Dorian Read Free

here.’
    ‘Were you out?’ Wotton cared more about where the people he knew had been than where he himself was at any given time.
    ‘I went to your mother’s –’
    ‘To my mother’s?’
    ‘That’s right, your mother’s – to meet a kid.’
    ‘You went to my mother’s to meet a kid ? Fuck, Baz, you are the one. I s’pose it was some charity-load of old douche-bags you had to make yourself presentable for…’ He rose and began ambling about the studio, still puffing the joint and leaving tedious fumes in his wake.
    ‘Yeah, I had to borrow a fucking suit – but I’d met the kid before –’
    ‘ En passant? ’ Wotton never used an English phrase where a French tag would do.
    ‘Literally in passing.’ Baz translated them without comment. ‘I brushed up against his butt in the hall when I last paid the rent on this place. He’s just left Oxford, and now he’s helping your ma with that Soho project.’
    ‘Silly bitch.’
    ‘He isn’t very intellectual, if that’s what you mean.’
    ‘No, I meant Mama, but anyway I don’t want want to mount some encephalitic thing – its brain swelling like a bubo .’
    ‘Yeah, fuck, I dunno why I bothered with the whistle, her house is overrun with renters, tarts and social workers. But this kid is absolutely divine, he’s a true original, he’s gorgeous , he’s next year’s model – take a look at the stuff we did last night.’ Baz headed over to a bank of video recorders which were connected to the monitors by coiled creepers of cabling. He fiddled intently with these while Wotton prowled. After a while he located a spoon, a glass of water, a two-millilitre disposable syringe, and a drug wrap on a windowsill. Then the two men’s conversation assumed a common purpose.
    ‘Is this gear?’ Wotton held up the wrap.
    ‘No, give over, Wotton, it’s charlie – and it’s my last.’
    ‘Yeah, well…’ Wotton considered this proposition while unbuttoning the cuff of his overcoat, his suit cuff, his shirt cuff. ‘Ach! All this buttoning and unbuttoning. This is my last hit for this hour. This is the last summer of the dormouse. Moments, Baz, are dying out all about us, we are in the midst of a great extinction to rival that of the Cretaceous era…’ He concocted the fix precisely, rapidly and elegantly. ‘You dare to speak of your last charlie, when I am irrefutably the last Henry. The last with such a rare combination of gung-ho drugging…’ he used the bunched-up sleeves in lieu of a tourniquet, and pushed the Ray-Bans up on his forehead so as to see his swollen main line better in the green light from the window – ‘and comme il faut tailoring.’
    But this supramundane rant remained unacknowledged, just as the peculiar sight of Wotton’s aureole of red hair and flushed works full of green blood – as if he were a junky Pan – remained unobserved. Baz’s attention was wholly caught by the first monitor, which zigged and zagged into life. It showed the naked figure of a beautiful young man, posed like a classical Greek kouros: one hand lightly on hip, the other trailing in groin, half-smile on plump lips. A naked figure that turned to face the viewer as the camera zoomed in. The second monitor came to life and this displayed a closer view of the still turning youth. The third view was closer again. The sensation imparted as all nine monitors came to life was of the most intense, carnivorous, predatory voyeurism. The youth was like a fleshly bonbon, or titillating titbit, wholly unaware of the ravening mouth of the camera. The ninth monitor displayed only his mobile pink mouth.
    Wotton’s rictus responded to this as it quivered and grew a moustache of sweat. ‘Time flies when you’re watching replays, eh Baz?’ He drew the needle from his arm, licked up the gout of blood, grinned.
    ‘Whaddya think, Henry?’
    ‘I thought you’d found yet another epicene swish, Basil, but this boy looks tough –’
    ‘But tender, yeah?’ He