SWEET NOTHING Belinda Nash Belinda Nash Sweet Nothing 2 Belinda Nash Sweet Nothing For Rin, who reminded me that life is fleeting. 3 Belinda Nash Sweet Nothing 4 Belinda Nash Sweet Nothing ‘In the arithmetic of love, one plus one equals everything, and two minus one equals nothing.’ Mignon McLaughlin 5 Belinda Nash Sweet Nothing 6 Belinda Nash Sweet Nothing Chapter One Lucy was a gay man trapped in a woman’s body. Or so she told everyone. So was Big Al. Except he was straight. And in a man’s body. Big Al pulled up kerbside at the Gypsy Tearooms in his convertible 1967 Aston Martin. Sea green. One of only two of its vintage in Auckland. Apparently. Tonight he was accessorised with a chocolate nymphet called Nina who had blown in from India. A bit player in Bollywood living in Auckland; she wasn’t sure for how long. ‘Drinks anyone? CC ’n’ dry? My round,’ he said. Sure, they all agreed. And why not? It was summer after all. 7 Belinda Nash Sweet Nothing The bar was hot and packed. Packed and hot. A single ceiling fan spiralled at a deathly pace circulating stuffy air, soothing no one. Glassy beads formed on foreheads, shades of damp darkened arm pits, patches of bare skin stuck to moistened vinyl chairs and people fanned themselves with flapping hands. The flock of flimsy dresses and open shirts gave an air of something far more European than a suburban Auckland bar. One by one, the patrons were melting. Lucy’s short vanilla silk dress clung like polyester; she needn’t have bothered with natural fibre. The 90 per cent humidity ensured her curls would never fully dry, and that a steady trickle of sweat would keep her bra ever-so-slightly damp. She’d text Will to join them. He knew Big Al from working on films together and such. They knew each other enough to talk about girls, sex and work. The important stuff. Big Al leaned across the table with Lucy’s drink. The ice chattered in its glass enclosure, condensation settling on the outside. The table shuddered as he plonked it down. A slow, steady drip formed a puddle on the table’s surface. Lucy scooped her iPhone into her lap but not before catching Big Al’s notice. He peered at her, a glint in his eye. ‘Tell Willy to get his skinny Scottish arse down here,’ he said. She did tell him. Twice. But he didn’t join them, Will didn’t come. Lucy and Will had the kind of sex other people only read about and never actually believed existed. It was the stuff of movies. If she had bothered to keep a diary, it would be the stuff of legends. Will took Lucy whenever, wherever. Every surface: floor, door, wall, bench, stovetop, desktop, table. Against cars, trees, in parks, car parks, car ports, footpaths, against fences, driveways and doorways. But they didn’t date, 8 Belinda Nash Sweet Nothing they rarely hung out, only sometimes emailed and barely talked at all. They were friends with benefits. Minus the friendship. Later that night, Lucy lay awake in the dark. Her body was hunched, her back to Will. He’d returned her call. Eventually. He always did when he had an itch to scratch, seeds to sow, away from prying eyes. Their bottoms pressed lightly together, only a fine film of sticky sweat separating them. Two hours this time. Two hours. They’d finally made it to the bedroom sometime during the second hour. She hoped her neighbour Cat didn’t think she was doing late-night DIY again. Sometime around three or four a.m., Lucy roused. Another restless night. She rolled over and rested her head on Will’s chest. It rose and fell as he breathed. She felt his tangy night breath hit her hair in a stilted rhythm. He slumbered towards her and wrapped his arms around her waist pulling her into him. ‘You’re not as pretty as a lot of girls,’ he murmured in a husky burst of post-coital talk, lethargic with sleep. Oh? ‘But you have a thing.’ ‘A thing?’ ‘Yeah. A kind of sexual charisma, like you want it all the time.’ Will traced a lazy finger up then down Lucy’s arm. The same yellow light that cut across Will’s face pinned Lucy’s shoulder to the bed. She eased her hip into him wrapping her legs over his. ‘Well, I do, most of the time,’ she replied. ‘I told you, I’m a gay man trapped in a woman’s body. Minus the tidiness. And library-sized music collection. Oh, and I totally can’t cook.’ ‘Yeah, well, that’s the thing, that’s your sexual charisma. That’s what makes you attractive, sometimes even beautiful. I see you across the 9 Belinda Nash Sweet Nothing room and all I can think about is fucking you, right then and there.’ Will’s arm fell around Lucy’s body and he squeezed her. ‘Oh,’ Lucy croaked. ‘Thanks. I think.’ Will stayed the night. Rare. In the morning he joined Lucy in the shower as she was getting out. She’d left him dozing as he’d lain spread- eagled across the bed, his head pushed deep down into the pillow. Will bumped past Lucy in the shower and collapsed under the vigorous flow, stretching face-down the length of the bath, his arms forming a pillow beneath him. ‘Thank God you have a shower bath. I love lying in a shower bath.’ Satin ribbons of water traced the thin trail of hair that rested at the top of his flat bottom, pale white where his shorts covered him in the sun. The rest of him was the colour of toffee. ‘Same!’ replied Lucy with too much enthusiasm as she reached down to grab a large pale blue bath sheet off the bath mat. She was due a bikini wax, and her dark brown crackled summer skin craved the overdue attention of moisturiser. ‘Especially when I’m drunk and get home really late, all I want to do is lie in the shower, well, bath. Yunno. I love the feeling of water pelting me. Makes me feel alive.’ ‘Yeah…’ Will stretched a lazy hand over to the liquid soap and pumped out a generous handful. He rubbed it over his back, arms and face. The suds contoured over his slim frame and down into the bath, before popping out of sight down the drain. ‘Sometimes I just want to stay there and never get out.’ ‘Mmm… so good,’ Will groaned. ‘Fuck though, you have it hot!’ ‘What d’you expect, a cold shower?’ ‘Colder than this, fuck!’ He rolled over and pulled his knees up to hoist himself backwards under the water. The sight of his inactive, wrinkled penis drooping towards the bath enamel caused Lucy to shudder. ‘You could turn it down. D’you wanna fresh towel or is mine OK?’ ‘Fresh one thanks, yeah.’ 10 Belinda Nash Sweet Nothing Lucy pulled out a large melon pink bath sheet from the hot water cupboard and tossed it on the damp bathmat. As she turned to leave the bathroom Will hacked up the phlegm of a night of hard drinking. ‘Hey, I’m going up the road for coffee,’ Lucy called to Will through the bathroom door. ‘Want one?’ She caught a glimpse of him through a crack where the door met the wall and saw him rinsing the clogged toothpaste cap. Ha! She knew it! She knew it annoyed him: all that congealed toothpaste destroying the natural order. (Later that night she would find the toothpaste tube standing rigid in its holder, its contents forced to the top, its red cap pristine clean.) ‘Don’t you mean down the road?’ Will yelled out over the shower din. ‘Huh?’ ‘Down the road, to Good One or whatever it’s called; your local.’ ‘No, it’s Sunday, they’re closed on Sunday. No, up the road to Conch.’ ‘Oh. OK then. Coffee, good. Thanks.’ The usual suspects were lined up in the summer shade at Conch keeping watch over their dominion. Manboys slouching off their seats in the way their mothers told them not to. If New Zealand had an über- culture, a street royalty, this was where it reigned. Huffer hoodies and ABC t-shirts, khaki trousers or skinny jeans, skater sneakers, Nikes or the regulation Ponsonby-wear, Converse. Empty espresso cups and newspapers open to nearly-completed crossword puzzles cluttered the tiny tables. Mobile phones were pressed in like Tetras, plugging the gaps. It could have been LA, London or New York. Or a branch of the Sicilian Mafioso overseeing order in their town. The week-day barista, a DJ called Nggr, a coffee-coloured bloke with dreads to his waist from Jamaica, sat puffing on a rollie beside them. His long spider legs stretched out across the footpath catching an edge of sun and causing passersby file past like ants, giving way and apologising 11 Belinda Nash Sweet Nothing to one another. Nggr nodded rather than spoke, peppering in the occasional ‘Ya mon’, more as punctuation than as actual words. Nggr wasn’t working today; the Salad Man was on. Salad Man made the best coffee in Auckland people reckoned. His name was a badge of honour heralding his one-time bust and bash up by the cops. He’d had the hairy, deviant look of a weed dealer but at the time was as straight-edged as they came.