 
The Best Romance Ever – Ina Disguise

Copyright 2014 Ina Disguise

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"Why do his eyes look so filled with hate?" Aldous adjusted his glasses and looked at Kira. They were watching 'the international health expert' Sam Redwood's gadget infomercial on TV.

"I don't know. It is very aging. He looks tired, old and bitter." Kira was surprised to find she was not as upset at seeing Sam again, after two years of avoiding looking at him, as she thought she would be. "One thing is for sure, it won't be anything to do with me. I'm way too insignificant. Try the bit of fluff on the screen next to him, maybe she said no." The corner of her mouth twitched in irritation.

Sam, unusually thin by his normal cuddly standards, continued to talk about the virtues of drinking greens whilst glaring hatefully out from the screen. Occasionally flicking a blonde curl from his face, he deftly demonstrated the wondrous seed crushing qualities of his gadget, smiling at the cute female sidekick whilst continuing to look homicidal whenever he looked at the camera.

"He is probably hungry. Or maybe this is his new 'older guy' sexy look. I don't know. It looks more like his new 'older guy' scary look from here. At least the shirts have improved."

"Kira, how long have you been in love with this guy now?" Aldous frowned.

"Three or four years, maybe?"

"Have you tried talking to him?"

"No point, he is screwing his staff and they won't let me. I don't know whether it comes from him or them but same difference, I don't get to communicate with him. It's probably just as well, because at least fifty percent of the time I am furious with him." Kira lobbed another bit of cacao into her mouth along with the blueberries. "I could always pretend to be a stranger until I had him cornered, but to be honest my apparently god-like beloved and I don't get on particularly well and we can spot each other under assumed names at a hundred paces."

"I gathered that from the last time you spoke." Aldous laughed at the recollection of Kira's fury at Sam for not accepting Kira's gift of her artwork, 'Raw Sex Object.'

"What do you see in him? He still looks like a twat to me."

"The oddest things set him off and he gets furious. I imagine he thinks he is so impossible to get on with that he doesn't really like people getting too close, so he keeps everything nice and superficial. My version of exactly the same behaviour is to avoid people entirely. We are the opposite, and yet exactly the same. It's strange, all I exist for is making the guy happy, and yet the minute I even see a picture of him this deranged child takes over my mind and I say terrible things to him." Kira paused only to sigh. "The only answer to it is exactly what I am doing, which is to try to avoid even seeing him. It doesn't help much, we should really just have the titanic fight until one of us, probably me, expires. All I know is that I have never met him, I don't get on with him, and I miss him every minute of every day, which is, of course, absurd. I should reinstate the team of ex-boyfriends to take my mind off it, but they were hopeless, and besides, that's why they got the boot in the first place. It's not really me, is it, the lovesick look?"

"Not really, no, and you don't even like hippies."

"Or vegans, schmaltz, hedonists or utilitarians. It's God's idea of a horrible joke." Kira sighed. "Or beards, for that matter, and I don't imagine for a second he likes short fat Scottish bitches. It's going to be unresolved forever, whilst I get fatter and fatter and eventually decompose in a miserable twisted heap."

"Time for a new project, Kira."

"Yep, I think so too. It's a shame Aldous, I can think of at least one excellent gentleman that I would have liked to marry, and now I can't. Love sucks, especially this version."

"How did the artwork appraisal go?"

"I am reasonably talented apparently." Kira continued to look glum.

"Great!"

"I suppose so. It's always the same, you look at your own work, and you think a five year old could have done it because you remember all the things that went wrong. Other people just see the result, so you don't really know until you show it to people. You have no idea the courage it took to show that thing after Sam rejected it, and he hadn't even seen it. He was just being a self-important dick. Considering he talks about 'grace' so much, he doesn't appear to know what it is."

"He looks like he's probably a bit self-important all the time to me."

"Nah, just a Yank avoiding being touched by anything. You get a similar effect with over-educated oiks over here. They have to be told what to like by someone with more money than them. It's the only way they can tell if they're doing something 'kewl.' And you have to remember he likes to be stressed. I was a nasty sounding person when I overworked too. It leads to all sorts of horrible flippant moments because you're thinking about something else."

Aldous giggled happily at the thought of all those thoughtless rich people as he went to feed the cats. Kira hurriedly switched Sam's hate-contorted face off and continued to sew, idly wondering if her own forsaken expression was any better than his.

Sam, international health guru extraordinaire, looked out of the drab hotel window at the roller-skating blonde. Five years ago, he thought, I could have tapped that. He turned back to the computer, where his book on gardening still lay unfinished. The now familiar cold feeling crept over him as he pondered whether to work on that or his presentation for the next day.

Business was, as usual, doing well. The TV endorsements were making him money, but not as much as he had hoped, and the demands on his appearance and time were frustrating. Now spending more time in NYC, and considerably less time doing what he loved with the smaller health shop venues, he did not feel life was treating him well. The increase in fan numbers had slowed down considerably. Where had it all gone wrong? He patted his tummy and wondered if he dared eat anything. He decided not.

Nothing had really changed in terms of his attractiveness, of course, but Sam felt he was losing his mojo, and it wasn't a good feeling. He gloomily wondered what would cheer him up. Everything seemed stale and routine, just 'ticking over,' and to make things worse, Sam was lonely. He usually functioned at a pace that ensured he was never really aware of being lonely, but things had slowed below his preferred level thanks to the income and restrictive nature of the TV work. Worse than that, the anticipated chat show appearances had not yet materialised and he seemed to be in an unaccustomed rut. Same locations, same subjects, same long term relationships with the groupies that ran his business. Kira had pointed out in one of her many irate videos that this was now stifling his opportunities, and he suddenly had the feeling that the stupid bitch might be right. Surely not? Sam scowled at his wrinkles in the mirror as he pondered the fact that he even remembered this.

The gardening book was designed to push him into a more established mid-life, middle class market. The lack of prospective chicks in this market was depressing in the extreme. Older women were far too complicated and far too challenging if you kept them around too long, a fact he was painfully aware of from the increasing demands of his groupie staff. He had arranged his life to avoid the tedium of long term relationships by employing the keenest and furthest away female fans to run various parts of the business, on the basis that he would drop in to 'service' them now and again, but after years of this arrangement, it seemed they all felt they had a claim on him. So it was that what had started as a stable of sexually available workers had turned into a gaggle of nagging wives.

He turned his attention to the new material online under the search term of his own name, a monitoring habit he kept to every Sunday. The usual vitriol from purist vegans, mooning from lonely women, yet more disagreements from aspiring self-professed health gurus. Deftly, he clicked dislike and reported each youtube video that he felt was negative about him. Why didn't people who didn't like him just leave him alone to work? Why did they feel the need to answer back? Didn't they know how much he cared about promoting health? Didn't they understand the sacrifices he made for them every day? What was stopping these envious, unhappy people from living their own lives, rather than trying to interfere with his? Say what you like about Kira, at least she removed them after receiving her dislikes, although she had curtailed his disliking habits by impersonating him for her pop video, repeating the same image of his 'thumbs down' negativity over and over again. She looked particularly fat, of course, and the jacket she had spent a month making for him was far too big for her, making the hideous vision even worse. Ah here she was, popping up on a video after months of saying nothing about him whilst she made cartoons and videos for the pop video she had mercifully abandoned making. What was she saying this time?

"OLD! She says I look old!" Sam exclaimed aloud at Kira's usual scathing affection. He realised that he couldn't really click dislike as she would know she had gotten a reaction and would probably retaliate. The only thing to do with bitches like that was ignore them until they dried up and hopefully died. Sam's heartrate had doubled as he had watched her laughing about what could have caused his sudden aging. He looked in his notebook. Cathy,25, with the spectacular breasts – she was nearby. "Old indeed!" He called Cathy and invited her to his hotel room. No need for wooing with Cathy, he thought with satisfaction.

Tatania Harris looked at her elderly husband with bristling contempt. "What do you mean you aren't attending the Whitehouse? You can't say no to the President. You can't possibly expect me to go through the paparazzi alone?"

David was seventy four, had been Hollywood royalty since birth as a result of his gorgeous mother's ascent to stardom in the forties, and was currently recovering from a rather expensive bout of leukemia. "I would rather stay home with the kids. We've seen all this before. We don't need them anymore, Tatania."

Like hell we don't, thought Tatania. A still fiercely ambitious Cornish woman in her mid-forties, she retained her drive despite the inevitable fading of her famous looks. She wasn't maintaining her celebrated rear end for no reason. She had always known, of course, that her husband lacked her drive, but he had once been an excellent career move. He had enabled her to crack the all-important American market and become an A- lister, invited to the Whitehouse, on this occasion, to increase the popularity of a flagging president. "Get a grip, David. Life is too short to waste opportunities."

"Yes my love, which is why I am not going to waste the evening at a party when I could be enjoying my children before it's too late." David sighed. "Feel free to invite someone else. Maybe Clooney would go with you?"

"I don't want to go with Clooney, I want to go with you, darling." Tatania purred. David was the established all-American star, not her. She tried in vain, however, David was shaking his head as he stroked the heavy, metal-plated armrests on his expensive dining chair. "Oh for God's sake, David." Tatania lost her patience. She tossed her much admired strawberry blonde waves as she rose from the intricately veneered table, gracefully managing to miss banging her now slightly scrawny hips on the edge. Americans had no taste for the comforting British middle aged curve, and so neither did Tatania. Her looks continued to suffer as a result, necessitating many trips to the plastic surgeon.

"You'll be fine on your own, darling."

"I suppose I'll have to be. Maybe I should try it for a bit longer than tomorrow night."

David looked at her. Her career had not been going quite so well, of late, he knew that. But why was she so bothered? They had more money than anyone deserved, why couldn't she just make the effort to understand him, for a change? They had more than enough, and time was short. He was 74, and who knew if he was really clear of leukaemia, or worse, another form of cancer? Why couldn't she just take a few days off the gym and the overwhelming ambition for a change and enjoy some time with him? "If that's how you feel Tatania, I am sure you can have some time to yourself." He so wanted her to be happy and stop wanting so much out of life, but if what she needed was time to think, so be it.

Interpreting this as his not caring about her anymore, the huge and fragile ego of the prima donna kicked in. "Are you seeing someone?" Her blood pressure rose as she expressed her passion for her multi-millionaire meal ticket. She donned her best 'proud but raunchy' expression and assumed her most impressive 'wounded wife' pose by the fireplace.

"Of course not, I just want to stay in. If you really want to spend some time on your own, you should do it. I don't want you to be unhappy for a single minute. We've been through a lot in the last year or two. I will completely understand if you want a break." David, desperate to indulge his beloved, dug the unfortunate hole deeper.

"FINE!" Tatania flounced out of the room to scream for the staff. "I need a packer!" she yelled as she ran up the huge staircase. "And the stylist! Tomorrow night is the Whitehouse dinner!"

Unaccustomed to feeling unwanted after years of ensuring quite the opposite, she was not used to the knot sitting uncomfortably somewhere around her waistline. She satisfied herself by bullying the PA, the packing assistant and flirting with the stylist as she prepared for her lonely appearance at the Whitehouse. "Not my packing, you idiot, HIS! I am not going anywhere!"

Malcolm kissed Valerie good morning and ran his hand to the small of her back. The Arbory Retreat, as it was now known, had done well that year, thanks to several rallies under some common health problem banners. The Diabetes Festival that Sam had come up with had borne Malcolm sufficient fruit to enable him to enjoy a couple of months off every year, time he valued as time to spend with the delightful Valerie. With an agility not normally associated with a septuagenarian, he rolled over and sprang out of bed when he heard the ringing of the telephone.

Several minutes later, Valerie emerged from the bedroom to see a naked and bewildered Malcolm still standing by the phone. "What's up?"

"David Harris wants to come here. Indefinitely." Malcolm was usually so calm, now he just appeared to be stunned.

"The David Harris from the movies?"

"Yes. He says he needs a break. I didn't even know he was into this kind of stuff."

"He's been ill, he will be into every kind of stuff to make him better. It was on the news. My, we have gone up in the world." Valerie smiled. "I hope you said yes?" She raised her eyebrows.

"Of course I said yes. He doesn't want anyone to know where he is, though."

"Best we keep him in the house then, just in case we get any flying visitors." Malcolm didn't get too many since Zeb Toledo, the public speaking megastar, had stopped visiting in his helicopter, but you couldn't be too careful with such an important guest, he surmised. They made up the guest suite in a state of subdued excitement, adding some exuberant foliage plants from the garden in pots for the private courtyard, settling down to their last week of freedom before their honoured visitor was due to arrive, fresh from his holiday in the Maldives.

I'd better touch up my roots, thought Valerie, patting her hair, as she happily went about the house, checking ionisers and mopping tiles.

Alex, the pool boy, was very surprised to find his trousers around his ankles after he was ordered into the house to see Tatania. A weekly visit was usually sufficient to maintain the large pool at the Harris home and he had assumed that he was in trouble when she screamed from the window for him. He had found himself efficiently stripped down to almost nothing and was now wondering if he was, in fact, dreaming. The strawberry blonde head of the famous actress now bobbed rhythmically at his groin. Could this really be happening? Suddenly, just at the point where he was starting to forget who it was and enjoy it, she stopped. "Now, boy!" She appeared in front of him and flung the gold silk dressing gown open to reveal her still very impressive body, clad only in equally impressive underwear.

"Please, I'd rather..."

