Twist 3

THREE Saturday night rolled around. The phone had started ringing in the afternoon- male friends asking him to come out boozing in the usual haunts, a female Platonic friend called to ask him to come out boozing in the Irish pub and Justyna, whom he saw as potential, called. He decided, against his usual inclinations, to go with Justyna. He was loyal to his mates on Saturday evenings, usually. He saw no reason not to be. Most of the females who would have liked him to come out on Saturday were either not interesting to him or not interested in sleeping with him. Justyna was something else. She was interesting, and quite possibly interested in coming to bed. He met her outside a club. She looked modelesque in her leather jacket, her sparkling moist make-up, her black pumps and her six feet of stature. She was smiling broadly when she met Steve. He took her in his arms and planted a kiss upon her cheek. This made him feel better inside, like he’d achieved a small victory. The club was small and packed with 20 year old women who were with men that were twice their age or more. Steve knew that he couldn’t compete with these men, the majority of whom were anglophone, on wealth and status, but he might have an edge on looks and style. He danced with Justyna to a few of the boppy numbers, then took her outside into the warm night and next door to a more cosy place for a quiet drink and conversation. He sipped his whisky and sucked back at his cigarillo, taking long glances at his companion, and shorter glimpses of the street outside. The streets were wet, the way he liked to see big-city streets. Big cities, he thought, seemed to be at their most beautiful when soaked in rain at night. At this moment the city seemed to shimmer with erotic charge. He reached across the table, placing his hand in hers. “Do you want to go back down to that club?” “Hmmm.” “Let’s get in a taxi. I’ve got a really nice bottle of Australian wine back at my place.” “Well…” “______” “OK.” They stepped out onto the wet pavement. Taxis were waiting outside, sharks cruising through the night. Steve climbed into the back seat with Justyna and gave the orders. Back at Steve’s place the wine was opened and poured. “Good?” “Nice. I never had Australian wine before.” “It’s rare here, and it costs, I don’t know why.” “It is far to Australia.” “Not far to London- and Aussie wines are a lot cheaper there than here.” “Are they?” “Oh yeah. Popular too. Everyone’s drinking Australians there. The French have been pushed right off the shelf. They say the French wine industry is in crisis because of it. Can’t export anything anymore. New world wines are taking over. Serves the arrogant French right for lording it over us for so long.” “Lording it over us?” Being so arrogant.” Yes, they are arrogant. I know the French.” “Justyna the supermodel. Queen of the Paris catwalks.” “Ha ha ha. I’m 23. I’m like Grandma with those girls in Paris.” “But you’ve walked down the catwalks in Paris.” “It was completely crazy. I thought I will go mad.” “I think that every day about myself.” “But you never had to walk down a catwalk in Paris.” “Lucky me. But you didn’t have to do it either. Nobody had a gun to your head.” “Money is like a gun.” “Money is a gun.” “So you see I had to.” “Yeah yeah.” “Fuck Paris. Here’s to Australia and its fine fine wines.” “Cheers.” “Bottoms up.” He kissed her and walked her to the bed. They fell down and tore at each other’s clothes. In the morning he looked at her as she slept. She had that look- harsh. Her face was taught and gaunt now the make-up was stripped back. She’d spent too much time tanning herself. Tanned to the point of frying. What were they thinking? He crawled out of bed and had a shower. By the time he was out of the shower she was up. He made her some breakfast and coffee. She was talkative- chatty chat chat. Steve was despondent. If she had any sense of his growing unease she didn’t show it to him. She kept smiling and chatting, eating and drinking. He flipped on the TV to MTV to distract himself from her, to give them both something other than each other to focus on. About an hour later she left, much to Steve’s relief. As soon as she was out the door he got on the phone. “Jim. Steve.” “Steve. How are ya?” “Have a guess who I fucked last night?” “Ahhm, you girlfriend Ewa maybe. That’d be a change wouldn’t it?” “You think yer so funny, ha ha. Now take another guess, buttwipe.” “Maybe….that fat ugly British teacher you been hanging around with too much lately. “Nup. Not seeing her so much now.” “Some Polish slut that you met in a club?” “Nope.” “Who then?” “Let’s meet for coffee and talk it over.” “Sure bub.” Coffee later that day was at San Marzano, a British-based, Italian- style chain restaurant that had opened up at the end of the street on Pulawska. Steve arrived early although he knew that Jim would be late. This never deterred him from turning up early. Being early all the time was just another of Steve’s bad habits. He was onto his second coffee when Jim arrived. Jim was an exceptionally loud-mouthed American, who had no qualms when it came to talking about pussy in public. This sometimes made Steve wince, if he thought there was English-speaking company nearby. At other times it just brought out the animal in Steve, for whatever Steve said, Jim was sure to say something even more outrageous. Jim swaggered in, a few minutes late as usual. This never really bothered Steve too much, although he usually detested lateness, he had come to expect it in Jim. “So, who the fuck was she, man?” Jim said as he sat down at the table. “You remember Justyna?” Said Steve. “Yeah sure.” “Well, that’s who, baby.” “Hmm, she was alright wasn’t she?” “Yeah. Very alright.” “Cool. You going to see her again?” “Don’t know if I really want to.” “Yeah? How does that work?” “She’s got a few issues. She looks worn out and dried out at the age of 24. It isn’t nice, you know? “I see. But she’s nice in bed isn’t she?” “Yeah she’s real nice. But I’d prefer a relationship. I mean, someone I can actually live with.” “Ain’t you already got one of those?” “I live with her, that doesn’t mean I can live with her. I gotta find something, someone different.” “Good luck man” “I can’t believe you’re still avoiding it like the plague. What are you waiting for?” “Nothing but the best.” “Like that’ll get you anywhere. Perfect don’t exist. Specially not in females.” “Why settle for crap?” “If you’re too fussy you’ll never get a fuck is my philosophy.” “Anyway, how’s the wife?” “Still up the country.” “Will you go see her?” “Yeah, maybe next weekend. Don’t know really. I’m not in a big hurry you know?” “Not when you’re up to your balls in poontang here, I’d say?” “Would ya? Thanks mate.” Steve lit up a cigarette and blew out three perfectly formed smoke rings. Looking at Jim with all his stinking bravado, he was glad not to be like him. A lot of people didn’t like Jim. They said he was a crass, brash, ignorant Yank, and Steve tended to agree with them. Steve liked him anyway, although he usually didn’t go around advertising the fact. They moved out of San Marzano to Szpilka, a fashionable bar in the centre of Warsaw. There they met Marek, who was in some ways even more objectionable than Jim. Marek claimed to have travelled to all sorts of places, to have been a smuggler of gold from Singapore to India. He said he’d been with whores in Bombay. The stories somehow had a ring of truth to them, as he wasn’t one of those people who said he’d been everywhere, just a few specific locations. He behaved like an accomplished hustler in some ways, though he was just a little too obvious. He had a falsetto way of imitating American brashness that certain East Europeans had. When they did this they tended to go completely over the top. The Poles were usually a quite reserved race of people, but for some, a little dose of America or Americans was all that was needed to send them over the edge. Steve parted from the bar several hours later in a state of heavy intoxication. He staggered back home and opened the fridge, thinking to soak up the alcohol with food, juice and water. He collapsed on the bed after that and lit a cigarette and flipped his way through the TV channels.

