Ambition

by Julie Burchill

  The editorial went by in a blur. She kept looking at him; not his face, she knew that now, but his body, his thighs, his groin. She had to know what he had in there, then she could think about something else. But right now it was impossible. Looking at his groin for the nth time she felt his eyes on her and looked up. He wasn’t even smiling, just staring at her in a way that made her saliva glands flood as if she had just smelled a steak after a six-week diet.

  When Bryan O’Brien announced, ‘It’s a wrap,’ she was on her feet and out of his office in a shot, almost running until she came out on to the second-floor landing of the Best building. She leaned against the wall for a moment before starting down the steps to the toilets. Her clitoris was going to burn a hole in her Norma Kamali bodysuit if she didn’t detonate it soon.

  As she put her hand on the door, she felt a hand on her shoulder.

  ‘Excuse me – Susan?’

  She looked up into the face of David Weiss. ‘Do you want something?’

  ‘Yes. The same thing as you.’

  With a sharp intake of breath she caught him by the tie and literally dragged him into the toilets. They were empty. ‘Quick, quick,’ she gasped, and they staggered like drunks into the nearest cubicle, locking the door.

  Pressing against each other they kissed frantically. Then she freed her hands to undo her bodysuit between her legs. She ripped off her tights, kicked off her shoes and stood looking at him, panting.

  ‘Susan, will you do me a favour?’

  ‘Anything.’ She meant it.

  ‘Take my cock out. I’ve had an erection ever since you walked in that door, and it’s killing me.’

  ‘I’d much rather it was killing me,’ she said, and they kissed bluntly and impatiently as she opened his trousers and took it out inch by inch – not believing that there could be yet more and more of it. It must be a trick, like those long strings of coloured kerchiefs conjurers kid children with; she felt the same wonder now as she handled it. It was like a cosh wrapped in plush pink velvet: ten inches easily rising from thin, furry thighs. She bent to kiss it.

  ‘There’s no room for that. There’s no time.’ His voice was husky. ‘Get over that toilet.’

  It was, as Susan told a sulky and disgusted Zero later that week, the way all those surreptitious whispers tell you sex is meant to be, before you get old enough to know better and expect less. You know those mash books where women turn into wild animals because they love fucking so much, and go off their heads if they have to go without it? It was like that. (Zero had groaned.) Whereas we know that, in reality, most men are so useless (Zero had brightened considerably here) that most women find sex marginally less pleasurable than waxing their legs. But this was back to those adolescent basics; back to heat and lust, before the romance industry gets its claws into you and makes you think you want sweet words and soft lighting. The lighting here was fluorescent and terminally unflattering, and the words were ‘You cunt’, ‘You whore’ and ‘I’m coming, you bitch, squeeze it!’ but it was perfect sex: the beauty of the man, the intensity of the desire, the purity of the act. It was, Susan said later, the Big Thing at last. And she wasn’t just talking about his cock.

  They separated and stood panting against opposite walls of the cubicle. They looked at each other and laughed and David Weiss said, ‘Gee, whoever thought up the name casual sex for sex between strangers was way off. I can’t remember sex that uncasual.’

  ‘Me neither. And there’s nothing more casual than the type of sex you get in a long relationship that’s gone bad that take it or leave it, like it or lump it sex.’

  ‘Say, you’re wise as well as beautiful. As John Wayne was always saying to those Tartar princesses.’

  Again they laughed, darting glances of shy and amazed delight at each other as they got back into their clothes. When she was dressed he took her face in his hands, looked into her eyes and smiled. ‘Isn’t this weird, us hitting it off like this? I thought you wouldn’t give me the time of day.’

  She laughed ‘To be honest, I didn’t even know Bryan had hired you. I’m hopeless on that side of things.’

  He wrinkled his brow. ‘Say what?’

  ‘Numbers. I get vertigo.’

  ‘Susan – sorry, who do you think I am?’

  ‘A financial journalist.’

  He shook his head. ‘Susan – I’m David Weiss.’

  ‘I know. I think I’ve heard of you.’

  ‘No, you don’t understand. I use my mother’s name. Because I fell out with my father. He brought me here by way of patching things up. My father is Tobias Pope.’

