Lust

When he finally lay down next to Michael, Philip fell instantly asleep. His breath rattled out of him like leaves blown along a sidewalk. He smelled of cheap red wine.

Michael was left awake, full of lust, but not for Phil.

He thought of the Cherub: the smooth pink arms, the smooth pink face, the ready smile. Michael saw him again, prone on the platform, undignified, head over heels and his face sad with questions, as if he had learned about death for the first time.

I won’t sleep, thought Michael.

It is bad behaviour to wank in the same bed as your partner. Michael got up and went to the bathroom. Michael tried to ease the bathroom light on soundlessly, but it snapped anyway. It sounded as loud as a gunshot.

And there, standing in the shower-bath as Michael had really rather known he would be, was Tony.

The Cherub looked like he had been scanned in from a photograph and pasted onto another image. His back was towards Michael. He was drying himself with a white gym towel. Michael did not own any white towels. His scientific mind clocked: towels are part of the deal.

So was the perfect, pink, hairless bottom, rounded muscle so lean that the cheeks were parted even standing up. The anus was visible, pouting as if for a kiss. Michael touched Tony’s shoulder, and he turned around. His face had the same baffled expression. Michael wanted him to smile. Smile, he yearned.

The Cherub smiled in delight. Michael kissed his cheek. Tony’s smile did not respond. It remained fixed and dazzling.

Michael sat down on the lid of the toilet. Tony’s penis was still recognizably stale from being swaddled all day, even in the most evenly white, clean briefs. Michael checked that the head was dry, permitted it to enter his mouth once. The penis swelled, lengthened, and went bulbous at the head. Michael pulled back.

Michael touched Tony’s body, started to masturbate and told Tony to do the same. Tony leaned back against the bathroom door, head thrown back, eyes closed, as he would have done if he were alone. Michael looked at his beautiful body as if it were a photograph in a magazine. The Cherub came arching into space.

Then the room cleared as if a mist had been burned off. Michael padded back into the darkened bedroom where Phil still snored. Michael had a moment’s worry: he’ll smell it on me. Then he realized the tastes and smells on his tongue and fingers had all evaporated. Leaving nothing.

In the morning, the mystery remained.

As always Philip slept on while Michael prepared instant coffee and granola. I must have dreamed it, thought Michael. He picked up his filofax and looked at his notes from the night before. There was hardly anything useful except for one clear question.

Was the guard hit?

He walked to Goodge Street tube. There must have been an unusual shift pattern, because the same guard was lurking behind the barriers. Or maybe he just needed the money. He was propped up against the wall and nodded a grim good morning at Michael.

Michael shuffled his apologies. ‘Uh. I’m sorry about last night. Did he hit you?’

The guard looked up, bleary from lack of sleep, angry at first for being disturbed. Then he remembered to be civil. ‘Sorry?’

‘Um. Last night. That big bloke who was a bit woozy. You came running after me and I thought he’d hit you.’

The blue eyes were too pale; there was something frozen about them. ‘You must want someone else, mate.’

Michael shook his head at his own mistake. ‘Of course. You wouldn’t get two shifts in a row would you?’

‘I would. I need the money. I was here last night, but there was no big man. Sorry.’

Michael stood frozen. All right, Tony had not been real. ‘But don’t you remember talking to me?’

The guard wanted to read his paper. It was called Loot and sold houses and cars to people who had no money to buy them. He lowered the paper. ‘There was something. You were standing there by the barriers.’ He gestured towards them, scowling, looking as baffled as the Cherub had the night before. Michael saw that he needed a shave. ‘That’s it. You were drunk.’ The guard’s lip curled, and he lifted up his paper. He looked pretty and petulant and butch, all at once. ‘You were right out of it, mate. So that explains it then. All right?’ He stared stonily at his paper. Conversation over. They waited for the lifts to arrive.

I didn’t drink anything. Michael reconstructed the entire night and day in his mind. He hadn’t been to the pub. He hadn’t drunk a thing.

The guard rocked himself away from the wall on which he was leaning, and punched big silver keys. The lift door opened.

I must be going nuts, Michael thought.

