Ten

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from: richardvhirst@acemail.com
to: martintrhiggins@acemail.com
sent: 20.03.10 at 14:56 pm
subject: RE: Hello!


Richard

Hey, Marty.

Good to hear you’re trying to get back into the swing of things, albeit with mixed results. Have you ever thought of signing yourself up for some evening classes? My cousin Alf was learning how to smoke mackerel when he found love. In fact, his teacher turned out to be his future wife. Obviously, she also turned out to be a cannibal, something cousin Alf probably learned when she killed, smoked and ate him. Still, don’t let that put you off. People always forget that cousin Alf and Maria had many, many, many happy hours of matrimony before she stoved his head in with that galvanised concrete birdbath.

Ugh, what a week this has been! And it started out nice as lice, as my granddad used to say: the sun was out, the birds were singing in the trees, all was right in the world. But no, it’s ended up crap as a tap, as my granddad also used to say: the birds have all gone mad and are pecking me all over then precision-shitting into the wounds whilst the sun laughs like a drunk and smears its hot balls all over my face and the trees that all the birds had previously been singing in use their branches to pinion me down and say ‘DO YOU LIKE THAT? DO YOU? DO YOU LIKE IT?’ into my shivering, blubbering face. Metaphorically speaking, of course. As the old saying goes, ‘you can’t become Pope if you’re just a pillowcase full of prawns’. Actually, I’m not sure exactly what that means. It’s something else granddad used to say when he was in the home, shortly before the end.

Everything was fine, Marty! Things were all going so well - I was looking forward to this coming weekend’s date with Agatha (I’d planned on taking her to the Steve Martin Memorial Museum Of Toasters And All Things Toast); and I was starting to enjoy going to work a lot more - getting to see her around here and there at Benjamenta Insurance. During coffee breaks where we’d sit together and do the Independent’s new ‘erotic sudoku’ (although I’m not entirely sure how it qualifies as ‘erotic’ rather than ‘mind-wiltingly simple’ - all the numbers have to be either a six or a nine - I guess that’s so you can finish quickly and get some quick-as-a-flash rumpy-pumpy in before the end of your break). We even started leaving amusing little post-it notes for one another. Only yesterday I stuck one to her desk-tidy saying ‘How about a swift snuggle round 3.30pm? In the under-the-stairs cupboard where the Henry the Hoover lives?’ She left me a reply-note saying ‘I’m not interested. Frankly, I’m alarmed. Also this is a waste of stationery. Thanks. Geoff.’ which I thought hilarious till I remembered Agatha had indeed switched office-cubicles with Geoff Langley from accounts earlier in the week. Now I think about it, as I was leaving the note, I did think it seemed a bit odd that she had a monster-truck calendar on her dividing-wall, a picture of Geoff’s family on her desk, and an envelope stuffed with pornographic playing cards at the bottom of her drawer.

Anyway, besides this minor blip of misunderstanding, everything was going swimmingly. Until, that is, I got back from work last night to find Virgil, my ex-lodger, sat on my sofa. He’s returned to my flat for the time being whilst his new place is being used as the set for ‘Paint Your Dragon’, a sitcom about a family who have a large, mischievous pet dragon they have to keep secret from their priggish neighbours by painting it so it blends in with whatever background it’s stood against. Apparently Nicholas Lyndhurst’s in it. I think it sounds amazing.

We chatted for a bit, then I showed Virgil a picture of I’d taken on my phone of me and Agatha in the staff room, holding up our successfully completed sudoku in celebration. Then do you know what he said? Do you? I’ll tell you, because you probably don’t.

He said: ‘I did her.’ Just like that. All nonchalant, like he’s Serge Gainsbourg or John Leslie or something, and not a toothless, eczema-faced drunk who should be grateful to get any action from a dead lamb. He continued: ‘I did her. Like, in a sex sense. I mean, I had sex with her. Me and her - sex. Just so we’re clear. I’d hate for a series of amusing, madcap antics to emerge from a relatively basic misunderstanding here. I had sex with her. This woman in this picture you’re showing me on your phone. Her. I had sex with her. With my erect penis. And her vagina. Sex.’

Obviously, I thought there must be some kind of mistake. But no. Virgil was unashamedly adamant. He even started launching into a lengthy appraisal of the foreplay that had been involved, leaning forwards in his armchair and chuckling like some kind of bad Ronnie Corbett. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Obviously, we got into our old argument about Stagecoach's franchise-ownership of Sheffield's tram system - Virgil holding that it was a perfectly legitimate business-move, whereas I, as you know, maintain that the lack of adequate regulation involved in this transaction was the starting-point for the company's disregard for localised competitive strategy.

