Eat Me (23 page)

I should make it clear that throughout, her visitor continued to read what was on the screen. Never once did she take her eyes off it, even when she slowly pulled her hand out from between Philippa's legs and licked her fingers, one by one. When the hand returned to embrace her around the waist, Philippa swivelled around, threw her right leg over and perched on her friend's lap, kept from sliding off (the stool slopes down, don't forget) by the strong arm around her waist. She hung her head over her friend's shoulder, snuggled up, closed her eyes and began to wiggle around in her lap. After a while, her friend, still scrolling, still reading, got Philippa to lift her hips up while she pulled off her own undies and lifted the miniskirt, only to reveal—and this is where things get a little weird, if you ask me—what must have been a thick, stiff, eight or nine inch cock! Where'd that come from? Philippa wove her fingers through her friend's blonde hair and—here, I received my second shock of the evening—it came off! It was a wig, which she tossed off to one side. The head underneath was closely shaved and, now, I could see clearly, was definitely that of a man.

Philippa then raised her own skirt and sat down on this guy's erect dick very slowly, pulling up and nearly off it, and then down a bit more, and then up and down, engulfing it bit by bit until she was seated again. Now, she fucked him, fucked him hard. She fucked him in a vertical fury, as a matter of fact, and believe you me, I was in a bit of a vertical fury myself by this time. Occasionally she broke the rhythm to sit right down on that swollen porridge pump of his and, with her hips, stir him like oatmeal.

He was still trying to keep up the pretext of reading, but I fear it had become a bit of a charade by now. Philippa noticed his eyes drifting from the screen, and in a half-strangled, extremely sexy voice, cried out, ‘Scroll! Scroll! Don't stop!' I could see him straining to concentrate, one hand still working the scroll button. She glanced over her shoulder at the keyboard. ‘You're almost there!' she gasped. ‘You're at the climax! Keep going! Don't stop! Just a little more!' Just then, he bucked upwards so powerfully that she nearly fell over and his love boat almost slipped its mooring. His upper body arched back to the floor, where he supported it with his hands, and his top lip curled up over his teeth. ‘Aaaaaargh,' he groaned, ‘aaaaaaah.' ‘Sorry?' I heard Philippa ask. ‘Non-verbal,' he explained. After about a minute, during which time neither moved, he slowly righted himself and, holding the panting Philippa close to him, with half-closed eyes read for about a minute longer. ‘The end!' he shouted.

At this, she threw her hands into the air. ‘The end!' she exclaimed, laughing hysterically. ‘The end!'

It was as good for me as it was for them.

The end.

Amen.

‘Fuck off Argus, Adam, whatever your name is,' snapped Philippa, snapping the blinds shut. ‘It is most definitely not the end yet. Remember, this is
my
story. I don't mind you watching but piss off out of the narrative, all right? Just piss off!'

She sat back down on her stool, still fuming. The
nerve
of some characters. Trying to end the novel there. She shook her head. You let them into one story and they think they can rule your book. Such a sleazebag. All that guardian angel bullshit. And that crap about masturbating on the ergonomic stool. In his
dreams
. Mengzhong! He didn't even bother with the condom. Men. You just can't trust them.

Ahem. Now, where were we?

Actually, it's true. I have finished my novel. Richard, my writing teacher, he of the wild costumes and exquisite feet, seemed to like it. And yes, it's also true that it was as he was reading the final chapters that we finally consummated what had turned out to be, after all, a secret and smouldering
mutual
passion. But that's as far as it went. Never mind. He told me that evening that he had just finished his book of women's erotica too. Since then, he's cleared the frocks out of his closet and stocked up on denim shirts with fringes and cowboy boots. He's learnt to play the guitar and boot-scoot, and to speak with an American accent. He's grown a moustache (it took him a while after all that waxing), and departed for San Francisco to investigate the gay country & western scene there. I got one postcard from him. He's having a ball. So to speak.

I was sorry to see him go. He was great, reading every chapter as I wrote it, giving me loads of good advice. I just wish he'd shown me his. After all, I'd shown him mine. Never mind. He always claimed he didn't want to influence me.

