Bonding, page 9
‘How old were you?’ I asked Tom, before he fell asleep.
‘Thirteen. All the other kids had been to prep, or whatever the fuck they call it. I was the only normal person in that place.’
‘You’re not grateful, then?’
‘You think I should be?’
‘I mean, no one pulled me out of “normal school”.’
‘You have no idea.’
‘Why, what happened?’
‘I’ll tell you another time.’
‘Oh fuck.’
I hadn’t meant to make light of it, but it had sounded that way. I apologized.
He shrugged. ‘I guess you’re going to find out sooner or later.’
I barely registered his apprehension. I was too busy noting, with satisfaction, that he thought we were going to see each other again.
‘I’m very open-minded,’ I replied, slipping my arm around his.
He felt warm on the bed beside me. I realized I wanted him to trust me.
12
The play was A Doll’s House by Ibsen. Lara and I were at the Royal Court Theatre. She’d got tickets and had invited me to go with her. Her business, which was called Openr, had won a prize that day. There had been some buzz about it in the press. I’d been googling her all afternoon. She’d done an interview with the Evening Standard under the headline ‘Sex 2.0: A Second Revolution?’
I got here by making a lot of intuitive, unconventional decisions. In business, you have to follow your gut. You have to have convictions and you have to run with them.
And:
There was a gaping hole in the dating market. People wanted more than a filtered photo and a list of impossible demands. What we’re building at Openr is a community, it’s like a party for everyone who’s sick of doing the things the old-fashioned way.
She texted solidly throughout the first act. I could see that she’d dressed up. She was wearing a black leather skirt and a cream silk shirt, rolled up at the wrists, on one of which I couldn’t help noticing an antique Cartier watch. She only ever wore vintage clothes – although she called them ‘archive’ – which meant meant buying second-hand Celine, Hermès, Margiela. It was an ethical choice that underscored her brand, although she’d also told me once that she thought buying new designer was basic. It was the one area in which she didn’t seem to mind being openly elitist.
I had to admit, I was getting something out of sitting beside her in the theatre. No matter how I felt about Tom – and I knew it was ridiculous feeling anything at all, that would have been unseemly, you had to keep your options open – here I was sitting next to an It girl who the papers were calling ‘a bona fide changemaker’ and ‘one of the breakout movers of her generation’. It gave me a pleasant feeling of nonchalance, as if I was doing fine, whatever else happened.
I also couldn’t help feeling a bit smug, as if my own good taste had been confirmed. I’d discovered Lara years ago. I was an early adopter of her. I thought her app was overhyped, as most of them were, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t money in it. I wondered how much she’d had in mind when she’d mentioned bringing me on board. Sitting in the dark by her side I got a strange thrill out of the idea. Maybe I wasn’t above a little financial domination by her after all.
She didn’t say much afterwards. We walked until we got to Fifty Cheyne, where she sat at the bar and ordered me a vodka tonic.
‘You remembered.’
‘Like I said, you don’t change much.’
‘That’s not true.’
‘OK, you don’t like change.’
I thought about the number of times I’d had to move home compared to her.
‘What did you think of the play?’ she asked.
Although the production had been named after the Ibsen play, they’d cast Nora as a glamour model and Torvald as a wealthy hedge fund manager. It had included an assemblage of live video showing cam girls ramping up their fees and Bloomberg terminals with flashing charts of stocks and shares. In the show notes, the director had said it was about the ‘dematerialization of desire’. I’d struggled to make much sense of it and had dozed off in the second half.
‘I thought it was pedestrian,’ I said.
Lara always called everything pedestrian so I thought I’d get in first. She caught my drift. She seemed a little tired.
‘Why is it always like this?’ she said.
‘How do you think it should be?’
‘I could ask you the same question.’
‘Why did you message me?’
‘Because I wanted to. Because I thought you’d be good at the job. Does it have to be more complicated than that?’
She checked her phone coolly while I sat there.
