THE SPANK (PART ONE)

Part one of my play The Spank.

The Spank is a comedy about male friendship and marital infidelity. It opened at the Teatro Stabile di Torino in Turin in 2021 and starred the brilliant Filippo Dini (also the director) and Valerio Binasco. It was also performed in Rome and Milan.

It is yet to be performed in the English language. I very much hope one day to see it in my native tongue. I’d love your thoughts.

Your writer,

Hanif xxx

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Two men in their mid-fifties. At least one should be of colour.

Vargas walks into the café. The sound of the street. Then he shuts the door and looks about.

The café is being renovated-

Vargas:  What happened? Eh? This is the place it happened. Right here. Right here where it used to go right. Where it went right for a long time. And where, one day, it went wrong quite quickly. This was six months ago. You will hear. You can make up your own minds.

It was our place. Spankies was its name. The Spank as we called it.  It was our local, convenient place. And our favourite, despite everything. Now they're improving it, apparently- Now, when it's too late, at least for us.

It’s been a while since I’ve been able to step in here, though I walk past it every day, rarely looking this way, keeping my eyes on the straight and, er, narrow - since the incident. The manager gave me permission.

I can't say it's a shame that they want to improve it, certainly not in terms of the food which did not, er, really resemble food. But the place, with its stained, worn velvet banquettes and waitresses who understood no human language, it was fun, our regular. Me and Sonny - sometimes with friends or enemies - we were here all the time.  Gossip, gossip: money, sex, pharmaceuticals, implants, betrayal, tennis rackets, teeth-

His place and mine were opposite one another  - me with my pharmacy back up there, and him with his tooth-shop, I called it, the dentist’s, over the street, the partnership he set up and ran with Amir and Alice.

There must have been a lot of decay in the neighbour. His tooth-shop was so successful that I invested, financially, in their idea for a new place, which we would open a couple of miles away. I went in. I went in up to my knees. We bought the building. We were ready to begin work. We almost...

I can’t work out what it was about – after those days, those evenings, years of friendship, two men – who were amused to think of themselves as old men - talking, laughing, trying to work out why the world is beautiful and shit- 

Some stupid writer said, you're only truly yourself when you're alone. We are essentially solitary. Sonny quoted that. It's the opposite for me. My own company makes me anxious, and I  always, well, usually, had friends. At school my report said, 'Plays well with others.' But I haven't made a new friend in a while, in a long time. I wonder if I will again. The people we used to hang out with in here, they were his friends. I just realised that. Truth is, looking back through the years, how many people are there that you really like, really love?

Nina, my wife, came to kiss me this morning. She dared to...she asked if I missed him. And we don’t... she and I talk about everything, no secrets, never, not really, even now. But that thing: we cannot touch it. It's become radioactive.

Sonny said once, the sane exist, but not in the Spank. He was clever for a dentist. You wanted to follow him, be like him, have more ambition, be funny, play sax, learn a language, go sailing, no limits.

Some of his patients were bankers, advertising big shots, singers, TV producers, and locals. They liked to take him for lunch, often to smart places, where they would find themselves listing their woes, often at some length. 

He liked listening to people, but he had a silky tongue, which is not unusual in a dentist. They're used to expatiating at length on subjects close to their heart while the other is disabled. 

People just don’t feel the same way about pharmacists.

The bastard did use some bad words against me. He cost me a lot of money, pride and... He called me many things. I aimed some nasty stuff back, I have to admit. It got pretty dirty. And rough.

One day it was over. He was gone. I hope he's with her.

My question is, what would I say to him now if he walked in through that door right now. I wonder.

I'd put my arms out, I know I’d do that…I’d put my arms out and hug him. I'd call him friend. Or would I? Could I?

SCENE ONE

Six months earlier:

Vargas is waiting in the café.  Sonny comes in.

Vargas: Listen-

Sonny: Hi Vargas-

Vargas: Listen, Sonny-

Sonny: What’s up?

Vargas: It won't stop. This damn thing has been going through my mind like a machine- Like a drill on my tooth. That’s why I've been calling-

Sonny: Did you eat something?

