Dorian Read Free Page B

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    And he would’ve gone on and on and on with this, had it not been for Wotton breaking back in with another impersonation – complete with acoustic air guitar – of Baz doing Bowie doing ‘Andy Warhol’: ‘Baz Hallward looks a scream, standing on his silver screen/ Baz Hallward looks a scream, can’t tell him apart at all, at all, at all…’
    In a cubbyhole of a bedroom hidden behind successive dark, membranous curtains, the object of Baz’s affections and his latest muse lay, only just now awoken from the easeful slumber occasioned by weed and wine and mutual wanking. Dorian Gray had been seduced thus far by Baz Hallward but no further. He’d been impressed by his connections and excited by his air of debauchery. He’d been beguiled by Baz’s suggestion that he model for this video installation, but there were limits. So during the videoing it was weed not coke, and afterwards he let Baz take him in hand, not mouth or arse. For now, Dorian was just young enough to want to go to bed with his elders out of a sense of being flattered by their attentions.
    Dorian could hear the two older men hooting and railing. He stirred himself and thought he perhaps ought to find out what was going on, but it was difficult to get motivated and so much more pleasant to lie in a tatty pile of sheets and blankets, stretching luxuriously and admiring the way the tendons and arteries writhed in his own wrists, or the way his brown legs – twined in white cotton – assumed this or that angle.
    Liquid blobs of light shimmered on the wall above Dorian’s tawny head. On the bedside table stood a half-empty glass of whisky and beside that was a metallic cigarette lighter, and beside that a pair of nail-clippers. Like the rest of the studio the cubbyhole was oak-panelled. Here and there a bronze-effect spotlight had been insensitively inserted. In each of these reflective surfaces Dorian Gray sought himself out, while lip-synching to the narcissistic soundtrack that played in his empty head. ‘She’s a model and she’s looking good, I’d like to take her home it’s understood… She plays hard to get, she smiles from time to time… It only takes a cam-er-a to make her mine…’
    The cackling voices of the two older men in the studio kept cutting into Dorian’s reverie. So, in one sinuous movement, he arose from the bed. From the floor Dorian retrieved white boxer shorts; he pulled these on and then sheathed them in white chinos which he fastened with a snake-buckled belt. Cathode Narcissus was no contrivance; this young man moved with the performer’s zeal which assumes an observer even when none is present.
    Dorian jived a little as he pulled on a T-shirt. He began to pay attention to the voices in the next room. ‘She’s a one’ – Wotton was in raconteur mode – ‘a real card. Have you seen her back room?’
    ‘Yeah, man.’ Baz was only half-listening.
    ‘It’s worth scoring off her just to see it – row upon row of new clothes, all still wrapped in polythene. Then electrical goods stacked up – all still in their boxes. She’s even got five fucking Corby trouser presses – showed them to me with great pride.’
    ‘Yeah, I know, man.’
    ‘It really proves that drug-dealing should be legal – not, you understand, for any of the usual reasons, but simply because the likes of Honey don’t know how to dispose of such outrageous profits tastefully…’ Baz Hallward may have heard about the trouser presses, but Dorian hadn’t. He wanted to know more, and to see who was describing them. On bare feet he padded towards the drawl, which continued, ‘I don’t suppose you have anything much more than a list to contribute to this shopping expedition, eh Baz? Everything gone on trying to pump yourself up enough to satisfy little Dorian , hmm?’
    Dorian stood in the doorway, swivel-hipped, blank-faced, floppy-fringed. Wotton fell silent, feeling new eyes upon him. The two older men turned to regard this