Twist 2

TWO Monday morning he taught a business class, his only one all week. This class was located in a large office complex near the end of his street, on Pulawska. Business English was the big growth area in the TEFL industry, or so it was said. Steve was a past master at teaching business English according to popular belief and rumour. Before his current incarnation as Senior Teacher in Komanow, business English had been his staple, running from job to job from one end of town to another, from one company to the next to deliver his lessons to secretaries and middle managers, dispensing holy water to the faithful. He’d been chosen for this particular group because they were “sensitive”. In other words they were newly signed up and they were choosey. In other words the boss was a cranky old cow who tended always to get her own way and had complained, at the drop of a hat because the other teacher didn’t quite measure up. He breezed past the front reception, smiled and waved at the receptionist, jumped into the shiny new glass-skinned elevator of this shiny happy new glass-skinned building and was catapulted to the sixth floor. He liked the openness of these new buildings and the way the sun came through all the walls. The lesson took place in the lounge, which was part bar, part meeting place and part art gallery. The artworks displayed were original, derivative. Steve didn’t like any of them apart from one, which featured a tanned, voluptuous woman with her back towards the viewer. Beautiful rump. Hmmm. It’s how I would paint Beata’s rump if I were a painter, he said to himself. She was so well-tanned and voluptuous, one of the most beautiful women he’d ever dragged into his bed. In fact he hadn’t dragged her. She’d come of her own free will. She’d dragged him into her, wanting more and more even when he was completely exhausted. She’d been 35 at the time. Older women, they could never get enough. Or so it had been said. The cranky old bosswoman started telling him how money could solve all your problems. This was one of those arguments which aroused the fighting instinct in Steve. He’d heard it often from students in Prague and Warsaw. He hit back, saying that all the rich people he’d ever met had lots of problems. “Yes but”, she said. “Yes but what?” he said. “Yes but rich people don’t have to work,” she said. “All the rich people I know are workaholics. That’s how they got to be rich,” he said. “Yes but they don’t have to work,” she said. “Yes but they do”, he said. “That’s what I said, they are workaholic. Workaholic means addicted to work. That means that work for them is a habit they can’t break, even if they wanted to.” he said. “I think that rich people really don’t have to work. I really don’t understand what you are talking about.” "Ok let's have a look at the textbook," Steve said. The lesson was over an hour later. The big glass elevator sucked him back to the ground floor. Coffee, cigarette, a cold, crisp, sunny morning. An agreeable, tingling sensation spread through his body from his brain to his fingertips. * Every Friday afternoon there was a staff meeting. Steve avoided these whenever possible, but in his recently-acquired position of responsibility he was obliged to be present. He sat dutifully through the hints to new teachers about living in Warsaw, teaching tenses and vocabulary and business language, the seminars and role-plays. He arrived at this meeting late. Tim was giving a seminar on teaching children. He was explaining how, as opposed to adult learners, kids needed maximum input from the teacher. In an adult lesson, teacher talking time should be no more than 20% of the lesson, ideally 10-15%. In a class with small children, the opposite was true. Steve was teaching the littlest of the little ones and could see the sense in this. Tim sat a group of teachers down and got them to pretend to be kids. He repeated some words in Polish, doing facial gestures to match. “Sczeszliwy”, he said, smiling exaggeratedly. After he’d said it a few times everyone repeated. “Smutny”, he then said, frowning deeply and pretending to sob. Again he got everyone to repeat. He emphasised the necessity of facial expressions and hand gestures. Steve tried to absorb all of this. He made a point of not taking notes. What he remembered he would use, what he couldn’t remember probably wasn’t that useful anyway. The big event of the day was not the meeting, however, but the pay that was delivered after the meeting. They always made everyone wait an irritatingly long time. Steve could never really understand why they did this but there had to be a reason. There was usually a reason for everything. Despite the apparent meagreness of his paypack, paydays were always treat days. He would treat himself to something- a bottle of scent, a decent meal, a session with a prostitute perhaps. Anything to make him feel better, to bring relief, to remind him that there was something to life other than struggle and drear. Andy was waiting for him when he collected, hiding just around the corner in the corridor, having already picked up his dues. Words didn’t need to be exchanged- a little body language sufficed until they found their way out of the grounds of the school building, onto the street and into a taxi which took them down town to the main street, Jerozalimskie, Jerusalem street, home of the city's finest and best value pleasure houses. “Man, you sure get some pleasure out of leisure”, Andy said to Steve, as he explained that he needed to stop off along the way to get a porno magazine, which he would then view along with the whore and ask what she liked to do and which pictures turned her on. “Yahhhh”, Steve said. They rolled out of the taxi once it had pulled up onto the curb at Jerozalimskie. Steve and Andy wandered into the maze of shops below street level, emerging opposite the train station, in front of the Marriot. From there it was a short walk to their favourite bordello. They climbed the creaky wooden staircase (why were the best whorehouses always located in the crappiest buildings?) and rang the buzzer. A rather attractive blonde answered the door. “Dzien dobry” they said in unison, Steve and the door attendant. The two males were ushered in, shown to a room and sat down to await the procession of available flesh. They came out in a clump, as they usually did, which made both Steve and Andy feel sorry for them. When you chose one you upset the others, and you were under pressure to make a choice and see the reaction of the rejects. Steve and Andy waited two minutes before the women emerged sadly, in the usual dismal procession. One looked a little more cheerful, just a tiny little bit more lively, than the others so Steve chose her. “Any problem with that, Andy?” “None whatsoever, dude.” he said. Andy chose a tall, dark girl. Greek, maybe Turkish by the looks of her. What the hell was she doing in this city? Steve’s girl returned to the room a few minutes later to find him on the bed, erection in hand, awaiting her. She moved shyly across the room and into the adjoining bathroom to shower. When she again emerged from the shower Steve was still waiting, still fondling his erection. She wasn’t really all that pretty, but she somehow had a spark in her eyes that the other girls didn’t have. Like she actually did want to have some fun. She then told him, in Polish, that this was her first day on the job and that she was a little nervous. “Ohhh,” Steve said. A little rush of excitement spread up through his body as she hastily lifted her little skirt and pulled down her g-string. He grabbed her from behind and rubbed her body, letting his hands wander over her stomach and then moving up to her breasts, flicking the nipples playfully with his fingers. He then guided her to the bed and lay her down. He opened her legs and had a look inside, playing with the walls of her vagina. He looked deep into the little pink opening, perhaps hoping to get lost in there. He tried to go down on her but she didn’t want him to lick her so instead he put on a condom and climbed on top of her. He wanted to find out more about her, so, as he started to fuck her, he asked her how many clients she’d had on this her first day. She told him that he was the first. Steve smiled to himself. He then switched to rear entry, pounding her without restraint, slapping her buttocks, sweat dripping from his forehead onto her back, as he whispered to her “Dobra? Dobra?” “Tak,” she said. The time seemed to be over very quickly, for someone was knocking on the door before he had released. “Moment”, Steve called out to the knocker. Steve whispered to her, “Dobra, tak……..mala dzivka,” driving harder and harder until he had let it all go. He started to laugh as he fell forward onto the bed. “Oooh, that was good,” he said to her. And then “How do you like the new job?” She slapped him on the buttocks. They both laughed some more. He knew that he had to see her again sometime later, after she’d got a bit more experience. Find out how, or if, she coped with this. They put their clothes on and left the room. Steve knocked on