I’m in love with George Clooney! I am. I’m shaking as I write this, can you tell, I hope my handwriting isn’t too wobbly, but I’m so relieved too. Just to let it out. I love you, George. Let me tell you why I love him. I love his body, no not like that. I love his eyes. I love his teeth. I love his neck. I love his nose. I love his face, it’s a kind face, and I know George has had to do some bad things, I know that’s why I’m here, but you can tell from his face he doesn’t really want to, and there are some people out there who don’t do bad things but their faces aren’t kind and you can tell they’d like to do bad things but can’t get round to it and I think that’s worse somehow. It’s a nice face and I love the way it smiles. I love his arms. I love his chest. I love his stomach. I love his hands. I love the way he’s got bits of hair growing on his hands. I love his legs, I haven’t seen much of his legs yet, but it’s February and it’s cold and I can’t wait for summer when it gets hot and he’ll get into his shorts. I love his hair, I want to run my fingers through it, I bet it tastes like butterscotch. I don’t just love his body. I love his voice. I love his smell, it’s a nice smell, I can’t work out what it is yet I’ll come back. I love the way he cuts up all my food for me in the kitchen. I love the way when he locks me in my room he smiles first and says good night and then he turns the key quite slowly so that it feels like he doesn’t want to say goodbye yet. I love the way last night we watched Friends again and it was a better episode this time, Chandler and Joey were funny and it didn’t have the monkey in it. And George didn’t laugh at it, and nor did I, we let the TV do the laughing work for us. And after Friends George turned over and we watched the weather and then a documentary about plastic surgery, I don’t know how people can go through that. And there was a late film and George said did I feel like staying up for it? And I said yes because it was nice just sitting there with him and being close to him and smelling him and I bet his hair tastes like butterscotch. And during the film George leaned over and he kissed me and he said sorry sorry was he being too forward and I said no he wasn’t and he gave me that smile I love and took my hand in his hand with all the hairs on it. And he took me to his bedroom. And I thought it’d be like mine with all the old stripy wallpaper but it wasn’t, there were silks and rugs and mirrors on the ceiling and a big four poster bed. And he put me on the bed and it was the softest bed I’d ever felt and the sheets were like velvet they were like butterscotch. And we made love right there and then he was gentle but not too gentle and he was rough but not too much, he was in me and through me and George was all around me and all about me and there was nothing but George. And then he kissed me on the lips gentle and rough and that was the nicest thing of all and told me I was the best he’d ever had and that was a nice thing to hear because he is George Clooney after all. And then he took me back to my bedroom and said good night and did that slow key thing and I wrote all this. I love you, George. I’d marry you if I weren’t married already.
I remember what he smells like. It’s sweat. But a nice sweat, I love it.
George is a bit cross with me and making me write this. He wants me to say that what I wrote last night wasn’t true. Well, some of it’s true, watching Friends was true and it didn’t have the monkey in it is true and the plastic surgery documentary is true. But nothing about the sex. George wants me to point that out. He said he’d be in enough trouble as it is for what he’d done without lies, and I said the sex was very loving and he said he didn’t think the police would see it that way. So sorry I made that part up. And he wants me to say I made up the bit about being in love with him too. So sorry I made that up. (But I didn’t, it’s true, I love George Clooney.) And he said what was this about August, it’d all be over long before then, it should be over by now, why wasn’t there anything on the news about it? And that he thought I should take out my pad and my pencil and write a letter to Paul or to Daddy and say what George wanted. He’d written one but they’d just ignored it, from me they’d know it was real and he meant business. And I said no. He looked surprised. So was I. I couldn’t imagine saying no to George Clooney. But this pad and this pencil are for writing to George, these are love letters to him only. I’m not going to write to my husband with them, that would be cheap and nasty. And George got cross again and said that if I didn’t write the letter he’d punish me, I wouldn’t be allowed to watch TV anymore and I said good, that plastic surgery thing was horrible it had given me nightmares, doing things to their breasts and to their lips, I don’t know how people can go through that. And he promised if I wrote the letter he’d buy me some butterscotch, he thought I might like that, and I said I’d write it if I got the butterscotch first and he thought about it and then said yes. So I’m locked in my room again and he’s at the supermarket and I’m having a nice dessert tonight and I’m meant to be writing the letter now but I’m writing this instead and I’m telling you now I won’t write the letter even so. I don’t love Paul anymore, I love George. When George took me I wanted Paul at first, and Jessie, and Daddy, but if they wanted me they’d have come and got me by now, they wouldn’t have let this happen. They don’t deserve me the way George does. And I’ll try and eat all the butterscotch before George reads this or he’ll know I was breaking my promise and take the butterscotch away, sorry George sorry. But what we have, George, is good and pure, and I can’t let you spoil that, George, I’ll doing this for you, George, it’s for you, George. When I think of what I wrote about you at first on that toilet paper it makes me ashamed. Hurtful things. I’ll never do anything to hurt you again.
