Love by the Book (8 page)

“Sure!” I said. Popeye nodded imperceptibly.

He proceeded to regale us with several (surprisingly pretty good) poems. And then a Billy Connolly impersonation. And then a couple of tricks with his trilby.

Forty-five minutes passed.

Something strange occurred during this time (other than the obvious). It's fair to say that it was extremely obvious to anyone not on a massive amount of drugs that pilled-up Felix would make a pretty poor challenger in the suitor department, but the more he talked to me, the more proprietary Popeye became. At one point, he leaned over and, nodding toward pilled-up Felix, said, “It looks like this fellow is sweet on you, darling. Is he bothering you? Shall I have a word?”

I assured him that an intervention wasn't necessary as the pilled-up man certainly wasn't making any overtures toward me; he was too busy gurning his face off.

Regardless, the chivalrous, complimentary Popeye from last month suddenly returned with a vengeance. There was hand holding and admiring glances and more compliments than I could shake a stick at. Eventually, Felix drifted off, probably because I was too busy saying thank you and being distracted by the hand on my ass to listen to any more of his poems.

I hadn't seen this side of Popeye before: the competitive, possessive side. It was hot. I looked around the room to see if there were any other patsies who could help me incite jealousy in him.

Like a gift from God, the buzzer rang.

By this point, I'd given Adrian up as a lost cause but then, at a quarter to midnight, a full three hours after he promised to show up, there he was with a marshmallow bunny on a stick and a mate called James about whom I'd heard only filthy, deviant things. I immediately introduced him to Lucy, who was looking increasingly worn out by Max's insistence on playing the acoustic version of Jay-Z's “Can I Get A. . . .”

I took Adrian's proffered bunny and, with something approaching glee, introduced him to Popeye.

The two shook hands, Popeye puffing himself up considerably in his button-down while Adrian looked on shiftily, a little grin on his face.

“Hello! How are you, Cunningham? I've not seen you in ages!”

“I know! I don't know why it's been so long . . .” I smiled at Adrian while trying to burn a hole through his forehead with my eyes.

“We mustn't leave it so long next time.” He turned his attention toward Popeye. “And you must be Lauren's beau. At last, to finally meet you! I've heard so much. How long have you two been together now? A year? Two? Any nuptial plans on the horizon? She's not getting any younger, you know!”

Popeye dropped my hand like it was on fire.

“Perhaps you're thinking of someone else. Lauren and I have only been out a few times, though she is an amazing lady.” Popeye gave me an alligator grin and I heard Adrian stifle a laugh.

“Hmm. Yes, maybe I'm thinking about the bloke she used to go out with. Very good-looking, him. Such an artistic air about him. Wasn't he a writer, Cunningham? What was his name again?”

“Go fuck yourself,” I hissed.

“I remember you saying how good he was in bed, too. Whatever happened to him?”

Popeye took a sharp intake of breath. “Lauren hasn't told me much about her love life.”

“Well, there's lots to learn! Lots to learn.” And he didn't know the half of it.

“I can't think of anything worth recalling in recent months, actually,” I said as I pulled Popeye away. “Help yourself to the gin in the bathtub, Adrian. Careful you don't drown.”

“Don't worry about me!” Adrian said as he made a beeline for the bathroom door. “I'm known for my buoyancy.”

“What an asshole,” I said. “Sorry about that. Do you want another drink?”

“No, I'm fine. So who's this chap he was talking about?”

“Oh, no one. Just some idiot I used to date. Old news.”

“Good,” he said, and then he kissed me for the first time that night. “I don't like competition.”

The evidence indicated otherwise.

“Oh God, what happened last night?” Lucy was standing in front of me in last night's dress and a pair of slippers.

“I think you made out with Adrian's friend. Coffee?”

“James? Oh no. Yes to coffee, though.”

I flicked the kettle on and got out an extra mug. “Don't worry, you just kissed. He whispered something into your ear and you flew into a rage and threw him out. I think it may have been something about a threesome.”

