‘There’s nothing weird here,’ said Dolph, managing brilliantly to contest his own words.
‘But, I won’t read it. I don’t read, man. I mean, I do read, sometimes. But you keep it.’
Dolph’s neck muscles tensed like he was lifting a piano. He looked as though he was going to say something absolutely destructive but instead he stalked out of the badly stocked library, muttering, ‘I need to see to my guests.’
‘I can’t believe he wanted to give his Zen book away. I’d be keeping that one if I were Dolph,’ I said when Dolph had gone. I didn’t get any response out of Leo because he was smiling at me with his head cocked to one side.
‘I like your dress,’ he said and he walked towards me and put his hands around my back. He eased his thumbs underneath the silk of my low-backed dress so that they were touching the fleshy bits above my fleshier bottom.
‘You look beautiful.’
Hang about! That so was not true. It’s not even in the same catchment area as truth. I know what beauty looks like and it’s not I. Was I in a dream? Leo Clement is gorgeous. He’s fifty-seven thousand out of ten. I’m a six. Probably a five and half now, because girls seem to be getting much prettier and younger. I think I have been a seven out of ten once, but that was only after an unprecedented British sunny spell and a bad bout of some sort of dysentery. And it didn’t last once I put the weight back on.
‘Nutter.’
‘Sarah Sargeant, can I kiss you, please?’ he asked.
‘Huh, hmmm, er,’ I managed to say before he puts his lips on mine.
It was just a single soft on-the-mouth kiss though. No tongue, because he took my hand and led me back into the dining room with no chairs.
‘Come and have a look at this,’ he said and he got down on his knees and looked at the underneath of the table.
‘Nutter,’ I said again, and I hoisted my dress up and crawled down on the floor. Leo was lying under the James Dean table.
‘Come on, lie next to me.’
I lay down on the carpet facing the underside of the table. There was writing on the bottom of the table. Someone had carved something into the wood.
‘Wow. What’s it say?’
‘It says,’ started Leo, and he put his arm behind me so I could lean on his shoulder. ‘It says, “Dream as if you’ll live forever. Live as if you’ll die today.”’
‘I hope James Dean wrote that and not Dolph.’
We lay there and looked at it. I thought about Rachel and felt sad. However, I knew wholeheartedly that Rachel would very much approve of me being under James Dean’s table with Leo Clement in the blue dress she bought for me. And I knew for sure that she would want me to kiss him. So I did. I reached over and kissed him.
‘I love kissing you,’ he murmured.
‘Leo?’ a female voice called into the room. We stopped kissing. Leo put his finger lightly over my lips to stop me making any noise. I would have kissed the finger had he not accidentally kicked my bad ankle at the same time. I yelped.
‘Hello, hello?’ The lady’s voice got nearer, then Palmer the publicist’s impeccably well made-up face appeared under the table. ‘Oh!’ She seemed surprised to see us under there. ‘Leo, I’m leaving,’ she said slowly, while looking at me.
We listened to her footsteps as she left. Then Leo placed his lips on top of mine again.
We kissed a lot. We kissed until he manoeuvred me on top of him and I banged my head and we started laughing. That was when we became aware of a set of feet next to us in the dining room.
We both stopped giggling to hear Dolph Wax’s unmistakable tones saying, ‘I’d like you both to leave now, please.’
sixty-nine
Leo Clement took me to his ramshackle house on the beach. In Malibu. I couldn’t tell you where, though, because we snogged all the way there. It was as though we wore braces, and they had got caught and we were frantically trying to extricate ourselves before a teacher caught us. Although I enjoyed it much more than the time that happened to me as a teenager.
‘Whisky?’ Leo said, smiling, when we got there.
I nodded. It seemed apt. Whisky was clearly the drink of choice before embarking on sex acts.
‘Come outside,’ he said. I started to hop towards the glass doors but Leo grabbed me by the legs and threw me over his shoulder.
‘Stop it! I’ll break your back!’ I screamed.
