ had become a certainty, now. He and Noah were at their close. It was a dreadful thought, but also with the potential to be delayed. He thought of what kept him from considering it before and found it was a fear of regression; a regression into the years and years where he was convinced nobody would love him; a regression halted by meeting Noah at a pre-drinks hosted by a mutual friend.
His body felt more like a body than usual.
By 11:30 they were kissing sweatily on a dancefloor in Surry Hills, and by 1:30 they were cuddling in their undies on an air mattress in their friend’s apartment floor. He did not want to go back to that doubt. His grief took the form of the one word drumming in his head: ‘Over, over, over.’ What was the alternative? This life, of sneaking, of being ignored, their continued drifting apart as sure as the drifting of continents. Maybe one day they’d become so apart – so silent and so separate – that he could pack his things and go with no fuss.
Nostalgia made its case, as he poured another glass of wine to take outside. Remember: the day they finished moving into the house together, the fuck they’d shared in the bed, the post-coital bliss that’d warmed him everywhere and seemed eternal. Remember: their third date, a bench in Camperdown Park, resting his head on Noah’s shoulder, realising that there was an absence of the fatalism that defined his usual hopeless-seeming early dates. Remember: that dance-floor, and the lights, and the boy with the slick black hair and the button-up shirt that was just a little more high-end than their friends, and the way he had turned in the middle of a Lorde remix and looked into Noah’s eyes and thought that, yes, he had been chosen, before he leaned in for that kiss.
Oh God, he thought. None of them in their ephemerality could quite oust the great black certainty that he was occupying the afterlife of his relationship, a lingering shade of something that had been and then dissolved.
When he crept inside, taking a moment to remove his shoes, he took off his t-shirt as he walked. It was dark inside the room, and he walked around the bed and settled into his half, seeing the risen shape of Noah next to him. He took off his jeans, and pulled the blanket over him. Noah grunted in his sleep, and then one muscular arm reached around and pulled Isaiah in.
He couldn’t put too much meaning in what he assumed was a vestigial unconscious gesture from a passed time. He wanted the sun to never rise, the light to never come, the breakage to be forever delayed. But it would not happen. It would be day, soon. But not yet, he thought. He still had this sightless warmth.
For more short stories, read ‘Just’ by Sydney-based author Joseph Earp here.
Header image by Alvaro Reyes/Unsplash.