‘Sleep tight,’ said the guard and gave him a cheery, leery grin.

There were smiling Japanese tourists in the lift. You are bowing to a crazy man, Michael told them in his mind.

I made the whole thing up. I had a bad experience in the sauna, my life is shit, I’ve been depressed for years without doing anything about it, and now I’ve gone and broken my brain.

Christ. Michael remembered the feel of Tony’s skin, its smell, its taste. It increases your respect for schizophrenics, really. They’re not just a bit muddled. All those brain cells get tickled up, and they start making brand-new sentences of sight and sound and touch. The new sentences are lies, but they feel like the real thing.

You lose a certain kind of innocence when you go crazy. You used to take it for granted that your brain shows you what’s actually out there. Now all you’ve got left is doubt, Michael.

But then, science is built on doubt.

The train bounced and rattled him, like life.

At the lab, Michael strolled through his normal routine as if sleepwalking.

He fed his smartcard into the reader at the front door. He said hello to the security guard Shafiq and showed him his pass. He went down the line of offices, one by one. None of them had windows.

Hello, Ebru! Hello boss! It amused Ebru to call him boss.

Hiya Emilio, how’s the system? Why you ask? It’s great like always!

He heard their voices, as if in his own head, as if no one were really speaking.

In his own office, Michael slipped into his entirely symbolic white lab coat. He asked Hugh to check the thermostat readings in the darkroom. ‘If the temperature goes much under or over thirty-eight, give me a shout.’

And he sat down and he had no idea what to do. His desk stared back at him, as orderly as his notebooks. There were three new things in his in tray, and the out tray was empty. On his PC would be a timed list of things to do.

What the fuck do I do now?

Look in the Yellow Pages for psychotherapists? Do they section people right away? Should I be writing my letter of resignation? What do you do when you realize you’re seeing things?

You might just try to see if it’s going to happen again. Look, I’m still capable. I can say maybe it won’t happen again, maybe it was just a one-off, something that only happened once. Maybe I’m better already.

Put another way: just how badly broken am I?

The door opened and the sound was as sudden and as loud as if he made it up, and Michael jumped up and turned around.

It was Ebru. ‘First day post.’ She always made English sound like something delicious to eat: post almost became pasta. She passed him five different coloured files – his sorted mail.

‘Thank you, Ebru,’ said Michael. He felt like a bad actor, awkward on the stage, with a fixed grin. She read him out a list of messages. He didn’t really listen. He just kept smiling. Finally she left, bouncing and strong in blue jeans, a picture of wholeness.

Then Michael stood up, and looked from side to side as if there were someone watching. He padded carefully to the lab’s one WC.

It was a single tiny room with sink and toilet crowded together. Michael locked the door.

OK, he said to the air. Come back.

Suddenly crowding against the edge of the sink, the Cherub ballooned into reality. Tony was jammed against Michael, forcing him to sit down or fall over. Michael felt the texture of the brick against his back. It seemed to push him insistently back into Tony’s arms. Go on, the wall seemed to say.

Michael reached out and prodded Tony’s collarbone. He could feel it solid under lean flesh. He could feel the green T-shirt slide away from it. The room was reflected in Tony’s eyes, perfectly, the glint from the strip light, and Michael himself. In the fine-grained skin there was one clogged pore going slightly red.

Michael prodded him again. Dammit, he was solid. Michael picked up Tony’s hand and saw ridges in the fingernails and flecks of white.

No. Hallucinations were foggy, you knew things were clouded, you felt confused. This did not feel like the product of a confused brain.

I am not making this up!

‘Come on,’ said Michael.

He took hold of Tony’s hand and felt its palm, fleshy and armoured with weightlifter calluses.

Then Michael stuck his head out into the corridor. It really would not be a good idea to be seen coming out of the toilet with a strange man.

‘OK. Come on.’

Tony followed him. ‘I don’t like this,’ he said. ‘Tony doesn’t like this.’

So, Michael thought: he thinks of himself and Tony as being different.

‘Does Tony know this is happening?’

The copy nodded. ‘He saw last night in a dream.’

Michael kept his voice low. ‘I need to know if anyone else can see you.’