"Shut up! Now." Her rather menacing tone dropped somewhat, to a growl.

Alex blinked. He couldn't really want to say no to her, could he? He supposed he wasn't a real man unless he did it, and besides, who would dare to turn her down? 'Once more into the breach,' he thought, as he made an obligatory lunge forwards. It appeared to have been the correct course of action.

Sam looked up irritably from his copy of Homes and Garden. This crap wasn't really his bag, but the marketing masterplan had to work with his age. Aging sucked. He stuck his chin out in mute protest at his homemaking enslavement at the hands of the empire-building money god, and tugged at his beard.

Molly and Happy looked at each other in despair. Would he ever be in the mood? He looked so fed up. They had already tried getting naked. It had failed to distract him from his surly reverie with the interior magazines. "Can we put some music on Sam?" Unaccustomed as they were to actually talking to him, they felt a little nervous.

"Of course you can, I'm not your pa." Sam snapped. Happy jumped. This was not like Sam at all.

"Have we done something wrong?" Molly's eyebrows formed a sharp arrow as her eyes widened. The pink plaits, which almost reached her equally pink nipples, heightened the overall effect. Sam noted this, softening somewhat.

"I'm sorry, ladies, I'm just tired of studying this BS. Come here." He put the glossy magazine down and opened his arms for his beloved chicklets. Molly and Happy were suitably overjoyed.

Aldous removed the headphones and closed the browser on Kira's company website. "I think that's as much as we can do today. The call centre reported excellent figures."

"Oh good. Any idea how the booksales on Raw Scandal 5 are doing?"

"26 a day or so, it seems to be doing very well." Aldous picked up his jacket.

"Oh good. Maybe I will be rewarded for my efforts in my next life."

"You've devoted a tenth of your life to this guy, you know that? And he still can't manage an email. Doesn't it piss you off?"

"It is what it is, Aldous. It makes me feel better, and besides, maybe one day I will want to write about something else and the audience will already be there. This isn't about trapping him and I'm not really interested in screwing him. I doubt very much I have sufficient skill in that direction. If he wants to talk to me, I'm easy enough to find and he has more than enough determination to figure out how to do it." Kira paused, frowning. "Given the unusual circumstances he really has to come and get me if he decides he wants to. There's no point in chasing somebody who has women coming out of his ears and an obsession with his own freedom, however fake that freedom is, unless he wants to be caught. "

"Do you think that's likely?"

"Not really, no, by the time he grows up and smells the roses I will be decrepit. He will probably end up in his dotage watching his very much younger wife screw the gardener. He will enjoy that and feel that he has achieved the American dream. At least he won't be bored."

Aldous collapsed in a fit of giggles. This was most unusual, Aldous usually saved his chortling for when Kira wasn't looking, assuming that her jokes were unwittingly at her own expense. Given that Kira's jokes tended to be very much witting, this annoyed her slightly, but it was nice to have company now and again and it gave her time to see to her mother.

Kira tried to avoid bridling. "It's a shame he couldn't see past the gender issue really, I should have pretended to be a man when I spoke to him. I think he might have preferred it if he had gone for the stadium route rather than this shackled TV career of his. I could have got past the 'feelings' issue if I wasn't so damned hurt, but that's not really his fault. It's my personality problem. Still, I don't suppose you can really tell these things until you try, can you?"

"Well, in a way I suppose it's a good thing. You would have broken your back for him doing it that way."

"I'll probably do that anyway. It's a bummer being so convinced you are right about something as pigging irrational as this isn't it? At least I didn't spend seven years writing up the academic work only to find out he was a plonker." Kira laughed. "We can't have the general population knowing how the world really works now can we?"

Tatania's fury with her indolent and now absent husband seemed only to increase with time. The staff whispered amongst themselves about her increasingly erratic and unpleasant demands on them, and wondered if milder-mannered David would ever come back.

"I WANT LOBSTER! WITH BELGIAN BUTTER! AND A RIPE AVOCADO MASHED FOR MY FACE!" She was screaming from the top of the extravagant staircase. A procession of unsuitable males had been visiting the house, and the associated increase in activity was increasing her appetite to the point that action would soon be necessary if she was to keep up with the public appearances. Worse than that, several shopping trips had resulted in calls from frantic shopkeepers trying desperately to be tactful about their missing stock.

George, the house manager, was a worried man. He put in a call to David.

"Oh right the sex thing, yeah we've had that problem before. The stealing is new. Send her to a clinic of some sort for a month. That usually cures it." David was used to Tatania's moments of aberration, and remained entirely calm. Given his reputation, this was not entirely surprising. His own exploits had, at one time, been the stuff of legend, and he had attended a few clinics himself.

George did as she was told and Tatania was duly packed off to a remote retreat under the pretext that it was a very exclusive holiday that David had sent as a gift. The staff heaved a collective sigh of relief as they lined up on the driveway to wave her off to Switzerland.

David Harris opened his eyes, wondering where he was for a split second before realising he was in someone else's bed. He looked first to the left, then the right, eyes widening. What the heck had happened last night? The last thing he remembered had been meditating on the porch as the sun went down. He frantically tried to remember what had happened after that, but he could not imagine how he had ended up sandwiched between Malcolm and Valerie in their bed. Surely he hadn't talked them into....?

No, no, he was quite sure he hadn't. Could meditation be so advanced that he would forget this stuff? Gingerly he slid down the bed, under the sheet and out the bottom before wandering to the shower, noting that he still had some clothes on, at least. The mirror told him that he had been crying, but strangely he physically felt better than he had felt in two or three years.

He showered, changed into another set of expensive linen clothing he had purchased, judging it suitable for such a place, and wandered out to the garden to weed. He was amused to find he was enjoying the sheer boredom and simplicity. Would Tatania calm down and let him go home? She had not yet even noticed that she had no way of contacting him and that he was effectively missing. She would be at the nunnery he had chosen for a month, so he figured the storm would break in five or six weeks.

Malcolm appeared, at length, and gave him a gentle wordless hug. He accepted this and continued to weed, wondering at the pace of life at the Arbory. Why wasn't he bored? He was missing the children, right enough. He wondered if he should have them brought here too. Too noisy, he thought, and besides, he had plenty of other houses he could go to if he got bored. No, for now, the Arbory provided a welcome change from the screeching Tatania and he was learning a lot about the joys of introspection. He smiled as he thought about his late father. He would have strongly disapproved of introspection of any kind, a real man's man, he thought.

"Dipshit hippy shite!" exclaimed Aldous. "You have to eat something!"

Kira had stopped eating. She hadn't eaten for a week, so far, and was showing no interest in starting again. "It would be if I was fasting and talking spiritual bullshit Aldous. I just don't want to."

As long as Aldous had known her, she had always been fat. Even when Kira was thin, she was fat. Aldous preferred flat chested women, and so Kira was fat no matter what she did, not a great incentive for her to particularly care whether people liked her appearance or not. It was a choice between being fat, or having men assault her in the street whilst women abused her for her buxom appearance, and so Kira usually preferred taking the fat option. Eating had the added advantage of shutting her up, she found. A silent Kira was always more popular.

Aldous didn't like Kira all that much, and so the fact she had stopped eating bothered him only because he felt he shouldn't be eating either, since he was also fat. At various times in his life, he had loved her, but he had never liked her.

"Is this because of Sam? Do you think he will like you any better thin?"

Kira laughed. "No, Sam has other reasons to find me repulsive. I still don't want to go out and I still don't brush my hair, I just can't be bothered eating. You've never complained about me eating, why would you complain when I don't?

Aldous tried another tack. "Why don't you get on and write the academic book?"

"Why don't you go through the email and leave me alone." Kira did not want to talk about the book, of all things. "What's the point in a book when the one person I wanted to read it, won't read it? That's all finished now. He made a fool of me, even if it was by accident. Several times! Fools don't tend to write great works of brilliance." She poured another glass of water and looked out of the window. "The irony is that the company is doing well enough to actually hire him now, and I can't bring myself to do it. Feelings are such messy things, aren't they? It's not his fault, it's mine."

"Who is Leonard Davenport?" Aldous tried to cut through Kira's morose rant.

"God, some millionaire I used to date. What on earth does he want?"

"He says his parents are dead, and he would like to take you out."

"What a little shit he is."

"Why?"

"If his parents are dead, he is now worth twenty seven million pounds. He is dangling a money bag at me," Kira laughed. "He is an absolute tosser, and the money won't last him long, he can't stop gambling. Diamonds, as far as I remember. That's how they made their money."

"Are you going to go?"

"I didn't really like him when I was skint. I do not imagine that has changed now that I'm not. I'm afraid the people who marry for money don't get the easy life they imagine. It's a bit like being overpaid for work. A horrible sick feeling."

"I think you should go."

"Maybe you should go instead?"

"It might take your mind off things."

"It will just make it worse." Kira put the glass down. "Apparently I have a faithful heart. Can you just open the rest of the mail please?"

"Raw Sex Object has won a prize?" Aldous hoped this would lift her mood somewhat. His hopes were dashed.

"So what." Kira angrily twitched at the curtains, much to the amusement of the Bengal cat sitting on the window sill.

"So we are going to New York?" Aldous was sure this would cheer her up.

"What?"

"You, and Raw Sex Object. New York."

"Have you any idea how much it will cost to take that thing on a plane?" Raw Sex Object, the gift Kira had made for Sam, which he had rejected via his agent, weighed around 40 kilos. "I don't really like New York City. They get so frightened when you smile."

Aldous became exasperated "They are paying."

"You take it."

"They want a photograph of you with it."

"God no, smiling and fat in NYC, no thanks."

"I'll book a flight. It is next month." Aldous turned to the keyboard, frustrated by Kira's misery.

Kira's voice rose a notch or three. "I DO NOT want to go to NYC, particularly not with that failure of a thing. Don't you get it? It's meaningless. How did I even end up in the stupid competition?"

"I entered it." Aldous knew this meant he was about to get a roasting. He was surprised when Kira's voice lowered, rather than rising to a scream.

"Right....So I have to go?"

"Yes. I'll come if you want."

"OK." Kira started to cry. Again. Aldous got up from the computer and went to make tea.

Tatania looked up at the belltower and wondered whether it would be possible to somehow get to the top. She had no idea how long she was expected to stay in the silent order of nuns, but in her current hyper-aroused state, the 2 hourly calls to prayer were quite a relief. She didn't have to think about anything as long as she was in the nunnery, because despite there being no one to talk to, there was always something else to do.

Only the senior nuns seemed to have access to the bell itself, and there seemed little way of volunteering to join the cleaning team, since she was unable to speak to anyone. All instructions were issued via hand gestures, and in her case at least, seemed to involve prayer or scrubbing something suitably humble. Tatania had fixated on the bell simply because it was the only thing available to aspire to.

The mother superior, sensing this, had responded by ensuring that Tatania had endless floors, stonework and threadbare carpet to scrub. She was to have nothing shiny, and nothing was to be done for her. This, she reasoned, was the fastest way to slow down Tatania's overrunning emotional engine.

'Humility in all things' it said in French above the archway. As if you needed reminding, thought Tatania as she wasted another expensive nail on scrubbing yet another expansive grey stone floor. She was feeling faintly murderous towards David, and spent her time thinking of ways to restore her failing ego.

As time went on, however, her mind cleared and she began to enjoy the lack of strategic planning involved in enforced domestic drudgery. Soon she would be home, free to do as she pleased, and although she doubted that she would ever be asked to play a nun, it was all good experience.

Sam smiled as Candy 'dismounted' and gently kissed him before making her way to the side of the bed. The hotel room was as sparse as it was drab, and she caught a glimpse of her dyed hair and tired neck in the mirror across from the windows.

"You're still totally amazing."

"I know, but I gotta go. Bill will be getting tired of the kids." Candy rose to put on her silk shirt and the flannel pants she had worn before her arrival. "It was good to see you after all those years. How long has it been?"

"Twenty five years. You look great, you really do." Sam was well aware he was being insincere, but he revelled in the joy of superficial pretence. It was only when he bumped into his old friends that he realised how well his complex regimen actually worked, since he was more usually in the company of other health enthusiasts. Candy, formerly condescending and out of his league, was, at forty three, a mere 3 on Sam's objective looks chart.

"Yeah, you haven't changed at all either." Candy did not sound nearly as overjoyed about it as Sam.

Kira had now taken to wearing a steel boned corset most of the time, which had changed her shape somewhat alongside her new food-free regime. Aldous was hoping this new feature would not last, as in her upright garb she was more prone to fits of indignant fury. Still fat though, he thought, with his customary smug defeatism. It would be a long time before she looked the same size as the women he favoured.

Kira, oblivious and with no intention of favouring Aldous in any way whatsoever, continued with her campaign of self-sculpture. The rise in blood pressure aside, the corsets were rather comforting and made her feel slightly less unloved. She also suspected that forcing her organs back to where they were supposed to be from her usual concertina posture, bending over her sewing or computer, would improve her overall functioning. It certainly appeared to be the case, although not being able to bend down at the waist was a tiny bit of a pain when dealing with her mother or indeed, the garden. This, together with a few litres of water and green tea every day, seemed to be producing the desired effect. Kira had long since given up being 100% raw, it just didn't suit her either mentally or physically, but she still held to the principle. If in doubt, drink something, if very hungry, make sure there was a vast quantity of raw vegetables to hand. The omission of fruit had brought the curls back to her hair, and she was relatively happy with her appearance by the time the trip to NYC became imminent.