He walked us out onto his deck area. Me hanging upside down in a fireman’s lift, bashing him on the back. He placed me gently in his big swinging seat then disappeared back inside. I looked about me. There were steps down to the beach. I could hear the waves. They sounded like traffic. The dog curled himself up at my feet. It all reminded me of the bit at the end of Beaches, but I didn’t want to think about that. I hoped Rachel was OK. I hoped she’d told Eamonn and he was cuddling her in her sleep.
Leo emerged, threw me a hooded top and then sat down next to me. I put my arms and head through the hoodie and when my head popped out Leo’s face was there, smiling, ready to kiss me. He put his arm around me and we leant back and looked out into the blackness and listened to the sea.
‘Best place in the world,’ he said.
‘Hmmm. You might be right.’
That was quite enough conversation. We started to kiss again. My lips were already red and swollen. His hands slid down to my bottom. He was picking me up again. I asked God not to give him a hernia. He was still kissing me. Oh my God, he was carrying me to his bedroom. Sex. We were going to do sex. Of course we were, that’s why I was bloody there. I was about to have sex with Leo Clement!
He turned a light on in a big room. I saw a huge bed with a painting of the sea and a surfer above it. He laid me carefully on the bed and kissed me tenderly. Then he stood above me. I looked up as he undid his waistcoat and pulled off his tie and unbuttoned his shirt. And I know that that image will be with me as a fantasy for life. It was such a closeup view of his chest that I was breathing like I’d just run ten metres, which is very heavily. He sat me up and pulled the hoodie over my head. Then, without me noticing, he untied the halter-neck bow and we were doing topless kissing. By that point I was breathing like I’d just run fifty metres. I was liable to get a stitch. He stood up. I hid my breasts with a hand because I went to a convent. He undid his trousers. He stepped out of them. He looked down at me. He was wearing a pair of tight grey shortie pants. There was a maxi in them. Shit, one hundred metres! There was a real danger of me passing out. Then he looked at me in my pants. I was still holding my hands across my boobs. He carefully unpeeled them and started to caress my breasts. I’d just run a mile. Now he was kissing me everywhere. Oh, blimey, he was getting lower. Cunnilingus! My pants were coming off. I hoped Keith Richards hadn’t grown back. But then I remembered the heart/squirrel/tractor. It had grown out disastrously down there. It was Simon’s heart. Suddenly, the track in my head changed from Marvin Gaye’s ‘Let’s Get it On’ to Britney Spears’s ‘Toxic’.
‘Um. Leo.’
He didn’t stop.
‘Leo,’ I whispered and then I bashed him on the head.
‘Uh.’ He looked up. He was all flushed and sexy and he was in between my legs. It would have been wrong to ask him if I could take a photo.
‘I’m so sorry. I can’t do this,’ I whispered.
‘Hey,’ he said kindly, and he came up to my eye level and flopped on the bed next to me.
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Hey,’ he said, smoothing my hair back.
‘I’m such a knob.’ And then I thought sadly about that maxi going to waste. Maybe I could do it. I looked at Leo’s face. But I didn’t even want to do kissing any more. I felt like I’d run a marathon and I wanted to go to bed.
‘Did I rush things?’
‘No,’ I shook my head. ‘I thought I wanted to. And I’ve loved all our kissing.’
He nodded and stroked my cheek.
‘We can take things slow. I like you, Sarah.’
‘I�
��ve just split up with someone and I didn’t want to and my head is all confused.’
‘Baby,’ he whispered and he kissed me on the nose and smiled a sad little smile. He wrenched the duvet from beneath us and wrapped it round us. Then he cuddled me and it was lovely but I wished it was Simon. Bloody Simon. Ruined everything.
‘Leo?’
‘Hmmm.’
‘If it’s any consolation I think the sex would have been amazing.’
seventy
I woke the next morning to the sound of a mobile phone. Simon! I started flapping my arm about to reach it on my bedside table. Where had the table gone?
‘Ow,’ said a man’s voice. It was Leo. I remembered I was at Leo’s. I felt as though someone had punched me in the lips. I needed to break wind.
Leo jumped out of bed. It was his phone.
‘Palmer!’ he yawned. ‘Shit! I overslept. OK I’m on my way. Tell them I’ll be there in twenty. Sorry.’
