Now I’m here though, I’m not so sure. Everything’s so grey. It feels like an old people’s home, even though most of us are young. No one seems to know what’s going on. And Mark, he just spends his time moaning, saying it’s not what he expected. There’s a small part of me – well, sort of more than a small part of me – that feels a little bit of panic that I made the wrong decision. But I can’t have done. I mean, Mark and me, we’re like Romeo and Juliet, we’re meant to be together. We’re meant to have died for each other.

I mean, I’m not sure how bad my life actually was, back there. There are people here, well, you wouldn’t want to know what they went through. I mean, it seemed really bad when I was going through it but – shit. Things weren’t so grey, I remember that. And Mark? I know we wanted to be together forever. So, I’m glad we will be. I mean, I have to be, don’t I? I am though. Really glad. No, really I am.

I just wish everything wasn’t so grey. Grey and thin, like a cold mist. I can see it stretching into the distance, forever.

The Club

It was a warm April night the first time I met Kurt Fleischer. A hint of summer in the warmth of the evening breeze - a sunset gently bleeding into the sky behind us as we stood on the terrace. I was at the launch of a new restaurant. Crashingly dull, as it happens - I was debating on whether I could bear to hang around until dessert. I shifted from foot to foot, easing the ache in the small of my back. And then I saw Kurt. With all that’s happened since, it’s amazing that it wasn’t the demands of my stomach that got me into all this. No, it was the insistence of another organ altogether.

He’s tall, you know; blonde, high cheek-boned; the very prototype of Aryan perfection. But you would know, of course, as he’s joined the ever-swelling ranks of celebrity chefs that clog up our televisions, exhorting us to watch our waistlines and titillate our tastebuds. You can peruse Kurt’s book in Waterstones; dine at his – our – restaurant (if you book a month in advance, three if you want a table on Saturday night). You can buy his range of gleaming knives and cleavers in John Lewis. And yet, only he and I and a few select others know the secret of his – our – success. Only The Club knows how delicious a game it all is.

He was the one who approached me, you know. I saw the gleam of his blonde hair as he moved through the crowd on that warm spring night, watched as he moved towards me. Could it be possible…? I flicked my gaze away from his face, back towards the eager grimace of my companion – Harry Capless, one half of this new gastronomic venture. He could tell I was bored, obviously, but as he was hoping for a blazingly positive review from me, he had little choice but to ignore my bad manners. I kept my eyes on him, aware of the blonde young man standing just in the periphery of my vision. He wasn’t hovering – he just stood there silently, waiting for me to notice him. I caught a faint whiff of his aftershave, a tang of clean sweat beneath it. He smelled good enough to eat.

Eventually Harry ground to a halt. I smiled dismissively and turned towards the blonde – Kurt, as I was soon to learn.

“Good evening, “ I said.

He nodded, unsmiling.

“Good evening. You are Geoffrey Lamb-Scott?”

I inclined my head graciously. He went on.

“You are writing for the Daily Telegraph, their restaurant reviews?”

“I am, dear boy. The Sunday Telegraph, to be quite accurate. But I’m afraid you have the advantage of me. Your name is…?”

“Kurt Fleischer. I am a chef.”

Oh Lord. I manage not to wince outwardly. Another young hopeful, another one desperate for a good review. For any review.

How desperate? I wondered thoughtfully.

“I wanted very much to talk to you about the article you wrote for Gastronome,” said Kurt. His smooth golden face was taut with earnestness. I raised my eyebrows in surprise.

“The article…?”

“In the last month, the last issue.” He stumbled over his words for a moment. “It was most – most enlightening. What you wrote – it is so true, it is the truth. You spoke the truth.”

My word. If he were as passionate as this about an article, what would he be like… well… I smiled at him, encouragingly. He didn’t smile back. I could see tiny pearls of sweat beading his hairline.

I had written an article for the aforementioned magazine some months before. In it, I bemoaned the fact that, to the true gourmet, the real epicure, there was literally nothing left to eat. There was no taste sensation that hadn’t been documented a thousand times; no dish that hadn’t graced the palates of a thousand restaurant reviewers before. Porcini, pasta, olive oil, truffle, saffron, sushi, jus, mash, noisettes, julienne, shitake, salmon, frites…it was all there, all laid bare; masticated, pontificated, gorged, forged and puked. There was nothing left; no taste sensation remaining that hadn’t already been plundered, lauded, laid out for the masses.

“So you think,” said Kurt. For the first time he had a smile on his face, his cheekbones showing faintly blue-white though his golden skin. Again, I felt the tug of lust and something else, something beneath it. Intrigue? Curiosity? Fear?

“My dear boy…”

He smiled again. “Wait. I will show you.”

That was how I found myself in some godforsaken hole in Smithfield’s Market, the butcher stalls braced with cages of iron, newspapers plastered up against the walls, the smell of old blood ground into the ancient bricks. Kurt looked at me, grinning slightly as I stood hunched in the street, like a well-dressed, priapic tramp.

“In here,” he whispered and ushered me forward. It was a dank little hole, ill lit and odd smelling. Surely not a restaurant? He took my hand and led me along a long, dark corridor which opened out into a large room, wood-panelled, lit only by the embers of a dying fire.

“What is this?”

I wanted my voice to come out strongly but the dark robbed it of any firmness. There were others in the room, I saw dimly; just glinting eyes in the darkness and the shuffle of quiet breath in the corners of the room.

“What is this?”

I could feel my voice becoming higher. Kurt looked back, and smiled again, that heartless, Teutonic grimace.

“Stay here, Geoffrey, and I will cook you a feast.”

I was slightly reassured by the sound of my name. I sat on a hard wooden bench, slotting my legs beneath a roughly hewn table, the shadows folding themselves around me. I listened to the barely perceptible sound of breathing. My scalp was tingling, my bowels were loose and trembling within me. The shadows lengthened.  There was a murmuring, in the darkness, a soft undertone in the shadows. I felt the softest touch on my neck, a finger sliding down the tendon of my throat. I jerked and nearly screamed.

Looking back into the black cavern of the room, I saw nothing, nothing in the darkness. The mere tickle of a cobweb… I brushed at my neck, shivering. What in God’s name was I doing? Where was I? I sat, clenching my fists… surely, time to go…but there at the end of the room, moving like a blonde angel soaring wingless through the darkness was Kurt, a white china plate gripped in his big, capable hand. He came up to me and I breathed out, more relieved than I could say to see him. He held the plate out to me, smiling and I looked at it, mesmerised. Steam rose from the slab of meat laid upon it.

“What is this?” I said softly, as he laid it in front of me.

He smiled.

“It is good.”

From nowhere a knife and fork had appeared on the table before me. I reached out as if in a dream. The steam rose from the meat, writhing in the darkness. I looked, pressed, cut. I lifted the fork to my mouth.