Anica was a long-necked Slovakian systems analyst for a pharmaceutical company based in the Hague. In the time I knew her she visibly brightened only twice. Once when she swallowed an entire glass of whiskey in one gulp, and once when she talked about her combat-training as a child; “I am proficient with a Kalashnikof”

I had hopes for some heavy petting and a handful of arse in preparation for a full-on-fuck which I wanted to suggest would be the following Saturday. When she turned up that first night there was a very tall good-looking guy close behind her so I assumed they were a couple and I was already eyeing her up when she broke away from him and stood there in front of me. I didn’t stand up in case I only came up to her shoulder. She was tall, but surmountable. I told myself that her expression indicated satisfaction with what she saw too. This was always a tricky moment. Great care had to be taken not to let your true feelings of nervousness or disappointment creep into your face. We had no knowledge of each other’s facial eccentricities. Two complete strangers willingly engaged in an artificially arranged attempt at falling in love. If we allowed dissatisfaction into our faces we immediately made ourselves uglier thereby setting off a reaction in the other person’s face that limited the chances of either of us looking our best which in turn only increased the possibility of repulsion. Hence our crazy smiles.

Her linen trousers were virtually transparent and her tits were pert and she seemed to be at right angles to herself. All in all, very Slavic. She drank two glasses of wine at dinner and a Jameson’s at the bar afterwards. She asked me what whiskey I would recommend as an alcoholic so I ordered the Jameson’s for her. More than once she started to reach for it and stopped herself. It was the sort of jesture that uninterrupted would have resulted in her gulping the entire glass down thereby requiring another to be ordered. I recognised this muffled yearning only too well. The injustice of having a whiskey in front of you, when it should be inside you. Anything Dutch bored her. We had that much in common. By then I was looking at her the same way she was looking at her glass. She hated Holland but couldn’t leave. She said her friends considered her a pain in the ass after she’d had a few drinks.

“In that case she can count me among your friends” I said.

She smiled and tilted her head as if I had just paid her a compliment.

“You should take your hand away from you mouth when you talk, it makes you look dishonest.” she said

I could see how she could be a real bitch. But I wouldn’t let her. She certainly liked her booze. Three glasses of wine that first night.

“Do you have many friends that drink?”

I put my hand in front of my mouth.

“Yes” I said

She laughed reluctantly.

The next night we met she wasn’t drinking because she was afraid of making me uncomfortable which had the effect of making her uncomfortable instead. In fact she became frighteningly depressing. Had she necked a couple of whiskeys I would have been the one exhaling in relief. The result was that she didn’t look so good to me and in her cowboy boots she appeared even taller. We cowered in some god-awful seaside restaurant that looked like it might have been on the shores of the Styx as angry white-knuckled waves tried repeatedly to grip the mainland and drag it under.

I tried manfully to keep things light

“So how was your day?”

“I’m not in a cheerful mood”

“Oh I’m sorry to hear that. Bad day at work?”

“I just heard that my friend has cancer.”

I was sorry to hear that too because now I was going to have to listen to this shit all night. Cancer; the alcoholic’s friend. Nobody could laugh when cancer was in the room. It must have been killing her. She was looking for an excuse to drink and she even had a good one but I was sitting there in front of her the sober alcoholic.

At the end of the evening I tried to kiss her more from duty than desire but she almost snapped her neck pulling away. It would have been more depressing if I hadn’t even tried. Was there such a thing as a nice pretty girl who wasn’t divorced, married or crazy? Was that possible? Anica, on closer inspection was a communist-built structure teetering on the brink of collapse. I still wanted to at least see her naked.;

“Wow”

“Wow? What does this mean? Wow?”

“The passion.” I said

“I’m deciding if I should go or stay.“

“And you’re short.” she added. It was with a smile but she said it.

“It doesn’t matter when you’re lying down”

”You’re not lying down all the time”

I wanted to tell her to go fuck herself but I’d come all the way to the Hague and I felt I was owed something. Something I could still get if I was patient.

“You could be a sweet guy but you hide behind the jokes.”she said at last.

Then she told me she was still married but I hardly even heard her. When Valeriya told me the same thing I nearly broke in half. She lived with her husband of seven years in

a very respectable neighbourhood in Haarlem. I was suddenly thinking about Valeriya I couldn’t unerstand how she’d become so deeply embedded in my being. Like an arrow that hurt less if it was allowed to remain in place. Anica was almost waving now as she tried to get my attention. She invited me back to a depressingly large mostly white apartment. Didn’t she say she had a husband somewhere? Was this where she took her online dates? Would the husband walk in any second? The moment we got inside she turned around and kissed me. I had no idea she would be so feminine and gentle under all that Slavic frost. We shed our clothes like they’d just turned poisonous. With her hair down around those slender shoulders she was a different person. Sweet even. She whispered to me as I fucked her.

“I love it, yessss oh baby, ohhhhh nice, yes, nail me.”

Nail me?

The she got on top and let her hair fall over me like darkness and I laughed out loud when she orgasmed because the sounds she made were so feminine and innocent and so gratifying to the ears of someone as jaded as me, I assumed she was faking. But then I saw the tell-tale red patches on her neck and chest as if her body was blushing. And as her taut stomach shivered against mine with my cock still hard inside there I began to feel something other than just lust for her. It was gratitude. The sort of gratitude you feel when someone who has done you a great kindness. There was a selflessness about her in that moment that was endearing. I had never made a girl come like that before. And the fact that I hadn’t come yet merely confirmed my status as stud. I’d give her a rest before going again. And so lying there beneath her limp perspiring body with her knees either side of me and her hair spilled across my face, I began to talk about Valeriya. How she had lied to me. How I was better off without her. How she saw herself as a slut. I couldn’t stop. I even mentioned the lure of the pussuq. Anica made soothing sounds of encouragement. She was hearing my confession, making me truly hers. Minutes passed before I realised she was snoring. She had fucked me and fallen asleep.

 

REBECCA

Rebecca’s profile picture showed her straining against the confines of a skin-tight mini-dress in mid-Tango. The faceless silhouetted male with whom she danced was obviously for presentation purposes only. Look at my scorching hot body. This was how she wanted to be seen on a dating site. In her other picture, a close-up, she looked like the aging mother of the girl on the dance-floor.

Following her father’s nervous breakdown Rebecca was sent to live with her uncle (his brother) and aunt in Germany. He would be her first sexual experience when he made her come with his fingers. She was fifteen.

“So he abused you?’

“Yes I suppose so, but he didn’t go all the way”

I was reminded of how I had defended Father Eddy, because in defending him I could convince myself I had actually wanted my balls fondled by a priest. It was sad to think of all that sexuality locked up inside the conservative life of an English teacher in Amsterdam. She looked like she was holding her breath permanently. But after one kiss Agatha Christie became Julie Christie and yes she had the accent to match. You need six hundred years of British oppression stored away in your DNA to appreciate the satisfaction of thrusting your undeserving Irish cock into a mouth that has just finished saying; “Darling, I’ve been frightfully busy today.”

Fucking her took on political status.

“This is for The Famine…this is for Bloody Sunday….now turn over…this is for Maggie Thatcher…and this? This is for Princess Dian-aaaaaaggggh.”

.On rain-soaked Mondays, which in the Netherlands, were indistinguishable from every other day, she cheered herself up by appearing in front of her class wearing a light grey one-piece boiler suit that showed off her lithe body to full effect. When she turned to write on the chalkboard the class fell silent. For most teachers it was the other way round. It was an honor, she said, to be part of their sexual awakening. She intentionally made spelling mistakes knowing full well that she would first need to bend and reach for the eraser before shaking herself vigorously as she scrubbed it away. She delighted in the idea of these boys pummelling themselves at home under the blankets with the image of her superb ass coaxing them out of puberty.

And she loved to suck me off. It was the first thing she’d do. I began to suspect that her uncle had taught her well. The moment before she reached orgasm she would look at me like she’d just been grossly insulted. As if in the middle of fucking her I’d said;“Rebecca, you are a sad-faced English bitch who I’m only fucking as a favor.” She looked for that moment like she was being overtaken not by ecstasy but a shuddering exhalation of abhorrence. As if all the platitudes and denials burned away and there beyond the mist for just for a moment before being engulfed again was the truth.

A Mick was fucking her

 

OLGA

“You live a charmed life”

Seeing myself through the jealous eyes of my house-guest felt unexpectedly good. Josh was only half way through his first day and he’d already visited the red light district and two of its prostitutes before we even got back to my place.

Josh was a sexual tourist and I was his base.

I’d gotten to know him just enough in St LaCroix to invite him to visit me in New York but he never took me up on it because I suppose New York didn’t offer the same sexual possibilities as Amsterdam. And more recently he had fallen in love with a Russian girl and so a few days layover in Amsterdam seemed to him to be a good idea before continuing on to Moscow. It transpired after only a little questioning that the girl in Moscow whom he talked about marrying was in fact a self-confessed… I didn’t dare say the word in front of him because he was convinced she was in love with him too.

.Josh was what I imagined every hooker dreamt of. A constant source of employment. He talked a lot about asking her to come and live with him in St LaCroix. In the meantime had selected a rather buxom girl who wouldn’t have been my first choice but it was his money not mine. While I waited outside for him I noticed a girl in a window to the right who, when she thought no-one was looking took swigs from a tall glistening black bottle and surreptitiously stroked the white tail of a cat hidden behind her little bed. The tail straightened between her slender fingers like some headless python or yes I suppose, a penis. I had already spent more time than was healthy waiting on the little brown bricked bridge as Josh fucked the girl-next-door. Defiling such a wholesome phrase would have appealed to him. I began to see how this worked. These scarlet windows were no different from the covers of fashion magazines in the more respectable bookstores across town from which similar girls simpered. One informed the other.

And it wasn’t just men who got off on it. Women sauntered past smiling knowingly as if they recognised something familiar about it all. Maybe they were reassured by the fact that if you were alluring enough or just there enough (some of the prostitutes were unmentionably ugly) you too would eventually attract your man. Here, sexual attraction was reduced to its barest necessities. There was no literature here, no Elizabethan poems just naked sexual honesty. The yearning of bodily organs for each other. It was so practical. So very Dutch. You want sex. We have it.

Josh finally emerged without even a trace of a smile. He preferred them not to make any oooh and ahhh sounds.

“I appreciate it if they just stay quiet. I always tell them this in advance. If they charge one-fifty I’ll put three hundred down so I have some room for maneuver.”

I was impressed by this no-nonsense approach but it was a paradoxical to me. I would need to believe they wanted me. Wasn’t this what was on sale? The illusion that a young beautiful woman was aroused by me? But maybe he was right. By letting them know he wasn’t interested in their performance he retained control of the situation. And control was the real commodity here. The need to decide if they meant it was removed. He already knew they didn’t mean it so why should he have to suffer their bad acting? He said he couldn’t come with the buxom hooker because she spoke to him and in doing so she broke the sexual equivalent of the fourth wall.

“Have you been smokink maruijana?” he mimicked her “you only get ze one position.” and when he couldn’t come; “Maybe you should cut it off, ja?”’

He picked up his bag with the airport tags still attached and we were about to head back to my place when he noticed the girl with the Liebfraumilch beckoning and even though she gyrated amateurish and giggled unconvincingly I felt a stirring. Josh didn’t know that she was beckoning at me. He didn’t know and he didn’t care. I tried to find some way to claim her as my own. I’d seen her first. Surely he wasn’t about to just go and fuck her so soon after the last one? She was a prostitute and as such she was doing what a prostitutes do. She was standing there nearly naked in a window offering sex for money with full governmental approval.

And yes of course I wanted her but I couldn’t bring myself to visit a prostitute because it meant I’d have to confront the idea that all sexual attraction was based on a transaction. That men wanted sex and women wanted security. My ego just couldn’t handle the notion that any male would do. She had winked at me while I waited for Josh and now she was going to fuck him? Josh dropped his bag again and looked at me. He could see something was going on.