“Ugh. Why are men always asking for threesomes? If I want to have one, they'll bloody well know about it.”

“I know. It's like kids begging for chocolate before dinnertime. You just want to slap their hand and say ‘Not now!'”

“Did Adrian go with him?”

An image of him staggering out the door holding a bottle of gin and bellowing the words to “Engine Engine Number
9
” flashed through my head.

“Yeah, I think so. He was such a jackass last night in front of Popeye.”

“That's hardly a surprise. What happened with Popeye? I saw you two snogging on the sofa.”

“He left a couple of hours ago.” I handed her a cup of coffee and a cigarette.

“Ooh. So? How was it this time? Still a one-man show?”

“It was . . . vigorous. Lots of lifting up and putting down and spinning around.”

“Ooh!”

“I knew I was on to a winner with those arms. Although it did feel like he was trying to prove something. You know when it's like you're having sex with a dude who's performing for the camera even if there's no camera there?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“I mean, he was calling out directions at one point. It was all ‘arch this' and ‘bend that.' I was Debbie, and we were definitely in Dallas.”

Lucy wrinkled her nose. “Sounds a bit much.”

“Honestly, I blame the Internet. Every guy now seems to think he's auditioning for YouPorn.” My eyes widened. “Oh my God, you don't think he'd put us on YouPorn, do you? My parents just learned how to use Google—what if they find it?”

“I think you're getting ahead of yourself, love. I'm sure you would have noticed if he'd been filming you.”

“That's true. I don't think he would have managed all of the acrobatics if he was juggling a phone in one hand.”

“Well, at least you had a decent shag. Max was nowhere to be found this morning.” A shadow of dread suddenly passed over Lucy's face. “Wait . . . what exactly happened to Max?”

“I'm pretty sure you threw his guitar out the door.”

“Oh God.” A pause. “Oh fuck.” A second pause. “I remember now. He kept insisting on playing the acoustic version of everything, and when I tried to lure him into my bedroom, he said he'd be disappointing his audience if he left.”

“Musicians, eh?”

“Fuck it, I'm glad I tossed his guitar out.”

“There's always James,” I trilled.

Lucy buried her face in a sofa cushion. “Don't remind me.”

I slunk away to the balcony to check my emails. There were a couple of promising Castaway candidates so I tried to set up dates with them for the following week. I needed to get a coterie together by the end of the month and time was seriously running out.

After my third email, my phone flashed with that familiar phrase:
Are You Drunk?
I picked up on the fourth ring.

“What the fuck do you want, Adrian?”

“Is that any way to talk to an old friend?”

“When that friend is an asshole, yes.”

“Come on, Cunningham! I brought you a marshmallow last night! No one who brings confectionery can be a
complete
arsehole.”

“You also pissed off the guy I'm seeing for no apparent reason and tried to convince him that I'm a giant slut. So yeah, you're an asshole. Marshmallow or not.”

“Ah, I was only joking. Besides, that bloke seems like he has a rod up his arse.”

“He's a gentleman, actually.
And
he has great arms.”

“Mmph. So you're, like, seeing him?”

“I dunno. I guess so. Sort of.”

“Sounds exciting. Him and his big arms.”

“It is, actually.”

“Look, let me get you dinner. To make up for the eggs thing, and for being a knob last night, and for being a twat in general.”

Dinner. I had never had dinner with Adrian. We hadn't had a dinner-having sort of relationship. At the very most, we'd had a meet-in-the-pub-for-a-chat-beforehand relationship.

“Dinner, eh? Okay . . . though I'm not paying for it, if that's what you're thinking. I'm not into supporting starving artists.”

“Give me some credit. Jesus. I'll cook and everything.”

I had lost the power of speech by this point, so I grunted my consent and then hung up. What. The. Fuck.

I guess this jealousy thing works on more than just Popeye.

The flirting project had gotten slightly out of control; I couldn't seem to stop making eyes with everyone.

