Praise (15 page)

‘What?'

‘The trees, the trees. And oh fuck, the
sky
.'

We sat out there for an hour or so. Then Cynthia said, ‘Let's go for a drive.'

We went back inside to get some more beer. Leo and Molly were lying together on the couch. Molly's top was mostly undone. It all looked much better than the last time I'd seen it.

‘We're going driving. You wanna come?'

‘You kidding?' said Leo.

‘Cynthia's driving. It'll be fine. She knows exactly what she's doing.'

Molly shook her head. Leo shrugged.

Cynthia and I went out to the car. Cynthia got behind the wheel. ‘Where to?'

‘There's a park, I'll give you directions.'

We drove.

‘We've gotta fuck on this, sooner or later,' I said

‘There's plenty of time.'

My eyes roved. It was late afternoon. There was a huge sunset building in the west. From where I sat, it was looking dangerous. People were running away from it, ducking their heads, making for home.

The park I was aiming for wasn't far. We'd found it and piled out with our beer. A police car cruised past, checked us out, drove on. We climbed up the hill.

And suddenly we were on top of the city. We were alone. On three sides the hill dropped away to nothing. We wandered from view to view, laughing at each other. A couple of kids. Hippie clichés. On the edge of the hill were some swings. The city and the warehouses and the river spread out below us. We started swinging, beers in hand. We got them right up high. The chains shrieked. It was terrifying and good. We swung into the sunset.

‘I love you!' Cynthia screamed, way up in the air.

Eventually we stopped swinging.

‘What now?' I asked.

‘We drive.'

We headed south along the freeway for a while, then swung off east into the suburbs and onwards along the bush roads towards the coast. It was dark by then. The headlights were on. Cynthia picked up speed. Eighty, a hundred, a hundred and twenty, a hundred and forty — it was as fast as the old Kingswood could go. We were on a road that rolled up and down the hills. We bounced along. I stuck my head out the window. Sucked in the air.

Cynthia said, ‘Watch this.'

We hit the top of a hill. I could see the road stretching down. Then Cynthia flicked off the lights. She floored the accelerator. We roared down in pitch darkness. I screamed. Cynthia screamed. The car bottomed out and started climbing. Cynthia flicked the lights back on. We were on the wrong side of the road, verging on gravel. Cynthia righted the car and we breasted the hill.

She pounded the wheel. ‘This car has
wings
.'

Down we went and out went the lights. This time the road, in the moment I'd seen it, hadn't looked so straight. It curved. It curved ninety degrees.

‘Turn the fucking lights on!' I screamed.

Cynthia laughed, a banshee laugh. I looked at the speed. A hundred and fifty.

‘TURN THE FUCKING THINGS ON!'

She did it. We were off the road, two wheels in dirt.

‘Shit!' said Cynthia. She braked, swung the wheel. The back slid out. We were spinning. I felt the car tilt,
knew
it would roll. I clutched onto the door. We went round once, twice. We started round again and then it stopped. We were on the road, facing back the way we'd come, clouds of dust billowing past us.

Cynthia was laughing, shrieking. ‘Did you see that, did you
see
that!'

I let go of the door.

‘You crazy bitch. You crazy fucking bitch.'

‘Oh shut up, we're all right.'

‘All right?!'

She turned the ignition, hit the accelerator.

By the time we got back to the flat the acid was running down. We went inside. Leo and Molly were smoking, drinking and watching TV. I went into the bedroom. The sheets were all over the place. ‘You guys have been fucking in here.'

‘So hey ...' said Leo, ‘where've you been?'

‘Driving,' said Cynthia.

We all looked at each other.

The problem with going up was coming down.

I remembered the nitrous.

‘I've got some nitrous,' I said.

Leo sat up. ‘You've got some nitrous?'

‘I do. I have some nitrous.'

I brought out the four boxes. I put them on the table. Then I went and found the soda syphon.

It gave us about ten minutes each, off the planet.

Cynthia's period was late.