“I won’t be long.” he said

The uninvited heat of jealousy invaded my thoughts and my initial almost naïve sexual fervour for the girl in the window dissolved into disgust first for her and then hatred for the entire female gender who it seemed waved their pussies in front of us, to get a washing machine, a raise, a new dress or a free dinner. When he came out I searched his face for some sign of pleasure or relief or shame or mischievousness.

“I fucked her in the ass” he said

It disgusted me to think that by being there I had inadvertently added to his pleasure. I was as jealous and enraged as if he had fucked my girlfriend. I felt wronged but what could I say? There was no conceivable way to justify what I was feeling. I was jealous that Josh had fucked a prostitute. I called my sponsor and he suggested I tell Josh to get a hotel room and this exactly what I did. Josh wasn’t even surprised when I told him I disagreed with what he was doing and that I felt it was not sober behaviour. It was as if he wanted me to throw him out so that he could think even less of himself than he already did.

 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Open on a shot of me in Albert Hein Supermarket. I take out my credit card and swipe it in the self-service consul. A green light flickers and we hear an automated voice; “Alstublieft.“ (In subtitles we see that this means “Thank you”) Lowering the groceries into a cart I wheel them away. Cut to another scenario.This time I’m buying some new clothes and swiping my credit card as the same greeting appears in friendly flashing typeface. “Alstublieft” I exit the store with my shopping bags. Cut to an interior of my apartment. I’m wearing the clothes I bought earlier and with the groceries I’ve prepared a beautiful dinner for two. The doorbell sounds and after one last look at the table to make sure everything is in place I open the door to reveal a stunningly beautiful girl standing in the doorway. But before she enters the apartment she holds out her hand for my credit card. Taking it from me she reaches up under her skirt and she appears to insert the card between her legs. She smiles politely as if waiting for the results to come through before her eyes widen and a huge seductive smile spreads across her face. She hands the card back to me. “Alstublieft.“ she says seductively and steps into the apartment. A title appears on the screen; “God is Good But Business Is Better” Issued by the The Dutch Institute of Commerce.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

PAMELA

“Tell me he’s going with you, you can’t not bring him.”

In taking up my cause like this, Pamela, my newly employed assistant, made it seem like Johnathan wasn’t about to invite me to the awards ceremony when for all any of us knew he might have come upstairs to do exactly that. Such a strategy would make her popular with me, because she was fighting my corner, and get rid of me at the same time. She was hired when Lucien left because I had none of his computer skills. She was fluent in Photoshop, Indesign, After Effects and many other programmes I hadn’t even heard of. Also recommending her for the job was the fact there was no danger of anything even vaguely sexual ever transpiring between us since she had difficulty squeezing herself in, and extricating herself from, between the armrests of a normal-sized chair. (Mind you, it hadn’t stopped me before). This seemed to suggest that my superiors knew more about my proclivities than I realised. In any case, her substantial presence made mine even less relevant. She could easily make all the adaptations necessary for the print ads and posters, which was all that was left to do now that The Life Less Driven was running across Europe. In fact there was now no need at all for me to be in Amsterdam apart from the fact that I had been deported. This was the term being used in agency emails to describe my situation. But Pamela was no mere technician she was also the self-appointed curator of the Agency Celebrity Phone List.

Hilarious, if like Silvestro, you resembled the classic Italian film star Mario Mercelli, or like Christoph, you were often mistaken for the Dutch footballer Erik Van Beek. But what if you looked like Uncle Fester? The Agency Celebrity Phone list sat laminated on every desk by every phone so that every photographer, illustrator, visiting client or pizza-delivery-guy saw your name and extension under an image of Uncle Fester. And what was worse, no one was confused by it.

Was this Pamela’s revenge for making her work so late and so often while I rummaged around online looking for women? Seeing the trauma in my face the first day it appeared and perhaps fearing retribution in the form of even more late night sessions duplicating even more layouts, she confessed.

“Silvestro said to find a picture of Uncle Fester. I didn’t know what it was for.”

I thought she got off light as the Shrek’s wife.

But Johnathan (Colin Firth), just smiled graciously and handed me a large manila envelope full of mail diverted from the New York office. I knew without opening it that it contained director’s showreels and photographer’s brochures beseeching me for work. It was probably the only reason he had stopped by but now that Pamela had shamed him into it, he did indeed invite me and I of course accepted because what kind of a crazy bastard would refuse an all expenses paid trip to the Cannes Advertising Awards?

They only gave Titanium Awards when something was so fabulously wonderful they felt it needed a special category all to itself. The Life Less Driven fell under just such a category. I wanted to call someone and share the news but there was no one. I thought of Rebecca but what was the point? She’d be moving to Berlin in a few weeks and she’d have a new man within the month. My mother wouldn’t even understand and even if she did all she’d want to hear was whether there was some money in it for her. My sponsor? He’d feel obliged to congratulate me but so what? Congratulations and don’t forget to share your gratitude at a meeting…oh and don’t drink.

The ceremony wasn’t until 8pm so we could have easily flown in later in the day but because Johnathan wanted to get away from his horrific wife I had to get up at 6am on a Saturday morning to meet the flight he’d booked for us. He could see I wasn’t very happy about it.

“You’ll thank me later when we have a nice dinner”

He smelled to me like he was still drunk from the night before. I couldn’t summon even token excitement at the prospect of receiving the equivalent of an Oscar for a campaign I’d had nothing to do with. We hadn’t even taken off yet and I couldn’t wait to get back. By the time we were ushered onto the stage that night after an eternity of delayed flights and a torturously slow cab ride from the airport I felt like I’d been out-maneuvered yet again. I’d only just managed to get into my shitty little hotel room when I Johnathan called to say we were already late. I only just had time to change before jumping in a cab. Onstage Silvestro, Christoph and Johnathan wore simple white shirts and comfortable jeans. Had they agreed on what to wear? They effortlessly exuded the demeanour of talented people accustomed to the logistics or receiving awards. Their light-colored clothes deflected the heat of the spotlights while I stood there in my black cowboy shirt, black jeans and crepe-soled brothel creepers, staring at the other three in consternation. I looked like the guy who had no connection with the other three. I had become the American who didn’t get it. Between camera-flashes I remember looking out at the rows of faces each of them seemingly searching for something up on the stage. What did they see? The area around my feet was scratched and scuffed and over-lit and just seemed dirty. There was dandruff on the photographer and feedback from the microphones. The curtain was frayed and the music was canned, the applause reluctant, the podium perspex. This was the view from the top?

 

MARIEKE

Later, Silvestro, Christoph and Johnathan held court in the Noisette D’or, and sitting next to Silvestro was a girl so beautiful she all but rendered him invisible. She was so insultingly beautiful I felt an inexplicable urge to retaliate at someone or something.

I was invited to sit down and watch them all get drunk.

“Hi, I‘m Marieke, I don’t think we’ve met?

Marieke, I decided, had developed an expression of perpetual severity so that mortal man might be spared the full brunt of her allure. So flattering was her beauty in its relaxed state that even the weakest smile ignited fantasies. When she told the table she and her boyfriend had bought a place in Amsterdam and then split up, every face brightened involuntarily and then checked themselves. She was after all, Silvestro’s property now. Johnathan seemed to have developed a maddening itch on his upper arm that required him to push back the sleeve of a t-shirt that ordinarily concealed his Maori-style tattoo from clients. Christoph, already quite drunk, continuously took pictures of himself and whoever else was near so that presumably the following morning he could consult the digital oracle for clues as to what had happened the night before. His camera turned blackouts into brownouts. There was an ad for cameras in there somewhere. Meanwhile Silvestro was trying very hard not to get caught ogling the up-turned braless breasts of his unbearably beautiful neighbour while he somehow managed, in spite of her protestations and gentle arm-slaps to finish a story about Leonardo DiCaprio hitting on her in a club in New York. The punch-line being that she didn’t even know who he was. Marieke rolled her eyes as if to say Silvestro is such a charming liar but behind this mock-mortification her eyes twinkled.

My role for the evening I decided was to be impressed. Oh how wonderful it all was. How fortunate to be at the winning table with the Titanium, Gold and Silver Lions sat like ornaments on the linen. Oh thank you all for allowing me a seat at your table. And a desk in your agency. I kept one hand on the water glass making sure it didn’t get filled with wine. People were very generous with booze when they weren’t paying for it.

Marieke became even more serious.

“Do you mind people drinking around you?”

“No, it doesn’t bother me”

“Silvestro says you don’t you drink at all?”

“No.”

“Nothing?“

“No.”

“Ever?”

“No.”

“Not even at Christmas?”

“No.”

“No joints either?

“No.

“You don’t do anything?”

I’d already said it too many times but there was no other word for it.

“No.”

This was not the answer she wanted and now having wrinkled her pretty brow I felt like I‘d ruined the mood and I was ready to change the subject. Johnathan was looking interested in my direction. Christoph had put away his phone and Silvestro was sitting back in his chair the better to regard my discomfort. I was after all the only one at the table who wasn’t on the brink of getting absolutely fucking sloshed. It seemed only fair that I should explain myself. I tried to think of a way to change the subject. The awards. The weather. The French. Her bracelet. Did she get it locally? Your bracelet, I like your bracelet.

“But don’t you ever feel the need..” she paused here selecting and discarding phrases,”…to escape yourself?”

It was a revealing question. It told me that she considered it normal to want to escape. It was as if I’d caught a glimpse of her naked without her knowing. The thing now was not to be critical of her. A silence had descended. An answer was expected.

“Well,” I said, now addressing the entire table, “I suppose I try to make myself more inhabitable.”

Was inhabitable even a word?

Fuck it, she was Dutch.

I hadn’t noticed until that moment that she was smoking a joint so well-rolled it looked like a cigarette and the glass of white wine on the linen in front of her was so full it might have been water. Inhaling from the joint she raised her glass, sipped, swallowed, and regarded me anew. I didn’t see her exhale.

“I like your bracelet“ I said quickly.

This somehow signalled the all-clear and the conversation resumed around the table. I tried not to look too relieved. Silvestro was still looking at me.

“I hear you’ve written a book.”

It was true that during a quiet moment before we sat down to dinner I had mentioned to Christoph that I’d written something but only because he’d asked me and I hadn’t said it was a book. I said I’d written something and that I wasn’t even sure what it was. Christoph appeared unsurprised but then as a producer that was his job. The file containing my book was accessible on the agency’s shared network so it was possible Christoph had already seen it there before I told him about it. For all I knew he might have even read it. Either way he’d obviously mentioned it to Silvestro who, despite Lucien’s best efforts to deplete it, still had money left in the Projects slush-fund. As he continued talking I didn’t hear, so much as see, Silvestro’s mouth open and close in apparent slo-mo around words that seemed to suggest that he might like to publish this so-called book of mine. He would need to read it first of course and I would need to keep an eye on the agency in the meantime but maybe I could send him the file so he could get an idea of what it was about? He couldn’t risk the possibility that I might put less energy into the agency than I had done recently and publishing my book would keep me motivated and give me a reason not leave them all in the shit. I was after all, at that point the only one beside Pamela who knew where all the adapts for the print work could be found. I nearly cried when I heard him say the word publish because even though it was like a dream coming true it was cheapened by the fact that in doing so I might be strengthening my connections to the advertising business when my intention had been to write a book that did the opposite.

“Can I think about it?”

“Yes of course, take your time. No rush”

He, of all people, understood the need to pretend to think about it.

 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Open on a wide-shot of me checking into a tiny little cheap hotel in a back street in Cannes. A shrunken old man in the tiny reception area hands me a key. Cut to inside the room as I enter and look around. It’ll do. Shrugging my bags to the floor I make my way straight to the bathroom and after a few moments we hear two distinct unmistakable plops. There is a gurgling sound but the cistern seems to be faulty. I try flushing again. Nothing. I pick up the phone and when the old man at the front desk answers the I say in my very best French; “Monsiuer, la toilette ne march pas” Silence. The old man doesn’t understand. “Toilette. Not. Work” I say again. Cut to the wizened old man in reception as he repeats the phrase. “Toleet. Non. Quoi? Cut back to me holding a burning match to dispel the odour. I try once more to flush the toilet but with no success. There is a quiet knock on the door and I open it to find a beautiful young girl standing there in an apron. She might be the old man’s daughter or grand-daughter or niece. She is smiling professionally.

