— Look, you’re stressed, go and lie doon.
Her lip curls south and she bursts intae tears. I take her in my arms and she collapses like a puppet with the strings cut. I have to practically carry her up the stairs and put her to bed, kissing her sweated brow. — I’m on it, sis, I tell her. Although drug-stunned, Carlotta still has a face on her like a well-skelped bahooky and glances at me from under the duvet like a small, cornered animal, as if ramping up for some aggro. I’m happy to make my escape. Why the drama? Fuck me, she’s still a fine-looking woman who will get paired up easily. She’ll get the hoose, and child support for the boy, till he leaves home with a good degree to secure exciting work in the retail sector. Then she can downsize and get a comfy pad and a young lover, with perhaps the annual lumb-sweeping sex-tourist holiday in Jamaica flung in, just tae keep the buck on his toes.
As I get downstairs Ross immediately ambushes me, his imploring eyes igniting through a forest of spots. Every time I see him, the wee bastard asks me when he’s getting his hole. If the laws of natural selection were properly applied, he’d remain a virgin for life. Like Renton should have done. This is what I get for fucking with nature. — You sais the next time you were up!
Saved by the bell! The phone goes, and I wave him into silence, taking my call out in the garden. Talk about timely! Syme’s at least had the decency to offer to help me with this issue. — Your wee problem is soon going to be sorted, he declares as I go behind the shed, away from the prying eyes of the hapless wee runt staring out through the windae at me.
— Thank you, Vic, I tell the pus bag, as I shiver in the cold, — but let me get back to you. I might be able to complete the job in-house. I’m a little out of the Edinburgh scene, but I still have an address book I can work, I declare, as the meaty-titted hoor from next door flings open a back-bedroom windae, allowing Tiffany’s ‘I Think We’re Alone Now’ to spill out into the air. Is this a come-on?
I sniff the creosote on the hut as Syme growls something indecipherable. It could have been scorn or tribute; I know not and care less.
So I succumb to my debt of honour. I’ve got Ross in a cab – not Terry’s, the man has zero discretion where other people’s sexual affairs are concerned – and we’re heading for the same hotel Rents used, where I book a room online and call Jill to meet us there.
We wait for a bit before she appears in a wrap-around pencil skirt, black-and-white-striped top and bobbed haircut with purplish-black lippy. I intro them, and Ross’s eyes have a hard-on, but she’s underwhelmed to the point of disgust.
— No fucking way, she says, pulling me aside and hissing in my ear, — he’s not a businessman!
Ross does look like a pizza-faced prepubescent Aled Jones on meeting his new adoptive parents, Fred and Rose West. — He’s a prodigy, a youthful high-flyer: a sort of junior William Hague at the Tory Party Conference type of character.
— I’m no a paedophille, she snaps, as Ross’s lips tremble.
— Lassies can’t be nonces, I tell her. — It’s no like there’s a beastesses’ wing at Cornton Vale. You’d just be popping the boy’s Renfrew Ferry. A social service, really.
— Fuck off…
— C’mon, babe… unprofessional behaviour, I tell her, as poor wee Pitch and Toss’s eyes flick from me to her.
— Aye, on your part. I thought Colleagues was a high-end escort agency, no about daft wee bairns wanting laid, and she turns on those high heels and heads off.
— Fair enough, I tell her retreating figure, — we can work something out, but she’s no listening. She is so fucking out ay there.
So I’m compelled to dive back into the swamp, and take Syme up on his offer. It’s the only way to shut wee squeaky baws up. Ironically, he sends Jasmine along to the hotel, the very bird that did Ross’s old man. I suppose there’s a certain symmetrical poetry to it all!
Jasmine looks Ross over. He’s like a refugee being shown to his dormitory in Auschwitz.
— Gonna leave you guys alone for a bit, I grin.
Ross goes to say something, but Jasmine takes his hand. — It’s okay, honey. Tell me about yourself.
This lassie has got the goods. I split and hit the bar downstairs.
Well, thirty-five minutes later, as I’m just about halfway through my third Stella and the Guardian, Jasmine comes down alone. — He’s sorted, she says. — He’s just getting dressed.
— Great, I tell her, slipping her another twenty over and above the agreed tariff. She looks at me in mild disappointment before she departs. If I’d gied her a hundred, I’d have gotten the exact same look. I didn’t have the heart to tell her it was the son of the guy she made the sex tape with, whom her boss is now blackmailing.
Pitch and Toss arrives downstairs a few minutes later, very dazed and confused. I swear it’s as if his face has been steeped overnight in a vat of Clearasil. The pus seems to have been sucked out his spots like the spunk from his baws.
— Job done?
He nods blankly, stuffing his hands into the pocket of his hoodie.
I get him outside, down George IV Bridge, and we take a stroll across the Meadows. It’s a beautiful spring day. — So how did it go, pal?
— It was okay… no like I thought but. I was nervous at first, but then she started kissing me and then… his eyes light up as his voice drops and he glances over to a football game, —… she sooked my cock. She said it was really big!
I’ll bet she did.
— When I sort of… got it… more up than in, really, she said that she couldnae believe it was ma first time, that I was a natural!
I’ll bet she did.
The sun is hotting things up, burning off the meagre cloud cover. It’s now more like summer. I pull some Ray-Bans out my pocket and stick them on. Ross havers in unbridled enthusiasm. — That she couldnae believe how good it felt for her, and that ah made her come, he squeals, turning to me, wide-eyed, looking for confirmation, as a woman passes us pushing a pram. — That ah really knew how tae make love tae a lassie and ah would give any girl the time ay her life!
Jesus fuck, whatever Syme is paying this yin isnae enough!
— Did she get ye licking her oot?
Ross’s jaw seems to spasm a little, as if in muscle memory. – Aye, he blushes, — she showed me that bit that’s sort ay at the top ay the fanny. Ye never hear aboot that in the online sites.
— You’re going on the wrong ones, I tell him. — Fuck that dude stuff. Try lesbian sites instead. Here’s a tip: there are three keys tae being a good lover: fanny-licking, fanny-licking and fanny-licking. Tip two: surround yourself with women, women and more fucking women. Work with them. Become a hairdresser, a bingo caller, a cleaner, do those sorts of jobs. Shagging is a disease of association. Tip three: don’t speak; just listen to them. If you do speak, ask politely about them, what they think of this or that. As he goes to comment, I wave a silencing finger. — Just listen. Tip four: don’t go near other guys; they are the fucking useless stupid enemy. They are not your brothers. They are not your mates. They are obstacles at best. They will teach you less than nothing, and get in your way with their fucking stupid pish.
I watch him trying to take this in.
Fuck me, that Jasmine is getting so poached for Edinburgh Colleagues.