Love: A Messy Business

by Abbie Walton

  “Fair enough…so…are you seeing him again soon?” Kate cursed silently again. She could lie, but the way the village operated, the truth would emerge sooner or later so she may as well be open about it now.”

  “As a matter of fact, we’re going out for dinner tonight – to that Indian restaurant down the road.”

  “Oooh! That sounds a bit more promising. Make sure you come and tell me all about it tomorrow, won’t you.”

  “Might do! Right, I’ve got to go. How much is this nail varnish – three quid?”

  “Yep, it’s on sale this week.”

  “Right, I’ll get two bottles then, one red and one black. You can never have too much nail varnish, can you?

  Kate walked back to the pub to complete the rest of her shift. She was looking forward to the date, partly because she really loved Indian food, but mainly because she wanted to find out what this messy business was all about for Colin. She hoped that she would be OK with whatever answer he gave to her questions.

  Colin texted her on the way back to the pub to confirm that he would pick her up at 7.30. This was fine by Kate, although she realized that her first choice of clothing was currently going mouldy under the bed, so she was going to have to give some serious thought to what she was going to wear that evening. One thing she already knew for certain. She was going to be wearing a thong.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN: A BUSINESS ARRANGEMENT

  Kate just couldn’t resist poking a little fun at Colin as she got into the car that evening.

  “So…you’re absolutely sure that we’re going to the restaurant tonight, are you?” Colin looked a bit shame-faced, even though he could tell Kate was only pulling his leg.

  “You’re never going to let me forget that, are you? No, no tricks tonight – I promise you that. This is going to be a perfectly normal, perfectly dull date….in comparison to last night of course,” he added hurriedly. Kate laughed.

  “I think dull would suit me just fine after last night, if I’m honest. It will be a refreshing change to eat the food, rather than wear it, don’t you think?”

  “A real novelty!” replied Colin, enjoying playing along with Kate’s sense of humour. Colin paused, as if he was deciding whether now was the right time to say what he was about to say or not. Kate could see he had something on his mind.

  “Come on then – out with it.” Colin was surprised that she was apparently able to read his mind.

  “Yes, well…you know how we were talking last night about whether you wanted to do so more modelling in the future…?”

  “Yes…” said Kate, slowly. She wondered where exactly this was headed.

  “Don’t worry – I’m not going to ask you again, not just yet anyway. No, I have a different proposition for you. One that, I hope, you find a bit more up your alley.”

  “Go on...”

  “Well, it’s quite simple really. The long and the short of it is…well, how do you fancy going into business with me? A partnership…”

  “Doing what? Getting messy?”

  “Well, a messy business but you wouldn’t be the one getting messy, necessarily. No, you’d be helping me run the business. The whole shooting match – buying supplies, recruiting models, video editing, website management, marketing, accounting and cleaning up as well of course. I’ve got lots of plans and ideas but there is just too much for one person to do. I need help, Kate.”

  “But why me? I don’t know anything about half of the things on that list you’ve just reeled off.”

  “But neither do I really, I’ve just been bumbling along up to now, to tell you the truth – the only thing I’m any kind of expert on is getting models very, very messy. But, if you’re up for this, we can decide how best to divide and conquer and then we go on learn how to do everything properly. If neither of us wants to do something or can’t do something, then we’ll just have to outsource it. You can get people to do things in India these days for just a couple of quid, you know.”

  “Well, it does sound interesting. But I’ve got lots of questions. Like how much money do you really think we can make on this, and what’s the split – 50/50? And how much time would I need to spend on this a week? Would it be full-time? I wouldn’t want to give up my job at the pub when there’s no guarantee this was actually going to work.”

  “All good questions, Kate. The easy one to answer is the partnership split. It would be a 50/50 split of the profits, right down the middle. Now, yes – of course there is a risk that it will end up being 50% of nothing, but that’s the same with any small business. The good news is that we don’t really need any investment to get us up and running – we already have what we need – a studio, lighting and recording equipment – and we don’t have to rent them like other people do. The key to this will be finding the right models and doing the right stuff with them. That’s where you will be worth your weight in gold.”

  “Really? How?”

  “Simple – it’s a proven fact that models will be much, much more likely to do a messy shoot if there is a female involved in the production time – it just makes the whole thing seem a lot more normal and just a bit of a lark. There’s this guy whose girlfriend is involved in what he does, in fact I think they might even be married now, and they have so many girls lined up to get messy it’s ridiculous. Most producers would kill to get just a few of them. What’s the difference? She is. She even fronts some of the videos and gets the other models messy and everyone has a great time. If they can make a business out of this, then why can’t we?”

  “I suppose we can…” said Kate, not sounding terribly convinced. “But is this a full-time job or not?”

