Playing Victim

It started with a fire-react on Insta. Celeste knew she fire-reacted way too often (one hundred times a day? More?). This guy however replied.

Michal. Skinhead: shaven-headed, but not naturally bald—making all the difference. He had the dark cruel formal baseline of dark stubble which marked out prominently his forehead and temples and mirrored the dark stubble on cheekbones, jawbone, which themselves spoke of extensive Mewing. Though she knew heart and soul he hadn’t needed to Mew, wasn’t a looksmaxxing success, was all original, ex ovo, a natural phenomenon, like the glorious blaze of a perfect sunset. His venous arms were tattooed and had silver rings and he wore boxy shirts showing a slight hint of tanned midriff and his jorts were baggy and his keys were attached to them. He had wired headphones.

Thank you.

i see handsome i click like, what can i say

Well thanks. Nice being appreciated.

okay be honest. when you saw id fire reacted did you stalk my photos?

Yeah, aha

well and?

Hot ngl

thats the reaction i like to incur

Incur, lol. Teaching me new words

you dont know incur?

I do now. English isn’t my first language

it seems like it is

That’s kind

im a kind kinda girl

You in London too?

yh based in stepney atm wbu

Ah cool, I’m only in Mile End

why dnt we take it offline then? i know a place that does good orange wine

I dislike orange wine intensely

me too. sounds like a date

Before replying to her again, he sent a disappearing message. She opened it. Abs, Calvin Kleins, and something fulsome.

wow

He deleted the disappeared pic.

I’m sorry. I should have asked if you’re cool with that

i am cool with that Michal

Really? I’m sorry.

well yh. i screenshotted it

You did?

yh

Sure?

*

On the day of their date, Celeste put huge thought into the carelessness of her clothes. She thought for instance that to have chipped nails would suggest she was cool, climbing-cool or doesn’t-give-a-shit-cool, so she didn’t get them done, and was anyway too overdrawn to pay her Laotian nail girl (she further hoped Michal would be getting the bill; it was a test of sorts, but also a necessity). Her Nike jacket was a men’s large, and full of moth holes. Through one of these she stuck her thumb, thinking it looked coquettish or e-girlish or whatever other impression she thought she should want to make. She wanted to look youthful.

He was already there, sat outside with his back to the plate window, silver sunglasses on. His muscular skull, his Veeted chest out under a paint-stained Carhartt shirt. His silver rings. His pleated shorts and his long white socks and his oxblood loafers and his hairless muscular tanned Slavic legs, the calf muscles each a hard sphere. He was reading a Fitzcarraldo: Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico, the only book any man in East London had ever heard of. He hadn’t yet ordered.

“Hey Michal,” she said, blundering in on him. He looked up fast, not startled but not calm. As he was about to stand she took the metal Tolix chair next to him—not in front of him, but by his side. He stayed sitting—she kissed his cheek.

“Nice to properly meet you Celeste,” he said with a finger in his book. He put it on the placemat, open, text down, saving his page. “Easy journey?”

“Fuck all the small talk shit. Tell me about your book.” She snuck an arm around his shoulders.

“Aha, well I’ve only just started it. It’s about Berlin.”

“A book can’t be about Berlin—what are the themes, characters, emotions, personalities? Heartbreak, agony, death, life, love?”

“I haven’t got into their characters very deeply yet.” Michal laughed. She knew he was enjoying her bluff sense of reality. Forthright, no-nonsense, merciless. Prevarication was detestable.

“Yours then. Tell me about your life and why you live here and everything about you. Like presumably you aren’t from London if England isn’t your first language, not that I’m from London—have we ordered a drink? I’ll have anything, I don’t care at all, I like all things. I’m getting the vibe of like, Poland, Albania? You have an incredible brow and jaw but you’re also tanned. Or maybe you just go on holiday a lot, like I dunno. Tell me.”

They talked, drank, flirted, touched—Celeste with most of the words and Michal with most of the allure. Her method was bombardment. His was a poise of apathy, of leaning back, of moving aside knees and hands. Because he pretended he didn’t want it, she wanted it more. They only needed the one bottle before she was saying, “Mine or yours?”, and they settled on hers, not far on foot, walking interlinked the whole way.

Fumbled drunken sex (chill, relaxing, nothing like the usual). An appropriate dick; those abs again. Michal’s trick, if he had one, was biting the ears. He bit her nipple and she squealed, though she loved it, and in return she bit his, and he looked irritated or nonplussed. Et cetera, et cetera. He slept in her arms.