the door of Andy’s room. Andy was in there with his girl still, smoking a cigarette with his shirt still off. Cool. The girl was smiling and they all had a bit of a giggle. Steve liked the looks of her, and let Andy know about that, so they talked about meeting for a team session with all three of them sometime later. Maybe in the brothel, maybe at a hotel. It was going to cost double anyway, so it would be a bit of an extravagance, but worth it no doubt. When Steve hit the streets again, he felt lighter than he had upon entering the building. The fresh breeze blew in their faces, winter needles and pins. 5pm and it was already dark. They didn’t really have time to get a beer, or have a chat. There were things to do. Shopping, dinner. They arranged to meet later in the evening at an Irish pub, one of Andy’s regular haunts but not so popular with Steve and the other people in his crew. Never mind, he wanted to defer to Andy this evening because was a cool guy and had some cool friends and he’d had the bonding experience of the whorehouse this day and wanted to extend it. * A slow, soulful rhythm poured out of the speakers as Steve entered the darkened, wood-panelled space of this, the one and only Irish pub in Warsaw. Andy was in the middle of a group of people, smiling and chugging back on beer. “Hey nigger,” he called out. Steve smiled and waved, even though he wasn’t a nigger. It was just Andy’s way of talking, and something to do with Steve’s sometime obsession with gangsta rap. “Let me get beer.” “Yeah, cool.” Andy said. Andy’s girlfriend, Sonja, had her arm around him and was smiling extravagantly. So weird, that guy’s nerve. Once they had gone out together and had a hooker, then immediately afterwards, they had hooked up with Sonja. Steve was astonished. I mean, how could you? Like, don’t you? Isn’t that? You know? Steve knew however, that he could learn useful things from people like Andy, such as the art of survival in a psychotic world. There was a covers band on tonight as was the usual set up in this joint. The start of their play represented a shift in the level of noise and in the atmosphere of the room. No longer quiet enough for conversation. People got up to dance instead. Steve was irritated by this. Pubs were for a quiet drink and an intimate chat. They were not for dancing and for being exposed to music that was so loud as to disturb the nerves and create distance between people. Clubs did that job. More people jumped onto the dancefloor, singing along. Steve sat and watched. Steve eventually staggered home on foot. Again drunk, again melancholy, again thinking about killing somebody: either himself or another. Why did thoughts of torture and murder always come when deeply inebriated, as well as thoughts of suicide? He couldn’t really figure that one. It always seemed to be when he was walking home too. Usually a walk cleared the head, but tonight the head became steadily more and more crowded with each step. He arrived home to find the flat empty. Ewa was away again this weekend. Had taken off before Steve even returned home from work earlier, but at least had had the courtesy to leave a note explaining that she wanted to get away before it got too late, as the folks would want an early night, it being winter and all. * Time passed. Steve taught his lessons, fought insomnia for weeks at a time. Persevered. Managed not to kill himself, not that anyone really gave a shit, but Steve himself kind of half-cared. Summer came. Ewa left for the countryside for the whole of July and August. Just a day she was gone and Steve was feeling lighter already. He lay on his fold-out staring at the ceiling, smoking a cigarette and dreaming about the time he planned to have this summer. He picked up the phone and made a call to one of his female friends, one of his future fucking friends. Or that was what he planned. A few days later they met. It was a dog day, the air filled with the dry chemical swelter that invades metropolitan cities in the heat of summer. Steve, out of character, was delayed, although the source of the delay had nothing to do with him and seemed a privilege to witness. The taxis were lined up bumper to bumper as he made his way into the city, blocking access to everybody. Steve was sitting in a bus, about a kilometre from the city centre. He noticed that the bus was not moving an inch. It took him a few minutes to pull his head out of his book and look out to see that there were taxis as far as the eye could see. More minutes passed. Still no movement. Word went around that a taxi driver had apparently been murdered, and all the Warsaw drivers had taken the time off work to show solidarity and attend his funeral. Steve asked the bus driver to let him out so he could walk. The driver obliged and Steve began to meander down the road with the sun on his back, penetrating his skin. He walked all the way in to the city and all the way the cabs were backed up. He stood on a street corner at the centre of town to witness the tail of this procession, and the last of them let off their horns in a display of mateship that Australia, with its so-called culture of mateship, couldn’t rival, as far as Steve could recall. When he arrived, 10 minutes late, he apologised and explained. “It’s ok,” Justyna said. “I saw it too.” “Never see anything like that at home.” “But this is Poland. We have Solidarity.” “I can see that.” “What do you have in Australia.” “Mostly lies and cover-up.” “Really? I don’t believe you. Australia’s a good country isn’t it?” “Nobody believes me when I say stuff about home. But somehow I have this little feeling that I know that I know better than they do.” “But it’s hard for us to believe some things. Everything should be good in the West.” “And that’s what everyone here seems to think. And that just means that we’ve done a great PR job. You know what PR means don’t you?” “Yeah, I guess you’re right. It wasn’t all great in Paris either.” The sun shone down around them as they sat outside, cooled by the shade of the table umbrella. Steve liked to have a viewing platform when he ate and this seemed about as good as any. He liked to observe city life swarming around him as he consumed his food and drink. He glanced back at her. He was happy to be here at least for this moment, with a halfway decent café lunch and an ex-catwalk model. “You know I got engaged last year.” Steve didn’t know, as he hadn’t been in touch with her since the same time the previous year. “No I didn’t know that.” He said. “Yeah, but it ended already.” “I’m sorry. How?” “My boyfriend, he was just as bad as my parents. Always going on and on about things I don’t want to hear. I never want to hear the word ‘anorexia’ again.” “Ok. Anyway, how is the job at the EU commission treating you.” “It’s ok.” “Sometimes I think that the EU is a bit of a totalitarian organisation. It’s not there to make people freer. It’s just going to divide Europe again between the haves and have-nots. You know what I mean?” “Yes, I do.” “I feel sorry for the people who have to be here, who have no choice. I mean I’m here because I want to be here, you understand?” “I understand. You mean the Ukrainians and the Vietnamese and the people who can’t go home?” “Yeah, those people. They’re here because they have to be here. The EU isn’t going to make it any easier for them to stay here. I mean for some of them it will be a good thing, if they are properly established here and can stay on with Polish residency. I think quite a lot of people will get squeezed out and a lot of people are going to be prevented from coming here at all. Europe is tough.” “It is, but at least you can go anywhere you like, because you’ve got something that people need. You’re lucky.” “Yeah, I’m a lucky fuck. Do you think you’ll stay with the EU much longer?” “I don’t know, I hope not too long. I only get paid 1000 zl a month. That’s why I’m living with my parents again. Doesn’t pay like modeling did.” "I bet." Steve looked at his watch. Almost time to go. Lunch dates with good-looking women had that way of disappearing before they’d hardly started. The waiter came around. They asked for the bill and then they got up to leave. Steve kissed Justyna on the cheek as she departed. He returned home and placed a freshly purchased novel upon the shelf. He looked at his book collection admiringly. The pornography collection was stored in a cupboard upon which he’d placed postcards of Polish religious icons and treasures. This was not intended as superstition or sacrilege. He just liked to remind himself of the schism in his personality, the split between the spiritual longing for beautiful things and secular cravings to immerse himself in filth and infamy. After looking through these objects he flicked on the TV. He lay fixated and immobile in front of the box, one cigarette followed by another. Headline followed headline, ad followed ad in a perennial stream, a steady comforting blur. He let it wash over him, unwilling to do anything else. After some three hours he decided he’d had enough of the BBC. He lit another cigarette and flipped the channel.

