Hard by Emma Gold - Excerpt
Jane Smith
of this newsgroup might find it of some interest.
The Colleague
I'm a pimp. I send girls out to work while I sit on my arse all day,
chatting on the phone. I get part of their earnings and, obviously, the
harder they work, the more money I get. But I am not unreasonable. I won't
send girls out to clients they don't like (unless I am desperate) and I
don't pressurize them too much if they are not feeling well enough to go out
on a job (unless I am really desperate). I just hate letting the clients
down, especially as there are loads of other agencies that are only too
happy to send out a temporary secretary at the last minute. That's why I
don't like the girls letting me down.
Anyway, I shouldn't be calling them girls. As I keep telling Bert, our
short-arsed, crusty old bookkeeper, they are not girls, they are women. Last
week, he even referred to a woman in her late fifties as a girl. "Look,
Bert," I said, "I think once a girl has started menstruating, she is
entitled to be called a woman." He looked horrified when I mentioned the
word "menstruating"; even more so when I continued: "And I think they are
certainly entitled to be called women by the time they have stopped
menstruating." Bert scurried off, looking forlorn and harassed but not
daring to utter his usual "silly girl" to me in case I mentioned women
bleeding again.
I used to be a temp so I know what it's like to have to go out to work. But
then again I used to be a lot of things: lawyer, drug dealer, estate agent,
candlestick-maker, baker, TV researcher, party organizer, waitress, dental
nurse, conference organizer, painter and decorator, shop assistant -- to
name but a few.
As far as I am concerned, it doesn't really matter what you do. You work for
someone else through the best eight hours of your day (daylight), during the
best years of your life (most of your adult life), five days a week,
forty-eight weeks a year, when you could be lying in bed, lying in the sun,
lying in front of the fire, going to the cinema, reading a book, walking in
the countryside, making a beautiful meal, hanging out with your friends,
spending time with your loved ones, thinking, daydreaming, fishing,
sculpting, painting, planting flowers, meditating. Or having sex.
It's a shame that I can't combine sex and money, but prostitution is the
only thing from which I have not been able to make any money. I did once ask
a guy to pay me for a night in the sack. We'd met each other several times
through friends and got on really well. One Saturday night on the town
during the Christmas holiday season we got on particularly well and he ended
up back at my place. In the morning we lay in bed chatting quite amicably
until he told me his plans for the day. "Yeah," he said casually, "today I'm
taking this girl I'm really after to an art gallery and then out for lunch."
Having seen from his face that I was not the girl in question (he wasn't
smiling or even looking at me -- in fact, he was looking for his pants), I
started getting dressed. "That sounds lovely," I told him. "By the way, that
will be one hundred pounds." "What are you talking about?" he said, looking
confused. "Well, you treated me like a prostitute, now you can pay me," I
said. "I want some money." He started laughing nervously, refused to pay
once he realized I was being serious, and then dashed for the door. He
didn't even bother to haggle.
Still, like most people, I have rent to pay, clothes to buy, drugs to smoke
and videos to rent. Therefore, I need to work. Now I know that some people
enjoy working -- they may even look forward to going in to work -- but I
have never been one of them. The best I can say is that, in the case of my
present job, I don't mind going to work. There are always other things that
I would rather be doing, but as jobs go it's not too bad. As I said, I send
secretaries out to temporary assignments and they do the work. Meanwhile, I
sit on the phone, chatting to the girls (sorry, women) and the clients, who
are mostly women too. It is all rather nice.
