Sebi
A true story about filling holes
I dated a madman in Indonesia. Only for a couple of weeks, but we saw each other almost every day so it was enough to get a glimpse into the world of a true reprobate. If we’d only had one date I’d never have suspected anything, but over the course of our short relationship sentences would fall out of him that revealed gaping holes in his calm, together exterior. I knew if I peered in closer, or better still, if he really opened up, I wouldn’t be able to believe it.
Let’s call him Sebi. We met one day on a Monday in late February, back when Coronavirus was just a niggling worry rather than a global catastrophe. I’m on the tiny island of Nusa Lembongan, scrolling through Tinder on a sun lounger in my homestay. His Tinder pictures show him diving, watching a sunset with a beer, sunbathing on a beach. When we match I tell him I’ve sunburned my ass surfing and he says he’s got some aloe vera. One hour later, at dusk, he’s outside leaning on his motorbike, waiting.
He kisses me on the cheek. “Wow, you look nice,” he says. That makes me feel good right away.
Sebi’s about 5’11 with slicked-back hair, blond as a Bond villain. His eyebrows are so light they’re barely visible and his eyes are steely blue, stormy almost, darker than you’d expect from someone so fair. His skin is tanned and freckled from the sun, and he has terrible sunglasses perched on his head, blue-tinted and curved, the kind reserved for douchebag uncles and rich nerds. He’s wearing a faded red t-shirt, the type they sold in H&M in 2012, and unfashionable jean shorts that stop just above his knee. If I had to describe him in a single word it would be ‘euro.’
He has a punchable face, smug and douchey, with a thin upper lip and a bottom one that pouts a little as though he’s in a state of perpetual sulk. Honestly, there’s not much remarkable about Sebi, but it’s his torso that decides it for me. His neck is just slightly thicker than average and gives his upper body a well-built, triangular shape that gets an instant tick from my ovaries. They’ve given the thumbs up. It’s on.
He helps me on the back of his bike and we zip through the narrow, unpaved streets of Lembongan. He tells me he’s Belgian but he spent most of his childhood in the States, hence the accent.
He takes me to a nautical-themed bar that looks out over the ocean. It’s dark now but I can hear the water lap against the docked boats and the crack of waves break in the night. Sebi orders a beer, I get a cider, and we commence our first date. I learn that Sebi’s been surfing his way round Asia for the last three months. The first month, he says, he felt depressed because he’d quit smoking, but he stuck it out anyway. I learn Sebi’s 32. He’s a commercial diver, which means he’s basically an underwater construction worker. He left the States when he was 17 and lives in a van in Belgium, moving from dive job to dive job, using gyms for showers and sometimes staying with a half-sister. That’s not to say he isn’t clean – he’s so showered and shaved he’s almost glowing.
When he asks me what I do he leans forward and I notice a tribal tattoo on the inside of one forearm. It’s a terrible tattoo, maybe even the worst I’ve ever seen, until I notice the faded stingray covering half his other hand. That one takes the prize.
“So if you write about night clubs and live in Berlin you must do a ton of drugs,” he says.
I tell him I’m essentially tee-total these days, that I barely drink alcohol, and we move on to chat about surface stuff like travelling and surfing and what it’s like to dive for a living.
I’d been sick that week and at 9:30 I tell him I’m tired and need to get back. He accepts it respectfully, and when I return from the toilet he’s already paid and ready to go. After four years dating German boys who divide up every bill, it seems truly smooth.
I need to get cash out so Sebi drives me round the island waiting patiently on his bike until I find an ATM that works. On our way back to my homestay he asks if I’m sure I don’t want another drink. His t-shirt smells good and his back feels warm. I’m sure, I say. I’m tired. But I tell him I’ll pester him tomorrow. He seems happy about that. When I get off the bike he takes my hand, the soft part just under the wrist, and pulls me towards him. The way he kisses is gentle and confident at the same time, and as I head back to my room I feel relieved. I needed this. I hadn’t got it wrong. It’s on.
———————————-
Nusa Lembongan is a tiny island, about thirty minutes east of Bali by boat. Not many people come here. It’s not big on Instagram like neighbouring Nusa Penida and it’s not a party destination like the Gili’s. There’s barely any hype around Lembongan, but it’s beautiful and understated and the beaches are white sand and the water crystal clear. It takes about twenty minutes to motorbike the circumference, and on the way you’ll catch glimpses of Mangroves draped in the water, ancient Hindu temples and boutique resorts that seem straight out a brochure.