Enraged, I opened the door, stormed out of the room and slammed it shut. Immediately I realised I’d picked the wrong door, was in the fridge, and had pulled the door shut so hard nothing could re-open it. Three and a quarter hours later, with a little help from Virgil, the building’s utilities manager, and some lovely chaps from the fire service (and after three dozen or so rounds of ‘Imaginary Battleships’, ‘Imaginary Risk’ and ‘Imaginary Hungry Hippos’ with Virgil), I uncoiled myself from round the leftover roast chicken and measuring jug of curdling custard and was able to re-stage my dramatic exit five hours later.

I stormed straight into a woman in the corridor outside my flat. She had a slipper of Babysham in one hand, a large flash of mulled-sherry in the other, and a yard of Malibu in the other. I’d seen her around the block of flats before and figured she was one of my neighbours. Right away I could tell she wanted me. I don’t know whether it was my dizzying good looks, the waves of sexual magnetism I can’t help but radiate, or the fact I smelled very strongly of roast chicken and she was drunk and peckish. But when she said ‘I couldn’t help overhearing you have an argument with your friend in there. Would you like to come in for a cup of tea. I’m having a little party - just a small gathering,’ I said yes without a second thought.

I should’ve realised this was a bad idea when I saw the inside of her flat. The woman went off to make me a cup of tea and I saw that her living-room was lined with what looked like unlit phallic-shaped candles. In the corner nearest to me there was a large bucking bronco machine, but I couldn’t see how anyone could ride on it, Marty, because in the middle of the saddle there was some sort of large handle moulded into the seat. Initially it looked like there was four or five very old, very wrinkly people sat round a coffee table in silence in the centre of the room, all in the nude, whilst ‘Candle In The Wind’ blared out of a stereo system in the corner. By the time I’d realised they were actually a group half-deflated blow-up dolls it was too late to leave. The woman had returned. I accepted a mug brimful with tea, which turned out to be a pint whiskey with a teabag floating in it.

‘My name’s Chloe,’ she said, pushing me onto the sofa in between the sex-dolls. Then she started lapdancing, whilst eating a sausage and egg sandwich. The brown sauce spilled down her chin, she spat stray pieces of eggshell and gristle into my lap, some of her long fringe got caught in the sandwich so had to keep dragging food-matted lengths of hair from her throat. It was erotic. I stood up, took the remainder of he sandwich off her, took a bite out of it and said ‘Shall we take this to the bedroom?’

She was annoyed at me for stealing a mouthful of her lunch but agreed nonetheless. Her bedroom was worse than her living room. Every single patch of wall was covered with pictures of celebrity chef Rick Stein: magazine photos, newspaper cuttings, crayon drawings of him cooking his enormous genitals in a huge pan which had been specially converted from a decommissioned naval ship, print-offs of crudely photoshopped images of him dressed in dungarees whilst having sex with a bear’s skeleton. Still, I thought ‘No. I will do this.’

Chloe put some music on - another cd of ‘Candle In The Wind’ which she left on repeat - then began to undress. One of the first things I noticed was that she had a large bushy tail like a hairy dog’s. It wagged happily.

She caught me staring at it: ‘Oh, don’t worry about the tail. It used to belong to my Biffy. I was devastated when he died. Luckily, all it took was a brief bit of experimental grafting in the veterinary surgery,’ she said, stroking the tail, ‘and presto - part of him will live forever! It’s wonderful. And I save a fortune on toilet paper.’

‘I see,’ I said. ‘And what are these on your back?’

‘Oh, they’re testicles. A side-effect of the treatment I had to undergo to counterbalance the effects of the dog-hormones that the graft introduced to my metabolism. Don’t worry though, I’m all woman. Other than the backers, of course. I call them that. It’s a mix of the words “knackers” and “back”, y’know?’

‘HOW SWEET!’ I shrieked, touching my hand against the nightmarish spice-rack of flesh, the whole thing two degrees cooler than the rest of her body. I felt like crying. Still, I thought ‘No. I will do this.’

Then I saw that there was an eyeball in her knee, studded into the bagged cap-flesh like a glacé cherry on a cake. ‘Oh, you don’t want to be bothered by Chaz,’ Chloe said.

‘Chaz?’

