The eighties, p.2
The Eighties, page 2
Beyond the din of their snoring, he remembered something. He remembered how intoxicating it had felt when Angus had joined him on the bed, kissing him so passionately. How Angus had then whispered something into his ear, the words all moist.
“Trust me,” he’d said, Angus’ deep voice sending another charge through Alex which repeated itself when he playfully bit Alex’s earlobe.
Alex looked at Angus and his pale, freckly torso and then turned his attention to the Welshman who he’d instinctively disliked from day one. Staring at the Welshman’s back, Alex was dragged back into his memory, with an abrupt flashback to the hard slaps made to his arse and to the back of his head, and of the orders being barked at him.
“Turn around!” the deep voice had bellowed.
He recalled obeying. Remembered taking both men into his mouth like he’d been ordered to. Remembered struggling to breathe, and how, when he did try to come up for air, he’d been admonished with two quick blows to the face. How that had sent a surge of panic through him that made him want to jump off the bed, which in turn made them restrain him, resulting in him being pinned down by the flabby Welshman. Angus’ friend didn’t care that Alex’s head was throbbing as the blood rushed to it, it hanging uncomfortably over the edge of the mattress, hovering above the tile floor.
And when Angus hurriedly jammed it in, Alex wasn’t sure they heard him yelp. He could only hear the Welshman goading Angus not to let go too soon. As the weight of Angus’ body lifted off Alex, it was replaced by the Welshman’s who announced his arrival with another hard blow to Alex’s temple. Before Alex could even think of fighting back the Welshman had rolled him over, spreading Alex’s legs and entering him in one foul swoop, instantly ploughing away.
Alex could see the ceiling fan but couldn’t focus on it because there were other things competing for his attention. Like the horrible, dry burning sensation where the Welshman was pounding at him and the awkward feeling of warm liquid trickling down from Angus, which was pooling at Alex’s clavicle and on the mattress below. And it was then that Alex remembered he’d closed his eyes to think about the terracotta red and the cool air before everything went black.
Now that he was awake again and lucid, his mouth was burning and his lips felt crusted at their edges. He didn’t want to open his mouth lest he scream and wake them. Wanted to. Wanted to do unspeakable things to them or to maim them with whatever he could find in the room. But he told himself to focus on getting out of there.
He rose from the bed and limped over to the armchair and the desk. Keeping an eye on the bed, his anger authorised him to rifle through their belongings. From the wallets in the trouser pocket and the bedside drawer he took nearly all the cash they had, confident the amount was warranted by what he’d endured.
He put on his shorts, silently chastising himself for being so stupid for not having seen things sooner. He turned to check on them again and crept out of Angus’ bungalow, making a dash in the darkness to his own where he quickly threw his belongings into his suitcase. Securing it with its leather toggles, he tiptoed to his door to check that there was no activity coming from Angus’ bungalow. Satisfied there wasn’t, he strapped on his backpack and picked up his suitcase, bundling it to his chest and ran into the silence.
He ran in parallel to the long gravel pathway that connected the villa to the main road. He figured it would be less noisy, even if he was terrified of ending up face down in a ditch. Once he reached the road he took a few breaths, trying to remember which direction he needed to head in. Deciding to go left, he sprinted in the almost complete darkness, relieved when he finally saw the beacon offered up by a tiny roadside stall in the distance. As he got closer, he almost let out a cheer when he saw a small group of rickshaw drivers loitering outside the store. He ignored their initial jeers and beseeched them to take him away; to the ‘station’: the place he’d alighted from less than a fortnight before. It seemed like none of them wanted the crazy, dishevelled white guy’s fare. Not at that hour. But when Alex made eye contact with the youngest guy in the group, he reluctantly nodded in agreement to Alex’s pleas. Alex divided his attention between the road that he’d run down and the kid who couldn’t have been more than fifteen or sixteen years old, desperate for the teen to finish his snack and let him climb aboard.