Except for when it monsoons, the sky is always blue and seems a shade deeper and richer than the skies you see in Europe; like someone dialled up the contrast in PhotoShop. The heat, though, can be oppressive. Stand in the sun at midday and it feels like you’re being microwaved. But the mornings are resplendent and it means there’s nothing to do in the early afternoons but nap.
On the main street, near my homestay, there are yoga studios and vegan cafes, rundown restaurants that serve local dishes and fancy ones for tourists that serve pizza and burritos. It’s a creative island, full of music, and every night tattooed locals sit on tiny stages singing Ed Sheeran covers in trilby hats.
But the best thing about Lembongan is the beaches. Jungut Batu, the one near my homestay, is the best in my opinion. That’s where I had the surf lesson that burnt my ass. Three boisterous local instructors took me and two Aussie girls on a boat to a reef break about 1km out to sea. My feet couldn’t touch the bottom but the water was so clear I could see the sand anyway. I attempted and failed to catch three or four waves and spent most of the time paddling to get back to the take-off spot, which left me exhausted and frustrated. I’d been dreaming all year of surfing in the mornings and writing in the afternoons, and this session crushed that dream. But regardless of my personal surf failures, Jungut Batu is beautiful and peaceful and feels like the closest thing this part of Indonesia has left to a secret.
The next morning, on my way back from the gym, I run into Sebi as he heads out on a jog. We chat in that dizzy way you do when you bump into your Tinder date on the street. I feel giddy about him. Not because I particularly like him – we have very little in common actually – but because it was so easy. Tinder for two minutes, and that’s it – an attractive male who helps me get cash out. It’s not so hard after all. We make plans to see each other later and kiss before we go our separate ways. A kiss! Sober! In the daytime! How utterly ridiculous.
That night we meet at his friends diving centre on the beachfront. His friend’s called Mickey, and I’d seen him on Tinder, too. I’d swiped left because he seemed a little too intense – he has long hair on one side, shaved on the other and sharp, angular features. We sit in a three, sipping beers on the white sand as the sun sets.
My instincts about Mickey had been right. There seems to be an air of competitiveness between the two, like Mickey’s trying to make Sebi look bad. They’d got to know each other ten years ago working as dive instructors in Thailand. In retrospect, perhaps, Mickey was trying to give me a head’s up.
“God I’ve got a lot of stories,” Mickey says in a Dutch accent. “Remember how many times I had to get you out of bed for work? How fucked up you got?”
“Yeah,” Sebi says, fatigued.
“He wouldn’t turn up to work and I’d have to drag him out of bed,” Mickey says. “He did it all the time. Didn’t you?”
Sebi stares ahead. Mickey takes a sip of his beer. “What’s that?” He says, pointing to a scab on Sebi’s knee.
“I hit some coral surfing yesterday.”
Mickey looks at me, eyebrows raised. “Probably chlamydia,” he says.
Sebi and I walk up the beach to an empty restaurant. I order bolognese, he gets carbonara and while we wait I ask about where he grew up. Sebi speaks in a soft, American accent. He has the kind of voice that doesn’t ever raise, that stays the same level regardless of emotion.
Tonight I learn that Sebi can’t go back to the States, even though that’s where his parents live. I learn that his family moved there from Belgium when he was two; they lived in a trailer park in Colorado.
Sebi’s angry with America. Despite being blond-haired, blue-eyed, white, he was othered by his community. His eyes flash at the memory of being an immigrant, talked down to by teachers and scoffed at by schoolmates. So when he hit teen-hood he took it out on society in general. “There wasn’t much else to do except drink and take drugs and run from cops,” Sebi takes a sip of beer. He is always drinking beer. “My friends and I ran from cops even if we weren’t doing anything wrong, just to fuck with them.” His eyes thunder at the memory of it.
I learn that growing up, Sebi tried every drug under the sun except heroin. One day, when he was 17, he’d taken a couple tabs of acid and lost his friends. He wandered into a field and found a police car, which he proceeded to smash up with a baseball bat he found lying nearby. His neighbour, a cop, was passing through the area at the time. He chased Sebi into a bush and arrested him. He was jailed for 3 months.
“My dad could’ve bailed me out but he decided not to,” Sebi says. “He’d given me enough chances.”