“Il y a un probleme, monsieur?”

“Ah yes, over here.” she follows me to the bathroom and when I nod at the toilet she looks away horrified. I wave frantically to regain her attention. I behave now like we’re starting all over again and I raise my index finger in front of her face. I hold it there hypnotically before theatrically moving my hand towards the flush-handle and slowly, as if demonstrating to a child, I push it downwards. The toilet flushes perfectly. I stare at the toilet bowl in disbelief. The girl starts to cry. My mouth opens and closes as I try to find some way to explain. Learnanewlanguagedotcom

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

LUISA

The fact that MANG094’s picture was fuzzy would normally have served as a warning but I had nothing better to do that Sunday evening after returning from Cannes and meeting her for a coffee would kill an hour or two before dinner. On the way there I found myself walking behind a small girl with an outrageous little ass. I remember being concerned about turning up late if I didn’t overtake her but I couldn’t bear to leave that ass behind. I looked ahead to the Ann Frank Huis where we had arranged to meet but apart from the ever-present carefully-curated queue of tourists I saw no one. The little girl in front of me stopped abruptly and took out her cell phone. I could see now that her face was pitted and pocked and not at all attractive and certainly not as young as I had first assumed. My phone rang and when she heard it she looked up and smiled.

“Hi, I’m Luisa.“

She was from Brazil. They value an ass down there. I guessed she was in her early forties but she might have been older. She never told me her age and she seemed to delight in the idea that I couldn’t guess. She did something indecipherable for an IT company in Amsterdam and as she explained exactly what this entailed I pretended to understand completely. She referred to her daily gym-visits as ass-maintenance. She was out of the country more than she was in it and when she returned she always had a new set of lingerie to model for me. She took almost as much pleasure in the beauty of her body as I did. She was addicted to the effect she had on me.

I was a full-length mirror with an erection.

Her pockmarks blurred together when we kissed and refocused hideously when I pulled back. This drew me closer to her like an exhausted boxer hugging an opponent.

She was so compact and toy-like I could fuck her and fold her away afterwards. She made frequent references to a breed of monkey called the Bobo who apparently gave each other blowjobs. I couldn’t tell if it was a remnant from a prior relationship or whether it was just a cute affectation but she would actually use the term Bobo to describe a blowjob. Knelt there in front of me her with face so firmly attached to my midriff she looked like she had a beard of balls.

Afterwards we sat naked looking out on the canals from the window of her apartment.We could see right up the Reguliersgracht. A pretty sight on a clear night.

We ate strawberries and Ben and Jerries and museli. It was the perfect relationship for me. Her body was amazing and her face was a built-in get-out clause.

“My doctor thinks it’s a mess.”

She looked directly at me, making sure I understood. What was a mess? Her face? Her health? What kind of a doctor would describe a patient’s health in this way? The Dutch weren’t exactly renowned for their charm but this sounded a little too harsh.

“So it’s a mess.” I said and smiled as if this was the cutest thing in the world. It was a weird moment because by now she was sitting astride me grinning and grinding herself down on me and I was seconds away from a re-ignited hardon. She seemed relieved somehow. Younger-looking. I smiled up at her and then hid in her hair as she began shoving herself back and forth on me. On my way home, as the effects of two successive orgasms wore off I realised I’d misheard her.“He thinks it’s M.S.” Multiple Scerosis. Luisa was worried I’d stop seeing her. She was right.

 

*****

The next day it was announced in a group email that Silvestro was leaving. He had accepted a job as editor of Passione magazine in Rome. The email made it sound like he would be immediately replaced but it was just a smokescreen to keep the Falfaux clients from panicking. In fact, the New York office was already dealing with the logistics of closing the place down. And though there was no love lost between Silvestro and the New York office he didn’t want to be sued for leaving them in the lurch so publishing my book would at least ensure my continued presence until the agency closed.

The files were already with the printers when he announced he was leaving. It occurred to me that in his new capacity as editor-in-chief of an internationally renowned magazine, a quote from him would lend some much-needed authenticity to my soon-to-be published book. I settled on a typographic style that mimicked what a real publisher might do and even I could see it was beginning to approach the coast of something that might not get laughed at in a bookshop. It was Pamela’s suggestion to apply for a barcode and again I had only agreed because I thought it would make the book more convincing.

I opened the manila envelope that Johnathan had handed me the week before. Amongst the glossy enticements to work with the cream of New York’s photographersdirectors and stylists was a plain looking envelope with a government eagle embossed in the right hand corner. My green card was approved.

 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Open on a shot of me reading a book. I’m looking rather smug. Panning around the apartment we see unopened cardboard boxes stacked haphazardly. They look like they’ve just been delivered and in one opened box we see copies of the same book I’m reading so intently. Diary Of An Oxygen Thief by Anonymous. Suddenly I’m distracted by muffled snippets of a flagrant argument coming from upstairs. Cut to the arguing couple upstairs. The fact that they are speaking Dutch adds to the aggression of the situation. Subtitles appear on the screen beneath them.

“What time do you call this? It’s our anniversary’ the girl says.

“I didn’t forget I just bumped into Bob.” says the man defensively.

“Bob? Nobody’s called Bob any more.”

“Bob…you know Bob, he asked after you.”

“I don’t care if Robert DeNiro asked after me” She smashes a vase.

Cut back to me downstairs as I take out my cell phone.

“Yes I think maybe you probably can help.” I say.

Cut back upstairs. The girl is shouting now.

“What I’d like to know is where you’ve been for the last four hours?”

“Three, actually.’

“Four, you went out to get a pint of milk.”

“I got the milk.” he holds up pint of milk.

“But I’ve been cooking all day, it’s our anniversary….”

Just then we hear the sound of a doorbell.

“Oh, that might be Bob for you now” she says sarcastically.

On opening the door the girl is met by a huge bunch of flowers handed to her by a courier. Assuming her boyfriend ordered them for their anniversary she throws herself into his arms. Tears of rage become tears of joy as the boyfriend accepts her sensuous kiss of gratitude. Cut back to me downstairs. My smug expression has returned as I settle back into my chair. I am about to resume reading when I hear the loud annoying creak of bedsprings as my upstairs neighbors make love. My plan worked too well. Tulip Express. Flower Delivery. Amsterdam 1800 345 7686

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

And so, it turned out that on that last Friday in February, I alone, was summoned to the couches downstairs where Ted Lichtenheld waited for me; half-stood, half-sat, inhaling only when absolutely necessary the surrounding atmosphere of what was already in his mind, a quarantined building.

He presented me with a beautifully printed crisp memo announcing the closure of company that same day. I marvelled at the quality of the paper and the opacity of the ink. This hadn’t come from our printer. An hour later my entry-card to the building was cancelled. Orchestrating a remote electronic lock-out from five thousand miles away was easy while the printer upstairs hadn’t worked since I’d arrived. It no longer mattered. It was all over. The satellite had embarrassed the mothership by doing too well. It wasn’t meant to win awards. Our little office was only intended as an outpost. We had exceeded our brief. The Lions had been captured and tamed and were already on show in reception area of New York office. We were told they’d been held up at French customs. Johnathan was offered a position in the new office they were setting up in London and he jumped at the opportunity to return home to Blighty. But within two weeks of selling his place in Amsterdam and moving his family back to London, he was let go. They needed to get him out of his employee-friendly Dutch contract. But it wasn’t all bad news. I received a hundred thousand Euros in severance pay.

 

JANE

“Has Sean Killallon taken out a contract on you yet?” Jane Duncan, Editor-in-Chief of London’s media magazine AdVent had finished reading my newly minted book. A positive mention in her editorial section would be even more impressive than Silvestro’s quote. But how did she know it was about Killallon? She knew better than anyone what went on in the ad game but even so, why was she so confident?

“Is it that obvious?”

“Frankly, yes, see page 109.”

I ripped open a box, grabbed a copy and opened it at that page.

“…had done Killallon a lot of favors.”

It was nightmarish. It was the one word that shouldn’t appear anywhere in the and yet there it was. I tried to let it settle into me; the horror of it. Fighting the feelings would only make them stronger. I had to accept it quickly and then deal with it. How could I have been such an amateur? It was bad enough having typos all the way through but this was unforgivable. A law-suit would generate publicity but not enough make up for the worry and stress. I had an overwhelming urge to run. Just run. But where?

I was beginning see what people meant when they said the book was courageous. I didn’t like hearing that because courageous meant risky. I suddenly felt like a boring client who didn’t have the balls to run a cool ad campaign.

Letting that word through was suicide. I kept returning to the moment I found out like a slow-mo replay of an own goal. Somehow it got through and it was now in all ten thousand copies. A glum inevitability descended on me like ash. I accepted my fate and assumed it into my character. It seemed logical to let the feeling of abject defeat settle inside me since it would obviously be around for some time. What would prison be like? Would I be expected to suck cocks? I had better get used to the idea. I looked at bananas anew. Would I be expected to swallow?

Yes I would.

I consulted porn for pointers. If my survival rested on sucking cocks I would take pride in it. It couldn’t really be that bad. I mean at least I’d still be alive. Sort of. And I could always write about it. If my cellmate let me. I heard about a prisoner who had avoided being raped because he was funny. In prison humour is as valuable as cigarettes. And everybody knew that a repeatedly raped prisoner didn’t tell jokes.

Talk about motivation to come up with new material.

Maybe it was a clever attempt by Pamela to undermine me? Could she have been so devilishly clever? It was just a matter of removing the space between the words so that Killallon was rendered invisible to my endless wordsearches. I had checked and double checked so many times it was surreal to see it there in the finished book. But why would they sue me? For not liking them? Meanwhile, that tasty blonde girl from the Athenaeum Boekhandel, one of Amsterdam’s most popular independant bookshops, called and left a voice message.

“It’s selling well, we’ll take another batch if you have them”

Oh fuck.

 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Open on a dizzying over-the-shoulder shot of me standing out on the ledge of a high-rise office building. I look distraught and dishevelled. The voiceover sounds like my own thoughts; “This is where I’m supposed to remind you of all the wonderful things you have to live for, but since it’s little late for that, here’s a question for you instead. Are you up high enough? If you jump from this height you might actually survive, and we don’t want that now do we? Yes, you could always come back and take the disabled elevator to the roof and roll yourself off but wouldn’t it be better to get it right the first time? I think you need a few more floors between the pavement and the possibility of people saying the fucking idiot couldn’t even kill himself properly. Come on, the stairs are through here”

This actually makes sense to me and as I begin to edge back towards the open window I realise the voice I heard wasn’t inner monologue, it was a real person speaking to me from just inside the window. And as he helps me inside I can see that he is a calmer more handsome, healthier version of myself. He wears exactly the same clothes as I do but on him they look tailor-made. He is my better self. As I stand there still staring at him I am suddenly surrounded by carers and paramedics and wrapped in a blanket before being helped into an elevator.

Later, from inside an ambulance, I see my twin once again this time as he gets in on the passenger side of a champagne-coloured Falfaux parked nearby. Beside him in the driver’s seat is a beautiful dark-haired blue-eyed girl. They kiss hello. A wide generous smile spreads across her face when she notices the resemblance between myself and my twin and I can’t help feeling we’ve met somewhere before, or that we will meet soon. This notion has a calming effect until something occurs to me. I look upwards. The camera follows my eyes and we realise the car is parked directly beneath the window ledge where I threatened to jump. Falfaux.Saving Lives.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

BRIDGIT (Part Two)

An apartment in the East Village for nine-hundred a month? It was too good to be true. There had to be a catch. Surely she was setting me up for some terrible revenge. Had I hurt her more than I realised? Poor thing. I had broken her heart and this was her long-awaited opportunity to avenge herself. She‘d stand by as I gave up my place in Amsterdam. She’d even help with my transatlantic move until at last on the same day I arrived in New York with as many boxes of my newly published book as the luggage-limit allowed, I’d be told there was no apartment. I’d stand there ridiculous, caught between countries, apartments and cartons of my self-published semi-fictionalised memoir. It would serve me right for not marrying her.When I finally met her to pick up the keys she had a baby with her in a huge carriage. I was not expecting this.