At the station Alex spoke with the lone attendant in the ticket booth, gleaning that the first train was due in less than two hours. He bought himself a ticket to the last stop and was cautiously leaving the ticket office when his own reflection in the window stopped him in his tracks.
In desperation, he trawled the station grounds, and in the darkness behind a kiosk, found what he was looking for. He fumbled through his backpack for his bar of soap and crouched under the trickling faucet. He did his best to lather wherever he could reach, ignoring the cold air and the icy water as he contorted his body under the tap for as long as it took to feel sufficiently clean. Drying off, the urge to burn his small towel came over him, but instead he discarded it in the bushes and quickly got dressed.
Limping across the station grounds, he found a tiny nook on one of the platforms between a vendor and a grimy wall, content that he could see the station’s comings and goings from there.
The vendor didn’t seem to appreciate the company, growling something at him, but moments later he handed Alex a fried pastry and a soft drink, neither of which Alex recognised. As his body responded to the first hit of sugar and the energy it had been wringed of, Alex gratefully sought out a note from his loot. Unable to decipher the rupees in the low light, he settled instead on a $20 note which he folded into the vendor’s fist, grateful tears coming to his own eyes when he saw the vendor break into a toothy smile.
As his mind counted down to the train’s arrival, still over an hour away, he wondered whether it had all been a huge mistake on his part coming to India, getting caught up in a game beyond his abilities and then abruptly leaving the room like that. Was he simply overreacting to a night that had gotten out of hand? Perhaps the problem was his. Perhaps he wasn’t as progressive and daring as he thought he was. Maybe he’d been naïve not to understand what the invitation had meant in the first place.
And what would he do if Angus and the Welshman turned up at the station before his train arrived? What if they made a scene and demanded all their money back? He had none of his own and a return ticket that was still nearly two weeks away from being useable.
But it hurt to think, let alone to sit, so he leaned his head against the wall and propped his bottom up so that it wasn’t bearing any of his weight. And from that uncomfortable position, almost more yogic than his entire time at the ashram had been, he kept an eye on both the station clock and the iron entry gate.
As he waited nervously, he realised he hadn’t really been at an ashram. Perhaps it was one in name, but really, it was just another place where privilege and hierarchies thrived, their dubious natures camouflaged by all the bright designer active wear.
As his anger subsided slightly, humiliation took its place. Looking around the station, the dusty setting only made him feel lonelier. He wanted to sleep and to forget about everything, but he knew he had to keep his wits about him. And after struggling to wade through another post–Angus downward spiral, it was with immense relief that he watched the rusty, noisy train finally pull into the station.
On the train people were transfixed by him. They marvelled at his (bleached) blond hair, his luminescent skin and the contradictions of his Eurasian face.
After an hour or so of traveling in relative darkness, it occurred to him that people were staring simply because he was something different to look at. No doubt they’d been cooped up in their compartments for hours. The news that a foreigner was on board also brought out visitors from the other carriages, some of whom tugged at his hair and dared to caress his skin.
In one of the lulls in interest, a Sikh sitting opposite Alex explained that vendors would soon enough be climbing aboard with chai and that people’s attentions would turn elsewhere.
“Do you want some water? You look thirsty,” the Sikh noted.
Alex wasn’t sure he should accept. Maybe it was better to steer clear of other people’s drinks, even if he was dying of thirst. But when the Sikh insisted, Alex thanked him.
“Where are you from?” the Sikh asked, pouring water into an aluminium cup.
“Australia,” Alex said, knowing the answer was as out of place as he was.
“Australia? What are you doing here?”
“I’m on holiday,” Alex whispered.
“Are you enjoying it?” the Sikh asked, spinning the flask cap closed.
Alex thought about how the only thing he’d seen in the country in the last fortnight had been every square inch of those middle–aged bodies.
“India is beautiful,” Alex replied, looking out the window, thankful for the slither of light now streaming into the carriage. A light so soft, it almost made the train not seem like a cage on rails.
