For TheBooBooKitty and Footprints.

TheBooBooKitty shifts uneasily in his chair. He picks up a pack of cigarettes – Demeter’s pack of cigarettes-- and taps them nervously against the table.

TBBK: Look, you aren’t going to publish this anywhere someone I know can see it, are you?

Demeter (reassuring): Of course not. This is strictly between you, me and the readership of “Obscure Confessions”

He relaxes, just a little

D: So, just tell me, in your own words how it began. Oh, and could you please put those cigarettes down, while there are still one or two left in a smokeable condition? Thanks.

TBBK: Well, it started out innocently enough. I was sharing a house with these three football jocks: Hal, Mal, and Joey. They were real slobs – I mean disgusting. Beer cans everywhere, dirty shorts filling up the bath, dishes never washed. The place was a pig-sty. I like things neat

D: Neat? You mean tidy, or pretty?

TBBK (Blushing): well, I do think that a vase of flowers on the breakfast table adds a … cachet … to a home, you know what I mean?

D nods

TBBK: So I started to clear the place up, just a little. Dust. Vacuum. Clean dishes. That sort of thing. The boys noticed.

D: Oh?

TBBK: One evening, Mal brought home a gift for me, all wrapped and ribboned. An apron. It said “Our little cutie-pie” on it. Of course I didn’t wear it, not at first… but.. well… that dishwater plays havoc with suede pants, so…

D: You put it on, just to protect your clothes, right?

TBBK (hanging head): Yeah. Then Hal bought the rubber gloves and the dishmop.

D: Oh dear.

TBBK (eagerly): The gloves had fur on. They were really sexy!

D: I see.

TBBK: They stopped buying pizza when I started cooking potroast. They’d all come home and sit round the table and compliment me on my cooking. It was really nice – very… domestic. And one day I was standing at the sink…

D: In your apron and gloves?

TBBK: Yeah. And Joey came up behind me, and just kinda… patted my ass.. And he said “You make such a sweet little wife. We should call you a sweet name. Susan, maybe.” I got all, kinda… shivery inside. And I blushed. The next thing I knew, they were all crowded round me, touching, caressing.

D: And you liked it?

TBBK (sobs): Yes! Yes, I liked it! I loved it! It drove me wild with desire. I couldn’t help myself, I was putty in their hands!

D (patting hand, and trying not to wince at the flood of clichés): Go on.

TBBK: At first, it wasn’t so bad. I’d spend the day cooking and cleaning, and the night with one or other of them – just like a communal wife. They turned my room into a kind of boudoir where I could entertain them, soft rose-coloured walls, a four-poster bed with gauzy drapes, silk sheets. Everything a boy could want. And they bought me the most gorgeous lingerie, with “Susan” embroidered on it – fuschia pink, from Victoria’s Secret. I felt so special I … (he whispers) I thought they loved me the way… the way I’d come to love them. But then…

He hesitates. His hands are shaking.

D: Then…

TBBK: They started boasting around campus. About me. About what a great lay I was. How accommodating, how eager, how adventurous and supple. Their friends started visiting every night. The visitors would bring me “little gifts” and the boys made it clear that I should “thank them nicely.” I’d have done anything to please Hal, Mal and Joey. Anything.

He pauses again. His lovely eyes fill with tears.

D: Do you want to take a break?

TBBK: No. No, just give me a moment.

He takes several deep breaths.

TBBK: It all went to my head. When I satisfied the visitors, my boys would make a big fuss of me. That made me feel so good that I tried really hard. And I was really, really good. I got quite a reputation – I was the hottest slut for miles – the one they all wanted. Soon the boys were charging their friends big money for my time. And there were more and more of them. The day the baseball team won the pennant, I had to do them all. I’d become a whore, without even noticing it.

D: Were you unhappy?

TBBK: Not then, no. God help me, I was even enjoying the attention. But after a while, I noticed that the boys were getting rich and I was just getting screwed.

D: What did you do then?

TBBK: What could I do? I was a whore, I had nothing to sell but my hot little ass, no skills outside the bedroom and kitchen. And I loved those boys, so bad. I kept on with what I was doing, but it lost its shine. I got depressed.

D: But you got out, in the end, didn’t you?

TBBK: Yes.

D: Do you mind telling me how?

TBBK: Well, the boys brought the Coach home one night. He’d been dying to try me, but he didn’t want to pay. They decided to give him a freebie, as their way of saying thanks, before they graduated. Somehow, it was the final straw. When he was done with me, I just started crying, I couldn’t stop. It made him come over all manly and protective. He took me onto his knee and started cuddling me, and saying “there, there” and that he’d take care of me, take me away from all this. He said nobody had ever moved him the way I did, that he’d be my daddy, and I’d be his baby, and he’d love me forever, if I’d let him. He was so big and strong, and when he held me tight, I just knew everything would be alright if I had him to look after me, so I gazed into his big blue eyes and begged him with trembling lips to “Take me home, Daddy”. He swept me up in his arms, and carried me out of there, like a knight on a white charger. The boys didn’t dare cross him – they knew their whole future hung on his recommendation.

D: Wow. That’s so … (suppresses nausea) romantic. But you aren’t together now?

TBBK: No.

His lower lip trembles, he wipes a tear from his eye before he continues.

TBBK: That summer was … wonderful. Daddy – I always called him Daddy – treated me like a princess, and he was passionate… so very passionate. Love came into his life late, and he couldn’t do enough for me. Or do me often enough, for that matter. That was the problem, really…

D: In what way?

TBBK: His heart gave out, poor angel, just before school was due to go back. It was our last full day together, before he had to go back to work, so of course he wanted to make the most of it. He’d already had me in the bedroom, the shower and in front of the TV, while he watched the game – I was in the kitchen, preparing him a little dinner of boeuf en croute when he bent me over the table. One moment he was grinning and gasping, the next he was lying on the floor, dead as a doornail. But at least he was still grinning. Anyway, when his will was read … he’d left me everything. “To my dearest Susan,” it said. He kept his promise to look after me forever, you see.

D: His loss must have been devastating.

TBBK: Oh it was. I cried for days.

(He sighs and smiles sadly)

TBBK: But life must go on, after all, and Daddy made sure that I’d never have to go back to whoring. I moved away, to somewhere that nobody knew about “Susan”. Got a job. Found E2. I’ve never looked back really. Although, sometimes, late at night I dream…

D (cutting in hastily): Yes, well, Thank you TheBooBooKitty. It’s been… an education.

TBBK: No problem. Was that alright?

D: Fine, great. The readers will love it.

Demeter packs up her tape recorder and notebook and leaves TBBK staring dreamily out of the window, a tiny smile ghosting across his face.