‘My unborn twin. My mother had a traumatic mishap in an out-of-control teacups ride when she was pregnant with us. As a result there’s pieces of him all over my body - an eye in the knee, a hand in the brain, and I think a couple of these backers might be his,’ she said, hopping into bed. ‘Don’t worry though, he can’t see you.’ The eyeball moved around, seeming to focus on me, winking and frowning in disapproval of what was about to occur as it disappeared beneath the sheets. Again I thought: ‘No. I will do this.’

‘CAN I TURN THE LIGHTS OUT?’ I asked, using my discarded clothes to block any light coming in under the door and draping a duvet over the curtain-rails to mask some exterior streetlight which was coming through the window. As I approached the bed though, I could just about see Chloe’s outline, and stopped in my tracks. Her profile looked exactly like that of former home secretary David Blunkett, Marty. As you know, there’s nothing which terrifies me more than former home secretary David Blunkett. Well, other than clouds, muffins, buttons, pigeons, fingernails, death, lawns, bumper-cars, mimes, bookmarks, coat-hangers, paté, balloons, guinea pigs, broccoli, question marks, hammers, old people, bongos, skimmed milk, and The Wurzels. Nothing.

She said: ‘Since the 11th of September, 2001, we've faced a heightened threat level. And we've been enhancing both the exchange of intelligence and security information and the assessment of that information, because that's the crucial element.’

‘What did you say?’

‘I said are you okay?’

I’d had all I could stand. Before I knew what was going on I’d bolted out of the flat and was stood inside mine, leaning against the door and panting. Virgil, who’d been lying weeping on the sofa whilst watching Gramsci and the Mutt on that new Marxist Cartoon Channel. He stood up when I came in. He asked why I’d stormed out. When I told him he laughed and asked me get the picture back up on my phone-screen. After a brief return to Chloe’s to gather my clothes I pulled the phone out of my pocket and showed him.

‘No, not her,’ he said, pointing at Agatha. ‘I meant her’ And he pointed at the picture of Judith Chalmers in the newspaper we were holding up. ‘I had sex with Judith Chalmers. Up against a lamppost in a town in Estonia whilst a tv crew filmed the whole thing. Some locals paid to watch. It must have made quite a controversial Wish You Were Here…? At least, I’m pretty sure it was her. She didn’t speak a word of English.’

My mind's all over the place. After spending the best part of an evening directing my hatred towards Agatha for whoring it up with a confused homeless man who, it would seem, was actually being whored out himself by an Estonian pensioner who had the good luck to look a little bit like Judith Chalmers, and coming close to going through a sexual Hellraiser, I’m not sure what to think. I feel awful. I’m supposed to have my second date with Agatha tonight, but I think I might cancel. What should I do? Should I tell her? Keep it secret? Help me out here!

Richard

Nine

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from: martintrhiggins@acemail.com
to: richardvhirst@acemail.com
sent: 09.03.10 at 21.10 pm
subject: RE: Hello!



Richard,

I apologise for my lack of correspondence. It has been quite a month. I have moved out of Tony's place and am now staying at the B & B just outside town. It's run by Mrs. Throttle, a former circus freak and current holder of the North West Women's Wrestling Federation's championship belt. After I last wrote to you, I decided that it was time to get back on the saddle (not the one that Tony had installed in his kitchen but the metaphorical saddle) and get myself back in the game. The best way to do this, I thought, was by throwing myself at the mercy of our town's bustling nightlife. Tony and I started by celebrating my new found freedom at 'BEWBS', the only strip bar within 200 miles. I don't know if you remember 'BEWBS' Rich, I think we tried to get in there once on your 16th birthday but failed due to both of us being dropped off outside the venue by my parents, in clear view of the bouncers. My mother's insistence on getting out of the car, running after us, and presenting us both with packed lunches did our attempt at decieving the doormen no favours. Anyway, this time Tony and I entered with ease and I must admit I felt a little shudder of electricity flow through me as we pushed through the curtain of beads that separated us from the ilicit thrills within. Sadly this turned out to be quite a strong reaction to the static electricity contained in the curtain and I went into convultions for around 7 minutes. Tony managed to convince the staff that I was "only mucking around" and somehow got me seated at the bar. When I regained consciousness I was rewarded with the sight of Tony whooping and clapping as a middle aged leather sofa disguised as a woman gyrated wildly in front of us to the sounds of Chris Rea's 'Lady In Red'. She wasn't even wearing red Rich, she was wearing a purple and green tracksuit with the legs and sleeves cut off. I ordered us a round of drinks which ended up costing £57.86 (two pints of Sultry Mist which I am SURE is just Sailor's Breath rebranded for the erotic dancing market) and prepared to face the next 'performer'. This turned out to be 'Lambrini' who was a shaven headed midget woman wearing a fishnet kagool. Her tune of choice for her seductive manouveres was 'Snooker Loopy' by Chaz'n'Dave. It was at this point I dragged Tony away and we walked back to town. If this was what the single life entailed here then I wanted none of it. I must meet another lady.

