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  I notice that the biker is sitting back at the bar, reading a beer mat and drinking a beer. My bladder feels like it’s about to burst. ‘Good,’ I say to Jack, ‘I’ll fix everything up for one-thirty. Now, if you’ll excuse me . . .’ I take a swig from my beer and get to my feet and nod in the direction of the loos.

  ‘Off to siphon the python?’

  ‘Precisely,’ I reply, heading off across the room.

  A couple of girls – one blonde, one dark – who are standing by the bar, give me the once over as I walk past them. The blonde smiles and I return the gesture. I half-recognize her but can’t remember her name. Oh well, that’s London for you, I suppose. I could have seen her on the tube, or a bus, or in one of a thousand bars. It could have been anywhere.

  I walk on.

  A stainless-steel urinal runs the length of the wall inside the gents. Standing on the tiled step in front of it are two men. I’m surprised. I’ve been vaguely monitoring the comings and goings through the loo door and thought it would now be empty. I stare at the men’s backs. They’re both adopting that ubiquitous, cocksure, slumped-shoulder stance of the male in mid and satisfying piss. The noise of their urine thundering down into the steel trough makes them sound like a couple of camels post-oasis refuelling. They’re talking football and one of them turns and glances at me, disinterested, before shuffling sideways to make room for me beside him, returning his attention to the matter in hand.

  I stare briefly at the space between them, but it’s no good. I know exactly what will happen if I take those two small steps and stand there: nothing. I’ll unbutton my jeans and dig out my dick and then I’ll freeze. The noise of the two camels will fill my ears and I’ll stare at my wizened end, praying for so much as a tear of piss to show its sorry face. It won’t, however, because it never does. I suffer from nervous bladder disorder and I find it impossible to pee whilst standing within ten feet of another man. Next will come the shame. The men standing either side of me will finish their business and my silence will reign and no amount of ‘Don’t you just hate it when that happens?’ will get me out of it, because it doesn’t happen to them, it only happens to me. They’ll want to know why, and so they’ll look, and then they’ll know. Then they’ll know the sordid truth.

  And the sordid truth is this: I have a tiny cock.

  I have a tiny and, moreover, a cowardly cock which would rather humiliate me in public by hiding in my pubics, than by getting on with the simple task of acting as a channel for my piss.

  In the cubicle at the back of the gents, I lock the door and, for the benefit of the two men at the urinal, go noisily through the motions of lifting up the lid, dropping my trousers and sitting down. My public statement: I am here to crap and not because I am ashamed of the size of my cock. The urge to piss returns with a vengeance and I sit here, physical relief flooding through me, its mental counterpart nowhere to be found. I stare down at my pubic nest and its hairy eggs.

  I have a teeny peenie.

  There’s no point in beating around the bush, so to speak. There it is, inescapable, hanging (if an object of such little weight can be affected by the law of gravity) miserably between my thighs. Where other men have trouser snakes, I have a trouser worm. Where other men are hung like donkeys, I’m hung like a gnat. Where other men boast a third leg, I’m an amputee. I’m not Jack’s python, then, and equally not his Horse – unless he’s talking Shetland ponies, of course.

  To say I have mixed feelings about this part of my anatomy would be a lie. My feelings are clear and, for want of a better expression, completely to the point: I hate my cock. I hate it with the same passion other men my age might reserve for income tax, military dictatorships, or, say, the song-writing abilities of 911.

  At my prep school, which I attended until I sat my Common Entrance examinations at the age of thirteen, it wasn’t so much of a problem. I hit puberty early on and, in the shared showers every morning, not only did I tower over the other kids in height, but I also had the added kudos of a fully thatched nether region. That my cock had failed to grow in proportion with the rest of my body wasn’t something that was remarked upon. That came later, at public school. Here, the other kids’ bodies quickly caught up, and so did their cocks, and that’s when my shame truly kicked in.

  The sad fact, however, remains that what’s mine is mine and, short of radical surgery, is going to stay that way. Not that the thought of surgery hasn’t crossed my mind before. On the comedown of a particularly vicious coke-fest, I once went as far as cutting out one of those Male Enhancement advertisements from the newspaper and actually dialling the clinic’s number. A woman answered, however, and I chickened out. There was also the feature advertisement for the manually operated SwellSize Rodpump™ I read in the back of a porn mag whilst I was at university. £19.99 and two hours’ pumping later, however, and all I had to show was a bruised shrew, and a bad case of tennis elbow.

