Dead sexy, p.1
Dead Sexy, page 1
Also by Kathy Lette
Till Death Do Us Part
HRT: Husband Replacement Therapy
Best Laid Plans
Courting Trouble
Love is Blind (But Marriage is a Real Eye-Opener)
The Boy Who Fell to Earth
Men: A User’s Guide
To Love, Honour and Betray
How to Kill Your Husband (And Other Handy Household Hints)
Nip ‘n’ Tuck
Dead Sexy
Altar Ego
Mad Cows
Foetal Attraction
The Llama Parlour
DEAD SEXY
Kathy Lette
AN IMPRINT OF HEAD OF ZEUS
www.ariafiction.com
First published in the UK in 2003 by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd.
This edition first published in the UK in 2024 by Head of Zeus, part of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.
Copyright © Kathy Lette, 2003
The moral right of Kathy Lette to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 9781035901883
Cover design: Simon Michele / Head of Zeus
Head of Zeus
First Floor East
5–8 Hardwick Street
London EC1R 4RG
WWW.HEADOFZEUS.COM
For John Mortimer, the literary love god,
in celebration of his eightieth birthday.
No woman is an island
* * *
How can we win the sex war when we keep fraternizing with the enemy?
Contents
Welcome Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Chapter 1. The Charm Offensive
Chapter 2. Détente
Chapter 3. Conscription
Chapter 4. The Pre-emptive Strike
Chapter 5. Rules of Engagement
Chapter 6. State of Siege
Chapter 7. Aquatic Manoeuvres
Chapter 8. War Footing
Chapter 9. Ceasefire
Chapter 10. The Cold War
Chapter 11. Biological Warfare
Chapter 12. Declaration of War
Chapter 13. Double Agent
Chapter 14. Classified Information
Chapter 15. Coochi Coochi Coup
Chapter 16. The Firing Squad
Chapter 17. Booby Trap
Chapter 18. The Ambush
Chapter 19. Mobilization
Chapter 20. Retreat
Chapter 21. Kamikaze
Chapter 22. Terms of Surrender
Chapter 23. Casualty List
Acknowledgements
About the Author
An Invitation from the Publisher
The Differences Between the Sexes: Origin
Women are from Venus.
Men are from, well . . . Milton Keynes, mostly.
1. The Charm Offensive
God, apparently as a prank, devised two sexes and called them ‘opposite’. For 5,000 years the sex war has raged, with still no truce in sight. While birds, beasts of the field, invertebrates even, all pair off happily, breeding away without the aid of French ticklers, nipple-window bras, videos entitled Moist or Thrust, Viagra, She- agra, clitoris-orientation classes or internet dating sites listing GSOHs — the male and female of the human species are constantly at war. We’re supposed to be the higher animal life form, but you don’t see octopi going on dating-quiz television programmes to get laid, now do you?
This is what Shelly Green thought to herself as she waited at the altar of a church on Euston Road, on a dark, damp February day, a sweat stain the shape of Ireland beneath each armpit of the posh frock she’d been tricked into wearing on the pretext that she was going to play classical guitar at a Valentine’s Day wedding.
She just didn’t know it was going to be her own.
The TV presenter, sporting a tangled, unruly hairstyle that few men outside a heavy metal band would dare to contemplate, was relaying events via a hand-held microphone to his viewers across England.
‘And we can now reveal that the winners of our computerized matchmaking competition here at Channel Six are . . . Shelly Green and Kit Kinkade!’ he announced with lunatic fervour. ‘Their prize? Each other! Plus one hundred thousand pounds. Each!! A white wedding in Gretna Green, a reception in the faaaab-ulous Balmoral Hotel, a honeymoon on the sensaaaat-ional, unspoilt Réunion Island, a two-bedroom flat in the Docklands and —’ he verbally drum-rolled ‘— a Honda hatchback! All of which the little love birds get to keep if, and I underline if, they can stay hitched for one whole year! What do you think, viewers? Has the computer played Cupid? Have two soulmates been united? Or will we watch as Kit and Shelly break up in a frenzy of mutual recrimination and toxic incompatibility? . . .’