The next day at work, I was talking to Mildred the receptionist at Betterbins about my issues with meeting women and she suggested a dating agency. I found a place on Main Street called 'Blind Date Mate' and after a long discussion with a member of staff about my likes and dislikes, my allergies, and my most irrational fears, I was told that this agency would be able to set me up with at least three different blind dates over the next few days. I went home, excited at the prospect of new love awaiting me. The next day I recieved an email with details of the venue for my first date and the time I should be there. I arrived at The Golden Badger promptly at 8 pm and was shown to my table. Five minutes later my date arrived. It was quite clearly Mr. Bradley Nichols, the man who'd interviewed me for an hour at the agency the day before, only now he was wearing a green wig covered in glitter and an orange catsuit. He looked like a transexual carrot. He introduced himself as 'Brandine' and I made awkward small talk with him for ten minutes before finally excusing myself and walking out. I simply told him that I was not in any way interested and wished him good luck. The next day I recieved another email with a new date location and time. With some trepidation I arrived at Mario and Luigi's (Authentic Thai Cuisine) and was once again faced with Mr. Nichols this time masquerading as 'Ladybelle' and sporting a 3 ft beehive wig and a faux leather mini-skirt. I turned on my heel and left. The third email I simply ignored.

After that I tried internet dating. A site called 'www.ewwwwwww-harmony.com'. After 29 pages of questions and a rather uneccessary eye test, the site produced one match. Lambrini, the miniscule stripper with a thing for sexy rainy day clothing. Finally Tony and I went along to a speed dating night at The Posh Whelk. After an initial problem with the process which saw myself and Tony sat in front of each other for three 'changes' in a row, and a few awkward sittings with women who actually drifted off during my minute of chat, I found myself blathering at speed to a young lady called Sally. She actually seemed interested as I described myself and my interests at rapid speed whilst dabbing at my brow every three seconds to absorb the Niagra Falls of sweat that was pouring from my, well, my pores. I stopped and dropped my head to indicate that I was finished and that she could now get up and leave. To my surprise she lifted my head, said "Let's go", and we went and had a drink elsewhere. She's very nice and I'm seeing her again this week. I'm not going to say more about her until I see her again, I don't want to jinx it. Unfortunately Tony met someone that night too and that is why I am living in a Bed and Breakfast. She is called Tinkerbell. She is 6 ft 4 and can open tins of soup with her teeth. She moved in THE NEXT DAY and I quickly found myself on the streets. No really, I mean she actually threw me out of the bedroom window.

Well anyway I have rambled enough. My dear Richard it seems we both have promising women on the go. Agatha sounds like a keeper, I've never known you to get to the Le Loi dynasty with any of the girls here. She must be a special lady. Good luck sir, keep me updated!

Martin

Eight

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from: richardvhirst@acemail.com
to: martintrhiggins@acemail.com
sent: 05.03.10 at 00:52 am
subject: RE: Hello!

Hey Martin,

It’s been a while since I heard from you. I guess you’re still staying at French Tony’s and he’s still banning you from believing in the internet. Still, just thought I’d check to make sure everything’s okay.

Also, I had my date with Agatha the other night and thought I’d let you know how it went. It went well. I had a tiny bit of a panic over where to take her. First I thought about maybe taking her to the Golden Pudenda, a swanky-looking Chinese restaurant I’d seen a couple of times on the way to work. But then I remembered the fiasco that was the time you and me went for that Chinese New Year meal with those mental Chang sister (right after I’d said it I was aware that raising my glass and shouting ‘Chinky chink everyone!’ was a touch inappropriate. I said sorry. And all those ‘Chinesey impressions’ I kept doing were supposed to be examples of the callous, passive-aggressive racism I don’t indulge in as part of the apology). Anyway, I decided Chinese food was a potential minefield. Then someone at the office told me about a place called The Darwin. Here in the city, the rules is that any restaurant which is called ‘the’ something is usually a pretty high-class place, so I booked a table. However, just to make sure, I went to check it out. It isn’t a swanky, knob-packed joint, Martin - it’s a ludicrous evolution-themed eatery where monkeys on snakeboards raced about bringing and taking away plates. This may sound like a lot of fun but it wasn’t: the plates themselves have to be made of paper due to being constantly dropped by the stupid animals; the floor has a thick carpet of soiled sawdust due to the serving-chimps perpetually shitting their nappies to overflowing; and I was asked to sign a piece of paper on the way in which said that I accepted all liability, should I be attacked by one of the monkeys, a possibility made all the more real by the small squadron of men wearing disturbing-looking rubber Stephen Jay Gould masks who patrol the service-monkeys with taser-rifles. That said, for desert I had a large ice-cream sundae which was in the shape of a giant DNA strand complete with rum ‘n’ raisin guanines, tutti-frutti adenines and a sugar-frosting backbone. That was quite nice.