Twist 1

ONE Steve Houghton, 30, experienced, well-travelled, still good-looking and tidily-dressed, stepped lightly into the Marriott Hotel in Warsaw. He stepped out of the cold and into the warmth. He stepped out of the grey dirty dreariness of a downtown Warsaw street in January and into the sepia toned cleanliness and warmth of the Marriott. He failed to recognise that the Marriott was almost as impoverished as the street outside. For him it represented a tiny piece of Western riches. English newspapers, Cuban cigars, white niggers giving shoeshines, a Versace boutique, “American” steakhouse, expensive coffee house (such a privilege to pay Paris prices here in Warsaw for a hot cuppa), perfumery, jeweller’s. All there in the shopping arcade attached. He’d come in to buy a newspaper. A privilege too to pay more than double the British price for a British newspaper. He read the Guardian. Or more to the point, he was a Guardian reader. Or more to the point he had become a Guardian reader since settling in in Europe, learning a few ropes, finding his own culture. His own ideas about culture. His own cultural reference points. He was a man of culture this Steve. That was what he liked to think. He thought that often. He never told anyone about it, at least not directly. He picked up a copy of the Guardian, glanced at the headlines to see if there was anything worth reading in more depth. He only bought a paper if he found at least 2 or 3 articles that held his attention for a while and were too long to be comfortably read standing. This time there were enough to justify the purchase, the expenditure of 7 zlotys, followed by the expenditure of another 7 and a ½ zlotys on a correctly brewed cappuccino (they didn’t do flat whites, they never did in Warsaw). He sat down and deliberately opened his newspaper. He put the newspaper down and he reached into his pocket for a packet of cigarillos. It was a great privilege to pay 12 zlotys a pack for these small symbols that nobody else smoked. Nobody except Gustaw, but he was special. The coffee arrived just in time. A few seconds after he had lit his cigarillo. He sipped his coffee, puffed his cigarillo, looked around to see if anyone was watching. He went back to his newspaper. He went to the counter to pay. He preferred to leave the money on the table, but they didn't do that here. He went back outside into chilly corridors, walked half-looking past dreary shops and smoky bars. He bought his train ticket and waited in the cold for 15 minutes. He didn’t read his paper at the train station. He didn’t open it up while sitting at the platform. He preferred to look at the big billboards, the grey sky, the pigeons gathering. He boarded, sat down in the interior cold, watched his breath form in front of his face. For 45 minutes he looked out the window at the snow, observed the increasing depth the further you moved from the city. He then departed and started walking to the office, crunching through the snow that was starting to ice up underfoot. All was quiet out here, even quieter than Warsaw in the snow which also seemed fairly placid under a snowy blanket. A few birds were sitting in tree branches, conserving their energy. He trundled up to the office and let himself in, as one of the privileges of his job was a key to the office door. He stamped his feet on the doormat, instinctively felt his face which had turned icy. Out of the cold and back into the warmth. It was a fairly rudimentary office, this- a computer with no internet connection and one long table which served as a desk for teachers to prepare their lessons. The secretary was in the office, and no other teachers. He was beatifically glad of this and deeply hoped that this situation would last for at least an hour, or maybe the rest of the afternoon. He started talking to her about the Polish language, and about the difficulties he faced in trying to learn it, and about how he needed somebody to help him with translations. He said he had a Polish magazine and could she explain what some things meant. She agreed. He pulled the magazine out of his bag. It contained a series of semi-nude pictures of a well-known fashion model. She giggled just a little when she saw it, then got to work on translating. It didn’t matter what the words meant, he just needed to see her reaction to the pictures. He pulled out another magazine. This contained pictures of men and women having sex. The focus was very sharp on genitalia penetrating genitalia. She giggled a little more, and again set to work in earnest explaining the meanings of the words. This pleased him hugely. He very much enjoyed watching a woman watching the women in the pictures as they got done double and triple and guzzled and slurped. Unfortunately, one of the teachers arrived 15 minutes after they started looking at the magazines together. Steve quickly tidied away the magazine. Mirella less quickly and little red-faced went to the door to let James in. Steve wondered if he would do this again with Mirella, but suspected that he would not. With slightly reddened face and shaking hand Steve greeted James. James gave no indication that he was suspicious of anything. Mirella returned to the staff room, gave a secret smile to Steve. Steve had to work now. He had to help James, who was older, and new to teaching, and difficult to help. He had to help James prepare his lessons. James was a junior teacher, Steve was the senior teacher, and thus had a responsibility to help the other teachers, all of whom were very junior. Steve was a good teacher, or so he’d been told. Steve was good-looking, or so he’d been told. Maybe these two things went together, he hadn’t yet been told. James wasn’t as good-looking as Steve, or so Francis had been told. Yes there had to be a connection somewhere. James wasn’t as well-dressed as the other teachers. Nobody had been told. It was something they knew without needing to be told. Another possible connection. Steve helped James prepare his lessons, or tried to, then he prepared his own lessons, then he crunched through the snow for the ten minute walk to the school, which was a state school, Polish, in this town of Komonow they found themselves in, about 25 kilometres from Warsaw and is sometimes called “the Beverley Hills of Poland” because well known Polish actors tended to live there. Someone said that perhaps this was a reflection of Poland rather than Beverley Hills. Perhaps the schools in Beverley Hills were a little more well-appointed than the school (not schools, there was only one) in Komanow. Nobody could be sure, except for Michael, because he was the only 1 of the 4 teachers at their school who had actually been to Beverley Hills. And he probably hadn’t been into any of the schools because he’d lived in a different Los Angeles neighbourhood. Steve set his books on his desk. He had 4 lessons to