by Irvine Welsh
– What is it? She asks, – I’ve got a condom here …
– Naw, it’s the nitrate like, the poppers. Ah find the bottle. It’s got soas ah don’t get anything out of the shagging now without the amyl nitrate. Es are mair sensual than sexual, but you’ve got to have the nitrate though, man, no really an optional extra, now really as essential as a cock or a fanny like.
So well, so well, we’re still playing skin games and this is so good cause I’m still rushing and the tactile sensitivity has been increased a mere tenfold by the ecky and our skins are so sensitive it’s like we can just reach inside each other and caress all those internal bits and pieces and we work ourselves round into the sixty-nine and as ah start licking and she does there’s no way that I, at any rate, am no going to come quickly so we break off and ah get on top and inside her and then she’s on top of me and then I’m on top of her and then she’s on top of me, but it’s a bit too much theatrics from her, ah suspect; could be wrong, perhaps she’s just inexperienced because she must only be about eighteen or something when I’m thirty fucking one which is possibly too old to be carrying on like this when ah could be married to a nice fat lady in a nice suburban house with children and a steady job where ah have urgent reports to write informing senior management that unless certain action is taken the organisation could suffer, but it’s me and Purple Haze here together, fuck sake
and now it’s getting better, more relaxed, soulful. It’s getting good …
… it’s fine fine fine and Haze and ah spill fluids in and over each other and I’m sticking the amyl nitrate up her nose and mines and we’re holding onto that high crashing wave of an orgasm together
WHOA HO HO
HO HO
HO
OOOHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHH OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ah like the after-feeling with my heart pumping from orgasm and nitrate. It’s barry feeling ma body readjust, ma heartbeat slow doon.
– That was brilliant! Hazel says.
– It was … ah try tae find the words, – fruity. A full, fruit-flavoured one.
Ah wonder if anyone will be up for cocktails at Old Orleans later today or tomorrow night, or is it now tonight?
We talk for a bit, and then join the others. It’s really weird how you can be so intimate with someone you dinnae really ken on E. Ah dinnae really ken Hazel, but you can have a barry ride oaf ay a stranger oan Ecky. It takes a long time tae get that intimate oan straight street. Ye huv tae build up tae it, eh.
Ally’s right over to me. – That wee Hazel, a total wee doll. Dirty cunt man, you, eh. Fuck sake, Lloyd, ah wish ah wis sixteen now and had aw this. Punk and that, that was shite compared tae this …
Ah look at him and then look around the room, – But ye have got it, ya daft cunt, just like you had punk, just ye’ll have the next thing that comes along, cause you refuse tae grow up. Ye just like tae have yir cake n eat it. It’s the only fuckin way, man.
– Nae point in huvin yir cake if ye cannae fuckin well scran it back, eh, no?
– This is brilliant … how wis Tenerife by the way? Ye never really telt ays.
– Ace, man. Better than Ibiza. Ah’m no jokin. Ye should’ve come, Lloyd. You’d have lapped it up.
– Ah really wanted tae, Ally, but the hireys fucked it but, eh. Cannae save, that’s ma problem. What aboot John Bogweed last week? How wis that?
– John Bigheid? Shite.
– Aye.
– Happens though, eh.
– Aye … jist nivir goat intae the stuff eh wis playin … mind you, some ay it wis awright … you’re a dirty cunt …
– Ah know, ah know. You should fire intae Amber. She’s up fir ye, man.
– Fuck Lloyd, man, ah cannae be bothered shaggin Amber. I’ve started tae feel bad aboot chasin wee dolls, fillin thir heids wi shite and knobbing them, then runnin like fuck until the weekend, man. Ah feel like ah’m between fourteen and sixteen years auld again, when it was just a shag tae try and get it over wi as soon as possible. Headin straight back tae the first stage ay sexual development, me, eh, man.
– Ah aye, what’s the next stage?
– Ye take your time, gie the lassie a good feel, try to get her tae come, find clitoris, try oral sex … that wis me fae aboot sixteen tae aboot eighteen. Then eftir that, fae aboot eighteen tae aboot twenty one, it wis eywis positions wi me. Dae it different weys, try different approaches like doggy style, on chairs, up the erse and aw that sort of stuff, sort ay sexual gymnastics. The next stage was tae find a lassie and try tae tune intae each other’s internal rhythms. Make music thegither. The thing is, Lloyd, ah think ah’ve passed that stage and ah’m headin back in the full circle when ah want tae go forward.
