New Animal by Ella Baxter (speed reading book .TXT) 📕

‘Make-up artist,’ I say, burping.

‘Ooh la la,’ he says. ‘Fancy.’

Liam switches the projector on, and after a moment the credits to a film begin to play.

‘Arthouse,’ Liam says, ‘Very experimental, and won a bunch of awards.’

After twenty-five minutes the film officially starts, and we sit side by side as the daily minutiae of a couple living in a rural shack unfolds. Every scene of the film is centred around their constant quest for firewood. I sip the wine steadily, trying to understand if there is more to the storyline than what I am seeing. At one point I look over at Liam, who is watching intently as the man on screen, now wearing a large hat, says, It’s getting dark, as a woman in a stained dress nods wearily. Somewhere around the two-hour mark, the couple begin breaking furniture in order to feed the fire. Liam interrupts the film to segue into talking about his ex-girlfriend. ‘No hard feelings,’ he says suddenly, dragging both hands down his face and standing up from the couch as the couple on the screen behind him hurl chunks of wood into the fireplace.

‘She’s not interested in dating cis white guys anymore, which I get—I totally, totally get.’

He walks around the coffee table, rubbing one hand across the top of his chest.

‘My dudes and I have had our day in the sun,’ he says, before circling back to the bong.

His eyes are washed red and he’s using his tongue and lips more than necessary when he speaks, and I’m aware that it’s not a signal to go, but it’s not really a sign to stay either, so I collect my bag and leave before any more discussion unfolds. Talking generally wears my patience out faster than almost anything else, but unfortunately people need talking to relax before they can connect physically. It’s so misguided. Attaining a quota of words that each person has to say in order to unlock the possibility of sex is completely unnecessary. It’s exhausting.

Disappointed, I carefully walk back along the concrete path towards the car. What I needed was to be flattened, squashed and folded under another person. I can’t just remain all stretched out from the day. Like all the people I see in the late afternoons, or evenings, or early hours of the morning, he was going to move me out of my head and into my body. He was going to fill me up with physical feeling to the point where emotions and thoughts were wrung out. And then sayonara, thank you very much.

Once, I told a man what I needed from him and he recoiled, appalled. He said that I was basically using people, crushing them between my pincers. He tapped his thumb and forefinger together to demonstrate. I was equally horrified that he had responded so poorly to my honesty, and so I told him he was already being crushed by the weight of his own ego, and what a goose, what an absolute goose of a man, to think he could ever speak to a stranger like that. He had no idea why I like the things I like, or why I need to do the things I do. Now, I keep my needs to myself.

Standing by the car, I try to salvage the evening by sending three messages to my other matches.

Heyyy

Heyyy

Heyyy

‘Shit, I’m sorry!’ Liam yells from the doorway, and I spin around, taking a few steps back towards his house, ready to forgive him and move forward.

‘Talking about my ex was very cathartic, thank you, but you should come back.’ He shifts his weight from foot to foot. ‘Please?’

‘Only if it’s for sex,’ I say, switching my phone to silent and crossing my arms.

He nods and raises a hand in the air, as if taking an oath. ‘Oh, absolutely.’

His bedroom has stark white walls and a low futon covered in an off-white sheet. I drop my bag on the floor and unzip my dress, letting it fall. I unclip my bra and sweep my underwear down and off. At one point I see him move as if to sit on the bed then second-guess himself and remain standing. He sheds everything except his boxer shorts in a quick shiver, and I fall onto him heavily.

‘Hold on,’ he says, reaching into the bedside drawer for a condom.

I pull the waistband of his shorts down until his erection springs out. He rolls the condom on as I spit into my palm and wipe it down the length of the rubber, and then the wet crinkling of it sliding in and out becomes the only sound in the room.

‘I can put some music on …’ he says, with his hands either side of my hips, ready to lift me off.

‘No,’ I say. He has wasted enough time.

I lean back so that I can see my body eating his, and we become the two-headed thing. He stares at the ceiling, while I gaze straight ahead at the long crack in the wall behind his bed. I don’t need to look at him because his face could be anyone’s. His eyes could be any colour. He could have any set of thirty-two teeth. Under the fluorescent bulb in his room we form a single unit. Like a pack of hounds at the gates of hell. Like Nefertiti and immortality. Together, we combine to be something more robust.

I let my eyes blur until he is just a warm beige lump underneath me.

‘You’re amazing,’ he says. ‘I feel like I really see you.’ He brushes one hand across my chest, sweeping away the hair that has fallen in front of my boobs.

‘I see you too,’ I say evenly, while squinting so much that my vision clouds to the point where I lose any sense of colour.

‘It’s so nice to feel seen,’ he says, trying to grab a nipple.

‘It’s so rare,’ I say, doubling down on the speed I’m