Free 50 Ways to Find a Lover by Lucy-Anne Holmes Page B

hold-ups. My thighs splurge out where the hold-ups stop. They look like blueberry muffin tops. There’s an FHM calendar on the wall of Louis’ dirty bathroom. The girl in the FHM April picture is mocking me. She’s wearing hold-ups, but her thighs look as though they’ve been sanded into the stocking. She has no sign of any muffin top. There is also no sign of any loo paper and this fact is upsetting me. If I was going to invite a man to my house with the sole purpose of having sex with him, out of respect I would make sure that I had loo paper. Louis supplied cheap wine, two bottles of it. He must therefore have been to the shops. Why didn’t he buy loo paper? I would also have cleaned my bathroom. Louis’ bathroom is filthier than Rachel Bird’s blog and I don’t say that lightly because this afternoon I read about her attempt to teach a non-English-speaking seventeen-year-old to have anal sex. Every surface in Louis’ bathroom seems to be caked in crusty bits of bodily-fluid residue. I had come in here to compose myself before we got down to it but I would actually like to give it a deep clean instead. There is no chance of me doing that, though, because there are no cleaning products in here at all. This means I will have to leave the bathroom and have sex with Louis. I don’t want to leave the bathroom and have sex with Louis. At the moment I would rather stay in here and court the risk of contracting MRSA.
    It is not that I don’t like Louis. He is what men would call a ‘good bloke’ and what women would call a ‘typical bloke’. I have been with him for the duration of a bottle of wine and in all that time – apart from me doing a small amount of moaning about the Northern Line – we have spoken about Chelsea Football Club. Actually Louis has spoken about Chelsea Football Club, in particular someone called Frank Someone, and I have done some rather good listening acting. I used the word ‘really’ twelve times and ‘wow’ fifteen times.
    I told my blog I was meeting Cherub Man from the football for a night of adult fun before he went to Australia. I explained that I was wearing hold-ups, matching bra and pants, fuck-me shoes and a wraparound dress so that all Louis had to do was untie a small bow and I would be undressed. I wanted people to be desperate to log on tomorrow to read what had happened. I wanted to be like Rachel Bird. Fearless. I’m not like Rachel Bird. I’m scared shitless. And I don’t feel sexy at all in a flat full of filth having spoken about Chelsea for an hour.
    ‘Have you fallen down the loo?’ asks Louis, banging on the door. I wince. What a horrible thought.
    ‘I’m just coming,’ I say. I look at myself in the mirror. I remind myself that I’m an actress. I can play the role of a seductress. It’s not my usual casting, admittedly. I’m more comedy maids and mad people, but tonight I’m going to be a seductress. I take a huge breath and as I exhale I whisper the words, ‘Let’s get this over with.’
    I exit the bathroom. Louis is standing by the washing machine in the kitchen. I try to ignore the backdrop of dirty plates and the Stella-can pyramid. I walk towards him slowly. He’s barefooted in a pair of frayed jeans. I wouldn’t walk on this floor in bare feet. His belly is quite podgy. I can see a bit of hairy man-tummy poking from beneath his grey Rolling Stones T-shirt. He smiles lazily at me.
    ‘Hey, sexy!’
    ‘Hey.’ I smile back at him. I keep my head low but lift my eyes up to meet his and I walk towards him. I stand facing him and I bite my lip, still smiling. God, I’m good. Then I run my finger along the line of his exposed belly. I feel him breathe in. I want to squeeze the flesh and say, ‘Eh up, porky,’ but I must fight that impulse as I think it might have rendered me single for years. I must remain sexy. I must play the game like Rachel Bird.
    Suddenly Louis grasps my wrist tightly. He’s quite masterful. It surprises me as I thought