High society

by Ben Elton

  ‘God, that spliff was strong. I don’t use pot at all as a rule. Charlie is my darling, as every News of the World reporter knows, but when I do have it, it’s just a bit of hash rolled up with tobacco. This was different. This was a huge trumpet-like thing filled with pure grass. I took one toke and nearly passed out.

  ‘ ‘Actually, I think I might have to lie down for a bit,’ I told my new friend, whose name I don’t think I ever knew, and like the gentleman he was he showed me upstairs and offered me his futon.

  ‘ ‘If you’re going to throw up, girl, the toilet’s through there. My sheets is silk, OK?’

  ‘Do you know, I think I was a little offended. Not about the throwing-up thing — I must have been bright green — but there I was in this bloke’s bedroom, a famously hot bit of totty, stoned out of her box, dressed in stunning minimalism, and yet he wasn’t hitting on me at all. I mean, he’d brought me back to his place, we were standing by his bed, for God’s sake, and the fellow was simply not making a move.

  ‘ ‘Aren’t you going to try and screw me, then?’ I said. I say things like that quite a lot. I’m known for it. Good old Emily, she’ll say anything.

  ‘He looked at me for a long time, clearly rather torn. ‘I would love to, girl, but my old lady will be home in half an hour, you know what I’m saying? She’s a meter maid and she knocks off at six. Those meter ladies are tough. She’d kill me, girl, stone dead. She’d kill you too, then she’d eat you.’

  ‘I looked at my watch. ‘We could be quick.’

  ‘Well, he was only flesh and blood, after all, and he had tried to knock me back. But I’m a difficult girl to refuse when I’m being a complete twat, so I hoiked off the silky G and we had a quickie on his crimson sheets and I felt tremendously real and brave and adventurous, and I suppose he must have felt rotten because afterwards he said, ‘I wish I’d let you find another black man to fuck.’

  ‘The shag at least seemed to have cleared my head rather so we went back downstairs, but it was obvious he wanted me to go before his girlfriend came home, and since a group of his friends were going off to a party I tagged along too. Still stoned, still high, still feeling very exotic.

  ‘The party was clearly a kind of rolling affair, because it was quite lively even so early in the evening. It was in some warehouse and I smoked people’s joints and drank their Special Brew and jabbered on and bopped for what must have been hours. By this time I wasn’t standing out quite so much, as there were a few other white people about the place and lots of girls had sexy dresses on. Mine must have been the sexiest, however, or certainly the most slutty, because while I was trying to catch my breath in the chill-out room I was approached by quite the most unpleasant person I have ever met in my life and I’ve met some horrors. A Frenchman called Francois.

  ‘He was a pimp and he thought I was a hooker. Simple as that. He said he’d seen me getting kicked out of the limo and walking off arm in arm with Mr Rasta, and had drawn the conclusion that I’d been turning a high-class trick in the back of the car and having concluded my business had made an unceremonious departure before rejoining my great big black minder. What Francois wanted was for me to defect to him. Francois claimed that he would never let any of his girls get treated by their clients the way I had clearly been treated in the limo.

  ‘And as if to demonstrate the point, he drew back the lapel of his dirty Paul Smith jacket and revealed the butt of quite a big-looking gun nestling in his armpit. Do you know, I think I was actually excited. Even without the gun I was loving the idea that this terrible, appalling man thought I was a prostitute and wanted to own me, but now that it turned out he was prepared to shoot my previous owner to get me, well, it was rather flattering. Well, flattering to an idiotic, fucked-up cokehead like me.’

  A WAREHOUSE PARTY, BRIXTON

  Listen, foxy lady, sexy lady. You and me we’re better than this. You shouldn’t be getting into no cars, even if they’re limos, no way, baby. You shouldn’t be trading your ass on the street like some black ho’. You is high class, I can see that. I know about class, baby, because I got it too. I’m a main man, I ain’t like this bullshit round here, this trash. That’s why I gotta get out. I gotta get myself a ticket across the river…Don’t make no mistake, though, don’t get me wrong. Right now I’m making plenty money, fuck yes. You see this, two grand cash, no problem, any time.’

