‘Did you give him your number? Do you have a full name?’ Michelle asks.
‘Cameron Cox.’
‘You both have alliteration! And his name is literally cocks. It’s like you’re meant to be together,’ Michelle exclaims.
‘C-O-X. Don’t you dare cyberstalk him now.’
Don’t, because I already did that this morning. I have stalked him on every social media channel. Just to check there are no surprises, like maybe he goes seal clubbing at the weekends or likes Satanic rock music. But it was as I imagined, a super cute geek who likes films, a beanie hat and bubble tea. I’m not as stupid as to approach him when he’s just come out of a relationship, but the man piqued my interest and these men come along so very rarely for people like me.
‘Look, I don’t think it’ll go anywhere. I don’t want to be a rebound girlfriend. He’s got to throw out a housemate and officially dump a girlfriend, so I will leave that with him to make that move. He might not even like me.’
‘Was he blind?’ asks Michelle.
‘No. He did wear glasses, though.’
‘He was into you. There was a lot of casual touching,’ Charlie adds, leaning against a filing cabinet.
‘You saw a lot through that mask, eh?’ I tell Charlie.
‘I’m just calling it how it is. There was definite flirting, that whole nudge-nudge thing you were doing and the joking, and how you guys shared those chicken wings and he wiped that bit of sauce off your nose.’
‘Were you actually working at that party, Charlie, or just spying on me?’
‘It’s just you’re single, he’s single now…’
‘How do you know I’m single, Charlie?’
‘Because your mum’s always asking me if I have friends who might be interested. She says you work too hard and you’re a catch.’
I don’t doubt that, as my mum once tried to get me a date with our window cleaner, but I find it quite amusing that Charlie’s only been here for a few months and has already understood the lay of the land.
‘I’m twenty-six years old,’ I reply, ‘I’m not looking for anything like that.’
Michelle and Charlie look at each other knowingly.
‘But you two had the same outfit,’ Michelle says, pouting. ‘I’d just love for you to be happy.’
‘I’m happy being single.’
‘Because you work here and we sell stuff which means you don’t really need a man?’ Charlie asks.
Michelle’s boobs can hardly contain themselves with laughter.
‘Because, young Charlie, my focus is here. Yes, he was very cute and we had a lot in common, we were the same age and like chicken wings, but I don’t want to get my hopes up for something that may never happen.’
Because what really happened was that we had one of those magical evenings where we talked and talked until Brett had packed up his kitchen knives and the last bottle of champagne had been drunk. We snacked and drank and we chatted about geeky film things like how we would recast the Marvel films, and the brilliant nuance ofStranger Thingsand all its nods to eighties film classics. He helped me unload a dishwasher, told me about the time he got arrested for public nudity when he was at university, and we also joked about what names we would give our obscure pets. For example, I like rhyming names, so I would call my snake, Drake or my lion, Brian. This made him guffaw so hard, a bit of cucumber flew out of his mouth.
It was one of those wonderful nights where I didn’t hear the music slowly fade to nothing or even remember the house emptying of partygoers. I didn’t see anyone pack the leftovers in Sonny’s giant fridge or the sky glow to amber as the morning came up. I don’t remember falling asleep on his shoulder. All I remember is waking up, a throw laid over me and he wasn’t there. He had gone.
FOUR
Sonny and I found out our parents worked in porn when we were eleven and fourteen years old. Up to that point, we knew Mum was different to most other mums. She wasn’t a cagoule and mid-denim kind of mum, she carried a bit of chic about her and when we had parties at our house, the other dads would clock that they may have seen her before somewhere, and then stand around looking nervous while we were all playing pass-the-parcel. Of course, they didn’t go home and tell their wives that they’d seen little Josie’s mum’s vajayjay (and more), so it stayed a secret at the school gate.
Even when Mum and Dad started their business from the kitchen table, they never let on to other people what they did. I love how the word entrepreneur is such an umbrella term. You could sell organic dog food or award-winning vibrators, but essentially, you’re just trying to sell things to people and hope your brand creates buzz. Well, you want a vibrator to buzz, don’t you?
It wasn’t until we got through the big bad gates of secondary school that our parents’ past became apparent to us, via a group of lads in Sonny’s year who found a clip on the internet at a sleepover one night. Someone showed their mum, who showed another mum, whose husband confirmed that my parents were part of a series of films from the late eighties. This caused friction in that couple’s marriage that eventually led to divorce as it uncovered a serious addiction to porn and casual one-night stands. Anyway, it all came to a head when my parents were invited to meet the actual head to discuss how to tackle this head on. ‘That’s a lot of head,’ my dad told us he said in Mr Jessop’s office. It was probably not the best line to lead with.
That was when Mum and Dad sat down and told us about their past. I remember that conversation well because it was such a shock. When they told us they had a secret, I thought it’d be something cool. Maybe they were elite spies. Or time travellers. When they explained, I was confused. I’m not sure I knew what they meant. I looked it up on the internet, searching ‘people who have sex for money’. The internet showed me a picture of Julia Roberts inPretty Woman. Then Sonny found the video his friends had been swapping. We watched it together. Well, we didn’t. We got through the intro of some terrible acting and a kiss and then Mum took off her bra and Sonny dropped the laptop. He started crying. We hugged. We barricaded the door and wouldn’t come out for dinner.