BOMBAY
Within a week Alex was teaching English at an orphanage in a hill station. Days after getting off the train, he’d been approached by someone on the street who had offered him the job. Absurd as it seemed, Alex felt it would be a good way of regrouping before deciding whether or not to fly home on the same flight as Angus and Maureen.
The governor of the orphanage arranged for Alex to move in with a British born Indian named Anesh, the only other foreigner in town. With a room to call his own, time slowly restarted for Alex.
At home and in the orphanage, Anesh and he quietly got to know one another, whittling away their nights reading or with Anesh teaching Alex how to play the acoustic guitar.
From the outset, Alex sensed Anesh’s loneliness. Anesh never complained about it, but it was written all over his face. Alex learned he’d been in town for two years now, and that the kids occupied much of his time and thoughts.
Though he found Anesh sweet, Alex rebuffed his clumsy advances, careful however, not to hurt his feelings. But after a couple of months of their shared solitude, Alex began to relent, no longer putting up resistance when Anesh asked for a hug. Eventually he even let Anesh sleep beside him some nights, the two occasionally engaging in some light petting. But Alex drew the line anytime it seemed things were about to go any further.
Although theirs was a relationship built around friendship and some harmless flirting, the familiarity and the pointlessness of their arrangement began to get to Alex after a couple of months. The charm of the tiny, fragrant hill town, which had served as such a wonderful refuge, also wore off, suddenly unbearably small and claustrophobic. Alex knew it had been bound to happen, but the suddenness with which the experiential use by date arrived surprised even him, as did the fact that Anesh seemed genuinely relieved when Alex announced he was leaving. And despite the remorse Alex felt for his group of children, he promptly left town one night without saying goodbye to them, because, he reasoned, the last thing they needed was someone else kissing them off.
His restlessness and the Indian train system transported him from the lush, high altitudes to New Delhi, where, before looking for lodgings, Alex sought out a hairdresser to cut and dye his two–toned hair. He settled for a plucky hairdresser near the main station who rendered his hair a shade of plum red, promising a circumspect Alex that it was the most popular colour among his clientele.
After a few weeks exploring the city and collecting random Hindi pop records, he still had a wad of ashram compensation cash, and with some of it, bought himself a one way train ticket to Bombay.
Careful to conserve what money he had left, Alex hit the pavement in search of work, quickly landing a job at a somewhat infamous expat bar. He spent long days bussing tables and bartending, regularly fending off the innuendos of the group of gay expats who made some shifts a living hell, even if they were generous tippers. Weeks into the gig, and seated at one of the outdoor tables on his break, Alex was sure he was being watched by one of them. So when a man walked over and complimented Alex on his unusual appearance, asking if he could join him, Alex gave him a polite, but firm ‘no’. But when the man made it clear why his interest in Alex wasn’t romantic, Alex’s expression changed and he invited the Chinese American to sit down.
“Don’t get your hopes up,” the man said, seeing Alex’s face light up at the word modelling. “I may be a legitimate talent scout, but this is India after all. People who work with us only do it for pocket money.” he said.
The scout gave Alex his card and the directions to his hotel, where they arranged to meet after Alex’s shift. In the swank hotel room, effortlessly more stylish than Alex’s lodgings at a guest house, the scout photographed Alex against a wall, showing him the photos before scribbling something over them in kanji. Though Alex was excited by the entire process, the scout seemed quite matter of fact about things and even briefly ignored Alex to attend to some paperwork.
“You can go now,” he said from his desk. “I’ve got what I need. Just make sure you’re downstairs in the foyer at eight thirty tomorrow morning.”
The next morning, Alex crossed town as instructed. Arriving early, his knees almost gave way when he saw two extraordinarily beautiful giants loitering near the talent scout.
Alex nervously introduced himself to them when the Svengali failed to, doing his best to calm his nerves with small talk in the minivan on the way to their gig. The small talk revealed little more than the guys’ names (Yevron and Adi) and their nationalities (Israeli and German). Neither of the giants seemed to know where they were all headed, both only having become ‘models’ in the last forty–eight hours, each discovered by the scout while walking Bombay’s busy streets.