  I’ve tried looking on the bright side. I’ve considered that God giveth and he taketh away. I’ve told myself that if, in my case, God gaveth good looks, good health and a good body, and in return tooketh away vital inches of love muscle, then that’s simply the way it was meant to be. I’ve tried telling myself all of this, but it hasn’t worked. Given the choice of reversing my physical attributes, I’d be down at the deed poll office to register the name Quasimodo in an instant.

  I hear the sounds of zips and footsteps and the main door to the gents opening and closing as the other men leave. All that remains is the sound of my piss.

  ‘You’re being checked out,’ Jack says when I get back to the table. ‘The two women at the bar. They clocked you before, on your way to the bogs. They’re looking over here now.’

  ‘I know the blonde from somewhere,’ I tell him. The temptation is there to turn around and have a good stare, but I don’t. It would look too obvious. ‘I can’t quite work out from where, though.’

  ‘So, what are you going to do?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, you can’t just sit here, can you?’

  I laugh. ‘Why on earth not?’

  ‘Because she’s walking over here right now . . .’

  ‘Stringer, isn’t it?’ the blonde girl asks.

  I ignore Jack’s obvious amusement, and say, ‘Yes.’

  She smiles at this, before announcing, ‘I met you at a party at the start of last year.’

  I don’t remember her. Hardly surprising, however, considering how wasted I most likely was at the time. I continue to study her face and, more specifically, her mouth. I decide we might have snogged each other. Certainly no more. Simply a case of lips that passed in the night.

  ‘Oh, yes?’ I ask noncommittally. ‘Where was that?’

  ‘Some posh pad in Notting Hill. You were DJ-ing.’

  ‘That’ll be your old place, then, mate,’ Jack says helpfully. Then, to the girl: ‘Used to throw good parties, didn’t he?’

  She nods her head and says to me, ‘I’m Samantha, yeah? My friend over there’s called Lou. All right if we join you?’

  I finish my drink. ‘We’re leaving,’ I say, ignoring Jack’s look of surprise.

  Jack shrugs, before picking up his own drink and backing me up, ‘Yeah. We’re meeting some people in town.’

  Out on the pavement a few minutes later, when Jack asks me why I blew out such a great pulling opportunity, I tell him that Samantha isn’t my type. I tell him this because there’s no way I can explain to him – to him of all people – that it’s not only men I’m terrified of getting my cock out in front of.

  Susie

  Saturday, 06.50

  Oh dear. I’m lying in bed, trying to focus on the ceiling and whilst I normally do this when I wake up, the problem is that neither the bed nor the very fuzzy ceiling are mine.

  Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear: yet more poor behaviour by Miss Morgan.

  I shift quietly, trying to extricate myself from under the itchy, heavy forearm of . . . of . . . um . . . now
, let’s see . . . Dave. No, not Dave. Dave was the baldy one.

  Damn! What’s he called?

  He grunts and rolls away and the pungent smell of stale sex wafts up from under the duvet. I look at his back and try to piece together the events leading up to the fact that I’ve failed, yet again, to wake up on a Saturday morning in my own bed. So much for keeping my dream diary up to date.

  Now then, let’s see. I can remember having a drink with the gang in the pub, larking about, as you do. Then the next thing I remember, I got chatting to a bunch of musicians, went with them to this snobby club in Soho and I must have come home with this one – the singer, I think. I’m always a sucker for struggling arty types.

  After he’d sung several of his own, I’d been reduced to a gooey-eyed slave to my hormones, at which point I offered to give him a massage. My way of giving back some positive energy, of showing him my special skills, I assured him, in my best whisper. Actually, I just wanted to cut to the chase and get my hands on that body of his.

  What’s his name, now? Come on, I know this.

  Ed. Ah that’s it.

  Ed with the voice.

  I’m pretty sure it’s Ed.

  I ease up on to my elbows and adjust my eyes to the unfamiliar shadows. There’s a clock on the far wall ticking quietly and I squint at it. It’s a bit blurry without my glasses, but I think it’s saying ten to seven in the morning.

