Venus Envy (10 page)

The discussions girls have about orgasms are a dead giveaway. First, everybody pretends they have them at the drop of a hat. (Or pair of knickers.) It’s the one area where female honesty sort of breaks down, like the sexual prowess of your current partner. Only after he’s history do you ever get the full story. And only if a man’s around do girls ever get honest about sex … like a man says, ‘I can tell if she’s faking it,’ which is the cue for all the girls to snort and laugh derisively and go ‘Yeah, right.’ Then the man asks you what you mean and you’re trapped, so you explain that faking it is actually sex manners - ‘A courtesy to your partner,’ is how Keisha once put it - but fortunately, in your current relationship, you don’t have to fake it at all. You say the last bit with a totally straight face. After all, it doesn’t do your cred any good to admit to your mates that your man is less exciting than watching Frasier repeats.

Blokes would always wonder why a woman would sleep with a man if she’s not having orgasms. To them it would all be a bit pointless. But that’s planet bloke for you, just like men think that the reason to go out to dinner is to eat food. Obviously, thereason to go out to dinner is the conversation, and most girls couldn’t give a bugger if the fare was hot dogs and beer, so long as he’s making puppy dog Droopy eyes over the paper pint glass. And the reason for sex is to be held, to cuddle afterwards, to go to sleep with the smell of sex and testosterone all round you, and to wake up before

he does because you’re too excited to sleep, and watch the sun play on his eyelids. Right?

In fact I find orgasms a bit embarrassing. To have one I need to think of some awful things. I mean, I would die a billion deaths if Seamus knew what I was thinking when I finally did shudder into some sort of

peace, quietly in the bed beside him.

Anyway, moving swiftly on …

There he was, lying next to me, looking so sweet and pretty, like a sort of elfin king, like Oberon, with his dark curly hair and his thick black eyelashes. While I was mooning over them they flickered open and focused on me. And those red lips curled into the sweetest smile, and then he said,

‘Christ! Is that the time! It’s bloody half-six!’

My face crumpled. Seamus leapt out of bed, leant over and gave me a quick kiss. ‘Sorry, darlin’, didn’t mean to startle you. Can I shower first? I’d better leave before you do, we don’t want to set the tongues wagging away in that nest of vipers.’

‘Sure,’ I said briskly. Be brisk. Be brisk. Men hated clingy women, I’d learnt that much. ‘Hurry up, won’t you, I don’t want to be late myself.’

Seamus grinned approvingly at me as he legged it into the bathroom. ‘Good job you got me those suits back, Alex Wilde, or I’d be into the office smelling of you.’

Then he jumped into the shower room and slammed the door.

I sat on the bed, wondering what was wrong with this picture. Of course we had to get up and go to work, we couldn’t have bunked off to feed the pretty ducks in Hyde Park. This wasn’t the Greatest Film Moment of All Time, the bit in Pretty Woman where Edward leans over Vivien waving a Platinum Amex in her face, cooing, ‘Wake up! Time to shop!’ No,

8z

Seamus was a big wheeler dealer and the market waited for no man.

A horrible thought struck me in the face like a wet kipper.

My Whistles pink number was laying scrunched up on the floor. Unlike Seamus, I had no dry-cleaning conveniently here to solve the dress problem.

‘Seamus!’ I yelled through the bathroom keyhole.

‘I’m trying to shower, love!’ he shouted back, exasperatedly.

‘I’m going to have to go home - I’ve got no clothes,’ I yelled.

The water hissed off and Seamus stuck his dripping brown curls through the door. God, he looked adorable, like a sleek baby otter .or something.

‘Quick, be off with you,’ he said lightly, ‘you’ll be terrible late in otherwise.’ Then he leant forwards and gave me a drippy kiss on the cheek.

I struggled into the pink dress and rushed out of the door. Fortunately there was a taxi finishing his night shift right outside - who wants to wait on the Tube platform in the clothes they clearly wore last night, eh? I was too panicked to think about anything except getting home, leaning forwards on the back seat of the cab as though that would somehow make it go faster. I daren’t say anything, the cabby was in a foul mood and would have deliberately started driving slower just to bug me. What would I wear? My blue suit? Too sexy? Something really dull, I decided. I caught a glimpse of myself in the rear-view mirror-red eyes, tangled hair, grey bags under the eyes big enough to take on holiday. Shit. Shit. I wasn’t even going to have time for a shower, let alone pick up my own bloody car from Covent Garden.

