Alan Hollinghurst - The Line of Beauty

"You know, I'd like that very much," said the PM, in her chest tones, the contralto of conviction. Around her the men sniggered and recoiled at an audacity that had been beyond them. Nick heard the whole episode already accruing its commentary, its history, as he went out with her among twitches of surprise, the sudden shifting of the centre of gravity, an effect that none of them could have caused and none could resist. He himself smiled down at an angle, ignoring them all, intimately held in what the PM was saying and the brilliant boldness of his replies. Others followed them down the stone stairs and through the lantern-lit passage, to watch, and to play their subsidiary parts. "One's not often asked to dance," said the PM, "by a don." And Nick saw that Gerald hadn't got it quite right: she moved in her own accelerated element, her own garlanded perspective, she didn't give a damn about squares on the wallpaper or blue front doors-she noticed nothing, and yet she remembered everything.

There was sparse but hectic activity on the parquet when they stepped on to it, to the thump of "Get Off Of My Cloud." Gerald was bopping with a tight-lipped Jenny Groom whilst Barry pushed Penny round the floor in a lurching embrace. Rachel, sedately jiving with Jonty Stafford, had a look of exhausted good manners. And then Gerald saw the PM, his idol, who had said before that she wouldn't dance, but who now, a couple of whiskies on, was getting down rather sexily with Nick. All Nick's training with Miss Avison came back, available as the twelve-times table, the nimble footwork, the light grasp of the upper arm; though with it there came a deeper liveliness, a sense he could caper all over the floor with the PM breathless in his grip. Anyway, Gerald put a stop to that.

They were up in Nick's bathroom, the three of them, Wani chewing and sniffing, almost shivering, like someone who is ill. He had a look of wide-eyed gloom, racing and lost. He said he was fine, never better. He concentrated on unfolding the square of Forum magazine, and then scraping the girl's dark pubic mound clear of powder. Nick sat on the edge of the bath, sat in the bath, crossways, with his legs hanging out, and watched Tristao taking a hugely protracted piss.

"Don't put that away," said Wani, which was one of his little jokes.

Tristao clucked and said, "He likes that."

"I know," said Nick.

"I know where I see you now," Tristao said, putting it away none the less, and flushing the lavatory. He washed his hands and talked into the mirror. "Is Mr Toby birthday party. In the big big house. Long time ago."

"That's right," said Nick, struggling up and taking off his jacket. Tristao took his tail-coat off too, as though it were agreed what they were going to do. The instinctive certainty made Nick smile.

"You come lookin for me, in the kitchen. I think you was very pissed."

"Was I?" said Nick vaguely.

"Then I feel very bad because I say I meet you later, and I never come."

"We know why," said Wani.

"Don't worry," said Nick. "I'm sure I forgot too."

Tristao put a hand on Nick's shoulder, and Nick understood and got out his wallet and gave him £20. Tristao tilted his face and stuck his long fat tongue into Nick's mouth, kissed him systematically for ten seconds, then pulled out and turned away. Wani hadn't noticed, busy with the hill of coke. Tristao went and peered over his shoulder. "I get in big trouble for this," he said.

"No trouble," said Wani. "Couldn't be safer. House under police guard."

"Yeah, I mean with my boss. Just a short break, yeah?"

"See how you like it," said Wani, groping back at the waiter's crotch without looking round.

"I mean, do you need more money?" said Nick.

"I've just given him fifty fucking quid," said Wani in a loud drawl.

Tristao mooched about and looked in the mirror again. He said, "So you no bring your wife with you to the party?"

"She's not my fucking wife, you slut," said Wani cheerfully.

Tristao grinned at Nick. "I see you dancin with the big lady tonight," he said. "Jumpin around. I think she likes you."

Wani's head reared in a single laugh. "I'm going to ask her just what she thinks of Nick the next time I see her."

"You a good friend of hers then, are you?" said Tristao, and grinned at Nick again.

"A fucking good friend," said Wani, tapping and peering at his work. "An exceedingly good friend… There…" He turned and stared. "No, don't you love her? Isn't she just beautiful?"

Tristao made a little moue. "Yeah, she OK. OK for me, anyway. Lots of parties, lots of money. Lots of tips. Hundred pound. Two hundred pound…"

"God, you slut," said Wani.

Nick went to the basin and drank two glasses of water. "I need a li-ine," he crooned. They were all wired up now and desperate to go on, with the great, almost numbing reassurance of having packets more stuff. It was beyond pleasure, it was its own motor, pure compulsion, though it gave them the delusion of choice, and of wit in making it.

Tristao bent to snort his line, and Wani felt his cock and Nick felt his arse. "Is good stuff? So where you get this stuff?" he said, stepping back, escaping for a moment, sniffing sharply.

"I get it from Ronnie," said Wani. "That's his name. Ah, that's better"- pinching his nostrils. "I love Ronnie. He's my best friend. He's really my only friend."

"Apart from the Prime Minister," said Nick.

Tristao had the big first smirk on his face. A dozen decisions were already being made for him. He said, "I thought he's your best friend. Him, Nick. No?"

"Nick? He's just a slut," said Wani. "He takes my money."

Nick looked round from the first half of his line. "What he means is he's my employer," he said, with necessary pedantry.

"Not that he does any fucking work," said Wani.

"Actually that's one kind of work I do do," said Nick pertly.

"What- fuckin work?" said Tristao, and laughed like an idiot.

"Anyway," said Nick, "he's a millionaire, so…"

"I'm a mw/tf-millionaire," said Wani, with a sort of airy scowl. "I want you to do your trick now."

"What is his trick?" said Nick.

"You'll see," said Wani.

"I hope this drugs don't make my dicky go soft," said T Tristao.

"If your dicky go soft I'm having my fucking money back," said Wani.

Tristao dropped his trousers and pants round his knees and sat on the edge of the little cane-seated chair. His dark heavy dick hung down. He put his hands up inside his shirt, pushed his shirt up over his ribs, and twisted his nipples. "You want to help me?" he said.

Wani tutted and went to stand behind him, leaned over to watch as he pinched and coaxed the waiter's nipples between forefinger and thumb. Tristao sighed, smiled, and bit his parched lip. He looked down intendy, as if it was always a marvel to him, as his cock stirred, and thickened, twitched its way languorously up across his thigh before floating free with a pink smile of its own as the skin slid back a little. "That's what it's all about," said Wani.

"Is that it?" said Nick.

"You like?" said Tristao, whose face seemed to Nick suddenly greedy and strange. Of course his penis was the latent idea of the night, of this strange little scene, an idea trailed and discounted and lifting at the end as a large stupid fact. Nick said,

"So you've seen this before?"

"Oh, he always want it," said Tristao.

Wani was down on his knees, trying clumsily to do justice to the thing he always wanted. His pants were undone, but his own little penis, depressed by the blitz or blizzard of coke, was puckered up, almost in hiding. He was lost, beyond humiliation-it was what you paid for. He sniffed as he licked and sucked, and gleaming mucus, flecked with blood and undissolved powder, trailed out of his famous nose into the waiter's lap. Obviously the waiter never got like this himself, he'd learnt the danger from Wani's example. Now he was chatty, like someone among friends. He nodded down at Wani and said, "That's when I see him first. Mr Toby party. He give me coke and I fuck him in the hass."