The players take their final bows, the curtains fall for the last time and the applause subsides. The rubbing has ceased.
‘Well, bloody good, I thought,’ Ed says, as if nothing’s happened.
Louise looks at him, cheekily.
‘Good,’ she says.
Ed has a suspicion that she isn’t talking about the opera. They get up and head for the cloakroom, along with the other two thousand members of the auditorium. Nothing is said about the incident as they queue, nor after they have collected their coats and are leaving the Royal Opera House. Ed is feeling a bit self-conscious as it is, and wouldn’t know how to talk about it anyway. On occasions like this, silence is better, he decides. Louise, he thinks, must have had a momentary and uncharacteristic urge, brought on by the romantic power of Rossini (which should never be underestimated, in Ed’s opinion). He had just been surprised, that was all. He hadn’t taken her for that sort of lass, the type who checks out her date’s package on the back row of the cinema. But, as it turns out, this is merely the tip of the iceberg.
They round the corner of Covent Garden market, weaving in and out of the great stone columns that support the market’s roof. Emerging from behind one of the pillars, Ed catches a glint in Louise’s eye. A mischievous glint that he feels he wasn’t supposed to see. She starts to slow her pace and reaches for his hand. Her grip intensifies. They almost come to a stop, nearing one of the columns. She turns to face Ed – now reduced to a quivering rabbit in headlights. He knows something’s coming, he’s just not sure what, exactly. She looks different to how she normally looks. Her whole demeanour has adopted the mischief that Ed had caught a glimpse of in her eyes, just seconds before. For some reason he feels as if the real Louise has just awoken, casting aside the demure Dr Jekyll side of her personality. An overtly sexual Ms Hyde was waiting all the time, lurking under the surface, just waiting to break out. He can feel it. Then suddenly, Ms Piggy throws Kermit up against the sandstone pillar, kissing him in a way that can only be described as ferocious. Love bites erupt on his neck and his half-nibbled ear begins to burn. He tries to land a kiss on her, here and there, but she’s having none of it. There is no interrupting her feasting. Finally, she feels satisfied, and pulls away, panting and gasping for air, her snake-like eyes alight. Ed, still in shock, remains with his back to the pillar, his arms enveloped about its girth.
‘Mmm, that was fun,’ she smiles and licks her vermilion lips.
Ed, concerned that that was just the entrée, quickly pulls himself together.
‘Yes, was rather,’ he grabs her hand and jauntily pulls her into the open cobbled square.
‘Right what shall we do now?’ she has become very assertive, Ed notices. It perturbs him. He fishes around for suggestions but finds it difficult to think of something, where he won’t be freshly devoured. You might be thinking through all this, ‘Why is he complaining – surely this is a good thing, having your date all over you like an E. coli rash?’
And it would be a fair question to ask. But when you find someone that you are really into, like Ed has with Louise, you have a picture in your mind, of what she will be like. And Ed’s perfect woman is something like the ‘Executive Wife’ – the type of partner who will hand out canapés at work soirées, or lift random babies aloft for you to kiss, should you chose to run for parliament. Ed would like to think of her as more virtuous, more traditionally ladylike. It’s a case of each to their own – subjective rules of attraction. Ed’s perfect woman simply doesn’t go around molesting her man in public. It’s just not what Ed was expecting.
Louise is looking around her, like a child amidst fairground attractions, deciding which one to go on next. Then she suddenly finds what she is looking for.
‘Oh, I know, have you ever taken a ride in one of those rickshaw things?’ she asks.
Ed stutters, ‘Well, I er, no, it is rather late…’
Because Ed was so into Louise, and because it is clear she isn’t the type of girl he thought she was, he just wants to go home. What’s the point? To put it simply, he is disappointed and no longer interested. She’s just the same as the others. But before he can protest any further, Louise has pulled him in the direction of the nearest vacant cab.
‘Great let’s have a go then,’ she insists.
