Acquired Tastes

by Simone Mondesir

  But she had still been left with the feeling that, in some way, what had happened had been her fault. Vanessa was her friend, and if she had not invited her to Heartlands, none of it would have happened. Joyce had hinted as much when she had telephoned later to say that Fergus had not turned up to the Council meeting and that nobody could find him. Alicia had got the feeling that Joyce thought she was hiding him.

  Only Zelda seemed sympathetic and she had turned into a real friend, Alicia thought, as she gazed at the formidably steep flight of stone steps leading up to the front door of the tall house which contained Zelda's flat.

  By the time she had dragged, bumped and lifted her suitcase up a further three flights of narrow, dingy stairs, Alicia's chest was heaving, and her arms felt as though they had been wrenched from their sockets. She leant, gasping against the door to Flat D, trying to remember whether Zelda had said to jiggle the key then pull the door, or push the door and jiggle the key. When she finally got the combination right, she found that Zelda's description of her flat as a cubby hole was accurate. It was the kind of flat estate agents describe as compact.

  Three doors led off a tiny hall. The first led into a bedroom, in which most of the floor space was occupied by a double bed pushed up against three walls, whilst a large wardrobe took what little space was left. Next door was a tiny bathroom, which necessitated any occupant to either stand on the toilet or wedge themselves between the toilet and the hand basin in order to open the door to get out. The living room was L-shaped, with a tiny galley kitchen at one end, partitioned off by a lacquered screen, decorated with peacocks. One large window opened out on to an unsafe-looking balcony barely two-feet wide, on which stood a window box containing assorted weeds.

  The only seating was an ornate, but faded, chaise-longue, draped with multi-coloured, fringed shawls, and a bank of floor cushions covered in an assortment of oriental carpet fabrics. These appeared to be the source of a strong, earthy odour, not unlike the sort of smell Alicia would have associated with a camel.

  In front of the cushions was a long, low table in dark wood carved with exotic Japanese-looking figures and inlaid with mother-of-pearl.

  There was a large shell on the table which looked as though it was used as an ashtray as it still had some ash in it. Alicia picked it up and sniffed. The ash had a distinctly odd smell. She smiled, thinking it was probably some sort of incense. Zelda liked to think of herself as a bit of a Bohemian.

  Having unpacked her clothes and squeezed them in beside Zelda's many flowing, kaftan-style dresses and tops, Alicia made herself a cup of tea with some long-life milk she found in a cupboard, and opened the packet of chocolate biscuits she had brought with her for emergencies. Then she settled herself down on the chaise-longue to study her A-Z of London.

  She had been right. Vanessa's flat was only two streets away. She would take a look at it later, but her first priority was to buy some food and she had noticed a rather interesting looking patisserie just along the road.

  Eleven

  'Magnificent, isn't it?'

  Vanessa looked in the mirror. Behind her, stretched out on her bed was Fergus, naked.

  His arms were propped behind his head and he was gazing contentedly down at his massive erection which rose pale and taut, out of the dark hairiness of his body.

  Vanessa twisted the top off her lipstick. 'Tell me something,' she said flexing her lips. 'Why do all men worship their pricks?'

  She began to apply a thick creamy coating of lipstick, skilfully exaggerating the fullness of her lips.

  'Because only a divine being could be an instrument of both such agony and ecstasy, that it even makes pissing a pleasure. Freud was right about penis envy. From the moment a little girl realises she cannot pee in a beautiful golden arc like her brother, jealousy is born.'

  Vanessa pursed her lips together and blotted them with a tissue. She checked the result in the mirror and then swivelled round on her seat. 'Balls,' she retorted tersely then slipped her feet into a pair of black suede, high-heeled sling backs. She stood up and checked her appearance in the mirrored wardrobe doors which ran the length of the room.

  Fergus groaned loudly. 'It's no good. I can't stand it. Either you come over here or I'm going to have to take the situation into my own hands.'

  Vanessa turned round and stood looking at him, her hands on her lycra-smooth hips. She had never met anyone quite like Fergus before.

