Acquired Tastes (24 page)

He had meant it as an insult, of course. To him a spinster was a woman who lived without sex, and therefore was not really a woman at all. But he was wrong Alicia thought as she poured the frothy milk into her mug and sprinkled it with nutmeg, being a spinster was an honourable vocation. No matter what Fergus said, sex wasn't everything, and women without it could live rich and fulfilling lives. She had her cottage and her career and much more besides.

After washing and drying the saucepan, Alicia stood in the kitchenette, blowing on her cocoa. She couldn't face going back into the bedroom yet.

A newspaper on the top of the rubbish bin caught her eye, and she spread it out on the worktop, idly turning the pages as she waited for her drink to cool. Why Jeremy should buy a tabloid paper was beyond her. What on earth did he find to read in it?

But then the wording of a small boxed advertisement caught her eye. She read and re-read it. There was no mistake. She almost ran back into the bedroom.

'I just can't believe they will get away with it,' she said prodding Jeremy with her finger and waving the newspaper in his face with her other hand.

'Wha…?' he asked, groggily.

'I just can't believe they will get away with it,' she declared again, pushing Jeremy over so she could sit down beside him.

Jeremy struggled into a half-sitting position. 'Who can't get away with what?'

'Vanessa and Fergus, of course,' said Alicia impatiently.

'I shouldn't worry about it.' Jeremy yawned again. 'Nothing lasts long with that woman. Take it from me. Men are just playthings to her, even this Fergus.' He sleepily rubbed his eyes. 'Anyway, from what you've told me about this fellow, he's a queer sort of cove. Can't see what any sensible woman would see in him.'

Alicia decided to ignore this and instead, slapped the newspaper on to his lap. She turned on the bedside lamp.

'Look,' she commanded, jabbing her finger at the advertisement.

The headline read: DAYDREAM YOUR WAY TO STARDOM.

Jeremy glanced at it and yawned. 'Typical tabloid stuff.'

'Jeremy, read it
carefully
,' Alicia insisted, 'particularly the bottom part.'

Jeremy picked up the newspaper and studied it. Comprehension slowly dawned on his face.

'Ye gods, that's Vanessa's lot, isn't it?'

Alicia nodded. 'Fergus's research was all about fantasies. I bet this is the programme they're making together.'

'Bit strong, isn't it?' Jeremy said, raising an eyebrow.

'You don't know Fergus like I do,' replied Alicia then leant back against the pillows blinking away tears of despair.

All her life she had tried to do what was right. She always paid her bills on time, never parked on yellow lines or fed parking meters, always put money in charity collection boxes, and always opened the little doors on her advent calendar on the right day. And yet, while her life was in ruins, Vanessa and Fergus were happily carrying on as though nothing had happened, and were even making a television series together. They had behaved dreadfully and would get away with it unless…

She sat bolt upright. 'I think we should answer the advert.'

Jeremy's eyes, which had been closing, snapped open. 'What? Why on earth should we want to do that?'

'Trust me,' said Alicia in a tone of voice that Jeremy had not heard before.

He glanced at the clock, it was 3.15 am. He settled further down in the bed, unsuccessfully trying to stifle a yawn.

'OK. But can we talk about it in the morning?' he begged sleepily.

Alicia looked down at him. His eyes were already closed. She would get nothing more out of him, but now she had decided what to do, sleep was impossible. She turned off the bedside lamp, tucked the newspaper under her arm, and padded back into the sitting room.

Her cocoa had gone cold, so she poured some more milk into the saucepan. As she waited for it to boil, she climbed on to a stool and felt around in the top cupboard where she kept her chocolate store. Her recent sleepless nights had taken a toll on her usually well-stocked cupboard, and she had to feel right to the back before she found a packet of chocolate coated, double chocolate chip cookies. Her questing hand also found some books, which seemed to have been pushed to the back of the shelf. She lifted one down. From the title it seemed to be a cookery book she hadn't read before. Next to the novels of Jane Austen and Henry James, there was nothing Alicia loved more than reading a good cookery book. She tucked it under her arm, and with the mug of cocoa in one hand and the packet of biscuits in the other, headed back to the bedroom.

