The Hunger (7 page)

Most of the Wraps I fuck have ‘boyfriends’. The trouble is boyfriends become husbands and husbands lose their power in a basket of dirty socks. I’m encouraged by the fact that
evolution programmed women to want power and they know where to find it and when to take it. They have a nose for it. A sixth sense ripened over millennia. They know they’ll find it when they
go where other women go, and when I walk the streets in Soho I am always
armed
with women. The more women I’m seen with, the more women want to fuck me. Women say they dream about a
white wedding and a faithful husband. Honest women say they dream about a white wedding, a faithful husband and another cock to fuck them senseless when the dirty socks start bursting out of the
basket.

Esurio told me this once:

—The hunter who brings the carcass home is the one the ladies always go for, Lincoln. No one wants to go hungry, and men who kill are loved the most.

Sandra is screaming. The bed is bashing into the wall. Then it fucking breaks. The headboard cracks and one of the front legs snaps. She says:

—Don’t stop, just keep going! Just keep going!

She thinks I want sex. I don’t. I want to make a mark. I want her to remember me. Tell her friends. Think of me when she’s holding her grandchildren and mourning her lost youth. I
want to leave a cock-shaped footprint in her brain, deeper, more enduring, than any memory any man will ever leave there. Then I want to leave her. And I do. I always do. I can’t stop myself.
It’s nearly seven o’clock and she’s lying on the bed. I’ve untied her. I look into her eyes. I see it there: a mark. Permanent. I have nothing more to say to her. I need a
drink. I need a line. We smile at each other. I leave the room, pay the bill and by the time I’ve reached Oxford Street I’ve forgotten her. For a moment I know I’m a twat. I know
it with greater clarity than I’ve ever known it before. I am ridiculous. A
poseur
playing a part. Not even an emperor without clothes. Just a naked actor. Esurio reads my mind. He
walks alongside me:

—Ruminating again, Lincoln? Does you no good, you know, no good at all.

—What do you fucking suggest then?

—More, Lincoln, always more. It may be the only idea I have but I believe it to be a good one.

—How much more can I fucking take?

—Lincoln, you are in serious danger of disappointing me. There’s always more. You know that better than anyone.

—I don’t like admitting this but sometimes I get scared.

—Scared! What on earth is there to be scared of?

—Like when I don’t know how to stop, or when that pain comes in my chest like it’s going to explode.

—Trifles, Lincoln, mere trifles.

—You know what happened to my Dad.

—That’s ancient history, Lincoln.

—They do say that early deaths can run in families.

—They? Who on earth are they?

—You know, experts, doctors, people like that.

—They know nothing about you. Nothing. They can reel off statistics but about you they know nothing. You want it. You can take it. So get on and do it. Life is a cauldron of pleasure and
you bubble away happily in the heat. The more intense the better. Don’t you agree?

—Yes, but I’m scared. I—

I look across at Esurio. He’s gone. I look up and down Oxford Street. He’s nowhere to be seen but I can still hear him. He’s in my head. Going at me. He’s fucking
relentless. He never leaves me alone.

—More, Lincoln, more. Feed me, Lincoln, feed me . . . Hunger like you’ve never known Hunger before . . .

Then I see him outside the Archer Street Wine Bar. He smiles at me:

—Now, let’s see how hungry you are . . .

I want to carry on walking. Just this once. To keep walking and find somewhere, anywhere, where he can’t find me. I feel my stomach twisting, eating me from the inside out. I push open the
door of the wine bar. Esurio has already lined up three vodka tonics. I drink the first one. He yelps with triumph. After each drink another one appears. It’s an endless conveyor belt of
alcohol until a man standing next to me touches my drink. When I’m on it I hate anything I own being touched by some clammy fucker. I especially hate my drink being touched. In seconds I have
my hands around his throat. I can feel people pulling at my arms and jumping on my back. The man’s face is going blue. He is losing consciousness. I know I am going to kill him and I want him
to die. I want him to die and take me with him. Both of us. Together forever. Then I feel a thud on the side of my head and I collapse onto the floor. When I come round I’m lying outside on
the street. Esurio is sitting beside me. He says:

—Much better, Lincoln. I feel like you’re back to your old self. You see, it never pays to think too much. It’s always easy to lose yourself in this idea or that. What matters
is to live. Let me do the thinking for you.

