Rubbish

For a long time, I thought all I could offer those men was my body. I was quite hurt at first, but soon became used to it. On the day I met Oliver, I was wearing all grey. He had a hard time finding me. ‘You completely blend into that concrete bridge behind you from a distance,’ he explained. That blew my mind. I nearly cried in disbelief. 

 

Of course, I hid the excitement from him. I could not let him know I felt things. It was not cool for us Gen-Z. The most badass thing anyone my age could do was to have sex with random strangers without catching any feelings. Only weeks later did I confess how impressed I was for him to recognise me through looking at my face only. But it embarrassed him for some reason. He then said if he had remembered to wear contacts, he would have seen me sooner. I wasn’t sure what he meant. Maybe he just felt guilty for keeping me waiting that day.

 

We found each other on Tinder. I came across his profile right before I was about to give up swiping. It was tiring to pick over men who were clearly unwanted in their real-life dating pool. Even my thumb was sore from repeating the same motion. And then Oliver’s face showed up. I felt good about him because he said he was into thrifting. It was refreshing among all the half-naked gym selfies.

 

‘Hey, Oliver,’ I texted. ‘I’m also into going through other people’s rubbish. Let’s meet up. Where’s your favourite thrift spot in town?’

 

‘hey,’ he replied. ‘i built my entire wardrobe out of other people’s rubbish. good that ur also into that shit. there’s a kilo sale going on this sunday that we can go tgt xxx’.  

 

The sale he was talking about was the kind where you would have to pick things up on your knees. It was a monthly event, always crowded for having no entrance fee. All you needed to do was to show up with a bin bag. Last time I went, someone stepped on my finger while I was looking through a pile of faux leather jackets on the floor. The pain made me want to cut the finger off. I pressed the injured hand against my stomach and leant forward. And the next second my entire face was already on the pile of clothes in front of me.

 

I would not say they stank. But they definitely smelled of something. I curled up aside and stayed on the floor for a bit longer. The angle made everyone at the venue look monstrous. Their giant bodies and sturdy legs made me gasp. I felt powerless. The smell grew stronger as I watched those people moved around me. I thought of a grape exploding after being stepped upon and covered my head with both arms. No one knew how much pain I was in. My moan was covered by their chatter. I checked my finger. Not a single drop of blood came out. And it only turned purple and swollen up after I went home.

 

But I had decided to go to that kilo sale again despite the unpleasant experience. Not only because I was interested in Oliver, but also that I needed male attention. I waited that day for nearly an hour by the bridge. The second thing he had said after a we had met up was a compliment on my outfit. 

 

‘You make grey on grey work. That’s sick. I could never do that,’ he squinted. ‘And to be fair, it’s not in the exact same shade as the bridge. Yours is better.’

 

‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘It’s a mesh top. I guess the colour of my skin adds on to that.’

 

‘Right. Whereas behind the bridge there is no skin.’

 

He was trying a bit too hard to be cool. But I thought it was a good thing because the way he acted must have turned many other girls off. I never liked competition. It was good that he was unappealing to some degree. I, too, was unwanted by most guys. None of them had stayed for breakfast after sleeping with me the night before. They all ended up turning into someone I no longer recognised. Maybe there was something wrong with me. And there clearly was something wrong with Oliver as well. I had a strong feeling we would bond.

 

As we walked towards the venue, Oliver told me he thought most clothes at the charity shops were taken off from the dead. His words scared me a little. Quite a few of my outfits were thrifted. Even the one I was wearing that day was thrifted. The thought of someone else’s body had once rotted under my clothes put me in cold sweat. And the guy who walked next to me had built his entire wardrobe out of clothes other bodies had rotted under. He might want to sleep with me later in the day. I liked that. But I didn’t like the fact we were both wrapped by what had once wrapped a corpse. It was ominous. Maybe that was the reason why we should get together naked. I thought of the way my body looked in the mirror and checked my pocket: I did remember to bring a bin bag.

 

‘Nah, it’s more likely from donation,’ I argued. ‘There’s a charity box in nearly every neighbourhood.’

Oliver told me he once saw the exact jacket a homeless person was wearing appeared on the window display of a charity shop. ‘And a few weeks earlier that guy was sitting on the street. His head was covered in his arms. I thought he just fell asleep. But right now, when I think about it, he must be dead. And it definitely was his jacket because the stains on the sleeves were still there.’ 

