Charlotte appears at the door of her apartment, wearing little more than a silky dressing gown. Raj is in shock.
‘This is a result,’ he thinks to himself, ‘straight on to the nookie and bypassing any idle chit chat on Pollock over canapés.’
For some strange reason though, tonight she seems like her mind is elsewhere. She leads him silently past the rows of shoes in the hall, through into the wood-floored lounge. Through the Victorian sash window Notting Hill is becoming alive with the hustle and bustle of young couples strolling to other couples’ homes for an evening of dinner parties and predictable conversation. As the two of them sit on the sofa, Charlotte might be responding to his kisses and gropes but he can feel that underneath it all she’s tense, her hearts not in it.
‘Are you ok?’ he asks.
Charlotte seems pretty uneasy, her eyes constantly avoiding his.
‘Yes I’m fine,’ she says. After a pause she adds an unconvincing ‘honestly.’ Raj, unperturbed, shrugs it off and returns to exploring her tonsils with his tongue, his hand reaching for one of her poonts.
‘Well actually,’ she starts, reticently, ‘there’s something I want to ask you.’ She leans back out of reach, this time staring him right in the eyes.
An uneasiness wafts over him. ‘Sure ask away.’ He reaches for his glass of champagne that’s resting on her coffee table. The only other thing on the table is a copy of Mario Testino’s best works, carefully placed at an angle to make it look like it has been casually thrown down. Raj isn’t particularly thirsty, but he feels he needs to do something as he sits uncomfortably, waiting for Charlotte’s question.
‘Tonight,’ she continues, ‘I would like us to try something different.’
She sees the blank expression on Raj’s face. Very quickly, she blurts, ’Of course, you don’t have to.’
She’s gone red, a fuchsia flushes her cheeks. The mature independent woman has vanished and, in her place, a shy school girl has appeared.
‘Oh bollocks, what the hell can it be?’ Raj is thinking to himself, ‘I knew this was too good to be true.’
‘Sure what kind of thing?’ he asks, giving in to intrigue and the ever-powerful, self-destructing hope of fornication. After what seems a heavy pause, she says, ‘Well, I’d like to dress up.’
‘Phew,’ he thinks, ‘thank God for that, perhaps it’ll be a rubber nurse’s outfit.’
‘That’s ok,’ he says, ’lots of people do that, no need to be embarrassed.’
Raj has gone from the rabbit caught in headlights to the reassuring male. Assertive and in control, he puts Charlotte at ease with herself. The schoolgirl in her disappears as quickly as she materialised. She jumps up all excited, ‘Excellent, I have the outfit, wait there and I’ll put it on.’
She’s back to her normal self again. Confident, sexy Charlie is back in full form, and a warm relief washes over Raj. With that she disappears into her dressing room, closing the door almost to. Ever more inquisitive, he leans forward from the sofa, trying to catch a glimpse of naked flesh through the jar. As the door opens, he jumps back into the security of the sofa. Looking up, he nearly chokes on his Bolly. Standing there, legs astride, is Charlotte or what was Charlotte. There’s a woman wearing mid-thigh high black leather boots with Perspex platforms, torn fishnets and a lime green PVC miniskirt. Up top she’s opted for a purple strappy top, gypsy bangles flap around her wrists and her backcombed hair looks like she’s been dragged through a rather vicious hawthorn. The most disturbing thing is the way that she’s painted her face; black eye shadow is smudged around her dull, emotionless eyes and a thick coat of vermilion lipstick is globbed on her lips. Raj squints in disbelief. No, it is definitely Charlotte. She looks like the party host who’s had a bit to drink and has been crying over an unrequited love. If she was a hooker. The awkward silence returns, a silence like that first night. Another boundary passed, another personal space entered for the first time.
‘I’m supposed to be a prostitute!’ she declares impatiently.
‘No shit,’ Raj mutters in disbelief.
‘Is it ok, do you like it?’
She’s gone from being annoyed to pleading anxiously. Her voice sounds as if it’s about to falter. Raj gets a grip on himself, ‘Yeah, of course, you look great,’ smiling, nodding, trying to look enthusiastic.