I pick myself up off the floor and we walk into another Soho night.

November 2009

Maynard and I are alone in The Office. He asks:

—What do you see in her?

—She’s juicy and naughty.

—But she’s in her mid-seventies.

—I like older women.

—But surely not
that
old.

I raise my eyebrows. The conversation is over. There is no reason I can ever give him to help him understand my love for older women. Especially
old
women. I tire of Wraps with their
ridiculous hopes and designer handbags. There are times when I’m pounding them that I believe I really want them. But the truth is I don’t. I feel lonely when I’m with them and
you’re never alone with a Granny. She is with you in the way a Wrap can never be. Decades of fucking, fantasy and frustration bring her to you complete: a woman who has lived, loved and lost;
who has given everything to her children; who dotes on her grandchildren and who is trapped in a bubble of resentment and regret that only age can bring. She looks enviously at the Wraps, wanting
one more, just one more, reminder of what it is to be young, to be
wanted
. Wraps have biology and fertility on their side but I would sacrifice all the Wraps I have ever fucked for a month
locked in a hotel room with a Granny over seventy. A Granny like Ella. She says she is seventy-four, but I guess she’s a few years north of seventy-five. Maynard says:

—But why waste your time with her?

—There’s nothing like it.

He looks at me. The look a man might give his best friend when, after years of friendship, he discovers his friend is from another planet and they cannot understand each other. Esurio says:

—I love your appetites, Lincoln. They’re deliciously perverse.

When I was barely a teenager I used to read a magazine called
Filthy Fifties.
It had a section called ‘Vera’s Veg Patch’ where Vera would stuff an allotment of
vegetables up her arse. Carrots, cucumbers, squashes, marrows – she got them all up there. Then I went to London on a school trip. To the Natural History Museum. While the other children
looked at fossils I disappeared to Soho. It took me weeks to plan my trip to a sex shop
.
It was a feast my young senses could barely take in. The magazines I really wanted were on shelves I
struggled to reach yet, as I raised my hands in hope, the magazines dropped down gently into my arms. Occasionally I saw the ghostly outline of some black gloves with only the wrist visible or the
faint outline of a bowler hat. Sometimes a whisper:

—Enjoy it, Lincoln. You’re young and everything you will ever want is waiting for you.

I didn’t really understand what the whisper meant or where it was coming from. When I got to the counter a man said:

—You’re too young, son. I can’t serve you.

Then those spooky gloves and a smell of aniseed. The man looked confused. He said:

—OK, take them, piss off and don’t come back again. You’ll cost me my licence.

As I walked out of the shop, I heard the voice again:

—One day, Lincoln, one day we’ll be best friends, you and I. The bestest of friends.

My Mum caught me wanking. All the time. She didn’t mind the wanking. She did mind the
Gorgeous Grannies.
She said:

—It’s not normal.

I didn’t care. And I don’t care what Maynard or any of the other boys say. A man who has never fucked an old woman has never lived. They say men want youth and beauty. I say:

—That’s fucking fantastic! That leaves all the grey hair and saggy tits for me.

10 p.m. The Townhouse. Dean Street.

I can’t keep my eyes off her. Maynard sees me looking.

—Quite nice, isn’t she?

I’m puzzled.

—I didn’t think you were into older women.

—You’re not looking at the old one, are you? Please tell me you’re not.

Of course I am. I noticed her as soon as I walked in. Even through the booze and the gear I couldn’t miss her. I assume the woman with her, too old to be a Wrap, but still young, maybe
mid-forties, is her daughter. The old woman gets up off her chair with the help of her daughter. I say to Maynard:

—Sixties or seventies?

—Seventies, I’d say. Early seventies.

—Yeah, I’d agree with that.

I catch her eye as she walks towards me. She knows, and because she knows, she presses her daughter’s hand. She says:

—Maybe time for one more?

