Stark by Ben Elton Read Free Book Online

she was not perfect, did he know he would forgive her? Clearly because love hates logic, it cannot be planned, it cannot be created and it cannot be stopped. It will, at all times, do its own thing like a hippy on the dance floor or a back-packer’s bottom when it gets to India. One thing was clear, if there’s a part of the body less involved with love than the heart, it is the head. This is why CD was in such a state of disarray. He was a cleverish, cynical person, and he was out of control. Captain Love had taken command of the ship and CD was heading for the rocks.
    Clearly it was time to form a plan. CD could not go on listening to ‘Money for Nothing’ and having trouble with his bowels for ever. He had seen Rachel once since the encounter at the Pissed Parrot and it had not been a conspicuous success. All he had done was crack jokes and try to catch another tantalizing glimpse through the tiny gap that gaped between the second and third buttons of her blouse. One of the great male delusions is the belief that girls are unaware when they are being ogled. No one has ever managed to discreetly eye a cleavage. You might as well put out bunting saying ‘I am getting a stiffy’. On the other hand taking a sneak peak doesn’t necessarily mean that the peeker is falling in love. Blokes do it on instinct. So despite being acutely conscious of his staring, Rachel remained unaware of the immense turmoil that she was causing in CD’s stomach and in his trousers.
    Poor CD. Most girls suffer the subliminal harrassment of being ogled in silence but Rachel was made of sterner stuff. She could handle the embarrassment of confrontation.
    ‘Stop staring at my boobs!’ she had snapped and CD had never felt so mortified in all his life. For the rest of the evening he had been in danger of cricking his neck in his efforts to demonstrate that he was staring at the ceiling.
    But, CD was an optimist, he reckoned that there were grounds for hope, after all, they already had quite an intense relationship. So far Rachel had embarrassed him, made him feel sick and turned him into a bore, there was certainly an emotional bond developing which he felt he could build on. What he needed was a plan.

22: A PLAN(ISH)
    C D decided to pull himself together and concentrate. It was clear to him that a degree of serendipity was going to be required to nudge along the essential process of wooing the gorgeous Rachel. This was obvious from one glance at the differentials. She was a love goddess; she was the font from which all beauty flowed; she was a sexual weapons system waiting for a crazy man to push her button — and he was a pratt.
    Playing an honest hand CD was destined for disaster on the courtship front, so he was going to have to lie. He recalled that at their first meeting at the Pissed Parrot, Rachel had expressed interest in his bullshit about peace freak connections. So a committed ‘citizen of the world’ approach seemed to be the clearest route up her dress. This was fine as far as CD was concerned. He did not care who he pretended to be. He was so obsessively hot for Rachel’s action that he would have gone on a diet and claimed to be Mother Theresa if it had promised even the chance of a feel-up.
    As it happened there would be no element of hypocrisy in the little charade CD was planning that could besmirch the purity of his horrendous horniness. CD was hip to all the principles held dear by the peace lot, he just felt that clothes- wise a small thermonuclear blast would definitely improve their appearance. After all, there isn’t really much you can do with a tie-dye T-shirt except atomize it into oblivion so that it may never return to offend the eye.
    Reflecting on these reflections, CD determined that if he had to play a bit of a hippy, it would at least be a tastily dressed one. He would show Rachel that a concern for the future of the planet and crucial threads were not mutually exclusive. It was possible to desire peace on