‘Three?’ He makes a face, then remembers himself. ‘Oh, shit yeah. There’s like… I mean we’re practically like Scarface up in here. Have you seen Scarface?’
‘Yeah, Will. I’ve seen Scarface.’ And I join Henson in a side-eye. Our eyes meet, and he winks again. Will scowls.
‘I was just asking.’
We take the living room for lines. There are two girls in there, pretty girls, girls younger than me, so deep in conversation they seem a little taken aback when Will pulls a record from his neatly organised shelf and drops it on the coffee table in front of them. He takes a baggie from his pocket, and tips most of the powder inside it onto the sleeve. Finch says he should use a black vinyl not a white one. Will says it’s too late for that now. The girls get up to leave. Will looks to me, to the girls, back to me, and seems to mentally put all his eggs in one basket. He lets them go, without a line offered, or even so much as a nod of his head.
Flo leaves for the toilet, comes back and says there are quite a lot of people in the rooms upstairs, and Henson explains that their other housemate, Sam, is up there. Sam wanted to ‘get ketty’ around the time we arrived, so him and a handful of other guests retired to his bedroom, where they’d pulled a load of quilts and mattresses onto the floor earlier in the day, with the idea it’d be a comfy, ‘chill’ room, for people to go and get a bit weird later on. They must have all thought there’d be more girls here. Including myself, the one I came with, and the two who just left the room, that’s four women and probably fifteen or sixteen men, unless there are more women up in the ketamine room, hiding. No women is such a red flag for a shit party, but then no men is a red flag too – you want a fifty-fifty ratio, ideally.
I think Flo might have had her second bomb. If she’s sick later, I’m not fucking dealing with her.
Will runs to the kitchen and returns, carefully snipping up a couple of plastic straws with a pair of scissors, distributing them among the group. He assures us we will be kept ‘safe at the sesh’。
‘The girl to boy ratio here is really off,’ I say. I look at Flo.
‘I want to dance,’ she says. Will sticks some disco bullshit on, and Flo grabs Finch by the wrists, forcing him to dance.
‘Ah, do you not have a boyfriend, then?’ asks Henson, as if it were a natural segue.
‘Nah,’ I say. ‘I don’t do relationships. Never have.’ Henson smiles at me, and tells me he’s a serial monogamist, but single at the moment. Flo snorts, from her dance.
‘What about Frank?’ she asks.
‘Shut the fuck up.’ My face turns red – Frank is a fucking no-go. Honestly, I’d rather she brought up Lesley. Finch wants to know who Frank is.
‘Frank Steel,’ says Flo. ‘The photographer?’
‘Oh!’ says Finch. ‘Really?’ A demented little smile spreads over his face, like it’s such a shock.
‘Shut the fuck up, Flo,’ I say. And when she laughs, I throw an empty cup at her. That shuts her up. That shuts everyone up.
‘Ladies,’ says Will. ‘Please.’
‘You’re so aggro on coke, Rini, oh my God,’ whines Flo. I don’t dignify her with a response.
‘Should I roll a joint after this, then?’ asks Will. ‘Bit aggro this vibe, like. Plus, I’m nearly out of coke after this, mostly.’
‘So much for Scarface,’ I say. I dump my cocaine on the table.
It’s four a.m., and the sky is getting lighter, like a threat. I complain about it; Henson has a solution, proudly drawing the blackout curtains he bought specifically for the sesh. He’s also covered all the mirrors, so we don’t have to worry about the way we look. It’s like a Jewish funeral in here, but with more class As. We’re now out of coke, properly out of it. Flo is wittering on to Finch about gender. Finch has withdrawn; he is sweating and gurning. Will is texting his dealer, but I sincerely doubt he’ll get a response.
Will discards his phone. He is in a beanbag, pouting and dutifully rolling joints while I’ve been talking to Henson. He tried to craic on with Flo earlier, but she just said, ‘Boyfriend, sorry,’ and he didn’t even keep up the fucking pretence of wanting to talk to her. He sagged back into his beanbag with a grunt.
I’ve demoted him. Demoted from better looking, thinner friend to man-in-corner-rolling-joints. The mere act of my speaking to his cute, fat friend has him in a massive huff. It’s incredible. Who said masculinity was fragile, eh?
Henson and I have been deep in party chat for ages. He doesn’t seem to be the type of bloke who needs to interrupt you with his own hot takes, which is refreshing – maybe he’s too wrecked to respond. He’s still wearing the top hat. I described Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom to him in full, and explained Pasolini’s vision: the way he criticised the voyeuristic nature of film, but the inherent hypocrisy of the cinematography. The way he can’t stop his camera from lingering on boys. How he frames the female victims in the film with a cold, detached eye, but his male subjects are filmed with significant heat, with the lens lingering, not just on buttocks, but on eyelashes, and soft, floppy hair, and pretty lips. I told him that, as an artist, that was so influential for me. I could do that, if I wanted, you know? I could train a camera on a man and look at him like a man looks at a woman; boys, too, could be objects of desire.
I pull up some photos of Will on my phone, as an example. I pick out one where he’s nude, apart from an open button-down shirt. You can’t really see his dick. Mostly pubes – there’s a strategic bit of lighting.
‘Do you see, though? He looks soft, doesn’t he? He’s looking at you like he wants you, isn’t he? Like a… girl in a perfume advert, or something.’ I zoom in on his face. Heavy eyelids, parted lips, glimpse of a tongue glittering beneath his teeth. ‘Take my phone, have a scroll.’
‘Aye. Um… Was his… He never told me you shot nudes,’ Henson says.
‘Oh. Not as often as my mam thinks I do, but yeah. Will’s done loads of nasty shit for me.’
‘Irina,’ Will hisses. He’s crawled over to us, scattering a small nugget of weed into his carpet. ‘Don’t, please.’
‘Ah, come on, don’t act shy. You’re obviously not,’ says Henson. He’s stopped on a photo of Will in what I call lazy drag. He’s wearing lip gloss and delicately applied false eyelashes with a touch of eyeliner, and is dressed in one of my nighties （silk, pink） and a short dressing gown （see-through, pink, marabou feather trim at the hem and the sleeves）。 His hair is down, and he just… he just looks so pretty.
‘Don’t be embarrassed,’ I say. ‘You look lush here.’
‘Aye, dead bonny, lad.’ Henson has a smirk on his face. ‘A wonder you’re not using these on your Tinder. It’d be a statement of intent.’ Will tries to grab my phone from his friend’s big, meaty hands. ‘I’m still looking.’
‘I thought you liked my photos,’ I huff.
‘I do. I just, like, I don’t want him to see them.’
‘Well don’t model if you don’t want people to see your work,’ I say.