"You do realise all that is pointless?" Aldous watched Kira pluck an eyebrow and fluff up the curls. She had become uncharacteristically feminine of late. He did not like this at all.

"Generally speaking it is a waste of time over which women collude in the hope of getting some time to themselves, yes." Kira smiled and smoothed down the pencil skirt over the corset. Her breasts looked scarily huge to Aldous, accustomed as he was to Kira's usual combat trouser/sweater combination to minimise them .

"Why are you bothering? It's not like anyone will care. You are over forty." Aldous hoped this would bring the less glamorous, more cynical Kira back to him. She may have been built on a more cherubic scale than most people, but at least she was stimulating company.

"I'm in the mood, Just let me do it, I am usually thinner when I'm in the girly mood. I can't keep writing books about raw foodists and look crap, can I?"

"You can't expect to lose 200lb at your age and compete with an eighteen year old in a bikini, that's all I'm saying."

"Jeez you don't know much about sex, do you?" Kira shook her head. "In any case, the principle is to outgrow the object of devotion, not attach yourself to it. I told you, it's about the work. Shit happens, but work is work. My failed romance has won a prize!"

"Do you think you will get through customs in that thing?"

"We will just have to wait and see, won't we? Grab your bags, cutesy-wootsy-poppety Aldous dahlink."

Aldous prayed that Kira would not be this cheerful for the next seven hours, so that he could enjoy his travel videos of Iceland on the flight.

"What do you mean I'm booked on Thursday?" Sam was confused. Annette had slotted a date in his work diary without his noticing. "In NYC? That means I have to travel back tonight? Are you trying to kill me?"

"It was very last minute. It's a good rate." Annette was very satisfied with her cut for this appearance. The mysterious Oodle company had been very generous for only a couple of hours work. She rubbed the back of her smartphone as she flexed her fingers.

"It better be. What am I doing?"

"I'll brief you when you get back to town. It's an afternoon job. Nothing you can't handle."

Sam frowned. He had seen this name 'Oodle' somewhere before, but he couldn't remember where. He tried running a search online. Nothing came up apart from a few random pictures of people he had never seen before. They did not look very healthy. "What do they want me to talk about?"

"You don't need to talk at all. Just appear. That's what they wanted. Just a few pictures, that's all." Annette adjusted her underwear as she put down the telephone.

Tatania touched down at JFK one hour before Kira. Not that she knew, of course, but she re-entered her reality of pampering and privilege just one hour before Kira was due to leave hers of seclusion and fiercely guarded privacy to make her artistic debut in the USA.

Tatania made her way through the airport, picked up her personal assistant and bodyguard and donned her dark glasses, assuming that the paparazzi had been informed of her arrival. They had not. Tatania was unsure whether to be happy about this or sad. Lack of attention was not a good sign. She called her house manager.

"Any sign of that bastard David?"

"No, ma'am. He is staying away as instructed."

"I'm sure you can find him if you really want to, George. Let him know I want to talk to him, will you?" Tatania did her best to sound sweet.

"Certainly ma'am. Will you be back for dinner?"

"After a little shopping. Send the dresser to Vida, will you?" Vida was Tatania's current favourite in clothing design.

Aldous decided that priming Kira a little couldn't hurt. The organisers of the award had requested maximum publicity. She had elected to avoid the corset for a day or two, as setting up Raw Sex Object necessitated a lot of bending and she didn't really want to have to worry about it. Aldous looked at her, twiddling away with the panels, kicking the base into shape. The frame had originally been in his brother's bedroom.

"What do you think Aldous? Is there any way of altering those spotlights at all?"

"I don't know. Who do you think will turn up, Kira?"

"Probably nobody, just like the rest of my life. Do you think it's socially unacceptable to advertise for a sperm donor?" Kira sank to floor level and polished frantically at a small scratch on the wooden platform supporting the artwork.

"Why do you want a sperm donor?"

"I don't particularly want to do what everyone else does and pretend to have a relationship when I'm in love with someone else."

"How can you be in love with someone you've never met? You would probably hate him."

"Don't ask me. I just know it is so, and he doesn't want me. So is it socially unacceptable to just post an ad saying something like – fancy having a child before it's too late? Lady, 43, plump, doesn't care about your hobbies or your good sense of humour. Busy looking after mother so doesn't want to live with you. Vile family background etc etc. Talking of which, remind me to call the respite unit and check on her, will you?"

"Why don't you try having a relationship?" Aldous felt strongly that Kira's more unconventional traits should be discouraged.

"Because that's gone so well in the past, hasn't it? Who the fuck would want to be part of my family?" Kira plucked a bit of fluff from the artwork and prepared to bang a panel pin into a loose area of carpet.

Aldous knew this to be the case, but he didn't want Kira to start crying again, so he tried to change the subject. "Have you any idea who your customers are?"

"I'm not really interested. I'm just glad they seem to like it." Kira's clothing line, handbags and hats had sold surprisingly well. "Some of the names seem vaguely familiar, but I'm sure it's coincidental. There, I think that should do it. Does it look OK from where you are?"

"Yeah it looks OK to me."

"Great. Ok let's get changed." Kira stood back from the screen, cocking her head and adjusting the top spotlights on the panel at the back of the room. She was covered in plaster dust from the floor she had been rolling about on. "The Japanese top I think. Did you pack it?"

"Yep."

Sam examined his appearance in the mirror. He had managed to deflect the light from the worst of the wrinkles, and ensured that his curls were crisp, shiny and perfect for the photos. At least he was allowed hair for this event, unlike the TV appearances. He was a little annoyed at Annette. He had been unable to find out anything much about the Oodle company, and she had neither asked them nor been able to answer his questions. All he knew, was that he was being paid five figures for a couple of hours at some downtown venue which was apparently very fashionable with journalists.

He grabbed his jacket, didn't bother with a bag since he still had no idea what he was appearing for, and headed out to the crowded and dark subway. He would normally have walked, but it was hot, and pictures were the only things Annette had mentioned as a requirement.

One hour later he entered the oddly shaped building, grateful for the blast of air conditioning in the cavernous white entrance hall. He was directed towards the 'main hall' by a grim faced receptionist, whereupon he entered a large white room filled with a variety of works of art and a somewhat stranger variety of people. He scoped the room for someone recognisable, and could find no one. One area had a crowd of excited Japanese with cameras, another had some very serious arty Scandinavian types, still another had some rather overdressed people seemingly trying to outdo each other for attracting attention. He tried scrutinising these.

"Oh my God, it's Lady Julep." Sam muttered audibly, "And Big G Minor." He spotted several more greater and lesser entertainers clustered around one object. It slowly dawned on him, but he couldn't see all of it so he went closer to be sure. Yes, indeed, it was Raw Sex Object, Kira's gift that his agent had rubbished. The bitch had actually paid him for coming here. Sam supposed he would have to be nice to her in front of these potentially useful new friends. She must be some kind of crazy control freak. He had always had that impression of her. Thank God she was usually in a different country. He looked around the room to see if he could spot her.

Aldous, stuck in a mannerly chitchat with the gallery owners, spotted Sam just before Kira entered the room, having finally made it into her brown Japanese Kimono top. She still hadn't remembered to brush her hair, he sighed. Tangled brown waves everywhere and no makeup at all. She looked taller than usual, however, thanks to some platform wedges. Aldous wondered if he really should drag her back through the door and brush it for her, and then decided not to. She was hopeless. He extricated himself from the oddly crude American version of polite conversation and joined her.

"Who are all these people? Why are they here?" Kira looked confused.

"Don't you recognise the clothes?"

"Some of them, oh yeah that blonde bit has one of my handbags. The big black dude over there is in that jacket I made for Sam. Are these all customers?"

"Haven't you seen the videos?"

"What videos?"

"They're musicians. Quite famous, some of them. Your clothes have been in a few videos."

"Really? I should put my prices up." Kira did not smile, but seemed a little more relaxed. Aldous looked over her shoulder and spotted Sam, who was staring in horror at her bottom.

"Ah I see the guest of honour is here. Go and talk to Rivron and I'll be back in a minute."

Aldous greeted Sam. "She will be ready in a few minutes."

"I take it you are the Oodle company." Sam looked miserable.

"Correct. The gallery owners wanted a few pictures of the muse and artist together. Come and meet Kira." Aldous smiled to himself. He wasn't sure how Kira would take it, but he hoped it might resolve things once and for all.

Sam allowed himself to be led over and stood behind Kira as she chatted with Rivron, the gallery owner, a tall thin bespectacled man with a nasty purple silk tie. Aldous tapped her arm. Sam was transfixed as she swung round, blue white skin and a wide face to match the huge hands. To his surprise she looked horrified.

"What are you doing here?" She looked at Aldous. "Did you do this? He isn't a whore, Aldous." She looked back at Sam. What a strange looking man, she thought. I wonder why I find him so compelling? She cocked her head, unsmiling, unblinking.

"You didn't know? You look amazing, by the way." Sam did his best to go into oily mode, since his fee was rather huge. He held out his arms, offering a hug.

Kira knew this was not the case. She was not 21, a hippy, vain, or stupid. "Shut up, shut up. That shirt is hideous. Take it off this instant. You can wear this." Oblivious to the crowd, she took off the kimono top and held it out to him. The Japanese, thinking this was the beginning of the event, started to applaud and take photographs. The rest of the crowd turned to witness the small, rotund and incredibly pale woman waving her very expensive top at Sam.

"I like this shirt." Sam looked annoyed and paused, noting the paint splattered mammaries. The paint was a variety of shades. "You could kill someone with those. You have good skin, you should exfoliate."

"Alas I cannot kill anyone with them, it's been tried. Hurry up and put this on. I will find something else." Kira's sour yet quizzical expression did not change. "Did you bring the velvet, Aldous?"

"I did indeed." Aldous smiled. This was like watching the Discovery channel. Would the lions mate or kill each other in the attempt? Sam took the top.

"You want me to put this on here?" Regaining awareness of the now fascinated crowd, he looked at Aldous in panic. The funny little woman was starting to look cold under the blast from the air conditioning unit. Either that or she was very pleased to see him. "What do you see in me anyway?"

"You would have made more money if you ran away, but you didn't. It doesn't mean I approve. You've worked very hard. Why were you so horrible to me? You've wasted years of my time, not to mention money." Kira still looked rather challenging for Sam's taste, so he elected to say nothing and looked at Aldous.

"Duck behind Raw Sex Object, there is room and the crowd will love it." Aldous was always helpful. "I'll take the shirt."

Kira went to the backroom of the gallery to put on her brown velvet alternative and the audience exclaimed and giggled as they knocked back yet more wine. When she emerged, she was rubbing her head. The unkempt waves now looked almost styled into a curly heart shape. The gnome like roundness was now rather more comfortingly concealed beneath dark brown cotton velvet.

"Can you fluff up his hair a tad, Aldous? Yes that's better. OK we are ready now." Kira had managed to restyle Sam in under 3 minutes, all told.

The professional photographer took the obligatory shots of artist and muse standing with Raw Sex Object and the audience politely applauded.

"May I have the camera? And can we have the lights down apart from the spots?"

Gosh, thought Aldous, Kira is assertive today. "Can you sit inside the object please?" Kira tweaked the positioning of the object to cuddle Sam as he sat cross legged on the mat. The lighting brought down, Kira lay on the floor and started to take shots of Sam inside her artwork.

"Think cold and heartless thoughts for me?"

"I don't do cold and heartless." Sam frowned.

"You do now. This is my gig, not yours. Think Caligula rather than Dionysus, for once." Kira took shots continuously, rolling around and moving up and down to get the required angles.

Half an hour later Kira was filthy from the gallery floor, but had taken about a hundred shots of Sam with the object. The photographer transferred them to computer and the lights were brought back up for the audience.

Sam, now uncomfortably stiff, longed for the cover of darkness. Was it possible that anyone could make his dick hard, just by looking at him for long enough? Why was he so turned on? He thought about dead birds for a few minutes, staring at a small spot on the floor until he judged it safe to get up. He joined the crowd as a slide show of photographs flashed on the huge display screen.

"I'm beautiful." Sam was delighted. The audience duly clapped. "I really like this top."

"Keep it, as long as I can burn that shirt." Kira did not look at him, and she still did not smile. Sam did not know how to handle this at all.

"Thank you. What does the back mean? Love immemorial? Am I the Sam in big letters?"

"People I should forget forever. Love is just wasted energy if you happen to be me. Fortunately I have learned how to productively redirect it from my years of experience."

Sam felt strangely hurt. "It's never wasted."

"Of course it is. You don't give a shit about me, and that's entirely normal. Even my own mother doesn't. I'm the one that's weird. It's fine. It's just normal." Kira turned to address the audience and patrons of the event.

"Thank you so much for the opportunity and prize. Thank you, everyone for coming, and thank you for wearing my stuff. I really appreciate it. Please enjoy the rest of the wine." She turned to leave. Sam looked at Aldous.

"You can go now, if you want. Or stay and do some networking. She won't come back in. She's very timid, and she's probably in tears. She does that angry thing to protect herself."

"OK." Sam felt as if he had been punched in the face. These crazy British people were far too efficient. "Can I have my shirt back?"

"No. She wasn't kidding about burning it. Thank you for coming." Aldous shook his hand, and went the way of Kira, out from the back of the gallery.

Sam took a moment to gather his thoughts before introducing himself to Big G Minor, a man who would definitely benefit from some health advice. A few of Kira's admirers shook his hand and chatted for a while. Sam carefully took time to engage with a few of the recognisable ones, glancing at the door Kira and Aldous had gone through, hoping that they would reappear. After an hour, he realised that they would not. He felt rather abandoned. It wasn't as if they were friends of his. He looked again at the artwork. Pink imprisoned chaos for romance on the spring panel, Conventional order and lush green on the summer panel. Off centred tradition for the autumn panel and Grey Gothic stonework for the winter panel. The story of any relationship told in wool and surprisingly ordered design. Quite smart, he guessed, for a crazy person.

He wondered briefly what she would have done if he had accepted it. It was too late now. There was no way of 'unhurting' her, and no real reason to anyway. It wasn't even as if she was even cute.

"You never mentioned that Raw Sex Object wouldn't be coming back with us." Kira pouted as she and Aldous tolerated the tedious movie on the way home.

"The gallery want to display it for six months. They will ship it back, don't worry."

"As long as they don't try to sell it."

"Are you worried that dear Sam will propose and you won't have it? You might as well get some money out of the thing." Aldous was feeling waspish.

"No, no. I just wanted to leave it to him in my will, along with the beginnings of the academic piece on the netbook."

"Why bother? It's not like he gives a shit."

"Jeez, why do you people act like this? Do you honestly think love is restricted to people who get drunk, accidentally end up fucking, and then slowly learn to tolerate each other?" It was Kira's turn to get rather irritated. 'You people' now included all of her friends.

"Reality check, Kira, he doesn't like you."

"He doesn't know me. I don't know him either. It's between the ears, not the legs, don't you get that?"

"Evidently you didn't spot the look on his face when he saw your backside."

"My backside doesn't do much thinking."

Your brain doesn't either, thought Aldous. Smell the coffee, you stupid cow, and write the book for yourself. He knew her well enough, however, to know that she wouldn't, or couldn't, do that. He sighed. "Even if he did feel the same way, would you honestly want his life?"

"I would hate it Aldous, and the cats would not approve. He would have to want to be with me, as opposed to the other way around. It isn't a goer. Ownership is not an option, if you want to put it that way. Do you see the great Redwood toppling to come and live a quiet life? I don't, and I don't like sharing either. Not one bit."

"What on earth is the point then? He would just use you to get the material, anyway. Look at the guy's history."

"Genuinely unconditional love from a member of the opposite sex is a rare thing, Aldous, and it only happens under very unusual circumstances. Once you consummate it, it's gone. The 'painful longing' pink romantic period is the most productive bit."

"Productive? Who told you love was productive?"

"You need to read an old translation of the Symposium." Kira laughed. "My father had a work equals love 'thing' going on. That is probably at the centre of it. At least this way neither of us can fuck it up."

"You always were a bit odd."

"Art is about making the intangible tangible. Love is my art. That sounds good, doesn't it? We should make that a catchphrase of some sort. Ooh we are almost at Reykjavik. Goody, let's buy expensive green tea when we stop. The beautiful blonde people might smile at us if we try really hard."

Tatania had casually spent another $30,000 on a couple of dresses after much fawning from Vida and the dresser. Rising from the plush sofa provided for clients of her stature, she finished her champagne and resolved to persuade George to put her in touch with David. She really owed him a bad turn this time.

She picked up the store magazine on her way out to the bulletproof house car the dresser had brought to pick her up. She was looking forward to getting in the pool back at the house. The regime at the nunnery had restored her waistline after the food and sex binge that had preceded it, and she happily planned to return to her daily rituals of self-worship.

The driver announced that they were being followed, probably by the press, and took a turn through one of the poorer neighbourhoods. Tatania played with her expensively maintained and now dyed hair and idly wondered why these people were so poor? Didn't they want to work, she wondered? These were the very people who paid to see her, she realised, looking for a touch of glamour in their obviously miserable lives. She congratulated herself on working her way out of the tiny village she had been born in. Hard work had got her where she was, she thought proudly. That, and judiciously choosing who to sleep with, of course. Why couldn't these people do that? Instead of paying to see her, they could be where she was if they wanted.

At length, they pulled up the long silver gravel driveway to the white mansionhouse in the Hamptons. This was David and Tatania's third house, a getaway they liked to use only twice a year for social reasons. It was so nice having one's own space rather than relying on hotels, she thought as the driver opened the door for her.

"That will be all for today." Tatania didn't bother to say thank you anymore. "Just pass the bags to the dresser, she will deal with them."

The front door was opened for her by George, the permanently single, portable and long-suffering house manager

"Good afternoon, is there anything I can get for you?"

"I want David on the phone."

"Mr Harris is not available by telephone at present. He is attending a very important engagement." George did not think a sweat lodge appropriate to mention to his lady boss. "I can try again on Tuesday, he should be available then."

"Very good, George, I can wait. I'll have a sorbet by the pool. Gin sorbet."

"Madam." George demonstrated a rather practised backwards retreat towards the kitchen. She was definitely calmer. Thank God.

David imagined that he was on the fifteenth mile of the long trek back to the main house at the retreat. He was dehydrated, he knew that, but the seemingly crazy person running the lodge appeared to be invincible. Apparently David was considered invincible too. He was not used to being treated like this, but he was sort of enjoying the unexpected hardship. He spent a lot of time sucking on pebbles and imagining the long drink of cold, cold spring water and bowl of vegetables he would enjoy when they got back. He was longing to speak to Tatania. He wondered if she was ready to resume their relationship.

At great length, the house appeared on the horizon. One mile to go, and a river. Thank goodness. David stopped to soak his head in the river and take a drink as the stalwart instructor continued to power on towards the house. David struggled to catch him up.

Malcolm was on the computer when they reached the main compound, making one of his daily pronouncements to jolly on the heroic vegetable eaters on his facebook page. He was arranging a particularly expensive juicing trip to Israel, and so preparing them for a hard fortnight's retreat involved much encouragement to stick to the programme.

David did not fancy much more of this, and as he glugged down his liquid vegetable lunch, wondered which house he would go to, to avoid Tatania's fury for a bit longer.

Sam put in a call to Annette.

"How did it go with the crazy British people?"

"How do you think? Short, fat and insane, with a sidekick to match."

"You made twenty five G."

"HOW MUCH?"

"Twenty five G. That's what the snivelling gimp guy offered, minus my cut of course. And you are in Art New World this week, and Oest magazine for women next month if you fill in the questionnaire they sent."

"How so?"

"They liked the photos. Some press dude got a few of the star studded crowd and the arty ones are popular with the glossies. A star is born!"

"Wow. Crazy British people not so crazy." Sam wondered if he should say thank you and quickly dismissed it as beneath him. If they were stupid enough to pay to give him publicity, that was up to them. "Stupid bitch might come in handy after all. Hey, if this keeps up maybe I'll have to be nice to her."

"Bastard!" Kira exclaimed "BASTARD!" It was the first time she had dared look at Sam's page in a very long time..

Aldous looked up from his book. "What now?"

"That wanker is recommending some bullshit artist."

"Don't do anything silly."

"Why the fuck not? He's a wanker. He's always going to be a wanker. FUCK HIM!"

"Serves you right. You'll never learn, will you?"

"I make Raw Sex Object and he rejects it without even seeing it and now he is patting some teenager on the back for using software that went out with the ark!"

After a lengthy tirade on Sam's fanpage, Kira went downstairs and stuffed her face with vegetables until she was in pain. Aldous appeared at the door.

"All done? You have to stop doing this to yourself."

"I know. Maybe it will be better now that I despise myself AND him."

"At least you tried, Kira. It's more than I would have done. It was sort of brave, in a kind of crazy way."

"There was nothing brave about it. It was my last genetic imperative before giving up. I might as well be dead."

"You didn't actually want to be with him anyway. He's an asshole."

"He is very screwed up, but no, he isn't an asshole. I am. I am for even trying to make things better for him. What was I going to get out of it?"

"Far be it from me to point this out Kira, but as you've said yourself, since you fell in love with him you've had better health than you've had since I've known you, you've created a hell of a lot of art, you've written several books, you started the business. That was all you really wanted."

"Why didn't he just accept Raw Sex Object? I could have written the proper book by now." Kira made a rare reference to the neglected academic book. Aldous knew this meant she was really upset.

"As per usual, Kira, he couldn't accept it because he is a stupid selfish fuckwit that thought you wanted something and didn't want to acknowledge that you had any looks or talent. That is all you need to know." Aldous turned to go back up to the computers. "Let's go to Findhorn. I'll polish the car, and you can pack."

"I think it was Mauss that wrote 'The Gift.'" Said Kira. "Capitalists don't like presents" She looked childlike again. Aldous wondered when the aging was finally going to catch up with her.

"Indeed. Please don't cry, it's a long drive if we want to get there before dark."

"I need to hurry up and grow out of him. I'm not sure how to do it beyond becoming famous myself, and I don't want to. If I'm ever going to write the proper book I have to separate it from this mess."

Aldous was not sure how Kira's misconnected brain worked, but this almost made sense. "I get it. You need to outgrow him to get your mojo back."

"Yes! What a pain!"

Tatania picked up July's copy of Vogue and leafed through it. It had been four months now, since her lonely visit to the Whitehouse, and she still didn't feel ready to accept David back into her space. Several pages were devoted to Kira's pictures of Sam against the backdrop of Raw Sex Object.

"What a strangely handsome man?" she pondered, murmuring to herself. "He seems to get more handsome by the page? I love those colours."

She had heard about David's long sojourn at the Arbory, by now, and wondered about the marvels of Raw food. She wondered if she might need a little consultation with the ravishing Sam. She smiled to herself as she imagined the headlines she could make, stepping out with a charming, attractive and apparently very stylish hippy at the cutting edge of fashion. She could send the clippings to David in LA now that he was back at the house there. A plot hatched in her idle brain. Yes, she thought, this could be just the thing to revive David's passion.

She called for her PA.

"Talk to the chef about raw food. I need a consultation with this guy." She waved a finger at the magazine. "I would like to try it." She smiled to herself. "Let me know when to expect the call. I will take my swim now."

Tatania's PA picked up the magazine. "Ooh he is cute!"

"Isn't he? Find out everything you can about him. I don't want any surprises. Oh, and I would quite like to know what that thing is behind him. Can you locate that for me too? Join me for dinner and let me know what you have. We shall eat raw this evening!"

"Sure!" The PA scuttled off to the kitchens, where she found Tatania's chef lurking at the back door, smoking a long hand-rolled cigarette. "Enrique, Tatania would like to try raw cuisine this evening? Can you do that?"

Enrique's heart sank. How terribly dull, he thought. Endless salads, no doubt. He would have to look online to see what could be done. "Yes, of course. I will take a look. Dinner will be at eight, however, I am not a magician." He stubbed out the cigarette on the wall and washed his hands before making a dive towards his computer. Enrique was well used to odd demands from his mistress, but this one might demand new ingredients, new skills, new equipment. The first thing he spotted was the low temperatures. He checked his top of the range oven to see if the temperature would go down sufficiently far. Just, and he would probably have to keep the door open.

After twenty minutes of looking, he had a list of ingredients for this evenings taster feast for the two women and the staff, and he had his assistant head out in the house car to pick them up. Goji berries, raw chocolate, fresh coconuts, something called maca that he had never heard of. Hempseeds, spirulina, raw flax seeds, apple cider vinegar. He sighed as he put some raw almonds he had already in to soak in spring water. If they hurried he might just make it.

He decided to make vegetable towers and a spiced mayonnaise for their starter, a tossed salad of greens with cucumber, avocado and sweet chilli for a main and the infamous goji, cacao and coconut mousse to finish. She would be delighted with that, surely. A bit rich and fatty for every day, he thought, but hopefully she would only want this once. The last thing he wanted was to stop cooking, he thought, as he zested some limes for the towers. He pulped his vegetables, garlic, ginger and wasabi along with the soaked almonds and put them into the cool oven to dry out as much as possible in the time he had. Hopefully the fan would help, he thought. In the absence of a dehydrator and without being able to turn the temperature up, 6 hours was not a lot to dry out his tiny creations.

To Enrique's surprise, Tatania wandered in after her swim. My, she was keen. This was most unusual.

"I would like to try this for a few days, Enrique. Find out everything you can."

"Madam."

"The kitchen is nice and cool, you must be enjoying it."

"Oh yes." Enrique gritted his teeth. If it kept her out of his way, he would enjoy it a whole lot more.

By the time the assistant returned with Enrique's initial list, he had made another, and instructed the assistant to make a long list of purchases online. A lot of these recipes, he realised, had been created purely to sell products, but if Tatania was to be kept in the style to which she was accustomed, her diet would have to be prepared to death. A green salad simply wouldn't cut it, and Enrique had been on the receiving end of a thrown plate of food more than once. The average raw foodist might be content with a smoothie and green salad, but not Tatania. Her tastebuds had to be tickled at every meal. Although he did not approve at all, particularly of the possibility of having to prepare vegan meals every day, he certainly was impressed to be learning skills he could incorporate into his career. One for the resume, even. Enrique longed to have the magic quantity of dollars required to leave, but it was never quite enough to fulfil his dream of a celebrity restaurant.

"Don't forget the liquidiser, it seems to be the most important thing." He continued to chop and deseed a variety of vegetables for his salad, throwing the seeds in the open oven alongside the towers on a baking sheet. A meal fit for Queen Tatania.

Sam supposed he should really call Aldous to thank him for the appointment, especially since his speaking engagements had now doubled thanks to the exposure in a variety of glossy magazines. Journalists now regularly attempted contact and he had had to ensure that Annette did not repeat her formerly disparaging behaviour with strangers trying to make contact with his office.

He did not consider that it would be worth apologising to Kira. She was merely another in a long line of stupid stubborn bitches who would not take no for an answer, he reasoned, and now that she was well off, even more worthy of contempt than before. Why couldn't she just smile or say something nice occasionally? Who did she think she was exactly?

Satisfied that both his conscious and subconscious assumptions were entirely correct, he put in a call to Aldous, who was spending his morning surveying the media containing references to Raw Sex Object on Kira's behalf.

"Aldous, Sam Redwood here."

"Good morning, one moment, I will take the call in the other room." Aldous took the cordless phone out of Kira's bedroom office, away from the unsuspecting Kira, hard at work on her next collection of somewhat brightly coloured wearable artworks. Aldous was always mystified by her work, it just seemed to grow on its own, with no planning or thought from Kira whatsoever. Sam appeared to be very loud in Kira's fevered brain in comparison with her previous work.

"What can I do for you Sam?"

"It's just a courtesy call really Aldous. I just wanted to thank you for the gig. I 've had a lot of exposure I wouldn't have had otherwise." Sam slowed his speech to a crawl to hide any trace of nervousness.

"It's not really me you should thank, Sam. I don't pay the bills. I'm just looking through some of the articles just now, in fact. You might be interested to learn that Raw Sex Object is now attracting six figure offers." Aldous, depressed as usual, did not feel in the slightest bit phased by his apparent brush with fame. Six figures were no longer all that impressive, since he was dealing with the daily figures from the business, but as he was talking to an American, he felt that mentioning money was appropriate.

"Great news, Aldous. Great news. If anything else comes up, I'm sure I can oblige. Just get in touch in the usual way, won't you?" Sam practised an urbane, assured manner as he tried to edge onto safer ground with Aldous.

"I'm pretty sure it won't, unless Kira changes her mind." Aldous did not sound as if he was smiling.

"Was she mad at you?" Sam frowned.

"Worse. She hasn't once brought it up." Aldous had known Kira for a long time. Pauses were usually extremely pregnant in the course of their many strands of conversation. "She is waiting to flay me later."

"Aww I'm sorry Aldous."

"Would you like to speak to her? I'm sure she would appreciate cheering up." Aldous reasoned that the sooner the Kira-storm broke, the better.

"No, no I better go. It's getting kinda near lunch. Thanks again Aldous." Sam backed off hastily.

"Ok. Goodbye Sam." What a creep, thought Aldous. No manners at all. Touting for business using a courtesy call without a trace of courtesy. Typical Yank. He ended the call and returned to Kira, who was frantically punching at a steampunk sculpture with her delighted cats clinging to the huge wool bobbins, kicking furiously as they rolled across the floor.

"Would you like some tea, Aldous?" She looked up. "I'll be finished in a moment?"

"That's what I'm supposed to be here for."

"I need to be upright for a bit. Anyone interesting on the phone?" Kira hid her needle under a pillow with a brick on top to prevent the now hysterical cats from running off with it. Aldous had always wondered what it was doing on the bed.

"Not really no. Bit of a timewaster. Yes, I'll have the tea."

When Kira returned with the tea , Aldous tried to break the stalemate.

"What did you think of him, when you met him?"

"I didn't think anything. He was paid to be there. That is all." Kira sounded less tense than Aldous had anticipated.

"Do you not think persisting with the Raw Scandal collection is a bit superfluous now? You got what you wanted for him." Since Sam was now moving in more exalted media circles, which Sam would undoubtedly be perfectly happy with, Aldous imagined that Kira's work was done. She was making herself ill working on the collections, in typical Kira style, night and day.

"We are on target, beyond it even, but I need to consolidate the position before I move on. It won't be long now, don't worry Aldous."

"He's never going to grow into the person you want him to be, Kira."

"As Aristotle said, to acquire a virtue, one must first pretend to have it. This is merely a rehearsal, Aldous. We have more important work to do later."

"But Kira, if he doesn't understand, surely it's a waste of your time? It's not like he would ever admit you did anything anyway. He's just an opportunist famewhore. He'll just drift from person to person getting stuff from them. You could never trust him."

Kira looked up from her artwork and her tea, slightly bemused by the sudden fury of Aldous. "Don't worry about it Aldous. I'm remarkably efficient. When the time is right to move onto the next task, I'll move on." It was rare that Aldous expressed any caring at all in regard to Kira. She appreciated it. "In the meantime, we still have a lot of work to do. We've had one lucky break, is all, and that's really thanks to you. As for the rest, if he gets an opportunity he has to take it. It's all good. For what it's worth I think Sam is a lot more innocent than people seem to think he is, he doesn't realise how it comes across. He thinks he is being motivational and go-ahead, and we interpret it as blood sucking. Either that, or he is jaded and needs a bit of cossetting anyway. I don't think I want to know which."

"For such a cynical person, you're a sucker, Kira. He won't lift a finger for you. Ever. You could move mountains and he would still sneer at it, or use it as evidence of HIS enormous talent." Aldous sniffed.

"Welcome to the family Sam, you'll fit right in." Kira arms outstretched, made her 'Liberace' face and laughed. Aldous smiled despite himself and finished his tea, wiping away a stray tear on Kira's behalf that he did not want her to see.

Tatania replaced the receiver and turned to her hapless PA. "Sam will be coming to dinner on Friday, let the chef know, will you? Has my box set of Raw Scandal arrived yet?"

"I'll just go and check for you." Harriet, the PA, lifted Tatania's empty glass on the way to the kitchen. Enrique was busy blending vegetable juices to get just the right flavour combination for his dedicated mistress. "Enrique, her glass is empty again. Sorry."

"It's OK, here you are." He handed over a fresh iced glass of spinach and apple juice. "She's looking good on it though, isn't she?"

"Yeah, I guess. Can I have whatever you're eating for lunch? That Redwood guy is coming on Friday." Harriet had very quickly become dissatisfied with her lighter raw food life, unlike her super focussed boss, who was enjoying a newfound glow.

Harriet made her way to the hall, and found the parcel of books waiting. Not satisfied with ebooks, Tatania had purchased paperbacks of Kira's books, to be displayed in the dining room during Sam's visit. Whether she would actually read them was another matter. Harriet picked up the parcel, along with a hemp dress that Tatania had purchased, and made her way to the dining room to place Raw Scandal 2-6 on the sideboard next to David's taxidermy collection. Reflecting that taxidermy and veganism probably didn't mix, she wondered whether she ought to mention it? Harriet shrugged and took Raw Scandal 1 and the expensive hemp dress back to the poolside to join Tatania.

Sam was overjoyed when he got the news of his dinner date. "You didn't charge a fee, Annette? Tell me you didn't?"

"Expenses only. Someone has to look after your interests, Sam." Annette sniffed. A name like Tatania Harris was a major threat, but there was nothing she could do about it. There was nothing to worry about the other groupies, but a big name like that would be nectar to Sam.

"She's so beautiful, isn't she? I better watch some of her movies before I go." Sam was as excited as a small child, eyes wide and shiny. "What should I wear?"

"Wear that cobalt blue shirt with the high collar. And the medallion. That's always a winner." Annette suppressed a mean smile.

"I should get my hair done." Sam looked in the mirror. "She deserves a good first impression, doesn't she?"

"Sure. Maybe you could put a tint in it or something. All the ladies love tinted hair." Annette was close to sniggering but she managed to maintain a deadpan expression. She wasn't going down without a fight, even if she was significantly outgunned by Tatania Harris. "You could do with a nice thick gold chain on your wrist to go with the medallion. And maybe a nice big chunky ring on your right hand."

"Ok I better go get sorted out! Thanks Annette!" Sam, wide eyed and only a little over-excited bounded out of the agent's office and off to find his organic hairdresser.

Tatania decided to entertain her guest in the Summer Pagoda, rather than engage a team to remove the extensive collection of taxidermy from the large dining room. Friday was spent decorating the garden with citronella torches and Chinese lanterns. As far as she had been able to investigate, Sam was not a drinker, although rumour had it he dabbled with the occasional herbal high. She had tested a few in the course of the week but had been left unimpressed. She was, however, delighted with the high end hemp dress, and tucked a large flower under her left ear, admiring her newly clear skin and more delicate figure in the mirror.

Tatania usually spent at least five hours of her day in her gym and the pool with one of the trainers, but her new diet had reduced her need and interest in this sufficiently for her to have read all of Kira's books. That woman seemed crazy, Tatania thought, spending her time bashing out books about Sam. What was she doing it for? Sometimes she seemed blindly besotted, other passages revealed a sharp observation bereft of anything resembling sympathy. Very clever, she supposed, but what was she trying to achieve? Men liked to be worshipped, everyone knew that, didn't they? As for her self-parodies, Tatania was unsure whether this woman understood that the image she portrayed of herself was inconsistent, made you feel unsafe. One minute she was a psychotically strong and rather cynical woman, the next, a quivering wreck that seemed to shrivel at the mere mention of Sam's name. Surely this Kira female realised that all she really had to do was conform to the thin raw ideal and turn up with a few compliments, not waste all this time writing free books and torturing herself? The Sheep in Wolf's clothing artwork, in honour of Sam, was quite interesting, but again what a timewaster? What was the point in hand embroidery in this day and age? And what sort of a medium was wool? Wool for a vegan? Tatania resolved to ask Sam what he thought of it. She couldn't understand it at all. Why would anyone do all this work with no hope of a return on the time investment? And in such an inefficient way? Some of the books indicated she was a carer. Why try to do anything when she would not be able to capitalise even on the exposure? And when she didn't appear to even want to?

Noting the time on the clock, Tatania carefully used coconut oil to even out her skin, put a shine on her lips and a light dusting of sun shimmer powder on her cheeks. Pretty as a picture, she thought, as she looked at her svelte figure in the hip-hugging hemp dress. She plumped up her breasts a bit and slipped her feet into an unconventionally comfortable pair of flat shoes to match. She had swithered over whether to greet him from the pool, perhaps swimming naked in her diamond necklace, and had decided that the chlorine might put him off. Instead she drifted down the carefully maintained archway of hibiscus to her pagoda, leaving Harriet to answer the pinging intercom on the front gate, sounded by a rather anxious Sam.

"Hi. I hope you had a good journey to get here?" Harriet battered her eyelashes at Sam, who was holding his neck ramrod straight and doing his best to stare into the middle distance as per Kira's instructions at the photoshoot. He was very nervous.

"Yes sure, it was fine. Is the car OK there?" He gestured vaguely at the rental car he had left strewn across the driveway.

"If you give me the keys I will park it for you. Come on out to the garden, Tatania is waiting in the Pagoda."

"Sure." Sam allowed Harriet to lead him down the hibiscus path to the carefully lit pagoda. Sam had expected the place to be amazing, but even he was rendered speechless by the opulence. The smell of the citronella was vaguely stimulating. Even at that, he was unprepared for the vision of loveliness that was Tatania in her equivalent of a natural look. She led him to a well upholstered bamboo futon.

"I thought we could sit here." Tatania had prepared the lighting to be most flattering on her side, naturally. She peered at him. He was more carefully managed than she had expected, in terms of his appearance, and seemed very uncomfortable. "Tell me about yourself." Tatania purred, tilting her head to one side.

Sam swallowed. Tatania was amazing. Totally amazing. More amazing even, than she had been in the 6 year old film of hers he had sat through the night before when preparing for the visit. "I didn't expect to talk about me." He leaned forward and made eye contact, to express his ardent fascination. "I love your movies."

"Thank you, I love your health books." Tatania fluttered. "We have a meal prepared for you. Would you like to eat just now? Or some juice? The chef is very good." She picked up the intercom and ordered without awaiting his answer. The sooner he was at ease the better, she thought. She flicked a wave of hair behind her shoulder, a gesture she regarded as youthful and carefree, and moved slightly closer. "You can tell me what you think of our cuisine."

"Do you have a bathroom out here?" Sam felt he had better slow proceedings down a bit. He took his time in the bathroom, making entirely sure he was more relaxed before rejoining the ultimate in dinner companions.

Aldous was surprised to find himself included in Sam's mass text the following morning. His heart sank when he saw the message. No need to tell Kira, he thought, unless Sam made it to an actual event with Tatania. He was quite sure Kira would explode on a nuclear scale when she heard about this. He busied himself dealing with the day to day of the business and attending to Kira's absent minded questions, and thanked his lucky stars that he was no longer expected to mix cement for the ceramics on a daily basis.

A few days later, the story broke and Aldous was forced to present the issue to Kira, who was hard at work stitching a seedpod for a ludicrous bouquet hat she was making. To his surprise, she was not at all worried.

"Aldous, when it is right, it's right, and when it isn't, it isn't. I'm sure Sam will do fine."

"What on earth?"

"Let go of your preconceptions. Not everyone has to sit miserably in a room together forever?"

"Isn't the whole point to sit happily in a room together?"

"If that was all love was, Aldous, we would have married each other years ago. Sam will learn something, and he will probably make a lot of good contacts. He's good at that." Kira barely looked up from her sewing. "Why do you imagine this would bother me? The whole point of staying away is so that it never has to become an issue? I don't particularly want to stalk the dude or make him unhappy."

"Kira, would you do me a favour?"

"Shoot."