Her daughter pushes her cheeks out and exhales years of resentment. This is an old woman with attitude – the demanding, relentless kind who will outlive her grandchildren. I take her in.
She has long grey hair, tinted with silver. Her face is well made-up. The subtle foundation contrasts with her lipstick, which is too deep a shade of red. I like too deep a shade of red. A colour
that deep is always a betrayal and an invitation. The daughter says:

—You have to get back. You know that.

The old woman looks at her watch.

—I’ve got an hour yet.

—But what about your medication?

—It can wait.

—How many times do you have to be told? It can’t wait.

I see Esurio standing behind them. He says:

—I feel a domestic brewing. Nothing whets a woman’s appetite for rebellion more than a domestic.

I smile at him. The old woman says:

—If I say it can wait, then it can bloody well wait.

—But what about me? I’ve got to get home too.

—Oh, I thought it might be about you. Always about you, isn’t it? One night out and you can’t wait to get rid of me.

—One night? I’ve spent more nights than I care to remember running after you, pandering to your every need.

—Then go. I’ll be just fine here.

She throws a half-smile in my direction. Esurio finishes a glass of vintage whisky and opens a half-bottle of Dornier-Tuller.

—We have lift-off, Lincoln.

The daughter snarls at the old woman.

—You’re impossible! And so stubborn! Well I have to go and I will go.

She turns to Maynard, who happens to be the closest approximation to a responsible-looking middle-aged man that she can find around the bar.

—Please will you make sure she just gets in a taxi.

Maynard says:

—Y . . . Y . . . Yes. Er . . . what’s her name?

—Fay.

Turning to Fay, he says:

—Don’t worry, Fay. I’ll get you home, wherever that is.

—It’s a long way.

—Everywhere’s easy from here.

Fay looks triumphantly at her daughter.

—Obviously not for some.

The daughter lowers her eyes, as Esurio raises his glass and says:

—Defeat is bad. Defeat coated in guilt is a prison of wretchedness.

Fay pretends not to notice as her daughter leaves and walks out into the night.

Maynard says:

—I promised I would get her home and I will.

I say nothing. I order another vodka tonic and turn to Fay.

—And what would you like?

Maynard says:

—Lincoln, I promised!

—And one for the considerate gent balancing on the bar stool.

Maynard puts his head in his left hand and keeps the right one extended. When I place a drink in his outstretched hand, the deal is done. Fay is mine. I will take her home. The next couple of
hours are a blur but some detective work I do the next day tells me that our time at the Townhouse went something like this:

I leave Fay to go to the toilets.

I take three lines.

I come back.

Maynard falls off the bar stool.

No one can be bothered to lift him.

I feel sorry for him, so I pick him up and prop him against the bar.

Esurio says: Very noble, Lincoln. You are a true gentleman!

I drink two bottles of red wine and three bottles of Stella.

Fay has two glasses of red wine.

I notice she has a limp.

She says: It’s nothing.

I think: I hope it doesn’t get in the way.

Some Wraps are hanging around.

They want a drink.

They are invisible to me.

Esurio tries to look up Fay’s dress.

He has to lie flat on the floor.

When he comes up he says: A true Victorian lady but with a twist, a real twist.

I think: I wish he’d fucking shut up.

Fay talks.

I don’t hear what she is saying.

I go to the toilet and take another line.

When I come back Esurio is dancing on the tables.

He is beside himself with excitement.

He shouts across the bar: You are a man like no other, Lincoln, a man like no other!

I think: He’s right.

I feel like the King of Soho.

I think Fay’s lipstick is a bit smudged.

Then I’m unconscious for a while.

Two doormen carry me into a taxi.

They say: Good fucking riddance!

Esurio says: How rude! And to such a good customer.

The rest of the night I remember:

I open my eyes. I hear the rhythm of the taxi. Lights flash before my eyes. I feel sick. There is a hand on my thigh. I can’t focus. I run my hands down a leg. It’s covered in a
dress. All the way to the floor. It can’t be a Wrap. Then I see the lipstick. Fay. I run my hand through her grey hair and down onto her neck. As I knead the wrinkles, I feel better and my
cock is hard. My vision is weird. I struggle to focus. The taxi stops. Fay says: