Pop Tarts: Omnibus Edition (5 page)

Felix waited
for something more to come out of his mouth, but nothing did, other
than a pip he spat out after being hand fed a bunch of grapes by
his half-naked bimbo.

“Is that it?”
Felix asked, a little dejected. “I already have one.”

“Great,” said
Max. How many followers do you have?”

“About 37. I
don’t really use it.”

“You do now,”
said Max. “I want you on it 24-7.”

Felix was still
stuck in 1988. He had a fan club way back then. For £5 you got a
holographic membership card, a signed photo and an ’I heart Felix’
pin badge.

He clearly had
to be dragged, kicking and screaming into the 21
^st
century.

“Whatever you
do now, you post on Twitter,” Max explained. “It’s what all the
celebrities do.”

The current day
equivalent of an olden day fan club, basically. A way to cultivate,
keep entertained and to polish your fandom.

“Make a sausage
sandwich, post a photo of it. Scratch your arse, tweet about it.
The world needs to know. Oh and make sure you post plenty of
selfies throughout the day. At least one every hour.”

Max put on such
a positive slant, it rubbed off on Felix and soon he was tweeting
more than a budgerigar:

“Fancy a cup of
tea.

No milk.

Popped to
Tesco.

So busy
tweeting, I forgot about the milk.”

He was kind of
starting to get the hang of it… except he tweeted about having a
sausage sandwich and accidentally posted a photo of his bum. As you
do.

However, this
got retweeted and favourited over a hundred and fifty times and his
followers slowly started to go up.

Who knew
exposing your derriere could be so advantageous?

About a week
later, Max Jacks was back from Spain and announced a special press
conference to which he invited all of the band.

Holly and
Cherry still weren’t getting on so had to sit bookending Rhino and
Felix.

The press were
gathered, well those of them that had bothered to turn up, and Max
rewarded them with an all exclusive:

New single!

New album!

UK tour of
small venues!

Felix was
pleased. Rhino was pleased. And as a bonus the girls didn’t kill
each other. Although Cherry was tempted.

It was much the
same old story. Holly being the centre of attention. Cherry wasn’t
sure how much more she could take of this. Surely it was now her
time to shine?

Felix was even
more excited when Max agreed they could record ‘Supermarket
Checkout Operator’ as the lead single. Felix was sure it would be a
total smash hit.

He laid down
the lead vocal, while the girls recorded the backing vocals –
separately, of course – and Rhino played the cymbal.

The finished
studio recording sounded divine, even if Felix did say so
himself.

And they had a
big single release party to celebrate.

Well, in a
small pub in Soho.

Felix was still
tweeting everything he did:

“Great
Party.

Free booze.

Hot
chicks.”

Then one in
particular caught his eye. She was blonde and ravishing, with a
great set of tits.
And
she was trying to come onto him.

Felix was
shocked when she introduced herself:

“I’m Fifi Wood,
Holly’s daughter.”

She looked
about half his age, and Felix did the math in his head.

Then he
fainted.

Felix wasn’t easily shocked. He hadn’t labelled himself
tri-sexual for no reason. He’d been there, done that and bought the
t shirt on most occasions. But this one was new to him.

Could Fifi really be HIS
daughter?

Holly interupted and
dragged Fifi away from him, making up some excuse or other. She’d
pretty much given Felix the cold shoulder since the night of the
reunion concert. And now he was sure he knew why.

The only other thing puzzling him was Rhino Zagreb’s
change in personality, or rather discovery of one in possession.
Who knew?

Rhino of old made no
effort to say boo to a ghost. New Rhino was seemingly everyone’s
best friend. What a difference 25 years makes.

Felix ordered another vodka mixer and watched across
the bar as Holly introduced Fifi to Rhino. She was flirting
with
him
now, definitely a cut off the old cock,
he thought, convinced now more than ever.

She had
his
good looks
and
personality.