 

‘Or maybe he put it in a charity box himself.’

 

‘I think he was dead. No one could stay in a posture like that without moving. To be fair, it had been raining the night before. So maybe he just fell asleep while sheltering his head.’

 

I wasn’t sure whether to feel unsettled that our first conversation in person was about a random stranger rather than about ourselves. He did not glance at me while he spoke. We did not even shake hands. He must just be nervous. 

 

On his wrist, the veins were mostly green. That meant his skin had a warm undertone. Grey wouldn’t suit him. He had many tattoos on his arms and legs. From a distance, it would have looked like he was wearing black fishnets. Then he would be the fish that was trapped in the net. I thought of the sharp needle of a tattoo gun moving under his skin. The image stung me. Numbness spread over my limbs, but only for a few seconds.

 

I did not ask about the tattoos or the meanings behind them. I could not let him know I had been paying attention to him. I would not ask anything about him until he asked about me first. I waited and waited. He moved on from talking about the weather to fashion trend, then to the graffiti we walked past. I wondered how many girls he had seen naked. I could have asked what he was looking for by then, but I didn’t. I needed to be cool. 

 

The venue was packed when we got there. Each pile of clothes was circled by a group of desperate people on their knees. Oliver and I could not find a spot to squeeze in and decided to fuck in the fitting room. I still did not know what he did for a living or how many siblings he had. As we undressed, he picked up the bin bag that slipped out from my pocket, and covered my head with it. 

 

My sight was immediately blocked by a transparent white. The human-shaped silhouette in front of me was Oliver’s. But his face was blurred. The bin bag smelled of artificial lemon. I could feel its texture in my nostrils each time I breathed. When he grabbed my arms to stop me from taking it off, my entire body was drenched in fear. I could not work out if he was trying to kill me or it’s just what he was into. He could easily suffocate me by pulling the strings attached to the bin bag. I held on tight to its bottom half to prevent this trap from closing itself off. Maybe I was the fish. 

 

‘Oliver,’ I mumbled. ‘Please.’

 

Only then did he take it off my head. He was smirking when I met his eyes. I must be tearing up, because the expression on his face then froze.

 

‘What’s wrong?’ he asked, looking confused. 

 

 

​

 

The landfill near my childhood home was colourful. The bins were all emptied to the ground before the proper rubbish disposal took place. Those cans and food packaging could build up an entire colour board. Any kind of outfit would have blended in there. When I was as small as the size of a bin, the landfill was my go-to hideaway. 

 

One of the bin collectors always took off his top when it became a bit warmer. Sometimes, I would hide from a distance and look at him and the muscles on his arms. I wanted to sleep with him. He was exceptionally good-looking and twice my age. I must have been ten by then. Or maybe eleven. At night, I would picture his fingers rubbing through my face. 

 

The idea of how the rubbish I produced might end up in one of the bins he touched amazed me. I began to treat everything I was about to throw away with extra fondness. I would caress the tissue that I had just wiped my mouth with, then fold it instead of crumple it up. I needed to catch his attention. And in the future, when I finally had the chance to talk to him, he would be surprised and say: ‘Ah, I’ve wondering who it was to bin tissues like that! What a unique girl you are!’ We might even get married. 

 

I hid at that landfill sometimes to avoid going to school. I found it hard to talk to people. Or I stopped trying to the first time a classmate called me a stink. Language was too conceptual for me. I struggled to see how those teachers expect me to understand them simply through the certain sounds they made. Unlike eyes and ears and hands that came in pairs, we had only one tongue. It was a precious thing that should not be overused. Before I learnt how to French kiss, I refused to use it in most occasions and had always remained silent when people tried to talk to me. With their mouths opened and closed like that, they all seemed like fish spitting bubbles in the deep sea. 

 

My parents never really cared about me. I wanted to piss them off. Which was another reason why I sometimes stayed at the landfill for hours after school. And, if I was hungry, there was always a pack of expired crisps ready on the ground. But my disappearance did not catch their attention. My mum only got angry with me once for bringing the smell home. 

 

When I told her where I had been going, she dragged me out of the house before I could even put on my shoes. We stood by the landfill gate for a long time until a giant lorry drove in. I watched it shovel all the rubbish up from the ground, and carried to pour them into an indoor machine that I had failed to notice before. My knees weakened at the sight of those massive gears crushing the rubbish into pieces. 