So, I've sent the manuscript to a few publishers, but so far (it's been four months) there are no takers. I know that's what you're supposed to expect with a first novel, but still, it is a bit discouraging. Never mind. I'll persist.

I bet you're wondering what's happened to everyone else in the meantime.

At Chantal's urging, she and Helen did join Sam and his mate for dinner that night. Serendipity struck: that evening turned out to be the start of something beautiful. Not for Helen, but Chantal. At first, she thought Sam's mate, Damien, had to be gay: he was attractive, stylish and had a fabulous sense of humour. He was a furniture designer, and shared her passion for style in all things: when he commented that the sight of a beautifully proportioned toaster could make him swoon, she knew exactly what he was talking about. He was even a faithful reader of
Pulse
. Later, he dropped an apparently casual but in fact pointed reference into the conversation about his ex, ‘a gorgeous woman who is still my best friend'. He wasn't gay after all! She realised that she'd finally met her living ideal: the heterosexual gay man.

Two days later, on a Friday, Chantal arrived at her office only to be informed by the secretary that the publisher wanted to see her immediately. She knocked on his door with some trepidation. What he told her, however, was that the editor-in-chief had handed in her resignation and he wanted to promote Chantal to the position. She thanked him, walked into her office, closed the door, took off her heels, jumped up and down a few times on the carpet while waving her hands in the air, put her shoes back on, sat down at her desk, freshened her lipstick, and rang up Damien. She invited him to join her for some champagne that evening. They had another bottle over breakfast the following morning, and have been inseparable ever since. She confides that if she'd known sex could be that good she'd have made more of an effort to get some over the years.

Bram has been enjoying a comeback. He has a huge following among the ‘alternative' crowd in Newtown and Glebe. He and Chantal have become friends. They meet for coffee occasionally. He's been too embarrassed ever to drink in her presence again.

As for Helen and Sam, the Chantal and Damien thing certainly made them a lot closer. They see quite a lot of each other. Sam is quite keen on Helen and, as we know, Helen's been quite keen on Sam for a while now. But the little fling with Marc, and the experience with the truckie really threw her a bit, and she reckons she's got to sort out her head before she gets involved with anyone else. So, she and Sam are in a kind of relationship without sex—quite a nineties sort of thing to do, when you think about it.

I think Julia secretly continues to mourn for Jake, but she's always quick to bounce back and since him (and Mengzhong) there's been a twenty-three-year-old Thai kickboxing champion, a twenty-eight-year-old Rastafarian from Brighton, a young bushie from Bourke, and she's currently seeing a twenty-five-year-old artist from Guatemala. She always puts on this big casual act, like, it doesn't really matter if these flings don't last longer than a few weeks, or a month, or whatever, but I think, underneath, she really does want a more steady relationship. Just the other night, we were having another one of our veg-out evenings. There was this wildlife documentary on the tube, and when the narrator said something like ‘After mating, animals automatically turn their thoughts to nesting,' Chantal commented that it was probably just the females that turned their thoughts to nesting. The males were probably off looking for some more action. Julia burst into tears. We all looked at her, quite shocked. She quickly wiped her eyes and mumbled something about ‘PMT, don't mind me,' so we thought it best to leave that subject alone.

As for me, well, you know I don't have a real sex life. I've told you before—I'm mistress of the v-words: voyeurism and vicariousness. I'm most deeply into the f-word: fantasy, of course.

None of us girls have been afflicted by gamomania, or biological clock-watching. Not yet, anyway.

As for the rest, well, Marc has started to see a girl his age, but he still secretly dreams of Helen. The truckie is now constantly on the lookout for women with motor trouble, but while he's fixed a lot of engines, he's never had a second offer. Not like that one, anyway. There's been a renewed vigour to Mr Fu and his wife's sex life. Mengzhong haunts the restaurants and bars in Beijing where the foreign girls hang out and has discovered Julia's not the only Western girl whom he can charm with his snake. As for Jake, well, Helen was right. I was at that gig at the Sando. I'd gone to tell Jake I didn't want to see him again. Not long after that, he met Ava, and they've been living together for several months now. I hear that they have the most extraordinary grocery bills.