  Driving back to London after the debacle at St Ethelred's in the early hours of Saturday morning, he had woken up just north of Luton and, without heed for the possible consequences, lunged at her. To avoid a multiple pile up, she had watched the sun rise spread-eagled on the bonnet of her GTi in the car-park of a motorway service station, as the dawn chorus provided a descant trill to the lorry engines being revved up nearby. Even now, she grew hot at the memory.

  They had stopped twice more after that, in a lay-by and once more in the deserted car-park of a giant DIY superstore. When they eventually got back to her flat just after eight that morning, she hadn't even had time to close the front door before Fergus pulled her on to the floor, forcing her to kick the door shut in the face of her startled neighbour who was setting out for his morning jog.

  Five days had passed in much the same way.

  There had been no mention of Fergus leaving. In fact, they had hardly spoken at all except to telephone for Chinese takeaways at whatever hour of the day or night one of them - usually Fergus - felt hungry. The pile of discarded foil containers in the kitchen was enough to keep several generations of Blue Peter devotees happy.

  At first, Vanessa had been a willing partner. Although she felt repelled by Fergus's coarseness, the more he repulsed her, the more excited she became. Each time they had sex, she felt she was striking another blow at those desiccated old women at St Ethelred's. How dare they pass judgement on her and dismiss her like a schoolgirl?

  But Fergus's continued presence in her flat was wearing. One of the many joys of divorcing Jeremy three years ago was being able to live by herself again. As a single child, she had found the communal living of boarding school hell and living with Jeremy hadn’t been much better. Now, returning to her blissfully empty flat, after a day at the office, was heaven. These days, if she wanted to have sex, she much preferred going wherever the man lived or to a hotel room. That way she could leave once she was satisfied and not have to wake up next to him the next morning.

  Waking up with a man complicated things. It usually demanded some kind of post-coital conversation in which the man wanted reassurance about his sexual performance, and Vanessa could never be bothered to lie. Or what was even more boring - they mistook sex for some kind of emotional commitment.

  But conversation with Fergus wasn't the problem - far from it. He woke up only to demand food or sex. The problem was his sleeping habits. She was used to sex with men who rolled over and immediately fell asleep, but with Fergus, it was as though orgasm triggered narcolepsy. No matter where, or in what uncomfortable or unusual position they had been having sex, he would fall into a deep sleep from which it was impossible to wake him. Vanessa would find herself trapped by the dead weight of his body, or entangled in his limbs, which seemed instantly to experience the equivalent of rigor mortis. What made it worse was that Fergus snored in great snorts and bellows that seemed to reverberate off the walls and made sleep almost impossible for anyone within a wide radius.

  As a result, she had barely managed a few hours of uninterrupted sleep since arriving back in London, and was in no fit state to attend the production meeting on the Monday morning, especially as she had not yet written the programme proposal Philip wanted.

  She thought that after a day or so Fergus would want to discuss the programme, but she was wrong. Every time she suggested they talk about it, he replied that business could wait and made a grab for her. She had played along with him because she wanted his co-operation, but her career could wait no longer.

  She glanced at her watch. 'Loo
k, Fergus, I really don't have the time. In exactly one hour and thirty-five minutes from now, I have to present a cogently argued proposal for a series based on your research, and I have not as yet committed one word to paper. Now if you would help me … '

  Fergus waggled his tongue suggestively and grinned.

  Vanessa sighed and hitched up her skirt as she walked over to the bed and straddled him.

  'You'd better make this quick and no falling asleep,' she warned him as she lowered herself down.

  Fergus closed his eyes with pleasure as his back arched up to meet her.

  Ten minutes later, Vanessa was perched at the breakfast bar in the kitchen, sipping black coffee. Fergus ambled into the kitchen still wet from the shower, wearing a bed sheet like a toga. Behind him, Vanessa could see a trail of damp footprints and sodden towels. She shuddered at the thought of how her beautiful, pristine bathroom must look.

