Clovenhoof (23 page)

“You don’t have the equipment. Smooth between the legs. Smooth between the ears.”

“I’m not aware that I’ve ever shown you my-”

“Don’t need to. Matthew, chapter twenty-two. It’s all there in black and white.”

“That verse is open to many interpretations,” Michael protested.

“Oh, hello,” said Nerys, coming into the kitchen.

She smiled at Michael and Clovenhoof rolled his eyes.

“You’re wasting your time there, Nerys.”

“Oh? Oh. OK. Shame. Well, you can both fill in a survey anyway.”

“A what?”

“A survey. About me. I need to know what people think of me, so that I can target my dating more effectively.”

She thrust a sheet and a pencil at them both.

On Saturday, there was a parcel for Ben, which he had to sign for. He carried it eagerly upstairs to check out his new soldiers. The box was enormous. He was pleased that they’d been packed so carefully. He met Nerys coming down as he struggled to get it upstairs.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“A legion of Seleucidian infantry,” he said. “Care to lend a hand?”

“Sorry,” she said, squeezing past. “Off to get myself a man.”

“At this time of day?”

“Supermarkets are already open.”

He squeezed the parcel into his flat, thinking how amazing it was what supermarkets stocked these days.

He laid his parcel down, opened it and pulled aside the top layer of bubble wrap.

“This can’t be right,” he muttered, annoyed more than surprised.

He lifted out a life-size arm. Pink, fleshy, soft to the touch.

“The scale’s all wrong for a start.”

Clovenhoof slumped in the corner of the Boldmere Oak, scowling at the scribbled notes that he had so far.

“Hello, chuck.”

He looked up.

“Hello, Blenda.”

“Well, don’t you look nice, even though I say so myself. Liking the smoking jacket.”

“Thanks.”

“Had a thing for Noel Coward as a girl. God, I can pick ‘em. So what are you doing?” she asked. “You don’t look as though you’re enjoying it very much.”

“I’m working on my online dating profile. Have you ever tried to describe yourself in a handful of words?”

“Always ready to lend a hand,” she said, sitting down beside him.

Nerys had read in a magazine that the supermarket was an ideal place to meet a future partner.

She had been crunching numbers. She’d tried various different ways to analyse the survey results, and had found that the most pleasing comments came from men with brown hair born under the sign of Scorpio. Now she was getting somewhere! She had her hunting ground. She knew her quarry. She just had to wait for the opportunity.

She’d positioned herself by the freezer cabinets, thinking that she might use an opening gambit along the lines of “Brrr, it’s chilly here. A bit like the last half of October and the beginning half of November. I wonder what it’s like to have a birthday at that time?”

After the first few times, she realised that it wasn’t going to work, so she pulled a notebook from her bag and told all the brown-haired men that she was doing a survey for the supermarket and wanted to know their star sign. She’d failed to find a single Scorpio when a large woman came up to her.

“You need to come now. Someone’s parked in the mother and baby space and they don’t even have a baby.”

“Er no. Sorry. I’m just doing a survey.”

“Why didn’t you ask me about my star sign?”

“Wrong demographic.” said Nerys.

The woman stalked off, unimpressed.

A few minutes later, Nerys had found a Scorpio, but realised that his girlfriend was walking along behind, pushing a trolley. She quickly handed him a Nerys survey and asked him to fill it in.

“Can I ask what you’re doing?” asked the store manager, appearing at her side.

The large woman stood a short distance away, looking smug.

“I’m doing a survey.” Nerys replied. Then, noting that he had brown hair, she smiled at him. “Are you a Scorpio by any chance?”

After half an hour of diligent construction, Ben had got the basics together. It was a model of a woman. He’d not seen these on the site, but he was intrigued. It seemed easy enough to assemble. For some reason, there were two heads, but he just chose the one that looked the least like Nerys. He took the head that looked like Nerys and shut it in the wardrobe. Then he imagined opening the wardrobe and seeing her look at him, so he took it out and hid it under the kitchen sink.