I realized that she hadn’t changed much either. She felt no need for a distinction between ‘because I wanted to’ and ‘because I thought you’d be good at the job’. I had a sudden memory of staying up all night editing her films at college. I’d even written essays for her. She was still the same, she still got so wrapped up in whatever it was she was doing that she assumed everyone around her was as driven by it as she was – and if they weren’t, she was going to charm them into it. It probably hadn’t even occurred to her that I might not want to be her underling.
‘You know, every time I come across that play,’ I said, ‘I judge the Nora character more harshly. The first time you watch it, you think it’s about money – the battle of the sexes and all that. Then after that, it all seems more inevitable – there’s a kind of Greek tragedy side to it. But once you get past that stage, you realize that, for the most part, it’s just a story about people. The Nora character has fucked up. She’s made a miscalculation. Things worked for her for a while and then they didn’t. That’s it. She’s not this feminist hero.’
‘She’s both,’ Lara said. ‘It’s a play. She’s supposed to be complicated.’
‘But doesn’t that undermine the whole premise?’
‘No, it just makes her more human.’
She said it deadpan but I knew what she was doing. It was a word I probably overused even more than she called everything pedestrian.
‘I’m just making conversation,’ I said.
‘I know,’ she gave me a thin smile.
•
Nothing happened, or almost nothing happened, over the following days. I tried and failed to find employment. Tom went away with work. I saw him on the evening of his return and we went back to his flat. That night, he resumed his account of his adolescence. At school, he experienced trouble with the other boys. They could tell that he was different. Everything was off – his hair, his accent. There were too many subtleties to list and he quickly gave up on trying to mask them.
To make things worse, he smashed his kneecap playing football, which was one of the only things he had in common with them. The kid who smashed it was the son of a barrister who wrote to Tom’s mother almost immediately, threatening counter-action if she tried to sue the school. Tom’s mother misunderstood the letter, taking its aggressive tone to mean that Tom had been at fault. She was embarrassed and shut down his protestations, insisting that he make the most of the opportunity his father had afforded him. More than anything, she’d seemed anxious that he was showing himself up in front of these people.
The injury stopped Tom from playing sports, excluding him even further from his peers. It also left him in pain – a nagging ache that never went away. The school’s doctor eventually prescribed Tramadol, which only partially relieved the problem. On the other hand, the drug interacted with his moods in a way that made him feel top notch. By the time he was fifteen, he’d learnt to store the pills up, crush them and snort them in the toilets. It gave him a warm, euphoric high that lifted him out of himself completely. The school was eager to avoid bad press around his accident and once Tom had realized what this meant – that he could hold them to ransom over it – he started dropping out completely.
It was during one of these truant sessions, having bunked off to wander around the local town, that he met another deserter. Sandra must have been a little older. She sat around the local park all day, often with another kid he didn’t know. One day, she approached him and asked him for a cigarette, and from that moment onwards, she dominated his thoughts. He obsessed about the smell of her skin, the thought of her pale breasts against the thin fabric of his school shirt. He pictured the two of them alone together, kissing in some vague, private space. In his daydreams, he surrendered completely to the kiss. He was usually already hard by the time she moved her fantasy hand towards him. He liked to think about her taking off her bra, her heart necklace around her neck. He thought of her as shy and reserved about her body – although the power of his gentle masculinity would melt her in his arms, and his arms only. Inevitably, Sandra would be wet by this point. His stomach would tremble as he touched her underwear. He always came at exactly this moment, abandoning himself in his dorm room bed. In reality, his relationship with Sandra never got past the DVD stage. They’d sit for hours, watching films at her flat while her mother, who worked at the local hospital, looked over them from a huge, softly lit portrait on the wall. One afternoon, Sandra caught him staring. Her bare thighs were folded underneath her as she sat in front of the TV and, as usual, he’d found it hard to look away. He’d checked her out plenty of times before – he’d even seen her bra when she leaned over – but until that day, she had pretended not to notice. He froze for a second, paralysed with excitement. Then he closed his eyes and leaned towards her. He was rock hard as he waited for her lips; but instead, he heard a small click. There was a muffled, bubbly laugh. She’d leaned back and grabbed her Samsung Digimax. She had managed, somehow, to capture him on camera. He wondered instantly if she had set him up. He lunged at her, trying to grab it from her hand, but she managed to wrestle it away from him. He hadn’t yet completed puberty and she was at least his equal in strength.
