BY JAMES BEMBRIDGE

Gerry’s Club, Soho, 6 pm.

Over the bar, my friend Peter slumps like a speared fish but drinks like a live one.

There was talk of him doing something with his life at some point, but the wrinkling of his suit and face tells me nothing came of it. You could mistake him for a tramp. If only he had the humility to be one.

‘I’m surprised to see you here,’ he says, turning to me with one of his ‘I have dirt on you’ faces.

‘What the bloody hell’s that supposed to mean?’ I ask. ‘And stop smiling. I’ve told you, you don’t have the teeth for it.’

‘You really don’t remember, do you?’

‘If I remembered things, Peter, no one would tell me them. Go on then, spit it out.’

After he tells me, it’s me who does the spitting out: a great mess of phlegm and whisky spraying all over the place.

‘I did what!? And with a…’ my voice now falling to a whisper, ‘With a woman?’

He holds his phone to me, on it the image of some beast of a woman, the stitching of her dress losing battle to her weight.

‘Christ Almighty, months without a lay, months without any catch to speak of, and you’re telling me I speared this whale? You do like your little jokes, don’t you, Peter?’

My disgust then turns to sharp terror as he shows another photo. This time, by the woman’s east wing, there is a small, and well under the influence of drink, me.

‘Oh yes,’ He snarls, his face now all teeth – cruel, rotten, and dripping  Malbec.

‘You speared the whale.’

I make for the stairs where the bouncer asks if I’m OK, but I can only reply with a whimper. The last sound I hear before leaving is Peter’s laughter, echoing the place darkly.

The next day, a crisis meeting with Jennifer in Kensington.

‘Are you sure it’s not a man, darling?’ she asks, studying the photo with drink-blurred eyes.

‘Yes, she looks ugly enough to be one.’

’Are you eating well? she asks while violently sucking the last drops of Chablis from a glass that must be her fourth. ‘You look thin, darling. I want you to be healthy.’

‘Listen, Jennifer, we need to get control over the situation. God knows how many people this woman has told. And Peter, the sickly old bastard, is holding the whole thing over me. I won’t stand for it!’

‘I need another drink to think about it, darling.’

I look for the waiter, then back to Jennifer only to find her lifting a vodka bottle from her bag. A few swigs of the stuff brings her the clarity to say, ‘It’s obvious what happened – she raped you. She spiked your drink, and she raped you.’

‘She raped me?’

‘She raped you!’ Jennifer screams, now to the attention of all around us.

The more the thought is repeated, the less I doubt it. How else could the woman have practiced her vile lusts on me but without consent? Looking at the photo again, I hesitate on the word ‘woman’, for she looks less woman and more some deep-sea lurking creature. Its face a balloon of greyish flesh pierced by the pin of a suction-like mouth. The thought of that mouth feasting on, draining from, my willy brings with it unspeakable terror.

Jennifer puts her hand on mine, looks at me with what might have been a forceful stare had the eyes managed to stay open and says, ‘I’d confront her.’

The confrontation

The Jazz band is just warming up when I get to Gerry’s, but the place is already in full swing. I catch Peter’s eye at the bar and he mouths, ‘She’s over there’, gesturing his head to a group of women, between which sits she, smiling like it were proof against her crimes.

I approach her with the confidence that four gills of whisky affords and say, ‘I thought I’d find you here’ – it came out less commanding than I’d hoped.

‘Oh, James!’ turning to her friends, ‘He knows me too well.’

‘More than I’d like. So, what poor bastard are your sights on tonight?’ 

‘Excuse me,’ she asks with genuine shock.

’Excuse you? I’m not here to excuse you; I’m here to warn people of you, woman! How do you do it?  What’s the trick? Some fancy herbs or just God’s honest Rohypnol?

‘What are you talking about!?’ one of the women asks, the words coming in some unhuman shriek.

‘You’re not seriously defending her, are you? Oh, I see. You’re in on it too. Whores of Satan, the lot of you!’

I then have some sticky mess of a cocktail thrown at me and the women get up to leave, asking as they do if this was my idea of a joke.

‘It’s no joke!’ I protest. ‘Just ask…’

I look to Peter, see him laughing, and then realise it was one after all  –  played on me.

And well played it was, Peter.

I’ve since reminded Gerry’s staff of that enormous bar credit of yours that now urgently needs paying.

James Bembridge is Deputy Editor of Country Squire Magazine