 

‘You wanna be disposed of like that?’ she asked. ‘What if you fall asleep and no one sees you?’ It was months before my parents divorced and each started a new family. I shivered the whole way home as though I had not yet been disposed of already. 

 

 

​

 

Coming out of the fitting room that day with Oliver made me travel back in time. So many different colours moved in front of me in the form of clothes. Even the jeans I saw were each in a unique shade of blue. For a second, I almost thought I was back in that landfill again. And all the colours that once lay quietly on the ground had now evolved into something people chose to cover their torso with. 

 

Only when he gestured me to kneel down at an open spot by a pile of clothes, did the sense of reality come back to me: I was there on a date with a man who had built his entire wardrobe out of other people’s rubbish! 

 

The sex we had in the fitting room just now was not great. There was not even a door, only a linen blind you could pull over as you changed. The entire time I was cautious. I kept glancing away from him to check if the blind was still covering us. When he called me a slut, I missed my mother. His roughness had suddenly made me realise how gentle of a person she was in comparison. She would always wrap sharp objects up before throwing them away. ‘Some homeless people might look through our bin after we take it out,’ she explained. ‘Their hands might get cut.’

 

Oliver flipped me over and pressed me against the wall. He needed to get his nails cut. Because their length was hurting me when he grabbed onto my waist. Then he began to pull my hair. I thought I had already told him it hurt me but he did not stop. In the noise of the venue, I wondered what he saw me as. ‘You dirty,’ I heard him saying. ‘You dirty cunt.’ We were not even making eye contact then. But his words made me feel seen.

 

When he entered me, I felt as though a torn-up can had slitted up my vagina. I remembered seeing some flat cans back at the landfill twisting up all together the way me and Oliver did at that moment. Fanta, Pepsi and Sprite. Three different colours bright in the daylight. A group sex that was.  

 

Okay, maybe what we did in the fitting room wasn’t that bad. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have thought about it even after we came out and walked past a queue of people waiting to try on the pieces other people had once binned. When we kneeled down by a pile of clothes that Oliver wanted to look through, all I could focus on was his hands. And the veins on his wrists! They kept reminding me of the bin collector I fancied as a child. I wondered where he was after all these years. He must be married. Maybe his wife would force him to wash his hands after work and before bed. I would never force him to wash his hands. It was a shame we did not end up together. 

 

Oliver found a striped orange blouse and told me to try it on. I shook my head. 

 

‘You don’t wear colours?’

 

‘Not really. They make me look cheap.’

 

‘So you’re like those designers who design all the colourful clothes but only wear basic black and white themselves?’

 

‘And grey.’

 

He held the blouse in front of me. ‘Come on. It clearly suits you. Stop pretending you don’t see it yourself.’ 

 

‘You literally just complimented how good grey looked on me.’

 

‘I said you made the outfit work. I didn’t mean it suited your skin tone. To be fair, it made you look kinda sick.’

 

His bluntness shocked me. Out of the many times that I had looked into the bedroom mirror before leaving to meet him, never for once did I think about whether the outfit would suit my skin tone. I just thought its loose texture could cover up my protruded stomach, which I liked. I looked around, hoping to find a mirror to check myself out. But all I could see was human legs moving around side by side with transparent bin bags. I then figured he must be flirting with me, as I remembered hearing somewhere that flirting was all about building the tension. And the tension between Oliver and I clearly intensified after his remarks. I never understood flirting. I knew the word existed and the concept existed. But the nuance in people’s behavior had been too confusing. 

 

I was quite hurt by his comment about the outfit—a bit angry, almost. But earlier, when he called me a cunt in the fitting room, I was not offended at all. And standing naked in front of him was supposed to make me feel more vulnerable. His words were way more straight-forward then, and even attacked me on a personal level. But I just let them slide through my ears. And at this moment, while I was still kneeling next to him in this grey-on-grey look, I had never felt more insecure. Why did I suddenly become this sensitive to language once there was no sex involved? Did putting the clothes back on had rather weakened me somehow? 

 

Oliver himself was wearing a purple oversized blazer and yellow shorts. The contract between the two colours was a bit jarring. But the orange blouse, that he had already put down in the small area between us, matched perfectly with his colour scheme. I pictured myself wearing it. We would look so good standing next to each other. And I would appear more visible against the concrete bridge, rather than blending into it from a distance.

