stone cold sober, chapter 6

6

Drover University, one year later
         “Are you sure you have to leave?” Kate said and she knew if she tried hard enough Nathan’s resolve would crumble.
         “No, which is why I have to leave,” he replied and shoved his hands into his back pockets.
         “Just stay the night,” Kate insisted. “We can sleep in my bed asexually, if that’s what you’re worried about?”
         They glanced over at the narrow bunk bed standing in the corner.
         “Sleeping next to you is not the actual problem.” Nathan cleared his throat. “But your bed is so small we’d be sleeping on top of each other. That, I can’t do asexually.”
         Nathan had a pretty face with too long eyelashes and a full mouth. Kate remembered seeing a picture in his room and thinking that his mother’s dark skin, black hair and light blue eyes had genetically outdone her husband’s Nordic features. A rich boy from a well to do Jewish family, the kind of family that did not communicate well. Kate liked the way he communicated though. He always opened the door for her and he liked her enough to introduce her to his friends.
         No, he was definitely cute, but most of all, he was her friend and Kate wasn’t going to risk losing her new, first and only friend over something as trifle as not having sex with him. It would happen sooner or later, she could see it in the way he looked at her.
         Kate lifted herself up on her toes and gave him a soft kiss on the lips. When she ended the kiss his eyes were closed and his hands were still in the back pockets of the jeans, which hung too loosely on his hips.



         The sun had yet to rise when he woke up to Kate’s rhythmic snoring. Nathan’s arm was numb where she lay, but he didn’t dare wake her.
         He strained his eyes to see the clock on the bedside table. Too early, and yet he couldn’t sleep. He looked around and noticed that Kate had made an effort to upgrade her room. Now that she had stopped taking what she referred to as her eggshell-coloured pills she even cared whether it was clean or not. The room almost looked comfortable with batik clothes and a few pillows. He had to squint to see what the black marks on her Chinese paper lamp were. There were posters on the wall, one showing a desert landscape, the other a beach. Nathan smiled at her paradox choice. Kate would always be Kate, he sighed and resisted the urge to kiss the top of her head.
         Last night was more than he had hoped for. Maybe someday she would let him make love to her, but he could wait. He would wait.
         Long after three o’clock Kate had finally fallen asleep in his arms. Nathan had stayed up a little longer, not only was he too excited to sleep but he was crazy in love. He let his eyes wander over his girlfriend’s face.
         She wasn’t the most beautiful woman on the planet, but she was special; anyone who didn’t see that was an idiot. Like that fat bastard Pablo she was arguing with when Nathan first laid eyes on Kate in the canteen.
         Pablo had called her ‘weird’ and Kate didn’t take it well. She flung her books at him and he barely managed to dodge them. They instantly drew a crowd, but Nathan stared at his plate. He hated misplaced curiosity and yet, he felt compelled to look up.
         Pablo, whose throat Kate threatened to slit, was unaffected by her yelling. He continued to insult her, her face, her body, her mind. Within moments, Kate had tears streaming down her face. She was hunched over, glaring at Pablo through her hair.
         They’re both on crazy, Nathan decided as he ate his last bite of lasagne. Everyone knew Pablo was into popping pills and he was sure he’d seen Kate around Dr Himble’s waiting room.
         Nathan put away his tray and walked to the exit. He wasn’t going to give in to the urge to watch their argument, but then Kate’s hair parted and revealed light brown eyes. It was like looking into a mirror. He stopped.
         When Kate launched herself at Pablo, Nathan stepped forward and grabbed her around the middle, pulling her back against his chest. “You won,” he whispered in her ear. “Let it go.”
         The girl was strong, but he knew that if Kate did manage to free herself, she would lash out at him next. Nathan dragged her away from the crowd to one of the empty seminar rooms. There he let go, holding his palms up in front of him.
         Kate whirled out of his embrace, moving away, her hands covering her face. They could hear the crowd outside cheering on stubby Pablo who for some inexplicable reason had been voted the sane party in this argument.
         Nathan watched Kate’s embarrassment grow into anger. He knew how it felt. The last thing he would have wanted if he had been in her shoes was to explain himself to a stranger. He went against the sudden urge to sooth her and left the room.