Jeremy was fast asleep again and as well as the bedclothes, had pulled all the pillows on to his side of the bed.

Alicia switched the bedside lamp back on again, and tugged a pillow out of Jeremy's embrace. She plumped it up behind her shoulders, and then emptied the biscuits from their packet, stacking them on the bedside table so she could reach them without having to look. Dunking a biscuit in her cocoa, she looked at the book which she had balanced on her knees. It was called
The A to X-to-Zee of Food.
She opened it.

A biscuit was half-way to Alicia's mouth before she realised it was not a cookery book. The biscuit remained suspended in mid-air as she read the opening sentences.

“To consummately enjoy both food and sex, the ingredients are the same: both should be a feast which employs all the senses, and both should be shared with a partner of exquisite taste and insatiable appetite. But our boil-in-the-bag, oven-ready, fast food, deodorised culture is in danger of losing the essential and sensual link between food and sex.”

A soggy piece of biscuit fell unheeded on to Alicia's nightdress.

“Other cultures have understood it better than us. The ancient Greeks used the same word to mean either
hors d'oeuvre
or foreplay while the Tupari Indians of South America express coitus with vivid phrases like
kuma ka
meaning to eat the vagina and
ang ka
, meaning to eat the penis. Another South American tribe evocatively employ the same word to mean eat like a pig and to copulate excessively.

“Starting with A for the apple that Eve offered Adam, this book will take you through the alphabet of the food of love.

“It was not accidental that it was a woman who, by offering food, opened man's door to a new world of sex and sensuality.

“And you can be sure that it was no tasteless, chalky textured fruit that Eve offered her mate. No, the apple which tempted man out of the Garden of Eden would have been scented by the spring and summer rains, filling it with sweet juices, and ripened by the warm sun, causing it to blush with pleasure.”

Alicia thoughtfully ate the crumbly mess which was all that was left of the biscuit in her hand. As she licked the chocolate from her fingers, she flicked through the pages, looking for the chapter headed 'C'. There was a long section on chocolate.

Alicia helped herself to another biscuit and munched as she read.

“Chocolate is one of Nature's most neglected aphrodisiacs,” the entry began. “The Aztec Indians prized its qualities and used it in many forms, but the European Conquistadors rigorously suppressed the Aztec civilisation, particularly its religious and sexual manifestations. By the time chocolate reached Europe, it was a soothing drink and a balm for those with a sweet tooth, although Casanova, the Marquis de Sade and Louis XV's mistress, Madame du Barry, are all said to have used it as an aphrodisiac with great success.

“But, while it has long been a tradition in the West for men to bring their sweethearts a gift of chocolate, few understand the real meaning behind this action.

“Unfortunately, because of chocolate's link with obesity, and the contemporary obsession with slimness, most women equate the eating of chocolate with guilt, rather than pleasure. As many women still equate enjoying sex with guilt, chocolate suffers a two-fold burden. On a more scientific note, chocolate contains phenylethylamine, a chemical the body produces when it falls in love and which, according to at least one authority, is a mood altering substance that can induce the feeling of post-coital bliss, while its amino acid is known to slow the breakdown of one of our 'happy' hormones, beta-endorphin.

“But whether based on scientific evidence or not, advertisers have been quick to exploit the subconscious link between chocolate and sex, hence the phallic shape of some chocolate bars and advertising campaigns, which concentrate on the entry of the bar between a woman's moistened lips.

“Chocolate manufacturers should perhaps take note of a notorious nineteenth-century French courtesan who is said to have made casts of all her lovers' erect penises, which she used as moulds to make dildos of the finest chocolate.”

Alicia's eyes were wide with astonishment. She turned back to 'A' and began to read. By the time she had finished, it was nearly daylight and her limbs were stiff.

She leaned back against the pillows and picked at the stray crumbs which were all that remained of the packet of biscuits.

Jeremy was curled up in a foetal position beside her. His pyjama jacket had ridden up, exposing the smooth childlike curve of his lower back. In the pale light, he looked completely defenceless. Alicia reached across and gently pulled his jacket down. Her hand brushed his skin, and Jeremy emitted a small mew of pleasure.

