The Teleportation Accident

The Teleportation Accident by Ned Beauman Read Free Book Online Page B

Book: The Teleportation Accident by Ned Beauman Read Free Book Online
Authors: Ned Beauman
Tags: Fiction, Literary, General
Rackenham, not him, who fucked Adele tonight, and which was already getting ready for the moment when the superior part had no choice but to accept the same thing. Until then, however, Loeser would just go on running back and forth, looking in cupboards, tripping over dancers, asking incoherent questions of possible witnesses, inventing optimistic excuses (she might have become suddenly and disruptively menstrual!), and generally behaving as if what was now obviously true might still, somehow, be false. In the end, though, after a frantic, undignified and predictable twelve-minute crescendo of desperation, the last hope finally departed Loeser like a last line of credit finally withdrawn. ‘That worthless cunt!’ he howled, stamping on the ground. He realised he didn’t have a drink, and just at that moment he saw Gobulev put down his bottle of black-market vodka to light a cigarette, so he grabbed it and sloshed as much of its contents into him as he could before it started to dribble down his chin. Then he slipped unsteadily back into the crowd, away from the dance floor.
    What now? The main thing was not to dwell on it. There were alternatives. He could just go back to his flat, where whatever hour happened to show on the clock it was always, mercifully, Midnight at the Nursing Academy . But for once the book might not quite be enough to satisfy him. He could try and fuck someone else at this party. But he didn’t have the spiritual stamina to fix upon a new target and begin a whole seduction from nothing when he was almost certain to fail as usual. What about Marlene? Could he persuade Marlene to go to bed with him for old times’ sake? That was the sort of thing people did, wasn’t it? But she hated him too much. Which only left the Zinnowitz Tearooms. He wasn’t often drunk enough to want to go to the Zinnowitz Tearooms. But if he forced down the rest of Gobulev’s vodka, he would definitely be drunk enough before long.
    If some confidant had learned that the sole reason Loeser didn’t like going to prostitutes was that they made him feel so uncomfortable, he might have deduced that Loeser had no moral sentiments at stake in the matter – or otherwise he might have deduced that this very feeling of awkwardness was itself a sort of moral sentiment – a sickly, selfish, and impotent sort of moral sentiment, but a moral sentiment nonetheless. Whatever the case, Loeser hadn’t gone to a prostitute sober since he was nineteen, and he hadn’t even gone to a prostitute drunk since late last year. That last occasion had been particularly bad. About a minute into the act he had stopped thrusting and cleared his throat nervously.
    The girl, who called herself Sabine, turned her head to look back at him. ‘What’s wrong?’ she said. Loeser’s forehead felt riverine with sweat but hers, as usual, was somehow still talcum dry.
    ‘Look, if it’s all the same to you . . .’
    ‘What do you want me to do, darling?’
    ‘It’s not that I don’t appreciate the effort you put in, with all the moans and the lofty commendation of my dick and so forth, but the truth is . . .’ He’d never had the courage to say this before. ‘I don’t like it when a waiter or a clerk pretends to be a bosom friend, and I don’t like it when you pretend to be enjoying all this, either. No offence meant. I know it’s part of the job. But we both know you’re not really enjoying it. The suspension of disbelief isn’t quite there. And on the whole it just puts me off.’
    He’d expected her to get a bit sulky but in fact she just said, ‘Whatever you say.’ Relieved, he went back to work, but straight away she started squirming away from him and gasping, ‘No, no, please, let me go, please, it’s too big!’
    He stopped in horror. ‘I’m so sorry.’
    She looked back at him again. ‘Why did you stop? Did I get it wrong?’
    He hadn’t realised she’d been acting. ‘What were you doing?’
    ‘You told me to pretend I

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