“I didn’t mention I was married?”

So much for my image of her pining for me in curtained rooms. I peered into the carriage and from under all manner of expensive-looking blankets and toys emerged a tiny fist like a parody of rebellion and attached to it was what I could only describe as a bald blue-eyed miniature version of myself.

Why was she watching my reaction so carefully? Was this in fact my baby? Had she gotten pregnant and never told me? I tried to do the math as I smiled and wiggled my fingers in front of …

“What’s his name?” I was looking for clues.

“Tarquin.” she said enjoying my embarrassment.

“Tarquin. And how old is he now?”

It had been two years since we broke up. Nine months to incubate and.. .oh jesus, had she arranged to get me an apartment in her building virtually opposite her own apartment so I could take up my responsibility in parenting our child?

“He’s ten months.”

Ten months? Ten months earlier I was banging Rebecca.It couldn’t be mine then. But maybe she froze some of my sperm. Was that even possible? But she was married. Or so she said. The baby didn’t look too happy about the situation. Like father like son?

“Oh my god he looks just like you, congratulations.”

This from the waitress looking at me and Tarquin like we were biological tennis. I had been lured back to New York with the promise of a cheap east village apartment and now she was about to ambush me with a paternity suit. She was a lawyer she knew all about these things. She knew I had enough money to warrant the effort because she had already all my bank account details. She was laughing at me.

“Oh my god no. I see what you mean, but no, he’s just a friend.”

The waitress retreated. I exhaled. The truth as always, was less flattering. As an unemployed writer I fulfilled the requirement that all tenants in her building be of low-income status and preferably connected to the arts. Of the six apartments in the building only two of the occupants met these requirements and one of them was so old he was expected to vacate not just the apartment but his mortal frame at any moment. My addition to the roster would help reclaim some credibility for the co-op and with my recently banked severance money there would be no worries about me keeping up with the rent. In fact, if anything, I was doing Bridgit a favour. Within weeks I was back in New York under my latest guise. A writer living in the East Village.

 

 

 

 

 

3

 

 

 

 

 

PRUDENCE

“Are you Brent?’ it was a women’s nasal voice.

I looked up from my double-toasted bagel and shook my head.

“No, sorry.”

“Oh, sorry.” She said smiling weakly as she sat down at the adjacent table all the time glaring at me like I had just lied to her. Should I double check? Was I in fact Brent? If she had been gorgeous I might have been less certain. Her face was a conspiracy of cosmetics and I could see how her online profile might attract some emails but day-lit and sitting across from me she looked like an effigy of a young girl. The door to the café opened behind her and the shaved head of man about my height poked inside. His eyes ricocheted crazily but the rest of him remained outside. When he saw the woman he stopped and his eyes met mine for a split second. He could have been an older version of me. Retrieving his head he disappeared. At least he wasn’t fat. My phone rang and because I didn’t recognise the number I answered.

“Hello?

“Hello darling sweetie it’s Prudence”

It was the literary editor of the celebrated Prowess magazine and her little squeaky voice was even sexier now that she was alone in her apartment. She had already described herself as “the editor of a well-known magazine” in her profile so I knew after a only little research who she was before she called. Her voice was laced with sex from the moment I answered and within minutes she was describing her body to me.

“I’m lying on my couch in just a t-shirt and socks….”she paused while I downloaded this mental jpg, “…and I should warn you that I have very visible veins I’m not proud of.“

“Oh I don’t know, veins can be useful” I said “All roads lead to Rome and all that.”

She giggled delightedly, “…and when in Rome.” I purred.

“Now stop that, I just don’t want you to be disappointed when you see the real thing.”

When.

She continued describing herself she might have been reading a letter I’d written to a Sexual Santa; “I have a very nice bottom. I’m always getting compliments for my bottom. My breasts aren’t large but they’re well proportioned, or at least I think they are, and my nipples stick out a lot, I have to wear padded bras because they poke out through my clothing and I have pubic hair. I work for a magazine that doesn’t believe in it but I have pubic hair. I’ve been with men who really like it bald but it grows back you see…”

As I got up to leave I had to hide my hard-on from the waiting woman and her accusing eyes. I walked over the Brooklyn Bridge to meet Prudence at the Henry Street Ale House and she turned out to be a lot smaller and prettier than I‘d expected. She still had no idea I had written a book and so for every moment I withheld this information I felt like a liar. She was literary and tasty. Nice ass too. Lovely kissable lips and she was keen. Amazingly keen. She was all touchy and from the moment we met she couldn’t keep her hands to herself.

“There’s a book.”

She seemed to accept this information quickly and nodded like it was inevitable. It was as if I had just told her I was married with three children.

“Oh there’s a book is there?”

I was about to explain that I had no idea who she worked for when we first emailed but I knew it would sound hollow. We walked down to the promenade and sat on a bench facing the famous Manhattan skyline. The setting couldn’t have been more romantic but when I leaned over to kiss her she stopped me.

“Be careful darling, you might cut yourself.”

I was sure she was referring to my attempt to get published but seeing the confusion in my eyes she added; “..on my earrings, they’re very pointy.”

“Fortifications against unwanted advances?.”

I was trying to impress her. She smiled weakly and looked across the river as if trying to decide what to do with me. We had certainly touched a lot for a first date. Up to that point she had seemed in a hurry to have me fall in love with her. I think what had impressed her most about me was the fact that I worked in advertising. Now it was beiginning to look like I was just another penniless writer. Pushing her breasts out she mentioned something about her shoulders being tight and so I dutifully offered to massage her compact little back. She was tight and muscular but not unpleasantly so. Her mother was a functioning alcoholic she said without ceremony. Maybe this was what was bothering her. That I didn’t drink.

“She only drinks wine…” and here she left a space for me to say; “Oh well that’s ok then” but I just nodded behind her on the bench. As she continued talking I began to feel genuinely sorry for her. Her job sounded terrible. Here she was, pretty, intelligent, literary-minded and funny, working for a high-end porn magazine. She took on the faraway look again when she spoke of a novel she’d written that had almost been published by Python.

“They wanted revisions and more revisions until in the end, well...they didn’t want anything.”

“I’d like to read it.” I lied.

Then she answered an accusation I hadn’t the courage to make.

“I can expose writers to much larger audiences.”

She reeled off an effortless list of surnames and then fell conspicuously silent the better to reap my amazement.

“That’s some list.” I said, only because I knew it was expected of me. I hadn’t heard of even one of them.

“And John Banville has contributed more than one piece, you have heard of him.”

“Of course I’ve heard of him”

“Thank God for that.”

She was only half-joking. How would she introduce someone so literally feral to her friends? She was so small and tightly wound I said I’d help her uncoil but she thought this was not the most attractive of images. I said she took my meaning to be more serpentine than spring-based. I wanted to refer to my penis in this way but I thought it was too soon and then there was always the question of over-claim. For a penis to uncoil it would need to be a lot longer than anything I could muster. Mine was more likely to depant than uncoil. She giggled wickedly and as I continued to massage her crackling back. I tried to sustain an effortless demeanour in an attempt at disguising my nervousness born out of the belief that I was being interviewed for the position of Writer.

She said she had smoked some dope the previous night after her dad went back to his hotel and I suddenly saw her for what she was. Not so much coy as I had first thought but conservative. She was capable of breaking hearts because her apparent openess would clam shut and leave the suitor standing outside and alone. Being a writer herself she knew I’d do anything to move my precious book forward, like a mother with a newly-born. So she can’t have been in any doubt as to whether I was interested in her.

“You don’t smoke?”

“No”

“And you don’t drink?

“No.”

“You don’t do drugs at all”

“No.”

“You’re like a monk”

“My middle name is Camillus, my dad actually wanted me to become a Monk”

“But Monks are allowed to have sex right?”

“Of course, you read the papers, we get more sex than most.”

Her tight little laugh rippled throughout her back.

“It’s just as well you’re impoverished darling, because with all that charm you’d be unstoppable.” This no doubt referred to my admission that I no longer wanted to work in advertising.

“And all the more impressive when you realise my penury is self-imposed, I’m merely being of service to humanity.”

She wanted to see my bare head before I got on my bike so I took off my woolen skullcap and she ran her open palm over its surface.

“It’s a nice shape.” she said.

Maybe her dad was blue-eyed and bald too?

“It’s because I’m a Caesarian; no forceps; untimely ripp’d doncha know, like McDuff.” I felt fortunate to be able to harness my head-shape to Shakespeare; “In fact, I was as reluctant to enter Ireland as he was.“

“McDuff?

“No, Caesar.”

This referred to Caesar’s hesitation in conquering a country he dubbed Hibernia

(Land of EternalWinter).If she didn’t get the reference she didn’t show it.

“Send me your book” she said stepping back and regarding me like an art exhibit Something had happened. Something important. It had suddenly become about my book. A major decision had been made. She made me promise to ‘write her’ when I got home safely. It was like something a mother might say. We had already hugged a few times and it had felt nice and natural and now that we were parting she seemed to want something more. It hadn’t occurred to me to kiss her so I hugged her again this time for longer.

“I’m sorry. I’m being quite huggy and touchy-feely.”

“It’s ok I‘m not stopping you, I’m ok with it”

Not exactly gushing but it would do. .

“Never mind the book I’m just glad you like my head”

“I’ll show it to our fiction editor.” and then added with her weak smile; “If I like it.”

This was my big chance. I was sure she’d like it. I felt like it was the most important meeting I’d ever had. An excerpt in Prowess and I was made. A week later she emailed me in her official capacity as Literary Editor.

“We have a policy at Prowess never to print any material that is demeaning to women.” I never heard from her again.

 

MARIAN

I logged onto datemedotcom

0 messages.

I was sick of this. Where would it end? All this rummaging around in girls looking for what? Even as I emptied myself into one I was already looking for another. A life dictated by the gargoyle in my midriff. It had made sense up to that point since I had been so nomadic, but now I had a rent controlled apartment in the east village. To a woman in New York this was the equivalent of beer goggles. I looked longingly at the face of a beautiful dark-haired blue-eyed girl smiling at me from a profile called sculptorgrl82. It was time to unleash the most devious tactic of all.

Honesty.

 

sorry but I hate this fucking site...please save me from the indignity of having to sell myself in this Meatmarket...we'll tell our friends we met in a bookshop...you need to know that you're far too beautiful and smart to be on this thing...meet me in the real world and I'll read to you in my Irish accent in my rent-controlled apartment while I massage your feet...anything you say...

 

Hi, yes I hate this site too, but I like the idea of meeting in a bookshop.

Her name was Marian and after a hurried meeting in the design section of The Strand Bookshop and a half-drunk cup of coffee in a nearby café she indicated a desire to see the final-we-really-mean-it-this-time director’s cut of Blade Runner. I’d get the tickets if she got the treats. Perrier and pistachios. I couldn’t be sure if she was looking for a friend or whether there really was some romantic interest there but I liked her immediately.

It was unusually hot for October and as she approached me in the crimson foyer of The Zeitfield Theatre she removed her grey cardigan and stuffed it in her bag. She wore a pair of short scuffed black boots with long black textured socks that stopped abruptly above her knees and silhouetted her beautiful slender shapely legs as she walked.With

the cardigan gone I tried not to gape at all that clean skin racing up and down and around her arms, neck and shoulders and the outline of her small upturned breasts were easily discernible under the black sleeveless t-shirt.

“I neglected to get us treats.” she said.

She couldn’t pop into a deli and get a bag of nuts and bottle of seltzer on the way? I had already queued for an hour to ensure we got decent seats and now I was being told I was to go treatless for three hours in a pair of jeans that were too tight for me. I must have made some sort of face because after disappearing for a while she returned with one bag of popcorn and one bottle of Perrier and handed them both to me. Now I had treats but she had nothing. I felt like a selfish complaining bastard. But this was the moment she first exposed me to a smile that seemed to gather every molecule of my being around it like scouts around a campfire. Even the people in the queue seemed to shuffle closer. Now I felt like a lucky, selfish, complaining bastard.