They went into Ebru’s office. Her back was turned and slightly hunched as she read personal e-mail from Turkey. Michael coughed.

She turned around. ‘Sorry, Michael. My mother sends me e-mail here.’ She looked embarrassed, her smile dipping and then she looked up straight at Tony. ‘Hello,’ she said.

‘This is Tony.’ Michael paused. He had not really expected Ebru to see Tony, so he had nothing ready to say. ‘He’s uh, my trainer at the gym.’

Ebru raised one eyebrow at Michael briefly, as if to say: and he’s good-looking, what’s going on here, Michael? She stood up and reached across the desk to shake Tony’s hand. The meeting of the hands was perfect, like those moments when the CGI dinosaurs actually seem to touch the ground.

‘Hello,’ said Tony, in a soft, neutral voice.

Michael explained. ‘Um. I hurt my elbow weightlifting, so Tony’s here to give me some advice about it.’

‘A handsome gym instructor who makes house calls.’ Ebru’s eyes glinted.

A certain adjustment was necessary. ‘This isn’t my house. Tony only makes office calls. We wouldn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea.’

‘Um,’ said Ebru, as if to say, OK, I’ll mind my own business.

‘I guess that’s about it,’ Michael said to Tony. In the empty corridor, he sent Tony back. To wherever it was he came from. The air closed over him like surf and he was gone.

What the fuck is going on?

Michael got out his notebook and drew a line down the middle.

On one side he wrote ‘Hallucination’ and on the other he wrote ‘Physical Presence’.

Under ‘Hallucination’ he wrote: my distressed mental state. He wrote: lack of reaction from people on platform. He wrote: guard did not remember Tony. He wrote: guard said I was drunk.

He stared at ‘Physical Presence’. The page was blank. All he could write was: Ebru shook its hand.

So what was it? Hallucination was by far the simplest explanation, except that either Ebru was hallucinating too, or Michael had made her up at least temporarily. The physical presence would have to be some kind of physical copy of a human being.

Until recently, teleportation was supposed to be impossible. Then in 1998, the mathematics of quantum theory were revised, and it became, at least in theory, possible that objects could be completely read, and thus reliably re-created somewhere else. Or rather, duplicated. Michael had been searching for information on quantum computing and had accidentally ended up deep inside the IBM website, on the page describing IBM’s teleportation project. The aim was successfully to transport an inanimate object by 2050. There was the usual team of delighted, slightly skuzzy-looking men, thrilled to be living in the dreams of their youth.

So who or what would be sending you copies of handsome young men, Michael? Who would devote the time and expense necessary? If you postulate that, you can postulate Descartes’ evil genius, but an evil genius could just as easily be beaming hallucinations as well.

What we have is an anomaly. Something that does not fit with currently accepted theory, something we cannot explain. The first task, therefore, is to describe it accurately. Order and method seemed to dissolve like Pepto Bismal, calming Michael’s stomach. He made a list of what he knew.

A physical copy

of someone I know

in train, tube and 2 x in my flat, 1 x in office

Can call up at will and banish

other people appear to interact

His behaviour, my behaviour both sexual

the real person is straight

copy says real person dreams what happens

So the next question is: what else don’t I know about this?

In effect, the next question is: what question do I ask next?

Well, so far, all he had done is call up a copy of one person.

Can I call up a copy of someone else?

Michael needed to limit variables. He needed to think of someone who shared as many characteristics as possible with Tony, someone known, someone whom he had seen and fancied, at least somewhat, in the gym.

The showers at Michael’s gym were full of men. It was one of the things that kept Michael motivated to work out.

There was the tiny brown Englishman with a beautiful body and a hatchet face whom Michael nicknamed the English Thai. Michael knew he had a wife from Thailand, and imagined that she had married him because he looked so much like one of her own people: small, neat and brown. The English Thai wore fawn trousers with a spandex waist instead of a belt. Michael had decided he worked in a car repair workshop, but at the front desk, greeting customers and nervously mismanaging staff. Michael could imitate the way he moved, not quite relaxed, hopping instead of stretching to reach parts on the top shelf.

