Read The Further Adventures of a London Call Girl Online
Authors: Belle de Jour
The Further Adventures of a London Call Girl (20 page)
‘Worth a try,’ he says. And I send him home with sunscreen – for next time, I say.
The flight leaves on time, everything goes smoothly. It’s still morning, and I am stood in an airport, alone.
Sunny day. Think I’ll go to the beach.
lundi, le 28 mars
J’s not a man of many words. Or rather, J’s not a man of many serious words. He just looks at me and cocks an eyebrow. So much has happened the last few weeks and we’ve had no time to sit around and chat. I feel I have some explaining to do.
‘I know, I know,’ I say by way of apology. ‘You don’t have to tell me.’
‘You’re going to have to pick his pubes out of the soap yourself, okay? I ain’t going near that shit.’
mardi, le 29 mars
Archaeology should be undertaken with care. Especially when it’s your own.
I was clearing out old received emails and discovered a wealth of files I had forgotten about. Many things I had either put out of my mind or buried so deep they were unrecognisable as mine.
Pictures of myself with a series of regrettable haircuts, work from my student days – was I smarter then, or just more focused? – remnants of email and photos of past lovers. Trawling through the past took the majority of the evening.
It’s the old photos that have the most power. Squinting in a bit of sunlight on holiday in Rome, yes, but more specifically, someone you were intimate with … well, being intimate.
There aren’t many of those, mostly because I’m very tight-fisted with homemade erotica. Sure, I’ve stripped off and done unspeakable things to strangers, but let a beloved snap a pic? Almost never. One reason I’ve been reluctant in the past to produce homemade porn is because once it’s out there you have no control over it. Literally none. And whoever sees it will think of you whatever they like. The recipient is free to post the pics all over the internet, mull over them wistfully some time after you’ve parted ways, or – worst of all – erase them.
I’m not normally a hoarder. I don’t save cards past a year unless they’re handmade by the sender, or extraordinary. But faced with what was a set of, frankly, badly posed and poorly lit shots of myself and an ex in flagrante delicto, I could not bear to send them to the trash bin. Even though he was modelling a rather fetching pair of my knickers. Especially as it’s someone I haven’t seen since the split. I’m frightened that if I never see a photo of him again, like the information I happily spilled with seemingly no mental effort in student assignments, I might forget he existed.
As if that could happen. He really knew how to wear women’s underwear.
mercredi, le 30 mars
I lay on a wooden bench by the beach reading. A man came up to me – fifties, local, smart suit and sunglasses, probably a business owner – and looked at the cover of the book (Seneca, On the Shortness of Life).
‘Very interesting,’ he said in English. ‘Are you comfortable here? Enjoying yourself?’
To be very honest, I was half thinking about falling asleep but feared sunburn. ‘Yes,’ I said.
He smiled and extended his hand in a friendly manner. ‘Please continue,’ he said, and walked away.
jeudi, le 31 mars
Seneca goes on at length about states of exile and how, when he is at peace and has the necessities of food, shelter and so on, a man should feel as at home anywhere in the world as he does in his own country.
A theory to which I heartily subscribe. Nevertheless, my heart did flitter a little to hear ‘Come Up and See Me (Make Me Smile)’ playing from the sound system of a tourist bar.
Dear Belle
Dear Belle,
On my second day at work at a major TV company, they made us all tell a whole room of people our sexual fantasies. This was supposed to be for some new TV programme. As you can expect, our bosses exempted themselves from this activity. There is still resentment among us and we feel a bit ‘molested’, even though we are all grown-up men and women. I worry that now my bosses are looking at me in a different way. But I am also consumed with a desire to humiliate them in return. What should I do?
Dear Show And Tell,
Eww, that steps over the line even for me. Now, sexual harassment being part and parcel of my chosen profession, I can’t claim to be au fait with the proper authorities on these matters, but doesn’t that squeak in under the rubric of some variety of assault? You should speak up sooner rather than later – unless you found yourself turned on by a certain co-worker’s admissions, in which case I’d persevere in hope of the perverse.
