Nothing But Trouble

by Matt Cain

  That kind of advice would only make him feel like a failure. And he felt like enough of one already.

  *

  Lola felt like such a failure. She stood in the corridor of Jake’s hotel banging on his bedroom door but hearing nothing in reply. Oh what have I done?

  She turned her back to the door and slid down onto the thick carpet, letting her legs flop out before her. She’d been so convinced Jake had been steaming with jealousy about her date that she’d decided to turn up at his hotel to dazzle him with her post-shoot glamour and milk his anger for everything it was worth. She’d even sat in the back of the car working out her opening line, a casual mention of what a great time she’d had and how she’d laughed so much she was worried she’d split her jumpsuit. She’d planned to coyly feed Jake more and more details about her impossibly romantic evening until she’d wound him up into a raging fury – at which point she’d oh-so-reluctantly allow him to win her back with a bout of earthquake-inducingly passionate sex. It had all seemed so perfect when she’d played it through in her head. But here she was now, ready to put her plan into action – and Jake had disappeared.

  ‘Is everything OK there?’ called out a female voice down the hall. Lola quickly glanced up and saw it was coming from a bespectacled busybody who looked just like Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie.‘Are you all right, love?’

  Lola pretended to itch her forehead, carefully covering her face so she wouldn’t be recognized. ‘Oh yeah, yeah,’ she sing-songed a little too enthusiastically, ‘I’m just going to text my boyfriend and see where he is.’

  Actually, she imagined saying, he won’t let me call him my boyfriend and he’s probably pissed off to shag some other bird.

  ‘OK then,’ the woman replied with a hint of disappointment. ‘If you’re sure, then I’ll leave you to it. Goodnight.’

  ‘Night.’

  Lola fished her phone out of her bag and reread Jake’s message. ‘Lying in bed thinking of you. What you up to?’ Well, what I was up to was trying to make you jealous! Although a fat lot of good it’s done me.

  Her mind started racing with panic. All this time she’d been imagining her date with Freddy would be the perfect way to rekindle Jake’s fading interest, but now it looked like it had only prompted the opposite effect. She felt humiliated and angry – angry at herself for being so stupid. Jake had never made any secret of the fact he didn’t want their relationship to be exclusive, and she’d been so terrified of the idea of him sleeping with someone else she’d carefully avoided the subject of other women for weeks. But now here she was sitting outside the room from where just over an hour ago he’d texted her to say he was lying in bed. If he’d been feeling horny then she knew him well enough to know he wouldn’t just go to sleep. Or even crack one off to hotel porn.

  No, Jake was only ever interested in the real thing. And when he wanted it he usually got it.

  So where had he gone to find it?

  *

  Jake had no idea where he was and he didn’t really care. He stretched out on the bed, toked on his joint, and let himself enjoy one of the most accomplished blow jobs he’d ever experienced.

  Camden, is that where I am? Or is it Clapham? Or even Croydon? The truth was, he didn’t give a rat’s ass. He’d find out in the morning when he’d emerge blinking into the daylight, hail a taxi and gaze out of the window at yet another area of London he’d been introduced to by his dick. He pulled back another toke and allowed the weed to fill his lungs. Man, this is freakin’ strong.

  It was so strong it was softening the edges of his consciousness, lifting him away from reality until he felt like he was floating high above the world. Yet at the same time it heightened his sensitivity and enhanced the enjoyment of having his dick sucked to such an extent that after just five minutes he was worried about shooting his load – which wasn’t like him at all. And he didn’t want this to end for a long time. Damn, this chick can suck dick. I bet she could suck the chrome off a trailer hitch.

  He leant back and gave a whinny of delight. He gazed at the ceiling, his eyes losing focus until it slowly blurred into a white haze. He was so engulfed by ecstasy he wasn’t even sure who was sucking him off anymore. He looked down and saw her jet-black hair bobbing around his midriff, her ebony arms snaking up to gently massage his sides.

  ‘Is that good?’ she asked, briefly breaking off and looking to the side to catch her breath.