Afterwards, she tried to smooth things over, but to his consternation, he couldn’t brush it off. He was so ashamed, it overwhelmed him. He stopped skipping school after that, he just couldn’t bring himself to face her. Her absence left him even more isolated – or at least, it left him at the mercy of the other boys, which was worse.
By this point, Tom was in Year 10, which meant sex permeated everything. His classmates now talked openly about girls, mostly boarders from the sister school. It was around this time that the commercial world began to seep into Tom’s awareness of his sex life. The past few years had seen a gradual change in the meaning of his stuff. As a kid, he’d played with toys as objects that possessed a meaning in themselves. They existed to give him pleasure, it was as simple as that. Insofar as they had a social aspect, they offered him a route into other children’s lives – a place where the pleasure they gave him could be shared. But now, suddenly, everything was imbued with an ulterior motive. All objects – a pair of trainers, a skateboard – were marshalled into a longing to be cool, which was another word for attracting girls. And the bar at his school was set extremely high. Some of the kids were given designer clothes: Supreme, Ralph Lauren, Abercrombie & Fitch. Some were given SUVs at seventeen. There were skiing holidays over the Christmas holidays, something Tom only knew about because he’d see the photos afterwards. There were girls who worked out and wore thongs. Some had undergone professional hair removal, dental work, even cosmetic surgery. Tom’s attempts at engaging with this lifestyle were thwarted at every level, although it took him a while to fully comprehend the gravity of the situation. At first, he begged his parents for the basics: clothes and money for a computer. Every new jacket or gadget was pregnant with the possibility of reinvention. Confidence came in shiny packages: a new phone or a branded T-shirt. Unfortunately, neither of his parents understood the strange world they had landed their son in and therefore saw no reason to satisfy their son’s incessant demands for luxury goods. They bought him a second-hand Golf for his eighteenth birthday, an experience that snuffed out any glimmer of hope he might eventually lose his virginity.
Tom’s miserable school years weren’t the worst of it. What got him into trouble was what happened afterwards: the sheer inanity of life back at his mother’s house in Northampton. At school, he’d got high to dull his suffering. It was only later that his fledgling addiction began to take control of him. It was, as it turned out, an excellent way to pass the time. That summer, he lost himself completely. He was no longer dispirited or bored, or even aware of such mundane considerations. He existed on a higher plane and he saw no reason to come off it. Over the next few years his habit graduated. He was twenty-two when his dad found out, which quickly brought things to a head. The rehab centre reminded him of school, but eventually – and with great resistance – he found himself back in the ordinary world. He managed to pass his A levels and, to his surprise, discovered an aptitude for the sciences. Although when he eventually applied to university, he didn’t get as far as he had hoped. The STEM subjects were competitive and his concentration wasn’t good. It was by default that he ended up in France, a student at the ISIPCA, a small school of cosmetic chemistry in Versailles. It was the only place that would accept him.
•
‘You seem so normal,’ I said, although I wasn’t that surprised by any of this. I’d guessed it would be drugs since he was sober.
‘Are you close to your parents now?’
‘In some ways. Mum’s dead but I still speak to my father occasionally. He’s got his own life but we’re in touch.’
‘How did you stop?’
‘Dad rescued me, although I don’t think he’s ever forgiven me.’
‘I’m sure it’s not like that.’
‘I wouldn’t blame him.’
‘Your dad’s probably just relieved you’re still around.’