I thrust a handful of notes at Mr Happy and bounded up the stairs, four at a time, to meet Gail

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coming out of the door in a floaty little cotton number, looking like the girl in the Timotei advert.

‘You look like shit,’ was her friendly greeting. ‘Hey,’ said Keisha, sitting curled on the sofa watching the Big Breakfast, ‘someone got lucky last night, then?’

‘Big party at work. Hen night,’ I lied. Somehow I was wary of telling them everything. Somehow I felt

Keisha wouldn’t really understand.

‘Sure,’ Keisha muttered.

‘Sex, sex, sex,’ Bronwen sang happily, murdering the Beatles, ‘Sex is all you need, sex is all you need.’

I ran into my bedroom and slammed the door, pulling off one outfit and pulling on another. Emergency measures were called for: thick make-up, greasy hair ripped into submission with brush and pulled back in a scrunchie - how I longed to be a Muslim chick and get a neat white headscarf, would they buy an Islamic conversion? probably not - and half a bottle of Dune to give me that seashore freshness, as opposed th that ‘all night in man’s arms with no wash’ fragrance. The result wasn’t too bad. Considering the material I had to work with.

So why did I feel so much like crying?

I obsessed about this all the way down to Bank station. Seamus had been sweet, hadn’t he? Kissed me in the morning - I mean, he didn’t have any time. But I was upset. He hadn’t even suggested a quick one. And he’d taken the first shower, the bloody bastard. He didn’t really care.

‘AMAB, AMAB,’ I hissed under my breath, ‘bloody AMAB, All Men Are Bastards.’

What if he thought I was lousy? Too fat? Too cold? Too poor? Too unkempt? Too - well, let’s face it, there were many candidates for what I could have been too much of. Or not enough. I was angry at Seamus,

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but that didn’t stop me thinking it was still all my fault.

I marched into the office doors like Boudicca on the warpath.

‘Man trouble?’ asked the girl on Reception triumphantly.

I ignored her and shot straight upstairs. Jenny was back and there was a huge pile of new filing on my desk.

‘You’re better,’ I said lamely.

‘You’re late,’ Jenny observed. ‘You look tired. You haven’t been gallivanting about, I hope?’

‘Chance would be a fine thing,’ I said glumly. ‘Well, Mr Mahon is - oh, hello, Mr Mahon.’

My heart stopped. There was Seamus, walking towards Jenny, looking immaculate, a friendly grin on his face. He gave me the briskest smile this side of an NHS nurse. ‘Hi, ladies.’

‘Hi, Sea–er, Mr Mahon,’ I stammered.

Seamus glanced at me in a thunderous frown, then turned his most dazzling smile on to Jenny. ‘So you’re better, Jenny, it’s not been the same without you. Why don’t you come into my office and we’ll go over the trip to Seville.’

The two of them turned away from me without a backwards glance. I was left alone at my desk with nothing but my files for company, and of course the flashing phone, already lit up like NATO headquarters

in World War Three. He didn’t love me. He didn’t care.

I was useless in bed.

I listlessly flicked through my latest Hello!. Sure enough, Dolores Mahon was there, this time attending Ulrika Jonsson launch party for her biography. She was wearing what looked like a far more expensive and flattering version of my pink Whistles dress.

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Outside my window it was raining. I picked up the phone dully. ‘Good morning,’ I said robotically, ‘Hamilton Kane.’

Seamus was stuck in meetings all morning. Jenny was the only person he let near him. God, I just wanted to get out of there, to break down and start crying.

Keisha rang at eleven. ‘You looked like death

warmed up when you came in.’

‘Hey, thanks for sharing.’

‘What’s the matter, was he that bad? Better to find out right away. And anyway, he’s married.’

‘Only technically,’ I said sullenly. ‘And you can talk. What about David, and that solicitor, and the copper, and You Know Who …’

Her latest had been a very famous, very married World Champion boxer who had waited outside her Up and Running office at seven a.m. one Saturday morning, with the pathetic excuse that he wasn’t waiting for her, he was just up training.

‘Yeah. Well, never mind about that. We’re all going to a big party on Saturday night. In Kensington, for Versace … Snowy fixed it.’

‘Oh,’ I grunted, the flicker of excitement that had sparked sputtering out.

‘You can come, you’ll find someone better than Seamus.’

I blinked back thick tears. Better than Seamus, right, Brad Pitt was going to be there and think how much

prettier than Gwyneth Paltrow I was.

‘Sure, why not.’

