How to Avoid Sex (17 page)

He kicked open the door to the wardrobe and tumbled out, burning himself on the candle. The light in the galley had an odour to it that reminded Captain Nowhere of a time before his stint on POINTLESS JOURNEY. Memories of this time had become pure abstraction – a dream dreamed within a dream. POINTLESS JOURNEY was like a womb a child fails to escape.

The thump of tossed ironing boards reverberated throughout the hull. The disenfranchised sea mothers were attacking again. They travelled the ocean in inflatable vulvas, hurling the tools of oppression at male-occupied vessels. Captain Nowhere lowered his head, feeling a deep, unnameable shame. He paced the galley until the ironing board assault ceased.

The men were playing a game created by Captain Nowhere many years earlier, when the morale first started to dip. The rules of the game were ambiguous, which prevented the men from ever engaging with it in a meaningful way. The name of the game was convoluted, rendering it impossible to remember. It was only ever referred to now as ‘it’. The men only played ‘it’ through a sense of routine and garnered no joy from the experience. Based on their interpretation of the rules, the men tied their beards together in a messy knot and moved in a circle, as if they were children frolicking around a maypole. Only their ‘frolic’ was more accurately described as a laboured meander. After an unspecified amount of time had passed, they would all take it in turns imitating the call of creatures
common to the fjords. Another unspecified amount of time later, they would stop what they were doing and spend the next 24 hours untying their beards.

It was during the beard de-tangle that Captain Nowhere approached his men. The men paid very little attention to him – they never did anymore. He was like a ghost no one believed in. Sometimes it was hard for him to conceptualise the reality of his existence. To exist doesn’t one need to be acknowledged? He hoped that his impending announcement would achieve this. He decided upon making his announcement while the men were still de-tangling their beards, because at least this way they were all in the same spot.

Captain Nowhere embarked upon his announcement in earnest, plainly aware that his men weren’t listening, but optimistic that they soon would. He spent some time talking about their ‘mission’, asserting that it would eventually meet an end. Such platitudes had been verbalised so regularly over the years that even he struggled to believe it. He ventured into crew protocol and regurgitated the many reasons as to why each of the many rules had been introduced. His communication was passionate, borne of genuine love for the sea. Still… his men weren’t listening. It was only while stammering out the word ‘masturbation’ that all attention immediately fell to Captain Nowhere. The men no longer sought to untangle their beards. Their ears grew considerably larger and spat out accumulated wax. The emphysemic wheeze of the ocean was suddenly the only sound in existence. Such intense attention filled him with discomfort, but still he struggled forward. Using terminology you might expect a grandparent to use, he officially lifted the ban on self-pleasure.

The silence continued for some time after the announcement had been made. A species of stepladder, native to the ocean sky, floated past overhead. Tubes of ocean water punched upward like uppercuts spraying POINTLESS JOURNEY as it fell back down to sea. One can often sense the moment life irrevocably changes.

The perpetually youthful powder monkeys, relegated to their bunks for so long, each grew a solitary pubic hair.

For the first time in many years, the forgotten penises aboard POINTLESS JOURNEY jutted outward, causing trousers to rise like arms loaded with correct answers. The crew, aware of their new awakening, eyed each the other off, excited and nervous. Their beards were still tangled, making the privacy they immediately craved an impossibility. Their primal instincts wrestled with their social graces. The primal won without issue. The men, carnal and pure, each clutched their newly invigorated members and began to pull. Once the seal preventing their sexual hunger had been breached, there was no hesitation. The masturbatory frenzy, created by the combined actions of these men, caused the ocean to churn and crash against the ship. The myriad inhabitants of the sea barked their mating calls into the restless ether. Each muscle in the bodies of the men clenched before the combined moan of ejaculatory cannons doused the beard tangle with murdered repression. Each individual sperm was a fossilised skeleton, a historical promise of fertility. It drifted away in a plume of impotent dust.