She seemed to like me but I couldn’t be sure if it was romantic. It had to be. Otherwise wouldn’t she have to say something? Wouldn’t she? But being newly arrived from Iowa she might not know the rules of engagement. Would I be referred to as a friend in her next carefully worded email? Instead of trying to kiss her after the movie which in its uncut state was three fucking hours long I was invited to touch a weird thumb ring that looked like an Egyptian clockface and after I made some comment about time standing still she said; “I haven’t heard that one before.” and I couldn’t tell if she

was being facetious or just making conversation.

It became important to understand what I was dealing with. Was she just looking for a friend? If so, I would need to be careful because this girl would be far too easy to fall in love with. In the subway seat beside me as we hurtled downtown I was treated to retina-scorching glimpses of her clean-skinned thighs as she rearranged herself according to the shift and shove of the carriage. It was like a dance. Did she know I was enjoying this so much? I had an urge to lift her straight up out of her seat and position her on my lap. The train’s vibration would do the rest. She didn’t ask one question about me all night. Not one. I even checked my reflection in the subway window to make sure I was visible. This beautiful uninterested girl unnerved me. And it wasn’t just me. Other guys on the subway looked at her too. Long lingering wistful looks. They wasted no time looking jealously at me. I watched to see if she checked herself out in the subway windows. Did she derive any satisfaction from her image? I wanted to dismiss her as conceited. But she seemed not to notice. It simply wasn’t her fault she was beautiful. In fact, if anything, she was careful where she looked. Maybe because she was so accustomed to being looked at she had learned to limit her options. It certainly didn’t appear to be something she enjoyed. Male lust and female jealousy.

I looked like an idiot that night because I hadn’t worn my favourite jeans. I had washed them specially but they hadn’t been dry in time. And why had it been so hot in October? I began sweating when we had to scramble around in the subway station looking for the six train in the airlessness and at one point I saw her incredulous look as those cool blue-grey eyes registered the dark sweat stains seeping through my shirt like bullet-wounds. She was beautiful, calm and aloof. I was sweating. And as if to confirm this I heard nothing more from her after saying goodbye that night. Was that it? It was so rude. It was as if she had decided not to bother with me. It seemed so wasteful so Punk Rock. Gothic even. Had it really been my choice of clothing? For seven days and seven nights I ignored all sorts of primal and spiritual urges to contact her. If she had told me to fuck off and die I would have welcomed the clarity with hysterical laughter but hearing nothing at all was torture.

 

Your method of letting me know you’re not interested (ie totally ignoring me) is uncalled for. If after reading the excerpt from my book, you got frightened, I guess I have to accept that, but it’s a novel after all …would you be afraid to meet the writer of a murder mystery? If you’re not interested, period, then of course that’s fine too but don’t you think one short email is in order? You seemed quite down to earth to me, and I’m amazed at myself to be writing this email but I couldn’t have you think I was ok with just being ignored….good luck.

 

My screen shuddered as I clicked send and when it readjusted there was an email from her. I thought it was one of those I’m-out of-the-office-replies but no, it was her response to the email I’d sent the previous week thanking her for a nice evening at the movies.

 

chiselling away on my latest piece. i think it's likely i will be standing here at this same spot solidly for the next 3 days.i will let you know if there's a break in the clouds.literally as well as figuratively, it seems. m

 

Her friendly email arrived just as my pissy, self-centred bile-filled epistle went out. Had I’d received it ten seconds earlier she would never have known. Encouraged by I asked if she’d like to visit the Met Museum during the week and her response was so half-hearted I suggested we do it some other time and her response felt like I had freed her from a disgusting obligation.

“Thank you for being so understanding”

It stung that was grateful for the opportunity not to meet me. But such rebuttals made me want her even more. My biggest fear was that she saw me as a friend. That I was entering the Eunuchery. That I would fall totally in love with her while she sat there innocent of all charges. But that smile tranquilised me. What did it matter if I was only her friend? It was nice being with her wasn’t it? We had a nice time together didn’t we? I was enjoying myself wasn’t I? The logic would rear up against the anaesthetic only to succumb to a pleasant complacency.Why did I need to fuck her? What was wrong with me? The act of having sex with her would protect me from being emotionally bruised. It would act as my deposit, my safety net. My safety-pin. And then during an impromptu meeting in a coffee shop initiated by a text from her saying she’d unexpectedly found a parking space near my apartment, she let her hair down for the first time. She was beautiful. I had to actively wrench my eyes away to prevent intoxication. I could only afford to take little sips. She blushed noticeably and tilted her head in a way that gave me the impression she felt something too. Either that or she could see I was smitten and sympathised.

Yea bewareth, step ye not so gleefully into the abyss

I’d had plenty of time to prepare my defences against the paralysing effects of that evil smile and the hypnotism conjured by those vicious blue/grey eyes, so soothing and exciting at the same time, but now flanked by curtains of dark shining hair something inside me quaked. I was transported to my earliest memories of female beauty. Those pale tolerant understanding Irish girls modelling itchy-looking cardigans in my mother’s knitting catalogues. Marian had the kind of face I could look at for hours and I used every conversational trick I had to do exactly that. She seemed aware of this beauty but determined to hide it. Or hide from it.

From time to time she’d twist her face into an ugly expression to save me from the full brunt of her seduction. As if embarrassed by her wealth she needed to play it down. And the more self-effacing she appeared the more perplexed I became.Was she only interested in me because there were two more apartments vacant in my building? Would she suffer untold indignities to get into one of them? Was she merely waiting to confirm that I had money stashed in Amsterdam? After three hours walking around downtown Manhattan there was still nothing I could confidently point at that indicated I should make a move on her. Meanwhile her body language mumbled all manner of half-heard obscenities. She pushed out those lovely pert breasts and twirled a finger in her heavy dark hair. She held my gaze in hers and refreshed her lip-gloss not just once but twice and when we stopped for a coffee she drew my attention to her boots turning them sideways to point at the frayed soles caused by our long walks and in doing so crossed and re-crossed those clean lean legs showing me far more than was necessary. Was she just teasing me? Was this something she got off on? I could plainly see other guys out of her periphery vision looking at her unhindered by any need to be polite. I looked for opportunities to move things forward I was still wary of being cast as the friend of this beautiful scruffy girl. When she made even the slightest effort she was stunning. And yes that smile was celestial.

Celestial.

I felt sorry for her having to be seen with me. It was obvious she could do so much better. Maybe it was because she had recently broken up with a guy who she described as “very pretty” and “very tall” and “very rich” Surely I was just a consoling gnome trotting along beside her, yelping happily every time she flashed a smile. I didn’t feel worthy of playing the male lead and yet I wasn’t about to cheat myself out of the chance of getting close to that body either. If any sexual crumbs fell of the table I’d be there. She was definitely worth the wait, if waiting was what I was doing.

At worst I’d learn how to behave around beauty and I could use my findings on future prospects. In the meantime, I could at least pretend I was with her. She liked to walk around downtown visiting historic sites and I was quite happy with this idea because walking was perfect for making a move. And it was inexpensive.

But there was something nice about just getting to know her as a friend. Most of her friends were guys she said. This was an ominous sign. It meant women couldn’t stand being around her because she was naturally slim and beautiful and men would do anything to get into her pants including pretend to be her friend. The last thing she said before disappearing into the subway station that afternoon was; “I have to start looking for an apartment in Manhattan.” It was as if she wanted me to be clearly briefed. She was sharing with a roommate who she didn’t get on with. Did she only want me for my two-bedroomed apartment? Was I merely a real estate to her?

This had to stop.

We went walking again and she looked great in her tight jeans. She had that tight little ass in there. God help me. She was so feisty and sprite I thought I had better make a move soon or she wouldn’t be available for much longer. Some guy would approach her on a subway or in a café or in the street and that’d be the end of me. We sat on a bench in Union Square and as we chatted and laughed at the squirrels she played with her hair and shoved out those breasts and even touched my knee not just once, but twice.

“I’d really like to kiss you’ I said

The squirrels froze in mid-nibble as an excruciating silence descended. It was so prolonged it seemed intentionally cruel. I should apologise. Make a joke. I had ruined everything. She inspected her boots. Feet together. I risked a look and instead of the beautiful smile there was only a lipless line.

“I’m not ready.” she said, more to herself, than anyone else. And suddenly she just appeared extraordinarily vain. I had been reluctant to bring up the kiss at all but I was torn between a fear that she might be insulted if I didn’t and a gung-ho need to at least get the subject aired.

“Ok,” I said, “but I just wanted you to know that I’d like to.”

There was a second uncomfortable pause and though I sensed my application was being considered I’d had enough for one night. I had a sudden need to do some rejecting of my own.

“Alright then, let’s get you to a subway.”

After a joyless hug at the subway station where nothing more than our jackets touched I walked home feeling bruised and used but glad I had tried. I hoped I’d never see her again. I’d concentrate on my book. Maybe I’d use the AA meetings for contacts. There were so many well-connected people attending meetings all over the city it seemed wasteful not to approach one of them. I would routinely sit beside Cute-E, Simon Reeves, Patt Nillon, Anthony Sherts, Ulrich Wapton, writers, actors, models and millionaires. People less principled than I turned up at meetings pretending to be alcoholics just so they could network.

Years before when I lived in London, I myself, had sponsored the now famous Terrance Cutler when he first came into the rooms. It was obvious that in asking me to sponsor him he was looking to get a part in a commercial. And I, hoping to trick him into getting sober encouraged him to believe I’d cast him in something as soon as he completed the Twelves Steps. But Terry was too clever for me. He had already taken the precaution of asking two other well-placed AA members to sponsor him so that he could decide which of us might offer the best career opportunity. He stopped calling after only a few days and I assumed he’d gone back to drinking. A few months later on a director’s show reel I was faced with one of the most macabre images I‘ve ever seen. Terry holding up a pint to camera. He had landed a part in a Blackbeer commercial.

The concept featured identical twins, both played by Terry, philosophising about the nature of dark and light while perhaps inwardly deciding whether to trade his sobriety for an acting career. The historic moment where he quaffs thirstily from the darkness is preserved forever. There’s an ad for AA in there somewhere.

“Can you forgive me for being such a teenager the other night?” Although her text acknowledged my disappointment it still didn’t offer anything even resembling hope. She was in town in her champagne-coloured Falfaux and if I wanted to go for a drive she’d be game. This expression had vaguely sexual connotations for me but I knew it wasn’t how she meant it. And though I would have loved to take her up on the offer she had to be punished for refusing my advances. I felt I had to protect myself from getting any more involved with her. Her offer of a drive felt like a platonic consolation for a sexually rejected buddy. I replied simply with a link to my newly completed website in the hope that it would show her I wasn’t just some penniless idiot who should count himself lucky to be with her and that, if anything, it was the other way around. I hadn’t really gone into detail about my advertising work because I wanted her to think of me as a writer. My intention now was to show her how cool I was, while at the same time denying her access. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to be so proud of my advertising work especially in art circles but it was beginning to look like I could.

An hour later, which in my mind, was enough time to check out my website and understand just how award-winning and internationally fucking wonderful I was, she texted me again; the girl just wasn’t ready… try again you will have more success. It was wearying to be proven right but I wasn’t going to refuse.

After a faultless dinner at a medium-priced Tibetan restaurant where we split the bill, I invited her back to my fur-lined lair. She looked lovely. There was something almost Midwestern about her manner as if she had yet to be Manhattanised. Her hair looked like Princess Leila by Pippi Longstocking. I liked it more when she wore her hair down because it framed that beautiful smile and made her appear like she was from seventies France but the significance was not lost on me that this was indeed date-hair. It was now just a question of where and when we would kiss.

There was a certain sadness attached to this realisation. As a lowly writer I was unkissable but she was willing to spend two hours on her hair for an award-winning advertising man It was a nagging doubt that persisted even as I nudged her gently against the railings of Tompkins Square Park and in the cool January air we kissed for the first time. She flicked her tongue gently across mine and for a moment I wanted to just jam her against the railings but it felt too disrespectful. Instead we strolled back to my place pretending to be interested in what we saw on the way. I fumbled my keys at both doors and since I’d made such a big deal out of having bought Barry’s tea from Cork she stood dutifully still while I went through the motions of putting on the kettle.