‘I wouldn’t know, we never talk about it.’
‘Well, if it makes you feel any better, I’m a bigger failure than you are.’
‘Is that so?’ he said.
I told him that my life was going nowhere, that I didn’t have a job, that I had no idea what the future would look like.
‘Well, thank God for that,’ he said. He sounded genuinely relieved. ‘At least we’ve finally got something in common.’
I messaged Lara the following day: That job – is it still going?
It didn’t take her long to reply:
I had a feeling you’d come around
•
Ashley was dressed for the gym. She went every morning before work. She’d drunk her protein shake and was now massaging her thighs.
‘So he wants to take you away for the weekend?’ she said. ‘Isn’t that a bit much?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Where’s he taking you?’
‘The countryside.’
My vision of what this might entail was no more fleshed-out than hers. I pictured a chintzy hotel, log fires, some kind of breakfast buffet. I hoped there would be lovemaking on expensive sheets.
‘What are you going to wear?’
‘Lingerie?’
I had to admit, I was very into this development. I sifted through relevant Instagram suppliers. There was @AimeeCherie_dk that sold nude bras and thongs. Alongside each set was a quote from Anaïs Nin. I was deep into an excerpt from her diary, something about intoxication and fire, when my phone buzzed.
Meet me after work
It was Lara.
Later on, scrolling through Twitter, I received a notification that one of her followers had @ed me a link to a post.
LET’S TALK CONSENT! is a dedicated crew of Creatives committed to offering Healing through Art. May you find Words that Mesmerize you and Beauty to help you Heal. SIGN UP for our newsletter and join our mission! #womensboundaries #respect #Openr
There was a stream of comments underneath:
THERE’S NO RAPE CULTURE IN THE WEST THESE DAYS, ONLY IN DUMPS LIKE INDIA
Let’s Talk Consent is exclusionary to trans people, do not support these people
Women are chaotic, they need to be controlled
GET SUBWAY DELIVERED WITH UBER EATS TODAY
I checked my inbox and found the job that Lara had mentioned – Assistant Data Manager, it read. Below that: Openr is a dating app for open-minded singles and couples, we cater to all sexualities and identities and welcome people who are looking for the freedom to express themselves in full in a safe and accepting environment. We’re looking for a talented individual to work within our marketing analytics team. You’ll support our team as they work with disparate data sources to build out new onboarding pipelines. Obsessed with automation and reproducibility, you’ll be experienced at managing fields and from there, liaising with our engineers to index extrapolated features.
Lara texted again. Did you see it?
They’re going to love you
I can’t wait
13
Tom and I left London after work. The terrain along the M1 was flat, repetitive and dull, an endless a grid of empty fields that seemed devoid of animal life.
‘Don’t people farm here any more?’ I said.
‘Not really, now the subsidies have gone.’
‘Oh, God.’
He looked at me, amused.
Once we’d made it to the Cotswolds, the landscape changed for the better.
It was a long drive and I asked him what happened after he’d moved to France.
•
In December 2007, two months after the start of term, Tom began to wonder if he’d made a mistake enrolling at the ISIPCA. He couldn’t speak French and he knew almost nothing about the culture. On the other hand, most of the other students were girls, something which lent the place a definite appeal. He spent his first few months in a state of panic: there weren’t many other foreign students there and no one told him what he was supposed to be doing, so he had to pick things up as best he could. He got the impression that he’d only been offered a place because the school wanted to attract more overseas students. Like most universities, they wanted to expand their brand. Contrary to this aspiration, the school had no idea how to integrate a foreigner like Tom. Every class was conducted in a formal, jargon-heavy French that he couldn’t make head nor tail of. The classes followed a kind of Victorian model, tutors lecturing from the front while the students sat in lab coats, taking notes behind a stark arrangement of desks. Once again, Tom found himself spending most of his time on his own. He pretended to follow what was happening while the other students passed him boxes of Kimtech gloves and vials of delicately tinted fluids.
