‘Bring bring…bring bring,’ the phone rang.
Groaning, Felicity leant over a pile of books and reached to pick it up.
‘Good morning, Crackerley Library, Felicity speaking…oh thank fuck! Why didn’t you call me back yesterday?’
It was Stacey. Stacey and Felicity had been friends since primary school and were usually to be found chatting up men at bars and clubs. This process involved Felicity stating that she fancied someone, Stacey latching onto his mates, Stacey saying that she wasn’t interested in pulling but then pulling the hottest guy in the place, leaving Felicity to go home alone.
To be honest, Felicity didn’t think Stacey was that attractive. She had an amazing figure, that was undeniable; she was all hips, waist and ripe but not juicy breasts. But her face lagged behind somewhat, with a square jawline, chubby cheeks and deep set eyes. She had one of those heads that looked like the face had been made too big and the features too small. Admittedly she made a lot of effort with herself, with fake tan, fake nails and bleach blonde hair. But Felicity had never been able to understand how Stacey was able to continuously secure such a huge quantity of men, whilst she herself was left with nothing.
‘Sorry, mate, I was busy,’ Stacey said naughtily, begging to be quizzed.
‘So what the hell happened on Saturday? Did I meet you?’
Stacey let out a loud cackle down the phone, ‘Do you not remember, Flee Flee? Please tell me you remember.’
‘Remember what?’ Felicity burst, afraid of what she could have forgotten.
‘That Sean guy you like… any bells? No?’
‘Oh come on, Stace, please! This is not funny. Did I embarrass myself? What did I do, Stace? Please!’
‘Let’s meet for lunch, I’ll tell ya then.’
‘No! Just tell me now,’ Felicity demanded, surprising herself with her power.
‘Okay, okay, okay.’
Waiting for the next statement felt like hours. So much time passed that Felicity was able to imagine every situation possible and consider the potential repercussions.
‘We were chatting to him…this Sean guy and two of his mates. One of which I went home with by the way, that’s why I didn’t call you back yesterday!’
‘Stacey!’
‘Sorry, yeah, well anyway Sean went off to the loo…. and you…well… you followed him.’
‘To the loo?’
‘Yeah.’
‘So I waited outside?’ Felicity hoped.
‘Uh no. No, you went inside,’ Stacey spluttered trying not to laugh.
‘What to the men’s?’
‘Yeah, I’m afraid so. Look, mate, I don’t know exactly what happened. I only know what Sean said.’
‘Oh shit!’
‘Apparently you went in there, cornered him by the basin and told him you wanted to feel his…uh…cock inside you.’
There was silence.
‘Felicity?’
‘What did he say?’
‘I don’t know, mate, you collapsed straight after.’
‘In the blokes’?’
‘In the blokes’.’
‘With Sean?’
‘Yeah, he caught you. Then came and got me.’
‘Sean did?’ Felicity quizzed, mortified.
‘Yeah Sean.’
‘In the men’s?’
‘Yes.’
‘Actually inside?’
‘Yes.’
‘With Sean?’
‘Jesus, Felicity! Yes with Sean! In the men’s! In a big pile of piss, okay? Sean carried you out to me and then we got a cab back to yours.’
Felicity took a moment to take it all in.
‘In piss?’ she checked.
‘In piss,’ Stacey confirmed.
‘Actually in the piss?’
‘Yes! God!’
‘Is this a joke?’
‘Unfortunately not.’
‘I thought you said you bagged a guy. You’re not taking the piss, are you?’
‘No! I did shag a guy, and I would’ve got him earlier if you hadn’t collapsed like a teenager in the bogs. He came over after I’d dropped you at yours.’
‘Was it my piss?’ Felicity asked, as a pile of books appeared in front of her at the desk. ‘Listen, I’ve got a customer. Will you meet me for lunch, yeah? Outside at one?’
7
MISSION LIBRARY CARD
It was five-to-one, the sun was shining, the birds were infected and Derek was on his lunch break. His stomach was spontaneously spasming with the thought of the task ahead of him. Usually on his lunch break he would take a stroll to the park with a pasty and a paper but today he had the enviable task of retrieving his library card from the redheaded waif whom he had tried to suck the face off on Saturday.