teach. The first lesson was English, the second lesson was English, the third lesson was English and the fourth lesson was English. The children came into the class. They were 12 or 13 years old. Their English was near non-existent. Many of them seemed to have learning disorders, or maybe that was 12 and 13 year olds. Steve had problems controlling their behaviour. Just 12 and 13 year olds. The next group came in, an hour later. These were 5 and 6 year olds. Steve had had problems controlling this group- even more than with the 12-13 year olds, but not any more. Mirella, the secretary, came in to ensure that the behaviour problems would cease, and they did cease, so Mirella kept coming back to make sure they didn’t return to blight the atmosphere of the lesson, and indeed this strategy worked as the children were afraid of Mirella, even though she was only 19 and pretty and more innocent-looking than the porno girls. They feared Mirella because she spoke Polish, and she had a direct line to their parents and she let them know all about it, and she hissed at them if they started stirring too much or speaking to each other too much in Polish. Steve liked to call this game good cop/bad cop. Mirella was the bad cop. This made the other teachers laugh. They said they could not imagine Mirella being anybody’s bad cop. But they weren’t 5 years old and Mirella wasn’t anybody’s bad cop, but she was their bad cop. The next class came in, 50 minutes later. Just a short lesson for the brief attention span of the 5 and 6 year olds. Steve thought that perhaps their attention span didn’t reach as far as 45 minutes. You could never be completely sure in this game, this crazy caper. They were older, this next class- teenagers and a very attractive 20 year old, Iza, who was easily as pretty as any of the porno girls, and neither more nor less innocent-looking. No doubt she’d been pumped a few times, she looked as if she’d been broken in and Steve hoped that she would want more, but never admitted it, at least not to her. He just sat back and looked at her pretty face and imagined what he’d like to do to it. He imagined the cream dripping off her face, like in the videos and magazines. Iza smiled that pretty, knowing smile of hers. She’d once said something male-unfriendly, which had upset poor Steve, but she’d been egged on by Kasia, who was a rabid feminist. At least that was how Steve liked to think of her- she was a rabid feminist in Steve’s knowledgeable opinion, his man of the world, well-travelled and somewhat up himself opinion. The last class was uninspiring. No cuties here, no honies, no hot babes, no fuckable young cunts. Just a bunch of middle aged housewives and one young boy of 18. After work a taxi was waiting for them outside the building which whisked them back to Warsaw. Steve stared out the window as the trees and billboards whizzed by. He liked to see the billboards, in their ever-increasing numbers as the taxi approached Warsaw. He particularly liked to see billboards with English slogans printed on them. It made him feel that he was doing his job properly. Steve’s girlfriend Ewa was waiting for him when he arrived. She hadn’t cooked anything but she’d ordered pizza. They sat and munched pizza in front of the TV in near silence, flipping channels occasionally. They climbed into bed soon after, falling asleep without having sex. Sex was just for the weekends nowadays, sometimes not even that. He awoke the next morning some time after Ewa had left. He wearily picked himself up and took himself to the shower, then put on some scent and some clothes, flipped on the TV, put the kettle on and started cooking some bacon and eggs. He sat and drank coffee and munched on his fryup while absorbing the day's headlines on BBC World. After he'd finished eating, it took him a while to tear himself away from the television. It was grey outside. The thought of going out there, in the cold grey humidity, the low air pressure, didn't inspire him to leave his comfort zone in front of the television. But eventually some primal force, some urge to keep moving and wandering, dragged him up and out the door. It was cold outside. The snow, which lay six inches deep, had started to thaw today. Little avalanches came down from rooftops. This made him happy. He watched the icicles melting and dripping and crashing down to earth. That made him happy. He wondered how many people got killed every year by falling icicles. The right trajectory and height and weight, to the back of the neck and it would be over in seconds. He kept clear of the rooftops and ledges. He walked down Niepodleglosci looking into the occasional shop window. Perfume shops made him happy. He liked to note the names of the different fragrances, the labels, the marks of status. So many names now, so much information. Sex shops made him happy. They seemed to him a mark of liberty, a symbol of Eastern Europe’s hard-won new freedom. When he travelled to a new city in Eastern Europe he always made a point of investigating the sex shops. It didn’t matter that the selection was poor and the atmosphere grimy. The important thing was that they existed, that they were free to exist. It had always seemed to him that if you wanted porn, it was always available somewhere, even in the dark, repressive days of Queensland in the 1980’s. South Africa lite. He'd read that somewhere as a descriptor of Queensland in the 70's and 80's. The awareness of commercially available, illicit sex went right back to his childhood. This awareness, it made him feel as if he had grown up in a culture that was corrupt to its core. As he walked, thoughts of the present kept coming to mind. He very much liked to focus on his present existence. This made him happier than any other happiness he could think of. He would note the smells of each season, and the different types of happiness each would bring. The happiness brought by grey-black skies, drizzle, snow and blasts of northern wind was quantitatively different from the happiness of clearing skies and suddenly rising temperatures in spring. But always there was that same underlying happiness which came about because of that particular smell: the East European city smell- a dusty mustiness. It was the smell of old Europe which had completely vanished further west. The enduring mustiness was the core note in the particular perfume of the East European city, and laid over it were the shifting scents of each season. Winter was the most subtle, and as far as Steve could tell, reflected most deeply the soul, the atmosphere of Eastern Europe. He knew that he really wanted to become East European, or at least he did in the present moments that he was there. Each present moment brought another happiness, another reminder that he wanted to root himself to this time, this place. If winter was the archetypal season across Eastern