She liked her periods. She liked the flow. It was smooth, it was deep. It turned her on. When she was a week overdue, she went to the Family Planning clinic in the Valley.

She came back after about twenty minutes. ‘I couldn't see anyone today. They made me an appointment for tomorrow. I made one for you too.'

‘For me?'

She handed me a leaflet. And there it was, in big bold letters.
PREMATURE EJACULATION
. I looked at it.

I said, ‘Do you think they could do anything?'

‘It couldn't hurt.'

‘No. It couldn't.'

I read it through.

‘Right,' I said, ‘get undressed.'

‘Now?'

‘Now.'

We were on the floor. I was on top. I moved in.

‘One,' I said. ‘Two. Three. Four.'

‘
Gordon
.'

‘Five. Six. Seven. Eight.'

‘What are you doing?'

‘I'm counting the thrusts. The doctors will need some numbers. They can't help me without information. Nine. Ten. Eleven.'

‘You can't count! You can't count and fuck. It's evil.'

‘
Sex
is evil. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen.'

‘You bastard. You won't make it past fifty.'

‘Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen.'

‘You won't make it past forty!'

‘I'll make to one hundred. I'll make it to one hundred and twenty.'

‘Bullshit.'

‘Eighteen! Nineteen! Twenty!'

She was pumping back. ‘You're gonna come! You're
hopeless
. You're not even gonna make it to thirty!'

I pumped back. ‘
TWENTY-ONE
!
TWENTY-TWO
!'

‘C'mon, fuck me, fuck me.'

‘
TWENTY-THREE
!
TWENTY-FOUR
!'

‘You're losing it, I can feel it.'

‘Bullshit. You're losing it. You're gonna come first.'

‘No chance.'

‘You can't help it. You can't stop yourself. Thirty. Thirty-one. Thirty-two.'

We ground away. I lifted her legs up around my neck. I leaned forward. I was driving straight down. Nudging her bowels. ‘Thirty-nine. Forty. Forty-one. Forty-two.' I was in control. I had her. My prick was working for once.

‘
FIFTY. FIFTY-ONE
.'

‘You bastard, you bastard ...'

‘
SIXTY
!

‘
SEVENTY
!'

‘
EIGHTY
!'

‘
NINETY
!'

Cynthia threw her head back on the linoleum. ‘Oh
fuck
you.' She drove it in. She was coming. I slammed out the last ones.

‘
ONE HUNDRED AND NINE
!
ONE HUNDRED AND TEN
!'

‘Stop!'

‘No.'

‘I've come! ‘I've finished!'

‘No. One hundred and eleven. One hundred and twelve.'

‘It hurts ...'

‘I don't care.'

‘Fuck.
Fuck:

‘You're gonna do it again, you're gonna do it again before I do.'

‘Try it.'

‘I'm gonna make two hundred. I'm gonna make three hundred.'

I ground and sweated and pumped. I could feel it building. Cynthia was past the pain, she was grinding back. Her teeth were bared. She was snarling at me. It built and built and built. And then it was there.

‘
ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY FUCKING FIVE
!'

We sat in the Family Planning waiting room, holding hands. I was the only man there. The women looked at me. Looked at Cynthia. Back to me. The air was hostile. What've you
done
to her?

Cynthia was called first. I sat there alone in enemy territory. Then I was called. The doctor ushered me in. She took down my name and particulars, then asked me what the problem was.

‘I'm coming too fast.'

‘I see. Exactly how fast do you mean? Before penetration?'

‘No, but not all that long afterwards.'

‘Could you say exactly how long?'

‘Well, we counted it yesterday. It wasn't a very good indication. It went on for a hundred and eighty thrusts ... but I'd say usually it's about half that. Or less than half, maybe a third.'

Thrusts? What was I doing, talking about
thrusts?
This was ludicrous.

She wrote it down. ‘A third, you say. And it's usually like that?'

‘Well, often enough to be annoying. Sometimes it's better the second or third time. And sometimes it's not a problem at all. Especially if I've been drinking. That tends to slow things down.'