  “It doesn’t have to be, certainly not at the beginning while we are ramping things up. You could certainly keep your job at the pub and we would work around that. If things take off, then you can gradually reduce the number of shifts you do and hopefully you will be able to get rid of being a barmaid altogether.”

  “Well that would be great!” admitted Kate. “But I’m not sure that I want to be public about this, you know. As you’ve already found out, people like to talk around here, and I don’t want to be the topic of conversation every time I walk past them. I mean, people are pretty broad-minded around here, but I am not sure they’re all as broad-minded as that!”

  “You’re probably right. Well, there’s no problem at all with keeping this hush-hush. I’d prefer to keep this quiet as well if we can, even though I don’t have family and friends nearby. So…are you in?”

  “There’s one more thing actually, Colin. It’s more of a personal question, if you don’t mind.”

  “Oh, that sounds a bit intimidating! Still, if we’re going to be business partners, then I suppose there shouldn’t be any secrets should there? Fire away.” Kate paused to think. When it actually came to it, it was a much more difficult subject to broach than she had anticipated. She didn’t want Colin to interpret her question as basically asking “are you some kind of deviant?”

  “Well, I did a bit of research this morning on the internet. I wanted to find out more about Wamming, independently, rather than just what you said. Actually, I was particularly interested in why people do Wam – what makes them tick? And, I suppose, what makes you tick. There seem to be quite a few possible reasons why they do it. Could you tell me why you do it?”

  “Hmm, I’m really on the psychiatrists couch now, aren’t I? Phew, it’s a difficult question to answer really. Let me ask you a question first, if I may. What’s your favourite food?”

  “Pizza.”

  “OK. So why is pizza your favourite food?”

  “Err…because I like the taste.”

  “Right, OK. And why do you like the taste?”

  “Err….because…because I just do.”

  “Exactly! Not easy to explain is it? Neither is it easy to explain why I like Wam. But I’ll try, seeing as you asked. I hope I don’t offend you by what I am about to say. You’ve probably read that for some people, getting women me
ssy is all about domination and having them submit to them by having no choice in what is poured over them and where. Yes, OK, I see you’re nodding. Perhaps that’s what is worrying you?”

  Kate nodded.

  “Right, OK. Well, you’ll be pleased to hear that is not the way I actually look at it. Domination, as far as I can make out at least, is all about bringing someone to a level that is lower than you. Well, when I see a beautiful woman, like you, I think she is so far above me that I would never be good enough for her – she’s too perfect. I’ve always been crap with women, perhaps it’s just a huge lack of self-confidence. So when I see a woman that is all messed-up, all that is happening is that she is coming down to my level, the level of an ordinary mortal. But, more importantly than that, if she can handle getting messy and giving up some of that power that she has over me, because she no longer looks so perfect, I find that very, very sexy. And another thing, a woman who doesn’t mind getting messy must have a pretty good sense of humour, right? I mean, it’s hard to be all stuck up and prim and proper when you’re wearing a trolley full of food. I love that as well. Am I making any sense at all?”

  “Yes, you are, believe it or not. That’s a pretty good answer. In fact, it’s a bloody good answer.”

  “Phew! So then what do you say? Can we shake on it? We can get a proper agreement written up so that everything is in order and we’re both clear.”

  “I’m not shaking your hand now – keep both hands on the wheel at all times!”

  “Yes, boss!” said Colin, feeling happier than he had felt in a very long time indeed. After all, he was reasoning, if she trusted him enough to be her business partner, surely it was only a matter of time before he would become her romantic partner as well?

  They arrived at the restaurant in a matter of minutes. Colin leaped out of the driver’s seat to open the passenger door for Kate and bowed floridly before holding out his hand to help her out gracefully. Although perhaps a little extravagantly over the top, these were the little touches that Kate appreciated in a man and had been in such short supply in recent years. Most of the locals probably thought that “chivalry” was a type of deodorant.

  Colin held out his hand, meaning to seal the business deal right there and then. Kate extended her hand timidly. Colin seized it, pumped it up and down a couple of times, gently enough, before bending down and giving her hand a little kiss. He clasped her hand and invited her to walk with him into the restaurant.

  “Table for two - reservation in the name of Love”, Colin said in a confident tone - and then realised that this sounded like a U2 song. Being a karaoke junkie, Kate also noticed, chuckled to herself and started humming the tune quietly. The waiter, clearly not fully immersed in Western culture, did not pick up on this but merely smiled, checked his list and ushered them to a quiet corner with a lit candle. The waiter had obviously assumed that this was a romantic date and not a business dinner. Colin was hoping it might turn out to be both.

