Vernon Subutex One

by Virginie Despentes

  Lydia leaves the bar without saying goodbye to anyone, as though she is just stepping out for a smoke. Tomorrow no-one will be in a fit state to remember that she slunk away like a thief. Whereas if she mentions she is leaving, there is a risk she’ll end up being forced to drag them all to the Mécano like a ball and chain.

  It takes a certain dose of swagger to go from Bastille to Oberkampf on foot in six-inch heels and a short skirt after eleven at night. All the arseholes in the city are on duty. Cops consider it their bounden duty to ruin the life of any girl walking by herself in the street. Avoid eye contact. Walk swiftly. Keep herself bolt upright by imagining she has a sword in her Balenciaga, like Beatrix Kiddo. Keep her mouth shut; keep moving. The tongue clicks intended to attract her attention. The insults – hoe, slut, skank, cum-bucket, yo babe where you goin’? get yo’ ass over here, racist bitch, I seen that big-assed booty of yours, be careful now babe, them lips would look real good wrapped round my dick. Never slow down. She loves guys, loves them pragmatically, energetically, loves them with every inch of her skin and with what’s inside her belly. But she would also love to kill a few of them. She wishes she had the licence – legitimate self-defence. There’s a gang of you, following me around, threatening me, I whip out my sword and off with your heads. Lydia is used to it. You need chutzpah if you’re going to be a hot piece of ass. You get no support from anyone on this earth. Not from the guys you hang with, not from the girls who are your friends and not from the guys you’re not prepared to blow. One day on the boulevard Sébastopol, some fat guy grabbed her wrist and tried to force her to go with him, she pulled her hand away and said “Fuck off, freak”, the guy flushed beet red and she could tell he was about to go ballistic and whack her. He forced her to apologise. She complied, and then she beat it. In all the time he had her cornered, threatening her, she saw not a single person slow down or even glance in her direction. He could have kicked her to death there on the pavement and people would have looked the other way.

  She walks into the bar. Ty Segall streaming from the speakers. Lydia looks round to find Cassandre’s table, Paul smiles when he sees her. There are no chairs free so he squeezes closer to his neighbour on the bench to make room. She slides in next to him, careful not to show her gratitude. He is not particularly buff. But he’s sexy. You can never tell, there are some guys you just want to screw. She likes the cool swagger he has when he tries to pick up girls. He is not pushy, he’s not rushed. But he gets straight to the point. Lydia blanks him, her upper body turned towards Cassandre, filling her in about seeing Les Chacals live, the piss-poor sound system, the gawky teenagers doing some sort of post-pogo that was pathetic but touching, the songs that all sound the same, the first song is a slap in the face because they can really fucking play, the groove is tight, but by the sixth song, the effects have worn off and you’re heading to the bar to get a beer. Under the table, where no-one can see, her leg is pressed against Paul’s, their thighs nestling together comfortably without their faces betraying the slightest emotion. Lydia glances around her, smiling, serene. She has butterflies in her stomach, she wants to take him in her mouth in a mixture of excitement and gratitude – and she thinks it is awesome that he wants to do the same thing. All the same, she checks her iPhone: still no word from Vernon. It’s a pain. Paul sees her looking.

  “You waiting for someone?”

  “No. Just checking. Thing is, I’m writing this biography of Alexandre Bleach, and I’m expecting a message from a friend of his – we were supposed to meet for an interview but he’s stood me up . . .”