  Jeremy had not only been untidy, refusing to throw anything away, but he had also insisted on filling their large, rambling house in Clapham with the decaying detritus of Swift family memorabilia. The only way she had managed to remain sane while married to him was to insist on her own bathroom which he had been forbidden to use. When she moved into her own flat after the divorce, she had made it a hymn to minimalism - all white and devoid of ornament or any form of clutter. That had been until Fergus walked in the door

  Everywhere he walked, sat or lay, he somehow contrived to leave the imprint of his presence behind him: discarded clothes, half-eaten food, dirty glasses, and always, everywhere, whorls of black hair which clung tenaciously to sheets and towels and blocked plug holes, like some kind of fluffy spoor. Vanessa could not understand why the man leering across the bar at her was not completely bald, given the amount of hair he had shed in her flat.

  'What's for breakfast? I need to keep my strength up with you around.' Fergus reached out and tried to grab one of her breasts.

  Vanessa slapped his hand sharply away, but tried to sound pleasanter than she felt. She needed to regain control of the situation.

  'Fergus darling, I really do feel we should concentrate on business for a little while.'

  'I can't think on an empty stomach. The old grey matter doesn't function without nourishment,' said Fergus who was busy opening kitchen cupboards searching for food.

  'Oh, for God's sake sit down. I'll cook something,' Vanessa's patience snapped.

  She wrenched open the fridge door and peered inside. It was empty except for a mildewing jar of stuffed olives, the yellowing remains of some unidentifiable green vegetable and a pot of a sinister-looking brown substance which may once have been pâté. Her cupboards yielded a tin of artichoke hearts, several tins of anchovies, dried pasta in assorted shapes and a tin of treacle pudding.

  Vanessa picked up the tin and stared at it. She couldn't imagine why she had treacle pudding in her cupboard, she loathed the stuff. It must have been a leftover from her days with Jeremy, who loved nursery food.

  For a moment she felt almost nostalgic for Jeremy. The contrast between him and Fergus could not be greater. Jeremy had his irritating little habits, but he had been so malleable. And his body had been so hairless.

  According to the instructions on the tin, the pudding needed only a few minutes in the microwave. Vanessa shrugged, it would have to do. Another search of her kitchen yielded a tin opener. With a bit of a struggle, she managed to open the tin and emptied about two-thirds of the pudding into a soggy mound on a plate. She pushed it into the microwave, and jabbed the controls.

  As the plate in the microwave oven slowly rotated, she perched on a stool opposite Fergus and smiled. She had just had an inspiration.

  'Right, I am, as they say, up shit creek. But you are going to be my paddle. Instead of a proposal, I am going to present you to the production meeting. You can tell Philip the broad outlines of your theory, and hopefully dazzle him with science, which will keep him happy for a few days more until I can write something down. Brilliant don't you think?'

  The ping of the microwave pre-empted Fergus's reply.

  Vanessa banged the plate in front of him.

  He poked at the pudding with his spoon. 'Where's the custard?' he demanded. 'You can't have treacle pudding without custard.'

  'I'm out of milk,' Vanessa said between clenched teeth.

  Fergus grunted and began eating.

  'So, will you do it?' Vanessa asked.

  Fergus ignored her until he had wolfed the last of the pudding. He had been wondering how long it would take Vanessa to get down to business. He'd expected her to insist on it much sooner, but perhaps she had been trying to ensure that he would be in thrall to her charms before she made her move. If so, she was mistaken. Vanessa was an entertaining enough diversion, but only until he decided what to do next. He yawned and then drank some of Vanessa's coffee, aware that she was impatient for his reply. Fergus stole a glance at her. She was handsome enough in a lean sort of way, but she was not really his sort of woman. She reminded him of the kind of women he had grown up with, hard of body and hard of mind. He liked women to be of a more generous disposition. Now Alicia had breasts in which a man could happily drown, although sadly, that was unlikely to be his fate now, and she had the added attraction of being a fine cook. Still, Vanessa was willing enough, or at least would be while he had something she wanted.

  'What's in it for me?'

  Vanessa's eyes bulged. 'Absolutely bloody nothing if you don't get a move on and we miss this meeting,' she yelled.

