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Two weeks after Kingsley stormed off and the house is strangely quiet. Vod and Oregon have their heads together, giggling over Professor Shale’s latest text (there’s a tally on the fridge between pervy and poetic. Pervy is winning by a mile); Howard is doing something with a hair dryer and a duck; J.P. is accusing him of necro-avian rape. Everything seems normal but there’s this big space in the world where Kingsley isn’t, like a clock that stopped ticking but instead of a clock it’s a constant stream of ‘I love her, I hate her, I love her, I hate her, I love her...’
Then Josie bursts into the kitchen.
‘I need a boyfriend,’ she declares.
‘Yeah?’ Vod’s eyes flick up and down, taking in the mussed hair, the dressing gown, the bunny slippers, implying as she goes. J.P. thinks that’s unfair because, okay, he wouldn’t say no to Vod (not that he’d say no to anyone really) but he’d step right over her for another crack at Josie. Of course now he has the idea of Josie and Vod being willing to get naked and intimate with him and from there its only a small mental step for them all to be getting intimate with each other. Somehow Oregon gets involved, then Kate Middleton and it’s not until Howard accidentally treads on his foot going for the spices that he realises people are actually still talking.
From what he gathers, Josie’s cave man boyfriend has got drunk on whatever passes for alcohol in Wales, decided he still loves her and Josie’s upset about it. J.P. wouldn’t mind if some of his exes decided they were suddenly available for kinky, absence-makes-the-heart-grow-fonder sex. He says as much.
‘Firstly,’ Josie turns on him, 5”2 of small, blonde and angry. It’s like being savaged by a china doll, which is to say worse than you’d think. ‘You don’t have exes; you have women you’ve slept with and never called-’
‘I know right?’ J.P. grins. ‘My life is awesome!’
But Josie doesn’t seem to care about his sexual prowess. Before he can get his sentence out she’s ranting on in that way that makes her define every word as though she’s making sure the accent won’t get in the way and really it’s a little sexy. J.P. has unresolved issues with his childhood elocution tutor.
‘Secondly, it’s a big deal because he’s got it into his head to make some great big romantic gesture and-’
Oregon squeals and for a moment J.P. really thinks Vod’s done something to her under that blanket they have thrown over their legs. He wonders when the two of them are going to get it over and shag and whether they’d let him watch.
‘One for me!’ she announces triumphantly, producing a fountain pen (Oregon always seems to have a pen handy) and going to add a mark to the fridge.
‘Let me see that,’ Vod pulls her back down and grabs the phone. ‘Urrgh. Urrgh. “Pleasure’s a sin, and sometimes sin’s a pleasure”. Oh that is definitely pervy.’
‘It’s not pervy,’ Oregon says defensively.
‘It is.’
‘Well it’s still poetry.’
‘How can you tell?’
Apparently Oregon is flawed by the brilliant simplicity of the question. ‘I...just can. Not all poetry has to rhyme.’
‘But not everything that doesn’t rhyme is poetry,’ Vod announces smugly, in the way that means she’s learnt something.
‘Well no...’ For a second Oregon is flustered but then she starts talking about repetition and metre and assonance and other stuff that J.P. doesn’t understand and is therefore boring. Her face lights up and she gets this unconscious little smile and J.P. begins to suspect it’s the books she wants to have sex with, not some clingy old guy who thinks Jedward is a professor.
‘Getting back to my problem,’ Josie cuts in, in a chipped diamond voice.
Vod and Oregon ignore her.
‘It’s still pervy,’ Vod argues.
‘It’s a poem!’ Oregon assures her. ‘Actually it’s kind of familiar... She taps something into her phone, waits and then looks suddenly outraged. ‘It’s Byron. I don’t believe he’s trying to fob me off with Byron. As if I wouldn’t know. That’s practically plagiarism. Worse than plagiarism. He deserves to...’ she looks briefly to Vod for inspiration. ‘...to rot in hell with a red poker up his cock!’
‘Yeah! Hey, does that mean I get the point?’
