Man of the Month Club

by Jackie Clune

  “How was it? Did you see his chocolate starfish?” asked Jules.

  “Urgh—stop it!” said Soph.

  “It was great! Sandwiched between two lovely naked men—heaven!” Ang laughed as the guys waved their good-byes.

  As the lights came up, there was a rush for the bar and the foyer—the guys had announced that they would be signing their book after the show, and scores of women were already crowding round the merchandise desk with tenners clutched in their hands.

  “Make way, ladies!” shouted Horse from behind the crowd. “Hah—you didn’t recognize me with my clothes on, did you?”

  Despite the fact that he was a blatant Australian crass exhibitionist, there was something deeply attractive about Horse. He had a kind of “fuck you” attitude but without a hint of aggression. He looked like the kind of man who could start a party in a mortuary. He twinkled and flirted just a little with each woman who gingerly requested a special message on the inside cover of the book, all the while swigging from a half-empty bottle of Wild Turkey. Amy found herself pushing forward to get a closer look, telling herself that Brendan would probably love a copy of the graphically illustrated companion to the show. Ang was right behind her, waiting to get her ticket signed.

  “Getting a book?” She giggled.

  “Yeah, well, I thought Brendan might like it, you know. . . .”

  “Get in there, girl—I saw the way you were looking at him!”

  “Rubbish.” Amy smiled. Well, why not? Maybe it would be fun to get off with one of the penis boys? She was ovulating after all, and surely now that she didn’t care whether or not she got pregnant—well, nearly—it might be the perfect time. They always say it happens when you’ve given up. . . . And imagine conceiving a child by a penis puppeteer? It’d make a great anecdote. In many ways, it would be perfect—he’d be off on the next leg of the world tour before she’d even finish peeing on the stick.

  “Hello, ma’am—you were our Fruit Bat, weren’t you? How’d you like the show?”

  “Oh, it was great!” gushed Ang. “Haven’t had such a laugh in ages!”

  “Terrific stuff—do you want me to sign your book?” said Horse, catching sight of Amy and brightening his smile.

  “Oh—I, erm, I haven’t got enough money for a book, but would you sign my ticket for me?”

  “I can do better than that, young lady—have a book on me,” said Horse, signing his name with a flourish, keeping eye contact with Amy all the while.

  “Thanks—that’s really sweet of you!” said Ang, hesitating before planting a kiss on Horse’s cheek.

  “Easy, lady! And how about you, beautiful? Do you want a book? It’ll give you something to try out on the old man when you get home.” Horse smiled.

  “Oh, she’s single—there’s no one expecting her home!” blurted Ang.

  “Thanks for that. Nothing like making a girl look sad in front of a star,” said Amy. “Yes, I’ll have a book please, and could you sign it ‘To Brendan’?”

  “Lucky Brendan,” said Horse, signing the book.

  “Oh, he’s gay,” said Ang, still giddy from all the attention.

  “Well, what’s the matter with these British men, leaving a gorgeous girl like yourself on the shelf?”

  “Tell me about it,” said Amy.

  “Oh, she’s not short of offers, she’s just very choosy,” said Ang.

  “Is that so?” asked Horse, a smile creeping across his face. He was definitely rising to Ang’s bait.

  “Yeah, well, you know, there’s a lot of morons out there,” said Amy.

  “You’re not wrong there, sweet cheeks. Well, how about you meet me at the stage door in fifteen minutes and I’ll try and restore your faith in mankind?”

  Ang giggled nervously. What to do now? He probably did this every night. The stage door keeper probably felt like a pimp. And this was supposed to be a noncomplicated girls’ night out. No. She should definitely turn him down and go home with the girls.

  “OK,” she heard herself saying.

  Ang pulled her away sharply and collapsed into a fit of giggles.

  “Wow! You’re going to cop off with a penis man!”

  “Maybe,” said Amy. “If he plays his cards right.”

  “What’s this?” said Jules, who’d just emerged from the toilet.

  “Amy’s got a date—with Horse!” Ang clapped.

  “Christ—are we going to hear the pitter-patter of tiny hooves?” asked Jules. She was joking, but one glance told Amy her friend could spot her intentions a mile off.