Anyway, I rejected these along with a few other more promising dining possibilities, deciding in the finish - there was quite a bit of blind panic judgement on my part - that there was only really one place I could feasibly take Agatha: the large multi-storey car-park, just off the ring-road round the corner from my block of flats, across the B.S. Johnson Memorial Flyover.

I know you’re probably reading this thinking it doesn’t sound very romantic. And you’d be right. After I’d frantic speed-history of how the Le Loi dynasty came to displace the Ming lineage and we’d had the picnic I’d prepared - some Laughing Cow and rollmop sandwiches, a tube of Pringles Rice Infusions, and a four-pack of Gunmetal Special - in an awkward silence, it started to dawn on me the nigh pitch-black environs, which I’d assumed would provide an atmosphere of dimmed intimacy, were perhaps a massively terrible mistake. My suspicions were confirmed when a gang of youths arrived and told us they’d ‘make our heads bleed like radiators. It’ll be well sontag. It’ll be drastic pigeon hose.’ Obviously, I’ve no idea what any of this actually meant but the fact they were brandishing golf-clubs and bike-chains whilst they spoke gave me cause to believe a threat of violence was being issued. I hastily moved me and Agatha on to the park. I’d heard there was some kind of public music event going on there. Sadly, this turned out to be a small band of nationalist Bavarians. We stayed for most of a surprisingly rousing oompah-rendition of the Horse Vessel song before I got us moving on again, this time for a walk along the river.

I tried to think of nice things to say to Agatha. My brain was trying to decide between ‘your hair smells like Cherry 7Up if you’d swilled a Boost about in it then drank through one nostril it whilst sniffing an éclair with the other’ or ‘Your eyes are nice and kind-looking like puppy suffering from myopia.’ By the time I’d reached a decision and was about to speak (I’d opted for the second) I saw there was a couple of policemen fishing something out of the river. I don’t know if you’ve heard the news-reports about Cannibal Stan, the flesh-hungry psychotic who’s somehow got accidentally released from the local Herisau maximum security hospital. His serial-killer’s ‘thing’ is that he murders his victim then eats their entire body, leaving only their chewed-off her hands and feet as a gruesome calling card. These, it turned, were what the policemen were fishing out using a plastic JJB Sport bag. Now, as I’m sure you‘re aware, JJB Sports provide their customers with plastic bags which have a ruched, string-drawn opening. This design was causing the two officers a few problems - the weight of the limb-ends they’d succeeded in collecting were causing the bag to weigh down heavily on the branch they’d chosen to use as a rod, pulling the bag-mouth closed. The remaining severed hand escaped their attempts and bobbed free, following us along the river as we walked, like the grisly guilt-vision of crime I’d not committed. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to generate a sense of pastoral romance whilst being slowly pursued by the amputated hand of a recently butchered prostitute. Probably not. It’s awful. The bright red nail varnish, the thumb and index finger curling slightly from a lifetime of providing strangers with relief, the suggestive bobbing motion - the whole thing seemed intent on mocking my undeclared sexual thoughts. We attempted conversation: she told me about how she wanted to train to become an avian cage-maker but couldn’t afford the fees right now and how her sister had recently injured her shoulder when a ferris-wheel she was on at a Tuscan Christmas fair had stalled; I told her it sounded like she was going through a really tough time and tried to touch her on the leg. But then I looked at the floating, gnawed-off extremity, all bloated from the river-water and pale from death. The whole date, which had started quite poorly, was going down like Sexually-Liberated Stacey in a knackered lift on New Year’s. Only with a lot less sex. We decided it was time to call it a day. If I ever meet that bloody Cannibal Stan I’ll give him such a slap.

So, we left things at that. I thought trying to go in for a kiss on the periphery of a crime scene might give the wrong impression. Still, I have the promise of a second date, so that’s something.

Still, enough about me. What’s going on with you? Are you moving out of French Tony’s soon? Any plans to move out of the old town completely? Any dark horse-ladies in the running?

Richard