  Colin was all prepared to be chivalrous again and assist Kate with getting seated. But she wanted to visit the powder room first, as women are, for reasons unknown to most men, wont to do. At a loose end for a minute or two, Colin reached automatically for his Iphone to see if there were any interesting emails. If not, he would find a game to occupy himself until Kate returned. However, the email at the top of his inbox took the thought of playing a game quite out of his mind. In fact, it quite took his appetite away as he thought about what he would soon have to tell Kate. He felt like walking quickly out of the restaurant and driving home, but he knew he shouldn’t and couldn’t do that – not if he ever wanted a chance with her.

  Kate soon arrived back at the table, still humming that little tune. She stopped as soon as she saw the ashen expression on Colin’s face. She quickly sat down opposite him.

  “Whatever’s the matter? You look like you’ve seen a ghost. What’s wrong?” Colin cleared his throat nervously.

  “Well, Kate. I’ve just received an email from our friend, Mr Fukui. It turns out that he…err…recorded the webcam, so that he could watch it at his own leisure in the future.” This actually sounded fairly reasonable to Kate – if he’d paid five grand for the action, you could hardly begrudge him the chance to watch it a couple more times. However, it was clear to this that there was more to the story.

  “Go on.”

  “Well, the problem is that he didn’t want his wife to find the recording on his computer hard drive so he decided to upload it to his private Youtube account.” Again, that sounded to Kate like a very reasonable and sensible precaution. She did, though, feel sorry for his wife who would have no idea what he was doing without her knowledge.

  “Keep going.”

  “That wouldn’t have been a problem except…well, except somehow, and he cannot work out what happened, somehow the private option on the upload wasn’t ticked and the whole video became public. Well, I say the whole video – the recording was broken up into three chunks because of the limits on Youtube, and it was only the last section that went public.

  “Well, that’s a relief at least.”

  “Yes…well…the problem is that, apparently, this last video has gone viral.”

  “It’s done what?” Colin misunderstood and supposed that Kate did not understand what a viral video was.

  “Kate, a viral video is something that is viewed by vast amounts of people and shared across multiple sites and platforms so you get this huge domino affect, or like a tsunami spreading the material across the globe.”

  “Colin, I’m not a bloody idiot! I know what a viral video is.”

  “What you don’t yet know though, Kate, is that our little video has already been viewed by seventeen and a half million people.”

  THE END OF PART ONE OF THE MESSY LOVE TRILOGY

  COMING SOON FROM ABBIE WALTON

  LOVE: A MESSY SPLENDOURED THING

  In this slapstick sequel to Love: A Messy Business, Kate and Colin might be as happy as two pigs in mud, but they know that sooner or later the village folk are bound to find out what is going on behind the net curtains at Ashton House. When the beans are spilled in the most embarrassing of circumstances, they find themselves in a highly sticky situation. Do they simply clean up and clear off or are they prepared to stick around in the hope that they can find some birds of a feather with whom they can stick together?

  LOVE: A MESSY BREAK-UP?

  In the final part of this trilogy, Kate and Colin’s relationship seems to be sinking fast. Colin is expanding the scope of his work and spending an awful lot of time with new muse Joanne in the process. Kate thinks he is cheating on her – is she correct or is that just pie-in-the-sky? Will Colin come clean, or just try to pour oil on troubled waters? At the same time, Kate’s new career is beginning to mess with her head as well as her washing machine – can she, should she, really make a living by being pied in the face?

  THE WOMAN’S GUIDE TO WAM

  As a companion to the Messy Love trilogy, The Woman’s Guide to WAM reveals all you ever wanted to know about getting wet and messy from a uniquely female perspective. Find out why people do it, what they do and the do’s and the don’ts of trying it out yourself – alone or with your partner!

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Abbie Walton is a mother of two from Preston who realized that it’s futile to wallow in self-pity (especially when mud is so much better for your skin!). As a result, she quit the job she hated in the travel industry to focus on writing for a living instead. This is her first full-length work of fiction in an entirely new genre of her own creation - Slapstick Romance.

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER ONE: AN UNEXPECTED SALE

  CHAPTER TWO: A NEW ARRIVAL

  CHAPTER THREE: AN ACCIDENTAL MEETING

  CHAPTER FOUR: AN UNAUTHORIZED EXPLORATION

  CHAPTER FIVE: A DATE FOR THE DIARY

  CHAPTER SIX: A CHANGE OF PLANS

  CHAPTER SEVEN: AN INDECENT PROPOSAL

  CHAPTER EIGHT: AN
EDUCATIONAL DISCUSSION

  CHAPTER NINE: A RIGHT MESS

  CHAPTER TEN: ANOTHER FINE MESS

  CHAPTER ELEVEN: AN AFTERMATH CONVERSATION

  CHAPTER TWELVE: A BIT OF RESEARCH

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN: A BUSINESS ARRANGEMENT