The maps beneath Shelly’s armpits now grew to encompass all of the British Isles. She glowered at the gaggle of sixth-form pupils in their prime position in the front pews. They were the ones who’d tricked her into this debacle. An acned, teenage crew, they’d taken up music to get out of Home Ec and Woodwork, but had lucked upon the only teacher who didn’t make them feel like pond-scum. These students liked their beloved music teacher enough to realize that she, a late and only child, was still grieving for her mother who’d succumbed to ovarian tumours three years earlier. To kick-start Shelly’s life again they’d secretly entered her name into this reality television marriage competition, a crime for which, Shelly silently swore, they could expect detention involving a lot of trigonometry for the rest of their natural bloody lives.
‘So, isn’t this every little girl’s dream, Shelly – to be married on Valentine’s Day?’ The coiffured presenter thrust the mike into her startled face.
‘I don’t like the idea of getting married on any day,’ Shelly replied, stunned. ‘I don’t even like the idea of men all that much!’
Shelly’s music students, overhearing this blurted confession, looked stricken. There was bound to be some legal penalty for forging their teacher’s signature on the entry form. The announcer looked equally alarmed. He abruptly reclaimed his microphone and launched nervously into an upbeat spiel, for the benefit of any new viewers, on the programme’s premise. Basically, having been matchmade by computer from thousands of entries, after this ‘gorgeous’ photo opportunity, bride and groom would be chauffeured by limousine to Gretna Green. This village just over the Scottish border, he explained, was a traditional elopement destination which didn’t require the usual month’s notification of the intention to marry. During the five-hour trip, the nation would hold its breath – and the station would sell loads and loads of advertising – while the ‘winners’ decided whether or not to accept the computerized marriage proposal.
But just as Shelly was summoning up the courage to stop the presenter mid-flow and call off the whole idiotic stunt before the PR people could bundle her into the courtesy limo that was purring kerb-side, the flustered frontman announced the arrival of her ‘intended’.
‘From the three final male contestants, a systems analyst from Ipswich and –’ the presenter consulted his clipboard – ‘a solicitor from Milton Keynes, how could you not fall for a man who answered Cupid’s request on his attitude to love with, ‘About my height, only fatter’? And folks! Do you know what? The computer agreed!’
As the presenter went on to describe Kit Kinkade to the viewers, including his response to a question about his attitude to sex (apparently, as far as Mr Kinkade was concerned, sex was nobody’s business, except for the horse, dog, wife and two hookers involved), a top-hatted-and-tailed streak of chic moved debonairly, Fred Astairely down the aisle towards Shelly. ‘Height 6 foot 1. Complexion olive. Hair fair. Age 35 years. Profession doctor’ reached the altar, spun towards Shelly on a Cuban heel and cocked his top hat rakishly over one eye. With his tanned face, butter-blond shoulder-length hair, fleshy mouth, green eyes and chiselled physique (despite his diamond ear stud, this was a Real Man, the kind of guy who could take a cold capsule and still operate heavy machinery), it was clear that Mr Kinkade was a GP who had a five-mile queue to get into his waiting room and a five-year waiting list to make it into his palm pilot.
When Shelly first saw her intended groom, she smiled so hard she pulled a muscle.
Kit’s eyes slid up and down Shelly’s body and she felt her face burn.
‘Height 5 foot 4. Complexion fair. Hair brunette. Age 31 years. Profession musician’ tensed, squared her shoulders and sucked in her abs so violently it felt as though she had a vacuum cleaner strapped to her vertebrae. Shelly had been so engrossed in her intended’s appearance that she hadn’t given much thought to what his first impressions would be of her.