  Their ankles are entwined; their hands, above the table, play no part. God, she loves his eyes – the way he can smile with just his eyes. For months now they’ve been circling each other without ever finding the right time. She feels herself getting wet and that excites her even more. She never expected him to be so direct. She has a thing for geeky guys, she has techniques to help them make the first move, but when they know what they want, it’s amazing. Cassandre is watching them, but nothing in their behaviour hints at what is happening outside the frame. She claims to think it’s disgusting that Lydia is constantly cheating on her boyfriend, Pierre. But mostly it is that Cassandre is too pretty to sleep with just anyone. She is selective, it goes with her physique. But in the end, she feels as though she is being conned. In not making the most of life. She is right. If playing the unattainable icon means spending your nights bored rigid and alone in bed to be virtuous while your senior vice president executive-class boyfriend is constantly abroad on business, you might be better off being some random girl who can live it up and shag every available guy worth fucking. They won’t be young for long, and they are at that perfect age when their hotness is not tinged with pathos.

  Paul whispers in her ear in a neutral tone:

  “Sorry I haven’t messaged you on Facebook for a while, my girlfriend is completely paranoid about me talking to other girls.”

  “She’s jealous?”

  “Hell on earth.”

  “She’s got good reason. My boyfriend is jealous too.”

  Under the table, their legs press together and slowly rub against each other, each millimetre of touching skin declaring that they plan to fuck like rabbits. This countdown to ecstasy is nerve-racking. Never before has Lydia been so keenly aware of her knee as she is now while it seeks its mate. Cassandre leans over the table and asks in a low voice:

  “Got any . . . farlopa?”

  Ever since she spent six days in Barcelona, she cannot bring herself to say yayo or Charlie, or even cocaine – only farlopa. Lydia leans in and shakes her head:

  “Nada. You interested? I’ve a contact who usually hangs out in a bar near here. Want me to go check?”

  Yes, Cassandre is interested. She has trouble getting through an evening without a line or three. She insists that she is a casual user. But when there’s no nose candy, she would happily call up the whole world to get some. This is the perfect excuse, Paul grabs his jacket:

  “If you’ve got a contact, I’m in too. You want me to come with?”

  Cassandre is so focused on powdering her nose that she doesn’t notice anything strange. Usually, she is more perceptive than this. And more pervy. But she’s so desperate for a line she doesn’t catch on.

  Outside, they walk a little way, still talking about the last gig by Gossip, then turn the corner, Paul spots a couple going into a building and has the presence of mind to stick his foot in the door, still chatting to Lydia, as though one of them is heading home and just finishing the conversation before calling the lift. The couple barely notice, they take the stairs without looking back. Paul drags Lydia into the hallway, there is a nook behind the lift. This is their first kiss, and they are just drunk enough for alcohol to make their movements fluid, but not so drunk it makes them do sordid stuff. Tomorrow, she will remember each particle of this moment. Because this is the only thing that interests her in life, but it interests her deeply: the first time they kiss, the first time he pushes up her jumper and lays a hand on her bra, his fingers fumbling to unhook it, to get it out of the way, the first time she pressed her hand flat against his cock through his trousers and he was so hard that she thought she might pass out, the first time he flexed his wrist to press his palm against her pussy and immediately slipped two fingers inside her, that he took her, fingering her like she had never been fingered before and she came on the spot, standing behind the lift, pelvis thrust up towards him, staring into his eyes so he could see the effect he was having on her. She wanted to suck him off right here in the hallway, but he whispered “can we not go back to yours?” and she said sure, my boyfriend’s not there. They went out to look for a taxi. The madness and the mundane begin to merge again. On the way there, Paul compliments her on her writing. She expected him to be more kinky. Not the sort to say nice things when you open your bed to him. He is adorable. This is confirmed when they get to her place, rip off their clothes and get down to fucking. He is gentle, patient and
attentive. She is disappointed. Too much foreplay. It’s not a total disaster, she likes the way he moves, his smell, their bodies are content to mesh and rub against each other. But if they were going to stick to kids’ stuff, they might as well have snogged when they left the bar and gone their separate ways. What she likes about sex with guys she’s not dating to is the sense of danger, the feeling of something that she cannot control taking hold of her. She is always nice to the guys she screws, she’s not the kind to signal to let them know she’s bored. She patiently fakes it, and sometimes when you fake it you manage to convince yourself, but sometimes you don’t.