  Francois briefly pulled back the sleeve of his jacket to reveal a thickish wad of fifties wrapped round his arm with an elastic band. Also revealed were the telltale tracks of the needle.

  ‘Oh sure, I got plenty money, I shit money, but I’m sick of running screwed-up little smackheads off the streets. Those dirty little whores ain’t got no class at all, they just dirt. What’s more, you gotta keep them high the whole time else they won’t get in the cars. What I want is to get some class, get off the streets, get in a house and run a for-real grand-a-fuck classy bitch like you could be, get out west way, work the Arabs. Man, they got so much fucking money, and they gonna like what you got, that’s for sure, oh yeah. If you and me got a place maybe round Marble Arch, we’d be digging fucking gold.’

  THE PRIORY CLINIC

  He was even more wired than me was Francois. He was positively frothing at the mouth, and his pupils were like pinpricks. I’d seen the mess he’d made of his arms when he showed me his money, and even in the gloom of the party I could see fresh track marks on his neck. It won’t be long before he’ll be looking for veins in his cock, that boy, sure as night follows day. He was a serious junkie, and by the way he was winding himself up he did not favour a very mellow high. Suddenly I was very scared again. I know a fucked-up, strung-out loser when I see one. Well, for many a long year I’ve only had to look in a mirror. I’d only known the posh ones up until that night, but the desperation crosses class boundaries. The self-delusion, the bitter anger, all that malarky. Yes, it’s the same story, whoever’s telling it, the difference in Francois’ case being that he was armed.

  ‘So I said to him, ‘Look, Francois, I’m really not into that sort of thing. I mean, I’m flattered and all that, of course, but really, I’m no street walker.’ Which he thought was the very point he was making and he said that he intended to go and make it to the Rasta man who he presumed owned me.

  ‘And with that, thank God, he buggered off, and not before time. I was sweating by now and in no mood to be heavied out, so the minute he turned his back I jumped into the middle of the dancing and bopped away like a madwoman, shrieking and flaunting it, rubbing my arse against every available crotch and shouting for drugs at the top of my voice. Of course nobody could hear me above the music, which was a very good thing as I was still pretty loaded…

  ‘…and then suddenly I realized that I wasn’t in the middle of the crowd any more, but right on the edge of it, and that a little gang of boys was dancing me towards an empty room at the back of the warehouse.’

  A DROP-IN CENTRE, KING’S CROSS

  Ah always ask them if it’s OK to have the radio on when Ah go with them in their cars. Heart FM or Capital Gold, that’s what Ah like. Classic stuff. Before Ah went to live in hell Ah didnae like granny music at all, Ah was intae house and techno and rap, but now Ah like nice tunes…Particularly if Francois’ been slightly less of a stingy bastard and Ah’m on a decent high. When the puntas are on top o’ me Ah always try and float above maseF, like astral flying if ye follow me, an’ music helps. Ah just melt through the roof of the cars and levitate up and up until all of London lies miles beneath me, a million twinkling lights. And somewhere down there, some other wee girl is crammed into the back of a Ford Mondeo being fucked by a man who smells of beer and cigarettes. Some other girl is leaning across the front seats, gear stick stuck in her stomach, trying to put a condom onto some stinkin’ bastard’s dick with her mouth.

  ‘Sometimes they don’t let me have my music. They say it puts them off, distracts them. Sometimes they say they want to hear me, but Ah’ve never been much chop at doing any m
oaning and groaning for them. Ma teeth are always too gritted. Besides, if ye’re paying thirty quid for a streetwalking smackhead you cannae expect an Oscar-winning performance, can ye? It’s funny the moments that stay with ye. Most of the time it’s all just a blur tae me, but for instance I remember the other night, hearing about Tommy Hanson getting his Brit Awards. Ah’m thinking, God, it’s March already, how long have I been daeing this? I know the Brits are in March. Ah used to love my music, you see. Four Brits, I think he got, didn’t he? Or five? And there he was, on the radio, thanking his fans, an’ Ah was in the back of some car desperately trying tae hang on tae what was left of the smack in my veins to get through the trick that was on top of me. Francois’ getting meaner and meaner with his drugs, see, so sometimes Ah have taste shag ‘em almost straight. It’s not that he gives us bad gear or anything. Nothing too badly cut. He doesn’t want us dead, he just wants us dead tae the world, being screwed ten or fifteen times a night and handing over four hundred quid when the sun comes up. Anyways, so there Ah am, sitting on ma rapidly diminishing cloud over London, trying to stay aloft, looking down while Tommy Hanson’s on the radio with the single of the year, ‘Heaven Ain’t High Enough’…That was a Christmas number one, ye know, and Ah started to think about Christmas and what it had been like before ma da’ had left and the other man came, and how there had been some good times and Ah always got a load of presents, and Ah wondered where ma dolls were now. Ah had aboot twenty Barbies when Ah was a wee girl. Ah used to run a dolls’ disco, all girls. Then far below me the girl in the car, who was also listening to the music, started crying, but it was OK because the fellah who was on top of her liked that. So Tommy sang about heaven and Ah hung there in the sky with hell below me, and the girl in the car cried and cried and cried.’