That’s what Michael did now, back in the WC at the lab. Michael’s arms sketched how the English Thai moved.

OK, he said. His mouth had gone dry. He was half-hoping nothing would happen. Come on.

The English Thai arrived, naked, streaming water from the showers. He blinked and rubbed the water from his eyes.

Well there we go, thought Michael. That’s it. Reality’s got a hole in it.

The English Thai stood five-foot-four and proportioned as if he were a taller athlete, brown all over, a beautiful swelling chest, slim belly, tiny circumcised dick. He had a face like Mr Punch, with designer stubble.

Turn around, Michael thought at him. He did. Hold your cheeks open. The English Thai did, and easily and effortlessly his anus also opened, and mouthed desire like a fish.

Michael could direct him.

You like being fucked, Michael realized. The English Thai turned back around and nodded yes, mournfully. Michael could imagine him in insalubrious surroundings, with that same expression. There was something in the hurt and ugliness that created in Michael a stirring of lust.

Michael asked him, murmuring, ‘What does your wife think about this?’

‘She don’t know nothing,’ said the English Thai.

‘What do you think about it?’

He shrugged. ‘It’s just something I do, you know?’ He smiled, embarrassed, his wounded animal eyes saying fuck me, hurt me. I’m ugly.

There was a knock on the bathroom door. A voice came beyond it. It was Emilio, sounding reluctant. Michael sliced the air with his hand, and the English Thai was gone, as if he were a shower that someone had turned off.

Someone spoke, Emilio, sounding reluctant. ‘Uh, Michael. Do you have someone in there with you?’ This is not a question many people like asking their boss.

‘Uh,’ Michael improvised. ‘No, just talking to myself.’

My God, do they really think I’d have someone in here with me? Well, actually Michael, you did. He flushed quickly to explain why he was there and flung the door open.

Emilio was already halfway back down the corridor.

‘I’m sorry Michael, I have to use the toilet.’ Emilio smiled and shuffled. He wore yellow trousers and black sneakers, which emphasized the embarrassed digging of his feet.

‘We need more than one, don’t we?’ Michael said.

Emilio nodded, embarrassed. Michael held out a generous arm. Go in. See? No one there.

Michael went back to his desk and tried to work. He liked to work and had certainly ensured that it would not be in short supply. He had e-mail to answer. He had tomorrow’s lecture to prepare on nerve cells. He had a program to write for his MA Computer Science course. The assignment was to write a program that was supposed to convert any ordinary text to all capital letters. He knew how to do it principle … just add a fixed number to the ASCII code that would move it to upper case. He just couldn’t make it work in practice. That morning, he could make nothing work.

All right, then! He surrendered as if in anger. Michael stopped working and went to the gym.

The gym was one more way of working himself to death. It also made up for a feeling he had of losing time. It was too soon to be exiled from the world of male beauty. Michael didn’t question why he wanted to be beautiful or what the ultimate goal of that beauty would be. He did know that he could bench-press three sets of 100 kilos and do 80 crunch sit-ups.

Tony was there, filing work-out cards in a box.

‘Hiya Tony,’ said Michael, like an anxious parent trying to sound cool for his son’s friends.

Tony’s head jerked around almost in panic, and he glared at Michael, alarmed and hostile. With a snap, Tony mastered himself. He gave a brief and professional greeting. Michael’s ears felt numb and he didn’t hear it. Tony turned his back.

Fumbling slightly, Michael straddled himself onto an Exercycle. He pedalled for six minutes, and for six minutes he tried to catch Tony’s eye. Like a compass needle pointing north, somehow the broad back in its green shirt was always turned towards Michael. It was like stalking a rare marsh bird. Michael finished his aerobics.

‘Tony,’ Michael asked him. ‘Is there anything wrong?’

‘No, mate, no,’ said Tony, shaking his head.

‘You had a bad dream last night,’ said Michael. Tony’s face fell, gathering a line of pale tissue either side of his mouth. ‘So did I,’ said Michael.

Without another word, Tony turned and walked into his tiny office, and firmly closed the door.

What if this isn’t about sex?

The next day, the chicks hatched.