  Come on girl, time to sling your hook.

  I ease back the duvet and slip out of bed. I’m well practised at being as quiet as a mouse in these situations. Mind you, I’m a terrible one for getting the giggles when I’m trying to be silent, but this morning, I’d determined to keep my big gob shut for once, and not wake up Ed. I hate all that embarrassing early morning stuff with a virtual stranger, especially since I didn’t clean my teeth last night. I have the breath of a stray Alsatian, I’ll bet.

  I creep across the carpet on all fours, retrieving the items of my clothing in reverse order to the door. It takes me a while to find my bra, since it’s tangled up in the duvet cover at the bottom of the futon. Without my big knockers in it, it looks huge. Certainly too complicated to put on. I stuff it in my bag and take out my glasses so that I can see what I’m doing and assess the damage. My velvet skirt smells disgusting after the pub and my fleece top has a hot rock burn on the collar, but all in all, I’m in one piece. Not too bad, considering.

  After a silent struggle to get my tights on, thrashing around on the rug like an upturned beetle, I’m finally dressed. I stare down at Ed before I leave. He’s very cute in a smooth-chested boy-band sort of way, but I shan’t be leaving my number. I’ve got enough on my plate without adding this one as a side dish.

  Anyway, there’s no point in being sentimental, is there? I already know I’ve blown it. See, Ed won’t be any different from any other one-night stand. (And I can’t be accused of stereotyping here, because my personal statistics on this matter would form a healthy base for a government survey.) The thing is, if you put out on the first date, you’re automatically put in the casual sex zone. Fact.

  Oh, I know men are supposed to have grown up and out of their old sexist ways, but we all know that old habits are hard to break. That’s just life. You’re fine if you’re a frigid blushing violet who has a low libido and lots of patience. If, on the other hand, like me, you happen to have the sex drive of your average stallion and the self-control of an escaped bumper car, then getting a boyfriend is a bit harder.

  Not that I want to be Ed’s girlfriend, mind you. I hardly know him. Besides, I can’t imagine he’s single with that sort of body. But it would be nice to be taken seriously once in a while, instead of being what my grandmother would call ‘one of those girls’.

  The trouble is, you see, I am one of those girls. Always have been. Even when I was little, long before I started having sex, I was forever in trouble with the boys. I think I was seven when I first traded a look down my gym knickers for two Bubblicious bubblegums.

  I glance at the clock again, before blowing a kiss off my hand in Ed’s direction and tiptoeing backwards out of the room. I creep down the stairs, stopping and holding my breath every time a floorboard creaks, but eventually I make it out of the house without being caught. I post Ed’s keys back through the letterbox (old trick) and mentally brush myself down.

  There was a time when I would have felt daring and wicked and would’ve already been excited about telling everyone about my nocturnal conquest, but this morning I can’t help feeling that I want to keep this to myself. As I walk through the gate on to the pavement and look back at the flaking paint of Ed’s front door, I feel a bit seedy.

  Still, there’s no point in beating myself up. What’s done is done. And anyway, I’ve no reason to feel bad. I was in control the whole time. It was me who decided to stay and me who decided to leave. If it was the other way round and it was Ed creeping out of my flat like a burglar at seven in the morning, I bet he’d have a cocksure swagger in his step. So why shouldn’t I?

  Anyway, I’ve got other things to worry about. Like where on earth I am. I stand under a lamppost consulting my mini A-Z for a good five minutes, before it dawns on me that the street name is not listed in the index. Buggeration. That can only mean I’m off limits and scarily outside the boundaries of my three-zone Travel-card. I look around me, hoping to spot something familiar, but it’s one of those characterless London streets – all squashed-together houses with crumbling steps and cold windows. I could be anywhere. I can hear traffic in the distance, so I eeny, meeny, miny, mo it, decide to go left and start walking.

  I find a petrol station on the main road a couple of streets away and get chatting to the man behind the till. He’s called Raj and he assures me that his brother has a minicab and will run me back into town. Whilst I’m waiting, I have a coffee from the machine and surreptitiously read the tabloid headlines. When you put my exploits last night into context, I’m not so bad.