Vargas: I’m just having a coffee. I’ve had two. 

Sonny: Well, they're Fair-trade now, double-dip: give yourself heart-burn and save the stupid planet. You did sound abrupt-

Vargas: Yes- So-

Sonny: Can I tell you, friend. Give me a moment. I'm sore right here. My knees. Stuff seems to have come loose. They crackle. Slip me something soothing, Dr Feelgood. Growing old isn't for pussies-

Vargas: Was it the tennis? I noticed, you've been playing a lot recently. Or the kneeling? Eh? I wonder. Did you have to get down and beg for forgiveness somewhere?  

Sonny: Why would I have to?

Vargas: I'm thinking it. That’s what I’m saying.

Sonny:  I don’t run much at tennis. I wait for the ball to come to me. Then I suck it right in - here. No, it’s the cycling. Stationary bicycle.  We’re dying, Vargas, and I can tell you, some people might like it, but it doesn’t suit me-

Vargas: Why not?

Sonny: I haven't had enough adventures -

Vargas:  I think you have. What you did, Sonny-

Sonny: When did I do it, what I did?

Vargas: You did it at the weekend. Yeah.  It’s about that. Last weekend.

Sonny: Okay.

Vargas: Let's wind back. It won't leave me alone.I’ve been going over it. Didn't you think I would? 

Sonny: Now?

Vargas: While it's nice and fresh-

Sonny: But you're annoyed-

Vargas: With reason-

Sonny: Nonsense. We'll see about that-

Vargas: Gemma answered the door to you - Saturday morning - and you stepped into my house for a moment-

Sonny: Yip. I think I was in a rush. I waited right there on the doorstep-

Vargas: That lovely morning I could hear you being charming, as you can be, asking my daughter about her exams, telling her that achievement is over-estimated, that work is where they pay you to waste your life. Thanks for that, particularly as Gemma's about to go to university and it's going to cost me. You were strangely eloquent, now I think about it-

Sonny: Let’s have it-

Vargas: I came to the door, still in my pyjamas, Nina and I had been chatting, you know, since early on that morning. She's just started painting full-time -

Sonny: Beautiful -

Vargas: Between you and me, that is going to be another burden-

Sonny: You're too encouraging-

Vargas: My wife is stubborn-

Sonny: Yeah. And talented. Didn't you say that? I admire the way you always praise her, despite her character. Won't you do that with me? Won't you make me feel better about myself by praising me baselessly?

Vargas: You'd left your tennis raquets in my car, I'd taken them in to the house, and you needed them to play with a friend –

Sonny: Right. Okay.

Vargas: Little Noah was doing his homework, and Gemma didn’t know where the racquets were, she doesn’t know where anything is, she's level for a teenager, but still- She was busy on the phone flirting with some young rapist whose name she won't tell me.

I fetched the tennis racquets and handed them to you. It was then I made my mistake. 

I looked up as you walked away.  There was - there was a woman waiting for you, out in the street.  A new woman, one I hadn’t seen before.

Vargas: Right.

Sonny: Who was that?

Sonny: Who was it? Doris. We were going to the Green, to play tennis-

Vargas: Doris.

Sonny: She had on running skins and that Burberry raincoat, flung on top-

Vargas: That’s the one-

Sonny: She’s not from here.  She believes our weather is strangely random. I've told her about our friendship. But she was nervous of meeting you. She was only waiting for me. That's why she didn't say hello, if you're asking.

Vargas: I thought the cat would run away, I stuck out my leg, looked up, and as you went to the corner you put your arm around her, this Doris. 

Sonny: The woman-

Vargas: You kissed her on the side of her head. She turned her face up at you and kissed you back, right on the lips – you know – It was passion. I'd say it was, yes, passionate-

Sonny:  I like the way you put it. That word. Passionately. It suits me.

Vargas: But why did she do that? I'm asking. It's a question.

Sonny: She couldn’t help herself. It was my effect. My smell.

Vargas: You're seeing her?

Sonny: Yes.

Vargas: I didn’t know about it.

Sonny: Nope.

Vargas: Who does?