I also get on well with my co-worker, Tina, who deals with finding permanent
work for secretaries. Tina is in her early fifties but looks like she's in
her late thirties (if you screw up your eyes), and I'm not sure that I mean
that as a compliment. Her hair has been dyed yellow blonde and is pulled
straight every morning with the help of a mega-wattage professional hair
dryer and a variety of hair products that are applied at every stage of the
daily ritual (during washing, after washing, before drying, during drying
and after drying). I know about these products as Tina often slips out at
lunchtime to invest in a new miracle shampoo/lotion that she swears will
change her life. I am not the sort of person who likes to quell excitement
so I coo over each new purchase (despite the fact that I believe she is
wasting her time and money. Tina could have beautiful, curly, rich brown
hair and her life would then be so much easier, but for some weird reason a
lot of women seem to want the exact opposite of what they have in the hair
department, hence, I suppose, the cruel invention of the perm. My
six-year-old niece's greatest wish on her birthday was to have her lovely
curly ringlets pulled straight). I have even become quite creative at making
fresh and constructive comments on the product's smell, texture, predicted
efficacy and informative literature.
Tina's eyebrows have been plucked and redrawn. The eyebrow on the right side
has been drawn into an arched line giving her a perpetual "How about it, you
and me?" expression. I think this is deliberate. Her nails are long, tipped,
square and painted. I am fascinated by her ability to type at eighty words a
minute with these talons. To be honest, I don't know how she even manages to
hold a pencil, let alone write anything legible, but she seems to have
integrated the nails into her repertoire of daily tasks.
She also manages to totter around quite effortlessly on four-inch heels
every day. I've even seen her run for the bus a few times and it is an
impressive sight. I know high heels make one look taller, slimmer and more
elegant while making wondrous transformations to the shape of one's calf,
but I personally feel very strongly about high-heeled shoes. They throw your
spine out of alignment and fuck up your knees (hence the high proportion of
women who require knee replacements as they get older) and, unless you are a
real pro, walking any further than from a car to a dinner table is a
distinctly uncomfortable activity. At lunchtime I want to be able to nip
out, run up to the bank then down to the shops; with heels I can just about
make it to the photocopier in the next room.
Tina and I disagree vehemently on the subject of high heels. She thinks I am
making a fuss about nothing and claims to find them more comfortable than
flat shoes, but I then pointed out that since she has been wearing high
heels since she was about four years old -- when it was still fashionable to
smoke -- she doesn't know any better. The way I look at it is that I don't
mind wearing makeup (although it is a pain trying to remove mascara every
night) and I don't mind doing the emotional housework in relationships (I
did mind but I have come to terms with it); I don't mind strapping my tits
up every day in a bra and I don't really mind doing the washing up at family
occasions while my male relatives remain seated. But I do draw the line at
footwear that (a) rearranges the alignment of the bones housing my central
nervous system, (b) results in plastic knees, and (c) turns the basic human
function of walking upright into a crippled limp after only a few feet.
However, high heels do look great on Tina, whose slim but muscley legs are
often out on show, one way or another. She still wears very short skirts and
I can't make up my mind whether I approve or not. In theory I suppose I do,
but on a good day Tina looks like she is trying far too hard and on a bad
day, she can look like a man in drag. She separated from her husband eight
years ago when she discovered that he had remortgaged their beautiful home
in Maida Vale to repay his gambling debts, and divorced him a year later
when the said beautiful house was repossessed. Despite still feeling a
little bitter about her change in lifestyle (she now lives in a maisonette
in Hendon and works for a living instead of shopping and lunching), she is
delighted that she is no longer obligated to fake pleasure during lovemaking
with her tubby husband.
During one quiet afternoon at work when the phones actually stopped ringing
for a couple of hours, when the boss was out and Bert, the dozy bookkeeper,
was playing Solitaire again in the back office, she described her husband's
sexual technique to me. Apparently, she would be lying in bed and he would
emerge from the bathroom looking hopeful. As he walked towards her, a leg
would be lifted and cocked to one side and his expression would temporarily
change from desire to grimace as he farted. There would be an obligatory
sniff of each armpit while kneeling on the bed looking at her, a rough grope
of her breasts, and within minutes he would be on top of her, pumping away
furiously. This lasted approximately two and a half minutes and she didn't
know whether to feel pleased or angry that it was all over so quickly. He
would then belch, fart again, roll over, and she would soon be serenaded to
bitter insomnia by the sound of him snoring like a bear.