‘I mean you look downright dirty, sexy,’ Raj tries to get into role but all he can think is, ‘What the fucking hell do you look like you freak?’
And just when the poor idiot thinks this is as far as this game is going, Charlotte ups the ante.
‘Raj, there’s something else.’
‘Something else?’ Now he is worried.
‘Yes, I’d like you to drive my car.’
‘Okay cool.’ That’s fine, he can handle that.
‘No, no, I want you to drive it tonight, me, down to Kings Cross, drop me off and then return and pick me up. You know, as if you’re picking me up as a hooker.’
In a moment Raj is back to being Thumper, mesmerised by the headlights of an oncoming, rather large SUV. What do you say to that? ‘Holy-fucking-shit you’re bonkers,’ is what he’d like to say. But it sort of comes out as ‘O-k, if you want.’
‘Oh Raj,’ she rushes over, kissing him, ‘I knew you’d be up for it when you saw me.’
‘Ye-ah right. No, I think it’s cool, we can do this.’
Good man Raj, you put on a brave face.
As the lovely couple leave the flat, Raj pleads with God that no one spots them. What would his mother say if she saw him?
‘Please don’t let the woman with the poodle reappear.’
In the bowels of the underground car park Raj ushers his girl into her car as quickly as possible and sets off for Kings Cross.
Just past the train station, outside a rundown jazz shop, Raj slows to a halt. Furtively, he checks that no one is watching them. Without saying a word, she hops out and disappears into the shadows of the doorway. There’s graffiti everywhere, rubbish from the kebab shop is piled up to waist height and the street light above the car twitches nervously, flickering on and off. Raj speeds off, conscious of patrolling coppers pulling over this unique curb-crawler. How on Earth could he ever explain himself?
He drives around the block a couple of times, growing ever more concerned about Charlotte. This is far from a safe area of London at the best of times and under normal conditions, let alone when your bird is pretending to be on the game. What if she gets attacked, raped, murdered? He would never be able to forgive himself. He swings the sportscar round and returns to the drop off point.
Thank God, there she is, the silly tart, chewing gum as she stands in the half-light looking like a pro under the lamppost. He crawls the curb at a snail’s pace, the electric window wound down.
‘Hiya, do you want to get in and we’ll go home.’
Clearly roleplaying is a concept wasted on my friend. She ignores him. Raj sighs, he leans across the passenger seat and, in self-disbelief, shouts, ‘Yo bitch, you workin’ or what?’
That grabs her attention. She smiles.
‘Hundred large ones for as much shaggin’ as ya can handle, anal’s extra.’
Raj is aghast, open-mouthed he stares in disgust at this stranger leaning in through the car window selling her wares. Oh dear Lord, and where did that south London accent materialise from?
‘Great,’ he says, all other words failing him. He flips the switch to open the door for his hooker to get in. Raj checks his mirrors but makes an effort not to catch his own eye, he can’t bear to look at himself. The coast is clear. He pulls off at some speed, he has to get away from the scene of the crime. The greater the distance he puts between himself and Kings Cross, the more he will feel cleansed. He can never take the train from there to Newcastle to see his family again. It wouldn’t be right. The two of them sit there in silence for the remainder of the drive across London back to Charlotte’s pad, with Raj feeling super sensitive and Charlotte a tad self-conscious,
no doubt. Sadly his hope of a reprieve is not answered and the roleplay only continues once they get back to the flat.
They face the front door to her flat, once more. They are still feeling awkward, but this time it is for a different reason to that first night. All Raj knows, is that he’s glad to be back at the flat and away from public eyes. As soon as the door is shut behind them, Charlotte reels on Raj.
‘Now I want you to do me – do me hard, do me fast and do me now.’
A man reaches a certain point where he stops giving a shit and just goes with the flow. I suppose it’s an inherent trait that prepares one for marriage. Self-respect, dignity and pride can all fall away at the hands of a woman. The key is to face it stoically and preserve as much of those qualities as you can. Well, it is around now that Raj gives up. He finally bows to her superior will and decides to get in role. He pushes her up against the bedroom wall, her mouth instantly gives way under his (quel faux pas – she should know prossies never kiss their clients). He hitches up her lime green number to push aside her knickers. She’s not wearing knickers. He drops his own pants and goes at it hammer and tongs. Charlotte is grunting and moaning most enthusiastically. Raj flips her over and starts to bull her from behind. She begins to wail. Her head is banging up against the wall, she’s screaming with pleasure, ‘Arrgghh yes, give it to me, harder! HARDER!’