Sebi feels hard-done-by, that’s for sure. And whether or not this fury at America is justified, I’ll soon learn it’s something he’s clung on to his whole life. He’ll never forgive those teachers for looking down on him or those cops for arresting him and he’ll spend his life rejecting their standards, refusing to behave, just to make a point.
We’re eating our spaghetti now, and Sebi says he doesn’t usually tell people this stuff so early on. “Do you still like me?” He asks. His eyes are soft now, warm even. Of course, I say, before I realise how presumptuous that is, and I tell him I’m not one to judge. His arm is resting on the back of my chair and I put my forearm on top of his. He kisses me in a rush of affection.
I learn his mum has re-married four times and his dad has re-married five times. Sebi’s family is a Rubik’s cube of half brothers and step sisters, step dads and step mums, so complex Sebi gave up on it altogether. When he was released from jail Sebi was put on probation and drug tested at random. He stayed clean for about four weeks and then started hoofing whatever he could get his mitts on with such gusto he was one test away from another prison sentence. With the go-ahead from his dad he decided to break his probation and move back to Belgium. He was 18 then but even now, if he goes back to the States, he’ll be arrested at the airport.
After dinner we go back to his homestay, just a few minutes walk from mine. Its layout is the same – an entrance like a temple, banana trees everywhere, rooms that form a bracket round the swimming pool.
Sebi’s room is stark. His surfboard takes up most of the floorspace and his bed is unmade. His clothes are folded neatly on a chair and on top of the chest of drawers, next to a pile of receipts and coins, sits a 1 litre bottle of Jameson.
We chat on his bed and when he holds my neck and kisses me it feels like I’m melting. His hands are safe and strong and alive with confidence. Sometimes, even when someone isn’t your type, there’s some kind of chemical reaction that just works. It’s on a sensory level – smell, touch, taste. The way their hand feels. On this level, Sebi and I fit together perfectly.
———————————-
The next evening we meet at Mickey’s diving centre again. There’s a bad atmosphere tonight. Something feels sour. Mickey challenges everything Sebi says and then diagnoses a graze on his arm as syphilis. Sebi’s face shadows with anger.
As the sun sets, the conversation turns to drugs. You can do them in Thailand, no problem, Mickey says, but Indonesia’s a massive no-no. “Ever heard of the Bali 9?” Mickey asks. “No? Look them up.”
Sebi’s staring at the sand. “God damn I want to get fucked up.” The sentence is violent and unregulated. Urgent. “Just kidding,” Sebi says, a little surprised at himself. He takes a sip of beer and continues staring at the sand.
Later, on the back of his moped on our way to dinner, Sebi tells me how angry he is with Mickey. “I came here to see him, and he’s been an asshole the entire time. He won’t even give me a lift on his boat to get to the breaks. He’s so fucking rude to me.” He pauses as we cross a loud metal bridge.
“I was going to leave today actually,” Sebi calls over his shoulder. “But I’ve already paid for my accommodation and surf board so I’ll stay until Saturday.”
I feel a sharp jab in my chest as his words sink in. Sebi’s making my time on this island infinitely more enjoyable and I thought I was doing the same for him. But he’s just told me I’m disposable.
Dinner is excruciating. We go to a modern Thai restaurant that’s stacked on stilts over the bay. Sebi’s in a dark mood, totally unfocussed, furious with Mickey. It’s so uncomfortable I go to the toilet twice even though I don’t need to.
For a while we eat and drink in silence. I’m drinking passion fruit mojito, he’s drinking beer. It’s strange how we met only three days ago yet it already feels complicated. We’ve had a nice time, but I know it’s because I adapt to whoever I’m with. He asks me no questions, but the conversation appears to flow because I ask him tons. But if I didn’t pour all my energy into every conversation, it would come to a grinding halt.
After being so open last night, it feels like Sebi’s shut tight like a clam. His eyes are hard and disinterested. Soon I’ll realise the real Sebi only comes out in explosive sentences, ones he doesn’t seem to have control over.
That night he drops the most revealing one yet.
We’re lying in bed. My windows are closed but we can still hear the night outside. The sheets are twisted up and Sebi’s lying with his arm crooked above his head, tribal tattoo on show, ice blue eyes staring up at the ceiling. The conversation, once again, has landed on drugs. “I don’t like clubs that much,” Sebi says dreamily. “And there’s better things to do when you’re on MDMA than party. Like go for a walk in the park or find someone to have sex with.”