Europe, then it most certainly brought with it the archetypal happiness. The happiness that comes from being free to be as sad as you like, of not having to put on airs or professional smiles, of being nice to people when you felt like being nice, and rude when you felt like being rude. He often preferred it when shopkeepers and other professional smilers behaved in a rude or surly or unprofessional way. It reminded him that he was somewhere different. He avoided thinking about the past, or rather, spent so much time concentrating on the present moment that the past was completely displaced. He could never go back to the past, to Brisbane, that town of learned smiles and pseudo happiness. That town where he’d been so unhappy they’d had to lock him away and feed him with different pills the names of which he couldn’t remember because he was too busy concentrating on his current happiness. A town of almost continuous summer and short, psychotic winter. Why did he always get sick in winter there? Could it have been the harsh light, the menacing dry winds or some other thing. Maybe it was the sadness that came from knowing that the winter season was the only time of real beauty or promise, and it would end very very soon. In his last six years in Brisbane Steve had been sent to the hospital three times. Six years in Eastern Europe , no hospitalisations so far, and no chance of any in Winter especially. The deep cold and the wet greyness were calming, rather than winter Brisbane’s sharp, disturbing brightness which kept one awake at night, listening to the crackle of electricity in the air. * Weekends found him in the Drink Bar on Wspolna. It was a tiny place, this Drink Bar- a small hole in the wall lit by candles and draped with oriental fabrics. He would meet Gustaw there, and Max and Edmond and Jim. Gustaw and Max were Polish, Edmond English and Jim was Canadian. But this was unimportant really. Steve didn’t think of them as being from any particular place. They were here, now, and that was the important thing and they were citizens of this planet like him and they had no permanent ties to any particular place like him. One thing that was important was that Edmond didn’t like to be called Edmond, or rather nobody ever called him Edmond. Just Eddie, or Ed, or a combination of the two. Gustaw lit a cigarillo, sipped his whisky on ice and observed the babes. Eddie, or Ed, smoked a cigarette, sipped from his pint glass and observed the babes. Jim laughed raucously, took another swig of beer and observed the babes. Max came back from the bar with another beer, slapped Jim on the shoulder and observed the babes. Steve pulled out another cigarillo, drank the froth off the top of his beer and observed the babes. Someone said “There are some nice looking babes here tonight.” Someone raised their glass, clinked with the others and said “Here’s to live sex on stage.” He didn’t say that because of any live sex that was on any stages. There was no live sex and no stage in the Drink Bar. He said it because someone else, who wasn’t in the bar at that moment, had started saying it as a toast and everyone else followed suit. Or at least everyone who knew anyone who had been connected closely with Jason had followed suit. Jason’s closest friends and regular drinking partners followed suit and then the closest friends of Jason’s closest friends had followed suit. There were quite a few suits being followed around town, oft used phrases which had been introduced to the city by a single English speaker and had spread, like a virus, around the city. For example Steve’s oft-quoted “Yeah right”, which was always said in a particularly dismissive, sarcastic drawl to indicate disbelief or disgust, which Max had then grabbed tightly hold of and promulgated to all of his many “friends”. How successful he’d been in introducing this phrase into the lexicon of Polsko-Angielski was perhaps debatable, at least it hadn’t come back to Steve yet from the mouths of any Polacks, but there was no denying the valiance and sincerity of Max’s attempt to infect people with that particular bit of Australian. The reference to live sex on stage was no doubt in part an allusion to the fact that there indeed some pretty nice looking babes in this joint tonight. No shortage of hot young tots tonight Steve thought. Unfortunately he always had a problem in Warsaw picking up girls in bars. They dressed sexy, these girls. They looked a little submissive, these Polish girls that panted and purred and teased and tantalized with their make-up, their short skirts and pumps and heavy perfume. And yet, and yet, their defences went right up when you approached them in a bar. Where did all that distrust come from? 40 years of communism? Maybe it was something even deeper than that. Something profoundly lodged in the paranoid Polish mindset, land of occupation and partition and deportation and of Auschwitz-Birkenau. When Steve met girls to fuck he met them at work. They were his students (most commonly) and his fellow teachers (more infrequently). Just how many had he had while he was on one-week conferences, or when Ewa was away at her parents’ on weekends or holidays. Hmmm, maybe 5 or 10 or possibly more over the last year or two. He wondered if there was anything exceptional in that. Most of the Polish males he met were aged 25-40, married and alleged they were always faithful to their wives. He wondered just how much they were lying and how many. He couldn’t say for sure. He did suspect that a good number of the women he slept with were lying to him about being faithful most of the time. They claimed they were usually virtuous and good, but he couldn't really buy it, otherwise why would any of them bother with him? They pressed on with their beers, their cigarettes and whiskies and cigarillos. As the pace of babes entering the drink bar began to decelerate and the pace of those exiting began to accelerate, they came to a democratic decision to move on to another place. A place with more babes than the Drink Bar. A place with more light than the Drink Bar. A place with more space than the Drink Bar. A place with more noise than the Drink Bar. They left the bar and staggered out into the snow, wandering a few hundred metres down the road to Ground Zero, so named because it had once been a nuclear bunker. It seemed appropriately desperate and sleazy for the time of evening and state of inebriation. They made their way down into the bowels of the club, in the underground bunker, ordered some more beers and observed the babes. Steve left the bar at 4 in the morning. He walked home, approximately 2 kilometres, through wet, dark streets. This made him happy. It relaxed him to take long walks in Warsaw and found that it cleared his head. His head needed clearing this night. As he started walking his mind was filled with thoughts of rage, which may have been the result of an excess of drink. He walked past darkened shops, blackened buildings and flickering neon. He returned to an empty flat. The TV went on, a cassette went into the VCR. His wallet was opened, a small calling card that had been retrieved from under the wiper of a car was extracted. A phone number was called. Steve waited. He’d been told he would have to wait 20 minutes. 