Alicia shivered deliriously and reached out to touch Jeremy again but drew her hand back. Vanessa had to come first.

Ignoring her sleepless night, she wrapped her dressing-gown around herself and went back into the sitting room, where she found a writing pad and pen.

Sitting cross-legged in front of the coffee table, she sucked the end of the pen, frowning with the effort of trying to imagine a fantasy that would guarantee a response from Vanessa. After a few minutes, she began to write in round, babyish handwriting that was quite unlike her usual elegant script.

When she had finished, she read it through with a satisfied smile. What was it the book had said under 'R'?

Revenge is a dish best eaten cold.

Vanessa closed her eyes and tensed her muscles, waiting for the pain. For one agonizing moment it felt like a strip of flesh was being torn from her leg.

A voice chided from somewhere down near her calves.

'We haven't seen you for quite a while, have we? I can always tell. We've been letting those naughty little follicles have it all their own way, haven't we?'

We
, thought Vanessa gritting her teeth, have been doing nothing of the sort, but she had absolutely no intention of engaging in an inane conversation with some silly girl while she was lying on a table with her legs spread wide apart. But at least this particular girl hadn't asked her if she was going away on holiday this year. Vanessa flinched as more hot wax was applied to her leg.

'That's not too hot, is it?' asked the girl, and applied more without waiting for an answer. 'Now, one more little tug and then we'll start on that naughty bikini line.'

Vanessa clenched her muscles again.

'Is Madam going away on holiday this year?'

Vanessa relaxed her muscles at just the wrong moment.

Her leg was still smarting half an hour later, as the now tight-lipped beautician massaged creamy lotions into her face and neck. Under the soothing motion of the girl's hands, Vanessa began to calm down.

The bikini wax had helped too. As the hairs were being ripped out of her skin by their roots, Vanessa had imagined doing the same to Fergus - all over.

Her desire to inflict pain on Fergus had been growing day by day. He was still refusing to sign over the rights to his research to Right Pryce Productions, and without them, she didn't have a television series.

But it wasn't just that. Fergus had somehow managed to take root in her flat and in her life, and in doing so, he had created havoc. The only thing he seemed capable of achieving by himself was an erection.

It was like living with some overgrown, precociously hirsute baby, vociferously demanding an almost continuous supply of food, drink and sex. Her instinct was to stay away from the flat as much as possible, but she hardly dared leave it for fear of what new disaster she would find when she returned.

Her once-gleaming, seemingly indestructible chrome and granite kitchen had been reduced to a charred ruin by Fergus's attempts at frying chips, while her white upholstery and carpets were pockmarked with the evidence of his unsavoury eating habits. It seemed to Vanessa that Fergus was congenitally incapable of eating or drinking without spilling something which was invariably dark and sticky.

What made it even worse was that her highly-strung but efficient Filipino cleaning lady had resigned, claiming that Fergus had attempted to molest her while she was cleaning the cooker. Fergus had vigorously denied the charge. According to him, it was a linguistic misunderstanding over a rubber glove. Good cleaning women were hard to find, and Vanessa had been forced to go to the woman's house and, surrounded by her many voluble relatives, not only apologise, but offer her two hundred and fifty pounds compensation and the option of returning to work for Vanessa at one pound fifty an hour extra, if she agreed not to report Fergus to the police. Being forced to beg forgiveness off a cleaning woman had been a deeply humiliating experience, and one which Vanessa would not forget nor forgive.

But the humiliation was nothing to her fear that someone she knew might find out that Fergus was living with her. She had forbidden him to answer the telephone and refused all invitations to go out. She certainly couldn't take Fergus with her, but neither could she leave him alone at night. Apart from running up a bill for several hundred pounds' worth of whisky at the local off-licence, he had been physically ejected from three local pubs and banned from another.

Vanessa had the infuriating suspicion that it was all an act, and that Fergus was trying to see how far he could push her, but she couldn't be sure. It had been rather like playing a cat and mouse game at first and she had enjoyed it, naturally assuming that she was the hunter. But now she was beginning to wonder whether she was the mouse.