When I turned around it was into a deep longing yearning kiss. I felt her reach behind me to turn off the stove. She pulled back and looked at me now with the hope-filled eyes of a lover. No more ambiguity. Why? Because I had money? Because the apartment was nicer than she’d expected? Why did it even matter?

If only she had kissed me in Union Square.

I stepped forward and she stepped back and we waltzed like that kissing to the bedroom. On the bed we shoved ourselves together and opening her jeans I ventured fingertip toward the prize. I refrained from slipping a finger inside her, partly out of respect and partly from fear of rejection. Instead, I very gently traced that beautifully trimmed seam for what seemed like an inordinate length of time. The silence became tangible as if our futures depended on the next infintesimal motion of my index finger. Had she known she would let me proceed this far? Was I just catching up with what she had already decided? Either way, the moment of immersion was audibly welcomed.

I can’t say for sure but I think she might have come right there on my fingers. I say this because as I continued to touch her very gently she shivered involuntarily and moaned deeply like she was on very strong drugs. I was pleased with this of course and congratulated myself on having thawed her out at last.

After a moment she arranged herself on top of me and lay there kissing and breathing warmly on my neck and ear. Her jeans were opened even more now and her groin was positioned directly over the hot bulge in my jeans.

“Let me introduce you to somebody.” I said, trying to be casual but I was already drunk with lust. Deftly, she opened the top two buttons of my jeans and exposed only the tip of my cock and began flicking her fingers across it so maddeningly I almost came. I had to stop her. I wasn’t ready for such an upheaval and I was enjoying the gentle unrushed atmosphere that had led us to this point. But I didn’t want her to think her skill was unappreciated

“I just don’t want to come yet.”

I was amazed at her skill. Amazed, thrilled and worried. If she was this good and that beautiful then I was in danger of…well…yes…of falling in love. But there was one area where she was still untested. If her ass turned out to be a misshapen mess then I could let myself off the hook, breathe a sigh of relief that could be presented as sexual satisfaction and turn my thoughts to the next online contestant. I let my hand stray downwards.

“Oh fuck.”

She laughed but I couldn’t have been more serious. It was perfect. Having all my criteria met was unsettling. I was like a castaway inconvenienced by rescue.

 

*****

I had only just arrived in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art when I saw Marian approach in scuffed boots, woolen tights, leather mini-skirt and an open coat. For a moment I didn’t even recognise her because she looked like one of those girls I was accustomed to seeing on the way to a date with some lucky bastard other than me. That she looked that good was in itself something to celebrate but the realisation that she had dressed like this specifically for me elevated my senses to such a degree that I gushed with gratitude.

We sauntered between the Greek and Roman statues that merely confirmed for me how well-proportioned and beautifully-made she was. Surely the music to which we moved was temporarily on mute. I pointed my camera at the statues but the pictures I took were of her. Smiling. Standing. Pointing. Walking.

“It’s because you‘re so well-made, that’s why you have such a feel for three-dimensional objects. You instinctively know when something is beautiful because it meets the standards of craftsmanship that you yourself represent.”

Yes, I actually said that to her.

She beamed at this and stepped effortlessly into a rockstar pose with one hand on her hip and her head-tilted in mock-defiance. I took the picture that so many men would later drool over and I realised at that moment I was in love with her. It had been creeping upon me like the flu but now it was full blown. Almost as suddenly things started to disintegrate. We couldn’t find a place to eat. All the cafes and restaurants were overrun with little nasal gnomes from the Upper East Side and the lovely Marian was starting to show signs of being seriously dissatisfied. Pissed even. Couldn’t she at least pretend to be polite? Was this her real character showing through? Had everything else just been an act? At last we ducked into Casimir, which was far too pricey for my newly bohemian tastes but worth it in the end because after a burger, the cheapest thing on the menu, she was fine again.

“What would you like to do now?’ I said, fully prepared to walk her to the subway.

“Lets have some more of that tea we never end up drinking.”

There was only one response that.

Lying there afterwards I felt as if a huge magnet had been lowered over me and all the sharp metal filings and ground-down iron fragments that had been circulating in my body and mind had been magically lifted out and replaced with warm honey.

“You’re like a teenager.” she said, blushing at the sight of my cock hardening again. Wearing nothing now but her dark gray woolen thigh-high tights she looked exactly like an ad for underwear I’d once seen on the Paris Metro.

“Hold that thought.” I said, taking the camera from the bag on the floor by the bed. She arched her back and turned slightly sideways and this was when I took the second soon-to-be-celebrated picture. I stared into the camera transfixed.

I’d lost all interest in other girls. I hadn’t even checked my messages for days. An uncomfortable notion presented itself. If I had a girl like this then I didn’t need to be online any more. I could remove my profile form datemedotcom. I had always imagined I‘d end up with a French girl, preferably in France with children that spoke French and yet it was ironic that Marian should look more French in this picture than Yvette ever did.

Surely I wasn’t about to settle for an American?

I wasn’t in the bag yet. There was still The Phone Thing. This was our shorthand for my inability to chat on the phone without becoming enraged. As soon as I heard Marian’s voice I’d feel something like dirty water rise inside me like a tide; an inexplicable urge to throw the phone at the wall or out the window or just hang up. When she gently enquired what the matter was I blamed it on the gappy cell-phone service saying it was just too frustrating not being able to hear her properly and that anyway I preferred it when we talked in person. This was only partially true. The real reason was unutterable.When she was physically present the combination of her scent, beauty and dress-sense, created a halo-effect that knocked her less attractive qualities into soft-focus. Those impossibly slender thighs extending from the ever-present knee socks countered any upsets caused by Americanisms like hey you or goofball. On the phone she had no such ambassadors. Her dismembered voice offered no protection from the fact that I was, for the first time in my life, not just in love, but in love with an American.

And it had become almost impossible to bring her to orgasm. She’d repositioned my fingers over an area that seemed so far north of where I would normally have set up camp I thought she was joking. On more than one occasion she removed my hand altogether not so much in disgust as resignation. Didn’t she realise she was discarding techniques that had worked for a large number of satisfied women? Apparently the “very pretty, very rich, very tall guy” she dated before me had actually gotten angry with her because she was taking so long to come. I feigned surprise.

“Angry? Really? Why?”

“Yeah, right? I mean, after all, it’s my body.”

Secretly I knew exactly what he meant. How insultingly boring it was to be down there lapping away on god-knows-what for god-knows how long, each moan from head-office just another false promise of promotion. But even as I made them I knew such protestations were merely last-ditch attempts at denial. I was in love.

Drama sought her out. Hardly a day seemed to go by without some new micro-castastrophe befalling her. The frequency of these mishaps would have been intolerable if she hadn’t insisted on being spanked for her part causing in them. Each new incident quickly became synonymous in my mind with the image of her beautiful pale quivering buttocks. Parking ticket, (Spank!) cracked phone, (Spank!) lost wallet, (Spank! Spank! Spank!) I thought about hiding her keys just to encourage matters along but as it turned out I didn’t have to. She locked us out of her apartment one freezing night and as we waited for her upstairs neighbors, I decided to cut my name out of a piece of card and spank it onto her ass until it was legible enough to photograph. I really was in love. Maybe next time I’d cut out a heart-shape.

And then the hints began to be dropped. If only her roommate wasn’t always so depressed. How draining it was to have to continuously talk her off the ledge. Yes the rent was cheap and yes they were old friends but she was starting to feel like an unpaid live-in therapist. This was my chance talk about us moving in together. When she began smiling at babies and old couples I could have at least feigned interest in starting some sort of family or supplied her with some sort of assurance about our future. But I didn’t. Looking back I can see that my continued presence online was a misdirected attempt at to forming fulsome sort of fall-back relationship in case Marian left me. Insurance against injury. Or maybe I was just addicted to online dating. One night, after checking my messages on her computer I forgot to sign out.

 

LAURA

Laura ...there you are… unsocked and depanted and all alone on a saturday night...wouldn't it be interesting to imagine your hands were suddenly my hands? We might need to discuss this further over the phone…are evenings good for you?

It was particularly galling of course because I had never have invited Marian on a phone-date like that. But the tele-sexual inference was nothing compared to the spiritual infidelity. I have since asked myself a thousand times how I could have let it happen. Maybe at some level I wanted her read it. She was getting too close. Or maybe I yearned for the familiarity of unhappiness. Preferring self-destruction to uncertainty. It’s obvious now in retrospect that we were finished the moment she read that email but it took a year to sink in. To all appearances we were still together and she’d laugh and smile and even agree to help me reach an orgasm from time to time but she wasn’t necessarily in the room when she did it. She made a point of staying clothed and if I tried to unbutton any item of clothing her free hand would involuntarily push mine away. A hand-job is a great way to keep a guy at arm’s length.

I tried to explain that I hadn’t been looking for girls so much as customers for my book. She thought about this for a moment. She was trying to be fair. Why not give me the benefit of the doubt? Maybe I wasn’t so bad, I had some good points. But how could I do such a thing? Didn’t I realise how much I’d hurt her? She was forcing herself to try on my ill-fitting skin. To look at the world though my eyes.

“If that’s true, then why don’t you use me to sell your book?”

Was she was trying to smoke me out? Call my bluff? If I really was just selling books then I didn’t need to be online at all and especially since the book was supposed to be written anonymously. I imagined what it would be like to click on Marian’s pictures in a datemedotcom profile.

FRANCOISE

“Likes literature, cinema and sex. Maybe even all at the same time.”

This was the headline for a new profile featuring some of the sexier pictures I’d taken of Marian. Her face was either cropped out or in shadow so that there was no chance of her being recognised and I was careful to ensure there were no reflections on any surfaces where her face might show. There were one or two pictures I’d taken of her standing in front of a glass doorway in the West Village where she was gently back-lit and in her boots and shorts she looked gorgeous. In fact, I flattered myself that the four shots I selected for this new fictitious profile were of a sufficiently high standard that the photographer who took them might at least be considered semi-professional.

 

USERNAME

Beautifullylit

 

BODYTYPE

Thin/Petite (I get most of my clothes from the children’s section of Old Navy)

 

LANGUAGES

French/English/Italian

 

OCCUPATION

Photographer-Assistant-Model-Writer

 

LAST GREAT BOOK I READ

Diary Of An Oxygen Thief by Anonymous it's a little scary but brilliant too!!

I highly recommend it.

 

WHICH SUPERPOWER I WOULD MOST LIKE TO POSSESS

To read minds.

 

MOST HUMBLING MOMENT

I’ll tell you later…it involves farm machinery.

 

CELEBRITY I RESEMBLE MOST

After being told I looked like Jane Birkin so many times I looked her up, and it

turns out we have the same measurements, so maybe there’s something to it.

 

MORE ABOUT ME

Ok, the farm machinery thing. I realise it might be misleading so I want to make

it clear. I wasn't disfigured in any way...my summer dress was sucked right off me

by a potato grader...not as humbling in France as it would have been here

(the workers hardly even noticed) but embarrassing all the same.

 

FAVORITE ONSCREEN SEX SCENE

The best sex takes place on the cutting room floor

 

No messages. A twenty-three year-old purportedly French photographer-assistant-model-writer with a gorgeous ass didn’t get even one reply? Was it was because her face was hidden? Maybe they thought she was disfigured. Even after adding the disclaimer about the farm machinery she was still getting no responses.

If, as I told Marian, I’d only been using datemedotcom to sell books I was now being asked to prove it. Reporting back to her with a result of zero messages and therefore zero sales seemed to confirm I’d been lying. Hotlisting was a way of showing interest without actually sending a message. It was also a great way to ensure Francoise’s profile was visited by those eager to see who had hotlisted them. I selected every male I could find in the New York area. All were eligible; from the hipsters with clever headlines, (“This is your caption speaking”), to the old farts who didn’t even fill out the questionnaire because they knew they wouldn’t get a reply, (Just looking).