Find someone to have sex with. The words echo around my head for days. Find someone to have sex with.
——————————-
I’ve been alone a long time. I don’t mean single, I mean alone. That’s why I change my shape for men. That’s why I click in with Sebi like Lego. I enjoy putting my girlfriend outfit back on, just for fun, and finding out it still fits. Within three days we’ve established a routine. We do our own thing during the day – I write and go to the gym and meet my Swedish friend Hanna – he surfs and goes for runs and naps.
At 6pm, without fail, he WhatsApps:
I’m going for dinner soon
Do you want to come?
I’ll pick you up ok?
The messages are straight forward, no games, more reassuring than any I’ve received in a while. I’ve been alone since I moved to Berlin four years ago. The city has a date culture so detached and flakey I’ve never made it past a third date. Sebi’s reliability feels like more than fresh air; it’s a full on sea breeze.
Every evening I come down the stairs of my villa, past the dark blue pool with the carp sculpture fountain and through reception to find him outside leaning on his moped, on time every time. The sunglasses haven’t got any better, neither have the jean shorts, but his face has transformed before my eyes. Before all I could see was smug Euro, but that first impression has faded and morphed. Now I think he’s beautiful.
There’s another reason why I’ve become so attached to Sebi. Despite my best efforts, I don’t actually enjoy travelling alone. I’ve been doing it for seven weeks now. Hanoi to Hoi An, Siem Reap to Bali, Bali to Lembongan. I’ve had fun, I’ve met good people, but I can’t help but wonder why I’m spending energy on people I don’t know or like when there are a million people I’d rather spend my time with.
Every time I go somewhere new I worry I won’t meet anyone and will spend all my time alone. I’ve outgrown hostels so I’m staying in hotels and Air BnBs which makes it more difficult to make friends. The strange thing is I know my anxiety is unfounded. Every time I move, without fail, I meet people. I met Hanna, a child psychologist, just sitting at neighbouring dinner tables on my first evening in Lembongan. She’s one of those people who opens up immediately, goes straight into deep and meaningfuls within ten minutes. I like Hanna immensely. But that doesn’t stop me feeling anxious about leaving Lembongan, fearful to the point of nausea about how I’ll fill my time in the future.
So Sebi is a welcome respite from this. He picks me up and takes me for drinks and suggests places for dinner and lets me teach him backgammon.
My dad taught me how to play Backgammon when I was a kid and it’s been my favourite game ever since. I only teach people I’m invested in. Not everybody enjoys backgammon because it’s not easy, but Sebi beats me the second time we play. I tell him he’s intelligent. He doesn’t accept the compliment.
It’s usually when we’re lying in bed that he’ll drop one of his Sebi Stories. They’re always mental. He’s always jumping naked off a cliff or taking meth or breaking his shoulder or fucking someone in an alley.
“See this scar?” He says one night, pointing to a jagged white line along his left shoulder. “I broke it diving off a bridge in Italy.” Oh right, I say, waiting for the punchline.
“I’d taken a lot of MDMA.” There it is.
Another time, in bed one evening, he divulges his enthusiasm for cocaine. “I stay up for days and days,” he says, nose twitching at the idea of it. “Sometimes I’ll go to work, stay up all night, and go to work again the next day.”
Sometimes the Sebi Story is more like an internal conversation, justifying the way he lives his life to himself. “I don’t see a problem with living in a van,” he once says, unprompted. “I work all over Europe so it doesn’t make sense to have a fixed home.” A thoughtful pause. “I might be 32. But I still have fun. I still fuck.”
It’s our last night together. Sebi’s leaving Lembongan tomorrow, and we’re having a disagreement. He’s frustrated because I continue to insist we use a condom.
“Come on, what are you afraid of?”
“Errrm pregnancy and STIs.”
“STIs aren’t a big deal,” he says, speaking from experience.
I am not drunk and fully in control, so we use a condom. It reminds me why I’ve cut down on drinking. Too often that battle goes the other way.
At midnight he gets up to go. We kiss goodbye at the door. It’s only been six days but it feels like we’ve been dating for months. I haven’t felt this sadness in a long time, but I remind myself what it’s like to feel nothing at all. I’ll take sadness every time. It means something good happened.
