Page 2 of Gentleman's Anger
“Well, tonight is their famed Crisis party. I can bring a guest. If you like it, you should join. I’ve been a member for six months and it’s pretty fucking awesome.”
“Is it?” I ask.
“Yes. It’s unreal. Unlike any club I’ve ever been too. Therefore, you have to wear this.” He hands the bag back to me.
“Okay. Let’s go,” I reply, suddenly excited a way I don’t think I ever have been before.
Any club named after the female orgasm who holds a party named after the male orgasm definitely warrants at the very least a visit.
two
PATIENCE WINTERS
“Where the hell is Patience?” I hear shouted from somewhere on the other side of my shut and locked trailer door. I know I’m needed on set. They have called this scene three times now, but I am not ready. Diva Patience is on the loose. My best friend, Holly opened up a private club in London and asked me if I wanted to invest in it. I was looking for a tax write-off at the time, so I invested, becoming a silent partner with a 49% stake. After that, I invested 1% in the London Lions, my dad’s favorite rugby team. I’ve been going to matches there since I was little girl, so when they were looking for some new investors, it was a natural move for me. My phone vibrates across the table, so I pick it up and see that Holly has texted me.
Holly: You have to come see the club. We’ve been open for two years and you still haven’t come to see the place. You should come. Tomorrow night is the Crisis.
Me: Okay. I’ll be there.
Since I haven’t been home in ages, I quickly book a ticket for London and set my phone back on the charger. She has been asking for a while now and I would honestly kill someone for my mum’s Toad in the Hole. It’s fucking delicious. There is nothing like Yorkshire Pudding battered sausage with the best gravy ever. It’s always been my go-to comfort food. However, I haven’t had any in two whole years. I’ve been acting since I was four years old. My mum was the best mumager ever, but when I turned eighteen, she went home and managed me from there. She’s the best business partner I could ask for. Other than Holly, I don’t trust a single person besides my parents to help me with this. Everybody lies, cheats, and steals. That’s why I don’t have many friends. I’ve been burned too many times. I look at myself in the mirror. Twenty-one is way too young to feel this tired. To look this tired, but I really, really love my job. I love getting to be a totally different person every day. I love telling stories. I love that people get lost in those stories. Hell, I love it all.
I paste on a big smile and not two minutes later, I’m giving it my all as Fanny Albright, a poor farmer’s daughter who saves the town from a nuclear reaction from the power plant on the other side of town. It’s the first role I’ve done that isn’t a children or teen movie. My ultimate goal is romantic comedies. You know the ones with one or two chaste kisses and undying love before the credits roll. I don’t want to do anything too risqué or make out with someone who isn’t my husband, but before that can happen, Holly begged me to play the lead role in the movie based on her novel. I couldn’t turn her down. Of course, I don’t even have a husband, but I know he’s out there somewhere waiting on me. I can’t, in good conscience, go to my husband anything other than pure. I know it’s old-fashioned but there is something to be said for it. There was probably a reason why all those years ago a virgin bride was best. I think a lot of things that have happened in the world in the last two hundred years that has made that virtue fall to wayside, and I get that. I really do, butIdon’t have to agree with it. I want to my husband, whomever he may be, to know that I have never or will never take anyone else into my body. It’s his. It should be a sacred right and it’s the only thing I can give him that money can’t buy.
Once I finish shooting, I’m finished with all my parts. I don’t have to be here anymore. I’ve been in a hotel for months now, since we are on location in Estonia, it’s not going to be a long flight home.
I board my Regal Air flight, first class. Since it’s so late, there is no one else in the section. I fall asleep almost as soon as we take off. Less than three hours later, I’m at the baggage claim. The taxi ride to the house I bought for my parent’s is blissfully short. I’ve only been here once, but it’s my home base. I pay the driver and take my bags up to the front door.
Using my key, I let myself in. My parents are already in bed because, unfortunately, I can hear them having sex. Ugh. I mean, I guess it’s a good thing that they love each other so much, but I really don’t want to hear that. To be fair, they didn’t know I was coming home.
The lights are off, and I run into something… Something that wasn’t there the last time I was here.
“Bloody hell!” I scream, dropping my purse and keys, then lift up my foot and clutch it. My whole foot is throbbing.
“Who’s there?” a man, not my dad, shouts as he comes out of my parent’s bedroom.
Of course, I scream again. The lights flip on, and I see that it’s definitely not my dad, but his best friend. “Uncle Ray?” I ask, confused. He’s naked as hell, brandishing a cricket bat. As if he can read my mind or something, he drops the bat and covers himself up.
“Paysh?” he says, equally confused.
“Patience?” my mum says, running out of her room. Her open dressing gown billowing behind her.
“Mum?”
And then, because I needed to see this, my dad comes out of the bedroom in his jockey shorts, which isn’t that weird, but then Ray’s wife, Auntie Rita, rolls right out of there too with one wrist handcuffed, in a purple silk and lace nightie.
“Pum Pum, you’re home.” I look at my dad. It’s like he’s a stranger right now.
“I am,” I say, looking around the room. My mum has finally closed and tied her dressing gown. I take a deep, calming breath. “What’s going on here?” I gesture to group of them wildly.
“It’s not what you think,” Dad says.
“Uh-huh. So tell me.”
“We are a quad.”
“What?” I ask. My mind is racing to catch up with whatever this is.
“We are all together. We have been together for twenty-two years. Tonight is our anniversary,” Auntie Rita says.
