Willy Nilly

Summer crashes over us. Reassuring odours of hobo remind me that decay is life just above room temperature. Now, we are all funky. Humidity holds air in bunched fists, in the shade, waiting to be drunk. The car guard has lost an eye and fingers in some great unfairness.

I’m outside the Sexpo, marvelling at the queue of conservatives — an hour in the sun so they can hurl disapproval and tweak their secret nipples. The conspiracy is barely containable, and escapes in hysterical bursts. The line crackles with the static of broadcasted false confidence. People who get laid don’t burn witches.

I am reminded of sage advice from a well-read lady boy:

“Nobody bangs like a bigot, baby.”

The aisles are pop art. Row upon row of flavoured lube begs to slip inside and stretch passing narrow minds; around a corner and a dildo-bomb has gone off — an explosion of colour, design and purpose. Vaginas or unreasonable facsimiles thereof pout and promise. I don’t know how I could fuck a wobbly mass of jelly alone in my lounge and not feel like the saddest man I know — apart from the shaved old circus performer who forlornly smears paint with his dick. I try and engage him, but he’s really more surreal than he looks — jaded beyond speech, a caged lion who’s lost his lion-ness.

Just then, a man in a wheelchair rolls up; eye level with the quivering rubber fuck-butt 2000. He pauses and then casually jams a finger right into the plastic puckered knot. It takes a while for the shudders to subside. I’m surprised to feel happy for him.

“Spirit” passes by, a 70s surfer’s latex dream — he’s ecstatic under his idol’s skin. She’s a dead-faced girl, and his spittle betrays his presence as he speaks from inside her. We bump the transparent church man out of the way — his bullish attempt to be hip disregarded as a used condom, walked over — he is a teaspoon of impotence amongst these real, agenda-less humans being.

Then the soulful and vegetarian Amazon joins in respectfully — they tell me she’s a formidable citadel-keeper who’s stared death in the face, and there’s her slick, faceless slave. Even he is quick to peel off his mask and I get his vibe. I know friends when I see them, and they’re here — open, bright, gentle souls — gawked and clucked at by headmasters and i.t. project-leads with porn and theme-butt plugs in discreet bags.

Someone hands me a herbal hard-on in a sachet — no horn for me, but the rhino keeps his — so we’re still friends.

I move past the cool priest waiting to marry people at the chapel behind the inflatable cock-mountain, and over to the bondage folks in aisle one. They flog a friend lovingly. A flock of oohs and aaahs, “oh, don’t be ridiculous” pass by, credit cards smoking.

The binding man and I chat, realising that we share ground — rubber suits, constriction, controlled breathing and a very attentive partner — bdsm is scuba on land. The nudists are chatty, which is comforting, but not big on hugs.

I turn to leave, and the preacher’s wife is expedient beyond thought, manifesting through a cloud of tipsy sex tourists. She presses a book into my hand — “I want you to have this as a gift” — I note the double-edged blade she holds, and how both edges face me. I look down, and the title is predictable:

“Don’t waste your life.”

I want to return the favour, one from my library, but there are no copies of:

“Stop spending thirty grand a month on billboards for god — he doesn’t need you to put him first — he was here before you arrived, and he was just fine, apparently, or haven’t you read the book he had written for him by judgemental nutjobs just like you? Now why don’t you and your snake-oil business partner husband pack your smarmy self-hell bags and go hang out somewhere else, you’re making the honest freaks feel uncomfortable.”

Left, we must have sold out. She’s looking at me unblinking. Her nerves are so swollen, she can’t see that she’s standing on mine, poor thing. I wonder if she’ll get the connection between Christians at Sexpo and “the sermon on the mount”. Nope.

She tells me they do “services” at a comedy club on Sundays — the humour is lost on her, but I know God is giggling — because She invented funny …