 

I held the blouse up. For a second, I almost felt as though its horizontal stripes had detached from what they were printed on. They then turned into a row of pillars as tall as the ceiling. I could touch them. I could stick my hands between them. They were moving closer and closer towards me from Oliver’s side. I thought of the lorry me and my mother saw at the landfill, and the rubbish it shoveled up being crashed by the massive gears.

 

Breathless, I tried to throw the blouse back into the pile using all my strength. But it did not fly out the way I expected. Instead, it spread out in the air and landed right by my feet. I stood back up. My legs were dead from kneeling down. One of my knees bent even though I did not intend to. I nearly fell back down. The venue was just as packed as we had entered an hour ago. Faces I had never seen before passed by one after another. I zoned out to the view in front of me as the numbness of my legs faded away.  

 

Only when I noticed Oliver was watching me, did I realise how strange I had been acting. 

 

‘Are you alright?’ he asked, but did not seem concerned.

 

 

​

 

Last Halloween, I wrapped myself in bin bags and told everyone I was dressing up as men. It was my last year of university. I was doing a sociology degree. I was never passionate about the subject, but it was the only course that accepted me through Clearing on UCAS. I also worked part-time as a cleaner at a kindergarten near my accommodation. I never felt embarrassed about it. I did think about working at bars and even at corners stores, but those roles all required me to talk to people. I did not like talking to people.

 

Unlike me, my flatmates at the time all had solid plans for the upcoming year. I managed to eavesdrop some of their conversations while cooking in the kitchen. They talked about how much the past three years of university had made them miss home. Some of them were glad to finally be able to move closer to their family. I did not have a family waiting for me elsewhere, nor did I have anyone to miss. I felt lucky and unlucky. My nose burnt for a few seconds while I was listening.

 

My flatmates and I were friendly towards each other, which was why I decided to join the Halloween party they threw at our flat. I even lent a hand with the preparation for it. It was rare for me to do things like this. I was surprised at myself. When the conversation about plans after graduation came up, I was frying frozen chips to place aside at the party as a snack. 

 

‘Honestly, it’s just so hard for us Arts students to get a proper job,’ one of them said. ‘I like working as a barista, but there’s no way for me to work there my whole life.’

 

As the others seconded her, I could see the girl turned towards me from the corner of my eye. The oil in front of me by then had reached its boiling point. The chips were ricocheting and turning brown. I took a deep breath. ‘What about you?’ She tapped on my shoulder. ‘You have never really told us about your plans next year.’

 

‘I don’t know. Maybe I’ll keep the cleaner job.’

 

‘Come on! You’re worth way more than that. Just think about what you can bring to the table.’ 

 

And for a second, I did try to think about if I had any skills good enough to make money out of. But the struggles I had with talking to people limited me from working most jobs. I figured what I needed was something that only required the minimum amount of communication. 

 

‘Maybe I can be a prostitute,’ I said. Out of the few sexual experience I had had, none of those men talked to me or expected me to talk. They just took off my clothes, or told me to take off my clothes, and continue on with what they were doing. A guy even straight up told me to shut up once when I spoke. I thought that was perfect. I could just do all the work without even making eye contact with a stranger.  

 

My flatmates all turned to look at me, and, after a second or two, all burst into laughter at the same time. 

 

‘Yeah. That’s a good one,’ one of them said. 

 

The chips were bouncing off the inner surface of the pan so fast as though they were alive. I stared at the foam floating on the oil and tempted to dip my head into it and fry my face. I could not work out why they laughed. Maybe they were ridiculing me. All the unpleasant memories of feeling isolated as a child surged within me. I looked up to their faces, then down to my feet. The sound of the oil boiling became louder. The chips were already burnt when I looked back at them. I had to throw them all away in the bin. 

 

Later that day, when I was getting ready, I went for a sultry look for my make-up. I used the Charlotte Tilbury lipstick that I found the other day on the backseat of a bus. It must have slid out from some other girls’ pocket. The shade was close to my natural lip colour and made my smokey eyes pop. After I wrapped the bin bags around my body, I stood in front of the mirror for nearly half an hour to decide whether I should add on a belt for a better silhouette. It did shock me a bit to realise how I still craved male attention even when I was mocking them with my Halloween costume. But I then convinced myself the belt could prevent those bin bags from slipping down my body. And I needed to wear it because I did not want to be seen naked. 