20 minutes became 45 minutes. The doorbell rang. A large man appeared in his doorway, blocking out the light from the hall. He took Steve’s money. A small girl appeared from the shadows. She entered the room as the man withdrew. “How old are you” was always the first question. She said she was 23. He’d been promised 20, but decided not to say so. She removed her clothes expertly and lay down on the bed. Steve told her what to do. She did it. He watched. Then he told her what he wanted to do to her next. She let him do it. Then he told her something else. She didn’t let him do that, so he didn’t do it. She was small but she was strong, he could tell by the way she had flicked his hand from her head. He showed respect. He was finished after 20 minutes. He’d paid for an hour, so they lay on the bed, and smoked and talked for 40 minutes, until the doorbell rang again. She told him about her child, a boy, who was six years old and lived in Czestochowa with his grandparents. He told her about travel and places he’d been, and about his friends. He told her about one friend of his who took pictures. He showed her the pictures, which were taken in India. They showed street people, people in Calcutta streets. They were portraits, close-ups of the face. She said they were “super”. She hadn’t said that about the video he’d been watching when she came in. She had told him to turn it off. He’d respected that. When she left, she asked if she could keep one of the pictures. He let her. She asked for his name and an address for correspondence. He gave her his email address. She didn’t understand that. First he said “email” then he said “internet”, remembering the billboards that had that word on them. “Ah, internet”, she said, but he knew that she wouldn’t be sending him too many emails. They both had all their clothes on when they said goodbye. He started to cry then. “I’ve got a lot of problems”, he said. “What problems”, she said. He didn’t say. She hugged him a little, then left. He went to bed and fell asleep, feeling relaxed after having released several different types of bodily fluid. Sometimes he didn’t fall asleep very quickly. It was at those times that he wished that someone would enter his room with a gun, and put 2 holes in the back of his head. He lay face down, imagining the pleasant release that the shots would bring, but it never came. Steve was not usually a morbid person, except at those moments when he was waiting in vain for sudden death, or when he had a large hangover to take care of. Sunday’s hangover was a big one, the result of 5 pints of beer consumed at the Drink Bar and three more at the disco bar. The forces of gravity always seemed far heavier at such moments. He found it difficult to move around. His step lost its lightness. For some reason he felt older. He often locked himself in his room on Sundays. He always felt even more depressed if Sunday was an inviting, clear, warm day. He would stay in his room, in the darkness, with his television, his books, his fridge full of food. * Ewa returned at six o’clock on Sunday evening. He’d done his best to make himself presentable to her. Had showered, napped, removed the smell of beer and perfume and pussy from his body and breath. He always imagined her embracing him, stepping back, taking a haughty sniff in the air and announcing “you smell of bitch” every time he was guilty of something. But she never did, even when he really reeked. No sex this weekend. That would be Ewa’s solution for any problems she might now have. It always seemed to be that her usual solution to any type of stress was to withdraw from sexual contact. He could feel that this was going to happen tonight. “How were your parents”. He said, not being able to think of anything better to say. “Not bad. OK.” She said, also quite lost for words. It was not a topic they enjoyed talking about. Steve had a problem with them. He thought that his main problem with them was that they existed. He’d told Ewa that once, at which point she’d started to cry. At that particular moment he didn’t mind. He felt that she could do whatever she wanted but decided not to tell her so, instead opting to put his arm around her and say “sorry” He had prepared a hot meal for them both. That was his usual weekend consolation to her, his way of making up for the late nights, the unwashed dishes, the absence of any housework throughout the week. She didn’t thank him for this. Giving thanks was not one of her stronger points. He remembered how, two years earlier when they’d started going out together, he had taken her to expensive restaurants, and paid, and not received a word in thanks. He couldn’t expect it now. They ate in silence. Food seemed a good buffer, a way of ensuring that no unpleasantness in the form of conversation may take place. It was a way of protecting them against each other. The television was the other buffer against communication. Steve made a point of leaving it on any time he was in the room. They had cable. 60 channels, here in the east they’d learned to become competitive. Watching the BBC world service, or CNN or MTV here in Warsaw made him feel that he was connected to something much bigger than himself. He flipped the buttons on the remote, trying to find a pleasant tune or an interesting news headline. If there was nothing else worth watching he tended to gravitate towards BBC. This represented culture to him. It represented a balanced world view, being savvy and up to date and politically correct. He could watch it for hours, letting the torrents of information wash over him. Later they lay down in the bed, she with his back turned to him. He embraced her from behind, tried to convince her to turn in his direction. “Come here”, he said “I am here,” she said. He tried a few more times then gave up. He grabbed his cock, tugging with his back turned to her, operating quietly in the hope that she would not notice. He knew she wouldn’t mind too much even if she knew what he was doing, but he didn’t want to cause her even the slightest bit more alarm or distress. She didn’t notice, or if she did, she didn’t do anything to indicate she’d noticed. Most of the time it seemed to him that she preferred to remain indifferent, oblivious to what was going on around her. "Niewiem," was a word she often used. In Polish it meant "I don't know." However, he detected a subtext which read "I don't want to know." Underneath that he could make out another subtext which said "Fuck off."

