Boy Parts(34)

‘I’ve got a hotel,’ he says. And we walk together. He’s staying somewhere expensive, by the river. I ask him if he always looks a gift horse in the mouth. ‘Sorry about that. That fake shit ruins it for me. It’s like… What do you do for a living?’

‘I’m a photographer.’

‘I meant for a job.’

‘I’m a photographer.’

‘Oh,’ he says. ‘Well… It’s like when… It’d be like seeing a photo that’s… So, you think it’s a photo of a beautiful woman, man.’ He waves his hand. ‘Whatever you’re into. But actually, it’s been photoshopped. Can’t enjoy the photo then, can you? If you know it’s not real.’

I kind of get what he’s saying. It’s sort of like if you condensed all the academic craic out there on the ‘presumption of veracity’ people ascribe to photography, all the resulting authority and seductiveness, into a common tweet. I don’t know if ‘that take is so basic come back to me when you’ve read some Sontag or Derrida’ is good foreplay, though.

‘I kind of get you,’ I say. I am feeling drunk, and charitable. ‘It’s a bit like… So, I heard that people who photograph food – like, for adverts, and packaging, and that – to get that fresh rising steam effect on, like, chicken, and mashed potato, and shit. I hear they soak tampons in water, then pop them in the microwave till they steam. Then they either put it just behind the food, or, like, just bury it in there? Ever since I heard that, whenever I see the packaging on an M&S curry, all I can think about is the fucking soggy microwaved tampon that’s probably stuck in it.’

‘Yeah. That’s fucked up,’ he says.

I decide to let him know I’m allergic to latex. John is a pretty man: he’s tall and slim, with green eyes and thick, honey-coloured hair, but the sneer that twists his pouty, pink lips is plain ugly. He asks me if I’m fucking joking.

‘I carry my own condoms. Jesus.’

We arrive at the hotel, and he’s already back-pedalling, insisting he’s not a wanker, he’s just had a long day, he promises. I roll my eyes when his back is turned.

John tells the front desk to send champagne to his room. Champagne makes me sick like nothing else, but who am I to turn down a free drink?

The room is nice: plush carpets, clean, mini-bar, king-size bed. I perch on a loveseat in the window and look out to the river while he complains about how long the champagne takes, and de-suits, removing his jacket, his tie, and unbuttoning his shirt to reveal a chest which must be waxed.

A knock at the door. He opens it wide enough to make sure the male member of staff can see me, and makes that member of staff open the bottle and fill our glasses, which have strawberries skewered on the rim.

John brings me a champagne flute, and I give him a condom.

‘How big is this?’ he asks, immediately, his nose wrinkled.

‘It’s just normal. I carry a big one?’ A girl can dream. ‘And a trim one, FYI.’

‘I’ll try the normal one… I’m on the big side of average, you see, so…’

‘Do you need the big one, or not?’

He waggles his eyebrows, and undresses completely.

He does not need the big one. I swig heavily from my champagne flute, while he strokes his spectacularly average dick, like I’m supposed to be impressed. Eddie from Tesco, bless his heart, seems like more a trim kind of guy. But I’m no size queen. I’m a broad church.

It’s funny to see John with his clothes off. His body is perfect. It doesn’t do a lot for me. It’s fussy, and fake, one of those display bodies, built for gym selfies and thirst-trap Instagram pages and Tinder profiles. Not unlike my own, I suppose. He has abs, and he’s as waxed and buffed as I am. I’ve gotten so used to tummies and body hair and stringy limbs that I’ve almost forgotten there are men who look like this in real life. I’ve forgotten there are other Salad People who exist outside of glossy mags and Instagram. I wonder how many protein shakes he drinks, how many hours he spends at the gym. All that money, all that time, and I’m going to spend the next three and a half minutes thinking about some chubby, short-arse checkout boy. I snort, and I imagine him lusting after a Forbidden Planet shop girl, with dimply thighs and scabby lip rings.

The heart wants what it wants. I take off my clothes. Now my shoes are off he’s a little taller than me. He points it out, says he has the upper hand. I duck away from his lips when he tries to kiss me on the mouth. I touch his stomach; there’s no give at all, my fingers don’t dent it. His thighs are hard, and slim. His arse doesn’t look like it’s been shrunk in the wash, at least, but I bet he’s done a lot of squats to get it this way.

I kneel on the bed, tell him to go from behind. I don’t want to look at him. I don’t want to touch him. I want to bury my hands in the generous hotel pillows and pretend I’m grabbing a handful of pudgy boy-thigh. No foreplay. He runs a cursory hand down my side, he checks if I’m wet, then sticks it in. It stings. I haven’t done this in a long time. He huffs above me. I don’t particularly want to look at him, but there’s a big mirror on the wall. I see us both looking at ourselves. John is watching his dick go in and out of me, and I’m just staring at the girl in the mirror. The bored redhead and the plastic surgeon, pulling at the flesh of her flank. She looks posed, and so does he, like a little girl is doing something obscene with Barbie and Ken.