But still no messages. It didn’t make sense. If I was hotlisted by a twenty-three-year-old French girl with the body of a supermodel, in varying degrees of undress, I’d feel duty-bound to reply just in case there was even an outside chance of fucking her. I studied the profiles more carefully. I began tailoring emails to specific profiles; “If you liked Trainspotting, you’ll love Diary of An 0xygen Thief.”

I was about to send this message to an inoffensive-looking guy who most certainly didn’t look like he was accustomed to being approached by beautiful girls when I noticed under the option to; “Send Him A Message” there was a subheading; “He Sent You An Email Three Days Ago” This was infuriating because when I clicked on Beautifullylit’s inbox it still showed, “0 Messages” Maybe he had been disqualified for including his phone number and contact details. The site forbade people from exchanging such details because naturally enough this would put them out of business. But then below the inbox I noticed another option entitled “Preferences.” I clicked on it and there, slithering over each other like newly netted fish were hundreds and hundreds of glistening emails; seven hundred and sixty three to be exact. I hadn’t filled out the “Preferences” section because I had no preferences. The site was designed to allow only your ideal matches through and because I was looking for emails from anyone capable of buying a book I had no need of it. There were so many messages I couldn’t quite grasp the significance of what was happening. My glee peaked and dissolved into fear.

Would I be the perpetrator of my own undoing? It was flattering that all these men wanted my girlfriend but would this be how I lost her? I was struck by their good manners and etiquette. I was being given an insight into what it was like to be a beautiful girl in a world of salivating men. Hugely flattering but mostly frightening. I began to see Marian’s position. Why she sometimes tried to make herself uglier. It was degrading to be sought after purely because of the physical shape of your face, body, hips and tits. But such ideas evaporated when I thought of the books I could sell. It was the digital equivalent of striking oil. I decided there was no need to tell her how many messages she had received. Not yet. I couldn’t risk the possibility that she might put a stop to it. And it wasn’t as if I was doing it behind her back. It had been her idea. In the end, I told her there were seventeen messages. This was flattering without being overwhelming. Would she be curious to see if there was someone she liked? I know I would be. But then the profile represented a twenty-three year-old French photographer/writer not a thirty-six year old sculptor from Poland Springs. Mind you I suspected most guys probably wouldn’t give a shit once they actually laid eyes on her but it would definitely be a hurdle. And the more hurdles I could arrange around her the more fenced in she’d be and the safer I‘d feel.

The book was already mentioned under the heading “Last Great Book I Read” but nobody was going to buy it just because it was mentioned. They needed more incentive. Maybe I needed to flirt with them. I tried to remember which emails had sustained my interest up to this point. I seemed to like the hot and cold ambiguity of the replies. The way they’d first agree to meet and then cancel I’m soooo sorry and take the sting out of it by adding the word baby. Could I pull this off? I strove to emulate this delicate paradoxical tone for my first customer whose headline announced a fondness for the work of Honore De Balzac.

“I have a friend who refers to him as Ballsack… if you like his writing you might like Diary Of An Oxygen Thief”

Ballsack? Was I out of my fucking mind? A French girl would never say that. No girl would say that. I had been too obvious. When Stanley Kubrick created new characters he invented childhood memories for them; the school they attended, their first kiss, where they holidayed, their parents relationship, a knee injury. I should have waited until the third email before blurting out the title of the book.

“Hahahaha ballsack??? that’s hilarious, I haven’t heard of that book but it sounds interesting, I‘ll totally check it out.”

He was thrilled to receive any sort of reply from a beautiful twenty three-year-old French girl. It was becoming clear that another foolproof method for creating convincing life-like characters was ensure they had a world-class ass. After a few more attempts I settled on an approach that presented the book as a personality test, the reward for which would be access to Francoise, as I now began to call her.

“Have you read Diary Of An Oxygen Thief? I find I can tell a lot about a guy from his reaction to it. Are you game?” One guy asked me to elaborate on the farm machinery thing; you were in france? is that your home? j’adore la france. The fact that he ignored the salacious image I had inserted in his head just confirmed how dishonest these exchanges were. Any normal guy would be forgiven for at least referring to the idea of a semi-naked girl in a field full of French workers. The omission was so conspicuous it was like complimenting a stripper on her nail varnish.

“I’ll pick up a copy of oxygen thief on my way home.”

Laughter delicious.

The older guys were so thrilled they didn’t care if it was real or not.

“You’re young enough to be my daughter but I’m ok with that”

If a beautiful sexy girl recommended a book because it was a good barometer of character I’d assume she was just protecting her interests. Online dating was a treacherous conniving world where men would do anything to get into the pants of a girl like this. She was merely filtering the bad ones. It was a simple test to see if they were worth meeting. They would never suspect it was a guy posing as a fictional character suggesting they read a true story purporting to be a novel.

I was getting a glimpse of what it was like to be intelligent and female in a world of drooling men. Guys who had ticked financial or medical felt comfortable offering tips on how to improve my photography. Why did they assume they knew better than a student of photography? Because they were men and I was just some little bitch. One idiot suggested I boost the levels as if the shot was mistakenly shadowy. Then another guy pretended he’d read the book when it was obvious he’d only read an online review. I knew this because I had written it under an alias. When he offered to pose for me I asked him to send some pictures and he sent three pictures of himself naked with a huge frightening pole of flesh sticking out of his midriff.

“So what do you need me for? You could fuck yourself with that.” I demurred before blocking him. It was fun being female and beautiful. To actually be the object of desire. A living breathing potential possession.

One young guy volunteered to fly me to Mexico to see the Mayan villages while we got high on shrooms. Another guy older but well-kept, offered private boxes at the opera and dinner at Le Cirque, yet another, a businessman with not a suit in sight wanted to know my preference in hotels and my shoe-size so he could lay out some options for when I arrived. Young couples invited me for drinks no strings attached. Out-of-town husbands were careful to mention their expense-accounts. Filmmakers gave me two thumbs up. Architects wanted to know my plans. Journalists promised to report back. Chefs said I sizzled. Applicants all.

On the other end of the scale there were the less confident respondents. These were guys who knew they didn’t have a chance but felt they better send something because hey you never know, she might have a thing for bald short fat older guys. I had the power to lift these unsunned and gnarly gnomes aloft. To absolve them. And grateful to find themselves within spurting distance of my mighty vagina they wobbled away to buy my book.

I wasn’t sure how much of this was legal. I didn’t want to get into any real trouble. Mischief was one thing but crime was another. It was as if I’d broken into some forbidden never-before-seen Pharoah’s Tomb containing treasures untold. I felt an eerie sense of responsibility. Mustn’t knock anything over. Just take what you need. I reasoned that if I just confined myself to selling books I couldn’t be accused of desecration and would therefore be spared the wrath of the curse. It would be seen as artistic experimentation. “Your Honor, I was researching a book.”

But it couldn’t last. Marian would have to be told before it went too far. And when that happened I knew she’d want me to stop, which I really didn’t want to do. What I wanted to do was select each state and systematically hotlist every guy I could find and recommend the book ceaselessly until I exhausted the cities, towns and backwaters of this wonderful country. After all, Barnes and Noble had stores in every major city in the US and I had access to datemedotcom’s members in all of them. And if I could sell that many actual books there was no reason to believe it wouldn’t do even better as an ebook. Of course I’d tell her. Just not right away.

I didn’t overtly need to say Francoise was French in her profile, I merely included French in her languages spoken section, and being female, there was no need to send out initial messages since the men were expected to make the first move. Each email was subtle and polite on the surface but trace it back to its source and there was a stiffening dick. It was fascinating to watch these guys wrestle the same subject I myself had spent so many hours trying to perfect. They approached gently as if nearing a retarded lamb and even though my headline was fairly bold; Likes art culture and sex, maybe even all at the same time, very few actually made any overt reference to it. There I was in my thigh-high stockings, virtually waving my ass in their faces but these mealy-mouthed modern males had been so consistently conditioned to conceal their true desires under courteous cloaks they made a girl feel dirty standing there in her underwear. In response to my beautiful jaw-dropping ass all they could say was I find you intrigueing? No mention of what they’d like to do to it or me? One guy, after going on and on for paragraphs about some excruciating pseudo-intellectual treatise on photography broke down and got to the point; by the way, do you like to be tied up? By the way? Surely this what he wanted to know in the first place. I responded; no, do you like to be gagged? Delete. Block.

The guy behind the counter at St Mark’s Bookstore was pleasantly suspicious

“I know you’re doing something, I just don’t know what”

“It’s crazy isn’t it?” I said innocently.

“Well whatever it is we’re burning through the copies.”

If he asked any of these eager customers where they’d heard about this little literary oddity they were not going to say a hot french girl with a gorgeous ass from an online dating site wanted me to read it as a prerequisite to fucking her. No. They were going to say a friend recommended it. This would translate to the booksellers as that most coveted of sales phenomenon.Word of mouth.

It was becoming obvious that men would do or say anything to get into the pants of a twenty three year French girl, and it didn’t stop at age fifty or even sixty. There were no exceptions, only variations. One guy, a Brit, tried to play on my insecurity when he accused me of oozing entitlement He had guessed correctly that amongst the flurry offawning emails such an approach would stand out. It was interesting that a Brit should be the one to take this approach; his first contact with the object of his desire was to attempt to instil in her a feeling of inferiority.

I had become that most dangerous of propositions; a beautiful girl with the mind of a man. Actress and Agent, Ho and Pimp. And as such I conformed effortlessly to men’s stereotype of women; All women are basically sluts who barter their bodies to get what they want. No wonder I met with such universal approval. One guy sent email after email after email. What did he think? That I hadn’t received the others? That he’d catch me at a weak moment and I’d let him fuck me? Far from being flattering, so many uninvited emails were frightening. It was as if he was trying out lines on himself. Finally I deigned him worthy of reply; “The book is about an older guy who becomes obsessed with a young photographer’s assistant, you might pick up some tips.”

“Ok…” he replied, ”I’ll get it today…I need some new fiction.”

He was already taking part in some.

Another guy wrote three weeks after he’d bought the book.

“I’m still interested in getting to know you, what do I have to do?”

He was a sad-looking little guy. Bald of course. Probably wanking off over pictures of my lovely girlfriend’s ass. Of course he wanted to fuck her. So did I. He’d have to get in line. One guy was on the right track with call me paranoid, but are you the author? I thought he was onto me until he began to unspool a vertiginous scenario where he suggested Francoise was the French girlfriend mentioned at the end of the book and that she had written it anonymously pretending to be the oxygen thief. I sidestepped; “So you think I wrote the book? I wish.” Two days later he sent a glowing review. I think he enjoyed it all the more for having been introduced to it in such an unusual way. It certainly helped that the book talked about sex, dating and booze. Hardly a difficult sell on a dating site. In fact I was very often thanked for recommending it even when they knew they would never get inside my pants. A pretty girl hinting that a guy should buy something was seen as normal. The guy expects the girl to make him pay for something. To prove he’s a good provider. Not only is he expected to pay he wants to. It’s understood that the woman requires a token gift in return for her company. Tickets to the opera, or a concert, or a movie, cab-fares, dinner, flowers. All she is expected to do in return is look fabulous, nod a lot and smile as if she’s enjoying herself.

These men were professional well-spoken highly cultured men, occupying some of New York’s top positions in the arts and media. They were what we referred to in advertising as opinion-formers. These guys were even more sought-after than the target audience because these were the people the target audience listened to when they wanted to know what was cool. You can feed a dog organic vegetables and over time he’ll adapt, but put a steak in front of him and his true nature will show. These cosmopolitan journalists, artists, architects, web-producers, lawyers, copywriters, designers, artists and entrepeneurs were salivating at the prospect of a superior piece of French ass. But even though the photos plainly showed a half-naked girl with a beautiful body they had learned through years of conditioning that they needed to feign indifference to her sexuality and compliment her photographic technique instead. What would a photographer’s assistant want to hear? She’d obviously want to hear how well her photos were composed. They were supremely confident they could dupe this inexperienced little fawn. At only twenty-three years of age she was obviously confused about how much flesh she should show, she was probably some rich French guy’s daughter who had no idea how to behave.

