How to Avoid Sex (18 page)

The men above were stomping rhythmically and seeing who could swear the loudest. Every 15 minutes or so, they stopped to masturbate, letting their ejaculate dribble into the scupper where it impregnated the ocean. The men’s semen attracted all manner of ocean creatures, some of which were, until this point, merely fabled. Finned barstools kicked through the water like jellyfish. Schools of tiny Muhammad Ali figurines hid behind seaweed, waiting for their moment to feed off whatever the barstools left behind. Watching from a distance, too shy to actively participate, were underwater emotional hardcore bands, the members of which, strummed plaintively at their instruments and moped.

This hive of activity was unlike anything these men had seen before. They climbed the masts, pummelled their chests and barked at the moon. In response to the moon barking came a static-drenched yodel from somewhere in the distance. The men barked in reply, which was met by another
yodel. This unusual conversation continued, the yodel increasing in volume as the source of the sound drew nearer.

The pink mist that hovered just above the ocean surface began to swirl as another vessel approached POINTLESS JOURNEY. It wasn’t a ship… it was something much bigger. This vessel emitted a powerful light that illuminated the mist around it like a bad sci-fi special effect. The men fell silent as the encroaching light bathed them in artificial warmth. As the vessel came into view, it revealed itself to be an enormous cathode ray television set. It dwarfed POINTLESS JOURNEY with its sheer bulk. It was adorned in bindis and Strawberry Shortcake stickers and moaned static as it gently bumped against the ship. The escutcheon on POINTLESS JOURNEY curled into a smile and drooled.

The static on the giant television replaced itself with the flickering image of identical, undressed dolls. Their genitalia had been homogenised into smooth humps, but their frozen expressions suggested lust. The men watched from the safety of their ship like consummate voyeurs, their bulging eyes unwavering from the screen. The dolls moved without humanity, but their movements suggested a facsimile of sex. The dolls caressed each other with rigid hands. Low bit-rate moans seduced their way out of the television speakers and squirmed into the gaping ears of the men. The dolls mashed their frozen faces into each other’s breasts.

The camera zoomed in, allowing the men to paint imaginary detail, each according to their own version of perfection, upon the androgyny. The eyes of each doll seemed to beg the men to use their versions of the female form. The men responded by using themselves. As they did this, they barked and cooed. Nothing else mattered.

From atop the main mast, the captain watched this horrifying drama unfold. The brine in his stomach spun in nauseous tumbles. The boat rocked with the masturbatory jerks below. He had been rendered invisible, unable to comprehend, let alone participate in, the decadence occurring below him. His position as captain had always managed to bolster and lift him from moments of doubt and status
anxiety. The mannered world of hierarchy had now drowned in a pool of animal lust. He had been excluded from his gender.

From his vantage point, the captain glanced out over the expanse of the ocean. As the water level lowered, he witnessed the birth of new islands, each with their own mysterious inhabitants. The island closest, no bigger than an apartment, was occupied by two small boys. Each was armed with a slingshot, which they took turns using against the other. A solitary cactus was the soul source of shelter against their projectiles. The boys fed on low flying seagulls and were covered in their pink viscera. An island further in the distance housed a family on a yellow couch. They sat before a stage, which whistled steam and staged nothing. More and more islands emerged, the inhabitants of each involved in deep meaninglessness.

The captain thought about his place on POINTLESS JOURNEY and in turn, he thought about POINTLESS JOURNEY’s place in the world. Perhaps the purpose behind their never-ending mission was simply to survey lack of purpose in its myriad forms. They had truly become the embodiment of nothingness. Perhaps, by allowing his men to indulge in themselves, he had woken them up in a way that compromised the mission – he’d given them a purpose the mission didn’t want them to have. He had been the perfect man to lead this mission, as his sexlessness didn’t even allow him to partake in the most basic animal function.

The water level continued to lower and more islands popped into view. The captain knew what he had to do.