  Luckily, he leaves pretty quickly. He was probably bored too. She had expected it to be more interesting with him. She rejects her itchy nightdress in favour of an old Ramones T-shirt and pulls on thick woolly socks. She sits down at her computer. No messages from Subutex. With nothing better to do, she trawls the web.

  Turns out Gérard Depardieu is a Russian. Brilliant. The last straw. Okay, so France is a shit-tip, but to go trading in your passport for a Russian one . . . That said, in the interview, Depardieu doesn’t sound particularly pissed off, he claims to be French, Russian and – coming soon! – Belgian. So, all sorted now, are we? Maybe he feels that forcing his whole family into the film industry didn’t piss off enough people. You’re right, Gérard, your junkie son would have got much better care in a dictatorship. Clearly, being part of the select group of French apparatchiks was not classy enough for him. Lydia would have loved to be the daughter of someone in the business. You see them everywhere – Guy Bedos’ kids, Higelin’s brood, the Sardous and the Audiards, then you’ve got the Lennons and the Coppolas – and now you’ve got the parents bitching that people don’t make enough effort. She needs to click on something else before she bursts into tears. Okay, Putin is sexy. Putin is all the sexier because he’s one powerful motherfucker, but even if he wasn’t, he would still be sexy. Stripped to the waist, riding a horse, he’s seriously buff. Thighs pressed tight against the horse’s flanks. It conjures so many images. Lydia, like all women, is susceptible to spurious reasoning. She’s never slept with a Russian. She has so much yet to achieve.

  *

  She is muttering to herself, as usual, bent over her screen. Paul has already sent her three texts. She would never have expected him to be like this. Clingy.

  She gets up and goes to the cupboard. Milk chocolate, crisps, roasted salted peanuts, a galette des rois (serves six) from Día, a jar of ersatz Nutella. She spent half her salary on this. She needs fat. Even sweets and desserts have to contain fat. She starts with the chocolate. A whole bar while staring at her screen. She eats, without gorging, but without pausing either. She would be better off on crack than these bouts of bulimia. A month ago, she thought of these binges as unhealthy gluttony. A way of making herself throw up several times during the night was the only way to eat and stay thin. She is slim. She has no choice: she is not particularly pretty. She needs at least one thing that makes her attractive.

  It was Sophie, a girl her age who works for Grazia who first mentioned the word bulimia in her presence. It was during a press junket to Seattle, they were staying in a swish hotel: they met over the buffet breakfast. Seeing Lydia refill her plate several times, Sophie flashed her a knowing smile: “You make yourself throw up? Me too.” Surprised by the question, Lydia did not have time to deny it. Sophie giggled. “A couple of bulimics at buffet breakfast, we’re going to have a wild time you and me!” And they organised a plan of attack, croissants, muffins, cold meats and cheese. They practically had to be dragged out of the restaurant – and between courses they would go to the toilets to throw up. Bulimia. Lydia had never thought to associate this word to what she did in private. Bulimia. Fuck. That’s all I need . . .

  *

  Every thirty seconds she clicks on the rosaliethatslife tab, glances at her Facebook profile. All she can think about is the moment when Vernon Subutex will log on and overwhelm her with “Likes”, maybe give her a virtual orgasm by leaving a couple of comments on her timeline. In the past four days, this is all she has been doing – checking online for something that might make her react. Radio silence. She is in agony.

  Sulkily, she launches Word. She has to start writing this book at some point. Then she logs in to her bank, checks her balance, double-checks every transaction, gets up to look for a God Is My Co-Pilot C.D., follows a flame war on Twitter without knowing what it’s about, has her cards read on tarot.com then remembers she has to send off a cheque for the rent, fills it in, slips it into an envelope and leaves it to one side because she can’t be bothered to look for the address of the letting agent. She has the attention span of a jumping bean. She goes back to the blank Word document.