  He didn’t answer but directed her head back onto his dick. He pulled deeply on his joint then let it rest in the ashtray next to him. As she resumed sucking, his ass gave a little spasm. Man, this is so fucking good!

  He heard his phone ping in his shirt pocket to say he’d received a text. He was sure it would be yet another message from Lola and he wasn’t going to answer it. Ever since her fag manager had busted his ass in Barcelona things had been way too heavy between them – and there were even times when he was starting to feel pussy-whipped. Sure, when he’d found out Lola was dating some other dude he’d had a brief moment of feeling aggrieved, but that was only because chicks usually put up with him fucking around without doing it themselves. And now he’d had time to reflect he’d come to the conclusion that if Lola wanted to date someone else, that was fine with him. In fact, the news came as something of a relief. But she couldn’t expect him to sit in his hotel room playing with his dick while he waited for her to drop by. No, he’d much rather go out and find somebody else to play with it – which was what he’d wound up doing. And boy, was he glad he had.

  The woman gently parted his butt cheeks, licked her fingers and then softly began to massage his ass hole, sliding in the tips as he groaned with pleasure. And still she kept sucking – sucking so sweetly he could feel all the muscles quiver on his belly.

  ‘I think I’m going to come,’ he shuddered, expecting the woman to pull back so he could shoot his load all over her face. But instead she plunged his dick deeper into her throat, working her thick lips around the base until she brought him to a climax so intense his upper body began to jerk as if he were having a seizure.

  ‘Aaaaaaaaaaargh!’

  He gripped onto her head, coming so far into her he wasn’t sure how it was even possible. He felt her greedily glugging him in before softly easing back and releasing him.

  ‘Fuck . . . That was . . . Fuck!’ He was on such a high he could hardly speak.

  The woman giggled and crawled up to kiss him.

  And that’s when he remembered who she was.

  8

  ‘And let’s see that one more time!’

  Lola swaggered her way across the rehearsal room, her left fist thrust high in the air and her other hand dragging along a line of dancers who slid after her on their knees. She was at Pomegranate Dance Studios in Covent Garden, running through the moves for the tour version of Miss Chief, which consisted of lots of air-kicking, aggressive thrusting and ironic crotch-grabbing. Of course the routine had been choreographed to complement the central theme of the song, which was that Lola was a strong woman, fully in command of herself and her team. But, perhaps unsurprisingly, today she was finding projecting that theme something of a struggle.

  ‘And let’s see the middle eight formation.’

  Lola strode to the front of the room and snapped her way through a sequence of steps while the dancers fanned out in perfect symmetry behind her. She was acutely aware that the choreography only had the desired effect of making her look like she was the leader of the troupe if she actually got the moves right for the dancers to copy. And watching herself in the mirrored wall facing her, she could see only too well that she was messing up the order.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, stopping and scrunching up her now sweat-sodden face, ‘but can we try that again?’

  ‘Course we can,’ cooed the show’s director and choreographer Carlson Bent, an unfeasibly muscled gay man with a chest the size of a vending machine and a collection of T-shirts that looked like they were made to fit a ten-year-old girl. Carlson had dazzli
ng white teeth, a smoothly Botoxed forehead, blonde hair immaculately styled into a glossy quiff, and a dimple in his chin that was so perfect Lola doubted he’d been born with it. But she always insisted on working with him because he understood that dance wasn’t her strong suit and that she only really did it at all because it was expected of a female performer. And over the last few years he’d learnt to work around her limitations, creating moves that were characterful rather than complicated. Although today she was finding them complicated enough. She scurried to the side of the room and wiped her face on a sweat towel.

  ‘OK,’ she breathed, returning to the centre and steeling herself for the next run-through, ‘let’s give it another go.’

  Carlson gave her an encouraging smile. ‘You’re doing brilliantly, Lola. Now stride forwards to begin . . .’

  She concentrated all her energy on following the sequence Carlson had devised for the middle eight of the song. Shoulders left, pop right, feet together, bend knees, dip down and bounce up again. It really shouldn’t be that difficult but again she messed it up.