Captain Nowhere began his descent of the main mast, feeling dread and finality plump his veins. Somehow, the further down the mast the captain was, the more vertigo assailed him. By the time his foot made contact with the deck he felt as if he might pass out.

The men were still entranced by the plastic eroticism displayed on the television screen. They absent-mindedly tugged at their arousal, oblivious to everything but their immediate fantasies. The captain made his way toward the binnacle and retrieved the compass from within, the needle of which had attained the appearance of a tongue. It was heavy in his hands, but he managed to hoist it toward his shoulder with a heave. The men paid their captain no notice. Even as he stood before them, they
paid no attention. Channelling every speck of his strength, the captain hurled the compass toward the overbearing television screen. It sailed briefly through the air before colliding with the glass, shattering the screen in a spark-filled huff of smoke. With the cathode glow extinguished, it seemed darker than ever before.

The men flashed fury across their faces. Their penises barked in glistening, red anger. The captain met their hateful stares with a dignified stare of his own. He began explaining his decision to mutiny against them. He told them it was the only way he could live with himself. The men made no indication that these words were connecting. They continued their hateful stares. The captain continued explaining his decision, losing himself along tangential roads. His words lacked dynamism, but at this stage, what did it matter? He let his words flow freely, expunging his opinion about anything that came to mind, including a brief anecdote about the pitfalls of Yahtzee. It wasn’t until his voice disappeared completely that he stopped. He turned his back on the men. The thump of POINTLESS JOURNEY hitting the ocean floor shook everyone aboard. The ocean had been absorbed completely.

After filling a duffel bag with arbitrary possessions, the former captain dismounted POINTLESS JOURNEY. His feet squelched into the muddy ocean floor. He pressed his lips against the hull, saying a final goodbye, accidentally inhaling a starfish. He glanced up at the enormous television carcass and tipped an imaginary hat to the foe he felled. Then, he walked…

There was no correct direction. He simply felt for the direction of the wind and followed it. The men on his former home were moaning in self-pleasure again. It was a relief for the former captain when these sounds began to fade. The more he walked, the more relieved he became.

After some time, he chanced upon a clam dressed as Morgan Freeman. It was reciting lines from ROBIN HOOD: PRINCE OF THIEVES in that deeply sonorous tone Freeman was famous for. Wedged in the slush of the ocean floor, at the foot of the clam, sat something that filled him with jubilation. It was his crotch hook. He extracted it from the slush like Excalibur and screwed it back into place. He breathed deeply, inhaling a medically ill-advised quantity of salt. Although more aimless than ever, he felt whole.

There was a wooden door in the ocean floor. Opening hours were painted on the front in gold. He had nothing on him in which to tell the time. The angle of the sun suggested it might have been March, but that wasn’t accurate enough. He fell to his knees and twisted the doorknob. The door swung open, revealing a staircase. The former captain stood by this staircase for some time, lost in contemplation. Eventually he fisted his pockets with either hand, jutted his crotch hook outward and descended down the stairs.

The Nook

A new pile of second-hand pornographic VHS cassettes sit on my coffee table. This has become a weekly tradition. I must have two hundred of these things, all of them courtesy of my best friend, Greg. I never watch them anymore. It makes no sense to me. I have the Internet. The world of porn is at my fingertips and, with the Internet by my side I don’t have to squint my way through tracking problems or censorship laws. I’ve told Greg this so many times. He believes that one should own the physical pornographic artefact. I believe that the pornographic artefact only leads to post-orgasmic guilt. I find it more morally sustainable to simply delete my web history.

“Aren’t you even going to look at ‘em?”

Greg sits before the porn like a cat that has just presented a dead bird to its owner. His glasses edge down the bridge of his nose, saved by an unconscious finger just before it has a chance to fall to the carpet below.

“Why would I?” I respond. “You know I don’t want these things. They’re not even on DVD for fucksake.”