– Maybe yuv jist covered everything, ah venture.
– Naw, he snaps, – no way. Ah want that kind ay psychic communion, gittin right inside each other’s nut, like astral flight and that. He presses his forefinger onto my head. – And that period is now until I find it. Never had it, man. Had the internal rhythms, but no the joining ay the souls. Never even came close. The eckies help, but the only way you can get the joining ay the souls is if you let her into your head and she lets you into hers, at the same time. It’s communication, man. You can’t get that with any Party Chick, even when you’re both E’d up. It has to be love. That’s what ah’m really lookin for, Lloyd: love.
Ah smile into his big eyes and say, – Yir a fuckin sexual philosopher, Mister Boyle.
– Naw ah’m no jokin. Ah’m lookin for love.
– Maybe that’s what we’re all really looking for, Ally.
– The thing is Lloyd, man, mibee ye cannae look fir it. Mibee it hus tae find you.
– Aye, but until ye do, ye want a fuckin good ride but, eh.
Later on, Amber tearfully tells me that Ally’s rejected her and won’t sleep with her cause he doesnae love her as a lover, just as a pal. Nukes is in the kitchen with us and he just throws his hands up as if this is aw too heavy and says, – Ah’m away … see yis … But ah notice that the cunt has left wi this lassie, and this is the cue for everybody to head off but ah stay back and try to explain Ally’s stance to Amber and Hazel and do some lines of coke with her and we watch the sun come up and discuss everything. Hazel goes through to bed but Amber wants to stay up talking. Eventually, though, she falls asleep on the couch. Ah go through to another bedroom and get a quilt and put it over her. She looks peaceful. She needs a boyfriend: a nice young guy who’ll look after her and let her look after him. Ah think about getting intae bed with Hazel and crashing but ah could feel the distance growing between us with the MDMA running down in our bodies. Ah head hame and although I’m not religious ah pray for a boyfriend for Amber and a special girlfriend each for Ally and me. I’m not religious but ah just like the idea ay friends hoping for good things for each other; like the idea of all this goodwill floating around in psychic space.
Back hame ah neck two eggs and wash them down with a bottle of Becks. Ah stagger tae bed where a strange, disturbed sleep descends on me. Ah’m in Cunt City’s familiar district of Shag-You-Up-The-Fuckin-Hole.
part one
The Over-whelming Love Of Ecstasy
1 Heather
You’re typing up that report using the mainframe’s word-processing package and Brian Case, Mister Case, is leering around and says: – How’s the light of my life today? What you want to say is that I’m not the light of your life, or if I am you seriously need to get one, you sad, demented creep, but you need the job and you don’t need the hassle so you just smile and keep typing your data onto the screen.
Only it hurts inside.
It hurts inside because you are called something you aren’t, seen in a way you aren’t. That’s why it hurts.
On the way home I stop off in a pub. This bar in the East Port. The last two weeks I’ve glanced in here, trying to pluck up the courage to go in. Looking at all the drinkers, hearing the noise, the odd raucous laugh, sm
elling the smoke. When I eventually walked through the door I thought it would be a powerful cathartic moment. But I don’t even realise I’m at the bar until I’m asking an old guy with a lined face for a gin and tonic. What am I doing here?
I never go into
I never
Because Liz asked me to come. Liz. She isn’t even here yet.
It seems like it’s all men here in the bar this dinner-time, even though they’ve done it up to make it more trendy. One prick looks at me like I’m soliciting. Here. In the East Port Bar. Dunfermline. Here! It would be laughable. It should be laughable. Things just aren’t funny now, though. I’ve laughed for too long. Laughed when I didn’t know why I was laughing.
Liz comes in. I get another gin and tonic for me with the one I get for her. Liz and I. Still friends, despite being assigned to different offices. Official reason: beneficial to our career development to have the opportunity to work with different people in different teams in different areas. The opportunity to increase our skillsbase. This was a power our union recently negotiated for the bosses to have: increased flexibility. The opportunity to input data into a different machine in a different office. The real reason we were moved, of course, is that we got on together and had a good time and they don’t like people to be too happy at work.
