The Hunger (3 page)

The first time I remember him fully formed like other people was when I was sixteen. I was shagging one of my Mum’s best friends. She was fifty-two. I didn’t have a place to live, so
we fucked either in her house or in the back of a knackered Ford Fiesta I lived in for three months. One night, there he was, sitting on the bonnet of the car as I was pounding away, a ridiculous
purple umbrella protecting him from the rain. He wiped the rain off the windscreen to get a better view.

—That’s very impressive indeed. Quite the little pounder, aren’t we? I predict great things for you, Lincoln.

And, to get great things, I needed great stages but selling vans can never be enough for a man with an appetite for Greatness. In 2009 I left the transport industry and took off to Ibiza to get
my head together. I knew the island well. When Lewis was twelve, my ex-wife took him to Spain to live. That was the first time I thought I would lose him. The second was when he turned fifteen and
I thought:

—I’ve lived long enough to see him past the age I was when my Dad died. What use am I to him now?

And one morning when I was having a coffee in Portals, looking out at the yachts in the harbour, this thought came back to me. It was one of those days that are so beautiful it hurts. The kind
that magnifies the feeling of being a useless cunt. I had been sitting there maybe an hour when The Boss came in. He lives in Ibiza, and I knew him well because I had brought hundreds of van
salesmen into his clubs. We had always got on and, before he left, he placed his business card on the table and said:

—Come and help me promote the clubs.

Even driftwood is going somewhere and, two months later, I arrived in Soho, the new Sales and Marketing Director of The Club. On the flight from Ibiza, Esurio sat next to me. He was no longer an
uncertain presence in my life, and on that flight he was radiant. He stroked the carnation in his lapel:

—I got it especially for the flight. Rather beautiful, don’t you think?

—Yeah, it’s OK.

—Oh come on, don’t be a party pooper! We’re going to have the time of our lives. Sex, strippers, Soho. A stage fit for us to stand on.

Esurio has always been a clever cunt. Smarter than me. More agile. He often says:

—You’re different from the rest, Lincoln. More extreme and more malleable. Two of the qualities I most appreciate in a man.

Despite the good times and the praise, I often wish we had never met. These are the things I hate most about him:

—Fuck off and leave me alone.

—Well, if that’s what you want, Lincoln, I will fuck off. I’ll go off into the hall and all the while you’re watching TV I’ll be lifting those weights of yours and
doing press-ups, getting even stronger, Lincoln, even stronger, and I’ll be so strong I’ll be able to lift you like a feather and carry you wherever I want.

Two hours later I was in the Townhouse on Dean Street getting hammered.

—Are you Spanish?

—Latin, Lincoln, Latin.

—That’s what I mean, Spanish.

—No, not that Latin. I’m referring to the ancient Italic language. The language of gods and emperors.

—What the fuck are you talking about?

—Esurio, Lincoln, is a Latin word.

—Oh yeah, what’s it mean, then? He stopped for a moment, raised his glass and smiled:

—Hunger, Lincoln, it means hunger.

September 2009

—This is the place for us, Lincoln. Look at this . . . and this!

Esurio is beside himself with excitement. Soho has one language and that is the language of desire. It promises and teases. This is the land of make-believe where whatever you want you can have;
where all you have to do is reach out and take it. Most people float in and out of Soho. They come looking for a fantasy and whether they find it or not, they leave. There are others who
think
they can float in and out but the breeze that blows them in is too weak to carry them out. These are the real victims of Soho. They come in search of freedom and find themselves
trapped in a square mile of Chaos. I divide them into two groups:

Lost Men

These are middle-aged men. Some as young as thirty, most over fifty. Perhaps they have skirted around the edges of the film or television industry and now that they have
surrendered their youth, their homes and their ambition to their ex-wives, they come looking to reverse time. They are happily looking forward to puberty and the joys of having a cock hard enough
to use.

Hopeful Girls

Most of these are young models balancing their Louis Vuitton handbags on wobbly stilettos, who came to chase dreams and found a nightmare of coke and cock from which they will
never escape. Others come from as far as São Paulo or St Petersburg to work in ‘a great English city’ and support their families back home. They, too, find a nightmare of coke
and cock.

Soho connects these Lost Men and Hopeful Girls. It bundles them together in a stuffy little bag, and every day that passes the string around the top of the bag pulls a little tighter until the
light and the air have gone and all that’s left is the slow suffocation of hope.

Then there are those who come to Soho and hurl themselves at its core, daring it to do its worst and, when it does, they ask for more. Esurio says:

—That’s you, Lincoln!

As usual he’s right. I would like to say the descent into madness was gradual. First a drink, then a fuck, then another drink, then another fuck, then a line, then another line, then
another, and on into Chaos. Sadly, that is not the case. Esurio makes sure the descent is fast and total, with not a cell in my nervous system left untouched within hours of arriving in Soho.

Esurio insists I live in a shared flat on Old Compton Street and, to be fair to him, it does make practical sense.

