50

‘Let him find all of the barbed wires and spontaneously take you there!’

Catie looked at the words on the page and felt a shiver run down her back. They were good; maybe she could do this, maybe she could write.

She’d been inspired by the argument she’d had with the girls last night. She couldn’t believe just how bloody gullible they’d all been. All of them were gushing about how bloody brilliant that bloody book was.

‘It’s awoken a desire in me that I didn’t know was there.’ said Angela in her squeaky, pathetic voice.

No it bloody didn’t, Catie had wanted to respond but she kept quiet.

Why didn’t they realise it was crap? Why had they been taken in by the hype? Not only was it badly written, but it didn’t empower women as it claimed. In fact it set them back 50 years. She could imagine 100 lonely housewives clutching whips to their hearts and still hanging out their old love letters on the line to dry; disappointed again and again.

When she declared that she could do a better job herself, her friends had laughed at her. But she could. Look at that first line; that was something special, something unique.

Her character would be nothing like the character in the book; no unworldly and innocent little girl, no falling for mister weirdo, this wasn’t going to be erotic fantasy this was going to be erotic realism. Her character would be searching for satisfaction. The men she meets will be real and have no bloody idea how a woman’s body works. She smiled to herself as she thought of some of the losers she had been with, arms like an octopus on speed, everywhere and nowhere. Catie thought about what made a good lover. There was nothing she could quite put her finger on.

On the radio they were interviewing Dave Brailsford, the cycling guy, he was talking about what made British cycling great. It was a eureka moment for Cat, she quickly jotted down the line ‘the aggregation of marginal gains.’ That was it! Catie scribbled down a plot, in her story the female character would learn about sex not from some man with a fetish and chains who was already perfect, but from a strange woman she meets in a café every Tuesday. It would transpire that the stranger was in fact her older self, coming back to give her advice. Each week the stranger would give her another golden nugget which Catie’s character would go and try out with her latest beau. This would be about empowering women. It would be a genuine voyage of sexual discovery for the feminist age.

She looked back at the first line and added 3 more words.

‘Let him find all of the barbed wires and spontaneously take you there!’ the stranger said. 

Would people know that barbed wire was a euphemism for those sensitive areas of her body that so many men had trouble finding? Would let him paint you with his hands be better? Or should she be even more direct. She blushed as she realised that she was going to have to reveal her innermost secrets in order to write this book. Did she really want to go through with that?

Three weeks later Catie was going out with the girls again. She noticed the look of intrigue as she walked into the bar with a sports bag over her arm.

‘What’s in the bag Cat?’ said Angela in that annoying voice.

‘You’ll see.’ said Cat prolonging the suspense.

At the end of the evening Cat opened her bag and dished out 6 copies of the first 125 pages of her book. The project had consumed her life over the last 21 days and she was pretty sure she was onto a winner.

‘Take it home, read it let me know if it is better than that other crap.’ Cat said with a smile.

Within an hour  Catie had her answer in the form of 6 text messages. She read them again.

‘Wow’

‘More’

‘Hot’

‘Wow’

‘:-§’

‘hmmmmmmmm’

Cat put her phone down and smiled to herself. Now they believed her.

Thanks to the Jam for providing me with a line to bastardise. :-)