The phone trilled again. It was Snowy. ‘Tell me you are coming, darling … I’m sure Keisha will lend you something to wear.’

‘You hardly need me there.’

‘But I do! You’ll add some originality to the mix.’ ‘I will?’

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‘Oh yes, darling, all the people there are usually rich and glamorous, or beautiful, it can get very samey after a while. Do bring that director chappie, Oliver - oh, sorry, didn’t last, did it? Well, anyway, do bring your man, it’ll probably be a lovely change for him - must go, booked in for a facial …’

Great. So I was going to bring the poor, non beautiful, non-glamorous colour to the event. And a man Snowy assumed would be a bricklayer or an accountant or something.

The phone went again. I nearly said, ‘Piss off, Snowy,’ but stopped myself just in time.

‘Alex?’ asked a familiar voice. ‘Alex, is that you? Tom Drummond here. How are you?’

‘I’m just great, Tom,’ I said chirpily, and then I burst into tears.

Tom made me go outside and ring him from a payphone, so he could call me back. ‘You are entitled to a lunch break, Alex. Honestly.’

I poured out the sorry story, or some of it anyway. Between sobs, I heard Tom being sympathetic. Not girly, but sympathetic.

‘You’re just too much of a romantic, Alex, you want the hearts and flowers all the time. Give the guy a chance.., he’ll probably ask you out again,’ Tom said calmly.

‘But he didn’t want to go to work smelling of me.’ ‘He’s not married, is he? Or. you work with him?’ ‘Of course n.ot!’ I said indignantly.

‘Oh good - for a second I thought you were going to be back to your old tricks.’

‘What old tricks?’ I demanded. At least being annoyed meant I wasn’t snivelling any more.

‘You know, .Alex, the way you always fall for these charming bastards who don’t value you, and make you “

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feel small. You have fantasy crushes on fantasy people.’

‘That’s not true!’ I said. Seamus was real, wasn’t he? How much more real could that wavy black hair be, that lilting voice, that passionate stare!

‘Well,’ Tom sighed, ‘what about that ludicrous director with the pink ties and the hair that needed cutting?’

‘Oliver was an artist.’

‘Nothing wrong with Oliver that a bloody good flogging and six months in the Marines wouldn’t cure,’ Tom grunted, as though he would personally like to be in charge of the flogging. Then he sighed again and devoted twenty minutes to making me feel better about

‘ myself.

‘We must meet up for lunch,’ he said when he’d finished.

‘OK.’ I actually wanted to go, I found. Tom was such a laugh, and he would be shovelling food into his mouth at such a rate that I would be bound to feel slim by comparison.

‘Next week?’ Tom asked hopefully. ‘Don’t suppose you’re free?’

‘I’ll check my diary and give you a bell,’ I managed, without cracking up. Free! My diary was as empty a.s Sister Wendy’s love life.

I slunk back into the office and worked on my files. Tom made me at least feel things weren’t my fault, but it didn’t really help, how could it? The fact was that Seamus had been cold this morning and he hadn’t talked to me all day.

Towards the end of the day Jenny came to find me.

‘You must have done all right with Mr Mahon

yesterday. He didn’t have .any complaints today.’

‘No?’ I asked eagerly.

‘No,’ said Jenny, ‘he didn’t mention you at all. Why

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do you look so depressed? Dear me, you’ve been very

irritable today, Alexandra. Do you feel quite well?’ ‘Never better,’ I said gloomily.

Jenny gave me a long stare. ‘He hasn’t, been upsetting you, has he? Mr Mahon I mean. He can be .. bothersome. You know you can talk to me about it, if you wish.’

And do you know, I had an insane urge to confide in

her. Actually to spill the beans. To Jenny Robins! ‘He’s been fine,’ I told her. ‘Really.’

‘You do a good job, Alexandra,’ Jenny said to my amazement. ‘Don’t put up with any nonsense. Anyway. Better get back to work. I have to leave early.’

‘You do?’ I said, gutted. I didn’t want to face Seamus on my own. What would I say? He clearly didn’t want to know.

‘Yes, but Mr Mahon has said he can handle his own phones for the last ten minutes, so you just finish up in here.’

It was a godsend. When Jenny le:, I stayed barricaded in my fortress, filing. Sometimes I would glance up and see Seamus watching me from inside his own office, as he talked into the receiver. I made sure I looked away. I didn’t slink back to my own desk until I’d seen his driver arrive to take him of[ to the airport.