“The banker of the tale had an invitation to dinner on the top floor. At the door of the lift someone handed him a mask, whereupon he found himself in a room full of masked dignitaries. Up on a stage, surrounded by tables serving sushi and other delicacies, were two unmasked and naked lap dancers. Moving between them was the slave Q who was also unmasked and naked, except for a phallus in the shape of a pinecone (the actual shape of the hotel). A hush came over the room as the twins, upside down like synchronised swimmers, opened their legs and displayed their rouged lips. The banker loosened his tie, and placed his hand on the knee of the nearest individual who happened to be the Japanese ambassador’s wife…”
Le Bon’s friend was reading a paper entitled “The Sword in the Stone, a re-appraisal of The Junk Aesthetique”. Le Bon’s friend, who was a neurotic, Woody Allen type, had already rifled the medicine cabinet for Bach’s Rescue Remedy. Still he mumbled his words all through the reading. Although Le Bon did not understand a word of it, it did not seem to matter. Everyone else thought the paper was a huge success.
In the drinks party afterwards he spotted a girl hobnobbing with the philosopher in chief. She was wearing a green dress, fashionable about forty years ago which he figured made it fashionable again. When she looked his way, Le Bon raised his flute of champagne. “Why,” he said, “I’ve never seen such a fine looking antique.”
“Don’t tell me,” she came back with a lip-creasing smile, “you got those ripped jeans in a distressed nightclub.”
For their first assignation they went for a long walk on the heath. When the clouds started threatening rain, they retired to the Tea-room des Artistes where they ordered scones and jam and a pot of earl grey tea. She spoke, in an informed way, for half an hour about country houses and the aristocracy before he led her off on a tangent about tax evasion. “Have you ever been to the Bahamas?”
“Why,” she replied, “can I expect you to take me there?”
Le Bon was not, naturally, a cad. As a jobbing actor, he had made a killing out of TV ads, but did not know if his income would stretch to such extravagance all for the sake of getting his fig into bed.
There was nothing, however, he could do. His date insisted on taking him to an art exhibition called, wittily she thought, “Caveat emptor”. Afterwards, she took him to a bookshop where they met a writer who spent a good half hour ranting about subjects that Le Bon was decidedly unfamiliar with, namely parapolitics and the coming attacks on Serbia. The writer tried to get them to buy his booklets with titles such as Philosophy of the Bagshish; How to make the bomb from five easy pieces; Sex slaves and the New Rome; Sly Dogs and Nietzcheans. The bookseller Le Bon thought must have been an indulgent fellow.
The second time they met they went to see an Eric Rohmer film that was showing in repertory. Afterwards, his date confessed she had been embarrassed all the way through, not just for herself but the actors. Le Bon was bored all the way through and not remotely embarrassed for himself or the actors. His date climbed in the taxi before Le Bon had a chance to peck her goodnight.
For their third encounter they found a quiet little shi shi restaurant where much to his relief Le Bon managed to keep up the pretty flow of conversation. They discussed, among other things, their mutual friend (the Woody Allen type) who they both agreed frittered his time on hopelessly impractical projects. – “He’s like a moth with a pair of butterfly wings,” she said. “One day, he will get not just frazzled but fried by a sixty-watt bulb.”
For their next assignation, Le Bon’s inner child had caught the flu; he was thinking of cancelling at the last minute. These assignations are becoming quite wearing, he thought. As if to make up for it, he booked a room on the twenty-first floor of the most modern, plushest hotel in the metropolis.
Here began a frustrating (for Le Bon) preamble of half promised dates, cancelled assignations, which seemed to have very little if anything to do with his main interest, namely the bedroom on the twenty-first floor. When, finally, after a walk in the park to settle her gin tummy – his date did not appear to eat anything other than a few languid sticks of celery; Le Bon brought her to the revolving door of the hotel, she did not say a word. The porter handed Le Bon the key and they took the lift to the waiting floor.
Le Bon helped his date out of her coat. She turned round and asked him to undo her at the back. Then she asked him to fetch some water from the fridge… Le Bon looked round, but he could find no fridge. Hell, he thought, I paid all this money and I haven’t got a fridge.
When he turned round again, Le Bon was disarmed. His date was lying on the bed with her back to him.
Prior to removing her pearls, Le Bon called reception and asked them to bring up a bucket of iced water.