Knock, knock. Like a death knoll to their ‘lovemaking’, a furious rapping is coming from the front door.
‘You cannot be serious, who can be calling at this time?’ Raj snaps out of his alter ego as a punter.
‘Please go and see who it is,’ she begs Raj, pushing him back by the shoulders and making him withdraw.
Poor Raj throws a towel around his waist and makes for the front door.
There’s a tall skinny guy, probably in his thirties, with glasses and floppy hair standing in the corridor.
‘Hi, I’m from next door.’
He looks like shit, but then again it is 2 am. The man shifts from one foot to the other in a bewildered fashion.
‘Er, I wondered if you could keep the noise down,’ the man says, trying to peer past Raj into the flat.
‘Yeah, sorry buddy, I was… well you know how it is right, brother? I’ll tell her to keep it down!’ He winks.
‘Right,’ somewhat unsettled, the neighbour stands there in silence looking incomprehensively at the dishevelled young Asian guy in front of him. He sees a tweed sports jacket discarded carelessly on the hall floor, along with other indistinguishable garments of garish colours. He presumes the jacket belongs to the near-naked Asian but somehow can’t imagine him wearing it; it seems incongruous.
A few seconds pass, Raj continues to smile smugly with that inane grin that blokes give each other when talking about their conquests. Finally, with nothing more to be said, Raj sheepishly shuts the door in the guy’s face. Putting on the safety-chain, he can’t help but chuckle to himself at the whole situation. The guy knew Raj had been banging his neighbour senseless. With a smirk on his face he trots back into the bedroom ready to finish off the job, all fired-up from Charlotte’s filthy antics.
There she is, sitting in bed, with the covers pulled up around her neck and her knees drawn up to her chin. All images of Charlie the hooker have disappeared, she is no longer in role. Raj is surprised to see her back to her normal self again, and wearing such a guilty look.
‘There’s something I should tell you.’ There’s a culpability in her voice.
His heart sinks. What more can there be?
‘That guy from next door is my… kinda… boyfriend.’
So there I am, bent over double in a fit of laughter as a genuinely distraught Raj recounts his nightmare to me.
‘Bastard, I phoned you for some support,’ he says.
Clearly the tables have turned since my Single No More misadventure, which had caused a similar response from an unsympathetic Raj. I had been ribbing the poor guy but I was growing a bit concerned as the story went on.
‘Raj, I don’t want to tell you this, but, what if this girl doesn’t leave the boots and plastic skirt for the bedroom?’
I can hear him wince.
‘Oh no, what d’you mean?’
‘Well, I’ve heard about women who have everything; beauty, success and money, but no excitement. So, for their kicks, they become prostitutes by night, for the sheer thrill of it. They don’t need the money but they get off on it massively.’
Silence. I can hear him thinking, mulling it over.
‘No, she’s too classy, too nice (he’s trying to convince himself). It was just a roleplay (he thinks some more). But she did know where the hookers were. And she had all the gear. She’d definitely done it before. Shit, you’re right what am I gonna do?’
He’s my mate, I have to be honest. Trust me, there’s nothing that frightens me more than someone stuffing an oversized cotton bud down the end of my todger. But there are times when you have to face the music and take a little pain as the price for all that pleasure.
‘Buddy, you should go to the clap clinic.’
‘Foockin’ell!’ He knew it was coming. ‘You’re right though. Arhhh shit!’
Raj turns up to the clinic the following day, he had been straight on the phone to them when he had finished talking to me. The building does nothing to ease the anxiety of what any visitor is about to put themselves through. It’s an horrendous 1970s single-storey cube. The clinic is like a large bungalow, the only thing missing are the gnomes in the patch of grass leading to the entrance. It has all the design intricacies of a four-year-old’s attempt at building a Lego house.