The men, with eyes pressed shut and mouths slackened, stood limp and still. The blood inside them felt carbonated and tingled its way into once abandoned veins, imbuing forgotten regions of their body with new life. The captain coughed away the seminal dust, well aware that that he had unleashed something he would never understand – something that terrified him. An unconscious hand crept toward his crotch hook and grasped with white-knuckle tightness.

The men, spent and satisfied, slumped backward, triggering a beard tug of war, which tore them free. The mound of entangled whiskers sat amidst a circle of satisfied men, each with naked, bleeding chins. Some drifted in and out of sleep. Others just cast euphoric stares toward the ocean sky. Captain Nowhere circled his laconic crew, unsure how to approach the situation. His men were calm, which pleased him, but the means by which they achieved this state made him quiver with disgust. His crew’s expended penises spilled from their trouser fronts, oblivious to decorum and weeping post-orgasmic syrup. He wanted to run away – hide in his quarters and forget this ever happened. It felt like a carnal dragon had been unleashed upon POINTLESS JOURNEY, and Captain Nowhere wanted nothing to do with it.

The frenzied thrashing of arms in water diverted the Captain’s attention. He was more than happy to investigate – anything to take his mind of the dirty crewmen. He darted across the deck,
removed a telescope from his ear and peered out toward sea. A froth of disturbed water was visible in the distance, and was approaching POINTLESS JOURNEY at a pace that approximated an amble. The captain’s heart quickened, thumping out chaotic beats. He lowered the telescope and shook his head. He knew what it was. There was only one maritime creature he knew of that travelled in such a way – energy service spruikers. Colour flushed from his cheeks and pooled at the base of his feet. POINTLESS JOURNEY was about to come under attack from a school of men eager to convince anyone or anything in their path to switch energy providers. This was the first such attack in many years. The ocean was waking up and causing a scene.

Captain Nowhere turned toward his preoccupied crew. Some were sleeping. Some had resumed their self-abuse. The rest stared vacantly at the sky with goofy grins slithering across their faces. He stared back at the encroaching dilemma. Each of the energy service spruikers hugged a clipboard to their chest with one arm and moved through the water with the other. The time between attacks had been long. Captain Nowhere massaged his temples, trying to convince his brain to dredge up a strategy. He glanced toward the canons. They had been designed by beauticians from San Diego and fired clumps of bargain bin cosmetics. He wasn’t even sure if they still worked. The powder monkeys had stopped tending to them many years ago, when the allure of their tiny bunks became too much. He considered enlisting the aide of his crew, but it didn’t seem appropriate. If those water spruikers boarded POINTLESS JOURNEY, it would only be a matter of minutes before each of them had been persuaded to change energy providers.

POINTLESS JOURNEY was in possession of a warning system, assumedly designed for moments such as this. The captain couldn’t remember how this system functioned, but knew where the activation lever was. He clamoured his way toward the quarterdeck, trying to avoid the masturbating men and only partly succeeding. The lever was crawling with balls of baby rust that cried when the shadow of the captain’s hand obscured the sunlight. POINTLESS JOURNEY moaned as the captain gripped the stiff lever. The lever’s dormancy had crystallized it into position and it took more strength than Captain Nowhere thought he possessed to budge it. With a relieved creak, it began to give and the lever was slowly, firmly pulled into position. It coughed up a thick phlegm-like substance from its tip that the balls of rust rushed to consume. The alarm system aboard the ship
screamed to life. Fireworks of confetti exploded from the masts, raining down in churning floats of colour. From below the deck, a well-dressed bassoon quartet emerged and blew high-pitch warning sonatas with Albert Ayler intensity.

The energy company spruikers were bumping against the ship and pausing to practice their spiels. Most had thick accents from indistinct countries. Rather than react to the alarm, the crew settled into their post-orgasmia with interlocked fingers propping up their lazy heads. The captain, in a state of abject panic, darted about the ship, waving around his arms and screaming verbal semaphore. His panic went unanswered. As they were trained to do, the bassoon orchestra marched overboard like lemmings. Muffled notes bubbled out of their dying instruments. Captain Nowhere, unaccustomed to pleading, attempted to convey the import of the impending situation. Half the men simply rolled over while the other half re-commenced their masturbation.