In the morning he had to run to work and got up late without an alarm saying, “Oh shit Celeste, oh shit,” and throwing his clothes on and running to her door and running back to kiss her on the mouth and running back and out and closing her door gently. She giggled to herself and fell back into the deep pillows. They smelled of Michal. Boy shampoo. Something cheap—something reassuring.

Four or five minutes after he left she messaged him on Insta:

so weve been talking all this time and been on a date and I dont know what it is you do

I’m a DJ

that your day job?

I’m also in social media marketing for this fashion house

so thats your day job

That’s where I’m headed to now, yeah

thats sick. Why did you lead with DJ?

Isn’t DJ more sick?

more sick, i mean it isnt a competition

What do you do?

nothing much

At this, he didn’t reply. She guessed he was going underground, getting on the Tube. She imagined him unpacking his little Fitzcarraldo book from his roll-top rucksack and folding back the covers, reading it in one hand, his legs spread, pissing off the others sat next to him. Sweaty and rushed and on his way to work again in the same clothes as the day before.

Twenty minutes. Thirty. No reply. Forty. She texted again.

i hope youre not triggered by the fact i dont have to work

Nah

He left he convo there. She once more followed up:

i have rich family who feel guilty they got divorced and were lowkey abusive and so spend all their money on me like renting my flat and giving me an allowance. just so you dont start wondering

And—presumably off the Tube by now and into the office, making his first coffee at the machine or leaning on a colleague’s desk with his vascular forearms in their face, chitchatting about their days, perhaps chitchatting about her, Celeste, perhaps detailing her flat or the date or the wine—he didn’t reply.

At midday she sent him a tasteful nude. He opened it, but didn’t message. She left it ten minutes. Seventeen minutes. Then she said:

so youre allowed to send one but im overstepping if i do? im like too slutty for you now? its giving manosphere

No, it was really hot, I’m just with my boss

whatever

Celeste posted a Substack Note about the snowflake generation of gen-Z boys who could give but couldn’t take, who wanted to fuck you but wouldn’t reply to your nudes if it inconvenienced them. It got two likes in half an hour and she deleted it. Somehow she felt that Michal might see.

*

“Yo, you shouldn’t say retard,” Michal said.

“I thought it was back.”

“It still isn’t nice, Celeste.”

“Okay Michal, you’re the arbiter of virtue.”

“I’m really not. I’m just saying if you had a brother or a sister with Down’s or something. You could get upset.”

“In theory if this hypothetical thing happened in theory then this thing would happen.”

“Well yeah, I said if.”

“If I sucked you off in the toilets right now what would you say?”

“What?”

“Not what would you say after. What would you say to it now, as a proposition?”

“Like, during the meal?”

“Let’s just say we want five minutes to look at the desserts. You can cum in five minutes.”

“I mean. Okay. Lead on.”

*

Celeste was in bed with Michal on the hottest day of the year. All the flowers in her windowboxes had died. They looked like rows and rows of lost boners. Geranium, zinnia, impatiens. She was tracing a finger through the soft brown hair of his snail trail. It was possibly the place with the longest hair on his body. They were naked and the sheets were flu-like with spent sweat.

Michal was looking down at her, and continued what he’d been saying. “I just wanna be really really clear. Like I don’t want to lead you on. At all. I think you’re a really nice girl and obviously really hot. Our sex is great. But I’m not quite ready to be ‘dating’ again, after my ex.”

“Why were you replying to me on Insta then? Why the original thirst trap?” she said, facing away from him, her head on his chest.

“Well. Yeah, I’m sorry Celeste. I was kinda feeling the need for validation to get over feeling alone?”

“It is a bit—well, if you’re not ready. It’s suggestive. You know. People get ideas. I thought, well you asked me on a date.”

“You asked me on a date, just to be clear.”

“I don’t recognise that version of our history.”

“That’s what happened.”

“You sent me a nude.”

“And I regret that. I’ll be totally honest, I really regret that.”

“So what then?”

“So where do you want things to go?”

“To go on as they are, with a vaguely upward trajectory, perhaps towards something maybe.” At this Celeste flipped her head round so that she was looking up and right at him. The blowjob angle.

“I was sort of thinking: flatline.”

“Flatline? Like a dead person. Like someone who’s dying in a hospital.”

“I mean like a graph. Going on, but not up. Shagging. I mean, friends with benefits if that would be acceptable to you. And I fully understand if it’s not.”

“I don’t think it is.”

