Irvine Welsh - The Sex Lives of Siamese Twins

Slipping outside, I’m pounding the dawn pavements, heading south by the bay, enjoying the cool breeze on my arms and shoulders before that oppressive sun comes up. The air has the scent of wet pavement, as vines of mist weave up from the sidewalk.

It’s nice having my parents down, but they’re totally lost here in Miami. I practically had to buy them both a new wardrobe when they arrived. I don’t think my dad has ever owned a pair of shorts in his life. Mom looks a lot better having shed that darned weight, though there’s still plenty of work to do. It’s not always easy being around them, although we have a better relationship than ever, and it’s all thanks to Lucy and her emails! The irony!

That’s what all that weird business a couple of years back has taught me: don’t avoid a problem, meet it head-on. But while Mom and Dad can be very demanding time-wise, I’m delighted that Thanksgiving at Tom and Mona’s passed without incident, especially after last year’s trauma. With the added factor of my own parents being present, I’d been concerned, but it was Lucy who told me to chill, said I was trying too hard. I swear, we become more like each other every day!

God, how I love to run. There are practically no cars on the road, so I’m finding a nice rhythm in both pace and breathing, as I skip over another set of lights. When you get into this sort of stride, you feel the tension leaving your body, which is so invaluable at this time of year, Thanksgiving being so complicated. After last year’s debacle (Mona and Lucy fought), I felt like suggesting to Lucy that we should just blow it out and head over to the Bahamas, leaving Nelson with Tom and Mona for a few days. She’d never have agreed, though: that kid was such a game-changer. I have to tread warily on that issue, but it’s true, as his birth mother Lucy is much more protective of him. I’m like the fun dad. Also, she’s been on a big downer since Marge Falconetti’s funeral last month. That poor woman ate herself to death after she stopped going to the gym. As Marge was her client, Lucy’s taken it really hard.

The finest darned thing about having a kid, though, is that you’re so busy cleaning up after them, you don’t have time to dwell on all the other bullshit life throws your way!

The sun is coming up over the bay and I can see the Wynwood art and design district across the bridge. It was big fun over there a few weeks ago, Lucy and I partying (the first time for her since Nelson came along) at a function after my exhibition at the new Miami branch of the GoToIt gallery. My exhibition was a huge hit in New York, and now it’s pulling in the crowds down here. I really do owe Jerry tons.

I turn back up West Street toward home, cutting over Alton, getting into the 30s, skipping past the scalped saw-grass verges, already turning a darker green after last night’s rain.

Bliss, the house is still quiet! I mix a banana-and-peanut-butter protein shake and think of Lucy, the morning’s ruminations crystalizing into a nagging desire to speak with her.

I hear her laughing from another part of the house, and find her still in our room, sitting in the lotus position on the bed, watching that new weight-loss show, the hybrid of The Bachelor and The Biggest Loser . It’s called There’s a Date in There Somewhere . Simon Andrews, a wealthy young Connecticut stockbroker, has worked with their training and fitness expert Michelle Parish, to take, as the host says, “four morbidly obese women and turn them into the highly datable, and extremely marriable lovelies you see before you today.”

Simon arches a brow, and looks painfully sincere as he faces the four girls. “I should have been flattered, Patti, when you said that my love would stop you gaining back the weight. But that comment set off alarm bells. I’m sorry, Patti, but you do it for you . You’re missing the point of the program. It says to me that, despite the slim, hot body, you are still a fat girl inside. I’m going to have to let you go.”

As Patti breaks down in tears, Lucy pulls on a Bruins ice hockey shirt. — Check this shit! That Michelle Parish is such a bitch!

I kiss her and she playfully grabs my ass, without diverting her attention from the screen. I head to the office to check my emails. There are quite a few but one grabs my attention: the bill of sale has gone through on The New Man sculpture. A surge of elation hits me as I realize that we’re rich again! Stinking fucking rich! I open the attachment, print off a copy of the contract, sign it, scan it, and email it right back to the agents. It’s done!

Euphoria is quickly displaced by a pang of loss. The New Man is my best and most personal work and he’s leaving me. I suddenly have the urge to spend as much time with him as possible, before he’s shipped off to his new resting place. So I go outside to the studio.

I find him as I always do, crouching down, looking up, almost doglike in his posture. I walk around him, studying, from different angles, his frozen, stupefied expression, like he’s trying to figure it all out. Yes, by far my finest creation. I draw the blinds, shutting out the stream of light, and put on the video presentation of the Everglades, creating that swampy environment around him. That was Lucy’s idea, and it really works. The speakers rumble with the squawks of birds and the wind brushing through the mangrove bushes. I sit there in the blacked-out darkness, suddenly full of fear for my invention, wanting to put the lights back on, or open the blinds. The New Man suddenly looks angry, resentful, like he might pounce on me and tear me to pieces. I rise and yank the dark drapes apart, blinking as the cascading light floods through the workshop and bathes my exhibit, lulling him back to serenity.

LENA’S BEEN FOR a run and I’m watching repeats of crap on TV. Now she’s off again, presumably to steal some working time at the studio. She never stops. I can remember when I had that kind of juice.

My weight’s gone down again, though it’s hard to get motivated. I’m 147, which is far from ideal, but better than the 200 she made me go up to in order to learn my lesson. Well, it was more like 199.5 and I drank a lot of fluid for the weigh-in on the scale that day, but we didn’t split hairs. Lena had begged me to stop and had actually unchained me a few days earlier (some people are just not cut out for hostage-taking), but I insisted on staying to the end.

I get off the bed, and pick up my laptop. I turn it on and look back at my blog, reliving the craziness and the pain.

Ate the last of the candies, then instantly craved a burger and fries to obliterate the sickly sweetness. But once I had that, I knew I would want more candy. So I glugged back the last bottle of Bud, lining them up like soldiers, feeling its lush kick augment the dim, fuddled charge the others had built up. I thrashed at my chain. “IS THIS WHAT YOU WANT?! MOTHERFUCKERS! COME TO ME, COME ON TO ME AND I’LL TEAR YOUR FUCKING SLIMY EYES OUTTA YOUR PUSSY HEADS!”

Then Lena comes in with more chips, cookies, and beer. “We don’t need to do this.”

“Don’t unchain me, or I’ll rip your fucking throat out! Bring me more fucking fries!”

“I can’t. .”

“Show some fucking balls, Lena! I kept you here for six fucking weeks! FOOD PLEASE!”

“Tell me, Lucy. Just tell me!”

“I can’t. Now be a fucking woman and feed me.”

But all that shit she gave me, it really was addictive. I never realized how much before: it took the best part of a year to get clean. I secretly binged for over six months, unable to pass a fast-food joint or avoid sneaking a candy bar. It wasn’t easy, and now I can see how hard I was on her, and some of my other clients. I guess I bullied them, and trying to drive the weakness out their systems was a twisted way of trying to drive the doubt from my own.