  'All right, all right,' Fergus held his hands up in mock surrender. 'Give me two minutes.' He made for the bathroom, trailing the sheet behind him.

  Vanessa forced herself to take several deep breaths, and then began to rehearse what she was going to say to Philip.

  A minute later, Fergus reappeared dressed in his jumper and socks. 'Have you seen my underpants?' he asked looking around.

  Vanessa stared in horror. She had forgotten. Fergus only had the clothes he was wearing when he left Heartlands.

  'Aha,' he declared triumphantly and pointed.

  Vanessa followed his finger and winced.

  An extremely grubby pair of underpants was dangling from one of her very expensive stainless steel light fittings. Fergus scrambled on to a chair and pulled them down. 'Now all I need is my trousers,' he said, cheerfully wandering back into the living room.

  Vanessa followed him and sat down heavily on her now slightly grubby white sofa. How could she possibly take him into Right Pryce Productions? He looked positively squalid. She squared her shoulders. She would have to, she had no choice.

  Fergus appeared again, this time fully dressed but with his hair even wilder than usual. He held up the reason.

  'Afraid your comb isn't up to much.' Half the teeth were missing.

  'Keep away from politics,' Vanessa instructed him once they were finally in the taxi. 'All that crap in your thesis about liberal bourgeois conspiracies is passé! All people want to know about is sex.'

  'Avoid analysis and stick to people humping donkeys, you mean?' said Fergus sarcastically.

  Vanessa took a deep breath. She was not going to lose her temper, at least not yet. 'Look, the academic world might have time for splitting hairs, but television has to grab an audience by the short and curlies in the first few seconds. We don't have time for reasoned argument and anyway,' she shrugged, 'anyone who sits and stares at a box in the corner of a room all day is not exactly going to be a member of Mensa, are they?'

  'So you're suggesting I forget my political and intellectual principles and do it for money?' Fergus enquired.

  'Exactly. And one more thing … ' Vanessa hesitated.

  A nightmarish thought had just presented itself to her. Supposing anyone found out that she was sleeping with a man who looked as if he belonged under the arches at Waterloo Station? She would die, simply die.

  Fergus put his head on one side and gave her an enquiring look.

  'I think it's better that we don't men
tion that you are staying with me. It would be wrong for me, as the producer, to have anything other than a business-like relationship with someone who might be signing a contract with the production company.'

  'So, are you saying that you're worried someone might think that you are sleeping with me in order to get me to sign over the rights of my research to you?'

  'Well, not exactly … I wouldn't, of course, but it might just look that way,' blustered Vanessa.

  Fergus reached over and squeezed her thigh. 'Then I'd better warn you, I don't come cheap.'

  Twelve

  'Nice bum,' Fergus nodded approvingly at Heather's plump buttocks, which were tightly encased in a pair of cut-off jeans.

  'Little bitch,' muttered Vanessa under her breath as Heather disappeared.

  Heather had uncharacteristically insisted on behaving like a proper secretary when they arrived, and had leapt up and barred Vanessa's way as she attempted to sweep past into Philip's office. Vanessa was sure it had been an attempt to make her look small.

  After a few moments, Heather reappeared with Philip.

  'Vanessa, and only… ' Philip checked his watch with an exaggerated gesture, 'ten minutes late for our meeting. How refreshing!'

  He looked at Fergus, taking in the frayed sweater, baggy trousers and scuffed suede shoes, and raised an interrogative eyebrow at Vanessa.

  Vanessa jabbed Fergus sharply in the ribs with her briefcase to stop him ogling Heather, then gave Philip a reassuring smile. 'Philip, I’d like you to meet Dr Fergus Archibald from Heartlands University. He's a lecturer in experimental psychology, and it's his ground-breaking research which I hope will provide the hard core of the series. I thought it might be useful for him to come along to today's meeting so that the team could meet him.'

  'Hard core indeed, I like that,' Philip chuckled mirthlessly as he shook Fergus's hand. 'Welcome to Right Pryce Productions, Dr Archibald. Why don't we go through to the boardroom, the others are waiting.'