Future Queens of England (11 page)

A collective snigger rose and quickly fell. 

“We seek perfection in every form here at this establishment!” Ben proclaimed pompously.

“What a wanker,” Tony mumbled.

“Sweet Barbarella,” gasped Ben. “You’re like a Neanderthal.”

The class laughed tentatively.

“Are you out yet?  Or are you so far back in the closet that you’re still in Narnia?” enquired Ben with a puzzled expression.

The room, encouraged by Ben’s bravery, exploded into fits of hysterics.

“Well Sherlock, it should not come as a surprise to you that I’m not one of your lot,” snarled Tony spitting the words out as if they were polluting his mouth.  “I’m only here because some leftie magistrate sent me here instead of putting me in prison.  But in this place I’m having to watch my back constantly to stop one of your lot from trying to have their way with me!”

Ben rubbed his forehead, “Ah yes, I remember the Head mentioning a special case.  Well, look at it this way…” he gestured for Tony to provide his name.

“Tony,” he said curtly.

“Ah Tony is it?  Thank you,” replied Ben.  “Well Tony, at least here one of the boys will wine and dine you first before trying to have their way with you.  Methinks that courtesy would not be extended to you in the showers at the prison now would it?”

Tony pursed his lips, but didn’t speak.

“Anyway, enough about your prejudice Tony,” Ben said, “let’s start your appraisal.  We have a rating system here from one to ten; one being the worst and ten being the best.  You will be graded accordingly.  We don’t give zeros, but in your case we may have to make an exception.”  He laughed to himself, “Only joking,” and then took three small steps backward and began to look Tony up and down.  He smiled devilishly before speaking, “Well, I think I speak for the whole class when I say that we’d all like to give you one!”  He winked at class as they cheered him.

Tony’s face went red with anger and he turned to storm out, “I’m not putting up with this shit!” he screamed.

Ben stepped forward quickly, putting his hand onto Tony’s shoulder carefully to calm the situation.  Tony stiffened and pulled away from Ben’s touch.

“Sorry Tony,” Ben added apologetically, “that was unfair.  Go on, take a seat again.”

“Don’t make me do anything that I’ll regret Ben,” Tony raged.

“Now, now Tony.  Don’t do or say anything that could jeopardise your time here.  I will pretend I didn’t hear that,” Ben said soothingly.  “Please sit back down now.”

Tony ignored Ben completely and made his way to the door, wrenching it open and slamming it behind him.  The bang made several of the class flinch and
left
awkwardness
hanging
in the air.

“Well, even I’m prepared to admit that was not the best start to the year,” he commented.  “I am sure he’ll calm down later though.  Okay, let’s move on.  Who’s next?”

Hugh stood up quickly.  He checked his ankles for tassels then minced towards Ben.

Ben watched incredulously as Hugh approached.  “Well, at least that makes it easy to know where to start with you.”  He took his notebook from his pad and wrote, ‘Walk’, and put the number two next to it.  “So, what’s your name?” He enquired.

“My name’s Hugh, ducky,” Hugh announced in an over-the-top camp voice.

Ben wrote ‘Hugh’ above ‘Walk’ and paused, “How do you spell ‘ducky’?”

“D-U-C-K-Y,” replied Hugh.

“That’s an unusual surname, Hugh,” Ben commented as he wrote this down.

“Oh, it’s not my surname,” stated Hugh, “I was calling you ducky.”

“You’ve confused me Hugh, explain that again?” Ben said furrowing his brow.  “So you’re saying ducky isn’t your surname?”

“No of course not, I was calling you ducky, as a term of endearment,” explained Hugh.

A look of realisation hit Ben’s face, “Oh I see.  Okay, okay.”  He quickly scribbled ‘Speech – 1’ in his book, underlined it twice and said, “You’re making this really easy for me so far.  Unless you’re a pantomime dame I would suggest not calling anyone ‘ducky’,” he added gently. 

Hugh blushed and his shoulders sagged.

Ben regarded Hugh’s clothes for a moment and tapped his pen against the notebook.  “Style not too bad,” and he wrote down ‘Style – 5’.  “We will rate your dance moves separately during one of our next classes together.”  He made a few short notes that he hid from Hugh before speaking again, “Thank you, Hugh, you can sit back down now if you like.”

Slightly dejected Hugh, wandered back to his cushion and sat down quietly.

Keenan shuffled over to Hugh, “Don’t worry about it Hugh, it’s only day one, after all.”

“Yes sure,” said Hugh, “but I’ve been working on that walk for weeks and he only gave it a two.”

“Aye, but he could hardly give you a ten now, could he?” Keenan explained.  “Now at the end of the term when you actually get a ten he can take a lot of credit for that.  Did you think about that?”

Hugh’s face brightened.  “You’re right, Keenan, I bet I should have really scored an eight!”

“Now don’t get carried away, like,” chortled Keenan, “maybe a seven and a half.” 

“Okay, who’s our next brave soul?” Ben asked jovially.

Uwe and Gareth stood up at the same time.

Ben looked at them both and clapped his hands together enthusiastically, “Now this is what I’m talking about.”

They both grinned back at Ben, then looked each other up and down.

“After you, Uwe,” Gareth offered graciously as he gestured for Uwe to approach Ben with a sweeping arc of his arm.  As Uwe strutted forward like a peacock, Gareth whispered just loud enough for him to hear, “Age before beauty.”

Uwe turned to Gareth and placed his index finger on his face and pulled the bottom of his eyelid down for a second.

