The Further Adventures of a London Call Girl (5 page)

‘Lick it off,’ he suggested.

‘It would be my pleasure.’

‘I love that about you.’

I made the train with three minutes to spare.

samedi, le 9 octobre

Home is, they say, where the heart is. I learned to my chagrin, however, that it most certainly isn’t where the bedroom is.

Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up: I left home for good more than a few years ago, but visit my parents regularly enough for them to expect me to be around for the Really Important Things such as holidays, a bris, the final vote on Big Brother, etc. So when I came round, I was hoping (as is my custom) to stay in my former bedroom.

Alas, I was wrong. So so wrong. Because the bedroom is being done over.

Into – drum roll – a spare bedroom.

While no formal finishing date has yet been decided, I can see from swatches of fabric and samples of carpet and books of flowery wallpaper that the room that once contained my (beloved, white iron frame) bed and (familiar, elegant) blue curtains is being transformed into a veritable Pink Palace of girlishness.

And all this is being done some seven or eight years after the girls have flown the nest.

Correct me if I’m wrong – and I’ve no doubt someone will – but wasn’t it already a bedroom? And further, wouldn’t guests be just a little put off by staying overnight in what is essentially a shrine to the power of tea roses? Especially as there is currently no child in the house?

Perhaps it means my mother is expecting. Help.

dimanche, le 10 octobre

Great Pub Games #2: Obscure facts about your friends.

A4, whose own parents live nearby, came round my parents’ house. We were drinking coffee, and there was nothing on telly, as usual.

A4 on A2: ‘The only song he knows all the words to is ‘‘Hey, Big Spender’’.’

‘Really?’

‘Ring him if you doubt me.’

I smiled. It was good; six out of ten, at least. But as I’ve slept with practically all my friends, I usually win this one. ‘The first time he masturbated it was into a sleeve of aluminium foil.’

‘No!’

‘Ring him if you doubt me.’

A4 awarded me the points. ‘You next,’ he said.

‘Me? Surely I’ll win this one?’

‘Ah, but the name of the game is obscure facts. You’d have to come up with something I don’t already know about you.’

‘Yes, but that also means you have to think of something I don’t know about myself.’

A4 suddenly gasped. ‘Is he okay?’ Which was, of course, regarding my own dear pater. ‘What on earth is he wearing?’

I peered towards the shrubbery from which said parent was emerging. His silhouette, dark in the evening garden, was, indeed, odd. ‘Erm, plus-fours? Bicycle clips?’ (n.b. he’s been known to own both)

But it was worse, far worse, than anyone could have imagined. First there was a shocked silence, then a gasp, as what I was actually seeing came into full view. A4 laughed. ‘His trousers are tucked into his socks.’

Good of him not to mention the plastic aviator-style sunglasses, or the jumper with worn-through elbows, or the fact that they weren’t trousers so much as tracky bottoms, then.

A4 rubbed his hands together with glee. Somehow I suspected he’d won this round.

lundi, le 11 octobre

[David Attenborough, whispering] In winter, the common-or-garden Female Professional Worker can be identified by her solid-colour, V-neck jumper, black wool-blend trousers and small earrings. In this way they are easily distinguished from the Female Secretarial Worker, whose winter plumage includes a skirt, flesh-coloured fishnets, and dangly earrings. Both species are observed on occasion wearing an ill-fitting jacket. By approaching carefully, it is possible to hear the chatter going on within the small groups that congregate around the kettle.

‘Nice skirt,’ Jasmine said as she sat down across from me. I was wearing the bottom half of my favourite tweed Austin Reed suit, a tailored lace shirt with ruffled collar and a wraparound cashmere cardie. Office standard, by my reckoning, or at the very least a step down from call-girl attire. I was not going to start shopping in Dorothy Perkins for the sake of blending in.

‘Thank you,’ I said.

‘My mum has a sofa just like that.’

mardi, le 12 octobre

Rubbish day at work. Squealing harridans behind my desk threatening to send brain into meltdown. Found as many excuses as possible to leave throughout the day: restocking supplies in the coffee room, mounting new jugs on the water dispenser, exchanging perfectly good computer keyboard for identical one with the IT department.

Phoned N at lunch for a good grumble. ‘You know what you need,’ he said.

‘Not especially.’