"Go on a date? Anyone will do. Just go on a date. Please, I can't bear the thought of you ending up freezing in an empty house in your old age." Aldous tried his pleading voice. It did not sound authentic.

"Fine, just don't plaster the internet with pictures and pithy adverts demanding a 'good sense of humour.' Make sure they know I don't drink or eat out." That would cut out a good few, thought Kira with carefully bridled joy. "I don't want to make it too easy for you."

Sam was in awe of his new conquest. He liked to tell anyone who would listen just how 'awesome' he believed her to be. As a result even Don, his closest friend, was avoiding him and so he was spending more time with Will, the English parapsychology hedge monkey.

"Guess that's bombed the Scottish bitch out then." Will laughed "Did you shag her?"

"Who? The Scottish bitch was never an issue. Honestly, have you seen her? WTF not even a 2? Tatania is like totally amazing."

"Yeah you should get yer feet under the table there allright." Will rolled his next spliff, chuckling. "When are you seeing her again?"

"Tuesday, she is busy with Conde Nast shooting some pictures. We talked for like an hour last night on the phone. She says I'm to go up to the house for a couple of days next week or so."

"What about the Supermeet?" Will was confused. Sam would never let a woman interfere with work normally. He had a big conference coming up.

"I can leave after the dinner speeches on Sunday. I can't wait to see her. She's so cool. Woody was saying on the phone how much fun she is."

"Yeah." Even Will was starting to find Tatania a bit dull, but he was impressed with Sam's pulling power. "What about those twins you were doing?"

"Oh I don't see them all that often. Tatania says she plans to keep me busy. Isn't that neat?" He tugged on his beard, smiling at a joke that Tatania had never told, as foolish adults are prone to do.

"Yeah Sam, it's neat. Big league. You better behave yourself for this one." Will lit his neatly rolled treat and silently prayed that Sam would not become too domesticated for the epic parties he and 'lovecloudboogie' the raver liked to hold on Sam's behalf.

Sam arose from the chair and headed for the pool. "I better stay in shape too, the competition will be fierce for a piece of that ass."

David Harris looked at the picture of his wife wrapped around the younger man and sighed. She was really angry with him this time, he could tell by the dangerous expression in every picture. Women were so terribly complicated. A bit like cats really. Who was this Sam Redwood anyway?

When he discovered that Sam was some sort of raw health guru, he placed a call to Malcolm and had his PA dig some dirt. Most enlightening. He wondered if Tatania would know, or care, about the guy's reputation.

Investigating further, he found what he was looking for. A very expensive present, he thought, but worthy of his errant wife and her new lover. He smiled to himself. Everything had a price....

Kira wondered, as she looked at the magazine, if these people knew how obvious this faux relationship was. Sam was smiling into the camera, looking very pleased with himself with his arm around Tatania. Tatania was giving her 'I may be over-age for Hollywood but I'm still full of juice' look and both were strangely individual considering this was a very glamorous 'couple' picture.

"I suppose it will do both their careers the world of good." She flicked at Aldous.

"He wasn't good enough for you anyway."

"Any idea how many people said that to me? People I liked, people who are now long gone? What does it even mean? How can multi-millionaire chick magnet Sam Redwood not be good enough for an impoverished geeky carer? I may not be quite so impoverished, but I'm still a shy geek."

"That's not how 'good enough' works, Kira, you know that. Even you deserve better than that cretin. Oooh take a look at this woman that just announced she wanted to kiss him on his fanpage. Isn't she gorgeous?"

"Gorgeous ain't gonna cut it unless she has five horny friends to join in." Kira looked despairing. "Much as I like getting all this work done, this is killing me." She thought about the many thousands of women who had looked in the mirror and decided they would never look good enough for Sam. It was a depressing thought. Kira had long since decided not to worry about it. If he couldn't see the value in her work, then he wouldn't see much value in her no matter how thin she was. Kira had always been of the opinion that the right person would recognise you even if you were drenched head to foot in orange paint singing nursery rhymes, and Sam, to all intents and purposes, had decided not to. Kira was well aware that this was probably a blessing. Life with Sam would probably have been a nasty, brutish and short nightmare even if any of this had been rational, but it still hurt like hell, and she still couldn't look at him or listen to him without the occurrence of nausea and white-hot blind fury.

She had been somewhat heartened during a very difficult radio interview transcript that she had happened to find online. Sam had been asked a question he could not possibly answer, and he had responded with a panic burble which had clearly been inspired by her. "Uh, we need Hollywood to take an interest...ya know,.culturally." She had perceived this as a glimmer of very distant hope, but now thought he would probably just have lifted this as he had the rest of his work, without any regard for her at all. One speed, probably, she mused, and a bit slow at that. She smiled as she thought about the sweet Yank hippies wittering on about 'high vibrational' people. "Nope, you ain't vibrating high enough for me, Sam, and you probably never will, no matter how much 'Ormus' you consume." Earthbound and yet ungrounded. Very similar to the principle that people who choose to study psychology do so because they are concerned about their own mental health, she supposed.

In short, the grubby and out-of-character emotional situation that she had always known would be hopeless was probably by now, even more hopeless. Was she in love with a verbose, sociopathic literary kleptomaniac? Or did she just hate herself? Was it really just an excuse to avoid so-called 'normal' life on earth? It couldn't get much worse. Sadly, she got up and threw a suitably grim dress over one arm as she went to bathe before the blind date Aldous had arranged for her. Someone very tiresome and dull, probably. She supposed she should exfoliate.

Tatania stretched out a perfect leg and sighed. She did not like the way the fat seemed to be separating from the muscles these days but she did like the super soft skin she was developing as a result of her new diet. She was spending a lot of time thinking about beautiful things and had stopped worrying about David. If David wanted her back, she reasoned, he would have to win her.

She turned over to allow the masseuse to take care of her skin brushing regime and anoint her with the extra virgin coconut oil she was now using as a result of Sam's advice. She had invested in several of his higher end products, and was secure in the knowledge that she was giving herself the best possible care. Blissed out by her morning regime, she sighed again. Life was good. She was in several magazines and newspapers, speculating about her apparent separation from David and new romance with Sam. It was only a matter of time before the next film role came her way.

Harriet, the PA entered with another exotic pot plant, sent by the exuberantly besotted Sam. "Where would you like it?"

"Stick it by the pool. I hope it doesn't require care this time. Look it up, will you?"

"Of course."

"And tell Enrique to hurry up with that lemon and wheatgrass thing he makes, will you?" Tatania called after the retreating Harriet.

"Sure." Harriet stopped and looked in the hall mirror, shaking her hair a little. Hopefully Enrique wouldn't be too busy for a quick fumble in the computer room before she had to return to her duties.

Sam felt a little guilty after Holly and Molly left, but what could he do? He had a long standing relationship with them. Tatania was sufficiently adventurous not to have ruled out 'partying' with him and a few friends, making her even more awesome, but he was not sure about seeing people without her. Maybe he should just ask her what she thought? She was so cool, she would probably think it was OK.

The gardening book lay unfinished on the desk. He smiled at it. He didn't need it now, he was on his way, thanks to his blossoming wild and exotic affair with Tatania. A life of impossible glamour was beckoning, and Sam was ready for it.

He examined his appearance in the mirror and after picking at a couple of curls pronounced himself perfect. Picking up the potted orchid in the hall, he adjusted his short collared shirt and made his way out to the awaiting limousine in the driveway. He had been summoned for a few days, to Tatania's private island. He was a happy man. Throwing his bag in the trunk of the car, he clutched his orchid tightly to his chest as he got in. Only the best for his woman, he thought happily.

As they pulled into the airport, Sam was ushered by a smiling and compliant brunette hostess to the private plane that Tatania had chartered for him. He would be travelling alone today, Tatania had gone on ahead. He marvelled at the extravagance of these people. What a life they had! The buxom hostess assured him that he was to ask for ANYTHING he wanted. Sam breathed a sigh of relief. Holly and Molly were safe then. Tatania really was the best chick ever.

They landed at dusk, after a uniquely satisfying flight, and Sam stooped to pick up the fallen orchid from the floor of the plush aircraft, carefully putting the crumbs of earth back into the pot. A few smears were left on the silk carpet but there was nothing he could do about that. How many silkworms had died to produce that? Grabbing his bag he allowed the now clinically professional assistant to usher him out of the aircraft and into the jeep that waited below to whisk him to Tatania's island paradise.

"This is like Redwood heaven." He smiled at the cute red-haired female driver, attired in a neat cream linen suit. "How far away are we now?"

"Ten miles away, or so. If you get tired just let me know, I have refreshments packed for you. Hang on though, it's a bumpy road."

Half an hour of miserably rough roads later and they pulled into the gates of the Harris complex, an over-designed modern build which had mercifully been concealed in a clump of large palm trees. Crossing the bridge over the natural pool, Sam glanced at the brightly coloured birds and gossamer fine lighting system that had been installed to render the garden impossibly beautiful no matter what the time of day. This was wealth beyond imagination. Sam was suitably impressed.

Tatania was dressed in her usual tasteful and carefully designed way. A coffee swimsuit and dark brown sunglasses, with a suitably flimsy wrap. She was gorgeous. She dismissed the thick-set blonde Finnish trainer from her side as Sam approached.

"Isn't it funny Sam, how you don't notice how bad normal people smell until you go raw?" She smiled seductively and tilted her head as she reached up to stroke his beard. "Jorgen smells of chicken." As she kissed him Sam noticed that she tasted of chicken. He did not feel this was the time to be bringing it up, so he ignored it and smiled back.

"I brought this for you. It's very rare." He handed her the orchid.

"How delightful, Sam." Tatania simpered as she quickly dispatched the orchid to the corner of the room. "Now, what do you have to teach me about my body today? I do hope you aren't too tired after your flight."

Sam recognised his cue and put his arms around the priceless and well-maintained waist of his prize. He was sure he could think of something. He smiled down at her. "I'm never too tired for you, Tatania."

David was frustrated. What drug was this Kira Cedar bitch on? He had now tried offering a quarter million for Raw Sex Object, and she was still turning it down. How long would it take for the stupid bitch to crack?

He turned from the computer to his date for that night, a well-worn but respected actress from the erstwhile A list, and grinned. "What do you say, honey? Let's go and remind ourselves what a rollercoaster looks like. We can take the helicopter and grab some food while we're at it?"

Rivron, the gallery owner at the other end of David Harris's email, was equally frustrated. How much did Kira honestly think Raw Sex Object was worth? One hundred and twenty five thousand bucks ought to be more than enough to get her to part with it. Either he would have to drop his hefty cut, or she would not be selling it. He should have made it a condition of the competition, he thought ruefully, tugging at the thinning hair on his head.

He bashed out another email to Aldous, upping the offer to two hundred thousand, indicating it was definitely a final offer. Surely she would go for it this time?

Kira did not like her date. He was French-Lebanese, a bodybuilder, and seemed very fond of her. He was a very nice boy, but not really her thing. Too good looking, and too interested in the gym. Conversation was limited, and he was a terrible backgammon player, despite the typical boasts of Middle Eastern players about their prowess on the board. She was relieved that he was thinking of moving home and would not be nearby for much longer.

She decided to try someone older than her, someone that couldn't run too fast, that might appreciate her. Oddly, it seemed to be that the most athletic that appreciated her most, watching her sew for hours after their more frantic interests. One moderately famous martial artist had managed a marathon fourteen hour stint of watching Kira before finally succumbing to sleep on the studio divan.

Kira preferred sitting around working with Aldous most of the time. This dating malarkey was just timewasting when she had plans for Sam to carry out, and yet more work to do.

"Kira! Raw Sex Object! It's at two hundred thousand!" yelled Aldous.

"It's not for sale."

"Jesus Kira, how much do you want for it?"

"I don't want anything for it, I want to give it to Sam."

"He doesn't want it, this mad person at the gallery does! Just get rid of it and move on." Aldous swivelled round in the chair. "How much fun can we have with that sort of cash? We can treat it as play money."

"I said no." Kira stabbed at a large golden coin she was stitching on her next big piece of work 'Predate,' featuring two easily recognisable figures and their relationship with earth. Sam would never know she had said no anyway, even she thought she was being a little crazy, but she was quite sure she did not want to part with it unless something very special was on offer. "Tell Rivron it's not about the money." She smiled at this as she stitched. Ah the cunning ploy of the genuinely non-mercurial, or the exceptionally greedy. Kira chuckled at this as the Bengal painfully clawed his way up her leg.

"Right that's it, Kira. You are crazy. I am going to find you the dullest date ever to punish you." Aldous was half angry, half amused as he trawled his list of suitors for Kira.

"Sounds good. No younger than 60 please, I want a bit of character, for a change. Well run-in, as a preference. If there are any bits hanging off, we can always sew them back on."

"You are such a bitch, Kira." Aldous laughed.

"Thanks."

Sam and Tatania had had a shaky but pleasurable few days of hedonism. Tatania had never considered all the things vegans shouldn't really be doing, but trying to get Sam onto a horse had proved impossible, never mind showing him the aviary. She had now learned a few things she didn't know about yoga, not that that was particularly interesting, and of course the sexual gymnastics had been exemplary even by their Epicurean standards.

As the evening sunlight dimmed, Sam was now sitting above her head in an old tree and talking about nature. Tatania was beginning to become aware of the decline in her passion as a result. "Won't you come down, Sam? We could go and enjoy the pool before it gets cold?" She rubbed her shoulders to emphasise her point.

