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Nikita wasn't coming out with us tonight. She sat by the frosted louvres in the window of her rented house. Already her hand had passed through one, when the army guy didn't show up, smashing it like lightning or a spider strike. Her wide green eyes insisted on staring out onto the rainy street that always seemed so lonely. It's warm dark reflections and puddles of dirty water splashing up beneath the tailgates of moving cars. Suddenly, a very odd thing happened. Nikita felt completely at peace. It was as though she had been lifted onto the palm of God, just like the captured woman in King Kong, who had been too complex and beautiful for the lonely ape to come to terms with. She laughed lightly. It was serene like a droplet that circumnavigates an Arnhemland lotus lily, when the flower was moved by a slight breeze. A force larger than the garden outside stroked her, as though it were giving reassurance to a girl. It was grand. It could have been a God in the room, however there was no one there but her, a huntsman with a missing leg and all that solid blood beating in her ears. 'I'm not afraid of pain,' she whispered. The room surrounded her and gently gave her permission to look out into the world. A baby gecko darted past her eyelash that rested against the frosted glass louvre. This occurred soon after her knees had weakened and she had knelt patiently on the old frayed carpet. It is all right to be desperate and to observe desperation. Tonight Nikita was desperately lonely. She was as only as large as a green ant patrolling the custard apple tree outside. She was thankful to be able to laugh at the irregular traffic in the street. In moments like these, it was the cold and distant earth that made her feel even more alive.
A lover is like driftwood in a big sea and again we are driven to cling on by loneliness. It drives us to do the craziest things and to venture beyond our minds and boundaries and to weep and suffer and to desire escape. 'Why do you go to all these massage parlours?' Nikita asked. He was her first client at the Palms Motel. He was a successful lawyer and musician from Melbourne. 'Because I get lonely,' he replied. 'I can really only take it for so long, before I go back again. It's the company I require more than anything. I can get physical stimulation on my own.' She said, 'I work because I want company and to avoid pain. I often feel so lost that often this job, if you can even call it that, is better than my life outside it.' Despite what the public's perception is, it's more than the money and sex. Mostly it's an escape route and its kinda somewhere safe.' 'Well what's your real name, Nikita? Perhaps we should get together outside this situation.' 'Unfortunately, and as much as you know I like you, that would be impossible,' she said.
Roxanne speaks: If worst comes to worst I will abandon faith and live like lust. I'll wait for my bra strap to unleash and my silver belt buckle to unstrap and lose lustre. If it comes to this, the buildings of the red light district can collapse, and all the lousy cockroaches the size of breadboards can flee the broken mattress. If the city begins to crumble into 'What's the point?', I go with its rage screaming like a cyclone. I flee humanity with all the dog-eat-dogs who won't know any better tomorrow. If you still don't love me now, I turn to the clean cycle of nebulae, where nothing has to suffer. You can place your love in that place and perhaps it will stay there, like a plastic bottle in a gibber desert or the grin of the buried iceman centuries on. It will adopt that extreme and airless place. I'm weary with this pain, as it takes me out a piece at a time. 'I like to make the sweetness last, sweetie,' Samantha said, 'I do, baby. I really do,' as she slowly sucked her ice cream. If worst comes to worst I will go or I will stay. Oh God, this place. Please don't give me life again, its vast and frantic acceleration. The frogs lick the ants from the sandy castles of the termites. The warm rain tears a big leaf. Just look at that wallaby stone dead out along the Arnhemland highway. I could lift up that tiny outstretched paw and kiss it, the small dry nose and striped cheek. But the daylight has grown old along with my heart and all the shit has relaxed through a wallaby's black arse.
This is a strange world we are living in. Then again, I perceive it largely through the sorrow and joy outside an adult bookstore, the liquid surrounding the soft heel in the warm blue light of a neon puddle. So leave your heart beneath the stones, 'cause I've heard it pays well! Sweetheart, it depends on who you know. I've heard one hundred and fifty an hour from the seat of a car and you've been givin' it away every Friday night. Anyway, it pays to leave your soul with a babysitter on the weekend. Tighten your purse strings and shove your gold-plated cigarette lighter into the cup of your lacy white bra. I hope you're well nowadays, Nikita. It pays to be well in this life and to keep your body in good shape. Sex is power. 'Power to the pussy, honey,' says Sharlena. |