  Most of what she has done since starting work on this book has been developing a work schedule. The editor who commissioned it has not got the first idea who Alex was. Lydia cannot understand how he came up with the idea. She googled the publishing house – not very Rock the Casbah, as it turns out – before heading to her meeting with the editor. He’s got a fifteen-year-old daughter who has been banging on at him about Alex. He wanted to publish a book she would read for a change.

  Over lunch, he freaked her out. He was wearing this really tacky suit, all that was missing was the tie, and his manners were like something from before the First World War. He had made enquiries before contacting her, meaning he had looked at photographs of her online. And he liked her. Lydia is not exactly backward in coming forward, but when he started coming on to her in his subtle, convoluted way, she had to wonder if it was a joke. People actually sleep with guys like this? She does not even want to think about what kind of socks he is wearing.

  The editor is weird. He does not watch television, rarely uses the internet. He lectured her about e-book rights: “You’re not prepared to accept the same terms for e-book and paperback? Authors always assume they can earn more on e-book rights, arguing that there are no warehouse costs, no shipping costs, no booksellers . . . But do you realise how much it costs to develop bleeding-edge technology? We are a vital part of that research.” Lydia was relieved that Apple and Amazon could count on the solidarity of editors and their authors. The idea of small businesses like his surviving on their own clearly terrified this guy. Brilliant. He had obviously never even heard of the music business. If he had, he might wonder whether he really wanted to be part of the carnage.

  So, this guy who has never listened to pop, to rock, to funk wants a book about Alex Bleach. She managed to exploit the vagueness of the situation to negotiate an advance of three thousand euros on signature. The contract arrived by mail the following day. She signed in a heartbeat. And in that case, she did not leave the envelope sitting on her desk for two weeks. There is another three thousand due, when she delivers the manuscript. She needs to write fast.

  *

  It was Kemar who prepared her. Without him, she would never have asked for so much money. He popped by to give her a dose of courage the night before her meeting. He knows nothing about publishing, he works as an engineer for Numéricable. Lydia adores him. In her private top ten of lovers, he ranks third, no question. It’s unusual for her to want to see a casual fuck-buddy for so long. Either you’re in a relationship or you just screw each other senseless three or four times, anything in between eventually becomes complicated. And boring. Except with Kemar. He’s got a machine-gun sense of humour, he comes out with two gags a second that are funny enough to make you piss yourself. He’s built like a brick shithouse but his dick is no bigger than a Vietnamese spring roll, he’s ugly as a troll but he’s the best fuck in the world. He’s so good in bed, you can’t remember what you did with anyone else. She is not the only one who thinks so. The guys all wonder what he does to women. They’ve got good reason. The girls wonder too. Every time he leaves her place, she feels better than she does after two hours of Bikram yoga: her chakras are completely balanced. She is still floating the day after. He rarely drops round, but he never q
uite forgets her. And, aside from his gift for sex, he gives great advice. He did a coaching session with her just before her meeting with the editor: ten thousand euros. She is the expert on Alex Bleach, she has contacts no-one else has, the guy was a living legend, his fans are obsessive, they’ll rush out to buy the book. Ten grand, minimum. She should ask for fifteen. Lying naked on top of the duvet, chin resting on her clasped hands, she listened to him, sceptical and bewildered, as he prowled around the bed, insisting that she ask for fifteen thousand and not accept anything less than ten. She got six. Without his valuable advice, she would have cheerfully settled for a thousand.

  *

  She sat herself at Pierre’s desk. In the thirty square metres they share, they have managed to create two desk spaces. Everything else happens on the bed. They perch on the end and eat dinner in front of the television. Then they shuffle back two metres, prop themselves against the headboard, snuggle under the duvet, and watch some more. When they have visitors, they turn the two desk chairs to face the coffee table at the end of the bed while they sit in their usual spot. It is rare that they have more than two guests, but when it does happen, people sit wherever they can find a space between the desks.