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It hurts to be in love

'I just don't get Dad,' says Lemmy in the flat tide-out voice he uses when he's thinking about something else. 'I mean. I just can't see why he won't get his eyebags surgically removed. They're so ugly, and I mean: ug-leeee!'

Yes Lemmy I say looking down at Vogue New Zealand which lies open on a 'cushion in front of us. We're doing research on what a face-lift can do for you. I'm fourteen, Lemmy's going on fifteen and he's fat. I don't ever say this to him, I wouldn't dare. He's four foot nothing, human dynamite.

I'm five foot ten and thin. I like to think I'm Audrey Hepburn thin, sort of elegant. When I sit I try to cross my legs over, like I've seen in books. When people see us together, they laugh. We just don't care. We laugh back. At least Lemmy does.

Lemmy's got eyeliner on, just the faintest line, and he's done his hair all spun gold and ironed flat, not a curl in sight and he's borrowed some Stay Firm from Dianne, his sister.

The faint smell fills the air, we breathe it in hungrily, like it's a perfume.

Lemmy wrote my note and I wrote Lemmy's note and we're hiding out back at his place, windows closed, door shut, we keep away from the windows. His mother's not at home, she was taken away. It happened last week. Now I look around the room, thinking this is where it happened.

Outside there's not a person in the street, not a car: nothing. I watch a blackbird spear a drowned worm. Beak slashes it aside, disgusted. Lemmy's getting bored, I can feel it. Lemmy gets bored a lot, sometimes he does things just to stop being bored.

He goes over to the radiogram. Lemmy doesn't move a facial muscle as he puts on one of Dianne's records. I relax and wonder what's coming next. The music swells all velvet around us.

It hurts to be in love,
page 88 when the only one you love
turns out to be
   someone
      who's not in love with you

I look at Lemmy and Lemmy looks at me as the red velvet unrolls all around us and we lie back into it, we loll.

Lemmy lights up a Bold Gold, blows out a stream of smoke.

He says: 'You know he's one of them?'

He says it slow and husky, soft, like it's not a question really.

I just look at Lemmy, I'm almost frightened, I'm waiting.

So I cry a little bit (to be in love)

'Him?' [sic: ]I say soundlessly and I suddenly think of Gene's face on the record cover and I get this overpowering waterfall of feeling that I want to pull his fluffy jersey down, down round his neck, I want to licklicklick and kiss him right under there, where it's warm, it's hot, it's sticky. This shocks me. I see Lemmy looking at me closely now, he's got this cruel look on his face. Don't laugh at me Lemmy. Don't. Please.

I look back at Lemmy, forcing my eyes to look into his. His eyes are hard.

'That's really disgusting,' I say. 'He must be really sick.'

And so you
   die a little bit

'I don't believe you,' I say desperately wanting Lemmy to say it's really true, and I pick up a book, any book, and pretend I'm really interested in it. But as I flick through all I'm thinking about is Gene's fluffy jersey and his soft parted lips. I can feel myself getting red, slowly, like a stain all through me I can't get off. I can hardly breathe now, yet I force myself to go on flicking through the book, like everything's normal. Normal. I hate that word. Then I look down and see what I'm holding and it's a sex book. Lemmy just looks at me, blows out this cool veil of blue/grey smoke. He's watching me now, real close.

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I act like I'm not surprised but my hand has turned dead on me, I can see it down there, a dead gull dried by the wind, eyesocket staring back at me, watching.

'Look at this,' my voice says for me. 'Look!' and I let out a strangled laugh. I wave at him the cover which says: A Report on Real-Life Sexual Experience, compiled by Dr Alfred K. Kitchsenburger, PhD(Med)(Hons)(Tuvalu Uni.).

Now I've got Lemmy's attention and he's no longer looking at my face.

He reaches over, snatches the book out of my hand, cruel, so I'm left naked again, with only my face to hide behind and I can't hide what's in my face, I'm not like Lemmy.

Lemmy now rolls over onto his back and, holding his cigarette in this exaggerated stilt-way, starts reading out. He reads in an American accent like I Love Lucy.

I followed him into the changing room and as he rammed his ten inch black cock into my mouth, I gagged but then I found I liked it and I started. . .

He stops now, glances over at me. I'm so naked I grab the book off him. He's surprised I'm so violent, I grab the book and I start reading, practically calling it out at the top of my voice, practically singing:

And I just got down on my knees there on that dirty floor and started worshipping his prick, with people just outside the door, on their way to work, but, oh, so help me God, the demon of sex was upon me and I couldn't, I just couldn't keep a control of myself!

Everything's so silent all you can hear is our breathing, a charged duet, and I know I've got to go on reading.

I feel something dismal and confused and magnetised, I can't explain it and I look at Lemmy and Lemmy has this flushed look and then I hear my voice and it stops me. 'I don't believe you Lemmy Stephenson. I just don't believe you.'

'What?' he says all flat again. He rolls over onto his back and looks up at the ceiling, bored. Then he stubs his cigarette out real slow, he kills it.

'I don't believe you. Gene's not one of them. He can't be.'

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'Why not.'

He doesn't even look at me.

'You're making it up. Aren't you? Tell me. I only want to know the truth,' I say, both knowing I'm lying and I know we're both thinking, thinking about this world we've just opened up.

'You made it all up!' I cry out, my voice all dry and full of hurt and Lemmy looks at me suddenly like he really hates me and then he yawns very elaborate and long and slow like he's just heard the most boring thing in all existence and I'm it.

Lemmy acts like he's just suddenly been woken up, from a snooze, he's such a good actor, Lemmy. He acts like he's surprised to see me there, with the sex book in my hand. In fact he acts like he's surprised he's even on planet earth. He didn't plan it.

'Oh ... sorry,' Lemmy says to me, fanning his fingers over his open mouth, 'Someone must have slipped some librium into my coffee. You were saying ... ?'And he looks at me, enigmatic.

'Nothing Lemmy,' I say all defeated. 'Nothing.'

And then suddenly Lemmy leaps up and goes over to the window out which I can see, just see, a little old woman in a fawn overcoat wheeling her shopping trolley behind her like she can't get away from it and she's been walking for days and days but the trolley is still following her, and won't go away, and she's just about going crazy with exhaustion, yet she can't stop.

Lemmy stands behind the net curtains, and he just screams, in this sound so shrill it's like spun sound made sharp and stalactited so like a sliver of glass it enters the flesh, breaks off, can't get out, aims straight for the heart, arrow of hate, sliver of hurt, all scarlet and drenched: Lemmy just opens his mouth and screams out in this high wavering falsetto, outdoing Lucille Ball, 'I JES' CAN'T KEEP A CONTROL OF MYSELF, SO HELP ME GOD!'

I crack up and oh Lemmy I say, I'm laughing but I'm actually frightened, Oh Lemmy, You're such a scream. Such a scream. And I think. Lemmy. Don't kill yourself Lemmy.

I had no idea I was doing wrong. I loved Lemmy. It was only later I realised it was wrong. Yet it was necessary.

I learnt this too, later, after it happened.

All the things I did that were so wrong were also necessary.