My plan is to go to Canggu in a few days. Part of me doesn’t believe I won’t see Sebi again. He wasn’t specific about where he was going next, but somewhere in Bali, he said, following the surf. Finding someone to have sex with.
——————————-
Three days later. I’ve managed to overcome my fear of the future and tear myself away from Lembongan and get the boat back to Bali. I’m waiting on the sand for a lift to my homestay when the message comes through.
I ended up coming back to Canggu
Let me know if you want to meet up in the next few days
I nearly punch the fucking air.
We meet at La Brisa before sunset, one of Bali’s most Instagrammable beach clubs. They make me queue at the entrance even though there’s no one else there. The place is open-air and expansive, full of plush tiki bars and turquoise pools and white sun loungers. Globed fairy lights span the length of the bar which opens out onto a beach where leggy women and bronzed bros lounge on bean bags with their phones out. It’s on one of these bean bags I find Sebi in his jean shorts and sunglasses, sipping a Bintang, brow furrowed, staring at the surfers.
Is he pleased to see me? I think so. He’s not one to show emotion, but his usual aloofness seems performative and he’s touching me a lot more than usual. This might just be Sebi’s cold, hard version of affection.
“Did you have fun without me?” He asks.
I tell him I replaced him with Hanna, spent most of my time talking endlessly with her about thoughts and feelings. I don’t tell him that she’s his polar opposite; that if people are water, Hanna is the rapids of the Mississippi – open and energising. Sebi’s the Suez Canal. Fucked up and usually closed.
I order a Bali Sunrise and drink it as the sun sets. It’s so beautiful I can’t help but laugh. “That’s ridiculous,” I say as the big orange globe bleeds into the sea, disappearing so fast I wonder how we don’t feel the world spin.
As we chat I keep my eyes on the surfers. The break is packed. Dozens of black heads bobbing in the water, fighting to catch short waves. It reminds me of a feature I read in The New Yorker, about how more surfers die of head injuries from other surfers than by drowning. Sebi tends to surf in these overcrowded breaks and I can’t figure out why. Every time I ask he always says the waves were bad, that they were better somewhere else. I wonder how he always has such bad luck; whether the waves are really at fault here. But I envy his abilities anyway. If there’s one thing I wish I could do, it’s surf.
There’s a softness to Sebi tonight. After our second date, he seemed to close up entirely. I thought he’d gone off me, honestly. But it means I don’t expect anything beyond exactly what we have, so his warmth is a pleasant surprise. It comes out in cute little bursts, like when I ask where he got his sunglasses from. “Are you making fun of me?” His eyes are big and confused. No, I say, I’m serious. I really like them. He sips his beer and side-eyes me suspiciously. He doesn’t mind. He knows I don’t care about his sunglasses.
I pay for our drinks and we drive to a taco place in Canggu. Perhaps it’s the rush of seeing Sebi again or perhaps it’s just being back on the mainland, but I feel like getting drunk.
For the first time since I’ve known him, Sebi seems content. At dinner he pauses between bites of burrito and glances up at me. “So did you fuck Hanna while I was away?”
His question doesn’t really surprise me. He isn’t jealous, just curious. He’s obviously mistaken me for him. He clearly fucks everything that moves.
“No,” I say. “If I had to put a number on it I’d say I’m 100% straight. What about you? Do you hook up with guys?”
No he says, never.
“Ha! Bullshit.” I take a bite of taco. “You’ve definitely sucked dick.”
After dinner we buy a bottle of wine and head back to his homestay. His room is just as stark and full of surf board as his last one. Being in his space feels familiar now and since we last saw each other that chemical reaction has only intensified. Sex with Sebi is the second best thing that’s happened to me all year.
He’s in story mode tonight. I learn he got his thick neck from military camp. He was sent there as a teenager. He spent four months in an outdoor youth prison, trekking and camping in the wilderness, doing hundreds of press ups a day. “My dad sent me there,” Sebi says. “Trying to keep me out of trouble.”
“This one time,” his arm is crooked again, but I’ve stopped noticing his tribal tattoo, “I was driving by myself through the Australian outback, really high on MDMA. I didn’t know what to do with myself so I just pulled over in the middle of nowhere and ran around naked.”
He tells me his registered address is actually in Bulgaria. “So I don’t have to pay taxes in Belgium.”