The driver rings his bell, to acknowledge them, and invites them to take a seat. Louise plonks herself in the semi-sheltered cab and pats the empty part of the seat next to her. It’s an order, rather than an inviting pat. Ed’s heart is filled with dread, he just wants to call the night to an end. He wants her to be the Louise he thought she was at the start of the night. If he gets in the cab, it’s bound to get worse, although he’s not sure how. Yet, he has no choice. Somewhat wearily, he steps into the cab and squashes up next to her. The driver is seated on his bicycle, a few inches in front of their knees, with his back to them. He is a Frenchman and is sporting a pencil moustache and artistic goatee. He turns in his bicycle seat, to face them, ‘Whair wud yoo like tu go?’
‘Drive! I don’t care where, just drive!’ Louise bellows out the order.
Ed winces. The driver raises his eyebrows in offence.
‘Oui, mademoiselle,’ he says facetiously.
By now, Ed realises that there is no way out. As Dirty would say on occasions like this, ‘Sometimes boys, it’s easier to do it, than not do it.’ It has sunk in by now that Louise is not quite the girl Ed had thought she was, at first. And, never being one to look a gift whore in the mouth, Ed decides to get the hell on with it.
With a slight jolt, they are thrown back into their seat and the rickshaw starts its journey through the streets of London’s West End. It’s clear from the start that this will not be the London equivalent to a romantic trip on a Venetian gondola, or sipping Glühwein in the back of a horse-drawn sled in the Tyrol. Oh no, Louise has no interest in kisses and cuddles, this has all the trademarks of a ride on a funfair ghost train through the house of horrors. As soon as M. Le Cycliste gets some momentum going, the carriage rocking around over the cobbles, Louise wastes no time in engulfing Ed. She is kissing him, feverishly, like an overexcited guppy. She pushes him into the corner of the cab, placing all her weight against him. Her perfume is filling his lungs. Her hair is getting caught in the crossfire of their kissing. What can he do but gnaw back at her? And gnaw he does, with all the gusto he can muster.
Ed’s kissing is now on the offensive. He pushes her back into her side of the cab. The more forceful he is, the more she seems to groan with pleasure. Stepping up the ante somewhat, Ed moves for the Rigby trademark manoeuvre, known as the ‘tit and fumble.’ He places his right arm behind her back, and starts to grope her right poont. With his free hand, he begins looking for that pea that he thought earlier would have been elusive. But surprisingly, his highly dextrous fingers seem to hit their target immediately, and Louise is sent wild with pleasure. With his left hand working its magic in her crotch, Louise almost relapses into a total submission. She starts to paw at Ed’s lap. She’s back to her rubbing, which has the obvious effect on Ed. Before he knows it, she’s tugging at his flies. Zip. And then they’re undone. Louise’s petite little hand shoots inside his trousers and grabs a hold of the Rigby crown jewels. Enthusiastically she makes long firm strokes. Understandably, Ed is really into it now, who wouldn’t be? Having resolved the fact that she is not the woman he thought she was, he treats her in the only way that is fitting. Any previous hesitancy he had, has long vanished. His right hand reaches inside her low-cut top and frees her right tit from where it was nestling happily, in her bra. Now, cupped lovingly in Ed’s palm, in the open air, he squeezes excitedly.
You might think it’s a bit risqué. But you ask any self-respecting London cabbie, and he’ll keep you entertained for hours with stories of exhibitionist wives and girlfriends giving blossas to their other halves in the back of their Hackney cabs. At least Ed and Louise know that their French driver doesn’t have the benefit of a rear-view mirror, to spy on their
antics. But it’s not the driver they need to worry about.
You know when you’re doing a particular thing, and something in the back of your mind tells you that you should pause for a minute and take stock. That something has changed in the scenario, from when you first set out. For example, you’re at home and you go out on some useless errand, like the shopping, and return to the house half an hour later. As you walk back through the front door, something instantly tells you that the house is not as you left it. You can’t quite put your finger on it, there’s no one particular thing. It’s a feeling. And then, with a more pathological survey, you notice a teacup placed in a way you don’t remember placing it, a door half closed that you think you left open or a dead body lying across your path with a hatchet in its back.