Dear Belle,
My boyfriend likes to be fellated for hours (well, it seems like hours) at a time. Can you pass on any tricks to make him come quickly? I’m getting jaw-ache.
Dear Tetanus,
A mint or an ice cube held in the mouth may give him pleasure; it may have the added advantage of numbing your mouth. Sloppy wet hand action for a few seconds while your mouth takes a rest occasionally is usually acceptable, and if all else fails, stick your finger up his bum. He’ll either come quickly or demand you stop – either way, result!
Dear Belle,
I met my girlfriend when she and I were both drunk. All subsequent meetings have ended up with us both in the same state. When drunk she is wild, passionate, free and abandoned.However, when sober this is not the case, as she is an able student of biochemistry and bores me senseless. How should I proceed?
Dear Dick,
Either turn up at hers consistently armed with a bottle of fizz, or be resigned to dating less intelligent girls in the future.
vendredi, le 1 avril
N and I had a game: managerial-speak clichés. You take an old saying and make it new again, all through the judicious use of the thesaurus and a heavy helping of what I believe they call ‘thinking outside the box’. It’s a cheery waste of time I’ve passed on to J now. For someone who’s never held an office job he’s surprisingly good.
We sat in the garden, he with sunglasses and wind-up radio, me puzzling through a women’s magazine in Spanish. Luckily, most of the words for cosmetics and sexual practices are the same.
J: If you can’t tell your arse from your elbow, that would be a clear case of arse/elbow distinguishment issues.
Me: Alternatively you could say you have forest/tree distinction concerns.
J: A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush – bird number to bird location valuation ratio.
Me: Don’t count your chickens before they hatch – be aware of pre-born chicken accountancy concerns.
J: Experiencing canine/feline precipitation.
Me: By the way, does it ever rain here?
J: Almost never. But when it rains, it pours. I mean …
Me: … at the point in time when atmospheric moisture is detected, it will inevitably be a not inconsiderable amount.
J: Can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs?
Me: The disjunction between culinary outcome and the propensity to maintain eggshell integrity.
J: Speaking of which, are you cooking tonight, or are we going out?
Me: The likelihood of porcine levitation indicates that perhaps the latter outcome is more probable.
J: Fair enough. Hand us some of that suncream, will you?
dimanche, le 3 avril
I’d been expecting some webcam action with the Boy but the internet connection makes cans on strings look like a good idea. There are alternatives, such as chatrooms, but he’s proving reluctant to use instant messaging. This is ostensibly because he’s not very good at spelling. Still, at least we can have phone sex. Even though J wonders why he keeps finding the phone in the bathroom.
mardi, le 5 avril
According to his weblog archives the Boy makes fun of me for not liking jewellery and flowers, which defies explanation in my book.
Clarification: I don’t want jewellery and flowers from a lover. As treats I buy for myself, fine; as gifts from friends, acceptable. But something about the obligatory roses on a birthday or bracelet on an anniversary leaves me cold. Now, gifts from clients, that was another matter.
There’s a particularly filthy image A2 sent me in email. It’s a parody of those horrible print ads for jewellery. It shows a woman in silhouette, lips clamped round what you can only assume is her partner’s love machine. Below, the picture of a particularly large diamond, and the slogan: ‘Diamonds. Now she’ll pretty much have to.’
Yes, I admit I sniggered more than may be ladylike. But it’s also a depressing thought. Are men still resorting to buying expensive baubles to ensure their ladyfriends perform a service which – may I be frank here? – should be more or less expected in any normal sexual relationship?
Or are women who actually enjoy sex in the minority, and I somehow missed the memo on requiring a down payment for play?
If so, it makes me wonder why some women are so quick to criticise prostitutes, when it appears their main motivation for sleeping with their lovers is collecting gaudy jewellery. Methinks the ladies do protest too much.
Closer examination of the archive reveals that Susie was exactly opposite to me in this regard. She demanded holidays abroad, expensive meals, the lot. Greedy cow. A2 rang to see how I was getting on, and I lamented this fault. ‘I should have at least insisted on trinkets and tributes with most of my boyfriends. They must have thought I was a cheap date.’