Sonny: No one. If you knew about it, it wouldn’t be a secret. 

Vargas: Ah-ha. How long?

Sonny: More than a year. Nearly eighteen months. About once a month we get to see one another, here or there. She’s in another country, divorced, with a daughter around ten, I met her once, we went to the cinema, such a sweetie, the girl, I wanted to buy her things. 

That Saturday morning was cold, but unusually the sun made a violent effort, just for us.  We played tennis in our sunglasses. We went back to the place she’s staying and holed up there all weekend. My wife was at a conference, Leila was at home, somewhere up in the roof, pulling out her eye lashes and gluing them to postcards. My Leila. That girl.

Vargas: Yes-

Sonny: The boy, Atif - superbly indifferent.

It's not easy to have a great time, but for once I didn’t want to be anywhere else. I wanted a day of fearlessness, you know, of freedom and ease. That was the day, when love can make you feel you don't need anyone else.

And if that's not going to do you in, what is? 

Vargas: What did you do exactly, that weekend?

Sonny: The air, the spring flowers in the park, her body. We cooked, read poetry, we undressed one another, we even sang and danced together, amongst other unusual things. I'd forgotten the sheer glamour of it, you know, the glamour of love. Love brings out the best in me. You know, everyday is a crossroads, man.

Vargas: Good, good to know-

Sonny: Love set me on fire. I've decided: I'm hot blooded. Passion agrees with me. I've been sleeping for years, Vargas. I want to wake up now. 

Those hours with her, when we could put time aside, were an opportunity, a gift, for lovers, for idiots who only want to say one another's names, repeatedly.You might remember that. Yes? I knew I was euphoric because I had no desire to read the newspapers.

It's fading already, that memory. Something changed in me, but I can't say what. I think, for a time, I really had hope. Until you're well, you don't know how sick you were-

Vargas: Right.

Sonny: Come on, have a beer. Please, can't I talk more, while you listen? Don't you want to hear about it?

Vargas:  I have heard about it. Nina's on her way home- 

Sonny: Okay-

Vargas: I want to see her.

Sonny:  That is truly delightful.

Vargas: What?

Sonny: After all this time, you two still have something to say?

Vargas: Plenty. She listens to me. Even now.

Sonny: It cheers me up. I like a happy couple, now.

Vargas: Oh yes? This isn't done, you know. Not by a long way.  This isn’t so innocent.

Sonny: Why not?

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SCENE TWO

Vargas: And so, things started to slip away from us. It happened quickly... That surprised me...I didn't expect it....

Vargas: Don't. Okay? Just do not. Hold it in. As if you don’t know me-

Sonny: It was in confidence. Wasn't it?

Vargas: You actually knew what I would do. You did.

Sonny: How did I know that?

Vargas: It was implicit the moment you turned up at my house that Saturday, showing off, asking for tennis racquets-

Sonny: Did you have to do that, hyena? Really? Why? Why?

Vargas: Sonny-

Sonny: I'm actually hurt. I'm in physical pain. Devastated-

Vargas: Me too-

Sonny: Why? But it was you. You who ran straight home to your wife and told her about my love interlude. You in fact named Doris to Nina. You blabbed. You came out with it.  What did you do then? Did you suggest that Nina ring my wife? Did Nina ask your opinion about that? If you thought she should do that?

Vargas: What?

Sonny: I can see it. Off Nina hurried, to another room, I imagine, to phone Rashida with the Doris story I had just told you, presuming it was between us-

Vargas: Shut up- Stop.

Sonny: Why?

Vargas: No way is someone like Nina ever going to be put in a situation by you. No, no- She's not even going to be put in a situation by me.

Sonny: What in God's name were you thinking? 

Vargas: You cannot put this on me.

Sonny:  Do you tell her every single thing we've said?

Vargas: I thought this. Okay. Poor Sonny, flat-out, he squatted down, shat in his own shoes and walked out into the street -

Sonny: What did you see? It was a kiss-  A little one. Passionate... But-

Vargas: The  truth, Sonny. It matters-

Sonny: What do we call them, those who put principle before people? 