"Oh, sure we can yes." Sam descended. "Don't you wanna go and look at the moon again? You're totally amazing, Tatania. I love looking at the moon with you." Sam gazed at her, dewy eyed, adoring.

"Umm, not tonight I think." Tatania ran a hand down Sam's inner thigh. "I have other plans." She pressed a concealed button on the fence behind her to summon one of the maids, a broadminded dusky local girl who liked to indulge her mistress.

"Oh yes." Sam was delighted at the new arrival. "Yes I think we should head for the pool." They gave the voluptuous maid a meaningful hug and headed back towards the exquisitely lit pool.

Rivron sighed and looked around his smart, minimalist beige office. Not about the money! He hated dealing with artists. They were all crazy. He played with his spectacles, dusted off his cashmere trousers and looked at a rather violent piece of sculpture he had lodged in his office. He didn't think emailing David was a good idea until he could solve the problem. Just what did this woman want? The emails between him and Aldous toed and froed a few more times before he decided what to do. He emailed David. A plan was formed. He outlined the plan to Aldous and awaited a reply.

"Yes, Aldous, that's fine." Kira did not look up from her typing. She was working on the next book, a rather short thriller in which Sam's character narrowly avoided being horribly mutilated on most of the pages by relying on a team of faceless bikini-clad women.

"Thank God." Aldous sent the agreement email to Rivron and sighed. He pushed back his glasses. "How was the date?"

"Better, but no cigar, I'm afraid."

"How so?" Aldous looked quizzical.

"Oh there's nothing actually wrong with him Aldous. It just isn't right. Devoid of meaning, so to speak."

"You better hurry up and pick one, Kira. You're no spring chicken." Aldous pursed his lips.

"Strangely enough, comments like that don't help. I shall take my mother's example and remain a spring chicken until I die, thank you." Kira shook her head and kept sewing. "What sort of a saying is that anyway? Why are we supposed to conform to chronology? Fuck settling, fuck it. I'd rather be romantic and lonely." She put her laptop down and arose from the chair, turning towards the wild ragdoll cat sitting at the window, who immediately bit her as hard as he could, with an accompanying angry burble. "Thanks Sam." Kira addressed the cat very seriously. "I love you too." The cat purred and proudly sat up straight, yawning.

Tatania dusted down the haute couture dress she had selected for tonight's big bash, a ballroom affair with big league actors and producers mingling for the purpose of future deals. She had elected to use this as a tester event for Sam. She was less concerned about him misbehaving in front of the more important amongst her friends than about his motives for seeming quite so fond of her. One thing Tatania loved was playing games, and games like this were her speciality.

She had told him to wear something suitable, and was astonished when he turned up in a velvet smoking jacket and no shoes.

"I don't think that will quite work for you Sam."

"No?"

"No, the dresser will take care of you." She called for her stylist, who led Sam to David's very large wardrobe. Thinner though Sam was, he still had trouble finding something to fit amongst the lightly built David's clothing.

At length, and after much discussion, he emerged in an old purple waistcoat, collarless shirt and checked trousers which had clearly been very expensive thirty or so years before.

"Perhaps he will start a fashion." Tatania laughed with the dresser. Sam suddenly felt very cold. The old cynicism kicked in, the cynicism that had protected him through years of learning to ignore the opinions of people who frequently came to hate him, for no real reason other than they had grown out of him. He decided to add the smoking jacket to this outfit anyway, just to spite the pair of them.

"Don't pout Sam, it doesn't suit you at all." Tatania suddenly sounded sharp, manipulative. Sam's blind faith eroded even more. The dress she was wearing incorporated exotic feathers, gemstones and silk, he noted. When had she stopped trying to please him? He smiled and looked straight at her. "You look beautiful honey." Sam beamed, with the shiny self-protective gushing that had protected him for years. "Just beautiful."

Glad to have him back on board, Tatania smiled back, unaware that she had just brutally killed the beautiful seed of true love she had been unwittingly propagating in Sam. "Let's go meet the stars, Sam."

David was delighted with the deal that had finally been struck with Kira, especially as she did not know who was buying Raw Sex Object. Maximum publicity one month after taking ownership, on the date he planned to deliver it to Tatania, was exactly what he felt Tatania would appreciate, and it would crush any residual pet-owner like affection she would have for this Sam character. He congratulated himself on his wicked cleverness. A bit like a movie, he thought cheerfully. She would love the evil glamour of it.

Dandling his youngest child on his knee, he watched the swans in his pond outside drift by. It would be good to see her again after all this time, he thought, and she would have the hurt out of her system.

He rang for another cup of coffee, a habit he had distinctly failed to kick, and picked up another glossy magazine with yet more pictures of the happy couple. Not for long, if he had anything to do with it. He smiled grimly and prepared for another game of tic tac toe with his child.

The glittering event was full of big name stars, people Sam could only have dreamt about before the entrance of Tatania to his life. He mingled as hard as he could, greeting healthy and unhealthy alike with a reverence that even people who knew Sam well would have been astonished at. He worked the room so hard, in fact, that he entirely forgot about Tatania, who was wondering whether she should have brought him at all. He finally remembered a full two hours after their arrival at the event. Where was she?

He rushed around the room, but could not see her at all. He looked out into the gardens surrounding the palatial whatever-it-was that they were in. A house, a hotel, a club of some sort? It seemed far too big for anyone to actually live in. Finally, he headed into the lobby, whereupon he spotted Tatania descending the stairs, laughing with a small crowd of people and obviously high as a kite on some substance Sam did not immediately recognise.

"Aww Sammmyyyyy," she drawled. "Sammyyyy, I was so bored! Have you met everyone yet? Absolutely everybody?" She raised a beautiful arm and stared down it, sulking for dramatic effect. Her companions laughed.

Sam leant forward and kissed her hand, hoping that this would placate the off-centre Tatania.

"I'm so sorry, Tatania. I just assumed you would be so in-demand that I would have to amuse myself." Sam wheedled, twinkling up at her in a practised manner he knew from experience frequently worked with the more well-heeled clients. "Come and dance with me."

"No Sam, I think I want you to myself for a while." Tatania continued to sulk. "Come out to the fountain and let us ruin my dress."

Ah, frisky. Sam understood frisky. He would love to ruin that dress, but it had cost at least forty thousand, and looked it. "Wouldn't you rather get naked? We could start a trend!" He started to remove his jacket.

"Nooooo Sam, you don't understand. David bought me this dress. Let us ruin it together." Tatania's eyes started to roll slightly as she struck another statuesque pose.

Oh right, thought Sam. Now I understand. She doesn't care about me at all. He felt a little hurt, but was not surprised. He could not, and did not really want to, compete with this lifestyle, and Tatania was very much about the lifestyle. He wondered how long he could possibly spin this one out. He would try keeping quiet until she had at least taken him to a political event, he thought. "Come to the kitchen, Tatania, I think we need a little water." He took her firmly by the wrist and gently pulled her out of the way of her giggling companions. He felt a little teary, but he wasn't going to give the game away. Poor Sam. He had been merely a pawn in a very long standing game of emotional chess between the super sophisticated Tatania and David.

"Doesn't she look marvellous though? He's worked wonders with her." Kira was pleased. She had received her cheque from Rivron that morning, for two hundred thousand dollars, and a written assurance of the A-list publicity the gift was going to attract from the buyer. She felt it entirely fitting that Raw Sex Object should be bought as a gift. She had put the money into the business account to enhance the publicity campaign and was quietly content about her unreasonable artwork profits for the year.

Uncharacteristically, she put her toe-boots on and headed for the door of the bedroom she and Aldous habitually worked in. "I'm going for a walk."

Aldous was startled. 'What? How long is it since you last did that?" Kira noted his hyper raised eyebrows behind the glasses with amusement.

"Two years I think, give or take. I'll be back in an hour or two."

Aldous wondered if the staying in habit of Kira's related to money, since she would not normally allow herself out even if she wanted to go, and she never stopped working on something, even when half asleep. It wasn't really in Kira's nature to think much about money. Security seemed more likely. Aldous decided to settle on the latter, but he was suitably alarmed by this new and unexpected development. How long would it be before she was brave enough to venture further without him?

Rivron banked his hundred thousand and thanked his lucky stars that Kira was an awkward bitch. The gallery was safe for at least another year. He ordered his assistant to fetch some over-priced coffee from the nearby Starbucks and contemplated his next big deal, a large painting of Jesus and Lady Julep entwined in a strangely sexless pose. Once he pulled that one off, he thought, he could relax and be 'exclusive' for at least two or three years. He called the packers for Raw Sex Object, even though it wasn't due to leave the gallery for a week or two, and contentedly surveyed the gallery. Bunch of no hopers, he thought, but thankfully there was no accounting for taste.

Sam ran his elbows down the backs of Tatania's legs, an old Maori remedy for decalcification he loved to torture people with. He smiled grimly at her discomfort.

"I think you can stop now, Sam. I'm not sure I really like that one." The chills running up and down Tatania's spine were becoming more oppressive.

"No, no, I'm sure you can take a little more, sweetheart." Sam was really enjoying himself for the first time in weeks. "It's very good for ya."

The Paris hotel room they were ensconced in was opulent, to say the least, and was costing a sweet twelve thousand bucks a night. Sam looked around the room, unsure whether to be delighted or disgusted. How many fruit trees would that money plant? Still, he reasoned, she had invested in almost all of his most exclusive products now and since feeling the benefit, he imagined she would continue on her new regime.

"Moulin Rouge, darling? Shouldnt we get ready?" Tatania prayed that this would disrupt his concentration sufficiently to stop her current programme of expert care.

"But of course, my sweet." Sam went to shower whilst Tatania arose from the massage table with some relief, shaking her head. Who on earth enjoyed that? Her legs shaking from the unexpected stress, she made her way to her dressing room at the far end of the opulent suite.

Sams's phone rang as he emerged from his shower. Still naked he answered the call, from Don, for the first time in weeks.

"How are ya doing, Sam"

"Fine, fine. Back to normal, you'll be glad to hear." Sam's voice sounded deeper than it had when he had been uncharacteristically besotted. Don was relieved.

"Glad to hear it. Where are you?"

"Paris. Going to the Moulin Rouge tonight. Maybe a private cruise or something."

"Aren't ya done with her yet? I need to discuss some Super Superfood Supermarket business with you. When can I talk to you?" Don was irritated. Still with her. This had to be the longest relationship Sam had had for a long time.

"I'm pretty sure it won't be long now, Don. I can talk to ya anytime. Just not tonight OK?"

Don had been getting the same answer for weeks. "Fine, I'll get a decision from Leo."

"That's fine. Sorry. Like I said it won't be long. Bitch has played me like a violin. Seems to think I'm the pool boy or something." Sam ended the call and used the rougher towel to stimulate his skin before dressing. Maybe Tatania would have one of her 'treats' in the way of staff for the evening.

Kira and Aldous were on holiday, at a beach somewhere in South Carolina. They had been quite sure they would be the ugliest people in town, judging by the tourist channel on TV. Hence it was their second last day, and their first trip to the beach.

"We're the thinnest people here!" Kira exclaimed. "Let's run down the beach for a laugh." They duly ran down the beach in true 'Baywatch' style, just to show that they could, unlike the other people on the beach.

Lumpy though they both were, Kira and Aldous were comparatively neat. The TV channel had been entirely misleading. Pictures of impossibly slim, glamorous waitresses in restaurants serving improbably huge servings were on several local channels. Like a metaphor for the rest of the world. Fat people, like the disabled, were becoming invisible in terms of positive representation.

"How are you feeling, Kira. Do you think you're ready to let go of everything?"

"I think I'm ready to do our first festival, but I'm not sure what you mean?"

"Does the company have a spare ten million to burn Kira?"

"Oh it won't be burnt. We have thirteen million fans. I'm sure attendance will be fine. And if it isn't, that will be fine too. We started with nothing remember? I think it was a whole five thousand I invested initially if you remember. There's a certain freedom in being cheap."

At long last, Tatania had gotten around to taking Sam to a political event, a plush dinner. She had her dresser take him shopping, this time, and so Sam was currently standing in a very expensive gentleman's outfitters being plucked at by a slim and outrageously gay assistant, who was marking out the tailoring with chalk. Sam loved being admired by anyone, so he was quietly enjoying the attention.

As his fitting for the suit concluded, Tatania swanned in from her own shopping and kissed Sam lightly on the cheek. "Ready?"

"Sure." Sam assumed his adoring look as he followed her to the limousine.

The event, which they were due to attend the following week, was a dinner for two hundred or so luminaries at a suitably intimidating location out of town in the Washington area. This was what Sam had been waiting for. At last he would get to mingle with movers and shakers on a national level. He felt this was what he had been working for all his life.

After the obligatory studio photographs they had to individually sit for on the way in, presumably for record keeping purposes, they were frisked and taken to seats at long heavily loaded tables. Sam looked around. There was nothing that he could eat, but he was used to that. He tried to engage the elderly politician next to him in conversation. He appeared to view Sam as a peculiar species of alien, and so he failed. The rest of the evening was taken up watching the rest of the room become merry on vintage wines and brandy. The entertainment appeared to consist of a lot of back patting and wheezy guffaws. Tatania dragged him from one VIP to another, introducing him before dominating the conversation with amusing epithets about speculative inappropriate behaviour from Sam. "Left to himself, he probably would have come barefoot, and insisted you do the same." Very funny. Sam realised he was out of his depth, even if she had given him the chance, which Tatania apparently had no intention of doing. The suit, tailored for him, now felt like a cage. The sooner he was back in his own small pond the better, he thought. He was somewhat less than a guppy here. More like plankton.