I’ve been a very naughty girl, and I’m sorry, properly sorry this time not like last time. And George was quite right to be angry and do what he did, and to be fair he only hit me the once and that was to get me to shut up. It’s not entirely my fault, though, I’m not trying to get out of it, but I’d never have thought of the pencil if he hadn’t put the idea in my head in the first place. But then George points out that I must have been writing with the side of the pencil, trying to sharpen it to a point, I must have been planning it quite on purpose, so I don’t know what to think. After I stuck the pencil in his throat I didn’t wait around, he was making a strange squealing noise I didn’t like at all, and there was blood everywhere. Besides I was trying to escape. I rushed for the front door and I think that’s where I made my big mistake, because it’s in a room I hadn’t seen before, I’d arrived with that blindfold on, and I wasted too much time looking around and taking it in. Then I remembered that George was behind me, I could hear the squealing closer, and I got the chain off the door and got to turn the key but didn’t get to do the bolts before he reached me. And I suppose if I hadn’t been distracted by that new wallpaper and stopped to count the stripes I might have got outside. As I say he only hit me the once and he didn’t break the skin, and I think that was fair because I’d certainly broken his there was blood everywhere I don’t like blood. And we didn’t watch Friends for days, and he didn’t let me have my pad and my pencil either, not for days. But the pencil hadn’t been that sharp, I hadn’t killed him or anything, and George is such a kind man he forgave me in the end. He gave me back my pad, as you can see, and he gave me back my pencil, but he makes sure that I only write when he’s there to watch, but I like that better, it’s nice to have his company. And we were watching the news tonight and something lovely happened, it said that Paul was dead. Paul was dead, and so was Jessie, and so was Daddy, and it was okay, it was all quite painless, they wouldn’t have felt a thing. This meant I was a free woman I said, and George turned to me and smiled and said that was all he was waiting for, and he took out a ring. Diamonds I think yes, and he got on his knees and proposed and of course I said yes. We went to his room and made love again, and it was even better this time now we were engaged, it was official and everything. And I told him I was sorry I had tried to run away. And he said it was okay, and he kissed me, and told me that if I ever tried anything like that again with the pencil he’d be forced to kill me. And then
he held me in his arms, all night long in his arms around me, never leaving me, except for the bit in the middle I got up to write this.
