The List by Joanna Bolouri Read Free Book Online Page A

I’m so fat I’m being airlifted out of my flat for some Channel 5 documentary. Shit, is that the time? I’d better run.’
    I kissed them both goodbye and ran in my heels back to the office like a champ. Who needs the gym?
    Tuesday January 25th
    â€˜Pillow talk’ has always conjured up images of Doris Day wearing a nightdress up to her eyebrows waiting to be prodded by her gay male co-star. Like so many things in life, it’s something I briefly considered becoming a world champion at, but the crippling fear of making a complete fool of myself stopped me. Mostly, I just moan louder to compensate, throwing in a couple of
oh yeah
s for effect, and generally keep my mouth shut.
    I think talking dirty requires a certain amount of sexual confidence, which in the past I’ve been seriously lacking in, as I’ve never considered myself particularly sexy. When I stop to analyse my shags with Alex I find myself dissecting everything I’ve said or done and it makes me cringe. I don’t have long flowing locks of gorgeous hair to flick over my shoulder or hold up while I’m on top like some
Playboy
bimbo; I have thick, straight hair which tends to fall in front of my face, making me look like something from a Japanese horror film that’s about to crawl out of the television.I even tried out my ‘sex face’ in front of the mirror, but found I looked more like someone who’d just been asked to do some complex long division than a viable sexual prospect. Shit. Combine that with my inability to comfortably express my desires and forcefully demand to have my ass smacked, and I feel rather deflated. It doesn’t help that dirty talk always seems so contrived to me, like a God-awful porn film with some slap bass ready to kick in when a zipper gets pulled down. When I try to imitate it I find myself hurling abuse in the throes of passion, as if I have porn Tourette’s. I have to get more comfortable with this. I discussed it with Lucy at lunchtime.
    â€˜The trick is not to make it sound forced. There’s no point shouting, “OH GOD, YES, YOU DIRTY BASTARD!” when he’s kissing you gently or brushing the hair from your face. You’ll just startle him.’ I looked around, aware of how loudly she’d said that, and saw the canteen staff laughing. ‘You just have to get used to saying the words to another person. You can’t expect it to come naturally straight away if you’re not used to it. It’s like learning a foreign language. A really dirty one. Like French. Do you want to practise on me?’
    â€˜I’d rather die.’
    â€˜What about chat rooms then?’ said Lucy. ‘You should go online and cyber some fellas. That would be good practice.’
    It sounds like a good idea, but I’m scared I’ll only find a dongle-charged world full of socially retarded lonely losers, all looking for other equally lonely losers to masturbate with, or husbands crying out that their wife doesn’t understand them and they need some sort of escapism. Normal, happy people don’t go online. Do they?
    Wednesday January 26th
    My boss Frank is obsessed with his new piece of ‘art’, which he hung in pride of place in his office this morning. It looks like someone painted it for a dare. He’d been going on about what an important piece of work it is and how expensive it was, so when he went for lunch Stuart nipped into his office and turned it upside down. Frank left at half five and still hadn’t noticed. Genius. We then all took bets on how long it would stay like that. I also noticed Stuart’s bottom for the first time today. How slow of me but, my word, it’s quite perfect. Unfortunately he caught me noticing too. I blame my hormones. Not just for this.
    This evening I began my first challenge by joining a site called ‘Highland Flings’, armed with a false name, fake picture and a 36DD imaginary