  The rest of the afternoon passed in a daze, like when you get drunk at lunchtime. She even had that coppery taste in her mouth, the one that doubles for both fear and hangover and now, it would seem, love. She kept sending Kathy out for Crest, Amplex and Listerine, but nothing could budge it. The novelists told you about lack of sleep and appetite, but that was acceptable because they made you look and feel so dramatic, consumptive, romantic. What the novelists didn’t tell you was that love gave you halitosis, just when you least needed it.

  He had the office next to hers, with the same glass partitioned door; she kept finding excuses to walk past it. He had the staff in one by one – Bryan, Oliver, Max, the subs, the reporters. But not her.

  Around five-thirty she passed his door yet again and this time he had Zero with him. The atmosphere of ill-will that radiated from the girl was so strong that it seemed to seep under the door like a camp dry-ice dangerous chemical in a Fifties sci-fi film. Zero sat bolt upright, her tail pushed comically to one side sticking straight out from her chair, staring at David Weiss solemnly. Susan could see from her profile that she wasn’t even pouting. What on earth could he be saying to make Zero lose her pout?

  Susan was furiously and furtively flossing her teeth when the door swung open and there stood Zero, staring at her accusingly. ‘Bora da, baby doll,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Come in, Zero. Shut the door. Why don’t you put your feet up and tell me a few lies about people?’

  ‘Don’t know what you mean.’ She closed the door and leaned against it.

  ‘Why did you tell me David Weiss was a dog, Zero?’

  ‘Because I knew you’d want to fuck him the minute you saw him. I was just trying to put off the awful hour of reckoning, wasn’t I? Have you to myself a bit longer.’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ said Susan weakly.

  Zero spat on the floor and they both peered at it, glistening insolently, quite impressed but somewhat unsure of just what the gesture signified. Then Zero wrenched open the door and turned to go.

  ‘Wait! I mean – what did he say to you? If there’s any misunderstanding of your position here, I’ll go now and tell him just how important your—’

  ‘Sorry,’ sneered Zero, ‘but I can’t help you there, bach. If you must know, he told me the usual. That I had a singular talent. That he understood that working on a tabloid with all its limitations might sometimes be problematic for me. That he sympathized, he really did. But if ever there was anyway he could be supportive, please let him know. I told him I didn’t have a hernia, thank you very much, and he just looked at me with those stupid brown eyes like a cow who’s been goosed. Then he bunged me a rise – five thou p.a. And said didn’t I find it very time-consuming, answering all my own fanmail, and wouldn’t I like my own secretary? Only if she’s got an honours degree in cunnilingus, I said. That shut him up.’ Zero made an obscene gesture with her wrist. ‘What a fucking girlie – I expected him to ask did I have painful periods next, and would I like a hot water bottle on the firm.’

  ‘Men can’t win with you, can they, Zero? They act lousy and they’re pigs. They act properly and they’re girlies. Exactly what do you want from men?’

  ‘Well, for a start, I want them to keep out of my way. That includes Yank bigshots who throw around salaries and sympathy as though they were stockings and chewing gum. Then eventually I’d like their complete and total
extinction. But I’ll settle for a cull, so long as I can have a club of my own. Did you know there are fifty thousand spare men in London alone? If they were seals we’d be allowed to cull them. And men aren’t half as pretty. Or smart.’

  ‘Go away, Zero. I’m not in the mood.’

  ‘You’re not in the mood for anything, are you, girlie?’ snarled Zero, leaning across the desk, ‘Except ten inches of kosher beef served hot up the ass.’

  ‘That’s sounds like fun,’ said David Weiss from the doorway. ‘Where do I join the queue?’

  They watched Zero flounce away, her wired tail appearing to give them the finger.

  ‘What a very attractive and angry young woman she is,’ said David Weiss. ‘A very clever young woman too – I’ve been reading her column these past months. She’s gay, isn’t she?’

  ‘Not right now she isn’t. She is a lesbian, though.’

  ‘I don’t blame her. If I was a girl, I’d be a lesbian too.’ He smiled at her. ‘What on earth could anyone see in a man?’

  ‘You’d be surprised.’

  ‘Do you want to come back to my hotel with me?’

  ‘More than anything else in the world.’

  ‘Let’s go.’