         Kate glared at her boyfriend over a glass of cherry coke. She willed him to drop dead, but he didn’t. Kate liked Nathan, but if he did not stop talking about her this minute, she would break off their relationship; to hell with their one year anniversary. She leaned forward and tried to catch his eye just as he passed a bottle to his friend.
         “So, you’re saying,” Pretty Roy said, accepting the beer from Nathan, “that every person has the right to kill himself. And it’s not a sin?”
         Nathan sat down and leaned back in the oversized armchair, a stub of a joint between his fingers. Kate could tell that he was in his element, ready for a good debate. He did not seem to care that he was talking about something she had told him in confidence. Sometimes she felt a little like his property, like a pet he owned because he had brought it in from the rain. Kate was the pet and the pills Dr Himble, the university psychiatrist had prescribed her when she wouldn’t leave her room, were the rain.
         “Someone once wrote,” Nathan said, “that suicide is a means of escape for the lower class, the outsiders, the cowardly, the humourless, the ugly even--“
         Roy groaned and reached for the joint lodged between Nathan’s fingers. “Psychos, all of them, now, can we chill?”
         “Good idea.” Kate agreed from the corner, prompting Pretty Roy, but not Nathan to turn to her. “I like your girlfriend, Nate. What’s your name again?”
         Just as Kate opened her mouth, Nathan threw a pillow at his friend and lit a second joint. “You like her because she’s agreeing with you,” he said with a laugh. “Where was I?” He rubbed his temple with his ring finger, smoke drew curls around his head.
         Roy got up and walked to the small humming fridge in the corner of Nathan’s room. He got himself a tub of ice cream. He also took a spoon from a plastic dish and quickly cleaned it with the bottom of his t-shirt. Roy was neither asking for it nor offering to bring one for Nathan or her. Pretty Roy didn’t like her, Kate decided. She looked over at Nathan, but he was too busy collecting his loose train of thought to notice her distress.
         “I know,” Nathan shot out and Kate cried out inwardly. “Roy called suicidals psychos, and I said that you don’t have to be poor, ugly or demented to want to kill yourself.” Nathan’s voice was low as he tried to keep the smoke in. “Then what about Prince Alfred of Edinburgh, heiress Kiki Preston or the guy who founded Victoria’s Secret?”
         “Rich, but psychos nevertheless.”
         “Marilyn Monroe or Cleopatra?”
         “Hot psycho chicks.”
         The boys shared a laugh, but Kate didn’t understand what was so funny, possibly because she was sober and they were high. Kate also didn’t understand why Nathan and Roy were friends. They had nothing in common, hated each other’s guts, and competed in every area possible.
         She suddenly longed for the thick bubbly sound the eggshell-coloured pills put into her ears, the sound that slowly drowned out all her problems. The sound which would drown out her boyfriend’s betrayal as he told the world that Kate was a sick psycho. Nathan hid her pills somewhere in her room and he said it was better that way, but even if she did find them and popped one every day, it could be weeks before the desired effect set in.
         “Brautigan, Kawabata,” Nathan added. “He won a Nobel Prize before gassing himself. Sylvia Plath, Hemingway. You can’t tell me it’s not in the blood there. Lyapunov, Tucholsky, Virginia Woolf, shall I go on? Kurt Cobain, Sid Vicious, Michael Hutchence, even if some say that he didn’t. Vincent fucking van Gogh--”
         “Idiot. Psycho. Masochist,” Roy sang, stabbing the air with his cigarette. He grinned, his hands indicating that Nathan should carry on.
         “Per Yngve Ohlin,” Nathan continued, wiping Roy’s grin off his face.
         “He’s dead?”
         “This black metal dude--”, he turned to address Kate, “--shot himself after slashing his wrist and cutting his throat. That’s what I call a passionate death wish. And I have another one--”
         Kate moaned. Shut up, shut up, shut up. Nathan’s cruelty sent shivers down her spine. Did he become an instant expert for her benefit or was he actually enjoying himself?
         “Okay, calm down,” Roy said. He got up and helped himself to another beer. “Get this place cleaned, man, there are bugs crawling in the corners.” He took a long sip before adding, “So, what you’re saying is, that it’s better to die well than to live an old age?”
         Help.
         “Exactly!” Nathan dropped himself onto the couch next to Kate. “Some self-proclaimed King of Trinidad even believed that not death but letting go of life is the real challenge.” Nathan paused. “And if a person doesn’t feel true passion for life then what should prevent him from living death? From there on it’s all just a matter of aesthetics. Did I get it right?” Nathan turned and smiled at Kate’s frozen profile.



         “Don’t touch me!”
         Nathan shrunk back. The look on his face told Kate that he was relieved Roy wasn’t around to witness his girlfriend’s tantrum. He crossed his arms over his chest. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
         “King of Trinidad? You could have just told him straight out that your girlfriend sliced her arms open!”
         “One arm, if I remember correctly.” Nathan took a step towards Kate, but she pushed him away.
         “You don’t even know what it’s like,” she said, storming out the door.
         He called after her, but Kate covered her ears with her hands. She stumbled down the stairs and ran all the way back to her dorm.
         Nathan would be by later and she knew she would forgive him, but right this moment, she didn’t care if she had one or no friends at all.



         Kate couldn’t relax, not even a bit. She was too conscious of his eyes wandering over her body, Nathan’s hands touching her nakedness, her arms, her legs, her stomach, her breasts.
         It made her feel dirty to think that he was not meant to be the one. She wasn’t ready, no matter how hard he tried. For Nathan sex was an investment into their future, Kate merely saw an opportunity to make up for their earlier argument.
         When the pain subsided, Kate waited for passion to set in, but it didn’t. Instead she felt uncomfortable and the soreness doubled with every of Nathan’s movements.
         So, this was it, Kate wondered when it was done, the first time? Sex. Surely it wasn’t all a grand scheme where women all over the world pretended to enjoy it?
         “You realise you’re making me feel like a loser here?”
         You? You feel like a loser? Kate sighed and placed a kiss on his naked chest. “Just because I didn’t come doesn’t mean that I didn’t like it.”
         Nathan moved her away and sat up. He reached over to the bedside table and opened one of the books Kate was reading. “Any good?” he asked.
          Now I know why women fake orgasms. “Did you hear what I just said?”
         He didn’t look at her. “Have you ever come before?”
         “I’ve never had--”
         “No,” Nathan interrupted. “Have you ever done it yourself?”
         Kate blushed.
         He turned to her with a lop-sided smile on his face. “Maybe that’s it!” he said. “You just need practice.” Nathan put the book back where it was and shoved his legs under the cover. He pulled her closer and ran his fingertips along her naked back. When he went to sleep, Kate tried not to wake him with her crying.

Read the next chapter "stone cold sober, chapter 7"  or start at the beginning "stone cold sober, Prologue"