Greg shakes his head dismissively – a sensei disappointed in his student. He makes his way toward the fridge and retrieves a Grolsch beer. He bites at the cap, removing it and half the bottleneck at the same time. Beer froths down his chin. He spits bloody shards of glass into the sink and sucks at the jagged drink spout.

“People shit on VHS. It pisses me off. They’ve become fucking lepers. If we don’t nurture them, they’ll die.”

I snort beer through my nostrils as laughter takes me over.

“There’s a good reason that people shit on VHS. It’s not like a vinyl record. I’m willing to bet that 90% of the porn you’ve given me is virtually unwatchable. If I’m watching porn, I wanna jack off. I don’t wanna endlessly adjust the tracking or fish tape from VCR guts.”

Greg falls down onto the adjacent couch (this is his couch) and farts upon landing. A smell most foul rapes my nose.

“Fuck!” I yell, waving a hand near my face. “I don’t get it. You’re here all the time. We eat the same shit. Why do your farts smell so… so… idiosyncratic?”

“Must be all that time I spend eating your mother’s pussy,” he mocks.

“If you had all this pussy to eat, you probably wouldn’t need the porn,” I reply while prodding the porn stack on the coffee table with my foot.

“It’s a good way to hone technique, my man.”

“Yeah… I can’t count the number of times I’ve utilized the piledriver at the end of a romantic evening.”

“Because you ain’t meeting the right kinda chick,” Greg replies. ‘Have you watched
any
of the porn I’ve given you?”

“When would I find the time? You’re always here.”

Greg burps a beer-drenched laugh. We both lie back on our respective couches in comfortable silence. The best way to measure a friendship is in silence. If you’re comfortable saying nothing to someone, then they’re a true friend.

I let my lethargic eyes soak in the detail of my apartment. I love my apartment. I’ve been here for nearly ten years. Since leaving home, it’s the only place I’ve ever been. It’s small. It’s rundown. It’s completely unexceptional in every way, but it’s mine. This place knows me better than anyone, including Greg. I know this place better than anyone, including Greg. The apartment is an extension of me. My presence has given it a heart – a heart that beats in tandem with my own. Our relationship is based on divine symbiosis. There is nothing about my apartment that I don’t know. It’s the closest anyone can come to physically living inside themselves.

…

I wake up to the wet, slapping sound of masturbation. I don’t mind Greg doing this – it’s actually nice that he feels comfortable enough to do it around me. I could never whip it out in front of him. He calls my constant state of dress ‘prudity’ and he’s right. I’ve never even let a friend see me topless and I would rather kill myself with a knife of frozen shit than show my cock to anyone. Even the girls I’ve been with need to fill out a legally binding confidentiality agreement before I’ll remove my pants in their presence.

“Let me know when it’s safe to look,” I yawn at Greg.

“Nearly… there… buddy,” he pants.

I bop my head to the rhythmic slap of his wank. I’d hazard a guess that he’s at 90bpm. He must be feeling tired. Sometimes he gets to 240.

“Safe to look, dude,” he groans.

I turn my head just in time to see a watery blast of cum douse his t-shirt.

“Fuck, dude!” I yell. “You asshole! What’d you do that for?”

Greg wheezes with laughter while repackaging his dick.

“It’s just a dick, dude. Reports suggest that even
you
have one and what’s more, you’ve probably even seen yourself cum!”

I feel disgusted, but I have no idea why. It turns me on when a guy cums in porn, yet when I see my best friend do it, it creeps me out. I feel my cock engorge with involuntary blood.

“This is my fucking home! I don’t want you treating it like your own personal cum dumpster.”

“Nah…” Greg replies. “That’s what your mother’s for.”

We both start laughing and insulting the other’s mother. It’s a slightly abstract notion when you consider my mother’s been dead for ten years.

Before the cum has a chance to dry on Greg’s shirt, all is forgiven. We’re drinking more Grolsch and watching illegally downloaded episodes of Quincy M.E. Tragically we know all the dialogue and revel in demonstrating this.