Michal lifted himself with his elbows, propping his back against her pillows, and at the same time dislodging her head. She sat up, crosslegged. He said, “So you want to end things?”

“No, you’re obviously misconstruing me.”

“But?”

“I want things to progress, you want things to stay as they are. Neither of us wants things to end.”

“I would rather things end than be seen to lead you on.”

““Be seen to”, really Michal?”

“For guys perception matters.”

“Oh, and it doesn’t for women, it never has, there’s never been such a thing as a woman being perceived sexually in a demeaning way, being called a slut or a whore or harlot or slag? No? Life has been perfect for women since Neolithic times when the cavemen gave us the right to vote and did not objectify us ever—”

“You know I don’t mean—”

“D’you know what, why don’t you just take yourself off home. Cos I can’t really stand to look at you just now.”

“I’m sorry. I’ll go.”

He quickly dressed, thrusting his legs into cargo shorts. He put his rings back on. He placed a cap on his head, grabbed his bag, and went to the door.

Celeste said, “So you’re just gonna go?”

“Well that is what you just suggested, yeah.”

“You’re not supposed to actually go.”

“No, but I think it might be healthy if I actually do. I’ll see you later. Take care of yourself Celeste.”

And he closed her front door.

*

hey, just wondering what you’re up to this week? ive been so busy with my flat move and everything. would be nice to catch up xx

Hours later, Michal messaged:

Hope it went well!

yh, did thanks, though one of the removal guys was an absolute prick. everything is fucking damaged lmao im fuming. ill tell you about it in person. pints at the saracen’s head?

*

He was drifting from her. The texts were growing lifeless. It was terrifying. She decided to increase her intensity in order to counteract the loss of his.

sooo, im going to this gig tonight in peckham if you wanted to come? i have a spare ticket cos my mate dropped out

Ah, sorry I’ve actually got something on. Enjoy though.

Perhaps it wasn’t clicking for him because of something to do with her body. Celeste meant to remedy it. She was up at five thirty the following morning, straight to the gym then straight to the treadmills and from then straight to the hip thruster, the glute kickback machine—she thought it was yes because she was a skinny white girl and he’d been seen to like the Insta pics of tanned, Latinx, curvaceous, BBL women, women, not girls, therein the point, there the whole point—she was too slight fey impish and cutesy and he wanted someone rawer, domme, with a bit of chaos in her, a bit of wilderness in the soul or untamed bucking energy. Yes, to be buckaroo’d in bed, she would like his liking that, yes. Whenever she did spin classes to work off the final 5% of tummy fat she was pleased because she was able to text Michal at the same time as riding.

*

“Please send it to him.”

“Isn’t it time to cut your losses and move on, Celeste? Like if Michal’s blocked you, isn’t that a pretty clear indication that you’re not what he’s into?”

“Well it certainly wasn’t the case when we were fucking that he wasn’t into me.”

“I know, but I mean personality. Character. And anyway he’s a boy and his mind might have changed.”

“If you’d just send it for me, then I’d know for sure, then I can be done with him and wash my hands if he doesn’t reply and it’ll be over? Just to check. Maybe he’s done it by accident or on a whim.”

“Yeah. I’ll do it for you, as a friend. But he isn’t going to reply.”

*

Well she knew where the fashion house was—one of the grand tree-shaded squares London revelled in, dusty and full of leaves the shape of splayed fingers. Fortunately she clocked that opposite his work there was a café, with awnings and parasols and al fresco dining. She could blend in too because there were dozens of likeminded girlies with likeminded laptops and iced coffees—this was decidedly not a place of matcha, she saw—and tote bags of various defunct literary magazines who wore their activewear to Zoom calls and their ponytails through backwards caps. So she set up base camp. It was only six quid for an iced coffee and she could drink them as slowly as once an hour and all the while stay staring at the revolving doors of his office and wait to see if he could be intercepted.

Michal came out around 1 p.m. —she’d been there hours—with a group of other men who were attractive but not as attractive as Michal. He was taller and stronger and had a carefree bearing to his step which suggested he’d played sports when younger, but Celeste knew he hadn’t, she knew it was just one other part of the natural aristocracy of his body. She got up and rushed over to him, leaving her laptop and coffee and bag.

“Michal! Michal!”

She heard him say to his colleagues, “Oh shit that’s this girl I was seeing.”

Celeste jogged the last steps, putting her hands on her knees performatively, as if out of breath. She wasn’t. She was assured and fresh. “Hey Michal, I just spotted you from over there.” Her arm was waving approximately at the café.

