My Best Friend's Life

by Shari Low

  Anyway, it was time to push the shenanigans of Farnham Hills out of her head and concentrate on psyching herself up for the shenanigans of Mayfair.

  She tried to remember the tips in the best-selling self-help book that had come in the month before: Stress Overload? Take the Steps to Serenity. Although she wasn’t sure the book was up to much since the author had recently taken the steps to the Priory after a road-rage incident involving a truck, a milk cart and a thirteen-mile police chase.

  She shook out her shoulders, exhaled, closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

  Okay, step one: Picture the situ—

  ‘Excuse me, love, but we’re ’ere.’

  And that’s why self-help books were a load of tosh–if you had the time to read the bloody things then you obviously didn’t need them in the first place.

  She pulled her purse out of her bag.

  ‘What do I owe you?’

  ‘Nothin’ love, it’s on account.’

  She pulled out a fiver and slipped it through the slot in the glass.

  ‘Cheers, darlin’. Same time tomorrow?’

  Well, would it be? Would she be coming back? Or would one day in a place where the activities would make Team Junior Delinquent look like spokespeople for conservative values be enough for her?

  ‘Definitely. Same time tomorrow.’

  Ginny Wallis had come–now she just had to conquer.

  Or should she leave that kind of stuff to the sadomasochism department of her new place of employment?

  Ginny stood and stared at the tree-lined street, with a row of luxury vehicles bordering each pavement. Porsche. Mercedes. Porsche. Bentley. Another Porsche. Mercedes. BMW. There wasn’t even a complementary Corsa thrown in as an ethnic minority. This was where people of serious dosh flashed their cash. And their privates, apparently.

  She switched her gaze to the building in front of her–a Georgian terraced townhouse, sandblasted walls, restored windows, petunias in the planters on either side of the entrance, a glossy green door and, beside it, a very subtle gold plaque, announcing in black italics that this was the home of The Seismic Lounge.

  Class. Sheer class. If you overlooked the whole ‘get your knockers out for the boys’ stuff that took place inside. Inside. Ginny took a deep breath and steeled herself for movement. Who. Dares. Wins. If that motto could motivate the SAS to storm foreign embassies then surely it could get her past the front door of a knocking shop.

  One foot in front of the other. One foot in front of the other.

  Seconds later she was pressing the bell and watching as two cameras swivelled in her direction. ‘Good morning, can I help you?’

  Ginny leaned over to the chrome speaker above the buzzer.

  ‘Er, I’m Ginny. Erm, Ginny Wallis. I’m working here today.’ She somehow managed to stop short of adding, ‘Which is a really, really bad idea and I’ve changed my mind so can you please phone my mum and beg her to come and collect me.’

  The door swept open and Ginny crossed the line. That was it–no going back. She followed the shiny walnut floor along the hallway, barely registering the striking primary-coloured canvases that punctuated the lush ivory walls.

  The end of the corridor opened into a reception area that–wow–was so far from her expectations that she was temporarily stunned. She’d anticipated pink walls, red sofas, porn posters and glass tables dotted with Playboy magazines and penis-shaped cigar holders. Where were the girls in red chiffon baby dolls and Perspex platforms the size of Fiat Puntos? Where were the red glass bowls filled with an international selection of condoms?

  This room wouldn’t be out of place at the HQ of any large corporation. Welcome to Hookersville Inc.

  It was an eclectic mix of old and new. The stunning glass and chrome reception desk juxtaposed against beautiful antique lamps. The original wooden flooring was an exquisite contrast to the thick, cream rugs. And the modern-art pieces were the epitome of clean lines, yet somehow didn’t clash with the three more traditional large bronze life-form statues–although that may have been because the statues demanded full attention on account of the fact that they were all males with their extremely generous appendages dangling in the breeze. Cancel that last statement. Ginny’s eyes widened as she took in the full view of the third statue–which, going by the evidence, was probably called something like Man in State of Arousal.

  So at least now she knew where to hang her umbrella.

  ‘He has that effect on everyone. What I wouldn’t give to get stuck in a lift for two hours with the real thing. I’m Jennifer.’