  “If he can still do anything with it after that display,” tutted Soph.

  “Oh, come on—you enjoyed it!” said Ang, not willing to let anyone piss on her fire.

  “It was interesting in its phallic iconoclasm, I suppose.”

  “What? I just thought it was a good laugh!” said Ang. “What we gonna do now?”

  “Go home to bed,” chorused Jules and Soph.

  “Boring! And I can hardly hang round with you, Ms. Love Goddess, can I? Suppose I’ll just have to go back with Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum here.”

  “Sorry, Ang.” Amy grimaced. “I didn’t think this would happen.”

  “Oh, go on and enjoy yourself—you’ve been a right miserable cow since—”

  “Uh-oh—don’t mention the J-word, Ang—she was just starting to enjoy herself,” warned Jules.

  “Oh, get lost all of you,” said Amy, stinging a little from the Joe reminder.

  “Sure you’ll be OK? Text me when—if—you get home,” said Soph.

  “I’ll be fine. I’m a big girl.”

  “Yeah, well you just think about it before you rush into anything you might regret. . . .” warned Jules darkly.

  “Bye—have fun!” shouted Ang as they dragged her off.

  “I will!” shouted Amy, not so sure now. Damn Jules for knowing her so well.

  Over at the signing table, Horse looked up and mugged his impatience. She smiled shyly and felt suddenly stupid, waiting for a stranger’s attention in a public place. What was she doing? Despite the thrill of the pickup, a hollow feeling tugged at her unwilling consciousness, and she battled to suppress it. Horse signaled that he’d be five minutes, so she headed out of the building in search of the stage door. It was usually round the back somewhere. She’d often seen sad provincial types hanging around clutching theater programs. She had never thought she’d become one.

  On her way around the building, Amy watched gaggles of women tottering off into the night, no doubt off home to various husbands, boyfriends, children. And here she was—pushing forty and still relentlessly unattached. It was an odd feeling—she wasn’t sure in this moment whether she felt free and in charge of her own minute-by-minute destiny in a way that those women could only dream of, or if the sense of weightlessness was now disturbing. She suddenly felt ghostlike, as if she were hovering, blurry-edged, two feet above the mortal world and all its blissful failings. She slumped against the stage door and pulled out her cigarettes. Five minutes passed, and several girls clattered into the side street in search of autographs. They were in their twenties and full of it all. Amy glanced at her watch and began to feel so deflated that she felt it must be visible. Her mouth drooped, her shoulders dropped, and her whole body seemed to be about to hiss out all its air. It wasn’t that she felt disappointed or stood up. She felt sure that Horse would appear at any moment—and that was the problem. She couldn’t go through with it. Try as she might, it was just too soon to be dating anyone else.

  “Bugger,” she said out loud, stamping out her cigarette.

  The stage door flung open and Amy heard Horse’s voice on the stairs. What if she did sleep with him tonight, and what if she did get pregnant? What then? That would definitely be the end for her and Joe. How treacherous her heart had been—here she was, pretending to be a carefree perhaps soon-to-be mum, and all along she’d been harboring the secret hope that things might yet work out between them. Bugger.

 
“Hello, ladies—what can I do for you?” he boomed. “I’ve got about one minute ’cause I’ve got myself a hot date!”

  “No you haven’t,” Amy heard herself saying as her legs suddenly carried her running up the street. “No, you haven’t.”

  Maybe it was just the excess alcohol, or the strong breeze up the alley blowing grit into her eye, but Amy’s cheeks were streaked with tears all the way to the tube.

  . 4 .

  September. Amy always hated September. She could never escape the feeling that she was about to return to school or college. The end of August would find her tossing and turning at night, trying to shake off nightmares about being made to re-sit through exams, or being forced to go back and start again at the age of thirty-nine. It didn’t help that these days, the shops were full of “Back to Skool” signs by the end of July, and no sooner had they announced the onset of the summer holidays—“Skool’s out 4 Summer!”—than they were desperately peddling new uniforms and brightly colored stationery packs. This September it was even worse. Amy felt the familiar sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach every time she caught sight of a Woolworth’s shop front, but there was an extra layer of dread. This time she was returning to school without having completed her project. In fact, she hadn’t even begun, due to three false starts and a couple of wrong turns. How could it be September already? Almost five months since the beginning of her pregnancy mission, and so far any conception would have to have been immaculate. And Amy was not feeling remotely like The Chosen One.

