“It doesn’t feel right to me, either.”

“Well why don’t you do something about it?”

“Huh … That’s amazing – how conversations with you always seem to go around in circles.”

“What – what are you on about?”

“Do you not recall? That was one of the first pieces of wisdom you offered to me at the start of this conversation..?”

“Oh … Yeah … So what? So are you gonna do something about it, or what?”

“Well, nothing more than I am currently doing…”

“Which is what?”

“Shit I don’t know – going with it, taking it as it comes, not being exasperated by shortcomings and such…?”

“Yeah but that’s your problem … You can’t just keep sitting back and waiting for something to happen – you’ve gotta make it happen.”

“Funny, I recall a few years back you berated me in a similar fashion with the exact opposite piece of advice – ‘it will happen for you’ you said in that delightfully accusatory tone of yours … ‘Probably when you least expect it’, you went on in your typically clichéd fashion, ‘you’ve just gotta be open to it’, you maintained – but then I guess it depends which is the more fashionable advice at the time, yeah?”

“…Yeah, must be…”

“Right, because I don’t know how much more ‘open to it’ I can be – I mean as far as that goes, I’ve been open to it since I was nineteen years old, it’s just the ones who are supposed to feel, I dunno, invited by my sense of openness, don’t seem to care for it … Honestly, it’s more than a smidgen frustrating…”

“And I’m sure those girls you nervously approach on the street are simply besotted by that sense of frustration, exuding all over their pretty faces…”

“But it’s their fucking fault! Honestly, how can they expect any different? Anyway, I wasn’t frustrated in the beginning – it was only after being so constantly and thoroughly shot down that I became the bitter and twisted representation of romantic despair you see before you.”

“Well, you do have a way with words, I’ll say that much…”

“…Which, when you’re speaking to the majority of Christchurch’s female population, is not a trait anyone considers at all beneficial.”

“I thought you said that last girl you had was into that – thought you said she was the same as you.”

“Hmm … Yeah, she was awesome … That was a shame.”

“So what’d you do wrong there?”

“I don’t believe I did anything wrong.”

“So where is she?”

“Last I knew, somewhere around Hillsborough.”

“Why is she not in your life, I mean?”

“You mean, before or after she gave me the STD..?”

“What? But I thought…”

“Yeah, turns out she dabbled in the art of lying compulsively.”

“Oh … As long as it was only dabbling … Oh, so how long ago did you say that was?”

“Ah, would’ve been, somewhere over three years ago.”

“And what about since then?”

“No.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Wow … Really though? I mean that’s a really long time to go without, you know…”

“’To go without, you know’? Shit I thought we were grownups now..?”

“Well it is a pretty long time…”

“Yeah, and you know the worst thing? Even that STD was passed on outside the act of actual copulation.”

“Hah … What? You say it was without copulation..?”

“Hah, yeah, think it’s what they call an ‘immaculate transmission’.

“Never heard a venereal disease called ‘immaculate’ before – how did that go?”

“Oh, we were just fucking around in the spa, but without actually fucking around … You know building up some heat, some passion, some intensity…”

“So what, you got Chlamydia through foreplay..?”

“More or less – probably less though.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well fair to say there was some penile/vaginal contact…”

“But not actually sex..?”

“In a word, no.”

“Are you fucking serious right now?! You didn’t even get to properly fuck her and you still caught her fucking diseases..? What a fucking rip!”

“Yeah, cool chick though – aside from that, I mean.”

“Yeah, plenty of other guys must’ve thought so, too.”

“It only takes one.”

“Still, what a fuckin’ slut.”

“Hang on, that’s hardly fair – I mean there had to have been a shitheaded guy in the first place to pass on his diseased genitalia to her…”

“Yeah, so?”

“So, calling her the slut – which, incidentally, is actually an antiquated term for ‘female dog’ thus ‘bitch’ hence ‘slut’ in whichever language – hardly seems fair.”

“Why not?”

“Well it hardly seems fair to label this girl a harlot when there is evidently a young man out there passing around the origin of this disease.”

“How do you know he’s the origin – probably came from another little slut somewhere else..?”

“Well … Obviously … I mean, that’s the basis of STDs – they are spread by transmission.”

“But you seriously didn’t even get to fuck her..?”

“Not really, I mean, not full penetration.”

“But, why not, I mean, she was obviously gagging for it..?”

“Like I said, I was building anticipation -”

“Hah, how’d you go anticipating this outcome?”

“Seriously, it would’ve been spectacular – I’d been studiously working on her, getting her so fucking wound up, I mean she was practically choking on her own desire -”

“Among other things, perhaps..?”

“- Obviously, but I hadn’t even intended to complete the transaction that weekend…”

“Are you serious – she was there totally gagging for it, you were all over her, she was dripping wet, you were everywhere but inside her, even though all she wanted was you inside her, and seriously, you were still planning to make her wait..?”

“Yeah man, would’ve been awesome.”

“My God, you really do love your ‘long games’ don’t you?”

“Honestly, anticipation is the essence of pleasure…”

“That is fucking incredible … If you are serious … I am actually in awe – your self control must be beyond belief…”

“Wouldn’t say it’s ‘self control’ really, I just make a plan, set a target, and stick to it … It’s not even particularly difficult – just following a plan…”

“You and your fucking ‘plans’ man – try being spontaneous.”

“Seriously..? I am spontaneous, you know I’m spontaneous – I just like to have a plan sometimes.”

“Yeah? So how did this plan work out for you?”

“This particular plan? Admittedly, not so well…”

“That’s right, ‘not so well’ … ‘Cause even with all your planning and your so called ‘long games’ and your ‘anticipation building’ and all your other OCD bullshit, you still didn’t get any.”

“Well, I did get an STD … I mean, that’s something, isn’t it?”

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Anne Ticha Paition

Photography by S Synch Plasure