  Ginny automatically smiled at the stunning girl sitting on the cream leather chair behind the desk. Flawless skin, two sheets of perfect blonde hair hanging from a middle parting, a cream roll neck and cream crepe trousers. She was Roxy in negative.

  ‘Hi, I’m Ginny.’

  The muted ring of a telephone cut into the conversation. Jennifer immediately turned her attention to the state-of-the-art switchboard and gesticulated in the direction of a door on the opposite wall.

  ‘Great–go through that door, turn right, along to the end of the corridor and it’s the room that says Eden Suite on the door.’

  Okay, not quite the reception she’d been hoping for, but then at least she’d been expected so Roxy had obviously phoned and cleared everything as promised. Phew. After last night’s encounter with Jude and the Amazonian, she’d had visions of arriving to puzzled expressions.

  A wave of dizziness overtook her; a sharp reminder that she’d been holding her breath for so long that there was a distinct lack of oxygen reaching the brain. Breathe. Breathe. She could do this. She was Roxy’s lifelong friend, she’d been styled by Goldie Gilmartin and she was borderline premenstrual–a combination that should give her enough balls and determination to get through anything.

  She followed Jennifer’s directions and crossed the reception, then turned right into a sumptuous corridor of pale gold walls and a deep olive carpet so thick that she started to wobble on her heels. She passed several solid wood-panelled doors and a small elevator, and then just as the effort of staying upright was beginning to bring on a tension headache, she reached the door at the very end of the corridor: the Eden Suite.

  Human Resources department, perhaps? Or Sam’s office? Staffroom? Or where they provided the brown paper bags for her to hyperventilate into?

  She tentatively knocked on the door.

  ‘Come in,’ replied a very posh female voice.

  ‘Confidence, Ginny, confidence,’ she whispered to herself as she made the necessary last-minute adjustments–hair flicked back, bag pulled up onto shoulder, sweaty palms wiped on trousers–then clutched the brass doorknob and turned it.

  The door swept open and in the ten seconds it took for Ginny’s brain to process the scene in front of her, there was a quizzical look, a muffled groan, a massive gasp, a rush of blood to the ears and paralysis of the limbs. The last three belonged to Ginny–apt, as she was apparently in the right place to receive medical attention, having stumbled onto the set of Holby City. Or, rather, the porn version–Holby Titty.

  The room itself was remarkable only in its luxury. One wall was partially covered by a huge brass mirror that must have been at least six foot square. Directly opposite was a beautifully upholstered gold headboard framing a super-king bed dressed in crisp white sheets. To the side was a rustic Chesterfield sofa in gleaming brown leather, and next to it stood an antique side table topped with a bottle of Krug and two crystal champagne glasses, half-filled with the bubbling liquid.

  But that’s where any semblance of normality ended, because standing at the foot of the bed, one eyebrow still raised, was a female doctor dressed in a uniform that Ginny was guessing hadn’t been passed by any NHS committee: six-inch steel heels on black platform pumps, a white coat that was wide open, revealing a cupless black leather bra, perfectly pert pink nipples, black suspenders and stockings. And Doctor Decadence may have had her auburn locks secured in a very efficien
t chignon, her black-framed glasses perched on her perfectly formed nose, subtle make-up and an air of authority, but she appeared to have forgotten her knickers.

  Not that her patient was in a position to remonstrate about her omission. Lying prone on the bed, his identity concealed by the white bandages that covered him from head to toe, was a groaning man. Yes, definitely male–the only part of his anatomy that appeared to have escaped mummification was the massive erect penis that was pointing at the ceiling. And it appeared a rigorous medical examination was taking place as the doctor was tickling the red, throbbing end of his organ with her stethoscope.

  Ginny’s jaw dropped so far she was in danger of incurring carpet burns to the chin area.

  ‘Can I help you?’ asked the doctor archly, with an edge of amusement in her voice.

  It was no use–Ginny couldn’t get the words out.

  ‘Is that the consultant here to give a second opinion, Doctor?’ The voice came from behind the bandages and, astonishingly, despite the fact that it was muffled and obviously constrained by the lack of jaw movement, it still had a leering intonation.