Vargas: This is crazy-

Sonny:  You and I, we've discussed it even during our sober moments. The extreme literal. The sadism of goodness. Those monsters who take morality seriously. I am surprised at you.  And we're about to go into business together. We've never done that. It was an experiment. You handed over a lot of money-

Vargas: This shows you how honest I am. You're with the right man.

Sonny: Clearly.

Vargas: Hear me. Do you respect me?

Sonny: I'm feeling a fool. I've been badly wrong about so many things, and here I go again-

Vargas: You and I met in here yesterday, I went back to work briefly -

Sonny: I thought you were going home?

Vargas: After finishing something up. At home I opened that nice bottle. I heard the door. Nina had been running for a couple of hours. It worries me, how far. Why she wants to be exhausted and then won't eat until a certain, exact time- 

Sonny: Ah-

Vargas: But she came to me, she didn't even change, she kissed me and scratched my head a little, here, where I like it.  We talked about our favourite teas. The vanilla chai, the spicey one I got for you, which you tried. She asked about my arm, my eyes, my spot, my twitch, my ache and something else, I forget. My toe.

I thought, I thought right at that moment, if anyone asked - like God, for instance – if he wanted to know what I’ve been doing with my life, sometimes I imagine that scene - how did it all add up in the end-

Sonny: And?

Vargas: Without Nina, my life would be a long panic attack.

Sonny: Okay-

Vargas: Being her child, her friend – being as vulnerable as I can be- hearing her voice breathing next to me last thing at night. She even likes me in Bermuda shorts.

Sonny: Shut up now -

Vargas: Because people are cynical about married love, though it’s the best kind of boredom, of ease and ordinariness. Nina is familiar, of course, I know what she's going to say. But she's like a landscape, different every day, if you observe carefully, you can see developments, alteration in the details, the evolutions. She reads me well. I want to be her book. Isn't that a million times finer than some stranger’s love? Now she's started to talk longer about herself- 

Sonny: For this you obliterate me-

Vargas: I would drown Venice for this. And definitely burn the Vatican.

Nina likes to ask about Rashida, how it is between you two. If you talk, what you say. She's fond of Leila, who is always polite to her. Your boy and my jewel Gemma are friends. All of us, we run into each other all the time. Two families, overlapping.

What you did, it was an attempt at crude male complicity - which no way was I going to keep from Nina.

So tell me: how can doing the right thing be the wrong thing?

Sonny: She’s becoming even more grand, Rashida. If I were talking to you, and I'm not talking to you, you shit, I'd tell you a lot more. I'd love to turn her loose on you one day. To see her chewing on your face and spitting the bones out would actually excite me -

Vargas:  Let me say before you say. I think you're not noticing something. You're being stupid. I’m the one here who should be annoyed.  You handing me that thing on Saturday morning- Trying me out. Testing me -   

Sonny: Once you went and informed Nina that I passed by with Doris that strangely sunny morning, you know what: she notified Rashida right away, adding that it was obviously up to Rashida what she did. From that moment my balls were in the fire, roasting like hot chestnuts. I get a text from my wife.

Vargas: Ah-ha-

Sonny: I wash my face. Up I trudge to Rashida’s study. I barely go to the top of the house these days. It's four floors and another country. I'm likely to see things which worry, if not upset, me. 

As you pointed out, Rashida is always in a rush. As if she's keen to be somewhere else more important. She doesn't have the time to hold back or be disagreed with. She repeated everything she’d heard from Nina. It had already gone to my daughter.

Vargas: It had? I'm sorry for that.

Sonny: Leila's the one who is not going to like any of this. Not at all. She's isolated but she’s a snooper. She keeps her eye on things. Up there she has internet and binoculars. She writes stuff down. Everybody's business is her business. She feeds on it, and when she spots a bit of what she considers evil, well, she rises up -

Vargas: Well-

Sonny: Would I do that to your daughter? To Gemma?

Vargas: Oh man.

Sonny: The chain you started. It's begun dragging me to...- who knows where this will end up-

Vargas: It's not too late.

Sonny: Isn't it?

Vargas: You can wind all this back.

