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  Who the hell does this clown think he’s talking to? — No, I don’t fucking well care, the cunts deserved it. You take that fucking risk when you travel, I snap at him.

  — I lost a good friend in that fire, you bastard! This irate tosser screams.

  — He’d be a wanker if he had a scumbag like you as a mate, I shout, but at the same time I extinguish the snout as we pile down the escalator onto the line. Tanya’s laughing and this Val bird’s hysterical, she’s doing her fucking nut.

  We tube it up to Camden and Bernie’s pad. — You girls shouldn’t be hanging around King’s Cross, I smile, knowing exactly why they are, — and certainly not with fuckin niggers, I tell them. — All they want tae dae is get a nice white bird and pimp her oot.

  The Val lassie smiles at that, but Tanya gets all wide. — How can you say that? We’re going to Bernie’s. He’s one of your best mates and he’s black.

  — Of course he is. I’m no talking about me, that’s my brothers, my people. Practically all my mates here are black. I’m talking about you. They don’t want tae pimp me oot. Mind you, fuckin Bernie would if he could get away wi it.

  The wee Val boy-lady giggles again in a strangely fetching way as Tanya pouts sourly.

  We get up to Bernie’s flat, me forgetting for a second which block on this miserable estate it’s in, as it’s very unusual to get here in the daylight hours. We disturb a solitary jakey, crashed out in his own piss at the bend in the stair. — Morning, I shout in brisk cheer, and the jake makes a noise between a groan and a growl. — That’s easy for you to say, I quip, and the lassies smile at that.

  Bernie’s still up, just back from Stevie’s himself. He’s as wired as fuck, a gold and black mass of chains, teeth and soveys. I smell ammonia and sure enough he’s got a pipe on the go in the kitchen and he gives me a hit. I take a long, hard suck, his large eyes full of manic encouragement as his lighter burns the rocks. As I hold and slowly exhale, I feel that dirty, smoky burn in my chest and a weakness in my legs, but I grip the edge of the worktop and enjoy the cool, frazzled high. I look at every crumb of bread, every drop of water in the aluminium sink in compulsive detail, which should sicken but doesn’t, as the freeze bangs me, taking my psyche into a cold place in the room. Bernie’s wasted no time, he’s got another set rocked up in his dirty old spoon and he’s laying a bed of ash on the foil and putting the rocks down as gently and tenderly as a parent might lower an infant into a cot. I hold the lighter in place and marvel at the controlled violence of his sucking. Bernie once told me he practised holding his breath underwater in the bath in order to increase his lung capacity. I look at the spoon, the paraphernalia, and think with a detached concern about how it all seems too reminiscent of my skag days. But fuck that; I’m older and wiser and skag’s skag and crack’s crack.

  We’re talking shite, ranting into each other’s faces which are just inches apart, as we hold on to the worktops, like a couple of Star Trek’s top boys on the bridge when the enemy beams rock the ship.

  Bernie’s on about women, hoors who have fucked him around, ruined the poor cunt’s life, and I’m doing the same. Then we go on to the cunts (masculine) who’ve fucked us over, and how they’ll get theirs. Bernie and I have a mutual dislike of a guy called Clayton who used to be a friend of sorts but who’s now burning every fucker down. Clayton’s always a good target for us if there’s a lull in the conversation. If adversaries like that didn’t exist, you’d need to invent them, to give life some drama, some structure, some meaning. — He grows sicker by the day, Bernie says, a strange pseudo-sincere concern in his voice, — sicker by the day, he repeats, tapping his head.

  — Aye . . . that Carmel, is he still riding her? I ask. Always wanted to give her one.

  — No, man, no, she fucked off to where she came from, Nottingham or some shit like thaa . . . he says in that drawl which lurches from Jamaica to north London, whistle-stopping at Brooklyn. Then he bares those choppers and says: — That’s you, Scotsman, you see a new girl around on the street, you want to know what she’s about, who her boyfriend is. Even when you have the nice wife and the child and the money. You can’t help yourself.

