Free Spin Cycle by Sue Margolis Page B

entertaining.
    He didn’t say anything for a moment.
    “Funnily enough,” he said eventually, flicking ash into the ashtray, “I know this great clitoris joke. D’you want to hear it?”
    “Er, not really,” she said.
    “OK, right. Well, there’s this woman walking past this pet shop and she sees a notice in the window advertising a clitoris-licking frog. She’s intrigued so she goes in and says to the bloke behind the counter, ‘Excuse me, I’m inquiring about the clitoris-licking frog’ and he says . . .” Tractor paused for effect. “And he says . . .
’Oui, madame.’
”
    Tractor started guffawing. Despite herself, Rachel’s lips were starting to quiver.
    “Get it?” he said, between laughs. “It’s
frog
as in
Frenchman
.”
    “Yeah,” she said, stifling her giggles (laughing would only encourage him, she thought). “I get it.”
    “I love this song, don’t you?” he said after a moment.
    “It’s OK,” she said.
    “So, er, what’s your favorite record then?”
    By now Terry had returned with her change.
    “Linford Christie’s hundred meters,” she said, turning away from him to take her change.
    “Cheers, Terry. Bye,” she said.
    She smiled briefly at Tractor and started walking toward the door.
    “Wey, hey, Terry, I reckon I’m in there,” she heard Tractor say. “She really fancies me. She’ll be back, mark my words.”
    Rachel swung round.
    “You know,” she shouted back, “it’s such a shame when cousins marry.”
    But Tractor didn’t react. Instead he was standing in front of Terry, pointing to his leather-clad crotch.
    “Terry, as a mate,” he was saying, “tell me honestly . . . do my balls look big in these?”

CHAPTER 6
    “. . . So anyway, sex with this American bloke was so good, even the neighbors had a cigarette afterward.”
    Once again, the audience hooted. Tonight, unlike a week ago, they were lapping up her material.
    “But they’re a funny lot, Americans,” Rachel continued. She couldn’t remember ever feeling this relaxed onstage and she was relishing every moment.
    “There they are, the richest, most powerful nation on earth, but not one of them’s got a decent haircut. Where does your average American go for a cut and blow-dry? Albania? And what about all those ridiculous euphemisms they use for anything lavatorial? I was listening to this woman from LA on the radio the other day—you know the type: thin, neurotic health food freak who looks like she spends her whole life petrified that soon there’ll be nothing left in the world to decaffeinate—anyway she spends five minutes giving masses of full-on detail about what she and this bloke got up to in bed and finally she goes: ‘And then he went to the bathroom in my mouth.’ ”
    The audience roared.
    “So then this agony aunt comes on and says that women should tell their partners how to make love to them. Yeah right, I thought. Mine has a major fit every time I tell him how to drive.”
    Shrieks from the women.
    “Well, that’s my time up for tonight,” she said, putting the mike back on its stand. “But I’d like to leave the women in the audience with this final thought: remember, not all blokes are arrogant, egotistical gits—some are dead.”
    Whistles accompanied the laughter and applause. Rachel felt herself beaming.
    “You’ve been a great audience,” she shouted above the din. “I’ve been Rachel Katz.” She bobbed her head briefly by way of a bow and jogged offstage.
    She’d arranged to meet Adam at the bar at the back of the Anarchist Bathmat when she finished her set—which coincided with the start of the interval. When she arrived, having done a quick change in the loo into the new Ghost dress she’d bought especially (having miraculously discovered some space on her Barclaycard), the area round the bar was teeming with people, but Adam was nowhere to be seen. Tonight, their last night together before Adam went off to South Africa for a month, the night