The high-school music teacher suddenly felt gawky in the soufflé of white chiffon one size too small she’d dug out of the back of her wardrobe for the non-existent gig at the non-existent wedding. She also knew she’d become rather bland over the last few years since she’d cut her hair,
‘You lied’ were the first words her computer-chosen hubby-to-be ever said to her. ‘On your form.’ Shelly was so amazed to note that her groom was chewing bubblegum at the altar that she didn’t register right away that the honeyed twang was American. ‘Five four, blue eyes, natural charms . . .’
Oh God, she cringed. What else had those bloody kids said about her? She ran her fingers through her ragged locks. Shelly’s hair, cut on the cheap by a pupil’s mum, was not exactly a designer style. It was more as if she’d been knocked down in the street by a runaway lawn mower which had then done three-point-turns all over her cranium. Or perhaps – she started to panic beneath his cool scrutiny – she should have given a bit more thought to cuticle build-up? Didn’t everybody know that ‘natural charms’ simply decodes as being too lazy to bleach her moustache every four weeks?
‘Well,’ she stammered, ‘nobody is ever going to admit that they’re ordinary looking, are they?’
‘Naw,’ Kit clarified. ‘You lied about your eyes. They ain’t blue – they’re aqua.’ And then he gave a slow smile, a rich glint of wickedness lighting up his own lovely orbs. ‘Not to mention your hot bod. You shouldn’t wear such tight dresses so poor unsuspecting guys can’t see how sexy you are. The only part of you that’s safe to have on display is your big toe . . . or maybe an elbow.’
Well, Shelly mentally amended, perhaps she could just go for the limo ride. I mean, what harm could one limo ride do, hmmm? That would give her time to work out how the hell she was going to get out of this preposterous situation without landing her pupils in deep disciplinary doo-doo for forgery and conspiracy to commit public mischief.
*
‘Look,’ Shelly confessed the moment the smoky-windowed limo lurched into the London traffic heading north and Kit had detonated the Dom Perignon with an optimistic pop. ‘Actually I’m a misogamist.’
‘Really?’ Kit Kinkade’s laser-like eyes burned into her. Shelly had to check that she didn’t have any more holes in her body than were strictly speaking necessary. ‘You hate women? I thought all chicks were lesbians – emotionally. It’s just that when it comes to comin’, you need us guys.’ He grinned saucily.
‘No! Not a misogynist. Misogynist is just Greek for “man”.’ (It was something her mother used to say.) ‘I’m a misogamist. I’m allergic to marriage.’ This disclosure was evidently of profound concern to the man beside her. One long leg jerked as though it had been struck by an invisible neurologist’s hammer. Shelly quickly preoccupied herself with guzzling bubbles from the crystal lip of her frothing flute, while he composed himself.
‘Yeah, me too,’ he faked, breezily. ‘Allergic to normal marriage, that is. But this ain’t normal, is it? How many failed “normal” relationships have you had? Squillions, right?’ He paused to toss in a fresh piece of bubblegum. ‘Well, me too. Which is why arranged marriages are the way to go. Once marriages were arranged by tribal elders and family . . . but, well, my folks are dead.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ Shelly said, with compassion. ‘You must miss them dreadfully,’ she added, pained by a sudden stab of the grief that had coagulated around her own heart.
Kit shrugged. ‘Nope. Mom only ever broke off talkin’ about her complex gynaecological problems to tell me again what a waste of labour pains I was. Got a picture of her someplace –’ he started rooting around in his wallet – ‘topless, in the Readers’ Wives section of some shitty magazine. Not that she was a “wife” for long, mind you. I only saw my dad once. For Thanksgivin’.’
‘How was it?’ was all Shelly could think to say. Talking to Kit Kinkade was not so much a conversation, more a rush of verbal vertigo.
‘Novelistic. A Streetcar Named Desire. Act One, Scene Four.’
‘Actually, that’s a play, not a n—’ Shelly began, but Kit plunged on.