Leo sat on the bed.
‘Shit. That was my publicist. I’m late for an interview.’ He stroked my bare back. ‘How are you doing, pretty?’
‘OK.’
‘Was it bad with this guy?’
‘Hmmm. He went back to his ex-girlfriend.’
‘Fuck-tard.’
I smiled. Leo jumped up and put last night’s creased clothes on.
‘Sarah, help yourself to anything. Take a shower. Have a walk along the beach. I might be a while. Do you need money for a cab to get you back to the hotel?’
I shook my head.
‘Leo, thank you. Thank you for being so lovely. And I’m sorry for you know . . .’
‘No, I’m sorry. I rushed things.’
I had a day without any stripping, filming or voice classes. I was free. I wished he’d hurry up and get out of the room so I could break wind though.
By the time I heard the door slam, I didn’t need to fart. It was always the way. I lay for a while and contemplated my crapness. I couldn’t have sex with Leo Clement. If I couldn’t have sex with Leo Clement then there was no chance of me ever having sex again.
I stood up and started to locate my clothes. I found the bathroom. It was old-fashioned. A bath with legs stood in the middle surrounded by surfing magazines. I went to the loo. I was a little bit constipated. It must have been from trying to control the earlier flatulence, so I picked up a surfing magazine and settled in for the long haul. When I was done I pulled the old-fashioned chain. It took a few flushes to work. I looked down at the toilet to check I didn’t need to use the toilet brush. But the, um, the, er, the poo was still there and it was MASSIVE.
I stared down for a moment, appalled and impressed in equal measures. I flushed the chain again. But it didn’t move. I tried to remember what I ate yesterday as I waited for the cistern to fill. Another burger. I pulled the chain again. It was still there. I seemed to have done an unflushable poo. I couldn’t leave it there. Leo would think I had the bowels of an overweight long-distance lorry driver. I picked up another surfing magazine and looked at it while listening for the sound that the cistern was full and ready to flush again. Flush number four. It was still wanking well there. No! No! Flush Number five. Not budged a millimetre. What was I supposed to do?
‘Julia!’
‘Hey, bubba. How are you? How was the sex scene?’
‘Very long story. I’ll tell you later on Skype, this is costing us both a fortune. Listen, sounds weird, but you know when you do a massive poo?’
‘Uh huh.’
‘What if it doesn’t flush?’
‘Urgh.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Keep flushing.’
‘I am,’ I said, peering at the poo and flushing again.
‘Has it gone?’
‘Nope!’
‘OK, I’ll tell you what you have to do.’
‘OK.’
‘Where are you?’
‘Leo Clement’s house.’
‘Oh, bloody hell, I’ve been meaning to tell you. Leo Clement writes a column in this magazine that Carlos reads.’
‘Leo Clement writes a column? No way. What’s the magazine called?’
‘Nads.’
‘Nice.’
‘Yeah, it’s hysterical, it’s just him kissing and telling basically.’
I froze.
‘WHAT?’
‘Oh. My. God. Did you shag him?’
‘No, no!’
‘Did you nosh him off?’
‘Jules! No! But there was nakedness.’
She laughed.
‘It’s not in the slightest bit funny. I couldn’t shag him because I was frigid and now I’ve done an unflushable poo in his loo and he writes about his sex life in a lads’ mag! JULIA, I MEAN IT. STOP LAUGHING!’
‘Sorry, Sare.’
‘Jules! If you don’t stop laughing now I will never forgive you. This is serious. You have to help me get this cocking great turd out of his loo!’
‘OK. OK. Go to the kitchen and see if he’s got any plastic bags.’
‘Oh no! Oh please, no.’
‘If it doesn’t flush that’s what you have to do.’
‘Have you ever done it?’
‘No! My poos flush. What you eating?’
‘I think it’s the burgers, or it could have been the macrobiotic canapés last night.’
I go to the kitchen. I open some drawers. I am relieved to know that even successful models have a drawer in their kitchen full of empty carriers.
‘Got one.’
‘OK, put your hand inside it and get the poo.’
‘OK.’