  While Jessie had been speaking to the volunteer worker an important-looking party had entered the centre accompanied by a small group of media. The group, headed by Peter Paget, approached Jessie.

  ‘I’m so sorry to interrupt you. My name is Peter Paget and I’m a Member of Parliament.’

  ‘Oh, right. Ah’m Jessie.’

  ‘And you have a drugs problem?’

  ‘Too right, darlin’. Mah problem is Ah havenae got any at the moment. Can ye help me out?’

  ‘Would you mind if I had my picture taken with you?’

  Ten quid.’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t do that.’

  ‘Oh, come on, mate, gi’ us fifteen and Ah’ll gi’ ye a blowjob as well.’

  ‘I’ll stand you a cup of tea if you like.’

  ‘OK.’

  Peter turned to the little group of reporters who were with him and pointed out that a girl like Jessie was beyond society’s ability to help because she existed on the wrong side of the law. His voice shook with emotion as once more he outlined the absurdities of a law that criminalized its victims.

  ‘I have two teenaged daughters. Young Jessie here could easily be one of their numerous boisterous friends. But no. Instead, this young girl, utterly alone, lives outside a civilized society that is happy to forget about her. It is plainly obvious that this vulnerable girl needs protection from the law, not persecution, and yet society considers her lifestyle almost exclusively criminal. Disraeli’s famous phrase Two Nations is as relevant today as in that other age when child prostitutes shamed the streets of London and every tenement contained a Fagin’s den…Is it not…Is it not…Oh, for God’s sake! Look at this poor girl. She’s our fault. We have to help her!’

  Suddenly Peter’s eloquence deserted him. He had had his presentation all prepared. There had been plenty more Dickensian references to come, but looking at Jessie, this sad, dirty but still beautiful little junkie with whom he was sharing tea, his composure had deserted him. Supposing his own beloved daughters were so unfortunate as to fall beneath society’s net? What would become of them’} Any teenager in the country could become like Jessie if fate were first to set them on that path. Because once they fell, the law would be ranged against them.

  Peter found himself struggling not to cry. This was ridiculous. He was a professional politician. He had a job to do. He was a stern and practical man. To Peter’s surprise it was Jessie who decided to help him out of his embarrassment by speaking up herself. ‘You’re very right, Peter. As far as the police are concerned, Ah’m a criminal. They don’t want tae know about me and Ah don’t want tae know about them. If mah pimp gi’s me a kickin’ the best Ah can hope for from society is a Band Aid offa casualty.’

  The assembled media nodded thoughtfully. It was an uncommon feeling for all concerned to be involved in an issue and a debate so entirely real and immediate. Public affairs had descended so deeply into trivia and gossip over recent years that it was indeed refreshing to find everyone, politicians and journalists alike, focusing on something truly meaningful and utterly urgent.

  Every writer in the country was grateful to Peter Paget. By no means all of them agreed with him, but they were all grateful that he had galvanized the opinion-forming classes into finally having to form some opinions of their own.

  Jessie had her tea and agreed to be photographed. Peter Paget pulled himself together and was genuine and solicitous towards her; even the assembled journalists were touched.