Cathryn and I went to our favorite lunch place after a meeting at Imperial College about a potential lecture series. I realized that she was watching me with hawkeyed suspicion.

“Don't think I didn't notice what you were doing to that poor defenseless man at the counter,” she said as we walked back to the office.

“What?” I said, clutching my overflowing salad box. He
had
been more generous than usual, and I suppose it
may
have had something to do with the fact I told him that he was looking particularly dashing . . .

Later, when waiting for the elevator at work, a couple of moving men pushed past us carrying a large desk.

“You're incorrigible,” Cathryn said, shaking her head.

“What?! I didn't even look at them!”

“Well, it seemed like you were flirting with the burly one. At least, I think he thought you were flirting.”

“You're being paranoid,” I said, flicking a quick wink at the burly mover.

But she was right: it's like I've got flirting Tourette's.

Case in point: I went for a run tonight along the Embankment and while waiting at a traffic light and doing that annoying little hoppity run-on-the-spot jog that all runners pointlessly insist on doing, I made eye contact with a fellow runner and actually smiled. This isn't something I would normally do. I tend to have a look of grim determination on my face when running and try to avoid eye contact with other humans as much as possible.

But this time I was so swept up by my flirting addiction that I forgot to put my running face on and instead had my game face on.

He smiled back. He was actually surprisingly handsome, a fact made more pronounced by the way he was all flushed and sweaty and post-coital-looking from the run.

“Nice pace,” he said.

“Thanks,” I said, grateful that my face was already bright red from exertion so he couldn't see my furious blushing. “I have a lot of pent-up rage, so this helps.”

“Oh, really?”

“Totally. If it weren't for running, I'd probably be a mercenary in Angola.”

The light changed. I smiled, turned on my iPod and took off. I realized in retrospect that I had come across as a lunatic, but the beauty of running is that it doesn't matter what you look like or what you say to strangers waiting at lights, because you can always make a quick exit.

A few minutes in, I glanced behind me to see that Running Man had tucked himself behind my left shoulder and was matching my stride. He gave me a smile.

“I wanted to see the rage in action,” he yelled.

“You sure about that?” I said as I sped up.

“I think I can handle it.” He passed me within minutes and gave a little wave of encouragement for me to keep up. I was spurred on by the sight of his thighs and upped my pace.

Twenty minutes later, Running Man and I were huddled around a water fountain, taking turns gulping down water.

I bent over double and tried to catch my breath. “Christ, my lungs feel like a couple of punctured tires.”

“Judging from that performance, you have some serious anger issues to work on. Good run, though. I think we've earned a drink or two. What do you say?” Annoyingly, he was way less of an out-of-breath, tomato-faced mess than I was.

I looked down at my sweat-soaked top. “I would love to, but I don't think I can stand being in these disgusting clothes for much longer.”

“Fair point. Rain check then?”

I agreed and he tapped my number into his phone before taking off at a blistering speed. I limped home thinking about Running Man's lovely thighs, a smug grin having replaced the look of grim determination. God, I loved flirting. I was going to miss living in the
1920
s.

The last day of living a flapper's existence and I'm proud to say that I've accomplished the main aim of the book: “There should be at least two men desiring you at one time—more if you are very skilful or fortunate.”

This had proved trickier than one would hope, but I'd finally managed to collect a coterie of men (annoyingly, just at the point when I had to switch books).

There was Popeye, of course. There was Running Man, who texted straight after our death-match run and who I'm meant to see in a couple of weeks. And then there's this mystery dinner with Adrian coming up. It was pretty much a full house. So, after a month of shameless flirting, I think the author of the book would be quite proud of me; I'd turned into a fairly decent coquette (drawing on my own natural inclinations, of course).

But here's the thing: having a veritable harem wasn't giving me the glow of satisfaction I thought it might. Instead, I was growing increasingly bored. It was the dating equivalent of eating cotton candy: delicious at first, but soon you start feeling a little sluggish and sick.