He stared at the sugar cube as it dissolved in his tea. He didn’t like tea. But Dickie Greenleaf liked tea.
He saw it dissolve, he saw it crumble, turn in on itself like a dying star and slide into the hot boiling water to spread and infuse into something else. He tapped his spoon on the side of the glass to a mute tempo and felt a strange similarity to this sugar cube: an unmysterious, packed, concentrated form dissipate and spread its influence in another form. A better form. One not so harsh.
He looked up at the girl and blinked at her twice. Dickie Greenleaf would like this girl. Dickie Greenleaf would push back her limp hair and press a movie-star kiss to her pale lips.
“Tell me,” he said, his impression of someone he wasn’t coming out clear. He sipped the tea, smiled at her in a simper unnatural to Tom Ripley and said to her: “Have you ever been fucked?”