The Sex Was Great But... by Tyne O’Connell Page B

black-tiled surface of the shower, and was still being pounded by our water cannon.
    â€œWhat has the clever cat dragged home this time?” Nancy drawled appreciatively when I abandoned my post and came over to give her a hug. “You didn’t mention anything about this street person of yours being a god.”
    Nancy, as ever, looked the embodiment of chic. Making me feel, as ever, like the princess of anti-chic. It’s partly what she wears and partly the fact that she’s six feet tall and weighs…like, erm…let me see…nothing. She was wearing her sleek beige Armani, and expensive I’m-not-wearing-any-makeup-whatsoever-makeup, and C.K. prescription glasses (because contacts are so over).
    â€œHe is magnificent,” she purred. Nancy is one of those few American women who manage to carry off the purr and the pout without sounding foolish.
    Her use of “darling” and “sweetie” gives the impression that she’s spent time in London on the Absolutely Fabulous set. A lot of people in the industry think she’s pretentious, but that’s only because they don’t understand her.
    The thing I love most about Nancy is her eagerness to try new stuff. Like she’s trying philosophy—get this, she even sees a philosopher. His name is W—in terms of cool, having a letter rather than a name has enormous cache.
    W makes house calls to her place in West Hollywood. It’s all very mysterious, but a philosopher who makes house calls is perhaps the coolest accessory a girl can have at the moment in L.A.
    â€œI take it all back, Holly. Clever you. What a discovery! Clap, clap, clap.”
    â€œWell, it wasn’t really like that!” I started to explain.
    â€œDon’t be modest. You said we needed a New Betty and you went straight out and found him. Well done, you.” She was holding the camera on her shoulder and aiming it at Leo, who was now taking his well-deserved swim.
    â€œNo, you’ve got it wrong. All wrong! Leo can’t be the New Betty. He just can’t.” My emphatic tone surprised even me.
    Nancy looked concerned. “Why not? It’s perfect. High-life meets lowlife. Uptown meets downtown.”
    All I knew was that I had to talk her out of this. My face was burning and I felt like my stomach was full of bees. “Well, we don’t do men, do we?”
    To signify that this was the end of the matter, I turned my attention to the salad Nancy had brought with her from Urht Café, one of our favorite organic havens. Scooping up a leaf of coriander, I started munching. “Mmmm—yummy.”
    â€œWe haven’t done men in the past, I know, but so what? All the more reason to start, right?”
    Placing the camera back on its tripod, she sat down beside me in the shade of the umbrella, popped a pine kernel into her mouth and began to nibble. “Underneath the bad teeth there lies a body—and, oh, what a body.”
    â€œHis penis isn’t even circumcised!” I don’t know why I said that.
    She waved a hand dismissively. “Mere formality—we can sort that out too.”
    I could feel a cluster headache coming on. Even under the umbrella the sun was too strong. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion, even the flies.
    Nancy took a leaf from the salad. “An adjustment here, an adjustment there.” She shrugged. “The raw material, you have to concede, is perfect.”
    â€œWell you’ve changed your tune,” I said—had she forgotten the telling off she gave me earlier? The one that made me virtually attack Leo. “You were telling me he was a cannibal earlier.”
    â€œI was just concerned for you. If you’d said you brought him home with you to rescue our ratings it would have been different.”
    It was comforting to know that it was okay for me to bring home cannibals if it boosted our ratings. Not that I was surprised; Hollywood is the