A2 never bought me any regrettable rings during our time together. His gifts tended more to the hard-bound variety. Though he did once part with the better part of a grand to procure a handbag I adored, and, what’s more, did this without my ever hinting for it. ‘But getting earrings wouldn’t improve your relationship,’ he said, quite reasonably.
‘True, but at least I’d have something to show for it.’
Well, I have a handbag, anyway.
mercredi, le 6 avril
I miss sex when I’m alone. But while nothing is as good as the feeling of fucking someone else, of having your tongue entwined in another woman’s fragrant fold or being filled to the rim by a hard cock, there are substitutes. Phone sex, vibrators, your own fingers. They’re not perfect but they’ll do.
And I miss cuddling. Though to be honest, in such a warm place as this, and with enough pillows in the bed, the only difference between sleeping alone and sleeping with someone else is the lack of snoring.
What I can’t get over is kissing. There is no substitute. I wake early and lie in bed, replaying kisses I’ve had, kisses I should have had. The plump, full feel of a warm mouth against mine; a probing, curious tongue. You can go out and find random sex, sure, but what if you just want a kiss? A more difficult request by far.
I remember the first. The first real one, not a peck in the schoolyard. I was twelve, he was fifteen and J’s neighbour. As a treat our parents took us to Alton Towers. It was the first time I’d ever met this boy. He was tall and dark and had a gorgeous deep voice, and I spent all day trying to figure out ways to be next to him, including going on the most disorientating rides. That night in his mum’s car we kissed and the other kids watched. In fact, I don’t think there was a single kiss we shared alone.
‘Say,’ I said to J, ‘I don’t suppose you know what happened to that friend of yours, that fellow Geoff.’
‘Wow, it’s been about fifteen years since I heard that name,’ J said. ‘What made you think of him?’
vendredi, le 8 avril
‘Yeah, this town is small beans. Thing is, right, I’m in the army so there’s nothing I find shocking.’
‘Really,’ I said. This was the worst sort: people who could not be blown off through lack of conversation. He’d already told me how long he’d been living here, about some girl he was having sex with but who doesn’t return his calls now, and extended an invitation to his house, bought with retirement payoff from the paras – with detailed directions of its location – in case there was ‘something good on, sport or whatever’. Undoubtedly he had a backlog of stories and was prepared to tell them all. I looked around for the rest of the group he’d come in with, but they were nowhere to be seen. Tomás popped out from the kitchen and half waved. I nodded and smiled.
‘Friend of yours?’ the man asked.
‘Neighbour.’ He waited to see if I would expand on that description. I didn’t.
‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘I’ve seen it all, me. There’s nothing you could say that I haven’t been through. Go on and ask. Kosovo, whatever. Drugs. Criminal underworld, like. Been there, done that, like they say, ha ha ha.’ I looked at his round, hard stomach, the downward-pointing moustache. I felt a pang of guilt for hating the fellow, no doubt he was not overwhelmed with female attention. He probably thought he was doing well with me.
‘Is that so,’ I said. I suddenly missed N very much; he would have put this man in his place and made it look easy. Oh, N, what would you do? ‘How about I prove you wrong and then you fuck right off?’
The obscenity startled him, but then it always does. People don’t expect words like that out of the mouth of someone who looks like me. He regained composure instantly. ‘Go ahead, try me.’
I don’t like one-upmanship; it smacks of competition and that is so not my bag, baby. On the other hand, it was time to roll in the heavy artillery. I waved him closer, so only he could hear what I was about to say. He grinned the grin of the Cheshire Cat, already prepared to say that anything I’d done had been done by him, first, and better.
‘I once shat on a man’s chest. For money.’
I stood up and left.
dimanche, le 10 avril
Email from the Boy is sparse, and his nightly phone calls are a bit stilted – he thinks J is eavesdropping. He’s right, but it’s not out of malice. It’s a small house and the walls are thin. Last night I had to listen to J reaming another girl, so I think subjecting my cousin to a few pallid phone conversations is hardly squirm-making.
I suggest more email and find a few erotic stories on the Web to send to the Boy. Maybe email isn’t working, because I haven’t heard back.
OK, email is definitely working. Maybe he hasn’t had time to read them yet. Or he is trying to find something good to reciprocate with.