Step 2

High school began and the hormones really started to kick in. The girls' legs in their shortish high school skirts were instantly arousing. There were some girls in my class I just never tired of perving at or fantasizing over. I hadn't quite discovered masturbation yet but it wasn't far off. I was always dreaming of what a sexual conquistador I would be when I grew up. I liked to indulge in some fairly outrageous sexual fantasies, though at other times my yearnings were soft and romantic. I couldn't really wait to become sexually active.

Step 1

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I want to start by asking you something about pop music. Is it just me or is everything really shit? I mean Lady Gaga what the fuck is that? I used to think that it couldn't have got any worse when the whole boy band craze happened. Ever noticed how the names of those boy bands always had something to do with their relationship with their managers? The backdoor boys. Take that up your arse. New skids on the cock. Yeah you know if you substitute the word love for drugs in a lot of pop songs they start to make a lot more sense. I give more drugs to you. Everlasting drugs. All you need is drugs.

Yeah but I'm not really here to talk about pop culture am I? What's standup if not a reflection of the fucked up life of the person standing in front of the audience. Or the fucked up audience standing in front of the comic. So for 17 years I've been teaching English to foreign students. You have your good days and your bad days, then you have your reminder days. Like the time when someone in the elevator says "how can you stand teaching them all day long, they're so dopey." I think she might have been on a bit of a racist thing. I mean the building our school occupied was anzac house after all. Most of our students look like the people diggers had been sent overseas to kill. I think most of them survived.

It's not good to stereotype is it? This cliche that asians are all nerdy and studious and smart. Not true at all. I wish some of mine were. At least one of the above anyway. Well some of them are a bit nerdy I suppose. Some of them do have a sense of humour I guess. Like there was one who was telling me he was in a bar, Korean fella he was. He sees this Polish girl he thinks is hot, wants to hit on her but won't make the first move. Later he says "She was very nice, but she doesn't like me because I am fucking asian. Why am I fucking asian."

But at least they give you a bit of respect. Unlike here teachers actually have social standing in asia, as do old people and heterosexual males. Fuck what am I doing in australia? Well you know I got a job, a kid, a one bedroom rented flat. Livin the aussie dream mate. My kid is half thai anyway....and her half sisters on thailand are half chinese/malay. Gets kinda complicated doesn't it? life...

But no point worrying about the complications. Got to focus on the good stuff right? What's the best party you've ever been to eh? Mine was my 30th. I had it in Poland, in Warsaw. Yeah I lived there for a few years anyway...invited all the teachers, all the students. Huge bunch turned up at this big old place that was just so, wreckable. Proper party house. My boss gave me a good present. He gave me a little bag of his favourite home grown buds. How many people can say they have a boss who would do that for you eh? Yeah I bumped into one of my students a few days later in the street. I said "jakub, why didnt you come to my party?" he says I did, I gave you a bottle of champagne and everything." One of my friends was heading home and he was with some girls and one says "if there's stars in the sky how can it be raining". course it wasn't raining, someone was just standing on the balcony giving them a shower. Was quite a chunky shower I heard. I ended up going home with some Russian girl. My girlfriend was really impressed with that I can tell ya. When I got home the next day I tried to sneak in quietly, thinking she'd be asleep. Of course she's wide awake and she says "where the FUCK were you last night". I made up some bullshit excuse and she kinda dropped it after telling me she didn't believe me anyway. Then my mates called much later in the day and asked the same question about my disappearance and I told the same bullcrap story and they said "really?? we thought u were fucking that russian slapper!!"

These days it's so common to meet people online. But I remember...I remember when cyberdating belonged to the realms of the internet badlands. And I was a badlands rider if ever there was one. Yeah hustling, sex addiction, I mean why does get all the attention from the newspapers? I'm sure they'd love to write a piece on me sometime wouldn't they? Just don't know where to look for a good story. Something along the lines of "unknown english teacher goes online looking for sex". Well it's a start.

My story is perhaps typical, perhaps not. From the little I've read of other gamblers' stories it seems that many of them don't really have a life, have never had a life. I was a bit over forty before I really came to gambling, so I had opportunities to do other thing before it became an all consuming obsession. As I was walking home today I was thinking of all the things I have done. Things most other gamblers might envy. I've travelled overseas repeatedly and far and wide, from Asia to Europe and up and down the east coast of Australia. Become a competent skier and skied in four different countries. Begun to raise a child. Had a professional career, been well educated. Rooted gawd knows how many females. But like all gamblers I've had my problems and they never get better. Those machines are animals with endless and insatiable appetite. Fierce and predatory animals with no conscience. Once they've been set free in the wild as they are in Sydney, who knows how they will evolve? One thing is for sure, once you're in their maw they will take everything. All your cash and everything you have available on credit. It wouldn't be such a problem if you never won. If that happened you would never play pokies. But they let you have a win occasionally, give you the sweetest winning streaks that convince you that you can just keep winning and then they make their move, taking back all your winnings plus the same again in interest until you can't chase your losses any more.