He realised that he was playing for time, because he had a bad feeling about the final pieces in the box. He thought at first that they were fingerless gloves for the doll, which seemed strange because no other clothes were supplied. He slipped one on each hand and found that they fit, but were made from the same strange rubbery compound as the rest of the doll. Definitely not gloves in the traditional sense. Then he looked down at his hands and realised that there was a label on the left saying ‘
large labia’
and the right saying
‘medium labia’.
He ran around in a circle squealing and flapping his hands until they flew off. He fetched the dustpan and brush to clean them up, but he could only find one.

Blenda leant in close to peer at Clovenhoof’s dating profile jottings.

“Why did you change your mind about ‘charismatic’?”

“I was told that ‘enthusiastic’ was better.”

“Nonsense! It makes you sound like an amateur. I’m sure you’re not.” She raised an eyebrow. “Anyone who can carry off a smoking jacket can describe themselves as ‘charismatic’.”

“Thank you,” he said, feeling a sense of personal vindication.

“Let’s start with the basic stuff,” said Blenda. “Tell me about yourself.”

“Er...”

“Come on, Jeremy. Give me your life story.”

“How long have you got?” he asked.

She looked at her empty glass.

“How long have you got?” she replied.

Ben found the doll’s nakedness beguiling yet ultimately an annoying distraction. Where would he find something to make her decent at short notice? He ransacked his wardrobe, pulled out an old Sepultura T-shirt and a pair of Bermuda shorts that had always been too big for him.

Ben wrestled his kit-assembly lady into the clothes and sat her down on the settee. He was pleased that she was wearing something of his. He was
very
pleased that he no longer had to worry about her private places either.

He sat beside her.

“There,” he said and put on the television so that they could watch something together.

“What have I done? Loads of things. But not all that many that I should really put down on here. I’ve done a lot of bad things.”

“Oh, well we’re getting somewhere then,” exclaimed Blenda. “All women love a bastard, after all. We just need to find the right words to say that. Without actually saying it, obviously.”

“Obviously!” laughed Clovenhoof, “I’m beginning to get the hang of being English.”

His face clouded.

“Do you really think that’s true, by the way? Do all women love a bastard? If so, I’m not really sure why I don’t have to beat them off with a stick. There’s no bigger bastard than me.”

Blenda looked at him across the rim of her glass.

“Are you selling yourself short, Jeremy?” she asked.

“No, I’m really not. I am the original bastard.”

It turned out that none of the store’s management and security staff were Scorpios. That explained why, firstly, she wasn’t quite managing to snare them as potential boyfriends and, secondly, why they were annoyingly unsympathetic to her personal scientific quest.

“I’m not causing any trouble,” she said.

“I don’t care what you think you’re doing or not doing,” said the store manager (who was a Leo). “I’ve asked you to leave the premises.”

“I could just stand inside the front door and speak to people as they come in,” she offered.

“Do you want me to call the police?”

Nerys gave the matter genuine thought. Policemen came in twos. One in twelve chance of either of them being a Scorpio. That was a one-in-six chance overall, wasn’t it?

“Doug.”

The security guard (a Libra) stepped forward.

“Okay,” she said. “I get the message.”

At the exit, she stopped.

“I could stand here,” she said to the security guard, Doug. “I’ll be tucked out of the way. You’ll barely notice me.”

Doug put his hand on her shoulder and escorted her the last few feet outside.

On the pavement, she wriggled free of him.

“Get your hands off me. I don’t want to be touched by you. Even if you
were
a Scorpio!”

“Nerys?”

She turned. Dave was stood there, bulging carrier bags in his hands.

“Doing a bit of shopping?” he asked.

“Not exactly. I’ve been scouring the place for brown haired Scorpios. God knows where they all are.”

“Well you found one now,” he laughed.

“Oh yeah, how funny is that?” she said sourly.

“Can I give you a lift anywhere?”

She gave him a long look.

“Sure.”

He made dinner for the two of them. It seemed the obvious thing to do.

Ben set out the table, poured wine and even considered lighting a candle but then feared his lady friend might be flammable. He sat her opposite him and served up for the pair of them. A slightly smaller portion for her as she was watching her weight.

“You look great in that T-shirt,” he said, spearing a carrot.

