Noughties by Ben Masters pptx

[...]... crumple and curl around her like a benign Venus flytrap I happily allowed her everything: her intermittent snoring, her bed-hogging Mast_9780307955661_2p_all_r1.indd 23 5/3/12 10:47 AM 24 Ben Masters antics, her ovenlike heat, her funny suckling noises, her bullying hair getting in my face I allowed her everything, as I lay awake, collecting pins and needles in the arm lopped beneath her neck, right through... but I can make out the hump of his exaggerated baby’s paunch “Do you mind? I’m a bit embarrassed about the old beer belly That’s what three years of your hard drinking has done to me, I tell myself, but I still don’t like it.” The baby reaches behind his head and pulls out a can of lager, whacks Mast_9780307955661_2p_all_r1.indd 25 5/3/12 10:47 AM 26 Ben Masters it open, and takes a thirsty glug “What... but the vision was limited by the soft warmth of the body next to mine “Shall we just stay together then?” I asked Lucy has an adorable habit of nodding along in conversation, regardless of the content—a kind of ready agreeability—but this time it seemed thrillingly conscious: “Yes I think we should,” she said Mast_9780307955661_2p_all_r1.indd 11 5/3/12 10:47 AM 12 Ben Masters “Awesome,” I said (a... busy nights like this They’re getting chatted up by some smarmy postgrads who should know better Trouble is, they know they can’t do any better, punching above their weight and below the law “Been Pizza Express with the girls,” yaps the head teenager, twirling her hair and fluttering her lids in response to some tiresome questions -by- numbers, administered by the overeducated elders The front man of the... 10:47 AM Noughties 13 specimen of the DPhil variety—a red-faced piece of lank— and he plies the fairer sex with Smirnoff Ices and WKDs He’s the type of bell-end who’ll order a half pint and pay for it by card “That’s so cool,” he says, an unfashionable turtleneck irritating his shave-sore jugular The girls look like nervous peacocks, pastried over with gunky layers of makeup, debilitated by high heels...10 Ben Masters direct representation of my intentions (“You want to do what to my what?,” “You’re gonna spray your what all over my where?”), though there was considerable calamity when the iPod malfunctioned and switched of its own accord to Reign in Blood by American heavy-metal outfit Slayer (how’d that get on there?) I leaped... status; in our private culture for two Mast_9780307955661_2p_all_r1.indd 10 5/3/12 10:47 AM Noughties 11 “But I guess it’s time,” she concluded, a lilt of martyrdom in her voice I would be leaving the next morning to become, as Fitzgerald’s Gatsby puts it, “an Oxford man”—whatever that means The ruffled bed was surrounded by boxes brimming with my stuff—books ( battered Dickens, partially read Shakespeare,... the toxic vats She caught my eye “This stuff tastes of arse,” I said “Mine’s not that good.” I laughed I was terrified “Here, try some,” she said Mast_9780307955661_2p_all_r1.indd 15 5/3/12 10:47 AM 16 Ben Masters Before passing the cup, she ventured an emboldened mouthful for herself, an elastic cord of saliva connecting the brim to her succulent lips as she pulled away Stretched tight—tight as the chestline... for some get-around or industrious cockmonster No—I wanted my first time to be pumped with meaning That’s why I was so keen to make it legit with Mast_9780307955661_2p_all_r1.indd 17 5/3/12 10:47 AM 18 Ben Masters Lucy so ready to resolve the panicking virgin’s inner turmoil with some outer turmoil I couldn’t possibly arrive at university branded with virgin status— “This is ridiculous,” says Ella “Shall... second, please.” While she did whatever it was she did on her computer and rooted for our key, a hen party tramped into the lobby, clucking and crowing They had just pulled up outside in a pink Playboy Bunny limo—those once exclusive chariots of statesmen and celebrities They were a flabby lot, dressed in pink, plastic tiaras riding their heads The cumulative sexual know-how of this orgy was climactic—something . is entirely coincidental. Copyright © 2012 by Ben Masters All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Hogarth, an imprint of the Crown Publishing. Excerpt from “Oxford,” copyright © 1938 by W. H. Auden, renewed, from Another Time by W. H. Auden. Reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd. New