George has started smoking. He’d stopped years ago he said, but he’s been feeling tense. He looks tense too. And at night I can hear him walking and making the floorboards creak, I don’t think he’s sleeping much. I wasn’t sure at first how I felt about the smoking. Daddy used to smoke, but stopped when they made it bad for you, and Paul doesn’t smoke, and Jessie doesn’t smoke, and I don’t think Paul and I would have let her anyway. But I don’t know, I think I like it with George. It makes him look rugged. He’s asking me why no one’s reported my disappearance, don’t my family want me back? And I said that Paul probably knew I wasn’t in love with him anymore and was doing the decent thing. That didn’t make him any less tense, not one bit. I asked him if I could cook dinner for him to help him unwind, and he looked at me a bit strangely then sort of shrugged and said why not. It was lovely to see the kitchen, all the saucepans and spoons and knives and sieves, all silver and gleaming, it quite took my breath away. He wouldn’t let me do any of the sharp stuff, but it was nice us doing the meal together and I made him my specialty. We ate our beans and chips in the sitting room and I think George enjoyed it as much as I did. Afterwards he lit a cigarette and I asked if I could have one, a little shyly actually. And he said he’d nearly finished the packet he needed them, but he’d get some more tomorrow, a lot more, I could have one of those. And I told him they made him look rugged. And that I loved him so much, I loved his hands and his teeth and his neck, I loved his arms, all I didn’t love was his moustache, George Clooney didn’t have a moustache, the real George Clooney, it spoiled the effect, it spoiled everything. He didn’t say anything for a while, just sat there and smoked. I asked him if he was all right. And he said he was just working out what to do now. What should he do now? And I told him not to worry, I’d take care of the washing up for once. And I did.
I’m worried about George. He’s behaving very oddly. He hardly said a word when he let me out for breakfast, and he didn’t touch his Rice Krispies. He smoked the last of his cigarettes, then said he was going out to buy some more, and locked me in my room. When he let me out for lunch I told him he’d promised me I could have a cigarette today, and he didn’t say anything for a while, then handed me the packet. He lit it for me. I’d never smoked before and it was pretty horrid but I worked out it wasn’t quite so bad if you don’t put it in your mouth. I asked him if I looked rugged and he said he didn’t know, so I asked if he could take me to the bathroom so I could look in the mirror, and we went and looked and I don’t think I looked especially rugged, not like George does. But then I’m not sure I want to look rugged, so long as one of us is rugged that’s all right with me, I asked George if he could do the rugged stuff on his own and he said sure. I told him that when we had a baby we’d see how it went, if it were a Jessie we wouldn’t let it smoke, but we would if it were a Jimmy, he could be rugged like his father, we’d start him young, we’d start him right away. I asked him when he thought we could get to work on that, the whole baby idea. He didn’t say anything for a while again and then said he needed to go out. I asked him why and he said he needed some cigarettes. I pointed out he’d only just bought some and then asked if he was getting extra in for Jimmy and he said yes that was it. He took off in the car so quickly it didn’t dawn on me for a while he’d forgotten to lock me in my room. That was very exciting. I could go to the bathroom when I liked, I could turn on the TV and watch whatever I wanted, there was nothing good on though. I even opened the door to his bedroom, I hadn’t been inside and my heart was pounding, I was so excited, and it was everything I hoped it would be, it had the silks and the mirrors and the four poster bed, I couldn’t wait for George to come home with his cigarettes so we could start making babies there. And eventually it occurred to me I could open the front door if I wanted to, and that the bolts weren’t drawn and the chain wasn’t on, I could get outside if I wanted to. Get some fresh air maybe. But I didn’t want to. Not really. It wouldn’t smell of George out there. I wanted George. I want George. I hope he’s back soon. He’s been gone hours, I hope he hasn’t got lost. If he’s not home soon he’ll miss Friends and his beans and chips are getting cold.
