to the image
in the mirror, he saw the flush in his cheeks and his mouth gasping in re-enacted surrender. He re-tied his tie, very perfectly,
and ran a hand through his hair. There was a kind of tenderness for himself in the movement of his hand through his curls,
as if it had been taught a lesson by Leo. The mirror was a chaste ellipse in a maplewood frame. The washstand was a real Louis
Seize commode cut and drilled to hold a basin and a pair of tall hoarse-throated taps. Well, if you owned a Louis Seize commode,
if you owned dozens of them, you could be as barbarous with them as you liked; and a commode after all was meant for ease.
And after all it was marvellous to be staying in a house like this, a friend of the family, not the son of the man who wound
the clocks.
As he trotted down the stairs he saw Wani Ouradi coming up. Nick sometimes greeted Wani with a friendly grope between the
legs, or a long breathless snog, and he'd once had him tied up naked in his college room for a whole night; he had sodomized
him tirelessly more often than he could remember. Wani himself, glancing back to see if his girlfriend, his intended, was
following, had no idea of all this, of course; indeed, they hardly knew each other.
"Hi, Wani!" said Nick.
"Hi!" said Wani warmly, perhaps not able to remember his name.
"I believe I have to congratulate you . . ."
"Oh . . . yes . . ." Wani grinned and looked down. "Thank you so much." Nick thought, as he had thought before, in the slow
hours of the seminar room, that a view of the world through such long eyelashes must be one extraordinarily shadowed and filtered.
They both suddenly decided to shake hands. Wani glanced back again with a murmur of exasperation so fond and well mannered
that it seemed to include Nick in some harmless conspiracy. "You must meet Martine," he said. A provoking thing about him
was the way his penis always showed, a little jutting bulge to the left, modest, unconscious, but unignorable, and a trigger
to greedy thoughts in Nick. He checked for it now, in a woozy half-second. He was rather like a pop star of the 60s, with
the penis and the dark curly hair—though the look was quite at odds with the bemused courtesy of his manner.
"I hope it will be a long engagement," Nick heard himself saying.
"Ah, here she is . . ."—and they looked down together at the young woman who was climbing the shallow red-carpeted stairs
towards them. She was wearing a pearl-coloured blouse and a long, rather stiff black skirt, which she held raised a little
with both hands, so that she seemed to curtsey to them on each step. She created a sober impression, well groomed but not
fashionable. "This is Martine," Wani said. "This is Nick Guest, we were at Worcester together."
Nick took Martine's cool hand, smiling at Wani's knowing his name, and feeling himself to be briefly the subject of humorous
suspicion as an unknown friend from her fiance's past. He said, "I'm pleased to meet you, congratulations." All this congratulating
was giving him a vague masochistic buzz.
"Oh—thank you so much. Yes, Antoine has told you." She had a French accent, which in turn suggested to Nick the unknown networks
of Wani's family and past, Paris perhaps, Beirut . . . the real life of the international rich from which Wani had occasionally
descended on Oxford to read an essay on Dry den or translate an Anglo-Saxon riddle. Antoine was his real name, and Wani, his
infantile attempt at saying it, his universal nickname.
"You must be very happy."
Martine smiled but said nothing, and Nick looked at her wide pale face for signs of the triumph he would have felt himself
if he had become engaged to Wani.
"We're just going to our room," Wani said, "and then we'll be down for the bopping."
"Well, you will be bopping perhaps," said Martine, showing already a mind of her own, but with the same patient expression,
which registered with Nick, as he went on down the
in the mirror, he saw the flush in his cheeks and his mouth gasping in re-enacted surrender. He re-tied his tie, very perfectly,
and ran a hand through his hair. There was a kind of tenderness for himself in the movement of his hand through his curls,
as if it had been taught a lesson by Leo. The mirror was a chaste ellipse in a maplewood frame. The washstand was a real Louis
Seize commode cut and drilled to hold a basin and a pair of tall hoarse-throated taps. Well, if you owned a Louis Seize commode,
if you owned dozens of them, you could be as barbarous with them as you liked; and a commode after all was meant for ease.
And after all it was marvellous to be staying in a house like this, a friend of the family, not the son of the man who wound
the clocks.
As he trotted down the stairs he saw Wani Ouradi coming up. Nick sometimes greeted Wani with a friendly grope between the
legs, or a long breathless snog, and he'd once had him tied up naked in his college room for a whole night; he had sodomized
him tirelessly more often than he could remember. Wani himself, glancing back to see if his girlfriend, his intended, was
following, had no idea of all this, of course; indeed, they hardly knew each other.
"Hi, Wani!" said Nick.
"Hi!" said Wani warmly, perhaps not able to remember his name.
"I believe I have to congratulate you . . ."
"Oh . . . yes . . ." Wani grinned and looked down. "Thank you so much." Nick thought, as he had thought before, in the slow
hours of the seminar room, that a view of the world through such long eyelashes must be one extraordinarily shadowed and filtered.
They both suddenly decided to shake hands. Wani glanced back again with a murmur of exasperation so fond and well mannered
that it seemed to include Nick in some harmless conspiracy. "You must meet Martine," he said. A provoking thing about him
was the way his penis always showed, a little jutting bulge to the left, modest, unconscious, but unignorable, and a trigger
to greedy thoughts in Nick. He checked for it now, in a woozy half-second. He was rather like a pop star of the 60s, with
the penis and the dark curly hair—though the look was quite at odds with the bemused courtesy of his manner.
"I hope it will be a long engagement," Nick heard himself saying.
"Ah, here she is . . ."—and they looked down together at the young woman who was climbing the shallow red-carpeted stairs
towards them. She was wearing a pearl-coloured blouse and a long, rather stiff black skirt, which she held raised a little
with both hands, so that she seemed to curtsey to them on each step. She created a sober impression, well groomed but not
fashionable. "This is Martine," Wani said. "This is Nick Guest, we were at Worcester together."
Nick took Martine's cool hand, smiling at Wani's knowing his name, and feeling himself to be briefly the subject of humorous
suspicion as an unknown friend from her fiance's past. He said, "I'm pleased to meet you, congratulations." All this congratulating
was giving him a vague masochistic buzz.
"Oh—thank you so much. Yes, Antoine has told you." She had a French accent, which in turn suggested to Nick the unknown networks
of Wani's family and past, Paris perhaps, Beirut . . . the real life of the international rich from which Wani had occasionally
descended on Oxford to read an essay on Dry den or translate an Anglo-Saxon riddle. Antoine was his real name, and Wani, his
infantile attempt at saying it, his universal nickname.
"You must be very happy."
Martine smiled but said nothing, and Nick looked at her wide pale face for signs of the triumph he would have felt himself
if he had become engaged to Wani.
"We're just going to our room," Wani said, "and then we'll be down for the bopping."
"Well, you will be bopping perhaps," said Martine, showing already a mind of her own, but with the same patient expression,
which registered with Nick, as he went on down the
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