  Susan had always imagined that people’s sexual natures were nothing more than extensions of their personalities. Thus Gary Pride had been clueless and clumsy in bed, Charles had been courteous and energetic and Matthew had been sensitive and persevering. Zero would be arrogant, adolescent and lascivious while Tobias Pope, God forbid she should ever get a chance to confirm it, would be superior, sadistic and cold.

  David was different. In two hours they had done it five times, each time with more brutality on his part, and she was sore all over, inside and out. But now he had her wrapped in blankets and drinking hot chocolate laced with crème de cacao as he fussed around the room, opening windows in preparation for smoking a cigarette. ‘You’re sure you don’t mind?’ he asked for the third time.

  ‘Of course not.’

  He smiled down at her and threw himself headlong on to the bed like a puppy ready for play, sucking on his Camel. ‘It’s a filthy habit, I’m going to give it up.’

  ‘I hope that’s the only filthy habit you’re going to give up.’

  ‘Sure thing.’ He stroked her hair, then drew back. ‘Jesus. What’s that? That thing on your forehead?’

  She thought on her feet. ‘Well, you’ve found it; my guilty secret. I had it done one night, oh, years ago, just before I joined the Best. In a fit of half-assed rebellion about selling out, I don’t know.’ How Matthew would laugh!

  ‘You poor kid.’ He smoothed her fringe down over it. ‘Did it hurt?’

  ‘I was too drunk to feel it. It’s just embarrassing now. But it would look even worse if I had it removed – a big, raw scar. As it is I can keep it covered.’

  ‘Gee.’ He looked at her sorrowfully, then gestured hugely and vaguely around the room, laughing. ‘Will you look at this? This a.m. I was the new nerd in town, getting hit on by the cabbies and losing my way and worrying about whether I could do my job. Now I’m in bed with a beautiful English broad, and I’ve got a job, an office, everything!’

  He seemed so happy that it scared her. If he was as happy as she was, then there was so much to lose. ‘Are you serious? I mean, seriously so pleased?’

  He looked at her as if she had just announced that she was Queen Marie of Rumania. ‘Serious I’m serious. Aren’t you happy about this too? Don’t tell me you’re one of these broads who thinks it’s a sign of peasant stock to show their feelings and play games all the time.’

  ‘No, I hate that.’

  ‘Those manipulation games are very big in New York, and they’re for penny-ante people who don’t feel they’ve been dealt a good hand in life. They’re the people who keep you waiting for hours to see if you’ll wait for them. That’s how they prove their worth to themselves – it’s a sure sign of an inadequate.’

  ‘I hate that too – it’s really Seventies. I always come on time.’ Well, she would from now on.

  ‘So I noticed.’ He closed his eyes and snuggled up to her. ‘Stroke my balls. Just for a minute.’ He wriggled and purred.

  Touching him, she laughed. She had always found testicles the ugliest items in the history of the world, like figs covered in fungus; it was strange to be with a man whose body seemed as familiar and unrepellent to her as her own. ‘It’s strange, we come from such different worlds, and we’re strangers – but we seem so much alike.’

  ‘We’re twins, maybe – Siamese twins. Separated at birth by some hotshot smartass surgeon. Boy, did we show him.’

  She was starting to feel tired. ‘Can I . . . am I staying?’

  He sat up and looked at her, shocked. ‘Oh, no. How could you think that? This is the scene where I call you a cab and call you Suzanne.’ He punched her arm lightly. ‘Of course you’re staying, dummy.’

  ‘Can I take a shower?’

  ‘Want me to help?’

  ‘No, stay where you are. I’ll only be ten minutes.’

  ‘Sure.’ He grabbed the remote control and went at the TV like a teenager.

  She went into the bathroom and turned on the shower, stepping under it. But it was cold, and the shock of it made her gasp, revving up her recent memory as it hit her breasts. She stepped back, breathing heavily; just one more time, he wouldn’t mind. She knew him by now. He’d love it.

  She padded quietly into the living room just in time to hear him say, ‘I miss you.’

  But she’d only been gone a minute . . .

  ‘Of course I do, Meesh. Yes, Bunny. Talk to you tomorrow. Bye.’ The receiver clicked.

  ‘Who’s Bunny?’ she asked quietly.

  He wheeled around, naked and guilty. ‘Susan . . .’

  ‘Who’s Bunny?’

  ‘It’s my . . . it’s a girl in New York. Her name’s Michèle – Michèle Levin.’