We go for a late night dip. He’s in a playful mood and keeps swimming underwater and grabbing my legs like a shark. It’s wonderful to see him like this, relaxed and unguarded. I sit on the side of the pool while he stands in it, my legs around his shoulders. He pulls me towards him suddenly then dunks me. I scream. This is truly fun. I’m enjoying this.
As we dry off I think aloud about how I need to get an outfit for a wedding in April.
“Uh oh,” Sebi says, looking scared.
“That’s right,” I say, laughing. “We’re getting married, Sebi.”
—————————————
I wake up to a message that breaks my heart. The best thing that’s happened to me all year has been cancelled. I had an assignment planned in Jakarta in three days time for a magazine I’ve been pining to work with for years. It was my big break. But the show has been cancelled because of Coronavirus and won’t be rescheduled until it’s over.
The entire point of this trip had been to expand my journalism portfolio and write features like this while I travelled. I’d been so excited about achieving my goal and so proud to break into that magazine, the disappointment feels more like grief.
Over the course of the day my anger turns into anxiety. The reality that this virus isn’t going away is starting to sink in. I’m by myself in Indonesia, in the middle of a pandemic, and the only person I have for company is a reprobate with a sex problem. And even he’s going home in two days.
I go about my day with a sense of uneasiness in the pit of my stomach. I had flights booked to Melbourne in a week’s time, the end of my trip, to visit my two best friends. Now my trip to Jakarta’s been cancelled, I’ll have to stay in Bali an extra week with no plans and no Sebi. It sounds like hell. The travel anxiety is back full-force and I don’t want to do it anymore. I book new flights to Melbourne. I’ll leave the same day as Sebi.
Still, my day is tinged with low-level panic. What if my flight never takes off? What if I can’t get into Australia? It’s raining outside and I can’t concentrate on my work. I find a cafe to work in, but it doesn’t help much. What usually takes me one hour takes me three.
I had an incredible time last night, the most fun I’ve had with Sebi so far, but tonight I feel extremely sensitive; truly on the edge. It probably isn’t a good idea to see him. I don’t want to project my anxiety onto him. But the idea of not seeing him makes me feel even more anxious. When he WhatsApps that afternoon I tell him I’m going to Finn’s Beach Club. He says that’s where he’s surfing today so he’ll see me there.
I put on a tiny playsuit. The last few days I’ve been wearing my smallest outfits. I tell myself it’s because Bali’s more glam than Lembongan, but it’s for Sebi, really. I’m not sure he even notices if I wear make-up or not. He’s only dished out one compliment since the first time we met. I told him I hadn’t looked in a full length mirror in a while. “Don’t worry,” he said, squeezing my ass. “You look good.”
Finn’s is sloppier than La Brisa and busier. It’s still gigantic and plush and full of pools and bikinis and bros, but the crowd is loud and loose, like Ibiza weekenders. I’m sitting at a bar facing the ocean. The beach is packed and so is the break. I think I see Sebi’s thick torso out there in the waves; a blond head, arms paddling manically, but I can’t be sure. I’m on the phone to a friend I met travelling anyway. I’m talking her through a travel meltdown. I don’t mention I’m in the middle of one too.
The sun’s just set but the light remains. I see Sebi emerge from the water, hair dark from the sea, chest broad, neck thick, surf board under one arm. How could I ever have seen him as unremarkable? He looks like a Ken doll, surf edition. Shit board-shorts though.
He stands on the sand a while, squinting up at Finn’s, trying to see if I’m there. He’s too far away and I’m on the phone, so I don’t try and get his attention. He’ll need to shower anyway.
On cue, as usual, he messages me.
I’m going for dinner and having a quiet night. Still welcome to join if you want
This non-invite cuts like a knife. I know I shouldn’t go, but I’m encompassed by neediness. It’s a bad idea to see him when I feel this way; I don’t even want him to meet this insecure version of me. But I can’t spend the evening without him. I’m too freaked out by Coronavirus. And I don’t like travelling alone.
Where are you getting food?
I’ll join you and then I’ll let you have a quiet night
Not sure
I’ll come pick you up
We get pizza. It’s like we’re a married couple with nothing to say to each other. We sit outside making small talk. He says the road’s too noisy. The waiter takes too long. He doesn’t like the pizza. I feel bad, like he’d rather be alone, but he’s smiling at me in a gentle way. I’m not convinced it’s genuine.