The spruikers boarded POINTLESS JOURNEY. The foam squid continued absorbing the ocean.

Within 30 minutes, the captain and crew had all been signed up to new energy contracts by the maritime spruikers. The contractual conditions were so confusing and circuitous in logic they were rendered useless. The captain pleaded with the spruikers to shed light on some of the more obtuse conditions, but this was met with a shrug of the shoulders. Before the captain could wipe the tears from his eyes, the spruikers were back in the water, searching for their next target. It was the epitome of oceanic shame to fall victim to a maritime spruiker. Somehow the news would get out – the ocean has a way of gossiping, like an immense, heaving playground.

The captain crossed the deck and squinted against the salt air, trying to smother the sound of his moaning crew with his own hummed shanties. Trained seagulls were forming corporate logos overhead, switching every few seconds from one brand to another. Everything was changing.

The ocean was getting shallower. The foam squid were absorbing more of it every day. Some had become so engorged that you could see their yellow, porous heads breaking through the surface. The captain supposed it wouldn’t be long before POINTLESS JOURNEY hit the ocean floor and could no
longer move forward. He only hoped their mission, whatever it was, would be over before this occurred.

The collective jism from twenty spent members soaked into the deck, giving it a waxy sheen. Some of the men were back on their feet, feeling their desires had been satisfied (at least momentarily). They wandered the ship aimlessly, in search of something they couldn’t define. Their raw chins were already starting to sprout new beards – different beards - thicker than before. Beards imbued with machismo. Unable to determine what it was they wanted, they started to fight, embracing one another in tight bear hugs and writhing about on the deck. They derived great pleasure from pinning each other down and spitting victoriously into each other’s mouths.

The captain circled the fighting men, trying to encourage them to stop, but they had grown insolent and merely hurled confusing insults by way of reply. From below the deck, a blur of powder monkeys rushed past the captain, the mousey smells of puberty assailing his nostrils in their wake. This was the first time in decades they had moved from their bunks and it appeared they had amassed a considerable reserve of energy. They dashed about and jumped on the fighting men before urinating against the foremast. Soon the powder monkeys were eyeing off the captain and preparing themselves to charge. The captain stood, glued to the spot and shivering, unable to defend himself. As the powder monkeys charged, the perpetual youth that had befallen them began to slip away. Their bodies changed with each step. Their Adam’s apples throbbed like hearts and their faces exploded with acne, which coughed and burped pus. A screeched war cry escaped their mouths only to turn into a broken fluctuation of pitches as their manhood tried to break through. The captain dropped to his knees. The crotch hook he wore so proudly jutted out and glinted in the light. All the eyes of the powder monkeys moved toward the glinting hook. The captain slowly shook his head, intuitively aware of what was soon to come.

With a pickpocket’s speed and grace, the captain’s crotch hook was snatched and in possession of the powder monkeys. They threw it to each other and giggled, making sure its trajectory remained just outside of the captain’s desperate reach. The macabre game of catch continued until the captain was balled foetal and sobbing. When the powder monkey’s had ascertained their torment was successful, they threw the hook into the ocean. The captain scurried starboard, just in time to watch
the hook vanish into the water. He remained staring for some time, trying to assimilate recent events and failing.

The captain had relegated himself to his quarters. He no longer felt safe anywhere else. Even the perceived safety of his quarters was an illusion. He studied the weak hinges on the door and knew how easy they would be to breach. His hand rubbed the former location of his crotch hook. Its absence was impossible to fathom. When he closed his eyes, the captain could still sense it, sitting regal and proud. He toyed with the notion of never opening his eyes again in order to maintain this sensation.

Captain Nowhere was trapped amidst a dilemma of his own making and he saw no reasonable way out. The obsession these men had with their penis was without peer. Short of removing them, or inflicting mass impotence, his quandary would remain. He wondered how such an organ could inspire such fascination. Was it the sole arbiter of masculinity? The conduit by which a man experienced the world around him? What did that make him? Was he a man at all? Did a person truly exist if no gender could be attributed to them? These thoughts collided with one another causing mental explosions.