  ‘I see. Do you have a photograph of her?’

  He shot her a worried look, took his wallet from the trousers on the floor and handed her a colour snapshot of a girl. She had straight blonde hair of the type that American Jewish girls seem to grow spontaneously when their father’s income reaches the million mark, a ski tan, a sweet, insecure smile and a slight cast in one eye.

  Calmly, Susan ripped it once, twice, three times and threw the pieces up into the air. They fluttered ineffectually to the floor as though trying to look inconspicuous, like children on a staircase trying not to make their parents’ loud row worse. ‘Confetti for our wedding,’ she said. ‘Cross-eyed fucking cow.’

  He hung his head.

  ‘Can I ask you a question?’

  ‘Shoot,’ he said defeatedly.

  ‘Is it a normal part of your love play to fuck this sweet young thing in lavatories?’

  ‘Of course not.’ He seemed genuinely shocked. ‘It’s not that sort of relationship.’

  ‘Then what sort of relationship is it?’ she snorted. ‘Platonic?’

  ‘No . . . we’ve known each other a long time, you see, since we were kids. We lived on these neighbouring estates in Connecticut in the summer. We’re sort of . . . unofficially engaged.’

  ‘I see. How old is she?’

  ‘Twenty-six.’

  The same age. ‘May I ask you, do you often accost strangers and fuck them standing up in public places?’

  ‘You’re the first.’

  ‘Oh my, I’m honoured. She gets your fraternity pin, I get a quick one in the toilets. The staff toilets. Your staff toilets. God, fucking the help – how Victorian can you get?’ She turned away and picked her dress up from the floor.

  ‘Susan.’ He came up behind her and tried to touch her. She shook him off. ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to lead you on. But the way you were looking at me in O’Brien’s office . . . I thought you wanted to as much as I did.’

  ‘So it’s my fault?’

  ‘It’s no one’s fault.’

  ‘Oh, no. I beg
to differ. It’s someone’s fault, you shit eating prick.’ He looked at her, appalled. ‘There. I bet she doesn’t talk like that, does she?’

  He laughed softly. ‘Michèle speaks six languages and she can’t get mad in any of them.’

  She wanted to throw up. She felt like a hooker in a hotel room hearing a client talk about his wife. Any moment now he’d get out the pictures of the 2.5 babies.

  ‘Her family are rich, of course.’

  ‘Her father has a bank . . .’ He shrugged apologetically, as though her father had syphilis.

  ‘But of course.’ Susan Street from Nowhere-on-Sea. What a fool she had been. ‘I see.’

  ‘Susan—’

  ‘Keep it, David. Save your breath for lying to your dumb doormat girlfriend, not me.’ She squirmed into her Kamali body, Alalïa dress and Emma Hope heels and picked up her briefcase. ‘Here’s where you call me the cab and call me Suzanne.’ She walked to the door. ‘But hold the ten bucks. Put it towards an eye-straightening op for Bunny Money.’ She opened the door, went out and looked back over her shoulder at him. ‘Because I don’t need it. I’m on your father’s payroll, remember. He can tip me better than you could ever dream of in your wildest, wettest dreams.’ She closed the door, banged on it with her fist and screamed loud enough for the late swimmers in the hotel basement pool to hear, ‘AND HE’S A BETTER FUCK, TOO!’

  She fell into the lift, out of the lift, into a cab and out of a cab. Then she fell heavily against the doorbell. It kept playing the first three bars of Dire Straits’ ‘Sultans of Swing’, over and over – Matthew’s idea of fun. What a fucking irritating wimp he was, with that med-stude humour doctors never grow out of. At that moment, she hated Dire Straits, doctors and rich, handsome, young Americans more than she had ever believed possible.

  ‘Susan! What the – where are your keys?’

  ‘Can’t find them,’ she mumbled, pushing past him and bolting up the stairs.

  ‘What’s that smell? Where have you been?’

  ‘It’s sick. With Zero.’ She ran into the bathroom, locked the door and leapt out of her dress. Throwing it into the bath, she grabbed a box of matches, lit one and threw it and its unfulfilled comrades into the tub too. Seven hundred pounds’ worth of smoke filled the room. She opened the window and leaned out, gulping the air, tears rushing down her face. Smoke gets in your eyes, she thought vaguely.