  A barrage of critical questions raced through her mind. Was this some kind of test? Did they put all the new recruits through this? Was she supposed to join in? And did that stethoscope get disinfected between patients?

  The doctor (okay, so she obviously wasn’t a real doctor, but job descriptions seemed to have been temporarily scrubbed from Ginny’s mind by the dual forces of mortification and shock) was still eyeing her quizzically, all the while continuing to run the stethoscope over the patient’s cock. Ginny did admire women who could multi-task.

  Suddenly, Ginny sensed a movement behind her and flinched as she was gently nudged to the side by a new arrival squeezing past her in the doorway. She was scared to look. What next? Naked paramedics? Nympho nurses?

  Ginny caught the back view of the new arrival: white coat, high-heeled pink mules, long, glossy red hair that tumbled down almost to her waist. Doctor number one smiled in her colleague’s direction. ‘Ah, here’s Doctor Dee now,’ she announced.

  Doctor Dee strutted around to the other side of the bed, allowing Ginny a front view. Stethoscope around neck, white coat fastened, cleavage like two wrestling beach balls spilling over the top two straining buttons. She reached over and took the tip of the patient’s exposed anatomy between her thumb and forefinger. ‘Mmmm, what do we have here, then?’ There was a pause as she surveyed the evidence and racked her obviously considerable medical knowledge for the appropriate diagnosis.

  ‘Well now, Doctor,’ she addressed her partner in vice, ‘I think I’m going to have to take a much, much closer look…’

  As she bent forward, the patient’s ecstatic groan snapped Ginny out of her fright-induced rigor mortis. There were many things in life that she didn’t want to see, and this was one of them. She took a swift step backwards and swiftly pulled the door closed, then staggered backwards until her buttocks hit the opposite wall and she slid down it into a kneeling position. Oh. Dear. God. Oh. Dear. God. In the last few moments she’d been given a snapshot into the adult porn world, a whole new perspective on the emergency services, and had doubled the number of male penises she’d actually seen in the pink flesh.

  Why would people even do that kind of stuff? Her idea of the ultimate decadent sexual fantasy was imagining Brad Pitt in his boxers bringing her a high-carbohydrate breakfast in bed.

  She had to get out of here. She couldn’t do this. She was cut out for a simpler, more innocent environment, where the inhabitants were non-aroused, non-naked and preferably not about to ejaculate in full public view.

  She half-walked, half-stumbled back down the corridor and into reception, where she summoned every ounce of self-discipline to force her mouth to form proper sentences.

  ‘I’m…I’m so…sorry, I think…I think there’s been a terrible mistake,’ she stuttered.

  Jennifer looked suitably apologetic. ‘I figured…I’m terribly sorry. Roxy just called and explained who you were. I thought you were…’

  ‘I know!’ Ginny interrupted, determined to cut her off before Jennifer could reveal why or how she could possibly have been mistaken for a hooker who specialised in private healthcare porn.

  She shuddered as the mental image of what she’d just seen flashed back into her head and realised that there was a certain irony in the fact that she’d probably now require the NHS to fund a lifetime of counselling for post-traumatic stress.

  Jennifer was still in mid-flow. ‘Anyway, it’s good to finally meet Roxy’s best friend. Oops, hang on one second.’

  She spoke into a Kylie Minogue headset thingy with a microphone attachment that followed her jawline. ‘Yes, Mr Cavendish, your car is waiting at the back door and your payment has cleared. Have a good week, sir.’

  Ginny wondered what boarding school Jennifer had gone to. The posture, the confidence, the accent…it was straight out of some £20K-per-year college with ‘Lady’ in the title. Or at least it was until she removed the headset and became Jenny from the Block. A block that was obviously located somewhere near Toxteth.

  ‘Okay, so do you want the good news or the bad?’

  Ginny’s stomach flipped over. On the scale of bad days, so far this was up there with her first period and the time she’d stuffed her bra only for the balls of toilet paper to fall out in front of the whole school as she attempted the hundred-metre hurdles on sports day. And that had been bloody Roxy’s idea too.

  ‘Give me the bad.’