When Holly started flirting with Rhino as well, it
became too much for Felix to bear and he turned to face the
opposite direction.

Cherry had yet to arrive and Felix was worried about
her. She was becoming increasingly jaded by Holly’s spotlight
hogging, and the bad feeling between them was just increasing
tenfold.

As he was taking his
latest selfie for his now some 67,000 followers, he heard gasps and
some commotion going on behind him.

He turned around again to see that Cherry had finally
arrived in her most sensationalistic outfit yet.

She looked like a bi-sexual man’s delight.

Like Dr Jekyll and Ms
Hyde!

Half of her was dressed as the slut droppin’ Cherry
Fontaine, with rosso corsa red bobbed hair, bright matching
lipstick and a drop dead gorgeous, plunging neckline
dress.

The other half was dressed as her nerdus mcdorkus alias
Chesney Foster, complete with brown chords, plaid picnic blanket
shirt and pattern-clashing polka dot bowtie; and most unusual of
all: half a national health thick-rimmed spectacle
frame.

Felix went over to tell
her she looked great. Well at least half of her did anyway.

“
I’ve changed my name by deed poll to Cherry Chesney,”
she announced. “I’ve decided to embrace my unisexual
androgyny.”

Needless to say all eyes were no longer on Holly Wood
and she was absolutely fuming.

Some press from the Daily
Mirror were there and hovered around Cherry taking her picture and
asking questions.

Rhino popped over with a drink for Felix.

“How’s it hanging?” he
asked.

“
Well it was to the left, until the girls showed up,”
replied Felix.

“
The years have certainly been kind,” Rhino agreed,
licking his lips.

“
You seem to be getting on well with them both,” noted
Felix.

“
Holly’s great. And I like Cherry,” he nodded toward
her. “She’s certainly looking the part tonight.”

Felix looked over and saw Cherry, still quite the
centre of attention and loving it, and Holly not quite so
much.

He then excused himself and went outside for a
cigarette, where he bumped into Fifi Wood again.

The buttons on her blouse were becoming further undone
every time he saw her and he was trying his hardest not to look
where a magnet usually drew his eyes.

Fifi was definitely her mother’s daughter. And as Felix
feared, her father’s too.

“I didn’t realise Holly
had married?” he said, taking another puff of his cigarette.

It was raining lightly and they sheltered in the
doorway.

“
She never did,” Fifi said, attempting to light up
herself.

Felix automatically went
to stop her.

“You shouldn’t,” he said.
“It’s a really bad habit.”

He’d only had a couple of drinks, well two or three at
most, but he suddenly felt really funny. And not funny ha ha
either.

He went to move and lost his balance.

Fifi caught him before he could fall onto the
pavement.

“
Are you okay?” she asked, concerned.

Then she started to feel dizzy and stumbled
herself.

They hold each other up as they walk down a dark
alleyway, each feeling as sick as the other.

Fifi’s heel gets caught in a drain and she falls into
the gutter.

They are not alone.

Someone is watching
them.

Felix croutches down to check if she is okay and to
help her back up, but everything is spinning and his vision has
become blurred.

Then he blacks out.

It’s the
morning after the nightmare before and Holly is frantic.

“Open up Felix,
I know she’s in there,” she screams, banging on his apartment door,
so hard her knuckles are almost bleeding.

The door opens
and Felix stands before her, stark bollock naked, holding all but
his modesty in just one hand.

Holly brushes
past him and heads straight to the bedroom. Felix follows puzzled,
finding some boxer shorts on the way and putting them on as he
does.

Holly checks
under the bed and in the wardrobe too.

“Let me know
when you’ve finished,” Felix says, bemused but clutching his
forehead. His head is absolutely banging.

He goes into
the bathroom to take some painkillers.

Holly joins him
as he’s brushing his teeth.

“Where is she?”
she demands.

“Where’s who?”
mumbles Felix, with a mouthful of toothpaste, still confused.

Holly is
practically in tears.