Whilst he sat on a bench opposite the council buildings, eating a sausage roll and drinking a banana milkshake, Derek was attempting to devise a plan of attack. Approaching the technique with all the grey cells of Monsieur Poirot, a touch of Sherlock Holmes and a retirement home of Miss Marples, he came to the conclusion that Felicity was likely to be a one-o-clock sort of lunch girl. So, with this in mind, he decided to brave it at five-past-one and risk being late back to work.
Derek, on sobering, had been mortified about his rebuffed advances. But now he had done the exact same thing, with added sick, to Donna. He was riddled with guilt about ruining her birthday and gutted that he had missed out on his first and, undoubtedly, only chance with her. Despite this, Derek had no thoughts about how he would redeem himself. There were no thoughts of flowers or an offer of dinner. The world would do what it would do and it would do it around Derek. That was the way it had always been and that was the way it would always be. He was stubborn but most of all he was ignorant.
Chewing his last mouthful of sausage roll, he screwed up the wrapper, held on with both hands to the creases in his trousers and got up. Crumbs from the wrapper fell to just above his knee, but were brushed off by the air as Derek began on a brisk walk to the library.
Felicity’s stomach growled ferociously at the thought of another half an hour without lunch. Usually she had lunch at one, but when she worked with the wanker that liked to be called Phil, she had to go when she was told.
Felicity should have been higher up the hierarchy of the library, but as Phil was the husband of the manager, there was very little Felicity could say or do without him interfering. In her opinion, there was nothing worse in the world than a wet person. Phil was soaked through, in fact, he was drenched. Felicity regularly imagined grabbing him by his curly pube-like hair and slamming him up against the bookshelves violently. She pictured beating him in the drama section because he had a painful habit of learning Shakespeare lines just so he could recite them and sound intelligent. He didn’t, he sounded wanky and it made Felicity’s skin crawl.
Thanks to him, Felicity was forced to delay her lunch and put off meeting Stacey until after work. Yet again she had been interrupted by a customer and had had to end the conversation with only the knowledge that it wasn’t her wee that she had been lying in. This made her feel a lot better, until she realized that it may well have been better if it had been her own. At least then she would have known where it had come from. A chunder like convulsion came over her as she pictured it. So she picked up the cliterature she was currently reading and set about taking her mind of it.
It was called ‘Secret Sex’ by Dusty Howe and it was fabulous. So far the rich city boy had been sleeping with most of the women, although his wife was sleeping with the chauffeur and regularly fornicating in the back of the limo whilst he was inside on his very physical business meetings. The vicar had recently started an affair with a man and the whole thing was getting rather steamy and scandalous. Normally this would make Felicity feel a hundred times better, but today just the thought of any sex that she wasn’t having, put Phil’s life even more at risk.
As she exhaled and mumbled, ‘This is shit,’ she caught sight of Derek hovering at the door. He was ste
pping from foot to foot on his tip toes and looking towards the desk. Not realizing that Derek was, in fact, behaving that way in order to avoid her, she wafted her arms about in the air and a big grin came over her face
‘Derek!’ she shouted. ‘What are you doing? Come over here!’
‘Shhhhhhhhh!’ a lady of about fifty demanded.
‘I’m sorry, what?’ Felicity asked with a side order of attitude, just as Derek arrived at the desk.
‘Be quiet, this is a library, don’t you know,’ the lady persisted, with a huge nod to her own importance and moral system.
‘Yes, I know!’ retorted Felicity. ‘I work here. Where do you work?’
As she stared the lady in the face, she suddenly became aware of Derek’s presence. ‘Hi, Derek,’ she said like a millpond, moving nothing but her bottom lip and keeping her gaze on the sun-bed aged hag in front of her.
‘I’m a solicitor’
‘Right you are, well, unless you want me to come into your place of work and tell you how to do your job, I suggest you leave me to get on with mine.’
It wasn’t the most customer service friendly solution going but Felicity felt proud that she had handled it with dignity and without even uttering a swear word.