He has read them. Hasn’t said anything. Scratch the stories.
mercredi, le 13 avril
I ride to the beach so often I’m sure the bicycle knows the way by now: to the end of our road, turn right, turn left, down the hill, over the little bridge, turn right and on to the end. Straddling a rusted blue Schwinn, iPod plugged into my ears, the Stone Roses singing that they wanna be adored, I feel like a teenager.
Earlier this week I noticed a tan line forming in the middle of my thigh, from wearing shorts, but I can’t bring myself to go about in only a bikini. I notice plenty of female tourists without the same reluctance.
Once on the beach I like to get as far away from others as possible, turn my music up, or just listen to the surf. The sand is infested with bodies. I’m not here for the bars, the bungee or the Spongebob Squarepants slide. It only costs pennies at the end of the pier to see a world that hasn’t changed even with the ravages of tourism. Sad-eyed fishermen willing the Gulf to show them their fortunes. Reptilian birds fighting over heads and guts.
On a wooden bench, I suppose I fall asleep. When I wake and look down at the grey-green water – was that a shark at the bottom, or just a ripple of sand? – I see them. Twelve velvet red, long-stemmed roses bobbing on the surface. I don’t know who threw them out there or why. But for the minute I sit watching, while they slide a crooked course to the crowded shore, they could have been for me.
jeudi, le 14 avril
Another important difference between me, Susie and all the other girls of the Boy’s harem: I don’t want marriage and children.
Maybe, as I get older, the notion that I will never marry or reproduce will be supplemented with ‘… unless I find the right person’. But if I’m meant to feel maternal instincts, shouldn’t they have kicked in by now? J and I recently visited neighbours and their newborn. I was relieved to get out without anyone asking whether I’d like to hold the baby. Because there is no way to say no politely.
You may be thinking I’ll change my mind. Or that I’m a selfish modern woman, corrupted by idleness, too self-absorbed to care for anything above herself. You may be right.
But, you see, I was a wanted child. My parents planned for me, longed for me. They survived disappointments and heartbreaks to have me. Whatever became of their relationship later, I grew up knowing I was special, wanted. I’d never wish to bring someone into the world less sure of it than that.
So the Boy and I were discussing this stunted maternal drive the other day. I get silly over things like lizards, and sometimes – if they don’t poo – kittens, but very rarely react to human children. ‘You’re just a broody thing,’ I accused him.
‘No, don’t be silly, I don’t want children soon,’ he said. ‘I don’t think I could take the thought of going without sex for that long, not just yet.’
Er, no sex while pregnant? Cripes, some women will try anything to get out of it. The only reason I can see to cut back your sexual practices when starting a family is the fear that your children might walk in on you, and then you’d have to sit them down for a chat and explain the facts of life, perhaps a bit earlier than you had expected. Such as what a ‘pony-girl’ is. And what Mummy uses ‘butt-plugs’ for.
‘Actually, I think it’s pretty safe,’ I said. ‘And anyway there are always alternatives to vaginal sex.’ The third-trimester anal, for instance. ‘It’s the time right after birth that’s probably sex-free.’
I backtracked quickly. ‘Of course, I don’t want to even think about it yet, either,’ I said. ‘Not quite ready to accept peeing involuntarily when I laugh yet.’ He seemed to find this very funny.
dimanche, le 17 avril
Finally, the Boy’s figured out how to chat online and now he’s on all the time. Only talking to me, I hope. There are a lot of silences in our online conversations, and he comes back and types things like: ‘Sorry, I was talking to my [long pause] brother.’
Great. Four nanoseconds after discovering chat, and he’s getting friendly with online hussies. The chat program lets you send pictures as well, so I take some photos to whet his appetite. But it’s difficult to take sexy snaps of yourself. For one thing, your arm is always sticking out at an odd angle. For another, getting dolled up for a camera with no one behind it reeks of sadness. Like those photos men online take of themselves. I do a set of me posing in transparent black lingerie, which I bought specially, having left most of the tools of my former trade behind. I think it turns out pretty well, and send one as a taster.
lundi, le 18 avril