It’s this feeling that suddenly washes over Ed, as he sits in the back of the rickshaw, airing Louise’s boob. Something has changed, in the regime of things. What’s different? And then, to his utter horror, he realises – it’s stopped. The rickshaw has come to a halt. His eyes focus, and a new clarity of his surroundings dawns. His mind very quickly assimilates the new state of affairs. The first thing he notices, is their French driver bent over his pedals, spluttering swear words in his native tongue. He is fiddling with the machinations of the bike, the chain lies on the road surface by his feet. Ed looks up, and sees the billboards of several large theatres, the odd massive cinema – the type that holds international premieres. Bright neon lights. Restaurants. Faces. Cameras. Flashes. The penny drops, Ed’s heart hits the back of his teeth.
They are in Leicester Square.
The rickshaw has broken down outside the Odeon, London’s biggest cinema in the busiest part of the capital. Every night of the year, this square is teeming with tourists and Londoners alike, often gathering to watch celebrities totter up red carpets to peddle their latest blockbuster. Ed had been oblivious to the fact that they must have been sitting there for a couple of minutes, fornicating in the back of the open cab, for all and sundry to see. A crowd has gathered around the rickshaw. A multicultural, multi-aged all-representative mob, many of whom clutch cameras – digital, stills and video. They are all busy pointing, laughing, recording. In shock, Ed looks back at Louise. She hasn’t even noticed, she is still lost in her ignorance, as she kisses his neck. With a cry of ‘putain!’ the driver signals his success at refitting the chain. Keeping the vehicle stationary, he peddles the wrong way, to make sure the chain is aligned correctly. Ed glances around the ever-growing throng. They are all staring at him, Louise’s tit and her hand, which is busy rummaging around in his pants. Open-mouthed Ed looks down at his date, and gives a wry smile, the hilarity of the whole escapade hits home. He fondles her once more and seeks out her mouth, for a deep kiss. The crowd cheers with enthusiasm. Relinquishing her breast momentarily, he turns his attention to the spectators, and gives them a thumbs up. They whoop with delight, endorsing his antics.
‘Drive on!’
This public display of affection continues on the tube journey back to Louise’s place. Luckily for Ed, Louise’s behaviour would not prove to be an empty gesture, like my Australian prick tease. It was a sure sign of things to come, quite literally. A cup of Darjeeling is not the first thing to be offered to Ed, as he staggers into her apartment. The collide in a frenzy of passion, separate and throw themselves back at each other. The pair ricochet from one wall in the hall to the other, like a human pinball. Pictures come off the wall, they trip over shoes, discarded thoughtlessly on the floor. Ed rips off her top, the one boob has since re-joined its partner in the brassier, but not for long. Having undone his shirt, getting frustrated with her buttery fingers scrabbling at the buttons, she pulls it down over the back of his shoulders, finally freeing it from his arms. Ed hops like a child, from one foot to the other, tugging at his socks. Socks are always the worst garments to free yourself of when in a romantic or passionate state of undress, I find. Next they are at each other’s trousers. She fumbles with his zipper, and he is struggling to undo her fastener. Finally, both clasps give way, and the pair bend over to free each other from their clothes, colliding heads on their way down. But rather than break their concentration, in order to laugh, as one normally would, they hurl themselves into another tonguing fest. Ed can’t get the bra undone, all deftness failing him. She reaches behind her and nimbly separates the straps. She’s had more practice. To avoid banging heads again, the remove their own pants. They pause for a minute, to take in each other’s naked body, not speaking, not kissing. Then, Louise turns to her right and, with an impatient kick of her feet, the unzipped FMBs are propelled through the air, crash-landing somewhere in the lounge. She jumps up into Ed’s arms, and the two fall back into the bedroom.
The first thing that comes into Ed’s head in the morning, when he awakes, are the faces of the people who had gathered around the rickshaw.
‘The guys have got to hear this one,’ he muses.
He chuckles to himself, and his shaking wakes the sleeping woman at his side. After their three hour long, frenzied sex session, they had fallen asleep – ironically, in a romantic embrace, just as Ed might have hoped at the start of the evening. The sex was mind-blowing, that’s for sure, but somehow he still feels disappointed. It’s an anticlimax – of sorts. He would have been happier with this, and just this. Louise asleep on his chest, cuddling him so he can’t leave her.