Liz is older than me. She chain-smokes and drinks loads of gin. I live with Hugh, in a house, but I live for my laughs with Liz. And Marie, my best pal Marie.
2 Lloyd
My head is a bit fucked; basically cause ah took a couple ay jellies tae come doon. Stupidity and sleaze, that’s what it is. Schemie windows. Ah look at the world through schemie windows. The phone rings by the bed. Nukes is on the other end of the line.
– Lloyd … it’s me.
– Nukes. Awright. Recovered fae last night, or wis it this mornin? Ah cannae git gaun, man. Took a couple ay these fuckin jellies tae come doon …
– Tell ays aboot it. Ye gaun tae the fitba?
– Naw … ah fancy a pint.
– Ah’m intae seein what the view’s like fae the new stands, eh.
– Fuck the new stands up the hole, man.
– They look awright but … fuckin better than the Jambo’s shite.
– Aye, cheap B&Q flatpack rubbish. Gary MacKay knocked them up when thir wis nae fitba oan Sky one night. Dinnae ken if ah could sit in the one place for ninety minutes but, Nukes …
– Awright then chavvy, we’ll keep oor options open …
– Sound.
– Right, see ye in The Windsor in half an hour. Dinnae phone up Ally but. If ah hear that cunt spraffin oan again aboot how good Jon Digweed wis the other week, or aboot how brilliant Tenerife is, ah’ll throw the cunt in front ay a bus.
– Right … that chancin cunt telt me Digweed wis shite.
– The cunt sais the same aboot Tony Humphries. Eh eywis starts the night by saying everything’s shite. Later oan ye hear um tell some cunt it wis no bad and then, by the end ay the night, aw eh kin talk aboot is how brilliant it wis.
– Ah take a shower and try tae get moving. These fuckin jellies: never again. Ah stagger out up the Walk tae meet Nukes. We go off on the pish. We take a couple ay jellies each to save money. Nukes had a sound argument: – Ye get the same effect with a couple ay jellies and four pints that you would get fae thirty pints. Why gie they brewer cunts the money and waste time?
The afternoon dissolves into a sludgy evening. – Ah’m fucked, man, ah say to Nukes. Ah drift off intae the City Of The Cunted, Noddyland, and get shaken back intae Planet Leith by the barman. He’s saying something but ah can’t make out what it is. Ah wobble along out the door. Ah can hear Nukes singing Hibs songs but ah can’t see the cunt. Ah dinnae ken whair we are, we seem tae be up the toon. Ah hear people laughing at me, sort of posh voices. Then I’m in this taxi and I’m in another pub in Leith. Ah hear a guy shouting at me, – That was the cunt that shagged his sister, and ah tried to say something but ah was too drunk, and ah hear another guy saying, – Naw, he’s Lloyd Buist, Vaughan Buist’s brother, eh mate. You’re thinkin ay the other Lloyd, Lloyd Beattie that boy’s name wis.
– Dinnae tell ays thirs two fuckin Lloyd’s in Leith, one guy sais.
Next thing ah know is that I’m talking to ma mate Woodsy, whae ah havenae seen in yonks, and he’s gaun oan about God, drink and E. He takes me back to his and ah crash.
3 Heather
Hugh’s home. He works later than I do. He has a more responsible position. He’s responsible. What is he responsible for? – Good day? he smiles, briefly breaking off from whistling the Dire Straits song ‘Money For Nothing’.
– Yeah, ah say, – No bad. What do you want for tea? I should have got something ready before this. I just couldn’t be bothered.
I’ve spent over an hour doing my nails: clipping, filing, painting, it all takes time. Time just sort of flies past.
– Whatever there is, he says, switching on the news.
– Eh, scrambled egg on toast okay?
– Great.
I go through to make the eggs. – How was your day? I shout.
– Not bad, I hear his voice coming through from the next room, – Jenny and I did a presentation for the area management team on zoning. It seemed to be well received, he stuck his head round the door, – I think we’ll persuade them.