‘A threesome.’

Damn, he’s right. ‘Have anyone in mind?’

‘Have I ever! I’m thinking Friday.’

‘Not sure I’ll survive until then without beating one of my co-workers to death.’

‘Try. It’ll be worth your while, promise.’

mercredi, le 13 octobre

When the phone won’t stop ringing, I know it’s one of two things: the agency or Angel. Seeing as it’s been about, oh, four months since Angel’s last disastrous breakup I reckon we’re due. I check the phone – indeed it is.

She rings back literally minutes after calling me. I answer briskly. ‘Hello?’

Angel is sniffling, possibly crying over some man, possibly coming down with the plague. ‘Hello, how are you? Been a while,’ she says in a brave-little-soldier voice.

‘Not too bad, at the office at mo. How about yourself?’ I resist the temptation to say, And who’s dumped you now? Because Angel only rings when things are going wrong for her, namely, when she’s without a man in her life. This is another reason why my patience with female friends is short – a man would never ignore his friends for the sake of a shag.

‘Oh, you know, getting by, day to day.’ I try not to encourage her, but the story tumbles out regardless: someone slapped an order on her to stay away from his house (it’s not the first time). Unfortunately he lives round the corner from her, and she can’t afford to move. I see where this is going and nip it in the bud.

‘Afraid I don’t really have the space, but if I hear of anything I’ll let you know, of course.’ Also the fact that she has a tendency to sweep up my cast-offs, be they food, books or men, a habit I find disturbing. One poor gentleman last year who couldn’t take no for an answer immediately took up with her after me; their affair ended badly, of course, and somehow this seemed to make her more attached to me during times of stress. God alone knows why.

She cries poor-mouth a while longer. ‘Sorry, love, I have to get to a meeting, we’ll talk about it over coffee soon, ’kay?’

jeudi, le 14 octobre

Text from N: just in kingston waitrose with mum, saw box labelled extra large cucumbers and they weren’t kidding, humbled; thinking of becoming a monk.

I reply: Don’t you dare! Or I will have to find something else to do this weekend.

vendredi, le 15 octobre

N is at work and we agree to meet there. She’s a real cracker, he said over the phone. The only thing is, she has to be off early in the morning.

N’s working the door of the club. He points me in the right direction, and yes, he’s right, this one’s a looker – few years older than me, tight jeans, nice figure. Huge chest. I can see what he sees in her. I introduce myself and she buys me a drink. She’s obviously had a few already. Better watch that, I think. Don’t want her getting too far gone.

We dance. Scissor Sisters. They’re so camp they make Dead or Alive look like John Wayne and Sly Stallone wrestling in a river of Old Spice. I love them, obviously. She’s grinding into me, and from the corner of the room N is watching us.

The lights come up. We stumble towards the door. N is talking to a straight couple. I vaguely recognise the woman but can not be bothered to think on it. ‘So are you going to take us home, or what?’ I paw N’s arm. The woman looks horrified. He laughs and says he’ll meet us outside.

He’s booked a hotel. She and I head straight for the shower. N watches from the door. She’s even better unclothed. Mature, but not sagging. I lather her breasts then go down on her, the warm water running down her belly and over my head.

We dry each other and head for the bed. N watches me lick her out. I’m not sure if she was really that game for the threesome; she’s participating, but not all that engaged in pleasing me. N arranges us on the bed side-by-side and sets to work on us, dipping his head between our thighs like a bee after honey.

But our friend has clearly had too much to drink. It’s only a few hours until she has to be off, anyway. We sleep, she and N on the main bed, me on a fold-out on the side. I wake to the sound of him taking her from behind and her animal grunts. ‘Want to join in?’ N hisses over her shoulder.

‘No, thanks,’ I say and fall back asleep.

There’s just enough time in the morning for a cup of tea. ‘What, no breakfast in bed?’ she jokes. N gives her a lift as far as the next Tube station and takes me all the way home. We spend the rest of the morning half asleep, half entwined in my bed.

samedi, le 16 octobre

Was waiting for N outside an overground station. I had just come from meeting a client out of town. A young man next to me was looking up and down the road for buses, headphones plugged into his ears, the music far too loud. I tapped him on the shoulder.

‘I like that song,’ I said.

‘Oh?’ He looked surprised. ‘You like ‘‘Alice in Chains’’?’