Now that the fun has passed, he doesn’t want to be there. It’s confusing. The sex was incredible, but that doesn’t mean it was meaningful. It was just sex. And now he wants to leave, he doesn’t want to stay, to make idle chit chat until midday. With the other Louise, he would have happily stayed with her all day. She wakes up, kisses his chest.
‘Morning, you!’ she manages to get the words out of her dry mouth.
‘Morning,’ Ed says, a little uncomfortably. ‘I have to go,’ he lies.
‘Why? Stay here, have some breakfast,’ she suggests.
Ed starts to feel guilty, he now has to lie some more.
‘I can’t, I’d love to but I have a trial I have to prepare for, it will take all weekend,’ he sees the disappointment in her eyes.
‘Okay, no problem.’ Accepting the rebuff, she says, ‘Well, if you want a shower, there’s a fresh towel on the side of the bath, and a new toothbrush in the rack.’
Ed nods at her, smiles, and kisses her on the forehead. He can’t kiss her on the mouth, it’s just too stinky and dry.
‘Wait, toothbrush?’ he thinks.
Ignoring this strange suggestion, he clambers out of the bed, trying to disrupt her as little as possible. He walks to the threshold of the bedroom door, glances back at Louise, who has already drifted back to sleep. He thinks to himself, of what could have been. And then he heads into the bathroom.
The bathroom is a small and tidy little room, littered with girlie products and laced with that sweet smell that denotes all female washrooms. He looks in the mirror and thinks, ‘God, I look like shit.’ He casts his eye around the bathroom, picks up a perfume bottle, and cautiously smells it. It smells like Louise, how she smelt that first night. His gaze falls upon the bath and, sure enough, there on the side are a stack of fresh soft white towels. He looks at the rack, next to the mirror. His heart is filled, once again, with a feeling of dread.
As he gazes upon the neat rows of toothbrushes, resplendent in their uniform box-packaging and standing to attention like a platoon on parade, realisation dawns on Ed. Self-realisation that like every other young man in London with a large income and good genes he leads the life of a hunted partridge. That he is a number, one of many to have trodden this particular path. That there had been many before him and that there would be still more to follow. He had loved her that was sure. He could not help but wonder if the woman he would marry would have such a history of lovers. No, lovers, he thinks, is too romantic a word. Byron and Shelley have no place in this scenario, shags is a more appropriate word. Somewhat despondent and depressed Ed accepts his fate, he ta
kes up one of the toothbrushes and rips off the wrapping.
5
The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth
Have you ever seen a child take a biscuit from the cookie jar just before tea, despite having been told expressly not to, as it’ll spoil their appetite? At which point, they are inevitably caught by the all-seeing, all-hearing and all-knowing omnipresent mother. The cheeky imp of an infant boldly contrives the most convoluted story to account for the missing cookie and to try to explain the tell-tale crumbs, still clinging obstinately around their chops. They lie. With all credit, the said five-year-old does a good job but Mummy is wise to their tricks, and it’s not long before the kid is blubbing and confessing all.
Men are like kids. Not simply with respect to their fascination of gadgets or for watching cartoons, with a view to sincerely deliberating the superior parts of the little mermaid’s attributes. They also lie. It is an inane part of our makeup – the deception gene.
Whenever I have a girlfriend, I lie on a daily basis. It’s not malicious, I’m not lying to cover up any infidelities. I do it because I believe the deception is a better state of affairs than the truth. I do it to avoid arguments and because I think that if I were her, I’d sooner not know. However often she tells me to tell the truth, whatever the truth might be, I still can’t bring myself to do it. An amnesty is usually offered, a promise not to get mad. But we all remember those amnesties from childhood, promises that you won’t get a smack if you tell Mummy who drove their Tonka Truck over the bonnet of her car. You confess all and the next thing you know, wallop! And it’s the same with your loved one later on in life, save that the anticipated wallop is replaced by the nearest object that lends itself as a projectile (one of a proper shape that a girl is able to throw of course i.e. not ball-shaped). In short, it’s often just downright easier to lie. I lie because it makes my life less complicated. It’s like one of those easy mazes in a kid’s puzzle book – ‘show Fido the quickest way to his buried bone.’ You don’t follow the long squiggle, that would be silly, you take the straight line from the dog to the oversized chicken femur.
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