‘Fucking bitch,’ she mumbled under her breath, as her heart rate began to slow down again.
Derek then made an attempt at a fake cough in a bid to draw attention to himself.
‘Oh, Derek! Hey! Sorry, you’re good at catching me at my best moments, eh?’
‘Hello,’ Derek said shuffling from side to side.
‘I get off soon, if you fancy going for a drink?’
‘Actually, I just came in to see if I left my library card here on Saturday.’
‘Yeah, yeah you did. You alright, Derek?’ she asked concerned. ‘Cause if this about the kiss.’
‘Just the library card, please,’ Derek said forcedly, refusing to look up.
‘Derek, come on, don’t be silly,’ she replied, as she handed him his card. ‘If you hang on just one minute I’ll be on lunch.’
‘I’m late for work,’ he mumbled, making a bid for Olympic walker out through the front doors.
Felicity spent her lunch break alone that day. Derek got back to work ten minutes early.
8
LION LUST
It was five-o-clock and yet again Stacey had the day off. She worked in promotions, which basically meant that she wore limited clothing, had ample cleavage and got paid to flirt with guys in the street. If her job were to be based on sales alone, Stacey would never have been employee of the month, but if it were based on word of mouth, then she would have been top of the class. In fact, Stacey would have done the job for free just for the perks.
At school she had been a geek. She had been naturally chubby and had therefore been cast aside with the speckies, pizza faces, gingers, and those that had developed a little earlier or later than others in the class. This is how she had become friends with Felicity. At this time Felicity was categorized as both specky and ginger, but now she wore contacts.
At the age of thirteen Stacey had begun to develop boobs and by the age of fifteen she had become known as Stacey Double D. Then, at sixteen, thanks to her surname Johns and some cider fuelled frolics in the park, she had become known as BJSJ. Then, when her puppy fat had begun to shed, she had gained her current name Paper Bag Stace. She had a fantastic body but her face just didn’t match up. Her head had remained bizarrely large and seemed to swallow up her eyes entirely. She was like a chocolate lined waffle cone filled with shitty ice cream. Luckily for Stacey, guys around Crackerley weren’t worried about the ice cream, for them it was all about the cone, chocolate lined and all.
Whilst sat on the library steps, twirling strawberry bubble gum around her finger and waiting for Felicity, Stacey texted Ricky.
‘Thanks for a great night/morning. Give me a call if you think you can handle me again.’
Stacey didn’t actually like Ricky, despite a spunk churning night, but she figured that it was better to keep him on his toes, as she never knew when he could come in handy. After all he had been pretty nifty at…
‘Oi, you big slut!’ Felicity shouted, embracing her so that her miniscule boobs pressed against Stacey’s massive ones.
‘So do you wanna hear all the juicy gossip about Ricky then? Or do we have to analyze Sean to death as usual?’ Stacey began, before they had even let go of one another.
‘I don’t even know what happened, Stace! I won’t analyze it all night, I promise. I just wanna know what happened, that’s all. Where are we going?’
They looked at each other and said in unison, ‘Red!’
‘The Red Lion’ was a shitty little dive. The Vikings had clearly been the last people to decorate because the walls were lined with wood cladding and complimented by rustic window seats covered with musty, crusty cushions. The serving wenches resembled the local darts team, with matching plum polo shirts stretched tightly over their flammable stomachs. As the three of them poured pints to the constant supply of customers, they mirrored ‘Swan Lake’ if it were to be performed by elephants. There was a beauty in watching them squeeze passed one another, lifting and pulling at their rolls in an effort to maneuver themselves without letting their fat meet.
Doug was the bar manager. Whereas the rest of the staff could be described as rotund or robust, Doug could not. He was fat, loud panting, flab flap funguses, third world country eating fat. Then there was Jon, who worked as a plumber through the day and did the odd shift at ‘The Red’ when he could. And finally there was Chris. Chris was the youngest of them all at twenty-three. Chris had what was known as rugby fat. Enough muscle in his wobble to make him look stocky and not obese. He also had a dimple, the universal signal for ‘I’m a sweet guy really’. He was uncontrollably cocky and walked with his legs wide open. He liked to think that it was due to an overly large cork screw, but in reality it was probably because his thighs rubbed together at the top.