“Your
daughter!” she squeals.

Felix is
rinsing his mouth and nearly chokes on it, spitting as he does.

“My what?” he
gasps.

“She never came
home last night,” Holly sobs.

Felix is still
a step behind.

“Fifi is my
daughter?” he feigns in shock, though he is clearly feigning
feigned shock. “And you never told me?”

“Actually I did
once,” claims Holly. “But you were so drunk all the time, you
forgot.”

This time the
surprise is on Felix, or rather not. How could he forget his own
daughter? Was his drunken 80s and drugged up 90s haze that bad?

“Does she
know?” Felix asks. “Maybe she ran away?”

“No,” says
Holly. “And she’s 24. Not 11.”

Felix has a
flashback to the party and remembers being sick in the alleyway -
with HIS FRIGGIN’ DAUGHTER - but then nothing. He elects not to
mention it.

“I’m sure she’s
okay. She probably just went home with a friend,” he insists
instead.

“I’m calling
the police,” Holly says as she frantically tries to dial her phone,
but she’s shaking so much, she drops it on the floor.

They bend down
to pick it up simultaneously and clash heads.

Felix catches
Holly’s eye and they share a brief moment, but just as he’s about
to kiss her – to comfort her, of course – her phone rings and she
pulls from the would-be embrace.

Caller ID shows
that it’s Fifi.

“Fifi! Where
the devil are you?” Holly yells down the phone furiously, as she
goes off into another room for privacy.

Felix finds
some jeans and pulls them on, closely followed by a ‘Felix Says
Relax’ t shirt, and starts to make a cup of tea.

When Holly
returns, she looks like she’s carrying her tail between her
legs.

“She’s fine,”
she says, having calmed down a touch. “She slept on a friend’s
couch.”

“I think we all
had too much to drink,” Felix declares. “But from what I can
remember it was a pretty good night.”

“I should
probably go,” Holly says.

“Are you sure I
can’t tempt you with a cup of tea?” Felix asks.

But Holly is
too embarrassed, makes her excuses and leaves.

Max Jacks calls
Felix to tell him some good news.

‘Supermarket
Checkout Operator’ has been out digitally since midnight and has
already reached the heady heights of no.177 in the midweek
chart.

Now they just
have to figure out a way to increase the bands profile and in turn,
sales, to get it higher, which is going to be no mean feat given
that half the band are still at loggerheads.

Felix is still
in shock at discovering that Holly was in the same room with him,
whilst he was wearing only his underpants, and able to resist his
Sex-Godliness.

Oh and that he
has a 24-year-old daughter that he never knew about!

And Holly is
still smiting that Cherry overshadowed her at the single release
party.

Felix goes to
pour himself another cup of tea, officially cementing himself as a
quintessentially old British tea drinking pensioner.

At that very
moment, the paperboy pushes a copy of The Sun newspaper through
Felix’s letterbox and to his utter dismay, his worst fears are
realised.

Plastered all
over the front page is a censored picture of him in bed with his
daughter Fifi, along with the headline:

Pop Incest
Shocker!

There is
another loud knock on the door, but this time it’s the police… and
he’s also under arrest for sodomising the Aunt Sally waxwork dummy
from Master Tussauds!

It seems pop’s
big comeback is almost over before it’s even begun.

Rhino arrives
just in time to see Felix lead away in handcuffs, looking concerned
until the panda cop car pulls away.

Then he grins
wickedly.

He goes home,
unlocks a padlock on the door to his basement floor hatch, turns on
a torch and climbs down the steps inside his sex dungeon.

It’s dark and
kinky, but there tied up in a cage in the corner at the back –
naked, bound and gagged - is his absolute doppelganger.

So Rhino Zagreb
is a changed man. In the 80s he was aloof and an unknown commodity.
A man plucked from obscurity to bang a cymbal and mime next to
three complete strangers for four years, nearly 30 years ago. A
tagalong on a wild ride he didn’t really participate in.