  Tuesday morning saw her slumped in front of her computer, idly surfing fertility pages. Most of them were American and full of dire health threats and guilt trips just for would-be moms, along the lines of, “The Surgeon General says that, when you are pregnant, if you stand next to someone drinking a small sherry, you are evil and are actively maiming your unborn child. You need help, you sick, diseased, selfish alcoholic witch.” Despite the popular perception that pregnant women are automatically deified, it seemed to Amy as though they became less important. Yes, they may be offered seats on buses and helped with their groceries, but really the concern was for the growing angel inside them. The woman just became a husk, a host organism whose needs were at best secondary, at worst derided as irrelevant. Pregnant women weren’t allowed to take any drugs, barring the occasional Tylenol (and that only if a leg were hanging off), and as far as Amy could tell, this was largely because no one had bothered to test anything. It wasn’t that they actually knew nasal sprays or migraine pills or sleeping tablets were harmful to the baby—it was just that everyone thought pregnant women should just put up with all the irritating little ailments gestation can bring. If she was to believe all the women she read about online who were suffering with ear problems, wind, heartburn, congestion, thrush, cystitis, piles, varicose veins, morning sickness, constipation, and cramps, it didn’t exactly look like a heap of fun being pregnant. And yet the desire grew and grew. She had thought that she was over it, but lately she’d taken to watching the Discovery Health Channel from midday until three—they were showing a series of programs from America and the UK called things like From Here to Maternity and Birth Stories. She had become obsessed. Every day, the same ritual. Get up, check e-mails, search a few baby-related sites to kill time, then straight on to the TV to sit blubbering as woman after woman was shown cursing and yowling her way through birth. Amy found herself weeping at these programs with alarming regularity. She no longer knew whether it was just the sheer miracle of it—and it never ceased to inspire awe to see that little head pop out in a gush of fluid and shouting—or because of the emptiness of her own belly.

  The American stories were the worst. The way Americans were so unabashed about their feelings would, under normal circumstances, make her cringe to her toes, but these days if Todd and Rachel or Randy and Charlene planted a tree for their newborn baby girl, wearing matching autumnal sweaters out in the backyard, she would sit nodding her head in empathy and dabbing furiously at her eyes. It was hideous.

  “Get a grip, woman!” she said to herself, hitting the off button.

  It was time to get back out in the world and start again. Amy reminded herself that there was no school to return to, no homework to be handed in. She was a mature woman, her own boss, in charge of her feelings and single-minded in her purpose, beholden to no one. She got dressed quickly and silently gave thanks that Jules had asked her to go shopping today. It was just too tempting to sit gawping at cervixes all day long. No wonder Joe loved his job. . . . She stopped mid-thought and checked herself.

  What was it that therapist told you to say? “I will not accept anything less than what I absolutely want.” At the time, Amy had laughed—she’d been cornered by some intense shrink at a party and they’d argued about how therapy can make people selfish and unrealistic until Amy had been able to use his affirmation against him during a clumsy lunge. But now it seemed to offer some kind of direction. Why should she compromise now? She’d got this far more or less alone; she could carry on now.

  “I will not accept anything less than what I absolutely want,” she repeated in the mirror, before sticking her tongue out and heading out the door. If only it were that easy.

  .5.

  ’O w many months are we?” oozed the smartly dressed twig with the French accent.

  “I’m not any months, but my fat friend here is almost five,” said Amy, fixing Le Twig with a stare. Jules had insisted on the French shop Formes for maternitywear, claiming that she was too old to wear High Street fashion.

  “I don’t want to look like some pram-faced Atomic Kitten reject,” she’d said when Amy had held up a pair of low-slung jeans and a tight flared T-shirt inscribed “Big Hot Mama.” Le Twig was unruffled.

  “We ’ave some beautiful things for you—for work or for ze lezure?”

