‘There you go Kev boy, have a cool one.’
‘Don’t mind if I do. Cheers mate.’
‘Yep, aaaah. Feeling better already. Right, follow me lad, look and learn.’
‘Where are we going?’
‘Off to find the good hostess. You know, she could have me tonight, if she’s lucky.’
‘Yeah,’ and Kevin found it hard not to resent her for that fact.
‘There she is Kev. Look at her. Thing of beauty wouldn’t you say?’
Kevin looked. Charlotte was tall, mainly due to the length of her legs. Her blonde hair was tied back, revealing a small face that caused her normal-length nose to appear slightly long. Her smile was white and symmetrical and her eyes were able to flirt in two different directions simultaneously. Not bad, Kevin had to agree, for a girl.
Not a patch on you though
Bri,
he would have said, if it wasn’t for his patience.
‘Not bad.’
‘Not bad Kev? She’s more than not bad. Admit it, you’d have her if you could.’
‘Yeah, suppose I would.’
‘But you can’t, that’s the thing. You know why?’
‘Not really.’
‘You don’t have it. You don’t have the X-factor. You see,’ Brian put a hand on Kevin’s shoulder, like a father explaining combustion engines to his son, ‘she’s what you’d call an A, whereas you Kev, let’s be honest, are more of a B. In this world Bs don’t get As. It’s not fair but hey, what is?’
‘What about my uncle?’ Kevin asked. ‘He’s an ugly little bastard but the woman he left my auntie for is definitely quite attractive.’
‘That’s because it isn’t just about looks is it? It’s like I say, the X-factor. He must have the X-factor. But you, well the closest you’re ever going to get to a girl like Charlotte is hearing a guy like me telling you what it was like. If you’re lucky she might have a friend who isn’t too ugly. Maybe I could set you up.’
‘Nah, she’s right.’
If there was one thing that annoyed Brian it was lack of gratitude.
‘Look Kev, I’m just trying to help you aren’t I? Go on then, if you don’t believe me. You try with Charlotte first. Away you go. I’ll stand back, give you all the room you need. But I’m telling you, you won’t get anywhere.’
‘Oh, um.’
‘No, go on, I want to see you try. It’s the only way you’re going to learn.’
So Kevin walked reluctantly over to Charlotte and Brian watched him go. Yeah, there was definitely something odd about that boy, something Brian couldn’t quite put his finger on.
‘Ah excuse me.’ Brian turned to be confronted by the unblinking eye of a small video camera. The voice came from behind it where a small figure was hunched over the tripod, making adjustments.
‘What?’
‘Brian isn’t it?’ The camera boy stood up. His face was vaguely familiar.
‘What of it?’
‘My name is Malcolm. I’m doing a piece of research, for the School Science Fair, and I was—’
‘Piss off. It’s the weekend man, get a life.’
‘It’s about sex,’ Malcolm continued, seemingly unperturbed.
‘What?’
‘Sex. People suggested you might be worth talking to.’
‘Did they?’ Brian said, interested now.
‘Yes, you seem to have quite a reputation.’
That made sense to Brian. He definitely had his admirers.
‘Right, um, so what was it you wanted to know?’
‘Tell me about the first time you had sex. How was it?’
‘What, don’t you know?’
‘No. I haven’t had sex yet. I’m a virgin.’
‘You’re not some sort of pervert are you?’
‘Oh no. I’m a Scientist.’
‘Right. So first time you say? Hell, it was a while ago now.’
‘And how was it?’
‘Good. Yeah, quite good.’ There was a pause. ‘Is that all?’
‘Some detail would be good. What, when, how, that sort of thing.’
‘Oh, okay. Well it was at this party, up at Waikanae at a beach house. Me and ah, Shirley, I’ve changed her name, you know, to protect her identity, although she’s probably told everybody by now, I have. Anyway, me and Shirley went down to the beach, just to talk, and do some drinking and that. Then what happened was it got quite late and when we got back everyone else had crashed and the only place left was this big double bed.’
Brian stopped. He considered he’d explained himself rather well, given it was something he hardly remembered. Only geek boy didn’t quite get it.
‘So what happened next?’
‘What do you think? I started feeling her up and stuff. I didn’t want her to think I was some sort of poofter did I?’