Someone was going to fuck her so why not be that guy? Jerome Feerce, the award winning Creative Director of PDB and well-known author of sci-fi books, wanted to be that guy. A fifty-seven-year-old Swede, sniffing around the beautiful ass of my thirty-six-year-old American girlfriend, posing as a twenty-three-old French girl. I looked him up and yes he was married with three kids. Well so what? He was a bestseller wasn’t he? He’d made it to the top hadn’t he? This was Manhattan wasn’t it?In reality, we were just two old ad-guys trading copy.

Meanwhile I’d look at Marian when she turned up to meet me and I’d have to pinch myself. It was as if I was going out with a model. A moody model. She was even more beautiful now that I was losing her. I was that one guy amongst thousands lucky enough to be with her and she could hardly bear it when I touched her. She visibly flinched before I even made contact. I had caused this in her? She said it was a relief to talk to her doctor about a neck-ache because at least he didn’t roll his eyes waiting for her to finish. This was a dig at me and I blushed in acknowledgement.

But I had never really been able to follow her thread when she spoke because she jumped around from point to point without warning and when I asked for clarification she became irritated because in her mind she had already supplied this information and if I was asking such a question it meant I hadn’t listened the first time round and if I hadn’t been listening then it had to mean I didn’t care about her and if I didn’t care about her why was I trying to touch her?

I decided to pretend harder.

But pretend to be what? I couldn’t trust my perceptions any more. Did I only want to be with her because she was such a great sales tool or did I love her for who she was? Would she leave me in disgust as soon as she realised what I was doing? I couldn’t even trust the enthusiastic responses to the book emanating as they did from libidinous men who would say anything to get into the pants of the girl who had made the recommendation.

The was only one irrefutable truth. The sales.

And yea they were plentiful. I kept two pages open on my computer screen; one showing Francoise’s profile with its constant supply of eager supplicants and another adjacent page showing the corresponding sales on Amazon. The main profile picture of Marian in her thigh-high stockings was like something by the French photographer Guy Bourdin and so I claimed it was a self-portrait paying homage to him. My book was now inseparably associated with two of France’s most enduring style icons. Jame Birkin and Guy Bourdain. And all three were Googled accordingly.

In the meantime being with Marian was becoming impossible. There were too many subjects that couldn’t be talked about. The silences grew longer and more impenetrable until they overlapped. We lied to each other by omission. The strange thing is that I got the impression we could have gone on like this for years. After all I didn’t want anyone else. To me she was the perfect woman. Yes of course, I saw attractive women everywhere but compared to Marian they were just unknown accumulations of organs and limbs. They would never represent the bitter-sweet unknowable concoction that only she had about her; that exquisite confusion. Being touched by her had been a triumphant luxurious sensation. It was so flattering that she should even want to cause me to feel pleasure that somehow my guilt dissolved into gratitude under her touch. And there was that bottomless lust I felt for her, a spiritual longing that no mere physical exchange could extinguish.

But even as the sales soared and the reviews enthused I knew we had to make a clean break of it. No contact. It was the only way. We’d be friends, yes of course, but just not yet. It was too soon for that. For two days the relief was euphoric until suddenly an entire civilization seemed to burn down inside me.

Devastation.

In her cavernous absence I replayed and blinked away the awful moment she confronted me about the email. This would be my punishment. As the weeks turned into months we never got the chance to discuss anything because we were too busy I suppose, recovering from each other. In fact, this book is the closest I’ve come to letting her know what actually happened and why.

The previous year when things were still good we’d had a lovely day wandering around Williamsburg. It was one of those weekends where her roommate visited her parents and we’d had the entire apartment to ourselves.We had just had fabulous sex, or least I had, and Marian looked so effortlessly beautiful it seemed like we had stepped onto the hundred-acre set of a commercial for jeans or sneakers or maybe even a romantic comedy with an edge. The Williamsburg Bridge poked into every picture I took of her and we laughed knowingly at the very idea that even here so deep behind the Irony Curtain it was possible to be “in love”.

I mentioned in passing that I played piano, that I had taught myself to play on a crappy old upright we had at home in Ireland an the fact that she thought I was joking seemed to indicate she hoped it was true. We found a music store but there was a sign saying no live music which still seems fucking stupid to me today but they probably

had so many people jamming in there they had to ban it. With great ceremony I invited her to step into a pair of headphones. Bowing her head she stepped forward into the coronation. I plugged the lead into a digital piano and I began to play. All I could hear were the keys fumbling and clicking as my fingers stumbled and drummed across them. I had no way of knowing if she was enjoying what she heard or if indeed she could hear anything at all but I kept playing anyway. Wary of missing a key I darted look at her.

The effect on her face was magical.

She had transformed into an amazed little girl. Her mouth had fallen slightly open and her eyes were wide in wonder. All the self-consciousness had peeled away leaving an innocence so pure it made me want to dance. I felt like I had at last found a way to communicate with her. As I sit her typing this I am reminded of that day.

I’d like to speak to the person who put this profile together.

It was from a forty-five year old entrepreneur who had posted pictures of himself relaxing on what looked like a yacht in what could have been the Mediterranean. He was onto me. Some guys might be very pissed off if they knew that their romantic attentions were in fact being pitched not at hot French twenty-three-year-old with an ass to match but a bald middle aged Mick in his underpants. Actually, I didn’t even wear underpants most of the time.

 

As I see it there are four possibilities:

1. You are the French girlfriend of the author mentioned at the end of the book and you are using your skills to help him sell the book. In this case using datemedotcom as a social media platform to generate an audience which is really impressive. You are beautiful and I'm sure it's working very well. You certainly got me. I would love to hear from you and meet you both.

 

2. I'm wrong. You really are Francoise a stunningly beautiful and sexy photographer who happens to be a fan of this book. I am not like the author, I've had different issues in my life which I would be happy to talk about. I would love to hear from you and I would very much like to meet you.

 

3. You wrote the book. If that's the case you are a talent of unmitigated genius. You see, I too am the Creative Director and partner of an ad agency-production-company-internet hybrid, we have worked on similar if not the same accounts. The ad world is represented perfectly. My career parallels the timeframe in the book, I'm certain I would know your work and it's quite possible that we met. I thank you for exposing the book to me and for this exchange. It has been very engaging.

4. You are the creation of the author entirely. FUCKING GENIUS! I am apoplectic. I can't tell you how impressed I am with the book but surrounding that content with this hook which brought me into it! Awesome. And the experience of engaging with you in this way via this character, spectacular. With the utmost respect, and if necessary - discretion, I would love to shake your hand and see if we might work together.

 

I hadn’t thought about using this technique for anything other than selling my own book but it suddenly occurred to me that in the same way an ad agency could advertise any product as long as the approach was well conceived so could I with this more subtle method of infiltration, sell anything to anyone. Would it work?

You tell me.

 

 

 

THE END

 

 

 

*****

francoise, just picked up the book this evening. looks like an easy read. I'll get back to you with my thoughts soon….so yeah, I guess i‘m game….k

 

*****

listen, I would have written before but - uh - your profile says you're looking for a woman....which sort of threw me off because now you're all flirting with me. i'm sooooo

 

*****

francoise…so, I'm also a big fan of films and sex. .and I design books for a living, which makes me an automatic fan (speaking of which. . .I just tried to order diary of an oxygen thief andit says they’re sold out !!. .and I hate ordering things from Amazon).anywho, i'm intrigued, how is your tuesday so far? best vince

 

*****

hello francoise…. well I’ve been spending quite a bit of time on google this morning looking up guy bourdin and that book you mentioned, as, no I haven't read it and hadn't even heard of it. I see what you mean though, looks pretty heavy and intense (alcoholism, abuse, photographers assistant etc). Unfortunately it appears to be out of stock, so I may need to do a bit of digging around to get a copy.

 

*****

uhmmm..I'm a little confused. You sort of asked me the same thing last week. Did you get my response ?

 

*****

francoise …no, i dont know that book, looked it up though and it sounds sizzling. is it still anonymous, or did the author come out? have you been in nyc long? where are you living? you can email me for real if you like,

 

*****

yeah, I'm game….Just picked up the book this evening. Looks like an easy read. I'll get back to you with my thoughts soon. hope you're well..

 

*****

i will seek out the oxygen thief book at once, though it seems a difficult tome to locate. i do love a challenge. your guy bourdain tribute is striking ..are you a fan of baudelaire?

 

*****

hi your profile is definitely intriguing but hard to see whether you have only one eye or not (then again one eye might be sexy ummm). Vous etes francaise? Je suis quebecois mais d'origine italienne allors je parle francais comme une vache espagnole. Let's talk oh mysterious stranger.

 

*****

Hey I'm studying to be a pilates instructor and was thinking if you needed to practice your photography it would be cool to take some shots of me doing my stretches.

 

*****

wow, devoured the book it in two big, greedy gulps, it's dark, smooth and jagged edged.like a fresh piece of broken glass that you want to touch even though you know you shouldn't.

 

*****

How come you didn’t answer any of my emails if your going to hotlist me again? I don’t mind playing around on here but its more fun if there is a dialogue.

 

*****

francoise, glad you still have all your limbs.Not that paraplegics can't be sexy too. taking any good portraits these days? intense book, do you really recommend that?

 

*****

you're not very good at this, are you..? I see that you're looking for a girl, not a guy..So, what's the attraction...? just a playmate/friend? someone to borrow cool lenses from? (you'd have to have a canon..) someone to make your current girlfriend jealous.?what's the story...? might I say that your pictures are amazing and I bet you are too? what's your name? I’m allan …when are you free? today. lunch! 1pm...my place..?

 

*****

you got "woman" in your "Looking for" section but your copy says you're looking for a guy. I'm above your age range but you "looked" so I thought I'd wave and just point out the gender issue. nice pictures.

 

*****

now that you posted pictures, I think I can fairly speak for all lesbians when I say that they'd be more than happy to have you playing on their team, if you ever chose to I‘ll check out that book you mentioned.

 

*****

Eff…funny you should mention that book -- someone I met at a party recently suggested I read it. I'm going to look for it today and will let you know my reactions. Then you can tell me what it says about me. It will be a good exercise for both of us.

 

*****

hi there miss francoise, did you hotlist me by accident? Jim (aged 60)

 

*****

hi beautifullylit, thanks for adding me to your hotlist. and thanks for recommending the book ..it looks very interesting you're smashingly cute, though I wish your face were... um... beautifully lit rather than semi-obscured. Is being a professional portrait photographer as cool as it sounds?hope you're having a fun weekend,

 

*****

the minimalist profile. it leaves more to ones imagination, a lost art really. you've clearly mastered the art of seduction through photos as well. i have no idea what you look like and my mind will wander endlessly until i do. nicely done, au bientot

 

*****

how's it going? I'm also a fan of art, culture and sex although not necessarily in that order and have kind of made a career out of two of the three. have you seen anything cool recently? your photos are very intriguing. do you have more? look forward to hearing more about you, p

 

*****

yes I read it….enjoyed it…in about a day and a half. liked the nyc parts i recognized, and really felt for guy when he just wanted her to say "yeah, let's get lunch" but "no, sorry, busy, parents, blah..." ouch. among other excruciating parts. he certainly did get his, a lot of wincing on my part...good tour of the inside of his head…

 

*****

 

 

 

For more from the same author; http;//www.02thief.com

 

 

 

 

 

While suggested by actual events this book is in its entirety a work of fiction.

All character names have been invented, all characters have been composited or

invented and all incidents have been fictionalised.

 Copyright V Publishing, New York, 2012.

 

Special Thanks.

Virginia Bechtold,, Olivier Bertinn, Erica Buckley. Denise Graeff, Cathy Joseph, and Ken Schaefle.

 

 

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means

(graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or information storage,and retrieval systems)

without permission from the copyright holders.

 

 

 

 

For more information about Alcoholism and/or Sex Addiction go to; www.aa.org and/or www.slaafws.org

All rights reserved, no part of this publication may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means (graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or information storage and retrieval systems) without permission from the copyright holders. V Publishing 20012 New York 

 

All characters are fictional. Any similarity with persons living or dead is entirely conincidental.