Copyright © 2004 Emma Gold
Below is an excerpt from the new book Hard by Emma Gold. I thought readers
of this newsgroup might find it of some interest.
The Colleague
I'm a pimp. I send girls out to work while I sit on my arse all day,
chatting on the phone. I get part of their earnings and, obviously, the
harder they work, the more money I get. But I am not unreasonable. I won't
send girls out to clients they don't like (unless I am desperate) and I
don't pressurize them too much if they are not feeling well enough to go out
on a job (unless I am really desperate). I just hate letting the clients
down, especially as there are loads of other agencies that are only too
happy to send out a temporary secretary at the last minute. That's why I
don't like the girls letting me down.
Anyway, I shouldn't be calling them girls. As I keep telling Bert, our
short-arsed, crusty old bookkeeper, they are not girls, they are women. Last
week, he even referred to a woman in her late fifties as a girl. "Look,
Bert," I said, "I think once a girl has started menstruating, she is
entitled to be called a woman." He looked horrified when I mentioned the
word "menstruating"; even more so when I continued: "And I think they are
certainly entitled to be called women by the time they have stopped
menstruating." Bert scurried off, looking forlorn and harassed but not
daring to utter his usual "silly girl" to me in case I mentioned women
bleeding again.
I used to be a temp so I know what it's like to have to go out to work. But
then again I used to be a lot of things: lawyer, drug dealer, estate agent,
candlestick-maker, baker, TV researcher, party organizer, waitress, dental
nurse, conference organizer, painter and decorator, shop assistant -- to
name but a few.
As far as I am concerned, it doesn't really matter what you do. You work for
someone else through the best eight hours of your day (daylight), during the
best years of your life (most of your adult life), five days a week,
forty-eight weeks a year, when you could be lying in bed, lying in the sun,
lying in front of the fire, going to the cinema, reading a book, walking in
the countryside, making a beautiful meal, hanging out with your friends,
spending time with your loved ones, thinking, daydreaming, fishing,
sculpting, painting, planting flowers, meditating. Or having sex.
It's a shame that I can't combine sex and money, but prostitution is the
only thing from which I have not been able to make any money. I did once ask
a guy to pay me for a night in the sack. We'd met each other several times
through friends and got on really well. One Saturday night on the town
during the Christmas holiday season we got on particularly well and he ended
up back at my place. In the morning we lay in bed chatting quite amicably
until he told me his plans for the day. "Yeah," he said casually, "today I'm
taking this girl I'm really after to an art gallery and then out for lunch."
Having seen from his face that I was not the girl in question (he wasn't
smiling or even looking at me -- in fact, he was looking for his pants), I
started getting dressed. "That sounds lovely," I told him. "By the way, that
will be one hundred pounds." "What are you talking about?" he said, looking
confused. "Well, you treated me like a prostitute, now you can pay me," I
said. "I want some money." He started laughing nervously, refused to pay
once he realized I was being serious, and then dashed for the door. He
didn't even bother to haggle.
Still, like most people, I have rent to pay, clothes to buy, drugs to smoke
and videos to rent. Therefore, I need to work. Now I know that some people
enjoy working -- they may even look forward to going in to work -- but I
have never been one of them. The best I can say is that, in the case of my
present job, I don't mind going to work. There are always other things that
I would rather be doing, but as jobs go it's not too bad. As I said, I send
secretaries out to temporary assignments and they do the work. Meanwhile, I
sit on the phone, chatting to the girls (sorry, women) and the clients, who
are mostly women too. It is all rather nice.