  ‘I’m so sorry guys,’ she said, turning to face the dancers. ‘I’ve nearly got it, I promise.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it!’ they chorused back at her, showering her with compliments about her natural rhythm and instinctive ability. But the dancers’ flattery only made her even more aware of her own failings. And she was worried that her lack of talent was going to be exposed by their brilliance. Kitty, Jette and Boo were gorgeous girls with boundless energy and a capacity to contort their lithe bodies into positions Lola hadn’t even known existed, while Todd, Nate and Junior were a multiracial trio of street dancers whose athleticism made Lola breathless with admiration and who were collectively so hot Carlson had already decreed they’d be spending the entire show topless. All of which was fine by Lola. She only wished she could be a bit more coordinated.

  And the worst thing was, all six dancers had told her they were huge fans of her work and, as they were a few years younger than Lola, seemed to look up to her as some kind of example to follow.

  ‘It’s such an honour to work with you!’ Nate had said when they’d met.

  ‘You’re absolutely my inspiration!’ Boo had fawned.

  ‘I want to be just like you!’ Jette had joined in.

  Whenever they asked Lola for careers advice or tips or guidance, she couldn’t help feeling like she’d conned them all into thinking she was someone special. Why on earth would they want to be like me? I can’t even get a few simple steps right . . .

  ‘OK, let’s give it one more go,’ coaxed Carlson.

  Lola took a deep breath and pressed her fingers against her nose. ‘Yep, I’m ready.’

  ‘This is the one!’ he piped. ‘Now stride forwards . . .’

  Shoulders left, pop right, feet together, bend knees, dip down and bounce up again.

  ‘Yes!’ she practically squealed. ‘Yes, yes, yes!’

  Finally!

  ‘OK that’s brilliant,’ nodded Carlson. ‘Now let’s keep running it through till it sticks.’

  As Lola practised the moves again and again, she couldn’t help feeling ground down by the enormity of the task ahead. Miss Chief was only one of several numbers in a ninety-minute show, all of which she’d have to commit to memory in just over a month. If it was taking her all day just to learn this one short sequence, how was she ever going to know the whole show by the opening night of the tour?

  It was at times like this that she really wished she had a proper boyfriend – someone who’d be able to comfort and support her at the end of a tough day. But unfortunately Jake was becoming more and more distant, not to mention avoidant. Ever since her pathetic attempt to stir up his jealousy by going out with Freddy, he’d virtually ignored her and they’d only spent one night together, when he’d been out drinking with some American friends and had dropped by in the early hours of the morning for what turned out to be upsettingly unsatisfactory sex, at the end of which she’d actually had to fake an orgasm in a desperate attempt to convince him they still had some kind of special sexual connection.

  The situation was making her feel increasingly paranoid and anxious. She remembered Jake saying something about his mum being needy and clingy when his dad went away on business when he was little and how it had only repulsed him. Yet here she was all these years later behaving in exactly the same way. And the irony was that if she could just make him love her, she wouldn’t be as desperate and clingy – and she’d love him so much in return she was convinced she could cure him of all the pain of his childhood, not to mention her own.

  Which reminded her, she still had to call her mum. She’d been putting it off for weeks now, mainly out of guilt for being such a bitch the last time they’d spoken, but also out of the fear of finding out her mum had walked out of rehab and started using again. The whole thing was just too horrific to contemplate. Although if she were stronger she knew she’d have the courage to face it. She just needed Jake to love her first. And then everything would fall into place. The more she thought about it, the more it all made sense. If only I weren’t so stupid and ugly and annoying . . .

  ‘All right, now let’s run through the ending.’

  If only I weren’t such a crap dancer.