At ten a.m. they were ushered into a warehouse and made to strip down to their underwear as a steady succession of staff arrived with outfits for them to try on. None of the boys knew much about fashion, yet it was clear to them that they wouldn’t be working with high end clothing.
But their likenesses as captured that day, wound up on the awnings of tailor shops across the subcontinent. The kinds that lure travellers in with the promise of a quick, cheap tailormade outfit. Even today, a walk through the marketplaces of some Indian cities still offers a glimpse of the boys’ toothy grins and amateur poses.
But this was only the first of a series of jobs they had lined up. After a twelve hour working day, Alex spent the night at Adi’s, whose hotel was much closer to the talent scout’s than Alex’s residence. And at the crack of dawn the next day, the minivan took them to an entirely different part of the city where the clothes were better made but the photo shoot was longer and more demanding.
Alex listened intently to the instructions, doing his best to understand what the photographer asked of him. During a break, while Alex and Adi watched with envy as Yevron was called back to work alone with the photographer’s crew, the Svengali came and sat with them.
“He’s very good at it isn’t he?” he asked, the boys nodding.
“A real shame. He has visa problems, so he’ll be finishing up in a few days. Listen boys, I have another client looking for some more male models. Mostly catalogue stuff but also some small ad campaigns.”
“In Bombay?” Adi asked.
“No. In Tokyo.”
Adi and Alex looked at each other and at the Svengali in disbelief.
“Don’t get too excited. I know I said Tokyo, but it’s not like the Tokyo you’re probably imagining. Anyway, we can get the paperwork ready for you in about a week and the deal includes the flight. You just need to say yes.”
That week Alex and Adi hung out together after bidding farewell to Yevron, who they’d dubbed “the competition”. Despite all the stimulation that Bombay offered, Alex felt his days with Adi were happily grounding. It was a relief to have someone to buffer everything around him and to be in the company of someone who wasn’t at all jaded. As they got to know each other, Adi spoke of his life back at home; of his girlfriend, the family business and of his intent to enrol at university.
So it took Alex by surprise then, when back in their now shared hotel room for their last night in India, Adi silently leant in and kissed him. Alex hadn’t seen it coming, even if it had proven a welcome surprise. At first, Adi’s chapped lips had felt like sandpaper, the sensation made worse by the knowledge that Alex was kissing a friend. But the longer they kissed, the more Alex’s focus was shifted by the soft, playful way in which Adi used his tongue. The tickling sensation set off a mass of butterflies in Alex’s stomach, they blindly ricocheting into the walls of Alex’s abdomen like balls on a squash court.
As they kissed, Adi’s hand crept slowly around Alex’s torso, his fingers running along Alex’s collarbone before converging to pinch at Alex’s nipples. Adi’s exploration had set off the desired reaction elsewhere and soon enough Adi’s hand was down at the rim of Alex’s jeans ready to explore. The shock of feeling Adi’s hand suddenly down by his navel caught Alex off guard, and he felt himself freeze, unable even to continue kissing. His mind abandoned the moment, dragging Alex back instead to the ashram, a place and time Alex had spent months hiding from. But beyond the fog and that unpleasant sensation of dry, sharp air, Alex heard Adi repeating his name.
“Are you alright? We can stop if you don’t want to do this,” Adi said.
“I’m sorry, I just got a bit lost,” Alex said, sitting up.
Adi studied him, looking deep into his eyes.
“Is something wrong?” Adi asked.
Alex decided he shouldn’t answer. Instead he looked into Adi’s eyes, sensing a softness in them that he wasn’t accustomed to seeing. He’d never seen the same thing in Angus’ eyes. And with that realisation, Alex smiled. He realised he needed to relax.
And anyway, he was almost certain he could trust Adi.
***
In Tokyo, the boys were ushered into an apartment complex near Koganei in the city’s far west.
