The Bad Girls' Club (11 page)

‘Yeah, I know it. I’ll go to Saxon’s up the street for a coffee, just in case things don’t work out. You know that new café with the amazeballs cakes?’

‘
OK, I’ll meet you and give you a rundown afterwards, unless things go
really
well.’ I laughed. ‘Oh, Beth, thanks for the top. It looks great.’

I looked at the bag sitting in the corner of my room, where I
’d dropped it when I got home.

‘
You should wear it on your date.’

Damn. I shouldn
’t have mentioned it. All my life I’ve tried to cover up my boobs. I was the first girl in my class to get boobs and all the boys used to stare and point. As if I wasn’t enough of a freak without that. Then, one time in high school, I decided to wear a sexy low-cut top to the school social. Halfway through the night one of those popular girls, Yasmin Andrews, took me aside in the toilets and had a ‘talk’ to me.

She
’d sat on the edge of the hand basin and looked at me with an earnest stare.

‘
Imogen, do you think you should be going out with your…’ and she’d looked at my chest ‘…your “dumplings boiling over”? You’ll get a bad name for yourself and you wouldn’t want that.’ Then she’d walked off.

If I met up with Beth and wasn
’t wearing that halter top then she’d be shitty again. I wasn’t in the mood to cope with that. Maybe it was time my dumplings boiled over.

I tried it on and it didn
’t look too bad. In fact, it did look kinda sexy. I slipped on a black, swishy skirt to match then clipped a red flower in my hair. I tried wiggling my hips and putting some swing into my walk but I couldn’t do that in public. From behind, it’d look like two puppies fighting under a blanket.

All up, with the new lipstick, I did look rather striking. Maybe a bit too flamboyant though. But my neck did look kissable. Then I looked in the mirror again. He was going to reject me because I was too fat. Had I made that clear enough in my profile? He
’d probably be expecting some skinny chick with big tits and he’d run screaming. I don’t know why I was even bothering. If it weren’t for the dare, I would’ve cancelled altogether.

God, my arms were fat. They had that awful bit of dangly fat. Maybe if I sat with them pushed into my side for the whole date, he wouldn
’t notice. Maybe I could wear a cardigan over the top? No, that would look daggy. And I was running late. If I didn’t get myself out the door, he’d have left the café already.

***

The cafewas almost empty when I got there.
I’
d been worried
I’
d not be able to find Fearless. Who wants to walk around a crowded ca
fé
asking ‘are you Fearless?’ That’s just asking for trouble and bad jokes.

I walked in and scanned the room. A few couples, a group of three girls and a family with a couple of young kids. None of them were him. The place had a Spanish feel with dark wood and red walls and a few paintings with Spanish themes. Then I spotted a man sitting alone at the bar. He had curly hair and, while not exactly good looking, had a friendly, open face. He looked at me and smiled. I smiled back, with a feeling of relief. I was so worried that my date would think I was gruesome that I hadn
’t thought about what he’d look like.

He walked over to me and smiled again.

‘Where would you care to sit?’ he asked. Damn shit. He was the waiter. I turned slowly and found the only other person in the room – a man sitting alone on a stool by the window. My heart sank as he walked over. I am never going on date without seeing a photo first again in my life.

You know how some people have been beaten by the ugly stick? Fearless was way beyond that. The ugly club had battered him. The ugly paddle had pulped him. The ugly stick came to Fearless104 to be recharged.

‘Want to go outside?’ Fearless104 asked. I wanted to reply – no, not outside… away… a long way away from YOU – but my sense of niceness won out. I might be a Bad Girl but I couldn’t be blatantly rude. At least if we sat outside, his Brut 44 might choke me less.

OK, I could maybe get past the bucked teeth and the cross-eyes if he had a nice personality, and I could live with the tucked in flannelette shirt and the high-waisted old man jeans. Maybe. With enough glasses of wine. But, when we sat down at the table outside, I noticed it, on his top lip. A large, yellow sore. Not even a dry sore but a crusty, pus-filled sore, all wet and about to erupt.

I’d been prepared for Fearless to be average-looking. I didn’t expect much but I had expected him to be a bit less… well, diseased. There was no scabby sore when he was kissing my enigmatic mouth last night in my dreams. Maybe that’s what he thought I meant by an enigmatic mouth, that we would bond over facial lesions.

I ordered a coffee then wondered how to get out of this. Would he leave if I threw myself on the ground and pretended to have some kind of fit?

I picked up a sachet of sugar and curled the end around my finger. Fearless stared at me, without talking. Surely, he could say something.

‘
So, what do you do for a living?’ I asked. I stared at the sugar sachet. It was quite amazing and fascinating.

‘
I run my own business,’ he said.

‘
Oh, really? That must be rewarding. What sort of business?’ I kept rolling the sugar sachet. I could feel him stare at me and refused to look up.

‘
Why do you want to know? I don’t like talking about my private life,’ he said. ‘But I do all right financially, all right indeed. Don’t you worry about that.’

Sweet Jesus. As if I cared. Money can
’t buy happiness or a decent sore cream by the looks of things.

The tie on the neck of my top felt loose and I wanted to fix it, but maybe he
’d think that was a provocative gesture. I’d have to unfold my arms from over my boobs to retie it. Damn this bloody top. What was Beth thinking? I crossed my arms over my chest.

The waiter brought out my coffee. Life had been much better when he was my date. That was the best 30 seconds of my day. Maybe my week.

If I drank my coffee really fast then I could get the hell out of here. I took a big mouthful but it burnt my lip and, goddamn it, the last thing I needed was a matching lip sore.

Fearless drained his cup.

‘Get me another coffee,’ he said to the waiter, waving his empty cup. What happened to that charmer I was talking to online?