  Samantha thought Peter had done wonderfully. Magnificent. So sincere and caring, so emotional, so beautiful. A proper man in a world of silly boys. As they left the drop-in centre she thrust some important-looking papers under his nose. Peter glanced down. Amongst them was a note that read, J want to take you in my mouth. Now.

  Never mind two nations. Peter was two men. The one who had entered the drop-in centre and spoken to Jessie — a deeply committed conviction politician and family man. And the one who left the centre, a quivering mass of agonizing sexual desire. A man happy, indeed eager, to risk everything he loved and everything he believed if he could just get his penis into the mouth of the gorgeous, bewitching, giggling, worshipping girl/woman whose bottom swayed before him as she led the party from the room.

  BANGKOK WOMEN’S PRISON

  Moi mum’s written to the King. Yeah. She reckons once the King hears about me being a good girl underneath I’ll be all roight.’

  The room Sonia had been moved to held forty-five women. There was not space for everyone to lie down at the same time and some slept sitting up or draped across each other. The woman to whom Sonia was speaking did not understand her and in fact probably did not even hear her. She had to all intents and purposes lost her mind, and spent the nights swaying angrily and picking imaginary objects from her prison dress. The woman on Sonia’s other side masturbated all the time she was awake, her filthy garment perpetually drawn up around her waist. Clearly she took no pleasure from this automatic activity. She rubbed herself for no other reason than that there was nothing else to do.

  Not everyone in the overcrowded cell was mad. Most had come from tough backgrounds and had the mental resilience to retain some semblance of sanity in the midst of such bedlam. But some succumbed to the desperate escape route that insanity offered, and those around Sonia had certainly done so. Perhaps that was why these women did not object to Sonia’s endless monologues delivered in her foreign tongue. The other women, the sane women, had soon become bored with Sonia’s dull bleating and had chased her away. Increasingly, Sonia found common ground with the lunatics.

  ‘I’m gonna get out, I am, just as soon as moi mum’s talked to the King an’ told ‘im I’m not supposed to be ‘ere. Now way. Royal pardon, that’s what I’m gonna get, ‘cos I’m British.’

  SAMANTHA’S FLAT, ISLINGTON

  She raised her head and looked up at him, past his unzipped fly, his untucked shirt, his skewed tie, and up at his strangely grim and unsmiling face. She’d noticed that men often looked like that when they came. They might at least try and look as if they were enjoying it. Peter’s back was against the front door; Samantha was on her knees on the mat. She got to her feet, raising her face to his, her lips clamped
closely together. Then, with great deliberation, she gulped.

  Peter sighed. Angela rarely swallowed. Even in the days when they had bothered with such exotic activities as oral sex, she had never liked to swallow. Peter did not know why it felt so intensely satisfying that Samantha chose to do so, but it did, and for a moment his satiated loins spun and crackled with one final roar of sheer pleasure. And then, almost as instantly, came the guilt.

  To be indulging in such intimacy…with a girl half his age. If Angela and his daughters knew…He always felt the same after Samantha and he had finished.

  He bad to get out of this.

  And yet…to give it up, to give up such an entirely exhilarating sexual adventure. How could he forgive himself? Man is a sexual animal, or at least that’s how he started out; the social side came later. That surely was when all the trouble began. One day Peter would be old and grey and facing the imminence of death. How could he look back upon his younger self and say…‘You gave it up? You denied yourself the opportunity to satiate yourself utterly on a young female of the species in her prime, for guiltl Do lions feel guilt? Do tigers? No! And nor should you. You are a man! A male of the species. You have a right to sex.’

  Peter often went through this argument with himself and it would invigorate him briefly before once more the certainty descended upon him. He had to get out of this.

  Although Peter was due back at Parliament for his confrontation with his Party Chairman, he allowed Samantha to persuade him not to rush straight off now that the frenzied, orgasmic moment had passed.

  Hers was a romantic soul and she was anxious for a moment of calm and affection. As she explained, she was not normally the type of girl to drop to her knees when scarcely inside her flat and administer oral sex to her boyfriend on the doormat. In fact, she told him, in the past her boyfriends had been fortunate if they had got any oral sex at all. This rather surprised Peter, as he had come to view Samantha as such a highly charged and vigorous sexual animal that it had not occurred to him that she might have her reserved side.