Ebru came into Michael’s room looking slightly blue and pinched around the cheeks. ‘I am hearing peeping from the darkroom.’

‘OK. Make sure nobody goes in.’

They weren’t set up yet. There was a small workroom with a sink, a draining board, and an interrogation lamp. Something that looked like it might be for stretching tyres over wheels was in fact a small centrifuge. There was a kitchen magimix. Setting out the instruments of the experiment brought home to their hearts and stomachs what they were about to do.

There were new garden secateurs, the blades a polished chrome. There was the cheese shave with its wire. There were the lined bins, with their black sacks wafting plastic odours.

Inside the darkroom, the new chicks were wet, warm, shivering. In the dull red light, their ancient heads looked outraged, as if they had been pulled back out of heaven after death. They demanded, mouths open.

Every other chick was lifted up and lowered into a trolley. They jolted with life in Michael’s hands as if attached to live wires. The trolley was wheeled through the double set of doors that cut off all light, and into the workroom.

‘OK, let’s have some light,’ said Michael. And as if the chicks were criminals, the workroom lamps were switched on, blazing.

For the first time in their lives, the chicks saw light. They blinked and squinted.

‘They look so small,’ said Ebru.

Michael knew he had to be first. He was the boss, he had designed the experiment, and he couldn’t ask them to do anything that he himself ducked. Come on Michael, they wouldn’t be here but for you; you have to take responsibility for their deaths as well.

Michael took a deep breath and picked up the first chick. It was no longer warm, but wet and chill and it went silent as he picked it up, and he knew it was because the chick was pre-programmed to treat large warm near objects as mothers.

He focussed, took the secateurs and as quickly as possible snipped into the little leathery skull, nosed in the secateurs, snipped quickly at the base of the brain.

‘Let’s start with the centrifuge,’ he said. Ebru touched his arm. ‘The trick is to do it quickly, so there’s no pain.’

The first chicken brain was rolled carefully by Ebru into the palm of her gloved hand, and then dropped into the magimix.

The second was laid out in the tray.

One half of the brains would be reduced to their chemical components, which would be analysed. The other half would be stained and then frozen immediately in the cold room for slicing. The results would be compared with the control groups, who would die without ever seeing any light whatsoever. The bodies were thrown limp into the bags, which were then sealed.

Michael ran with the tray towards the cold room. The Fridge was a big white box, and it shivered to the touch, like Michael’s slightly sick stomach. The tray was numbered and it was placed on a shelf space with a matching number.

When Michael returned, the centrifuge was humming, and the clean draining board was being dried, and the garbage bags were in hessian sacks stencilled with the words WATERLOO FEED COMPANY.

‘Well done, gang,’ he said. He had to go into his office and sit down.

Well, you knew it would be like this when you set up the experiment, Michael. The same fate awaits every hen in Britain at some point, even free-range ones.

But they, at least, have some kind of life.

Did it make any difference that they were trying to provide answers to some truly big questions? Michael loved science and he loved life somewhat less, and he had faith that in the end the two would support each other. But he still felt sick.

He felt compromised. This affected his self-esteem in other areas. He had to go for a walk in the park to clear his lungs. He sat on a bench and ate his sandwiches, which fortunately were cheese and not chicken. Nevertheless, he found the sweaty taste of animal fat unappetizing. He crunched his way through his apple.

You know, Michael, it is not everyone who can call up simulations of people from thin air. This … this miracle … arrives. And what do you use it for? You use it to turn tricks. Which is what you always do. You can turn tricks in Alaska Street. What if this isn’t about sex?

The more Michael thought, the more unlikely it seemed that the universe would change all its rules to keep him supplied with fancy men. Suppose I could clone Einstein and set him to work solving equations? What are the limits of this thing?

Michael wrote in his notebook.

Hypothesis: I can call up copies of people but I do not have to fancy them.

Method: Try to call up someone for whom you feel not a trace of lust and note the result.

Michael decided to call up Mother Theresa.

He admired her, he wanted to talk to her, perhaps about the morality of animal experimentation. And it was a certainty that he felt no lust whatsoever for her.