  ‘Roxy hasn’t actually told Sam that she’s sent you to replace her. She’s asked me to pass on the news. God, she’s a fucking nightmare, I don’t know how you put up with her. Rough break, though–how’s that asshole Felix anyway?’ Jennifer asked.

  ‘No idea. Roxy hasn’t spoken to him since she caught him…well…you know.’

  ‘Urgh, he needs a padlock on his dick. And I don’t think for a minute that was the first time he had wandered either. Sorry, hold on, arrival at the back door.’

  Jennifer switched her headset and Princess Anne’s voice back on.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Reid, lovely to see you again. Natalya is waiting for you in your usual suite. Certainly, I’ll have that sent right up.’

  Ginny knew this was her moment. With Jenny distracted she could bolt for the door, dive into a taxi and be home before Neighbours. It was Monday–otherwise known as Spaghetti Bolognaise Day, with low-fat tiramisu for pudding. Her mother was very proud of her new talents since she and Vera had gone on a cookery course and learned to conjure up ‘traditional foreign dishes’.

  Without turning, she gingerly backed away towards the doorway, when…hang on, wasn’t that the whole point of this? Didn’t she want to get away from predictability, habit and a lifetime of non-eventfulness? Tuesday–ham and chips. Wednesday–shepherd’s pie. Thursday–chicken and potato croquettes. It would be the same menu, the same routine, the same mind-numbing repetitiveness interspersed with only very occasional flashes of variety–like last month when her mother and Vera had taken up a new hobby and insisted on belly-dancing in the front room.

  Two middle-aged women, wearing sequinned bras and belly-dancing during the Coronation Street adverts.

  One middle-aged man with a mummification fetish.

  Rock. Hard place.

  Her feet stopped moving. How could she explain to Roxy that she’d bottled out on the very first day? The very first hour? Urgh, she was unbearable enough, but she’d never let her live this down. It would be, ‘Poor little Ginny–couldn’t cope with life in the big, bad world’ from now until they were filling out the application forms for Perky Pensioners.

  Jennifer pressed another button on her phone. ‘Hi Harry, Mr Reid in the Thatcher Suite would like strawberries, two bottles of Cristal and–brace yourself–custard. Oh, and better put housekeeping on standby–that stuff gets into places that you just would not believe.’

  Headset off, Scouse back on.

  ‘Twelve s
uites, all named after prime ministers,’ she explained. ‘Churchill is popular with the over-sixties, the sadists love Thatcher, and the Blair Suite is a big hit with the fantasists. We live in a sick world. Okay, you’ve got a choice. Sam’s not here, he’ll be back in half an hour, so you can either wait and talk to him first or I can spend the next thirty minutes training you up in the hope that he won’t have a seizure when he realises that Roxy has pulled a fast one.’

  Ginny felt her teeth start to grind. She couldn’t do this, could she? Could she? This would officially be the most stupid, reckless thing she had done since…Actually, since she’d flashed her baps at Jude in the bath that morning.

  She bit her bottom lip, still not convinced, and murmured, ‘Or I could turn around, run out that door and forget this insane idea altogether.’

  For the first time, Jennifer smiled. ‘You could…but I’d hunt you down and drag you back. I’ve got a date with a rampant French chef in an hour and I refuse to miss it just because Roxy is having a diva fit.’

  She held up another headset.

  ‘Now, strap this on and let’s get going. Shit, that reminds me…’

  She pushed the intercom button again.

  ‘Harry, can you send someone to the Clement Atlee with a leather dildo and a gimp mask? They asked about fifteen minutes ago and I totally forgot.’

  Turns out, Ginny could do it after all. Twenty-nine minutes later, she pretty much had it sussed. In theory. Answer the intercom from the back door, direct the client to the suite if ready; if not, direct him to one of three comfortable waiting rooms. Since it was a rule of the house that clients must never meet each other, it was imperative that no more than three stooges were ever waiting at the same time. If this did indeed happen (an event that had only occurred once before–in that instance inefficient condom disposal had resulted in a plumbing débâcle/flooding situation that put five suites out of action simultaneously) then it was the receptionist’s responsibility to contact the limo drivers heading in with clients and ask them to circle. The Seismic Lounge–the Heathrow Airport of prostitution.