Philippa hit the save button. Wouldn't it be nice if everything really did resolve itself in such a tidy manner, she thought. Fat chance, she murmured, leaning back on her ergonomic stool and stretching. She'd have to get ready soon. She was meeting Jake in just an hour.

EAT ME

Ellen
was the first to arrive at Cafe Da Vida. Although it was a late winter's morning, the tables outside the popular cafe were already chock-a-block with people reading the weekend papers, dogs and children at their feet. The table between the cake display and the window, the one she wanted, the only one with a bit of real space between it and the rest, was taken. The other window table was free, however, and she parked her coat on the back of a chair to stake her claim and went up to the counter to order a cappuccino. She briefly considered ordering some tsurros as well. As tempting as they were, she decided she didn't really need the oily pastries. She was trying to watch her weight—in a sensible, non-bulimic, non-anorexic kind of way, of course. Ellen was what her grandmother called
zoftig
, Yiddish for ‘healthy'. She had thick curly brown hair, intense dark eyes and strong features that would have looked out of place on a more waifish figure anyway. She cut a striking figure in the ethnic-inspired clothes she favoured—swirls of layered fabrics from Africa, Indonesia, Latin America.

Looking around at the cheesy reproductions of famous oil paintings, breathing in the comforting aroma of freshly ground coffee, she tried to collect her thoughts.

Several days earlier Ellen had dropped into the campus bookstore for a browse, as was her wont. As she lectured in English and Australian literature, she liked keeping up with new writing. Erotica was a special interest. When she spotted the title
Eat Me
among the new releases, her heart skipped a beat. Wasn't that the title that her writer friend Philippa had chosen for her own novel? Last she'd heard, Philippa still hadn't found a publisher. Besides, as Ellen examined the cover, she discovered that this one was by someone with the revolting name—pseudonym, surely— of Dick Pulse. What a regrettable coincidence! When she flipped it open, she was stunned. The first chapter was almost word for word exactly the same as the story Philippa had read to them nearly a year earlier when she first started on the book. How bizarre! Although the girls had asked several times, Philippa had never read them anything else from the book. She had always seemed a bit shy about it.

What really made Ellen's heart race, though, was what she saw in the next chapter. Art hadn't just imitated life, it had swallowed it whole and spat it out again. Horrified, she thought she'd better get a copy and take it home to read. She spent all afternoon and evening reading it. Then she'd called Jody and Camilla. They were just as astonished as her, but agreed they shouldn't say a word to Philippa before they'd all had a chance to read the book and discuss things among themselves.

‘Ellen! Sorry I'm late!' Jody bounded into the cafe, chucked her gym bag under the table and sang out ‘a latte please' to the handsome Spanish waiter who always seemed to appear, as though by magic, when Jody walked through the door. Her long black hair was up in a ponytail and she wore a classic black-and-white herringbone coat, her latest op-shop prize, over a lime-green turtleneck, black leather hot pants, purple opaque pantyhose and blue Docs. Her neat olive features were flushed with physical exertion and the cold.

‘You're not late,' Ellen reassured her. ‘I was early. Just come from the gym?'

‘Yes,' Jody replied, ‘You know, it's funny, but I was thinking today while I was working out about the way men make so much noise when they're exercising. They huff and they puff and they
phooo
and they
aaaarrgh
. The women, on the other hand, manage to do all their routines with just simple, healthy exhaling and inhaling, none of that
sturm und drang
of the male jocks. And yet in bed it's just the opposite. Unless they're into talking dirty, and that's another thing altogether, men usually just stay unnaturally silent until the moment of orgasm, when all that macho self-control breaks down and they let go with a wee little
phut
. Some guys just grimace or bite their lips or press a hand against the side of their face. Women, on the other hand, will shout and moan and pant and gasp and squeal in bed without the least bit of inhibition. Now why do you think that's so?'

‘I reckon,' Ellen ventured, ‘that it has a lot to do with expectations, performance anxiety and peer pressure. Men fake it more often in the gym and women fake it more often in bed.'