When the meal is over we pay and I order an Uber. I leave so abruptly that Sebi seems slightly surprised when I kiss him goodbye. It might come across as cold, but the idea of imposing on him freaks me out.
In the car home it occurs to me that Sebi has perfected the art of being a blank slate. So blank that I can project my mood onto him and he’ll just play it back to me. Last night I was excited to see him, talkative, energised, and that’s why it was so much fun. Tonight I feel sensitive and stressed and low on chat, so we barely chat at all.
That’s it, I decide as I pull up to my homestay. Sebi’s just a sex person. A one night stand that’s gone too far.
—————————-
It’s our last night together so I decide to test my projection theory. I suggest tacos, cos that’s his favourite meal, and afterwards I have a surprise for him.
“Where are we going?” He asks with that suspicious smile, as if I’m making fun of him.
“It’s a secret Sebi. You just have to trust me.”
We zip through the streets of Canggu on his moped. I direct him down a dusty backstreet towards a brightly lit kiosk. “Here.” I say. He pulls over, confused.
We walk into the shop. A bored shopkeeper playing on his phone glances up and nods. I walk past rows of crisps and chocolate bars to a big metal fridge with a sign that says ‘BROKEN.’
I reach for the handle. “It says broken,” Sebi says. But the door swings open and I walk through into a dimly lit dive bar.
His reaction is adorable, like a kid at Christmas. “Coooooooool,” he says, following me in, eyes wide. “How did you hear about this? What’s in there?” He wanders around, peering into rooms, assessing nooks and crannies. He spies a photo booth with leather masks hanging on the wall. “It’s like a sex room,” he says, impressed. “This would be a great place to take drugs all night. What do you want to drink?”
We sit in a dark corner. Across the room a group of German hipsters play pool. They seem like a friendly bunch, open-faced and laughing. Bavarian, probably. I find it amusing how they’d assume Sebi and I are a couple. I bet I have a million more things in common with them.
I chat away according to my projection theory, enjoying my own conversation, knowing if I have a good time so will Sebi. I tell him about my bad experiences with flatmates in Berlin and ask if he’s ever had housemate drama too. I asked the right question.
“I lived in a house once with this guy,” Sebi says in his quiet American English, taking a sip of beer. “I let him move in for real cheap. It was my lease, and I was doing him a favour, but after a few months he found out I was paying less rent than him. So he started behaving like a real asshole.”
I’m trying to look casual but I’m on the edge of my seat. I love Sebi Stories so much. It’s like a game of pass the parcel. Every time he dishes one out I get to unwrap more of him, and if it happens often enough I’ll get to see what’s underneath which, no doubt, is a total fucking madman.
“One day he slipped a note under my door…” Sebi trails off. “Nah I can’t tell you that.”
Jesus Christ. “Tell me.”
“…okay, well my girlfriend at the time was there. And the note said I’d fucked someone else.”
“Had you?”
“Well yeah.”
I wonder what else Sebi had done to his roommate to warrant that behaviour. Fucked his girlfriend? Or mum? At the same time? Down an alley? Probably.
Later we’re lying in his bed, sheets tangled up. “Come to my homestay before you leave tomorrow,” I say.
“What’s in it for me?”
“I’ll pay you.”
He laughs. “That’s not the first time someone’s said that to me.”
He gets up to shower. He leaves the door open, facing away. When he runs his hands through his hair his shoulders hulk up and his back ripples. He really would make a good gigalo.
“Sebi, can I ask you something?” I bury my face in the pillow.
“What?” He turns the shower off. It takes all my strength to ask him. I bury my face deeper. I can’t do it. “What? Is it something serious?”
I try a couple more times. He comes out the bathroom, towel wrapped around his waist, and sits next to me on the bed. “What is it?” He says quietly.
Fuck it. “Do guys like it when girls stick a finger up their ass?”
“Oh,” Sebi says. “I think not, but I’ve actually had…” he trails off.
“What?”
“Nah.” He says firmly this time.
“Tell me!” I’m holding his hand but he draws it back abruptly. “No.” He says. He’s shut tight like a clam. God damn it! This sounds so juicy.
“Tell me all your secrets!”
“No.” He says, blue eyes storming.
“Why?”
“I barely know you.”
The words should sting but they don’t. Probably because this isn’t strictly true. Sebi knows me very well. I blabber on about myself all the time, unprompted, filling up the empty space. What he means is I barely know him. He’s not prepared to tell me about all the many affairs his parents had and how promiscuous it made him as a result or about hooking up with dudes in prison or elaborating on the process of finding someone to have sex with.