  — It’s just being public-spirited. I try to maintain an interest in the community, that’s all, I smile, looking next door where the lassies are sitting on the couch.

  — The community . . . Bernie laughs and repeats, — it is good to maintain interest in the community . . .

  And he’s back at the washing-up again. — Keep on rocking in the free world, I chortle, heading next door.

  As I head through, I note that Tanya’s scratching at her arms through her top, obviously going into smack withdrawal, and as if by some ghostly transmission my own eye starts to shiver. I fancy a fuck to sweat out some of the toxins, but I don’t like fucking junkies cause they don’t move. Fuck knows what that boy-bird Val’s on but I grab her arm and half drag her through to the toilet.

  — What ya doin? she asks, offering neither compliance nor resistance.

  — Gittin a blow job offay ye, I tell her, with a wink, and she looks at me with no fear, then just a little smile. I can tell that she wants to please me so much cause she’s that kind of lassie. The damaged kind, who always just wants to please but never, ever will. Her role in life’s theatre: a face to stop some fucked-up cunt’s fist.

  So in we go and I whip it out and the wood comes up. She’s onto her fuckin knees and I’m holding that greasy head to my crotch and she’s sucking and it’s like . . . nothing really. It’s awright, but I hate the way her beady eyes rise up to take stock of me, to ascertain whether or not I’m enjoying this, which seems a totally fucking ridiculous concept now. Most of all though, I wish I’d brought my beer through here with me.

  I look down on that grey skull, the perishing eyes flicking up at me and most of all those big teeth, stuck in gums which have receded back due tae drug ingestion, malnutrition and non-existent dental care. I feel like Bruce Campbell in some out-take of The Evil Dead 3, Army of Darkness, where he’s getting gammed by a Deadite. Bruce would just smash that brittle skull to powder, and I’ve got to get out before I’m tempted to do the same and before my softening dick is torn to shreds on that rank bed of rotting teeth.

  I hear the front door go and, to my excited horror, one of the voices is unmistakably Croxy’s, he’s back for another round. Possibly Breeny as well. I think about that beer and I can’t stand the thought of some cunt just casually picking it up and drinking it. It’s the idea that it would mean absolutely nothing to them as well, whereas to me, right now, it’s everything. If it’s who I think it is, my beer is fuckin well gone if I don’t make a move. I push this Val away and fire through, stuffing it in and zipping up as I go.

  It’s still there. The gear’s left me already and I’m crack-hungry again. I slump down into the couch. It is Croxy, looking fucked, and Breeny, looking fresh, but wondering how he’s missed out on a session, and they’ve actually brought some more beer up. Funny, but this doesn’t produce any elation. It just makes that particular beer I cherished seem tepid, stagnant and undrinkable.

  But there are more!

  So more beers are drunk, more foolhardy deals are concocted and more rocks appear, Croxy knocking up a pipe out of an old placky lemonade bottle to compliment Bernie’s activities, and pretty soon we’re all fucked up again. This Val lassie’s stumbled back in, looking like a refugee that’s just been turfed out a fucking camp. Which, I suppose, is exactly what she is. She signals over to Tanya and she gets up and they head off without saying a word.

  I’m aware that an argument between Bernie and Breeny is getting increasingly heated. We’re out of ammonia and have had to move on to bicarb to wash up, which requires greater skill and Breeny’s giving Bernie a hard time about his wasting of gear. — You’re messin up, ya fughin prick, he says, his mouth half full of semi-broken yellow and black teeth.

  Bernie says something back and I’m thinking about how I have to work later and should get some
shut-eye. As I head down the hallway and open the door, I hear shouting and the unmistakable sound of glass breaking. I consider going back for about one second but decide that my presence would only complicate an already messy situation. I slip quietly out the front door and close it behind me, shutting out the screams and threats. Then I’m out and off down the road.

  When I get back to the Hackney shithouse, which I must now call home, I’m sweating, shaking and cursing my stupidity and weakness as the Great Eastern from Liverpool Street to Norwich rumbles the building again.

  2

  ‘. . . the attachments . . .’

