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By Root 605 0

I am a penicillin addict, I am a painkiller addict. Painkillers, now they're some good shit... Numb, groaning, restless, helpless, I paced the flat. I stood still. I sat down. Using the remote-control console I activated the television. With a premonitory crackle the Prince of Wales surged on to the hired screen. Hi, Prince, I said to myself. When did you get back? This guy is getting married in a month or so. He's pulled a little darling called Lady Diana. She doesn't look as though she'll give him any trouble— not like my Selina gives me, anyway... In a series of clips, the Prince played polo, climbed mountains, flew fighters, bossed battleships. He sat before a fireplace, quietly chatting with his mother, the Chick. Full face to camera, the Prince then answered questions about his childhood and youth. He was, he said, profoundly grateful that he had been taught self-discipline at an early stage in life. Self-discipline, said the Prince, seemed to him absolutely essential to any kind of civilized existence .. . Boy, I wish someone had taught me self-discipline— when I was young, when you learn things without really trying. They could have taught me pride, dignity, and French too, while they were at it. I wouldn't have had to lift a finger. But no one ever did teach me all that stuff. I've endeavoured to teach it to myself. I sit around trying to teach myself self-discipline. I can't be doing with it, though (it just isn't enough fun, self-discipline), and I always end up going out for a good time instead.

The door-buzzer sounded and I climbed to my feet, hands busy in my pockets with the money.

'Got laid recently?'

The evening, at last, has reached its promised, its destined stage. We've just got back from dinner at Kreutzer's. This was traditional, a matter of convention. Kreutzer's provides the costly setting of our reunions, our foreplay and our lies. There have been rich meat and bloody wine. There have been brandies, and thick puddings. There has already been some dirty talk. Selina is in high spirits, and as for me, I'm a gurgling wizard of calorific excess.

'Yeah,' she said, after a pause, and sipped her champagne.

'Who? Anyone I know?'

'... Yeah.'

'You'd better tell me about it.'

'I was in my room. I was kneeling on the window-seat looking at the common. It's so lovely now. Then this big fat black car pulled up outside the hotel. It was made of chrome and gold. The window went down and a hand with twelve rings appeared and beckoned to me.'

'What were you wearing?' She was wearing an extended black bodice that clasped between her thighs, and chrome stockings, and golden shoes.

'I was wearing a little white frock that belonged to me when I was small. It only comes down to here. I hadn't put on my panties yet because I was just getting dressed from my bath.'

'What did you do then?' She crossed the room and knelt on the bed beside me. With both hands she drew back her hair, disclosing the changeable throat.

'I crossed the room and tiptoed down the stairs. I got into the big fat car.'

'What did he do?' I laid her on her back. The black bodice had forty black buttons, fastened with eye-shaped loops of corded silk. Now it had thirty-nine. Now it had thirty-eight.

'He lifted me on top of him. It was like sitting on a capstan or a water hydrant. He put his hands on my shoulders, and pressed. I thought: he'll never get in, I'll never get round him. But he was so strong, his hands were unbelievable, as heavy as gold. It hurt but I was wet and the hurt was runny and sweet. I thought: I'm a cock, I'm just a cock.'

Later, with her resting body spread out beside me on the satin, I smoked a cigar and finished the champagne and thought about the good life. In a way, in a sense, I think 1 really do want to live well.

But how is it done?

——————

Deep down, I'm a pretty happy guy. Happiness is the relief of pain, they say, and so I guess I'm a pretty happy guy. The relief of pain happens to me pretty frequently. But then so does pain. That's why I get lots of that relief they talk about, and all that happiness.