—You can walk to work from here and you won’t have to worry about getting home at night. It’s absolutely perfect!

But then I’m just kidding myself. When I’m surrounded by coke and cunt, ‘practical sense’ is just a disguise, a way of getting my excuses in early and, when I tell them
to my Mum, they sound pretty convincing:

—Well, I need to be close to the clubs; or

—The Boss really wants me to be in the heart of Soho; or (and this is the best and curiously honest excuse):

—I want to show I’m a keen worker

And really, I am the keenest fucking worker in Soho. Here’s what I have to do:

And putting me in charge of three hundred strippers is like putting the Taliban in charge of Homeland Security. Tonight I’m running a party for the City boys. Before they fucked the world
economy, the Bankers had an easier time of it. Now they’ve been told they have to be a bit more careful. Rik is a hedge fund manager. He’s younger than me, maybe thirty-five and almost
as hammered as I am. He drives an Aston and a Bentley, fully loaded with an expense account big enough to fill the boot with cocaine. When he walks into The Club, he is with his accountant, Steve.
Rik says:

—Can’t even be let out on my own anymore, can I, Steve? The Chairman says we have to be responsible now. He was on the news the other day coming out with all this crap about how we
have to sign up to a code of morals or fuck off. Apparently we’re not interested in fast, easy money anymore. He says the rules have changed. We’ve got to have more respect. Think for
the long term. In a way I agree with him. Which is why I’ve brought Steve with me. He will monitor carefully the money I spend on the girls and champagne and he will confirm that I am
responsible for a morale-building evening of ‘Corporate Entertainment’. Isn’t that right, Steve?

Steve nods and finishes his Jack Daniel’s. Rik touches my shoulder. I hate being touched by people I don’t love. I don’t love Rik. He must sense it and pulls back. Then he
says:

—All there is, Linc, is naked self-interest. We are the species of
Me.
There are no morals. Not anymore. There never were any. It was always a game for losers. We’ll bust the
planet a thousand times, and as long as it’s got enough left in the tank to get itself together again, we’ll bust it again. And while all this shit is happening and little people are
running for cover, we’ll sound as if we care and carry on until there’s nothing left to bust. Now, take me to the pussy.

Rik closes his eyes, sticks his arms out front and lets Steve guide him to a table near the stage. There are young girls everywhere, most in lingerie; some already have their tits out. I call
them Wraps because for me young girls come bundled with alcohol and cocaine. They’re all in the same box, impossible to separate one from another. I need a drink. I need some gear. I need a
fuck. Put those sentences in any order you want and the meaning is always the same. You take the drugs away and the Wraps lose their purpose. You take the Wraps away and the drink is liquid
loneliness.

My life is Chaos. I pound Wraps for fame and pleasure. If I have to choose the greater of the two, I always choose fame. In my head I have a map of
How It All Works
. One day I write it
down.

How It All Works

The women I bang are split into five groups:

Regulars.
This is the largest and most rewarding group of Wraps. To count as a Regular, I have to fuck a particular Wrap at least four times a month for three consecutive months.

Occasionals.
These are Wraps I sleep with every month but no more than twice a month for two consecutive months.

One-Offs.
Wraps I pull or who pull me and I never see again. There are many reasons I never see them again. Some are just passing through but mostly they prefer a man who will tuck them
in bed and read them a story after it’s over. Generally, I ask them to leave and, if they are unable to understand my request, I walk out, leaving them plenty of time to think about what it
might mean.

Paid-Fors
. I like this group because I can order what I want in advance and know with absolute certainty I will get it delivered. There are variations but A-levels and a willingness to be
tied up are a staple of every order I make.

Grannies
. This is the only non-Wrap category, since access to this group is only open to women between the ages of fifty and eighty. Technically, they can be older than eighty and still
qualify but disability and dementia mean there is little point in leaving the upper age limit too open.

Statistics are an important part of
How It All Works
. Sometimes the hyperactive state of my nervous system leads to errors in record-keeping, but the distribution of activity between the
five groups has been shown to break down as follows:

Other statistics that matter are the number of Wraps I bang in a month and their names, so I keep a list of both in my drawer to make sure everything is heading in the right direction. When I
don’t know or can’t remember their names (which happens often) I write something like
Dark-Haired Girl
,
Hairless Hungarian
or
Sparkly Stilettos
. I check these
statistics at least twice a week.

Two of the most important aspects of
How It All Works
are sales and marketing: how I get the Wraps in the first place, and how I let the world know about my achievements. Sales and
marketing are all a bit knotted together and truth is in short supply, but here’s what I believe: on average I receive maybe a dozen or so texts a day from Regulars and Occasionals wanting to
know if I’m about and up for it. They also act as unpaid sales agents and, quite often, a One-Off will text me with a picture and write something like:
Joanna told me you’re worth
trying out and I’d like to have a go. See you at the Townhouse at 11? X.
I like these texts because it makes me feel I’m doing something useful with my life and making a difference
in the world.