  Raj is chattering on, as if he’s known me for years, but it doesn’t bother me. It always happens. I reckon I’ve got one of those faces, because people often tell me their secrets. Raj is off on one, telling me that it’s certainly been something of a Friday night. ‘Lots of bad elements. Terrible for my night staff,’ he gesticulates.

  I fail to tell him that one of the ‘bad elements’ was probably me, buying Rizlas and Pepsi Max in the small hours. I think that’s when Ed and I were competing in a fine rendition of ‘The Bare Necessities’. He was playing bongos with my buttocks and making lewd suggestions with a Magnum bar.

  ‘Terrible,’ I say. ‘Terrible.’

  Maude, my flatmate, and Zip, her lover, are still up from last night when I get back to the flat. They’re sitting on the sofa, under a sleeping bag, both nursing cans of lager and watching a video. They are one of those couples that look grungily trendy if you like Calvin Klein adverts, but to me, they look like they could both do with a good fry-up.

  ‘What time is it?’ yawns Zip.

  ‘Eightish, or so. Aren’t you helping me today, then?’ I ask Maude.

  She puts her hand over her eyes and groans. ‘Forgot. Sorry. We went clubbing with Dillon and everyone.’

  I ruffle her purply-red hair as she looks at me through her fingers. ‘I knew it! Next Saturday, then.’

  ‘We’ll come and see you at lunch-time, promise.’

  I laugh at her. ‘Oh yes? Well I won’t be holding my breath.’

  Maude has been my flatmate in my last three flats and I’ve known her for ever. She’s going travelling with Zip, who’s sort of moved in before they leave. They were supposed to leave for America about two weeks ago, but they’ve got a visa problem, apparently.

  I don’t want them to go. We’ve got this huge flat that I got through the housing association, quite by fluke, and it’s fun all being here together. It’s not the warmest or most tasteful flat in the world, but it’s lovely – all high ceilings and plenty of light – and I really don’t want to lose it when Mau
de goes. She’s paid two months’ rent in advance to help me out, so that I won’t have to find another flatmate immediately, but it’s still going to be horrible without her. She’s such a poppet.

  I feed Torvill and Dean, my goldfish, before packing all my stock into my laundry bag and heaving it downstairs. By the time I’ve collected the Mini Metro from the other side of the parking permit zone and loaded up, I’m late. I shouldn’t have been so naughty last night. I should have learnt by now that it’s a killer to do the market with a hangover.

  Dexter, predictably, has saved a space for me next to him and has already erected a plastic roof over my stall in Portobello Market. According to Capital Radio, it’s going to bucket down, so I’m grateful. Being next to Dexter is marvellous for business, as his stall invariably has a queue full of people itching to spend money on tat. He won’t hear of it, though, and insists that he sets up next to me because I attract the punters. This type of flirty thing has been going on for months between us, but we both know he’s doing me a favour.

  He’s already on his second bacon butty by the time I unpack the car and set out my hats. This week, I’ve got some new velvet to cover my plywood stand.

  ‘What do you think, then?’ I ask, when I’ve pinned it all down.

  Dexter whistles at it. ‘Very classy,’ he says, handing me a piping hot coffee in a polystyrene cup before starting to croon, ‘She wore blu–u–ue ve-el-vet.’

  I laugh and roll my eyes at him. Dexter is the widest, most sexist, arrogant man I’ve ever met, but despite myself, I’ve got to admit that he’s quite shaggable, especially in those 501S.

  ‘Got any good stuff this week, then, Dex?’ I ask, averting my eyes from his bum and sipping my coffee.

  Dexter is a car-boot, jumble and bric-à-brac sale connoisseur, devoting most of his spare time to trawling other people’s junk for any tapes or records he can lay his hands on. He’s got a staggering selection of the naffest music you can imagine. Bert Bacharach and random tribute bands. It’s very ‘in’ with the posh lot round here and he’s a bit of a legend in the market since he makes a fortune. Well, I say fortune, but no one is ever going to get rich quick, standing in the freezing cold in a London market. (It took me just one week to discover that, which is a pity since this was originally my get-rich-quick scheme.) It doesn’t matter, though. One day, it will be me: I will win the Lottery.