Page 4 of Great Sexpectations
‘Yes, they have mistletoe packaging, so you can hold them over your doo-dahs for that special festive moment.’
‘You can say the word penis out loud with me, you know? We run a highly successful sex toy business, JoJo. Doo-dahs is not good business lingo.’
‘Well, how about you can hold them over your candy cane?’ I reply in a posh advertising voice.
‘Your Christmas cracker?’ she retorts.
‘The ultimate stocking filler…’
‘Look at our marketing genius… And people say we’re not alike…’ she says, beaming at me. We’re not, but somehow it works. ‘Anyway, get back to the party. Don’t mind me. Also, explain your outfit to me again?’ she asks. ‘I thought you were going as a cat.’
‘You left me out a skin-tight PVC jumpsuit, I was thinking practically about not sweating to death and having to wee.’
‘But that’s also a jumpsuit,’ she says, pointing to my outfit.
‘But look at all the room I have to dance and high-kick and stuff.’
For some reason, I high-kick. Doing so, I knock over a lamp. Crap. I pick it up and rearrange it on the side table, hoping it’s not expensive.
I hear Mum giggling. ‘You look like a welder.’
‘I’m a Ghostbuster, Mum. It’s Halloween. Ghosts, spooky things… The man who brought the ice sculptures really liked it.’
‘In that he flirted with you and poured you a drink?’
No, in that he high-fived me and knew what film I was from. I’ll take that as a win.
‘The party is jam-packed with sexy versions of Halloween clichés. I look original and cool.’
‘And like you’re about to fix a blocked drain. What’s Ruby wearing?’
Ruby is my brother’s girlfriend and together they are hosting tonight’s Halloween party in their North London home. Both of them star in a reasonably popular soap on the television, so they have this middling level of celebrity which means they do everything to a certain level of excess – from the food, to Freddy Krueger making Halloween-themed shots and a troll-shaped ice luge serving vodka.
‘Ruby’s gone full Maleficent. She even has horns and some sort of prosthetic so her cheeks look chiselled.’
‘Get pictures, I bet she looks stunning.’
‘She looks stunning because she did a three-day cleanse to get in that dress.’ I did not do a cleanse. I basically did the opposite of a cleanse because I knew I could get away with it.
‘Ruby was telling me about the DJ.’
‘Yes, he’s very famous and dressed like Pennywise the clown. I met him on his way out of the toilet. I was so scared, I may have done a little wee.’
Mum laughs. ‘You idiot. I’m going. Have a lovely night, my gorgeous JoJo. Pics please and all the goss, yeah?’
‘Yes. Please don’t give out those condoms to people at the door. Mum?’
She doesn’t reply but blows kisses in my direction before hanging up.
Oh dear. I should perhaps ring Dad to make sure. I lower myself to sit on the floor, backing myself against a wall next to a side table.
My parents both adore Halloween. My mother’s pièce de résistance was when she dressed us as the Addams Family. She got a photographer and that portrait sits in Dad’s office. I was a very authentic Wednesday. When I left the house earlier, Dad was arranging his ornately carved pumpkins down the drive, and as I got in my car, he did his best BWAHAHA at me before I reminded him that he couldn’t scare me because I’d picked up his costume from the shop. He wanted full vampire. Not modernTwilightorLost Boys, he wanted a suit with a velveteen cape and a red waistcoat and not those bargain teeth that would hurt his dentures.I want to be classy, Josie. Sinister but alluring. Bit of leather.I told Dad we could get leather from work; we have racks of the stuff.Not that sort of leather, JoJo.And he laughed.I get enough stick from that knob-end down the road for the height of my hedges. Last thing we need is me answering the door to his kids in a gimp mask.
That said, scouting the fancy-dress shops for vampire-wear meant I managed to find this beauty of a Ghostbusters costume. It’s not hugely flattering, but it means today, I can dance freely, bundle my long brown hair on top of my head, throw on some Doc Martens and not have to totter around in heels. I also have pockets. For my keys, the odd sweet in case I get hungry, and hell, I may have nabbed a few of those Halloween condoms for myself. There have to be perks to my job. The costume even came with a proton pack so I can zap ghosts. I pick up the end of it and practise some gun-slinging moves from the corner of the room. This is a slightly sad if properly geeky wet dream moment. ‘Don’t cross the streams,’ I whisper in my best American accent.
My moment suddenly comes to a halt as two people: sexy cat (nice tail) and sexy zombie man (where’s your face?) swoop drunkenly into this spare bedroom and, well, they throw it down in a frenzied mass of limbs and saliva.
Hello? I’m here. Should I just say something? Or cough?