‘Put the phone down and do it. You don’t want that falling in there. I’ll stay on the line.’
I gave it one last flush to be sure. Oh God. I had to fish it out. I reached in and held my breath. I took it out.
‘Urgh, the bag’s covered in toilet water! Jules!’
‘Put it in the sink to give it a dry off,’ she shouted through the phone. ‘Then wrap it in more plastic bags. I’m going now. But Skype me ASAP.’
‘Cheers, Jules.’
I tossed the bag in the sink. I was OK. Cool. Sorted. I walked back into the kitchen and nearly cleared all the plastic bags out of his drawer. Blimey. Leo had got a herb garden on his kitchen windowsill. I looked around his beach house. It was cosy. I located a pencil and the back of an envelope. I started to write Leo a note.
Dear Leo,
What was I supposed to say? Sorry I was a complete cock. Give me a few months and I’d love to try shagging you again as long as you don’t mention it in Nads. By the way, I did a massive poo in your loo.
I hope the interview went well. I’m just heading back to the hotel. See you soon. Thank you for being so understanding about last night.
Sarah
Kiss or no kiss? I decided on no kiss. I didn’t think my lips could take any more pressure.
I left the note on his kitchen surface. I grabbed the plastic bags. I went to the bathroom and collected the poo. My phone. I’d left it on the kitchen table. Just as well it rang or I would have left it here. Then Simon would have called and Leo would have answered it. Although he might have called him a fuck-tard and that wouldn’t have been so bad. Except Simon wouldn’t have called you, Sarah, you fool. And it wasn’t him on the phone. It was Rachel Bird. I put the poo down on the counter by the note and answered it.
‘Hey, Rach.’
‘Where are you?’
‘Malibu.’
‘Ahhhh. Oh my God. With Leo. Was it wonderful?’
‘Um, no, it was all awful. How are you doing though?’
‘I didn’t tell him.’
‘Ah.’
‘Have you got time for a chat?’
‘Course,’ I said, going into Leo’s room and checking I hadn’t left anything.
‘I’m going to leave Eamonn.’
‘Nooooooooo, no, Rachel, please don’t say that,’ I said, quickly closing Leo’s front door behind me.
Rachel started sobb
ing.
‘It’s for the best.’
‘Rachel, he wants to . . .’
‘Are you still there, Sarah?’
I turned around to look at Leo’s house. The door was closed. I had left the poo on his table.
‘Sarah?’
seventy-one
I decided to wait for Leo to come home so I could collect the carrier bag. However it was the hottest day I had experienced in California and I didn’t have any sun cream on. The only place where I could escape the sun was the large hedge in his gravelly driveway. I estimate that I sat in that hedge for about four hours.
The battery had died on my phone, although I’d managed to persuade Rachel Bird not to leave Eamonn, so it was worth it. But I was worried that Simon had left a message. The whole experience was foolish and frustrating. So I made the sound ‘urgh’ as loudly as I could.
‘Hello,’ said a voice. I peeked out of the hedge. It was a deliveryman. I hoped he wasn’t planning on murdering me in the hedge.
‘Hello.’
‘What are you doing in there?’
‘I’m just waiting for Leo.’
‘In a hedge?’
‘It’s the only place in the shade.’
‘Where you from?’
‘England.’
He looked at me for a long time and then walked back down the path, taking the parcel with him.
‘Bye,’ I shouted, trying to be friendly.
I sat back in my hedge. I tried to get comfy. What was this bloody interview for? NASA? I heard a car pull up. Finally. I started to crawl out of my hedge. I was just in doggie position when I heard the words, ‘Don’t move, ma’am.’
I looked up. There was an American police car in front of me. The policeman who was talking to me didn’t look very friendly though, and he made Tony Soprano look petit.
‘Hello,’ I squeaked. It was a very uncomfortable position for me because my knees were in the gravelly ground. Another one got out of the car. He was younger. He looked a bit like the policeman stripper that I got for Julia on her eighteenth birthday. He looked cross too. I started to move because it was hurting my knees. Stripper cop got out a gun!
‘Don’t move, ma’am!’
The (Im)Perfect Girlfriend Page 24