‘Mmm. So you drink, do you? How often would you say you drank?'

‘Oh, three or four nights a week.'

‘And you get drunk on these nights?'

‘It depends. Mostly, I suppose.'

‘Do you think you'd have more than forty-five drinks a week?'

‘Probably.'

‘You realise that's considered heavy drinking?'

‘I suppose so.'

‘Why do you drink?'

‘I enjoy it.'

‘Do you need it to socialise?'

‘I enjoy socialising more if I'm drinking.'

‘Why's that?'

‘It's just more fun. But like I said, I don't come that fast when I'm drunk.'

She nodded. ‘The level of your drinking could become a problem, you know. Does your partner drink as much as you do?'

‘More or less.'

‘Well, you both could have problems.'

We looked at each other.

‘So what do you think I should do about coming?'

She sighed. ‘Well, it doesn't sound that severe, but if you want, you can enrol in a programme we have. We'll teach you ways of developing control through manipulation of breathing, better understanding of your own reactions, cooperative movements from your partner and so forth. The course we run is for couples, so your partner would have to come along as well. You can sign on at the desk.'

‘That's it?'

‘Cut down on the drinking.'

‘I'll think about it.'

I went back into the waiting room. Cynthia wasn't there. I waited for a while then wandered out onto the street. I saw a newsagent up on the corner. I walked up and bought a paper. I browsed through the magazines. I saw Cynthia coming and went out.

‘There you are,' she said.

‘How'd it go? Are you pregnant?'

‘Nothing. The test was negative. But they're not sure why my period is so late.'

‘But you're definitely not pregnant?'

‘They said if it didn't come within the next week to go back for another test. Sometimes pregnancy doesn't show up on the first test.'

‘Well, we should celebrate.'

We started walking back to the car. Cynthia said, ‘How did things go with you?'

‘I'm not sure. The doctor didn't seem to care much about my ejaculations. She just wanted to know about my drinking.'

‘Your drinking?'

‘She said we were drinking too much.'

‘We don't drink that much. We're not professionals, that's for sure. What did she say about fucking?'

‘She didn't say anything, just that we could join a training programme if we wanted to. It's for couples. You'd have to come along too.'

‘Oh.'

‘Not interested?'

‘No. Fuck it. You'll do.'

A week went by. It was now only a few days to Christmas. Cynthia was working almost every day at the Queen's Arms. Christmas parties. She collected big tips. We drank them away.

I was planning on spending most of Christmas Day with the family. I invited Cynthia along. She said no. She was working late on Christmas Eve and all day on Boxing Day. She planned to spend Christmas Day in bed. I went shopping and bought her a Christmas present. I got two books. Elias Canetti's
Auto da Fe
, and Russell Hoban's
Riddley Walker
. I'd already read them, but I'd lost my own copies.

Cynthia's period did not arrive.

‘I can't be pregnant,' she said. ‘I'd know. I'd
feel
pregnant. Something must be wrong. I bet it's cancer. Cervical cancer. All that fucking around when I was a kid.'

‘Which would you prefer? Pregnancy or cancer?'

‘Christ. What sort of question is that?'

On the last working day before Christmas, we went back to Family Planning. This time Cynthia went in alone. I waited in the car.

Half an hour went by. I got out of the car, walked up to the newsagent, bought a newspaper, went back to the car and read it through. Now it was an hour. I was parked beside a boarding house. I watched an old man walk back and forth along the verandah. He had a wet butterfly-shaped stain on the front of his pants.

I thought about bowel cancer. There were three doctors in my family. I'd heard a lot about it. Then I remembered that during birth, a woman shits all over the place. Her anus could dilate to the size of a cricket ball. Not to mention what her cunt is going through. I thought about tearing. About the vagina and the anus ripping open into one huge crevasse. I rolled a cigarette. The time passed.

Then Cynthia appeared. She was walking down towards me. I tried to read her expression. It didn't seem bad, it didn't seem good. I leaned over and unlocked the passenger door. She opened it.