A Couple of Dabs

25-minute read

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Hello, you lovely badstars. Sorry it’s late. Not a great sign for my first paid-tier story, but once I’ve got into my rhythm, I’m sure I’ll still be occasionally late, fuck things up, and generally be unreliable. But you will certainly get what you paid for, and more besides.

Also, I want to thank you for signing up. I am now making a living as a full-time writer, and obviously it’s not easy, but you’ve helped - not just with the lucre, but with the encouragement that comes with it. Appreciated. Really.

The AUDIO VERSION - 56 minutes of me telling the story, not reading it, is available at the bottom of this post for paid-tire subscribers.

Let’s do this…

Incredible rack. She had. My Mrs at the time. English-born Vietnamese stock of the finest quality. A combination of her co-dependence and my brutal honesty brought us together and, to an extent, kept us there. That and her enchanting beauty, exceptional salary, and - as I said - incredible rack.

I was eating pho in a little Vietnamese restaurant on Frith St, Soho. It looks like your own personal swamp. Pho, not the cafe, that looked like a cafe: tables, chairs, you know what a cafe looks like - and in she walked, breaking the necks of everyone in there, men and women alike as they struggled to absorb as much of her beauty and sensuality as it floated past them.

I was there because I fancied the daughter. I was friends with the whole family. The mum, the dad, two older brothers, but I didn’t write college essays for any of them while I was having lunch, or stroke their smooth, warm legs under the table. I don’t think so anyway.

So, Aphrodite gets to the jump and puts in her order for takeout. Most of the women have stopped looking by now, but the men can’t. It’s not an option. They’ll pay the price later, at home, over an argument about spilling a nil fluid oz of orange juice, breathing too loudly or something. But it’s worth it, and they know it.

Her name was Chantel, and her parents were Vietnamese boat people. Having fought against the Viet Cong for the ARVN, alongside the Americans, the most powerful military in the world, who lost the war to a zillion bamboo-wielding teenage girls, her father and, at the time, one kid and a pregnant wife had to split rapido and ended up in Sunny England. Fast forward however many years, and there she is, trapping me in a curvaceous vertigo legato. Lovely

The brothers see my eyes doing the Funky Gibbon all over her, much like they’d seen me do all over their little sister every time I came in, using food as an excuse, and I think, understandably, they appreciated my sensual focus being directed elsewhere for once.

“Would you like to meet me one day for a cup of tea?” I said.

“Why?” she said, and I fell in love with her.

“Because I’m a heroin addict with fuck all else to do,” I said, and she fell in love with me.

“A cup of tea? Tea? How about dinner? Meet me at Scott’s in Mayfair tonight, what shall we say - eight thirty?”

“Sure,” I said, and she picked up her bag of swamp food, caught a gentle thermal and floated out, cracking a few more necks as she went.

“How the fuck do you do it?” asked one of the brothers.

“Ask your sister.”

Five years later, we’re still together. I threatened to leave her due to a month of pure misery on her part, but she said she had cervical cancer, which would explain a certain amount of misery. Six weeks of hell, and I decided to stay with her. The internet said our future was hospitals, possible pelvis removal (hers, not mine), a hysterectomy (hers), and after about ten years she’d probably die anyway.

The funny thing (like, hilarious) was that she didn’t have cervical cancer. And not a false positive, just an insane girlfriend. It was luck that I found out. She said she’d been seeing a Dr Helen Whitmore, at her local cancer clinic or some shit I’d not have bought for a minute if it wasn’t for the beautiful, round, warm breasts and endless gifts like two-grand Cordovan boots, Taylor of Old Bond Street Oxhorn shoehorn, I could go on.

One day, wanting more information on the cancer, the prognosis, what to expect, etc., I decided to do some digging of my own, as Chantel would get very emotional talking about it, and, in fairness, chat of having your womb and pelvis hacked out can really put a downer on a Friday night.

I managed to locate Dr Helen Whitmore, called and asked to speak to her, but all that patient confidentiality lark prevented me from getting any information. I suggested to the receptionist that if I could just speak to her and ask some questions about cervical cancer in general, rather than Chantel’s case specifically, it would be of use to me.

“Even if I could break the rules, which I can’t, Dr Whitmore has been on sabbatical for three months and doesn’t come back for another two,” she said.

Oh dear.

When Chantel rocked up to my drum later that day, looking fantastic, full of the joys of spring, and talking about what a wonderful weekend we were going to have, I said she was dealing with the old cervical cancer rather well.

“I saw Dr Whitmore this morning. It’s not as advanced as they first thought. I’m not out of the woods, but it’s nowhere near the problem they initially thought,” she said.

“How strange. Dr Helen Whitmore has been on sabbatical for three months. The receptionist also said Chantel Pham did not have cervical cancer. In fact, she said you didn’t have any cancer at all,” I lied, knowing she wouldn’t know about patient confidentiality, or if she did, she’d probably think it was confidentiality that was tolerant of delays. “Yeah, they gave me the full SP on your bullshit cancer diagnosis, you absolute psychopath.”

She started crying.

“Cry all you like, you fucking lunatic. Do you have any idea of the hell you’ve put me through? Did you even consider what it would be like to think someone you love is going to suffer hideously for years and probably die? And did you consider that person was me? Someone you apparently... supposedly... love?”

“I’m sorry.”

I immediately chucked her out. After we had sex.