  Colin gets up and out of the bed. By the bay window he takes shape in a silhouette. My eyes fall upon his hanging cock. It’s almost guilty-looking, caught as it is in a triangle of moonlight as he opens the blinds. — I can’t understand it. He turns and I register his apologetic gallows grin as the light washes his tight dark curls to silver. It also shows me the bags under his eyes, and the unsightly sack of flesh hanging beneath his chin.

  On Colin: a middle-aged fuck of whom we must now add declining sexual prowess to reducing social and intellectual interest. It’s time now. God, is it time.

  I stretch in the bed, feeling the coolness in my legs, and twist to flush out the last spasm of my frustration. Turning away from him, I bring my knees up to my chest.

  — I know it may seem like a cliché, but this genuinely has never happened to me before. It’s like . . . this year the bastards have given me four extra hours of seminar groups and two extra hours of lecturing. Last night I was up all night marking papers. Miranda’s giving me a hard time, and the kids are so fucking demanding . . . there’s no time to be me. There’s no time to be Colin Addison. Who cares anyway? Who the fuck cares about Colin Addison?

  I can vaguely hear this whining lament to erections lost as I begin to stumble down the ladder of consciousness into sleep.

  — Nikki? Can you hear me?

  — Mmm . . .

  — What I’m thinking is that we need to normalise our relationship. And this isn’t just a spur-of-the-moment thing. Miranda and I: it’s run its course. Oh, I know what you’re going to say, and yes, there have been other girls, other students, for sure there have, he says, now letting a satisfied air slip into his tone. The male ego may seem fragile, but it doesn’t, in my experience, take too long to repair itself, — . . . but they’ve all been teenagers and it’s just been a bit of daft fun. The thing is, you’re more mature, you’re twenty-five, there’s not that much of an age difference between us, and it’s different with you. It’s not just a . . . I mean, this is a real relationship, Nikki, and I want it to be, well, real. You know what I’m saying? Nikki? Nikki!

  Having joined the assembly line of Colin Addison’s student shags, I suppose I ought to be pleased to be elevated to the status of bona fide lover. But somehow, no.

  — Nikki!

  — What? I groan, turning around in bed and sitting up, pulling my hair from my face. — What are you going on about? If you can’t shag me, at least let me get some sleep. I’ve got a class in the morning and I’ve got to work at that fucking sauna again tomorrow night.

  Colin’s now sitting on the edge of the bed, breathing slowly. As I watch his shoulders move up and down, he seems to me like a peculiar wounded animal in the dark, unsure of whether to counter-attack or beat a retreat. — I don’t like you working there, he exhales in those petulant, possessive tones that have become so him recently.

  And now I’m thinking, this is it, this is my time. The weeks of deference finally building up into that couldn’t-give-a-toss critical mass, where you know you’re finally empowered enough to just tell them to fuck off. — That sauna probably represents my best chance of getting properly fucked right now, I coolly explain.

  The cold silence in the air and the stillness of Colin’s dark contour tells me that I’ve hit the spot and finally got through. Then he suddenly moves, jerky and tense, over to the armchair where his clothes sit. He starts scrambling into them. There’s a thud of a foot on something in the dark, a chair leg or maybe the edge of the bed, and it’s followed by a cat’s spit of a ‘fuck’. He is in haste to depart as he normally showers first, for Miranda, but this time no fluids have been spilt so he may be okay. At least he’s had the decency not to put on the light, for which I’m grateful. As he tugs himself into his jeans, I admire his arse, probably for the last time. Impotence is bad and clinginess is awful, but the two in tandem simply can’t be tolerated. The idea of becoming a nurse to this old fool is repulsive. Pity about that arse, I’ll miss it. I always did like a good, firm arse on a man.

  — There’s no reasoning with you when you’re like this. I’ll call you later, he puffs, pulling on his jersey.

  — Don’t bother, I say icily, pulling up the quilt to cover my tits. I think about why I feel the need to do this as he’s sucked them, had his cock between them, fondled, groped, mashed and eaten them with my blessing and in some cases instigation. Why then is such a casual glance in semi-darkness so violating? The answer has to be that my essence is telling me that we are history, Colin and I. Yes, it is that time.