  “I didn’t know there was a choice.”

  “Oh, yes, madam, we ’ave a selection of smart clothes for ze office, casualwear, and somesing more glamorous for ze evenings,” purred Le Twig, looking at Jules as if she were some kind of simpleton.

  “Urgh—glamour wear—I won’t be needing that, I’m not going anywhere looking like this. Just bring me some stuff. I’ll be sitting on the floor in the communal changing room, crying.”

  Le Twig skulked off to select some outfits while Jules and Amy ensconced themselves in the fitting room.

  “I don’t know why I’m bothering—I look like Placido Domingo whatever I wear at the moment,” sighed Jules, lowering her bottom onto a wicker chair.

  “Rubbish. You look . . . blooming,” said Amy.

  “Oh, please. Not from you. I’m so insomniac at the moment, I’ve got more rings than Tiffany’s, my ankles are so swollen I look like I’ve put my legs on upside down, my nails are chipped and weak, and my skin resembles a pepperoni pizza with extra cheese. I look like shit. So don’t give me that crap about blooming.”

  “Sorry. Yes, you don’t look the best I’ve ever seen you. Just remember that your body is doing amazing things right now! But that’s no reason to wear crap clothes. I have never seen you in leggings before, and quite frankly, I don’t wish to repeat the experience, so get trying on, Miss. Here, have a go of this skirt and wrap-over blouse. If you can work out where all the straps go . . .” said Amy, flinging a few items at Jules. Le Twig winced.

  “Ze straps are designed to allow ze garment to grow wiz you,” she muttered before disappearing back into the shop.

  “Look at this dress—it’s like a five-year-old’s painting smock,” said Jules, flinging it to the floor.

  “Come on—you’ve got to get some new clothes. My treat.”

  “Ooh, get you. Feeling generous today?”

  “Well one of us might as well be treated.”

  “Oh, dolly, don’t despair. Is it the baby thing?”

  “Sort of.”

  “And here’s me moaning on and on, and all the time you’re probably thinking you’d give your right arm to be in my position. Sorry.�
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  “Left arm, maybe. Come on, try this suit—it’s nice.”

  “No news from Joe?” Jules wouldn’t drop it now.

  “News? Like what? ‘Hello, let’s have dinner sometime, and by the way, I’ve had my tubes re-tied?’ No. No news from Joe.”

  “Bugger. Ain’t life a bitch.”

  “Yep.”

  “And you’re absolutely sure that he’s worth giving up for this baby thing?”

  “No, I’m not, but I’ve made my bed and I’m not going to lie in it, not with him anyway, so let’s not say another word about it, OK?”

  “OK. OK. God, you’re like a rottweiler when you get an idea in your head. I pity the poor little bastard already if you do manage to have a baby. So what are you going to do now then? Go back on the prowl?”

  “I suppose so. But I can’t quite get it up for all the elaborate courting, all the chat, the dates, the stupid game playing you have to do. It’s bloody hard work at the best of times,” sighed Amy, idly slipping a stretchy dress over her head and pulling it out at the stomach. “It all just takes so bloody long! And I’ve only got another seven months.”

  “Well, you just need to act fast.”

  “Don’t tell me—tell them! All the hopeless eunuchs, castratos, and sexually complex men out there! Why is it that the shelves are full of men’s mags, lads’ mags, and porn mags, but it’s nigh-on impossible to find a man who will actually sleep with a real woman?”

  “Speed dating.”

  “What?”

  “That’s it—that’s your answer. Cut the crap, straight to the point, three minutes, suss them out and move on,” said Jules triumphantly.

  “But you did it one time when you’d split up, and you said it was full of sleazy desperados just out for all they could get!”

  “Exactly! Bingo!”

  It took a moment for the realization to happen. Jules was right—it was still a knee-jerk reaction to trash anything as shallow and mercenary as speed dating, but in actual fact it was exactly what she needed. Why waste precious time trawling the bars and clubs, tracking down vaguely interested boys, when she could go to one room and come face-to-face with about thirty up-for-it men all in the same night? If she timed it right, she could even get pregnant the same night! Speed mating! It was so perfect, she kicked herself for not thinking of it herself.