My Biggest Lie by Luke Brown Page B

hoping not to scare them off.
    Hernán and others from the gig followed us in Aleman’s van, and we met in the queue for the club. Inside it was booming, loud house music; the club just beginning to fill up at one in the morning.
    I went to the bar with Ana-Maria. ‘Who’s the girl Arturo’s with?’ I asked, looking round to see him lean down and whisper something to her. She grabbed his arm and stood on her tiptoes to whisper back into his ears, pushing her high heels another two inches off the ground.
    â€˜Just one of those girls, you know, you bump into, in the clubs, in the bars.’
    â€˜She’s a friend of Arturo’s?’
    She raised her eyebrows. ‘They are friendly now.’ Arturo was leaning on his forearm against the wall they were standing by, the back of her head brushing his arm. Their faces were only inches apart, kissing distance.
    As the barman brought us our drinks I noticed something strange. Hernán, standing away from us, where he had been talking with Aleman, was now staring directly at Arturo and Lucila. He had a very intense look on his face, and I watched it change from incredulous disgust to a quiet, determined rage.
    It could have been my imagination.
    â€˜Hernán, does he know Lucila?’
    â€˜I don’t think so. Why are you so interested in Lucila?’
    â€˜It’s Arturo I’m interested in.’
    â€˜I think I will find someone who is interested in talking to me.’
    â€˜Oh, God, not like that. Come here. Come here .’
    It could have been a more excessive night. The cocaine was strong but we only mixed it with alcohol. At least I was in my own – oh . . .
    At four in the morning, Ana-Maria announced I was leaving with her. We’d been dancing for the last hour with Arturo and Lucila. We were all really drunk and I knew the feel of everybody’s body pressed against mine in an embrace. Lucila looked from Arturo to me with a grin of immense confidence. When she left us for a moment she would spin around with a flourish and stride away. Arturo, acting his part, would pretend not to notice, butI caught him following her with his eyes on a couple of occasions.
    Before we left I took Arturo to one side. ‘Arturo. Remember Lizzie? Lovely Lizzie? Be careful.’
    â€˜I am careful. And Sarah’s lovely too, right? I’ve seen photos on Facebook.’
    â€˜You don’t understand – it’s not the same situation.’
    â€˜Pah – why not? Don’t you worry about me. Worry about yourself.’
    He hugged me again then. I felt his heart going under his T-shirt. I didn’t know him well enough to know if he was going to do something stupid with Lucila. It was arrogant of me to warn him against something he may have been too good a person to consider. That’s what I decided. ‘Before you go,’ he said, ‘take this,’ and he pulled out a large green bud of skunk and pressed it into my hand. I tried to give it him back but he wouldn’t take it. So I thanked him, kissed him goodbye and left with Ana-Maria.
    The sex itself was great. Just the idea of an Argentine fashion student was mind-blowingly exotic to a man who had never stopped being amazed by underwear from Topshop. And we were high. Drugs don’t only improve our linguistic skills. People who don’t take drugs don’t realise how good at sex they make us too. It’s one thing us addicts can console ourselves with: we are genuinely better lovers. Fuckers, anyway. We go on for ages. We have no inhibitions. We’ll say anything .
    It’s the aftersex and the afterdrugs that drugs don’t help with, when the revisionist history writes itself. Waking up with not one but two strangers. The words you hastily sketched your identity with last night exhausted and without them you feel . . . nothing. There is no you.Politeness remains, a diminished vocabulary, the lack of a subject, the