“Huh?” said Bruce to Gareth, “what did that mean?”

“I haven’t got the slightest idea.”

“Well, well, well,” Ben said approvingly, “who do we have here?”

“My name is Uwe, that’s spelt U-W-E,” he explained.

“Right then, Uwe, let’s start with your appraisal,” said Ben.

Meanwhile, in the corridor outside, Tony skulked at the door, listening.  He pressed h
is
ear against the door and strained to hear.  When he realised that they weren’t talking about him he meandered along the corridors with no real plan in mind.  He heard the click of a woman’s heels on the marble floor and instantly his interest was piqued.  The sound grew louder and he attempted to strike a casual pose.  He fidgeted awkwardly trying several different positions but in the end he settled on leaning against one of the pillars.  He waited impatiently for the owner of the clicking heels to appear, and then suddenly from around the corner Louise appeared. 

“Oh hello, it’s you again,” she said startled. 

“So you remember me then?” Tony responded.

“You are hard to forget, and not for the right reasons.  What are you doing lurking in the corridor?” Louise asked accusingly.

“Hoping I’d bump into you gorgeous,” he replied.

“Oh,” she said with resignation in her voice, “lucky me.”

“It’s so good to be near a woman after being surrounded by all these woofters,” Tony confided to her.

“You’ve been here for about forty-eight hours, are you really that starved of female company?” Louise said curtly.

“Christ, has it really only been forty-eight hours?” he said in disbelief.  “It feels like a bloody lifetime.”

“I should remind you that we don’t tolerate homophobia here, so please try and refrain from using derogatory names,” she scolded.

“What?  You mean ‘woofter’?” Tony said amazed.

“Please!” she said firmly.

“Oh I know a lot worse than that, but anything for you darling,” he said smoothly.  “Anyway what’s your name?”

“Louise,” she replied, unimpressed, “and I’d prefer you to address me by that or not at all.”

“Alright, sweetheart, I mean, Louise.  Don’t get your knickers in a twist,” Tony jibed.  “My name’s Tony.  Thanks for asking.”

“I didn’t ask, but yes, I already know,” she said disdainfully.  “After our last encounter I made a point of looking up your details.”  She pulled a face to show her disapproval.  “I know exactly why you’re here,” she said in a low voice, trying to retain some level of confidentiality.

“Do you like bad boys then?” he flirted.

Immediately she stiffened, “No I most certainly do not.  You appear to be as thoroughly an unpleasant character in person as you do on paper.” 

“Really?  Well, why don’t you let me take you out somewhere?  We can get to know each other a bit better and you’ll find out I’m not all bad,” he said with a hint of sarcasm and a touch of hope.

“I think I’ll pass on that Tony,” she snorted.  “I have work to attend to now, I can’t spend all day chatting with the students here.”  And with that she walked away down one of the long corridors.

As she left Tony closed his mouth and took a deep breath through his nose, smelling her perfume.  He closed his eyes for a second and concentrated on the smell, smiling to himself, drinking it in.  When the remains of her scent were gone he felt empty.  He opened his eyes but she had vanished from sight.  All that remained was the sound of her clicking heels, but they too were growing weaker by the second.  When the echo of her walking away finally vanished he felt a strange feeling of loneliness.  He didn’t know what to do now, so he simply did nothing.

Chapter
Eight

Back in the Larry Grayson boudoir Tony was reading his car magazine when the door burst open and the group returned from Ben’s lesson.

“Hey Tony,” greeted Hugh.

Tony grunted in acknowledgement.

“Ben assigned us some coursework; I picked yours up for you,” Hugh said helpfully and he threw some magazines onto Tony’s bed.  They bounced on the mattress and stopped near Tony’s feet.

Tony leant over and picked them up.  He looked at the front covers, “They want me to read fashion magazines?”

“Not just you Tony, all of us,” Hugh replied.  “We have to select an outfit from one of the magazines and write a little review on it.  Say why it works and what we like about it.  Ben was saying that we should not reinvent the wheel when it comes to choosing an outfit and that we should steal ideas from wherever we can.”

“Give me a break,” Tony said sighing as he flicked through the pages.  “There is no way…” he stopped abruptly and flipped back a couple of pages.  He found a double page spread of several beautiful women modelling underwear.

“There is no way what, Tony?” Hugh asked.

“Huh?” said Tony absentmindedly as he hungrily flipped from page to page drinking up the pictures of all the semi-clad women.

“Oi,” shouted Hugh at the top of his voice.

Tony jumped from shock, dropping the magazine, “You idiot, I’ve lost my page now.”  He picked the magazine up again quickly.

“So, I take it you are going to do your assignment now then?” enquired Hugh smugly.

“You bet,” cackled Tony. “I’m more than happy to spend an hour or two looking through these.  They’re almost like porno mags,” exclaimed Tony.

“Would you like me to lend you some stationery Tony?” Hugh asked, “I would assume that you didn’t bother to bring anything with you.”

“Yes please,” Tony muttered before becoming completely distracted again.

“Look at the dirty old devil angrily fingering the magazine,” said Bruce pointing at Tony.

Hey don’t knock it Bruce,” commented Gareth, “at least he’s finally showing an interest in something.”

They looked over at Tony as he drooled over the magazines.  When he found a page he liked he folded down the top corner.

“Here Tony,” Gareth said, “I’ve got some more that you can look at.”  He threw several more copies onto Tony’s bed.  “That should keep him busy for a while,” he said to the others.