‘He had a house that was mobile but ten cars that weren’t, ya know? Oh, I guess his phone was mobile too, come to think of it. With a speed dial to the UFO report hotline.’
If only Shelly could stop thinking about how the champagne and bubblegum would taste mixed together on his luscious lips, she’d be able to say something sensible along the lines of ‘it’s been lovely meeting you, but clearly our differences in education are going to mitigate against a happy union.’ Instead of which she could only manage a faint query. ‘If aliens really exist, why do they never abduct sensible Brits – only weird people from Texas?’
‘Arkansas, actually,’ he corrected, with a wry, lopsided smile.
‘And your father?’ Shelly tried not to watch him moistening that succulent mouth with his tongue. ‘ Where is he now?’
‘Dead. Cirrhosis of the liver. Mind you, he hid his transvestite tendencies from his family to the very end, so that was somethin’.’
‘Oh,’ Shelly said. She seemed to be saying ‘Oh’ rather a lot. ‘I’m sorry,’ she added diplomatically. ‘About your father dying, I mean.’
‘Don’t be. I only went to the funeral so that I could drive a wooden stake through the coffin lid, screamin’, “Take that! Oh creature of the night!”’
‘Oh.’ (There was that ‘oh’ again.) ‘So we’re both orphans then.’ She waited for him to inquire about her story, to show mutual concern. But Kit Kinkade just blew a diaphanous bubble that obscured half his handsome face. They were well into thesecond bottle of Dom Perignon and his tenth hilarious family anecdote and he still hadn’t asked.
And it was just as well really as there wasn’t much to tell, she admitted to herself, hovering over a grotty loo in a Midlands motorway service station. Her beloved mother had been abandoned by Shelly’s dad – a drug-addled, promiscuous Celtic rock guitarist with a band called I Spit In Your Gravy. Next she was ostracized by her Bible-bashing Welsh family for having a child out of wedlock. Shelly’s mum, although intellectual, had eventually become, out of necessity, addicted to Reader’s Digest DIY manuals, with special editions devoted to Adjustable-track Shelving Systems. She watched videos entitled ‘Adding a Spur Socket To A Ring Circuit’. They didn’t need a cleaner in their flat but a mechanic. Unable to afford even package holidays, she’d subscribed to Practical Caravanning magazine. Yes, Shelly thought, it was a safe bet that her small family unit was never going to be made into a TV situation comedy.
‘Anyway, where was I?’ As they passed by Birmingham, Kit shrugged off his satin-lined black jacket. Shelly couldn’t help noticing how the man’s tight silk shirt worshipped every inch of his musculature.
‘Oh yeah. Arranged marriages. Once upon a time, couples were matched by tribal elders, right? Well, this millennium they’re matched by computers. Now I know you’re a Brit, so you’re naturally pessimistic – your blood type is B minus, am I right?’ He grinned. ‘But just think about it. A house! A car! Not to mention the big buckaroos! Twenty-five thousand pounds each today, another twenty-five thou at the end of the week if we can stay hitched, plus another fifty if we make it to the end of the year!’
‘Money isn’t everything, Kit.’
*
‘I know – there’s also MasterCard and travellers cheques!’ he joshed. ‘Plus, an amazin’ holiday. This beach resort at Réunion is so exclusive not even the tide can get in.’
Shelly smiled. He was quirky, yes, but also quick-witted. She liked that in a Love God. ‘Look, Kit, it’s not that I’m averse to going somewhere hot with a lot of vowels and a turquoise sea – and all for free – but . . .’
‘But what? Hey, Shelly, at our age, tempus is fugitin’ like there’s no tomorrow.’
Shelly perked up. ‘In vino veritas,’ she toasted back. But he looked at her blankly.
‘Latin? You speak it?’ she asked, rather pointlessly. Her mother had drilled it into her, along with the rudiments of music.
‘Don’t try that educated shit on me, kiddo. I left Arkansas Maximum Security High at fifteen.’ He popped his gum again. ‘I’m an autodidact.’