I smiled. Yoof of today can keep their Fred Durst and their Linkin Park and their Avril-bloody-Lavigne. Watered-down metal for kiddies. Back in my salad days, disaffected middle-class teenagers shuffled their ill-fitting jeans to the likes of The Mission and Sisters of Mercy. Because, frankly, baggy was just too cheerful for the pain in our souls. Sit down, sit down, sit down next to me? Begone.

The young man smiled back. ‘When was the last time someone told you you’re gorgeous?’

‘About forty minutes ago.’

N’s car came up to the kerb. ‘Nice dress,’ he said as I got in. ‘When I drove up I thought, Well, she can’t be the cute one in the dress.’

‘You’ve seen me in this before.’

‘Have I?’ We’d spent an afternoon in Berkshire with a friend of his, on a boat. ‘That was months ago. You look sweet, anyway.’

Went back to mine for a cuppa. He leafed through my magazines. I took off my shoes and rested my legs over his lap. We started fooling around, but his touch felt strange, almost ticklish. I was very premenstrual and slight touches were uncomfortable. But I didn’t want to be treated roughly, either.

We grappled on the sofa for a bit before he gave up. ‘Not in the mood, are you?’ N asked. ‘That’s okay.’

I felt bad. After all, I’d just come from fucking someone. But work sex feels different, is not tied to interest or desire.

But I knew why I wasn’t especially interested. It was not only the slightly disappointing threesome we’d had, nor fatigue from having just seen a client. ‘You know what this month is to me?’

‘I know what it is.’ N put his arm around my shoulder. ‘You’re not over him, are you?’ He didn’t mean Dr C, he didn’t mean the Boy. He meant the one before that. And he was right. Whenever I am between men my thoughts always turn back to him. I might think that this or that event has helped me move on – the shenanigans with the Boy last year, for instance – but it never does.

‘I don’t miss him.’ N gave me a doubtful look. ‘I barely remember what he was like now. I miss the idea of him.’ An idea I had written off as nonsense, until I met him. The idea that there is one person you fall in love with, one right person, and you will spend the rest of your lives – or a sizeable portion of them – together. So maybe he turned out not to be the one. At least meeting him helped me believe the one might exist.

He split with me the night I thought was going to be the first night of the rest of our lives. And unlike all my other friends N never told me to shut up about him and get over it already. Because when I met N, part of what made the sex between us so explosive – and the friendship so deep – was that he was nursing similar wounds inflicted by a girl called G, who’d dumped him just as dramatically.

‘You want me to stay or go?’

‘I’ll feel bad for kicking you out this late.’

‘Don’t,’ N said. He dressed, picked up his bag and left quietly.

Later, I heard a drop through the mail slot. Bit late for the post, I thought. I went downstairs to check – a Yorkie bar. My favourite. N knows, he always does.

dimanche, le 17 octobre

‘You coming round later?’ I asked.

‘Are you feeling better today?’ N asked.

‘A bit, yes,’ I said. ‘Need anything from the shops?’

‘You could always go see those cucumbers for yourself. Maybe pick one out for us.’

‘Yeah, I’ll just nip round to Kingston and buy a single cucumber. Not suspicious at all.’

‘Okay, then, get two.’

‘Not sure I could manage to accommodate both simultaneously.’

‘Carrot instead, then?’

‘Don’t get me wrong,’ I said. ‘I love double penetration. But when things are over a certain size, they get squeezed out. It’s like I’m too small.’

‘It’s a question of capacity, not size. Even G had problems from time to time, and if something too big went in, the other thing would be pushed out. Unfortunately I was usually it.’

‘You and she must have worked fairly hard to find something that didn’t fit.’ His couplings with G were near-legendary as much for her pain threshold as anything else.

‘Oh, she could have done a cucumber all right,’ he said. ‘But possibly not the entire salad bar.’

‘Chandeliers might have been too much but I reckon a bedside lamp would have done the trick.’

‘A two-seater settee but not the whole sofa.’ He chuckled. ‘Anyway, whenever I was fisting her in front and buggering her in the rear I’d usually only last a few minutes at most.’

‘Probably just as well, it’s not something I can imagine anyone would enjoy doing for hours. Be sort of difficult to read your watch that way around, for one.’