I also get on well with my co-worker, Tina, who deals with finding permanent
work for secretaries. Tina is in her early fifties but looks like she's in
her late thirties (if you screw up your eyes), and I'm not sure that I mean
that as a compliment. Her hair has been dyed yellow blonde and is pulled
straight every morning with the help of a mega-wattage professional hair
dryer and a variety of hair products that are applied at every stage of the
daily ritual (during washing, after washing, before drying, during drying
and after drying). I know about these products as Tina often slips out at
lunchtime to invest in a new miracle shampoo/lotion that she swears will
change her life. I am not the sort of person who likes to quell excitement
so I coo over each new purchase (despite the fact that I believe she is
wasting her time and money. Tina could have beautiful, curly, rich brown
hair and her life would then be so much easier, but for some weird reason a
lot of women seem to want the exact opposite of what they have in the hair
department, hence, I suppose, the cruel invention of the perm. My
six-year-old niece's greatest wish on her birthday was to have her lovely
curly ringlets pulled straight). I have even become quite creative at making
fresh and constructive comments on the product's smell, texture, predicted
efficacy and informative literature.
Tina's eyebrows have been plucked and redrawn. The eyebrow on the right side
has been drawn into an arched line giving her a perpetual "How about it, you
and me?" expression. I think this is deliberate. Her nails are long, tipped,
square and painted. I am fascinated by her ability to type at eighty words a
minute with these talons. To be honest, I don't know how she even manages to
hold a pencil, let alone write anything legible, but she seems to have
integrated the nails into her repertoire of daily tasks.
She also manages to totter around quite effortlessly on four-inch heels
every day. I've even seen her run for the bus a few times and it is an
impressive sight. I know high heels make one look taller, slimmer and more
elegant while making wondrous transformations to the shape of one's calf,
but I personally feel very strongly about high-heeled shoes. They throw your
spine out of alignment and fuck up your knees (hence the high proportion of
women who require knee replacements as they get older) and, unless you are a
real pro, walking any further than from a car to a dinner table is a
distinctly uncomfortable activity. At lunchtime I want to be able to nip
out, run up to the bank then down to the shops; with heels I can just about
make it to the photocopier in the next room.
Tina and I disagree vehemently on the subject of high heels. She thinks I am
making a fuss about nothing and claims to find them more comfortable than
flat shoes, but I then pointed out that since she has been wearing high
heels since she was about four years old -- when it was still fashionable to
smoke -- she doesn't know any better. The way I look at it is that I don't
mind wearing makeup (although it is a pain trying to remove mascara every
night) and I don't mind doing the emotional housework in relationships (I
did mind but I have come to terms with it); I don't mind strapping my tits
up every day in a bra and I don't really mind doing the washing up at family
occasions while my male relatives remain seated. But I do draw the line at
footwear that (a) rearranges the alignment of the bones housing my central
nervous system, (b) results in plastic knees, and (c) turns the basic human
function of walking upright into a crippled limp after only a few feet.
However, high heels do look great on Tina, whose slim but muscley legs are
often out on show, one way or another. She still wears very short skirts and
I can't make up my mind whether I approve or not. In theory I suppose I do,
but on a good day Tina looks like she is trying far too hard and on a bad
day, she can look like a man in drag. She separated from her husband eight
years ago when she discovered that he had remortgaged their beautiful home
in Maida Vale to repay his gambling debts, and divorced him a year later
when the said beautiful house was repossessed. Despite still feeling a
little bitter about her change in lifestyle (she now lives in a maisonette
in Hendon and works for a living instead of shopping and lunching), she is
delighted that she is no longer obligated to fake pleasure during lovemaking
with her tubby husband.
During one quiet afternoon at work when the phones actually stopped ringing
for a couple of hours, when the boss was out and Bert, the dozy bookkeeper,
was playing Solitaire again in the back office, she described her husband's
sexual technique to me. Apparently, she would be lying in bed and he would
emerge from the bathroom looking hopeful. As he walked towards her, a leg
would be lifted and cocked to one side and his expression would temporarily
change from desire to grimace as he farted. There would be an obligatory
sniff of each armpit while kneeling on the bed looking at her, a rough grope
of her breasts, and within minutes he would be on top of her, pumping away
furiously. This lasted approximately two and a half minutes and she didn't
know whether to feel pleased or angry that it was all over so quickly. He
would then belch, fart again, roll over, and she would soon be serenaded to
bitter insomnia by the sound of him snoring like a bear.
Copyright © 2004 Emma Gold
For more information, please visit www.writtenvoices.com