  — What?

  — I said don’t bother. Calling me later. Don’t fucking well bother, I tell him, and I’m wishing I had a cigarette. I feel like asking him for one but it somehow seems inappropriate.

  He turns round to face me and I can see that silly moustache which I always begged him to shave off and his mouth under it, again illuminated by a glimmer of silver light through the blind, with his eyes above concealed in darkness. The mouth is telling me: — Right, fuck you then! You’re a silly wee lassie, Nikki, an arrogant little cow. You think you’re it at the moment, girl, but you’re going to have big fucking problems in your life if you don’t grow up and join the rest of the human race.

  There’s a battle going on in my soul between outrage and humour, with neither prepared to concede supremacy to the other. In this dissonant state it’s all I can do to cough out: — Like you? Don’t make me laugh . . .

  But Colin’s off and the bedroom door slams, followed by the front door. My body starts to unravel in relief till I irksomely remember that it needs to be double-locked. Lauren is very security-conscious and in any case she’ll be far from amused as our row must have interrupted her sleep. The varnished floorboards in the hallway are cold under my bare feet and I’m happy to turn the mortise and head back to the bedroom. I think about going to the window to see if I can see Colin emerging from stair door into empty street, but I think we’ve both made our positions clear and that the link is now severed. That word seems particularly satisfactory. I’m thinking, in a playful way, of course, about his penis in that state, sent through the post to Miranda. And her not recognising it. They’re all the same really, unless of course you’re a big, sloppy, slack old cow. If your walls have any power, you can fuck round anything, well, almost anything. It’s not the penises that are the problem, it’s the attachments; they come in varying sizes alright, varying sizes and degrees of annoyance.

  Lauren comes through in her sky-blue dressing gown, her eyes blinking with sleep, hair tousled, as she rubs her glasses and pulls them on. — Is everything okay? I heard shouting . . .

  — Just the sounds of an impotent menopausal man bellowing piteously into the night. I thought it would be sweet music to your feminist ears, I smile cheerfully.

  Approaching me slowly, she extends her arms and wraps them round me. What a fundamentally lovely woman she is; always prepared to read me more sympathetically than I deserve. She believes that I use humour to hide hurt, sarcasm to deflect vulnerability, and she’s always looking searchingly and earnestly at me as if to find the real Nikki behind the façade. Lauren thinks I’m like her but, for all her affectations, I’m a colder cow that she’ll ever be. In spite of the strident politics she’s adopted, she’s a sweet kid, smelling wonderful, lavender-soapy and fresh. — I’m sorry . . . I know I told you that you were mad having an affair with a lecture
r, but I only said it cause I knew you’d get hurt . . .

  I’m shaking, physically shaking in her arms and she’s going: — There, there . . . it’s okay . . . it’s awright . . . but she doesn’t realise I’m shaking with laughter at her assumption that I care. I raise my head a little and laugh, which I regret instantly as she is a sweetheart and now I’ve humiliated her a bit. Sometimes cruelty comes by instinct. One can’t be proud, but one can strive to be aware.

  I rub the back of her slim neck placatingly, but I still can’t stop laughing. — Ha ha ha ha . . . you’ve called it wrong, honey. He’s the one who’s been chucked, he’s the one who’s hurt. ‘Having an affair with a lecturer . . .’ ha ha ha . . . you sound just like him.

  — Well, how else could you put it? He is married. Youse are having an affair . . .

  I shake my head slowly. — I’m not having an affair? I’m shagging him. Or rather I was. But no more. The histrionics you heard was the sound of him not shagging me any more?

  Lauren gives a happy, but slightly guilty, little smile. The girl’s too decent, too well mannered, to overtly wallow in the misfortunes of others, even those she dislikes. And it was one of Colin’s least endearing features that he didn’t like her, saw only the superficial image she wanted him to see. But that’s him, he’s not astute at all.