Raj takes a seat in the waiting room. Feeling utterly ashamed of himself, he hopes that no one he knows walks in. This is more embarrassing than going into Boots to buy condoms at 17. At least, back then, you could make out you were just intending to buy toothpaste and when the cashier asked if there was anything else you could cunningly come out with ‘Oh yes, I’d better get some johnnies while I’m here.’ But not here, why else would you be at the clap clinic than if you thought you had a bad case of the nob rot?
‘Mr Khan,’ the attendant calls out.
He tries to make out that she’s calling for someone else, but everyone else in the room is white. All eyes lie on him. Highly self-consciously, he gets up and ambles through the faded acrylic comfies, avoiding the gaze of the other in-patients.
‘Er, Mr Khan,’ she calls after him. ‘You need the nurse in Room 3.’
Nodding meekly, he shuffles along the beige corridor. The lights hum to themselves. He is begging, praying inside his head that the nurse in Room 3 is some fat old hag. The last thing he needs is some cute busty nurse doing the test, the type of girl who might feasibly feature in one his fantasies. The fantasy where he plays the gynaecologist who romps with two of his nurses and one of his wealthy patients – all at once. He faces the door to Room 3. He takes a deep breath and knocks twice.
‘Come in.’
The voice behind the door doesn’t sound young, in fact it sounds decidedly middle-aged, with undertones of Nurse Gladys from Open All Hours. That’s fine, Raj thinks, he can put up with a rotund mother hen type, someone who can put him at his ease during the uncomfortable procedure.
‘Ah, you must be Mr Khan, I’m Nurse Calderwell.’
Thank God, she isn’t quite as rotund as nurse Gladys but she is short and stocky, that’ll do. ‘Hi’ is all Raj can muster.
After a few seconds he is more relaxed and can’t help but release a little chuckle to himself. For some reason he is overcome with bravery, perhaps at the relief of Nurse Calderwell.
‘So, I’ll drop my keks then?’ he says impatiently.
Before the nurse knew it, there’s Raj, his skateboard baggies around his ankles and his wedding tackle looking vulnerable.
‘Well dear you needn’t have taken them down so quickly, but as you have let’s get on with it shall we?’
‘Yeah, if you don’t mind.’
A b
it confident considering what’s about to happen to him. There’s almost some of Ed’s stoicism in his voice.
‘As you may have been told when you made your appointment, the procedure can be a little uncomfortable,’ says the nurse.
At this point, the correct procedure is to break down and blabber like a baby for your mummy but for some strange reason us men have a propensity to put on a false bravado when facing adversity in the company of women – a machismo that inevitably leads to our downfall. This is to be no exception.
‘Oh it is good to have a brave patient for a change, most men start to whimper. Perhaps you wouldn’t mind our trainee nurse having a go… Claudia.’
Before Raj can protest, a girl appears from behind the blue curtain, the type of partition that all doctor’s surgeries are equipped with, for modesty’s sake.
Nurse (in training) Claudia, however, is as far from Nurse Gladys as you can imagine. In fact Raj is sure he does recognise her from his favourite fantasy. She is about 5’4, blonde and has something of the Anna Kournikova about her. She might be wearing the starched uniform but you can see the tight bum, pert breasts and tiny waist a mile off. Raj is dumbstruck, shellshocked, buggered. What can he do, protest?
‘Now then dear,’ says old nurse Calderwell to nurse-in-training Claudia, ‘you’ll need to get down on your knees like I’ve shown you before and hold the penis like so.’
Raj shuts his eyes and thinks of his grandma. He starts berating himself, and making oaths that he knows he can never abide by.
‘I swear I’ll never sleep with a woman again, not until my wedding night, perhaps not even then. Fucking sports jacket!’
He opens his left eye to sneak a peek, and there she is; this vision of 17-year-old beauty, on her knees holding his penis and peering up from those soft blue doe eyes. Grandmother, grandmother, grandmother. There’s a rush in his loins, the blood pumps through the valves at an uncontrollable rate. Oh no, too late. As he looks down the flag pole raises, the rocket’s ready to launch.
Single White Failure Page 12