‘
You been on the site long?’ he asked me.

‘
No, I’ve only just joined up. I –’

‘
I’ve been doing this for a long time but I wonder why I bother. You chicks are all time-wasters. Just want to muck a bloke around. And of course, you’re just out for what you can get. Did you pay to join the site?’

‘
No, I –’

‘
Didn’t think so. I guess you don’t need to, do you? Pussy power.’ He raised his eyebrow. ‘Works every time.’

Pussy power? I should have smacked him out. But I didn
’t. I just nodded. Why did I do that?

‘
Bet the boys all love you though.’ He sniggered. I think he was checking out my tits as he talked, though it was hard to tell; with his cross-eyes, he could have been perving on my ear lobes. I pulled my top around me to display as little flesh as possible, although every time I pulled it one way, something popped out somewhere else.

‘
Well, I guess…’

‘
Huh?’ he replied while he appraised me as though I was a cut of meat in the butcher’s window, probably wondering about the best way to prepare me for dinner. Could I leave now? Would that look rude?

Fearless stretched himself out, hands folded behind his head, his crotch pushed out and rubbing against the table. I looked away. This was just too awful. I was so thankful that I had put point 2 in the charter.
Bad girl dates never have to end in sex
. If he touched me, I’d have to bathe in Dettol for a month.

I checked my watch; I had to leave… really, really needed to leave. I gulped down my coffee.

‘So, you’ve finished your coffee. How about it?’

‘
What?’

‘
Look, we both know why you’re here. So, come on. Bet you’re feeling horny.’

‘
Yeah… what?’ Surely I’d misheard. ‘Horny? No. My God, no. I’ve got to go.’

‘
Go? But you only just got here.’ His arm stretched out onto the back of my chair and I jumped from it like a hornet’s sting. ‘What are you doing here in the first place if you aren’t feeling horny? You were pretty keen to meet up last night. Didn’t take a lot of persuading then, did you.’

He reached out for my leg. I jumped up.

‘Thanks for meeting up with me. Sorry it didn’t work out.’ Why did I say that? Why didn’t I just say ‘Fuck off, loser?’ I always do that. I’m always too nice.

‘
Whatever,’ he grunted. ‘And don’t forget to pay for your coffee.’

My grip on my handbag tightened. I put my chin in the air and marched inside the café.

The waiter looked at me, as he handed me my change. I lingered a minute waiting for him to talk.

‘
I hope you don’t mind me asking this, but you’re a gorgeous woman, what are you doing with…’ and he indicated Fearless outside with a jerk of his head.

I shook my head.
‘You don’t want to know,’ I told him. ‘Just a dare gone awfully wrong.’ I laughed, a little too hysterically. But, hey, he called me gorgeous. Me. Gorgeous.

Nothing for it now but to meet up with Beth and de-sleaze myself. There
’s no way she’d have stood there all mealy-mouthed thanking Fearless for meeting up with her. She’d have ripped him a new arsehole. Maybe I should be more like that. The waiter was sprinkling chocolate on Fearless’ cappuccino when I had an idea.

‘
Mind if I take that out?’ I asked.

‘
Be my guest,’ he said, but he looked rather puzzled.

‘
Thanks. See you another time,’ I said and smiled at him most seductively. He called me gorgeous.

Picking up the coffee, I walked outside.

‘I paid for my coffee, and yours too,’ I said, dropping the cappuccino on Fearless’ lap. My only regret was that it wasn’t a boiling hot long black.

Fearless jumped up, yelling at the waiter to bring him a cloth. A large wet stain covered the front of his high-waisted jeans. As I walked away, I saw the waiter watching out the window of the café, laughing and ignoring Fearless
’ screams.

I marched down to Saxon
’s, one of those tiny, super trendy cafés with three tables crammed into a tiny space and milk crate seating outside.  Beth sat at the couch along the back wall with a newspaper spread out beside her.

I waved hello and eyed off the cake display, especially the awesome display of macaroons, sitting like the jewels in a cake crown. I ordered my coffee and a salted caramel macaroon, while inwardly apologising to the other pretty little macaroons and telling them they
’d get their chance later.

‘
That was quick,’ Beth said, throwing the paper onto the floor. ‘Sit down. The top looks fantastic. I told you it would.’

‘
Yeah, the top is great but the date wasn’t over quick enough for my liking.’ I plopped down on the couch beside her.

‘
Why? Was he awful?’

I stuck my fingers down my throat and faked vomiting then described the scabby sore and the cross-eyes and the old man jeans. Beth rocked with laughter. I guess it was funny, for her. I felt like I had a layer of grime on my skin.

‘You threw the coffee on him?’ she asked. ‘I can’t believe it.’

‘
Yeah. I guess that was mean.’

‘
Mean, my arse.’ She picked up the latte on the table beside her. ‘Kerosene and a lit match would have been too good for him.’

We laughed and I started to feel a little less grimy.

‘So, what are we going to do with Juliette next week?’ I asked, anxious to fill the silence.

‘
I dunno,’ said Beth. ‘But we have to do something about that boyfriend. What a loser. Can you believe he didn’t notice the makeover? Juliette could do so much better.’

Personally, I had no intention of doing anything about someone else
’s boyfriend.  No good ever comes of messing with other people’s love business. You just bought a whole avalanche of people thinking you were an interfering busybody down on your own head.

‘
Heard any more about the new job?’ she asked.

I shrugged. Until we got signed off by the client, I just had to sit and wait and hope that Poppy didn
’t do anything to screw things up. I hated that she had the power to ruin my dream.

As I sipped my coffee, I realised Beth was gawking at my chest. Fuck. The straps on my top had gotten looser and I was practically flashing my nipples to the entire café. I
’m not sure hipsters like areola with their espresso.