– Nice one, I say, trying to fuse enthusiasm into my tone.
Hugh and I left university at the same time and went to work for different local authorities. He’s now the manager of a building society and I’m exactly where I was six years ago.
It’s nobody’s fault but my own.
If I loved him, it wouldn’t be so bad. I once thought I did. He was what I thought a rebel was: working-class, into student politics. What a lot of fucking nonsense.
– I’m going out tonight, I tell him.
– Oh … he says.
– With Liz. From my work. Now that we work in different offices we never get a chance to see each other. I’m just going round to hers. Probably get a takeaway and a bottle of wine.
– There’s a good film on Two tonight, he says.
– Oh aye?
– Wall Street. Michael Douglas.
– Oh right. I said to Liz but.
– Oh yeah. I see.
– Fine then.
– Fine.
Fine. I meet Liz in MacDonald’s, then we’re back in the East Port Bar and we’ve downed some gins and then it’s a taxi out to Kelty and to the club. – What ye daein gaun oot tae Kelty, girls? Only hoors n miners come fae Kelty, the taxi driver tells us.
– Hi! Enough ay that, neebs! Ah come fae Kelty! Liz says.
– What pit is it ye worked at, hen? the driver asks, before dropping us off in the club car-park.
We got in and found seats in the corner. There was a huge mirrored ball in the centre of the dance-floor. Liz cast her eye over to a table near the bar.
– That’s ma ex, she said, – Davie. Good-lookin felly, eh? She nodded over at a guy concentrating on his bingo card. He was soon making his way towards us.
I nodded at Liz’s remark with as much enthusiasm as I could muster, but I wasn’t really in full agreement. You could tell that Davie’s looks had once been there, but that impression was more to do with his flirty confidence than any physical tasties the ravages of time and drink had left over. He gazed over at me and smiled almost moronically. There was something though.
– It was the blue eyes ah fell fir, Liz said, as Davie came through the crowd and sat beside us.
– How ye doin, hen? And who’s this lovely young lady?
– This is Heather fae the work.
– Hello, I said.
– Glad to make your acquaintance, Heather. And can I get you lovely ladies a drink?
– Two G&Ts would go down well, Liz said.
– As good as done, Davie smiled, heading for the bar.
Davie not so much played to the strength of his big blue eyes, as put all his eggs in
to the one seductive bucket. Soon his playing around with his gaze made him look more than vaguely cretinous.
– The trouble wis, Liz confirmed my suspicions as he went up to the toilet, – thir wisnae that much gaun oan behind those eyes.
4 Lloyd
Ah woke up on Woodsy’s couch feeling shitey. Ah was sick, with a dentist-drill headache and my lip was burst and swollen and ah had like a nasty smudged bit of purple black mascara under my right eye. This reminded me why ah took Class As instead of alcohol. Ah mind ay Nukes and me paggering. Fuck knows whether it was wi each other or some other fucker. Given the slightness of my wounds it was probably some other fucker cause Nukes is a hard cunt and would have done me a lot more damage.
– You fucked it up goodstyle last night, eh? Woodsy said, bringing me a cup of tea.
– Aye, ah said, still too out off it to feel too apologetic, – Nukes n me hit the satellite tellies and went for it. Ended up in some brawl.
– Youse cunts are fuckin crazy. Alcohol’s Satan’s instrument, man. As fir jellies … well, it’s no often that ah agree wi that poofy wee Tory cunt on the telly … but fuckin hell, man, ah expect such behaviour fae Nukes, him being a cashie n that, but ah thought you’d have a wee bit mair savvy, Lloyd.
– Aw Woodsy, man, ah pleaded. That cunt Woodsy was still on this religion kick. He’d kept at it, mind you, it was last summer when it began. The cunt had claimed to have seen God after two Supermarios and two snowballs at the outdoor Rezurrection. We dumped him in the Garage Room tae chill, he seemed tae be overheating badly. Ah stuck a Volvic in his hand and left him to the pink elephants. Wrong really, but ah was so fucking up and the light show was so phenomenal in the main tent that ah wanted tae get back to the action. Two maternalish Party Chicks kept an indulgent eye on him.