‘No, I suppose not. So was it easy then? I mean, how did you know what to do?’
‘Everybody knows.’
‘I’m not sure I would,’ Malcolm told him. ‘So, ah, if you don’t mind me asking, how was it? Say on a scale of one to ten, where five’s playing with yourself, you know, on a good day.’
‘Oh, ah eight I guess. Eight point five.’ It wasn’t strictly true but Brian was well used to faking.
‘And Shirley?’
‘Yeah, she was okay. A seven I suppose, although that’s not all that fair, she was pretty drunk.’
‘No, I mean do you think she enjoyed it?’
‘Of course she did.’ What was he implying, the little prick?
‘How do you know? Did she moan and stuff, you know, like in the movies?’
‘Well no, but she couldn’t could she?’ Brian tried to explain.
‘Why not?’
‘Well, we didn’t want to wake the others.’
‘What others?’
‘The other people crashed out on the bed. It was really big though, and they were totally asleep.’
That hadn’t come out too well and Brian knew it. It was almost as if the little bastard had tricked him. He wondered if he shouldn’t kick out at the camera, or try to explain it. Served him right, for wasting party time talking to a geek when there were perfectly good girls available.
‘Anyway, look, I have to go. I can’t answer any more of your stupid questions.’
‘That’s fine,’ Malcolm smiled. ‘That was all I wanted. It was perfect.’
Brian stormed off and came across Kevin standing in the backyard, predictably alone, same beer bottle still in his hand (took his time did Kevin) and looking strangely at some statue thing in the middle of a floodlit fountain. Another big plus for Charlotte, her parents were loaded.
‘So how did it go then?’ Brian asked, not that he had to.
‘Not too well,’ Kevin lied. In fact he and Charlotte had got on very well indeed. It was boys he had trouble impressing.
‘Told you boy.’ Brian’s mood brightened again. ‘You’re a B, nothing you can do about it. Did you see where she went?’
‘Yeah, she’s through there by the barbecue.’
‘You all right out here then man? Got to give this a crack. I will check out whether she’s got a friend for you though, promise.’
‘Yeah, no worries.’ Kevin watched the familiar sight of Brian walking away then turned his attention back to the fountain. A little tacky, truth be known, but it would do the job.
Charlotte was still standing by the barbecue, as if she was waiting for him. Such signals from fate, little winks from the gods of love, never failed to buoy Brian’s confidence.
‘Gidday.’
‘Hi.’
‘Name’s Brian. Can I get you a drink?’
‘No, I prefer not to at my own parties. You’re going to have to try conversation instead I’m afraid.’ She reached for the tongs and began turning kebabs.
‘What? Oh, right.’ A feisty one. No worries. Brian preferred them that way. No fun if they didn’t resist a little. ‘It’s funny, I was talking to my friend before. He was saying how some people just have an X-factor, some special indefinable quality. I told him there was no such thing. But now, seeing you, well I’m thinking he might have been right.’
‘Sounds like a line to me,’ Charlotte told him.
‘It is. But that’s the thing isn’t it. You’re worth the line. Most people I wouldn’t bother. That’s the X-factor I think.’
Brian was most pleased with the way he’d handled himself. He was on a roll, he could feel it. The geek boy should have been filming this. Charlotte looked up from the kebabs. Eye to eye Brian could tell she and he were the same height, which had practical advantages. Another sign. Brian turned slightly, so she could see his better side, and gave the enticing smile he had recently perfected in the mirror. He waited for something but apparently he had rendered her speechless. Time for another line.
‘So, if you could sleep with anyone in the world, who would it be?’
‘I’d fuck Elvis,’ Charlotte replied, ‘if he was still alive.’ And for some reason Brian didn’t quite understand, she found this most amusing. He pressed on.
‘Elvis eh? Yeah, my dad’s got one of his films on DVD. I think he’s seriously underrated as an actor. What do you think?’
Charlotte didn’t answer him, or even return his gaze. She was looking past him, back to the yard, her eyes wide open, her jaw dropping open.
‘Oh my God,’ she whispered. ‘He’s actually done it. I never thought he would.’
Brian turned to see what she was talking about and was confronted with a vision that burned itself forever on to the back of his already scarred mind, exactly the way Kevin had intended it to. For there Kevin was, naked as the day he was born, his slender frame wrapped about the statue in artistic pose, bathed in dappled mood lighting. He didn’t move at all, as if oblivious to the gathering crowd and the roaming video camera edging ever closer as it strove to capture this living work of art from every angle.