Sonny:  What should I do?

Vargas: Let me think. I'll help you. Okay. I can do that.

Sonny: Thank you.

Vargas: This is it. First thing, you apologise. It's the modern thing, self-abasement. Grovel, morally. Never fails. Say you're depressed. Everyone is. Have you ever met anyone who's entirely well in the head? Show weakness. Then ask for medical help-

Sonny: There's no pill that can make you loved. I've got to go. Sorry.

Vargas: What? What is it?

Sonny: I’ve got a text here from Leila. Look. Something’s up. Something else. She wants to see me now. She seems to be insisting- I told you....

Vargas: Sonny- These could be dark days, my friend. Take care.

Sonny: That's the least of it. Thanks. Thanks for everything.

Vargas: No problem.

SCENE THREE

Vargas: Two days later...

Sonny: You know it-

Vargas: I do?

Sonny: Yeah-

Vargas: How come?

Sonny: You've walked past it a thousand and one times. Just down there. Five minutes. Bates Hotel, I call it. On the high street. Not as salubrious as it looks. You see rough people outside, some bare chested, disagreeing, often with their fists.

But it had this sign in the front window. It was addressing me directly. Vacancies, it said. Vacancies....

Vargas: Why, you daft fool?  

Sonny: It's nearby. Convenient. Close by to everything I used to have-

Vargas: You’ve got money. I’ll pay, if you’re short at the moment. Keep quiet about it one hundred percent: but I can help you out. Here- Take this-

Sonny: Fuck off. Put that away. Don't ever patronize me.

Vargas: Let me do something -

Sonny: You’ve done it. I travelled a lot when I was a kid, I'm used to the rough stuff. I like it. I can talk to anyone who has a late-night story, and I can slip back to my study and listen to something melancholic when I look round and wonder what the hell as happened, when I get the homesick blues-

Vargas: Makes sense. Just a few days. Experience and a story we'll laugh at later. But what got you there? The Bates. Why did you not follow my advice, and do the dance of the full, arse-up grovel?

Sonny: I was in fact preparing to present my vulnerable, venerable buttocks. But something else came up. Or came down, really. I got that text from Leila- You were here when it landed.

Vargas: Leila. Truth is, I haven't seen her for a while. What is she now?

Sonny: Practically an old woman. Twenty eight and not at all fit for this world, almost an oddity-

Vargas: A let down?

Sonny: Not quite yet. On her way. We can't get her moving.

Vargas: Children don't just exist to satisfy their parents' needs, you once said -

Sonny: There was something urgent she wanted to talk about.  

I was low, but optimistic after your advice last time. Wanting to construct my defence in detail, I fell into a deep sleep on my sofa, down in my part of the house. The lower depths, the basement where I live and have my things, including my record player, and where, mostly, I'm quite happy, if not sometimes melancholy, on my own.

Leila never comes downstairs for fear of what she calls 'the deep underground'. But, motivated by the news you had spread to her mother, she overcame her terrors.

There she found me. She got busy as I snored. She smoked the joint I had left out. It must have given her courage. Then she had a bright idea. She looked at my phone. She found something fascinating-

Vargas: Ah-

Sonny: Yeah-

Vargas: Your life is more remarkable than I ever imagined-

Sonny: It's becoming so-

Vargas: Yeah-

Sonny: You know, let me emphasise: people underestimate dentists. They think we’re failed doctors. They have us with vets. Sometimes with chiropractors, or even opticians. That’s a mistake. We have our own energy.

As I said, Rashida had already heard the bad news direct from Nina, thanks for that-

Vargas: Sure-

Sonny: Before this incident with my daughter, Rashida had got me up there as I was about to tell you yesterday.

As usual, my wife barely looked at me. She walked up and down in her long robe and velvet slippers, as if she were lecturing her followers, I could call them. She left her body behind a long time ago, and it was probably a relief. Not that she doesn't have love: she has a flock of students, sensitive young men and women, who worship her. It's a sort of cult she's got going, she gets excited to know they're gossiping about her. She's offended if they're not speculating. 