George woke me up with a shout. He didn’t scream of course, George Clooney wouldn’t scream, but it was a definite shout. I went to see if he was all right. He seemed very upset. He told me that he’d been in Belgium. I said that was nice, what had Belgium been like and he said he didn’t give a shit about Belgium, Belgium was just as far as his car had taken him before he needed to sleep for the night. It was impossible, how could he be back here? I said that maybe he’d only been pretending to be in Belgium, I did that sometimes, when I got bored I made up stories and sometimes they seemed almost real. Though, as far as I could recall, never stories about Belgium. And why was I still here, he asked, didn’t I realize it was over, he’d set me free? and he shouted a bit. He went to the front door and opened it and told me that I could go, what was I waiting for? It was over. And I hadn’t wanted to go outside yesterday when George was gone, I certainly didn’t see the point now he was here. And I told him that wasn’t how love worked, you couldn’t just open someone’s heart and close it again when you’d had enough, I would always be waiting for him, I was his life now, there was no escape. He told me to leave and I said I wouldn’t. He called me a stupid bitch and I forgave him, I forgive you George I know you’re very tense right now, but I’m not sure you should be encouraged, I may have to punish you for that. He went to the kitchen, came back with a knife, kept on jabbing at me with it. He said he didn’t want to hurt me, he’d never wanted to hurt me, had he? He hadn’t hurt me, not much? I agreed, and said that it was his very tenderness that had captured my love, his very distinctive rugged tenderness. I’ll kill you, George said I’ll kill you if I have to, and I told him that Paul had killed me once, or maybe he’d just tried to kill me, it was so long ago this was before we had Jessie and became a proper family and Paul realized he loved me after all and George would feel the same when we had a proper family George just you wait and see, and then George killed me.
George Clooney screamed. I thought that was disappointing. I do hope he doesn’t disappoint me again. I poured him his breakfast cereal but he wasn’t hungry. He told me that this time he’d nearly made it to America, after he’d killed me he’d locked my body in the bedroom then gone straight to the airport then caught the next flight out, he’d only shut his eyes for a little nap and here he was again. He was very upset by this and I felt very sorry for him. He asked to be freed. Please let me go, he said. I’d let Paul go, hadn’t I? But Paul was a special case, I said, how many times do you get gazumped in your affections by George Clooney? I couldn’t just stop loving George, I told him, it wasn’t like a tap, it was real this love it wouldn’t be denied. But if he did everything I told him to, I’d do my very best, I promised, I’d harden my heart to him, I’d try to get bored of him and let my passion for him die. What did he have to do, he asked. Convince me that you love me, I said. That you live for me, that you live only for me, you won’t try to run again, will you George, that isn’t love, but I’ll lock you in your room anyway from now on, I know how hard it can be sometimes to do the right thing and listen to what your heart wants. Love me blindly love me desperately love me entirely love me without end or hope of end. And maybe I’ll get bored of your love, what’s more boring than that? And finish your breakfast. I’d made him his breakfast, the least he could do was to finish it. He ate his Krispies, and then I poured him a second bowl, and then a third, and then more, I could have made him eat those Krispies all day but then I got bored, you see George, I can get bored, there’s hope for you yet. Then I kissed him, hard on the lips. I told him he was allowed to respond. I loved him, I said. I loved his hands and I loved his eyes and I loved his teeth but the only thing I didn’t love was his moustache. In fact I disliked it. In fact I hated i
t. In fact the very sight of it made me want to hurt him. George Clooney didn’t have a moustache, my George would be better off without one, my George would be safer. And he said he’d shave it off right away, and I said no, I couldn’t trust him with sharp objects, not anymore. I’d have to shave it off for him. I fetched a knife from the kitchen. He asked for shaving cream and I said there was no need for that and he began to cry and I told him that he had to keep still he mustn’t flinch, if he kept still and didn’t flinch I wouldn’t cut him, but he was crying so much he flinched so I did cut him, I took off his upper lip. I don’t like blood, I’m scared of blood, but sacrifices have to be made. He looked a bit funny now without a lip but at least he was also without a moustache, it’s not such a bad trade off. And now I told him I wanted us to make love, I wanted to have butterscotch love. I wanted him inside me, not one scrap of him could get away, and to make the point I took the gobbet of flesh that had been his lip and popped it in my mouth and swallowed it down. And he threw up, and I’m sure I don’t know why, I was the one who had eaten the disgusting thing. We had sex, and it wasn’t as good as I remembered it, and I made allowances I knew he was scared and confused, and bleeding quite badly actually—but it was all right, I closed my eyes and I pictured the four poster bed and the mirrors and even a fountain, why not, a little fountain in the corner, and I smelled him and he smelled of sweat but it was nice, it was a good sweat really, I love it.
Remember Why You Fear Me Page 4