Juliet was determined to cover every angle, turn every stone, abuse every cliché. She took to picturing her blackmailer in her head, to help focus her anger. He (well it was always men wasn’t it?) was an outcast, she’d decided. The sort of recluse with too much time on his hands, who would think to open a post office box, and take the trouble to send his letter from a central city post office (the postmark had been no help). Someone who dreamed of making money, and who wasn’t above being devious to get it. A small, malformed child with no life of his own, who had the time to go digging into the lives of other people. Probably she wasn’t his only victim. Probably he’d done this sort of thing before.
The clearer her picture became, the easier it was to hate him, and the more she hated him, the easier it was to find the energy and ingenuity it would take to track him down. She already knew what she would do when she found him. She would cause him pain. She would beat him until his bruises were bruised, until it hurt so much his mind was distracted from the humiliation of being whipped by a girl. Then she would gently explain that if he decided to go public with his information she would report him to the police, and he would give in then, because nobody was going to risk prison for $1000. And then, if he didn’t quite look sore enough, she would beat him again.
Juliet began by phoning the post office.
‘Yes, hello. Can you please tell me which post office the box number 93186 belongs to?’ she asked, in her most polite, friendly, grown-up voice.
‘I’m sorry, we’re not able to give out that information,’ the woman on the other end replied, in a voice that was offhand and officious and not in the least bit sorry.
‘That’s okay, thanks anyway.’ Juliet hung up and then rang back four more times, until a different operator answered. This time she explained she was making a purchase from a mail order company but had heard one of the firms in this industry was unreliable. Could the operator please help by confirming which branch their box number belonged to? ‘No,’ the gruff man replied. ‘That information is confidential.’
Juliet had to ring three more times before a third voice answered. This time she told the woman that her grandfather had recently died and they had found a post box key. Could she help by telling them which branch the key belonged to? This time the operator saw fit to come out from behind the shelter of the official response, first to offer her condolences and then, after a wait of less than a minute, to inform her that the number in question was still with the former Kelburn Post Office, now the premises for the local video store. Juliet knew it well.
‘There, that wasn’t so difficult after all was it?’ she snarled at the no doubt surprised operator, before hanging up.
The next morning Juliet took her packed lunch (four bananas, two cheese rolls and a 500 ml Coke), a folding canvas chair and a copy of
Martial Arts
Today
and camped herself beneath the shade of a roadside pohutukawa tree, fifty metres down on the other side of the road from the Kelburn Video Store, with a clear view of the post boxes outside. Before settling in she crossed the road to the supermarket, bought herself a chocolate bar and checked the exact position of box 93186. Top row, two from the right.
The plan was simple, not because she liked simple plans but because she hadn’t been able to come up with a complicated one. In the absence of inspiration she was going to rely on perseverance. She would sit there all day if she had to, all week even, if school didn’t ring home to check where she was, and she would wait. Eventually he would slime along to clear his box and when he did she would have him, his identity revealed and his plan in tatters.
So Juliet waited and Juliet watched, all morning and a good part of the afternoon as well. Some people watched her too, just to make it fair. They stopped for a moment to stare and come up with a reason in their heads for why she might be there, before hurrying back to their lives.
An old man stopped to tell her there was no point doing surveys, because all statistics were based on false premises and he should know because he used to teach it, before he lost his job, for reasons he preferred not to go into.
A younger man with a most impressive mane of flame red hair asked if she was conducting an experiment, and tried to begin a conversation on the intricacies of psychology, but she was deliberately unfriendly.
A girl a couple of years younger than herself, with her own reasons to be wagging school, stopped to ask for a cigarette, and a small child in the property to the rear hid behind the high, Beware-of-the-Dog, stained wood fence and fired his water pistol at her.
Meanwhile people across the road came and went, some of them stopping to clear their mail boxes. All sorts of people, some in business suits, some who looked like students, and a very suspicious-looking woman with two handbags who emptied three different boxes before scurrying off with the contents hidden beneath her jersey. Nobody came for 93186 though. It remained closed and unreadable, mocking Juliet’s efforts from across the street.