Oregon’s face shifts, becomes softer. ‘Or maybe,’ she says slowly. ‘He just assumed I’d know it was Byron. That’s quite sweet actually. Do you think I should call-’
‘No!’ Vod says, obviously about to launch into a long rant about creepy tutors and their saggy old man penises. ‘He is such a perv...’
‘Oh,’ Oregon frowns. ‘Hey, you’re not just saying that for the bet are you?’
By this point Josie looks ready to choke with indignation. ‘Um hello, we were talking about my ex boyfriend...’
‘Ladies!’ Howard breaks in. ‘Ladies, ladies, ladies. And also J.P. I know exactly how we can solve this situation.’
‘Yeah?’ Vod says. ‘What?’
‘A Ven-diagram,’ he announces proudly.
The silence that follows is more confused than stunned.
‘You simply take two intersecting circles,’ he begins to elaborate, scrawling on the back of an empty cereal box. ‘On representing ‘poetic’ and the other representing ‘pervy’...’
‘How’s that going to help with the bet?’ Oregon frowns.
‘How’s any of this going to help with Dave?’
‘Oh relax,’ J.P. says. ‘It’s not like he’s coming here or anything.’
Everyone turns to stare at him.
‘Um... yes he is,’ Vod says. ‘Weren’t you listening?’
‘He’s in the car now and he’ll be here in an hour forty five, an hour and a half if the traffic’s good and he’ll try and take me back in some big sweeping gesture and I’ll give in because I always do and I’ll have to drop out and move to Wales and be a mountain lion forever!’
Oregon pulls Josie into a hug and mouths ‘mountain lion?’ over her shoulder. Vod shrugs.
‘Oh...’ The whole thing was starting to make more sense now. ‘So that’s why you need a boyfriend. I thought you were just really desperate for-’
‘What J.P. means is,’ Howard cuts in. ‘Of course one of us will help you in your hour of need. But not me: I twitch when I lie.’
‘Oh.’ Josie looks non-plussed. ‘Thanks Howard. Um...’
‘Why are you looking at me?’ Vod objects.
‘J.P.’ Josie turns to face him. ‘You’re a boy.’
J.P. splutters. ‘I think you’ll find I’m all man.’
‘You’re a...guy then,’ Josie amends. ‘Be my fake boyfriend?’
‘Do fake boyfriends get real sex?’
‘You’ve had that,’ Vod says. ‘Twice.’
Josie blushes. ‘Can we not talk about-’
‘Oh, hump me with your mega cock,’ Vod retorts lazily. Oregon giggles.
‘I think you’ll find it’s my mega-cock,’ J.P. says, not to be outdone.
Somehow Josie doesn’t look nearly as delighted to be his new temporary fake girlfriend as he would have expected. She’s about to say something withering (J.P. can tell: Josie might look like a china doll but she can be mean. At least he’s never told anyone he regretted sleeping with them, or at least not anyone as attractive as him) when her phone goes. Josie sinks heavily onto the sofa.
‘Oh, I have had enough of this,’ Vod snaps, snatching Josie’s phone out of her hand.
‘Yeah? Josie’s phone. Vod speaking,’ she barks.
‘What are you doing?’ Josie hisses, reaching for the phone. Oregon swats her away, eyes wide for what Vod is about to do next.
‘Yeah, we’ve met. Hang on,’ Vod says, glaring at both of them. ‘I’ll go somewhere quieter.’
‘What was that for?’ Josie demands, rubbing her wrist.
‘Shush!’ Oregon is listening avidly, straining for the faint sounds of Vod’s voice from the hall. ‘I can’t hear anything now.’
‘Neither can I,’ Josie snaps. ‘And who cares what you can hear? He’s not your boyfriend.’
J.P. looks up, hoping for a catfight. Unfortunately they’re separated when Vod strides back in, hands Josie’s phone back to her with a flourish and sits back down on the couch.
‘Well?’ Josie demands.
‘He says he’s turning the car round,’ Vod announces. ‘Won’t bother you anymore.’
‘What?’ Josie asks, stunned. She expected to feel guilty but instead she just feels free. ‘I mean, how?’
Vod shrugs. ‘I told him I was shagging you.’