But perhaps I’m not being honest with myself. Does it bother me Sebi’s so promiscuous? Truly, no. I’m just mesmerized by that hole he’s trying to fill; intrigued by where that colossal emptiness comes from. If he tells me enough Sebi Stories, perhaps I’ll find out what created it.
What else is true? That Sebi’s still acting out. When he cheats on women or hoofs gak or fucks women in alleys he’s just misbehaving like he did at school. He’s punishing those cops and teachers and parents. If he takes drugs all night, that’ll show them.
But there’s another truth here, too. Despite everything, this van-dwelling reprobate, convict, sex, drug addict has treated me with more respect than any of the so-called liberal left-wing men I’ve dated in years. He’s asked if I’m okay during sex. He’s never been a single minute late for a date. He hasn’t taken his insecurities out on me. He’s never made me feel inadequate. He’s offered to pay for every single meal, even though I don’t let him. He hasn’t been afraid to let me feel good.
Don’t get me wrong; the last thing I want is Sebi turning up at my apartment in Berlin with a backpack and three grams of gak. The dude’s nothing but bad news. But for this exact space in time, he’s nothing short of perfect.
And honestly, truthfully, Sebi serves a different purpose too. The night we met was my dad’s birthday. Monday, 24th February. My dad should have been turning 60. I’d been dreading that day for weeks. That night I needed someone to turn up on time and say I look nice and help me get cash out. I didn’t want to be travelling alone then, and Sebi distracted me from it all. Not that I would ever tell him that.
What else won’t I tell him? That since my dad died four years ago I’ve not had one functioning relationship. That there are periods of time where I’m not in control of my alcohol or drug consumption. That sometimes I wake up with a man in my bed and I don’t know how they got there. That sometimes the loneliness feels more like a screeching black vortex in my chest. Sometimes it takes my breath away.
The next day he comes to my homestay in Canggu, free of charge. My flight to Melbourne is that night and the anxiety is back, full force. I’m terrified I won’t be able to get into the country, that they’ll shut the borders and I’ll be stuck in Bali forever. I feel that intense neediness again, like I might die if Sebi doesn’t come over. But, as usual, he doesn’t let me down.
He’s brought his bags with him. He’s flying back to Belgium in a few hours. When we kiss hello it feels familiar, normal. We go into my room and he drops his bags and starts kissing my neck. That’s when I realise something bad is about to happen. All that anxiety, and then the relief of him being here. I flop down on the bed and bury my head in the pillow again.
“Sebi.”
“Jesus Christ. What is it?”
“You need to leave for a bit.”
“What?” He’s sitting next to me.
“Just like go outside. For a bit.”
He laughs and strokes my hair. “Oh… You need the toilet?” I can’t look at him. “Alright I’m going for a swim.”
I join him a few minutes later. I’m so fucking embarrassed. But he really doesn’t care. He’s in that mood again, swimming underwater like a shark. When he comes up for air he almost dunks me but decides to kiss me instead. “Wanna go to your room?” His big wet arms are round my shoulders. His neck is thick, his face smooth and angelic. I can’t help but laugh.
“What?” His eyes are big, like I’m mocking him.
“You’re hot.” I say.
——————-
It’s over with Sebi. He’s gone back to his van in Belgium where he can spend his time taking drugs and finding someone to have sex with. I have flown to Melbourne to surprise my two best friends and sit out the impending pandemic. It’s strange, going from the complexity and elusiveness of Sebi to the purity and openness of my friends. But as the days go by these scenes, our scenes, flash up before my eyes like a movie reel. What a weird dude, I think. I should really write all this down.
As the virus swallows up Italy, Spain, Germany, the UK, I think of Sebi. I send him videos of the waves I see. Perfect blue tubes along the Great Ocean Road and ten foot swells near Sydney. I bet he wouldn’t complain about these waves. I bet these ones would be good enough.
Looks nice 🙂
How long are you staying?
I don’t know, I say, I’ll stay in Australia as long as I can.
He responds a few hours later, about 4am in Belgium.
Fuck! I bought something last night and had to try it out
Now I can’t sleep and keep watching porn with no ending…
What are you doing?
I don’t reply.
…Got any sexy pics?
-By Alice Austin
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