 

The costume worked out well. I managed to make the bin bags look like a bodycon dress. And the belt elevated the whole look. When I walked out of my room and joined everyone at the party, I could feel all the eyes were on me. I was satisfied with it. For the first time in my life, I felt seen.

 

Our flat soon became noisy after more people arrived. Everyone seemed to be having fun each dressed up as someone else. But through their body language, I could tell most of them were not at ease in those costumes. The girls, who were wearing mini leather skirts, kept pulling them down as they talked. And the ones wearing big hats would have to hold onto the brims the entire time to stop them from falling down. Whereas I did not need to worry a thing. I felt superior because of that. I liked my costume. That night was one of the few times I had ever felt comfortable under my own skin. 

 

‘So you’re dressing up as rubbish?’ a guy came up to me and asked.

 

‘No,’ I said, then paused intentionally. ‘I was dressing up as men.’

 

He put his hand on my waist as he laughed, exactly where the belt was. I enjoyed this interaction and was ready to kiss him in any given second. I felt like a slut, but I was happy about being one step closer to becoming an actual prostitute. 

 

For practice, I tried to ask for some money after I took him back to my room and had sex with him. I did not ask for a specific amount, only that he could pay as much as he felt was the most appropriate. I thought I was being quite considerate because at the time we were just poor students. 

 

‘You’re funny. How much do you think you worth?’ He smirked and grabbed his jacket from the floor. It was a quick fuck and we did not even fully undress. When he walked out the door, I was still sitting on my bed in those bin bags. 

 

 

​

 

Neither me or Oliver bought anything from the sale. The bin bag I brought remained empty. For the entire day, the only thing that had been put in it was my head. I’d usually bring home at least a t-shirt. I had trained myself to have keen eyes when it came to thrifting, and could even spot a piece that would suit me from far away. But for some reason, I was unable to focus on the clothes at all that day. My body and mind were not functioning the way they used to. 

 

But Oliver was by my side as I walked out the exit. And we only became intimate after entering this venue. At least I did not leave with nothing.  

 

As we head towards a food stall nearby to grab dinner, Oliver said the smell of the venue irritated him, and that he was relieved to have finally left. 

 

‘Really? I didn’t smell anything.’

 

‘Yeah, it’s not like the smell of detergent or anything. It kinda smelled like sweat.’

 

‘I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been sensitive to smells. But I guess it makes sense if you smelled sweat. The venue was packed.’

 

He was about to say something but stopped on a second thought. We bought cheesy chips from the stall. He offered to pay for me but I declined. The guy who worked there did not wear gloves. I could see the dirt in his nails as he grabbed a handful of chips up from the freezer bag. 

 

I asked for Ketchup. The red created a great contrast with the yellow chips underneath it. The two colours complemented each other and appeared brighter as a whole. I took over the paper tray and looked up. The sun had just begun to set. And its exact scheme of colours was being held in my hands. I looked at Oliver and was reminded again that we just had sex in the fitting room. I felt powerful, but not really. 

 

We walked to sit on the pavement. 

 

 ‘Do you think they clean the clothes before putting them out on the floor?’ he asked, chewing.

 

‘Maybe. Why do you care?’

 

He put his box of chips aside, and pulled out something from his trousers. 

 

‘Here. Take it as a gift. I hid it in my pants so they wouldn’t catch me. I was just a bit concerned because if those clothes really were that dirty and still stank of other people’s sweat, I wouldn’t want it to be this close to my penis. There might be bacteria and stuff. But I guess I’ll have to be chill about it since I had already put it there.’

 

The striped orange blouse spread out in the dense sunlight as he lifted it up. It had become more wrinkled than earlier and appeared sheerer. I froze as he giggled. 

 

‘It’s not right to steal,’ I forced out a smile. 

 

‘It doesn’t belong to anyone anyway. Its former owner didn’t want it anymore. Would you call those people who were digging the bins thieves?’

 

I could not answer his question. I could not answer most of the questions I had been asked in my life. I was afraid that if I tried too hard searching for an answer, something within me would collapse. After all, what was the point of doubting things in the first place anyway? 

 

So I just thanked him, and put the blouse in the bin bag I had carried the entire day. 

 

We parted and exchanged phone numbers after we finished the chips. On the way home, I stared at my reflection on a store window for a long time. I thought about everything I had done earlier that day with Oliver, but felt as though nothing had ever happened at all.