Strangely, she was smoking some kind of grimy cheroot, telling me how busy she was, marking and finishing her book, the footnotes and all that. As if she didn’t want the trouble of a conversation.

Vargas: Ah-

Sonny: We were married, and we were parents. Unlike you and Nina, we were never friends. I'm dull and done to her, she doesn't want to know what I think-

Vargas: Ridiculous- 

Sonny: I thought, Rashida, you just carry on being loved, and writing your book, I’ll happily go downstairs and smoke some of that White Widow and listen to something funky. We'll forget about everything for now, and enjoy being separate as so many people these days are.

I lived on scraps.

Then she stopped me. She even said my name - twice. That's been a long time. A particular thing about the business with Doris had got to her. It was the first time she'd explicitly heard about any infidelity. And she'd been humiliated. That everyone knew about Doris, and my fondness for her daughter, and she, Rashida, didn't. It hurt her-

Vargas: That not true is it?

Sonny: No. I had no intention of humiliating her. No one knew until you, thanks. Of course, Rashida, feeling distressed, then discussed my malfeasance with Leila. For Leila the matter wasn't closed. It was, er, open. As open as an abyss. In our beloved Spank yesterday I received the text. Come home.

That evening, when I lay doped and asleep on the sofa, Leila came down to probe me further. She must have been happy to be busy.

As I told you, she opened her investigation by taking the opportunity to look at my phone. That was when she sent a picture to her own phone.

After that, the three of us are upstairs in the dining room, sitting around that expensive, shiny table, the two women and I. As if we were at some kind of conference. Luckily the boy’s not there.

Vargas: Where was Atif?

Sonny: At work at the garden centre. He's come to love plants and I’m thrilled he’s engaged in something noble, though low paying.

I looked at Leila. I looked at her again. There was something even more weird about her. She seemed to be wearing her mother's clothes. The two women were becoming identical, except Leila is wider, with a fierce bitter look. Also, Rashida has no many-coloured phoenix on her arm, and has not yet given up smiling.

Leila holds up her phone. There’s an image on it-

Vargas: Oh-

Sonny: She passes it to Rashida. Rashida looks at it, and she doesn’t know what it is. Leila explains. It’s him- She points. Me.

Vargas: Poor woman, doesn’t even recognise you now- 

Sonny:  It’s my cock.

Vargas: Ah-

Sonny: Yeah-

Vargas: Your cock?

Sonny: Yes.

Vargas: Can I ask- D’you mind?

Sonny: Yeah- Go ahead -

Vargas: How did it get in there, your cock? 

Sonny: Leila sent it from my phone to her's while I was snoozing on my sofa. For reference.

Vargas: Reference.

Sonny: Now Rashida is scrabbling about, looking for her glasses, as she does in the classroom. It is an enervating procedure, like someone looking for a lost wedding ring in long grass. Finally she fixes them on, examining the image, turning it this way and that. She says at last, a bit like Lady Bracknell: Sonny, what is this? Is it you?

Vargas: What did you say?

Sonny: I was thinking - deeply. 

Vargas: I should say so.  At last.

Sonny: She's still looking at it.

Vargas: Longer than she ever looked at the real thing-

Sonny: Well. Indeed. But how does she know it's me? It could be anyone!-

Vargas: On your phone?

Sonny: Why not. I considered saying it was a friend. You, for instance.

Vargas: Me? Thanks. Please-

Sonny: It wouldn't have helped -

Vargas: No- Good. No- It would not.

Sonny: I glimpsed a better idea. It came to me in a flash of genius. I said the penis, the image, it was for the doctor.

Vargas: Ah-

Sonny: I’d been suffering from irritation around the acorn. I see a way out. So what am I doing, I'm gurning now, making all the despondent faces: fear, pain, cancer, cremation, eternity-

Vargas: Good- good-

Sonny: I was working, Vargas, mate-

Vargas: That's my boy-

Sonny: She said, Rashida – you know, she can be dry if not parched-

Vargas: She’s sandpaper on a sore spot. I've had that with her. 'Effective' is a compliment. She's expecting to be made a Dame, you said -

Sonny: She says, I hope you're not unwell, dear Sonny. But in the event that someone is required to send a photograph of their genitalia to a doctor, surely they wouldn’t add the legend ‘Big enough, baby?’ followed by several kisses, and even - what's that? - a heart, underneath-

Vargas: You actually did that?

