Sean Thomas - The Cheek Perforation Dance

— Don’t

— Too firm and too good, wasted on me, those big creamy

— You cunt, Skivington

— Oh, I forgot, you like big ones, don’t you?

— Suck my cock

— Actually – Patch relents – I was thinking of bringing you in on the tits, as a kind of, breast consultant

— Kind of bomb disposal?

— … professional tit wrangler …

Together they shout:

— Breast whisperer!!!

After that the two of them grin. Then Patrick eats some more rice as he sidelong watches Joe. His friend is staring out onto the sunlit lawns of a crowded Soho Square garden. Kneeling sideways on a rare space of lunch-time grass is a young mother with her baby. Joe is silently regarding this pietà. The mother is kissing her baby’s foot, sucking its toes. Joe seems to nod approvingly at this, then he says:

— So, are you falling for her?

Patrick, with a mouthful of salmon roe:

— … not sure – Swallowing – She’s a package

— Yeah?

— Yeah. Pretty, sexy, rich … bit Jewish

— Nice legs, shame about the faith?

The sound of some shirtsleeved office lads arguing fills the air. Patrick looks at Joe. Joe looks at Patrick. Joe says:

— Sorry about that

Turning his face to the sun, Patrick nods and in a vague voice says:

— How about you, any progress with the redhead?

— Nah

— Not at all?

Joe shrugs:

— They all like want someone with a big car and … no crack habit

— Sticklers

— Nit pickers

— So you’re wanking a lot? Bashing the bishop …?

A pause. Then Joe says, in an odd voice, above the sound of a bike courier’s yowling radio:

— It’s true to say the upper hierarchy of the church has come in for some criticism

Patrick thinks for a while about this, sniggers for a second, then says:

— You’re still missing that last girl aren’t you? The last one

— Sally-Ann? My little Sally-Ann?

— That ugly smackhead with no arse

— Yeah, Sally-Ann …

A car alarm makes a horrible noise. Patrick tuts. Wiping some sweat from his forehead with a forearm, checking his watch as if he has something to do, Joe starts on a slow speech:

— Y’know, I remembered something this morning, when I woke up, alone again – Joe tilts his head, goes on – When we were, like, together, me and Sal, she used to do this thing – Joe pauses, and turns his eyes on the middle distance, as if toward the distantly heard sound of a much loved pop song

— When I was asleep she would do some smack and then roll over and kiss me and blow the smack smoke into my mouth – Joe makes a wry sad face – Which meant, like, I wouldn’t have to wake up, like, clean, so I wouldn’t have to suffer reality even for a fucking minute in the morning

Patrick sits on the bench, wondering what to say to this. Not knowing what to say he joins his friend in looking out across the Square at a group of toenail-painted secretaries sharing a packet of organic crisps on the grass. At length Joe says:

— Wish I had some fucking smack now …

— Really?

— Yeah, really

— So why don’t you? Just buy some?

As if to assist Joe in his purchase, Patrick points his Pepsi-can-gripping hand across the Square to a markedly deserted corner of the sunlit lawn. Where a gaggle of obvious drug addicts is lying, under a single big dirty blanket, like a family of Victorian street-Irish. Next to the addicts stands a stack of unsold, or stolen, Big Issues. Patrick watches as Joe shrugs at the prospect, as if to say ‘why bother’; then Patrick returns his gaze to the tribe of drug addicts. Like a troupe of Aborigines in an outback Aussie town, Patrick thinks. The junkies. They are the Abos of London, following the songlines of their addiction around the twilit streets, moving from waterhole to waterhole, moving from chemist to dealer to dodgy doctor, following their ancestral and mysterious routes around the underworld of the city … Which makes me, Patrick thinks, running away with himself now, which makes me Crocodile Dundee, a man who understands their ways yet is not of them and yet who

— You’ve not shagged her yet have you?

Patrick thinks hard, says:

— Of course I have

— So why aren’t you totally in love?

— Did I tell you – Patrick says – About my idea for a new hobby?

Joe sighs:

— Mn. Go on then …

— Well – Patrick takes a drink of his warming Pepsi, takes another shot of it. And then another shot and then a third shot before slowly burping most of the next sentence – I’m thinking of buying an Alsatian dog and a long leather coat and getting my head shaved and then going up to Golders Green Station and shouting out ‘SCHNELL! SCHNELL! SCHNELL!’ at people as they get off the train

— Why aren’t you crazy about her then?

— OK … – Patrick sighs – She’s got thick ankles

— Thick ankles? Jesus! Dump her!

— And the drug thing, her drug history, it’s a problem

— The fact she hasn’t ever done drugs?

— Exactly – Patrick goes quiet and pensive. Then he goes on – But that’s not it, that’s not the real problem. I do really like her, you know … I mean … – To fill the gap in his thoughts Patrick steps down from the bench, and goes to an overfull Soho Square rubbish bin; after carefully balancing his empty sushi tray on top of the enormous pile of rubbish he returns and sits back on the bench and says – Even though we’ve got less in common, or not as much as some … I like her … precisely because sh … sh …

— Sh?

— Because she’s different. Smart. Cultured – Seizing the theme, Patrick runs with it – Really. She’s amazing. She knows all about art, and politics, and history, it’s incredibly refreshing – Examining the tan mark where his forearm meets his rolled-up white shirtsleeve, he says – Maybe I’m just too used to Soho ladettes smoking rollups and farting, do you think that could be it? – Patrick looks over at Joe; Joe nods, says:

— So it’s the hooters then?

Patrick:

— No, I like them big, and I love the arse

— So what the FUCK?

— I know, I know … – Patrick sighs – I knowwww – Feeling the heat now, he unbuttons another one of the buttons on his expensive white shirt and then he slumps back to let the sun run its fingers through his chest hair. After a few seconds, feeling properly relaxed for the first time this lunchtime, Patrick admits – Actually I think I know what it is

— ?????

— Yes. I think – Struggling to be honest – I think I just … like … girls to be … shorter, poorer, younger, and stupider than me

— She’s certainly shorter than you

— Ta, Joe

— And – Joe says – She’s a lot younger, isn’t that enough? Not enough dimorphism ?

Patrick stalls, does not reply. For a moment the college friends are united in quietness, experiencing each other’s post-lunch metabolic low. Patrick is thinking about perhaps saying something else. Right now Patrick thinks he would like to confess to Joe that what he really needs is for Rebecca to be more submissive, because he’s now realised he needs something sexually very submissive in women, something more than Rebecca has so far given him. Then Patrick decides he can’t be arsed to talk about relationship stuff anymore. Instead Patrick looks idly and languidly at a beautiful girl in lowslung jeans and silver navel ring, as she swings her hips through the Square towards Oxford Street. For a full minute Patrick watches the girl’s walk. Then he swerves to take in another chick just behind that one. Then he looks back at the first one. And her friend.