“Hey Celeste. Look, guys I’ll catch up with you. See you in a sec, yeah?” He turned her with his turning, facing them both to the other direction and beginning to walk. “Celeste? What are the chances?”

“I was just about to say the same thing. I was just over there.”

“Yeah, you said. How’ve you been?”

“How’ve you been! I haven’t heard from you in ages.”

“Ah yeah. I’m sorry. I’ve been so fucking busy. I wasn’t trying to be incommunicative. Is that the word?”

“Ghosting, you could say.”

“No Celeste, I wouldn’t do that to you, not to anyone.”

“Well, you kinda did!” she laughed.

“I just needed some space, needed to figure some shit out.”

“Have you figured the shit out?”

“Look, let’s not, please.”

“Okay. So about the dates I asked you on and you never replied?”

“About them. Yeah. Look, I want to be good to you. I was pretty much a coward. Look. It’s like this.”

“Is it now?”

“Celeste. I think we shouldn’t see each other again. I don’t think we’re right, and I’m certainly not in the right head space. And you, I’m not sure. We’re quite manic, both of us, in our own ways. I don’t think it’s gonna add up to anything good.”

“That’s so funny actually, because I think exactly the opposite.”

“I know you do, and look.” He stopped walking, swivelled, grabbed her shoulders softly. “Look, if we’re disagreeing on this then there is no way forward. Because whatever dating is or whatever is to become a relationship has to be mutual. And it’s horrible to say it out loud, but it isn’t quite mutual. I don’t believe we think of each other in the same way.” He took one hand off her and rubbed his eye again and again. “I just—look, it just isn’t going to happen. I’m sorry.”

She was calm, steely, dry. “But I want it to happen.”

“I think I’ve been quite clear, haven’t I?”

“Yes. But I disagree.”

“You can’t disagree I’m afraid.” He took the other hand away, and began to walk, not with her.

“Michal, Michal, come here, come back. We need to talk—you can’t walk off from me, you can’t leave me, you can’t, you can’t do this, what right do you have—?”

His back was growing ever smaller as he paced the square in the direction of his colleagues.

“No, no,” she said, running after him. “No Michal, no.”

“Yes Celeste. Be good to yourself. This is goodbye.”

“No it isn’t. It can’t be.”

*

And because she couldn’t bear not to have someone meant she had to be alone? Celeste deleted everything from her phone, all apps, all memories. She thought of herself as derailing into a period of passionate loneliness—she, the extrovert.

On the website of the fashion house there was an About Us page; on this she found Michal Holoubek, dressed fashionably but formally in a wide-lapelled jacket. She saved the image to her desktop. She then printed the image. She had it on A4 paper and held it to herself in bed awhile, crying, and, eventually, sleeping.

*

A week and one day later, the penultimate day of July, early morning, Celeste set out from home and went to the front door of the building in which Michal rented a flat with friends, and she waited outside the door from 7 a.m. to 8 a.m. to 8.45 a.m., at which time Michal opened the door.

“Celeste?”

“Michal. I just want a quick word.”

“Please—this isn’t right. You’re at my home now. Please do not stalk me.”

He didn’t stop walking.

“No, please, one moment of your time, just one moment’s all I ask.”

“No,” he shouted at her. “No.”

That was the conclusion. His back receded into the distance for the last time.

*

please michal if we could only talk. i totally overstepped so many boundaries and i know that and i want to learn from it. if i could see you it would be really helpful for my growth, even if only for five minutes. even only one minute literally. im new to this and you know all the stuff about your ex and how you didnt want anything serious got to me, because meanwhile heres me thinking this could be it, could he perhaps be The One or some shit because i loved you so much, and still do……… and ppl talk about closure and its always sounded like bullshit but now i finally do understand how much i really need closure…. like i cant bear the thought that it has just ended and im never to see you again, you know? and part of me knows youre not even going to reply to this text so this is a failed attempt at getting closure and i wish it could be more cathartic for me than it will be. just please let me try one more time to be a good person

*

What was there left to her to do?—after she had tried pills, once, half-heartedly? After she had cut her forearm with a Stanley knife left by the movers, less half-heartedly, and sent the photo to him via the one app she wasn’t blocked on, and he hadn’t opened it. How was she supposed to live with this hot pounding agony in head and heart at all hours, telling her things she did not wish to hear, telling her what to do, how to solve it, how it would never be solved, how she was worthless without him?

*

She didn’t have much, but there was the screenshot. She had that as evidence, as backup.

*

She emailed his work, desperate for him, saying it was rape.

*

*

*

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