Sonny: Actually, yeah.

Vargas: The heart?

Sonny: The heart.

Vargas: Next to the penis?

Sonny: Right there. Under it.

Vargas: Dark, Sonny. Dark. These are filthy days for you, man. Probably the dirtiest yet, and that's saying something with you.

Sonny: That was the light part-

Vargas: Can I interrupt and ask a question that is bothering me. The cock. The one in the picture. The cock we’re discussing. It was, er, extended? It was full? Big? Big-ish?

Sonny: No. Not even that. Not at all. I couldn't... No. It was lying peacefully on its side. It was - at rest, let's say -

Vargas: I guess it looked a bit like a snail? Would that be right?

Sonny: No. There's no snail. Not at all. It was a process. This is a story about fragility, sadness and loss- She would have understood that-

Vargas: Rashida?

Sonny: No. Fuck no. Why would she understand that? She's an intellectual.  The intendee- Doris.

Vargas: Doris. The passionate woman with the Burberry raincoat flung over her shoulders. The one who kissed you at the end of my street. 

Sonny: Doris. Yes- Her. The woman who said to me, there's more to you than you recognise. That I've lost myself. I've become a lie I've told myself...

Vargas: Fuck. Fuck. Oh God. What are we into, Sonny? This is foreign country. Where are we going? What did Rashida say?

Sonny: Leila thought it should be a matter for the police. She absolutely thought the cops would be interested in the penis. But Rashida was kind. She explained that the penis was a desperate plea. A cry for help. I needed professional support. She offered to pay.

Vargas: A prostitute? Phew. That's thoughtful but unorthodox, Sonny. It's more than generous for a wife to offer to help with a hooker in that way-

Sonny: She meant a therapist-

Vargas: Ah.

Sonny: I got up. I retired, hurt. I went away. I needed time.

Atif came in through my door later, and walked around, which was unusual. He sort of hung there. He was on his way to a band rehearsal. He must have heard about my shame. He saw I was kind of defeated. He said, you should have asked me first for some advice, everyone does it, but it’s more difficult to photograph your genitalia than you think.

Vargas: He's seen it?

Sonny: Who hasn't?

Vargas: I haven't.  Have you got it there? I'll ask Nina later.

Sonny: She has it?

Vargas: Probably. Shame goes round at the speed of light, faster than a bug-

Sonny: Jesus, I'm a dentist, not a porn star. But ask Nina. Share my shame. Look right at it. Give your eyes a party.

Vargas: To tell the truth, Sonny, as an older person, and friend in the medical profession, and if it's any consolation, I see your penis differently -

Sonny: Good. Thanks-

Vargas: I've been researching this. You know my father worshipped Tolstoy, and I've been reading again. St. Augustine, as it happens, who said something notable about the cock, you know, an organ notorious for being errant. It became, after the Fall, God's joke, curse, or punishment, for the privilege of being a man. Before the fall it was like your leg, you could do useful stuff with it, hop about, empty yourself.

After guzzling the forbidden fruit, it starts doing its own thing, the cock. Going up and down randomly - for me, as a kid, when I was visiting grandmother.

Sonny: Really.

Vargas: Then, when you're finally in bed with Cindy Crawford and she's murmuring your name, Vargas, Vargas, come and take me, you big nasty boy, I've waited so long for this, for you, my perfect pharmacist in nothing but your sexy white coat, the antiseptic look makes me wild - you know it's going to be like ramming chewing gum into a key-hole, toothpaste back into the tube -

I'm telling you, who'd want one of those, eh?

The idiocy of the erection. It's not such an advantage. I wouldn't show mine off.  You, you did that. You took it out, and sent it out into the world. Jesus.

Learn the lesson man: don't swing your dick about, dude, they’re lopping them off quicker than heads at the French revolution.

I wouldn't want to be you - I really wouldn't....