TURBINE | KAPOHAU

I associate cars with sexual prowess. The better the car, the better the him. I’m sorry if somewhere along the line men started to think I need our values to align, or something. The truth is, I check out the mags, admire the chrome. If it is a raised ute or Surf I eye the snorkel, the bull bar, examine the whip lights and measure the jagged tread of the tires. It turns me on if they are huge. A saloon: I note the pinch of the rear, peer at the exhausts, consider the lines of the doors, and look for the numbers that tell me how big it is. I don’t like 1 series BMWs. I’m 3 up. I don’t love Nissans in general. Holdens are terrible, and some are deplorable. If they have more than two exhausts I assume the owner is a twat. I really don’t do SUVs. Hatchbacks are fine, better than fine if compatible with the rally circuit. A station wagon is OK if it’s leaning into the surfy thing; I want to see roof racks and a sunburnt dash. There is nothing worse than a shiny new ute — some great big tonnage with a flatbed so small it’s only decorative. Only cute if authentic. Manual points in the right direction. A pile of random shit on the passenger floor does not. I don’t want to sit in the duchess slant out of logistic necessity. Fill it up and take me on the open road. Show me how fast you can go. Show me how you change gears. Show me how you let those people into your lane. I want to see your hand firmly on top of the wheel when rural, ready for the one-finger-wave. Don’t pussy-foot, I like them with torque. 

* 

‘Would you be free this weekend?’ I asked Tim on the phone. 

 ‘No, I’m actually going down to Dunedin for my cousin’s grad. Sorry,’ he said, ‘should have told you that.’  

 ‘So I won’t see you until the week after next?’ 

 ‘I guess so, sorry.’ I heard him scrunch some blankets on the other side.  

 ‘Would you be free for lunch tomorrow?’ 

 ‘Um — what time?’ 

 ‘Anytime, doesn’t matter.’ 

 ‘Twelve?’ 

 ‘Perfect!’ 

 We met at the bucket fountain. I was dulled with tears. Sat waiting in the dappled light outside Glassons watching the water crash. Spectacular day. I looked down and saw him smiling, walking toward me. 

 ‘You look so sad,’ he joked, and handed me a lemon. ‘My colleague’s.’ 

 ‘We could put it on our sushi,’ I said, tucking it into my backpack. I wore my red jersey. The same one my Shakespeare lecturer had. Too-short jeans, leather shoes. 

 He was beautiful, lovely full lips. 

 Sushi in hand. The waterfront was on form. He had us pack up and change locations to avoid the bluster. Hidden by the lagoon, sun behind. People walked. The steps fell away clothed in different seaweeds. Just a few clusters of kelp in the deep. 

 A chopstick calamity — three left between us. 

 ‘You know it would be two weeks between seeing each other if we waited until next Wednesday,’ I said, ‘this once-a-week thing, I don’t know. I don’t know if it’s a pace thing, or what.’ 

 ‘A pace thing?’ 

 ‘Like. Is it just us going slow. Because that’s totally fine.’ 

 ‘Yeah, I dunno.’ He handed me the third chopstick so I could pick up a piece. 

 ‘It’s just like. I need to know where you’re at. It feels like you’re setting the pace, which is fine. It’s more your need than mine.’ I took a bite and gave him the stick. ‘But I feel like I’m trailing along. You’re setting it and I’m flailing behind you. But I can’t actually match the pace beside you because I don’t know what it is.’ 

 ‘Yeah, you don’t know…’ He seemed to get it. 

 ‘Like, I just want to know. I’m happy to do anything.’ 

 ‘You don’t have to say that,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to lead you on if you want this to be something and I can’t match that.’ Handed me the stick. 

 ‘But I’m happy for it to be any pace, I just want to know.’ 

 He wasn’t looking at me. ‘But that’s kinda one-sided,’ he said. ‘This meeting in the middle thing, where you want something more and I can’t really do it. It just feels like we’re an old married couple already, trying to sort through these things.’ 

 I threw back a piece of salmon, handed him the stick. 

 ‘I’m having this conversation because I care. I’m not interested in being mysterious,’ I said. 

 ‘That’s good.’ 

 ‘Like, I want this to work, I like you.’ 

 ‘Yeah. I need to think about this.’ He chewed ruggedly, fondled a curl of red rice, gave me back the stick. ‘I’m going away this weekend, and I’ll think about it. Is that OK?’ 

 ‘Yeah… yeah. Yeah! Of course. Think.’ 

I slipped the stick into his hand. Hung my head. Let tears dive over my lids. 

 ‘Hey come on. He rubbed up against my knee. 

 ‘I’m fine, I’m just… tired.’ 

 ‘Right.’ 

 ‘I don’t know that I do want a relationship. I can go slow.’ I waited for the stick. 

 ‘But that’s so selfish of me. Like, I call you up when I want you to come over and you come. But I don’t put any effort in. That’s so selfish.’ He started peeling a mandarin. ‘I want all the good bits without having to do any work. I really like you. But, you know. I haven’t had a relationship since, her.’ 