After another two or three hours of ritual humiliation at Tatania's side, Sam was relieved to get back into the limousine. "Can you drop me off at a hotel please? Any one will do."

"Certainly not, Sam. We haven't even begun our evening yet." Tatania was irritated. "You will be coming back to the house with me. Don't you want to slip into something more comfortable?"

"Not really, Tatania. I think I just want to be on my own." Sam felt deeply tired.

"Nonsense. You will come back to the house, and that is that. Enrique will make you something marvellous."

"Fine." Sam sighed. At least he had gotten what he had come for, even if it had fallen rather flat.

Aldous loaded the bags into the taxi and waited for Kira to run up the driveway behind him. They were flying to NYC for the media event that was to accompany Raw Sex Object's leaving the gallery for its new home.

"I wonder where it's going? Who could it be?" Kira murmured as they drove to the airport.

"Who cares, the price was right." Aldous still marvelled at the price Kira had got for artwork he and his brother had dismissed as nonsense for years. It came more from their depression than reality, but it had hurt Kira a great deal. She had at least, given up the corset wearing this time, and was back in the usual scruffy outfits he was more familiar with. The first day he had ever met Kira, she had been wearing a pair of large clown trousers and a combat jacket, hair having been cropped off with scissors in a fit of self-protective misery after being the victim of yet another sexual assault.

Several hours later, they touched down at JFK and were guided into a rickety yellow cab. They would be staying overnight at a hotel Kira had last been in in 1998. No air conditioning, but appropriately moody, and it was February in any case. They made the journey in silence, looking at the oft-recorded views they recognised from years of TV shows. The route from JFK to Manhattan appeared to have been particularly well covered by exported American media.

Aldous checked them in, and they went to the small twin room they were to share. Aldous thanked God that she no longer smoked. Once they had shared a room and he had spent the entire night awake thinking Kira would not live until the morning, such was her history of self-destructive smoking. Now Aldous was the only smoker, and he would have to hang out of a window, or go down to the street, where tanned people would stare at his blue tinted Northern skin and perfectly normal Scottish lumpiness. He had been impressed by her fame, however, on that trip. Kira was well known in many places outside the city she actually lived in. He frequently marvelled at this. How come all these people liked Kira so much? She was just....well....Kira?

They settled down for the evening, preferring to avoid the gathering Valentine's day crowds. Men were taking their mistresses and bits on the side out this evening, leaving the big day free for their wives and girlfriends. Both Aldous and Kira found this extremely depressing, and so they stayed in.

Sam had just finished his masterclass in Nutritional awareness, and was preparing his papers to leave, when the auburn haired model approached his table. Having had years of practise, he recognised what she wanted. The event was at a large hotel. He invited her to join him for a mineral water in his suite.

He was due to fly back to NYC that evening, to stay in his flat before joining Tatania for Valentine's day, but he was sure he could fit in some more pleasurable socialising. He felt after several months being dangled around by Tatania, that he had probably earned it.

Rivron had decorated his gallery with oversized ribbons and warped hearts in preparation for the expected media frenzy surrounding the departure of Raw Sex Object to its new home. David, true to his word, had surpassed himself. The Gallery was mobbed with journalists and photographers. Raw Sex Object, crated some weeks before, had been wrapped in shiny red paper with a giant bow. David turned up to make a speech and send it on its way to Tatania.

The awaiting media were supplied with studio pictures of Kira's work and pictures of Kira and David Harris shaking hands were taken as Rivron rubbed his hands. A press conference was held, with David and Kira answering questions about how honoured and happy they both were. Rivron was a top flight gallery owner now, he smiled.

Sam made his way to Tatania's for his Valentine's visit with a heavy heart. He knew he was on borrowed time, and wondered what fresh pain she was going to inflict this time. Did she really need to be so offhand about his feelings? Regardless of how he himself had treated other people in the past, he felt he deserved better than this. Going up to the house felt more like a duty today. He guessed this was how people who had been married for a long time felt, and shuddered at the mere thought.

Still, at least dinner would be good, he thought. Enrique really was very talented, and there was always plenty of scope for working it off, even if he didn't like Tatania very much anymore.

He made it to the door, having been buzzed into the driveway by George the house manager, and was ushered in by Harriet.

"Oh Sam, hi, we have a very special item here today. Tatania is very excited." Sam handed the phial of one of his more expensive product lines over to Harriet. "Guess you can keep this until she needs it then." His already heavy heart sank even further. "Where is she?"

"Sunlounge." Harriet smirked and headed for the kitchen. Perhaps Enrique would be ready for a quick grope before dinner. She certainly didn't have to worry about pleasing Sam anymore, that was for sure, thanks to David's little Valentine's 'gag.'

Sam proceeded down the stone corridor to the sunlounge, where Tatania was dancing by herself with a gin in one hand, looking very pleased with herself.

"Oh hi darling, how are you today?" She smiled nastily as she saw Sam. "I'd like to take some pictures of you. Would you like a drink?"

"No, no thanks. Pictures?"

"Yes, with the lovely present David sent me. I'd love to get a few more shots of you with it. Naked perhaps." Sam did not like her expression one bit. "Why don't you have a seat, over there?" she pointed towards the corner. Sam's gaze followed her finger.

Something inside Sam shattered when he saw Raw Sex Object. He felt something fragment with the shock, almost tangibly. David had sent it? Kira had sold it? All so that this woman, this woman that he had loved could use it to torment him? What had he done to deserve this? To be treated like this, as a mere appendage to an object. He wondered at the cruelty. Why couldn't she just dump him, like a normal person, if she was returning to David?

"We've come full circle, Sam. This is where you came in." Tatania giggled. "Why don't you let me get a few shots with you and David's lovely present? He can enjoy them when he comes back."

"No, no thanks Tatania. I'm glad to hear you are happy, at least." Sam thought recriminations would just come across as whining, which wasn't in his nature. He had been pretty cruel himself in the past, and enjoyed similar discomfort in others. He wasn't going to give her the satisfaction. "I think I'll just go."

"Suit yourself, guru." Tatania laughed and swigged down some more gin. "Tell Harriet I'll have a medium rare steak on your way out, will you?"

Sam was surprised at the crowds at the Oodle Festival, held just outside Berlin in the July of that year. He was there to see Kira, but he did not quite know how to go about it. He had been texting Aldous since that morning.

Finally at five pm, during the Aoki set, he felt the phone vibrate, and headed for the nearest security guard that bore the Oodle logo, a rune in black and white. He was led up a seemingly endless flight of open backed stairs to a small office. Once within, the volume was almost bearable. Sam was surprised that his ears were suddenly so sensitive to the unfamiliar music.

"Yeah well I've never liked E-heads much anyway, have I?" He could hear Kira laughing as she rattled off another pseudo-grumpy offhand comment. "Le t me just fetch some more tea."

Aldous emerged, smiling at Kira's old lady griping. His face fell when he saw Sam in his uncharacteristically miserable state. "That was quick. She should be able to talk to you now, if you insist. Have a seat." He motioned to the couch in the outer room. "Have you changed your hair or something? You look different?"

"No, just fat." Sam said miserably.

"Ah yes, eating, we all suffer from that, Sam. You look a bit better actually." Aldous was not joking. The wrinkles that had become apparent had evened out somewhat, although from the neck down Sam was certainly more comfortable looking than he had been during the Tatania period and despite a more 'at ease' appearance he did not look happy.

At length, Kira appeared with the teapot. "Oh, right, we need another cup then." Kira, not exactly slim at the best of times, had been enjoying rather more raw cacao than was good for her of late. She vanished and returned with yet more of it, along with three cups. "What can we do for you?" She poured the tea. "Not what you're used to, I'm afraid. White leaf, with lemon."

"That's Ok." Sam sipped his tea. "Anything is better than how I feel." Aldous took this as a cue to vanish back into the inner office.

"What can I do for you, Sam?" Kira sounded almost stern.

"How do you do it Kira?"

"Do what?"

"How do you turn how you must feel into something like this? I mean, you were so hurt, and you created all this? How do you do it?"

"Years of practise and then picking on the right person, Sam." Kira smiled, perching on the edge of the long sofa. "Are you here looking for advice from an expert in failure? Life gave you lemons, and you decided to delegate to a lemonade maker?" She sounded amused.

"I can't think straight. It hurts so much. I loved her. So much. I didn't realise until she destroyed it, bit by bit, deliberately. She was so cruel. I just don't understand why she was so cruel."

"You can't really say that Sam, because I do not believe for one second that you know what love is." Kira's smile dropped. "Do you mean that the idea of being with her made you happy briefly, and then it didn't?"

"She meant the world to me, and she didn't care at all."

"And you want to ask me about this? Are you kidding? Are you expecting me to feel sorry for you?" Kira was not angry, exactly, but she wondered why on earth he would have come all this way to have this particular conversation with her. Two years of academic work binned because of him, and seven years' worth of Raw Sex Object judged worthless without his even looking at it. What a nerve!

"Do you still love me, Kira? I mean, how do you feel now? Do you hate me?"

"What sort of irrelevant question is that? You're here to feel better, not fish for emotional gifts from me." Kira was aware of becoming slightly irritated. "I think I preferred you as an untameable stallion."

"I don't know, I guess I just thought..."

"You just thought you would shoplift some comforting nonsense and then go on your merry way. It doesn't work like that. I'm your harshest critic, in case you hadn't noticed. You're here because you feel you've lost something, and you think I can somehow give it back to you because you know perfectly well how much I care about you, isn't that right?"

"Something like that, yeah. I got a hell of a shock when she showed me the artwork. I knew it was over the minute I saw it. I don't know, I'm so confused."

"You lost the game, Sam. That's all that's wrong with you. You played a game and you lost. She won. You didn't even know you were playing, so she had an unfair advantage. Did you make a lot of good contacts when you were with her?" Kira was crisp and business-like.

"Yes, yes I did." Sam was instantly more upright in his chair.

"Well in that case, you got what you needed, and you are now free. Lucky break really." Kira looked at him, still unsmiling. "Unless of course, you particularly hankered after a career as Mr Tatania, and I don't think you really did, any more than I would be happy for 15 seconds as Mrs 'Cuckold' Redwood."

Sam grinned. "You're right."

"Feeling better?"

"Yeah, can I have a hug?" Sam looked more like his normal self. Kira was suitably gratified.

"No. Run along and sleep with a few dozen more silly space cadets and some more of your staff and you will feel much better. I have no time for 'below stairs' behaviour like hugging." Aldous, re-entering the room, laughed at this reference to Victorian upper class living. "I am sure that in the unlikely event you are ready to get some real work done, you will find a way to let me know. Until then, I suggest you continue sleeping around as much as possible. And find out what grace is, you don't appear to know. I have no time for this BS."

Sam was slightly aghast. Was she actually dismissing him? "I thought you..."

"You mistake me for some passive, compliant child you can manipulate. I am not a stuffed toy." Kira sniffed. "Now get on with your life, and stop feeling sorry for yourself, unless you want to. I have work to do. This is all for you, you know. The work won't do itself. You may be too emotionally impoverished to do anything for me, but the feeling is not mutual. I've rarely felt so sorry for anyone!" Kira looked very annoyed.

Aldous smiled at this typical Kira behaviour. I love you, therefore you should sleep around a bit until you're quite, quite sure whilst I get on with all this work for you, regardless of the outcome. He had seen this before with other situations. Kira's emotional 'computer' was not flaw-free, and at times appeared to have the calendar set at the year 1850, when honour and duty were still in vogue. "Confused, you will be, Sam." Aldous referenced an old American TV show.

"Totally. Should I go now?"

"Yeah. Unless you plan to propose formally, and mean it, or do a deal with her so that she can get some more work done for you. Either is probably fine." Aldous laughed. "That's just Kira. You'll either figure it out, or you won't." He smiled affectionately at Kira, who was looking slightly furious at the end of the sofa. "She's a lady, and she's made her mind up. You have the ball in your court, Sam."

Sam was not sure he really wanted the ball, but he got up from the sofa and straightened himself out. Would he even know what to do with the ball? Probably not.

"Thanks. I'm glad I came." He headed for the door.

Sam's ears burned with Kira's bellowing as he escaped the office and descended the stairs. "Honestly Aldous, that horrid man is SO AGGRAVATING! I HAVE to marry him!" Sam allowed himself an uncertain smile at the shrieks of laughter from Kira and Aldous as they cheerfully returned to work.

About this book:

I have been deprived of the luxury of caring what my beloved thinks of me, and so I write. He certainly wasn't worried about upsetting me.

The more raw food fiction that exists, the more chance of a break out success, and so I still work. I recommend that anyone who can does the same.

This is the second in The Best Scandal Ever series. Raw Sex Object is on the cover of Best Scandal Ever. It is not currently for sale, although the Sheep in Wolf's clothing project is underway and will be in several locations online under this, my brand name. It is on my own website, below. More shops, specialising in continent specific sales, are to follow.

The next title in the series will be out later in the year.

About the author:

Ina has three books out, all free and available from Smashwords. You can also find her on her website www.inadisguise.com.

She also has several web based projects under way which you may want to take a look at:

http://betterpersonproject.com/

http://betterfashionproject.com/

http://bettermusicproject.com/

All of which are designed to promote economic growth 'from the ground up' for the benefit of the global population.

