MR TONER GOES TO THE STANDARD, HOLLYWOOD
2014-07-23Almost before it started, she was terrified that it would end.
The only thing she could compare it to was the feeling of getting high, as she used to do on endless college weekends, and the panic – which started as soon as the rush did – that the feeling wouldn’t last until the end of the queue, that the rush would rush up and out of you before you got to dance in the dark and the sweat.
It was hot in Los Angeles, as it always was, but this was the kind of heat which pleased nobody, not even the reddening tourists on the strip who sweated into their baseball caps and drank to make up for it. It was the third night of her stay and, aside from business, nothing had happened. She was beginning to wonder whether nothing ever happened to women over 35.
That evening, after showering, she descended to the bar and ate dinner alone. Although solo diners were far from unusual in this hotel, the attention of the young dark-haired waitress embarrassed her. She couldn’t tell whether the girl’s little spatters of conversation were patronising or flirtatious, and dreaded the latter. She used to enjoy this game, but now it made her feel old, pervy and uncomfortable.
The air-conditioning was doing little to stop the bar overheating. The waitress and the heat were already making her jumpy, so when a cool hand was placed on her wrist, she startled and gasped.
As she looked up, the boy standing above her chuckled at her overreaction.
In a British accent: “Jesus, love, I was only going to offer to buy you a drink.”
He was teasing her. He’d learnt early that women love to be teased. His tone should have annoyed her, but the dangerous art of flattery was already working. He was young, very good looking in an asymmetrical way and he was at her table to ask her for a drink, not anybody else. She looked up at him, and decided to indulge in flattery.
Before he’d even returned to the table, the panic (it won’t last it won’t last) began.
He was at the bar ordering drinks and chatting with the girl who had been her waitress, looking back at her and grinning with the boyish cockiness she used to see so often in her male friends – the ones she’d got high with and, usually, fucked, all those years ago – whereas now she only saw manly exhaustion. She smiled back at him, pushed the panic’s head under and wondered if he could afford to pay.
“So!” – as he sat beside her without invitation and presented her with a cocktail which was half ice – “Who are you then?”
She was amused by his bluntness. Did he really not know the approved script for such bar-side flirtations? Perhaps it was a British thing.
She told him her name, her reasons for being in town, and asked the same back. She let his enthusiastic chatter wash over her as she drank and admired him. Another drink followed, and another. She decided to take him seriously when he declared her career summary ‘impressive’, or when he laughed at something she’d said.
Another drink, and she decided she’d like to sleep with him. The panic flared again (it’s going to end it’s going to end) but this time she ignored it.
She was going to make an exception for him, this British boy on his first trip to LA, who didn’t understand that you don’t offer strangers a drink in a hotel like this. He was naïve and it turned her on.
The dark-haired waitress cleared their empty glasses, this time in silence. They watched her leave. It was nearing the end of the night and her vision had become pleasantly blurred. She excused herself for the bathroom and he asked her to hurry back. God, he really did know nothing about this. Perhaps they didn’t play it cool in London.
She looked at herself in the mirror. The alcohol and the boy were making her giddy. She giggled at herself. It wasn’t taking advantage, was it? She knew LA and she knew sex. She was going to give him the holiday of a lifetime.
When she returned to the bar, he wasn’t sitting where she left him. After a brief scan of the room, she wandered towards the terrace. As she passed the kitchen, she saw them. Dark hair across her face, pushed up against the wall, her skirt in his fist, thighs lifted, and him, grunting and thrusting, all teeth and tongue at her throat. The come-down crept along her back and shoulders and reached her face, locking her jaw in a dull ache. It was never going to last.
Photography – Stephen Toner
Words – Rosie Hore