She gave him a faint, enigmatic smile.

“Got it at a concert in ninety-eight.”

She wasn’t touching her food.

“It’s not too hot for you, is it?” he asked.

He realised she was looking past him, over his right shoulder. He turned and saw that she was staring at the blue and brass trunk by the wall.

“Please,” he said. “Don’t look at that.”

She continued to look.

“I know I can trust you,” he said. “I want to tell you everything.”

She kept looking.

“It worries me so much. I don’t know what’s going to happen to me. I will show you. One day.”

He reached over and squeezed her hand. Something clicked under his touch.

“I want you to give it to me hard and fast, Big Boy,” said the doll.

“Pardon?”

“Do you want to do it doggy style?”

“No thanks. I mean it’s really nice of you to try to cheer me up. I am having a tough time at the moment.”

“Oh my God! It’s so hard!”

“It is,” he agreed. “You’re a great listener. It’s a lost art, really.”

There was a knocking at the door.

Ben ignored it.

“Shhh!” he said to the doll, “stay quiet and they’ll go away.”

The doll started to emit ecstatic moans.

“Ben! Is someone in there with you?” Nerys called.

Ben shushed louder, and the doll responded by moaning and panting at full volume.

“Ohhhh! Hnnnnnnnnnn!”

“Ben! What’s the matter? Are you in pain? Let me in, I’m a first aider!” Nerys bellowed. “Dave, knock down the door, we need to get in!”

Someone started to barge the door. Ben could see it bulging in the frame.

He looked around in panic. He was suddenly all too aware of how this would look to someone walking in. He had a sex doll, dressed in his cast offs, and he was having a meal with her. He could not allow Nerys to see him like this.

He opened the window, grabbed the doll and hauled her across the ledge. He paused for a moment, pulled her back, and gave her a long, passionate kiss. Then he gave her a shove and sent her flailing down into the dark.

Clovenhoof walked up the path to the flats with a spring in his step.

He had got his dating profile sorted and, sure, he hadn’t submitted it, let alone got himself a date and yet, somehow, over a drink or two, he felt he and Blenda had achieved something that afternoon.

His buoyant mood was abruptly spoiled by a moaning sex doll landing on him from a great height.

“Cocks!” he shouted in shock and anger.

He picked himself up and turned the doll over.

He was sure it was the love doll that he’d ordered. Strange that it was flying through the air, fully clothed. It emitted a groaning sound, the last of the smashed circuitry making its presence felt. Definitely the deluxe model with the speech module, thought Clovenhoof. Then he saw with a terrible clarity how it came to be here. He knew that Ben must have taken possession of the doll. Only Ben would dress it in these cast offs. Had he been rumbled and thrown it out of the window in a panic? Probably.

He picked up the latex lady.

“What are you up to?”

He looked up in alarm.

“What you doing with her?” said a man, peering over the short wall between the flats and the house next door.

“No,” said Clovenhoof. “This isn’t...”

“What’s happened to her?”

“Nothing! I’ve done nothing!”

The man advanced on him, pulling a phone out of his pocket, dialling.

The doll emitted another low groan.

“Oh, shit,” said Clovenhoof and ran.

Ben, Nerys and Dave looked to the open window as a shout came up from street level.

“Stop him! Murderer! Murderer!”

Ben went over and closed the window.

“Sorry about that. I think I fell asleep in front of the television.”

Nerys looked at the two plates of food and the two glasses of wine. She opened her mouth to say something, when a strange rubbery object fell onto her head.

Ben gasped. It was the missing labia, which had been stuck to the ceiling.

“Oh look at that,” he said, peeling it from her hair, “it’s my missing cycling glove. I wondered where that went.”

He started to usher her out of the door.

“But you haven’t even got a bike. It looks for all the world like –“

“Bye Nerys, it was so kind of you to check up on me.”

Ben closed the door and slid to the floor in exhaustion. Women were more trouble than they were worth.

“Stop him! He’s killed someone! Don’t let him get away!”

A man was getting shopping from the boot of his car a few doors down. He looked up and saw what was happening. He dropped the shopping and joined the chase.