 ‘Yeah. and I get that, and I’m fine to take this slow if that’s what you need. I don’t want you to think I’m presenting an ultimatum. Like, ‘in or out’.’ 

‘Yeah, but, you don’t have to say that.’ He handed me a tiny piece of mandarin.  

 ‘I really do mean it though,’ I said. 

 ‘The thing is, I go all in. It would be ‘here’s my parents’ and stuff. I get wanting to have binary. I just don’t know that I can do that yet. Would you be, open to a thing that isn’t sexual?’ He gave me another segment. 

 ‘Like a… friend type thing?’ I asked. Placed the mandarin on my tongue. 

 ‘Yeah.’ 

 ‘Um — yeah. Yeah.’ 

 ‘Cause you’re quite a cool person, so it would be a shame to cut this off.’ Another tiny piece. 

 ‘Mmm,’ I said, ‘yeah, I don’t want to stop seeing you. I’m not interested in cutting you off right now. That would be a terrible outcome of this conversation.’ 

 ‘Good… Argh, why is life so complicated!’ He leaned on my arm. 

 ‘Let me make you an offer,’ I said slowly, ‘we just keep going like we’re going.’ 

 ‘No no!’ He smiled. ‘That’s not real. Road to disaster.’ Water wet the concrete, sloshed over the steps. ‘I’ve thought about being in a relationship,’ he said, watching people on the overbridge, ‘and I think I want it. But I don’t know if I can. It would be an experiment.’ 

 ‘You want to experiment?’ I said. 

 ‘No, it would be an experiment.’ 

 ‘Oh.’ 

 ‘I might need to be getting back,’ he said.  

 ‘I don’t know. Should we just pretend I never said anything?’ I said. 

 ‘You can’t really go back once you’ve had the talk,’ he said, the expert. ‘I’ve been trying to avoid it for a while to be honest. But I’ve been thinking about this too, recently. I’m glad you said something.’ 

 ‘I don’t know that I could do a platonic friend thing, to be honest,’ I said, after a while, ‘I think I would find that hard. I just don’t… I don’t. I dunno. I don’t see you like that.’ 

 ‘… I get that.’ 

 I ate the remainder of my sushi as we walked. Said something at a pedestrian crossing and spat some out by accident. My face was red. 

 ‘You remind me of my friend from home,’ he said, ‘you two are quite similar. You walk kind of like him.’ 

 Back to the bucket fountain. We stood apart. 

 ‘I’ll call you. Video chat, maybe?’ he said. I half started saying something, asking ‘when?’ but he said, ‘all good?’ Over the top. No hug. Smiled and looked me in the face. Unreadable. He walked back into his office. 

 I staggered along Cuba. Halfway up the Terrace now. Everyone I passed looked at me so kindly. I saw his house up the road glowing with warmth. I made eye contact with a boy, gave him another look. Smiled, then dropped it. Pulled off my jersey and let the sun touch me.  

Back to the university. Toilet. Read the graffiti. Pulled off a sanitary pad. Library. Found a seat. Nearly sat looking over the park, went and looked over the city instead. Opened emails. Paid my car registration. Checked a grade. Glanced at the rainbow pedestrian crossing I had wandered over with him so recently. Forty-five minutes ago, already. Pulled out my wallet. Saw the lemon, glowing next to my headphones. Didn’t feel the pang yet. Bought a cookie from a vending machine. People marched like ants over the rainbow. I waited for the wall to hit me. 

* 

That night he came over to talk about it. There was a square left on the toilet paper roll I had put on my bedside table the first time he stayed. Now we threw the dirty scraps on the ground. Ate two pieces of hokey-pokey each and lay there. 

 ‘You still haven’t gotten through it?’ he asked. 

 ‘Oh, no. We’re about four blocks away from that.’ 

 I had never spent so much time in somebody’s arms. Couldn’t sleep. Tensed and fizzing and hot. My bed, his night. His sleep. 

 He cried when we talked. I did too. Then I woke up and cried more. He wrapped me up and I didn’t know what to do. Just friends now, apparently. So why was he hard? Opposing magnets for lips — not kissing. Moving face around face, until finally our lips glanced off each other. Red and swollen and dehydrated. Best kiss I knew. Gasping and making love to his mouth. Lay there wrapped up. Already seeing myself from a future distance, envious of where I got to be in this moment. Holding onto it all, not sure how to grasp it. 

 ‘Great start to just being friends,’ he said. 

 Now my room smelt like his sweat. I loved the taste this time. Never knew sucking someone off could be romantic. Because it was one last time. Then one last time, again. 

 I sat next time him as he pulled on his pants. It was a spectacular day. 

 ‘We lasted a roll of toilet paper,’ I said. 

 ‘That’s pretty funny.’ 

 ‘Seeya,’ I said. 

 ‘Ka kite,’ he said.