  Lola sloped into position for a sequence in which she playfully bossed around her dancers, issuing them with orders to do press-ups, planks and stomach crunches while she strutted around inspecting their performance. They lined up on the floor before her while she stepped her way over them and then formed a train to lift her high in the air so she could look down on them, miming an expression of extreme arrogance. Finally, they lined up in a row and she trailed her finger along their fronts, prodding the boys in the chest so that they keeled over and taking the girls aside to bang their heads together. Lola tried her best to get into character but couldn’t help feeling like a total fraud. Here she was acting like some strong, authoritative superwoman in absolute control of her world when the truth was she was a needy desperado who couldn’t even control her man.

  Oh why can’t I make him love me?

  She thought back to the way she’d felt when she’d written the song, how she’d been so infused with confidence and self-respect and how she’d been so sure that she’d never give in to weakness ever again. Yet here she was less than a year later, falling apart in rehearsal as yet another disastrous relationship unravelled around her. Earlier that day she’d been in such a state about it she’d needed to talk to someone and, as Harvey was obviously out of the question, she’d confided in Gloria. She knew she was supposed to be keeping the whole thing secret but she was sure everyone knew about it by now. And besides, she knew she could trust Gloria. As expected, she’d been brilliant, telling her all about how badly her last boyfriend had treated her and her similar compulsion for bastards. ‘I mean I want to fall for nice guys,’ Lola remembered her saying, ‘but somehow I always end up falling for the sleazebags.’ It had been a comfort to hear Gloria echo her own thoughts. When will we ever learn?

  ‘That’s great!’ crooned Carlson. ‘And now if you could move into your final positions.’

  In what felt like less than a second the dancers slid onto the floor and arranged their bodies into a mound onto which Lola climbed to end the song by holding her arms up in the air as if she were a heavyweight boxer who’d just won a fight. Oh who am I trying to kid?

  ‘That’s terrific!’ warbled Carlson.

  Really? Are you sure?

  ‘OK, now let’s try that with music. First positions please everyone.’

  Lola scampered off stage to make her big entrance.

  ‘Can somebody hit Play please?’ yelled Carlson. ‘Miss Chief – take it away!’

  *

  The Chief Medical Officer gave Karen a sympathetic smile. Polly Buckingham was a thin-lipped forty-something who looked like she read The Guardian and shopped for organic food at farmers’ markets and whose pristine appearance was spoiled only by a huge w
art that looked like a button mushroom dangling off her left earlobe.

  ‘Well, Miss Grant,’ she brayed, ‘I think you’ve made excellent progress. And I agree with your therapist – I think you’re ready to go home.’

  ‘Thanks, chief.’ Karen breathed in and felt her chest expand with an emotion she initially couldn’t identify but thought might be pride – or even dignity.

  ‘So now it’s just a matter of paperwork,’ said Dr Buckingham, sliding a stash of documents across the desk. ‘If you could have a quick read of these and sign here and here.’

  Karen’s eyes flickered down the page while her peripheral vision took in a photo of the doctor standing with her arms draped around three little girls on a beach that looked like something out of one of those Bounty adverts in the Eighties. Just two months ago this kind of thing would have been enough to make Karen fume with bitterness at an unjust world that had treated her so differently. Now she just smiled. Although she couldn’t help wondering what Polly Buckingham would think if she knew all the patients in the Abbey called her Polly Fuckingham.

  ‘And I understand you’ll be taking Miss Grant home, Mr Sparks?’

  ‘Yep, that’s right,’ said Harvey, sitting next to her. ‘And I’ll keep an eye on her for a few weeks.’ He stopped and gave Karen an apologetic grimace. ‘Urm, just to check you’re all right and stuff.’

  Over the last few years Karen had grown fond of Harvey and come to love his gentle brown eyes, shy smile and no-nonsense Northern accent. She put her hand on his and gave it a little stroke. ‘It’s OK, Harvey, you don’t have to explain anything. It’ll be good to know someone’s there if I’m struggling.’

  She wished she’d had a friend like Harvey when she’d been Lola’s age, and couldn’t help wondering if her life would have turned out differently if she had. But no, I didn’t have anybody. Even Mum and Dad pissed off at the first sign of trouble. She shook her head and reminded herself to let go of the bitterness.