In contrast, the Conrad + Ford novel “The Inheritors” is indeed a work of social satire with science fiction elements. Perhaps Burroughs was referring to the latter?

http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2012/english-literature-history-l12408/lot.101.html

In the essay (above), I speculated that Harold Hayes, editor of Esquire, visited Ballard during Hayes’ trip to Europe in March 1968. A letter in the Sotheby’s lot confirms this.

Mike Holiday visited Sotheby’s to review the material and posted a description of the correspondence to the JGB Yahoo list on 7 Dec 2012. Holiday describes a letter “presumably from the first half of 1968” confirming that Harold Hayes visited Ballard in March 1968.

Holiday writes:

“Then another undated letter, presumably from the first half of 1968, in which Ballard tells Butler that he has run out of copies of the Reagan pamphlet and sends him a cheque for more copies. He also mentions that Harold Hayes, the editor of Esquire, visited him in Shepperton and fell out of his chair when he read the Reagan piece.”

Given that Hayes definitely visited Ballard, it seems likely that it was during their meeting that they discussed the prospect of Ballard writing a profile of Burroughs for Esquire. Consequently, the supper that Ballard shared with Burroughs at Duke Street — meeting the boyfriend with LOVE/HATE tattoos, glimpsing the laundry van on the street, etc — likely took place after March 1968. The essay (above) hypothesizes that the supper took place in fall 1968, after Burroughs returned from the Chicago Democratic convention. This letter in the Sotheby’s archive lends weight to the idea that the supper took place no earlier than March or April.

If I may be allowed to offer a couple of small ‘footnotes’ that may be of interest:

Graham Masterton also gives us a sighting of WSB’s mystery boyfriend – in the Introduction to his novel ‘Rules of Duel’ he talks about his friendship with Burroughs and visiting him in Duke Street, where:
“We would sit in his apartment over a meal that was served by a sulky young boy with L-O-V-E tattooed on his knuckles…”

And recently I was introduced to Liz Ellliot, who was married to Brian Barritt (probably remembered best as author of ‘The Road of Excess’, and friend & collaborator with Timothy Leary.) Liz used to run a stall in Kensington Market at the same time as Alex Trocchi, and comparing notes it sounds like she & my mother moved in overlapping circles for a while (similar to Stewart Home’s ill-fated mother, Julia Callan-Thompson.)

Shortly after meeting Liz I was sent a copy of Global Tapestry Journal #34 which features an article about Liz’s memories by our mutual friend John Power. It includes several mentions of William Burroughs (as well as Trocchi, Leary, Barritt, etc.), including the following which is of some relevance to the above:

“…The festival was in Worthing and called ‘Phun City’, and where Burroughs maintained his well-known persona of a wheezing cardboard cut-out, playing, on that occasion, with a portable tape-recorder…”

(And no mention of any OD or being carried to the medical tent either!)