As soon as Felicity and Stacey walked into ‘The Red’, Stacey’s attention was caught by Chris. Neither were saints and both regularly did the circuit, which meant that they had more than occasionally done one another as well. Chris was what you would call a player and Stacey was commonly referred to as a slapper. It was a match made in promiscuous heaven.
‘Oi, oi, sexy,’ Stacey uttered without a flicker of shame. ‘Long time no feel.’
‘Hi, girls, what can I get you?’ he replied coolly, his chest puffing up with the ego boost.
Sensing that what Stacey was opening her mouth to say would probably not be suitable for a family audience, Felicity jumped in.
‘Vodka with orange and a Jack and coke please,’ she said, looking away.
Despite her long friendship with Stacey, Felicity found it frustrating that she was regularly used as an accessory to sluttiness. They were unable to have a drink without Stacey catching someone’s eye, seeing a cute arse that she just must have, or a random weirdo joining them on their girl’s night out. Felicity needed pumped just as much as Stacey, but she wasn’t about to compromise on the caliber and cleanliness of a man in order to do so.
Felicity had once had a near miss with Chris too. It had been after closing time and as usual Felicity had been annihilated on the bench outside, smoking her fourth cigarette in a row.
‘Can I join you?’ Chris had said, fully intending to anyway
‘Hello!’ she had replied with outrageous enthusiasm.
Chris had then plonked himself down on the bench beside her, before proceeding to run his stumpy little finger up her leg. As Felicity’s head had hung forward, she had suddenly turned and head butted Chris on the way around. No blood was lost, although it was hard to believe with Chris prancing around like a duck just off a roundabout, squawking in agony. Felicity’s head had just rolled back down to its original position and she had fallen straight to sleep. Chris had been embarrassed and had got none that night and Felicity could barely remember it.
>
Back in the present, Chris produced the ladies drinks and Felicity grunted whilst Stacey raised the right corner of her mouth to a smile. It was meant to be seductive, but actually it just made her look wonky. It didn’t matter anyway, as Chris had quite another focus; Stacey’s pert little puppies nestled bountifully in her plunging t-shirt. He resisted the temptation to thrust one of his finger down into oblivion and the girls headed over to find a free booth.
Shuffling over to a table like slutty leprechauns, Stacey turned and pushed her tongue through her foundation caked cheek, mirroring a fat juicy acne mound bursting to be squeezed. Chris it seemed, was begging to be squeezed also, sticking his pigeon chest forward and up. The mating call had been made and a dyslexic donkey would be able to predict that ends would be bashed that evening. Stacey, however, felt the need to declare this anyway.
‘He’s getting fucked,’ she announced proudly.
‘What? Robert?’ Felicity asked, with a twinkle in her eye
‘Robert? Who’s Robert?’
Felicity had meant Ricky from the night before but she had trouble keeping up with all of her friend’s conquests. Just as she was about to say this Stacey jumped in.
‘Oh, Robbie? That guy who works down at the sewage. Ooh yeah! I haven’t seen him in ages. I should fuck him again really.’
Felicity sat in silence sipping her Jack Daniels and coke as Stacey porned up the memory of her last rendez vous with Robbie instead of Ricky.
‘No Chris!’ she blurted, suddenly coming back from her playboy mansion.
‘What the guy down the sewage?’ Felicity mocked.
‘No!’ Stacey shouted, before realizing. ‘Ah! Fuck you!’ she sulked, like a suddenly shy toddler.
Felicity loved Stacey but she couldn’t help but get frustrated at being dumped halfway through every evening for some damp Spaniard or the new cute toilet attendant. They had some pretty old books at the library but none had been stamped quite as much as Stacey. But she laughed anyway as it wasn’t worth the hassle. She would have a few drinks and then she would leave Stacey to get bonked by the bottle bank on Chris’s fag break, whilst Felicity would go home alone and watch something shit on the box.
The Coming of Derek (a quirky comedy) Page 4