Dolphin-san: Hello again all you crazy people! Well I said that it wouldn't be long until the next chapter was out and here it is! I've been writing for ages but it's just because I'm super psyched that it's my birthday tomorrow. Hurray I'll be old enough to drive!

But any way, on with the chapter. Enjoy.

Chapter 11

Thank goodness it wasn't a hairy chest.

'Ouch,' whispered Hiro, wincing as the sharp nib of the fountain pen dug into his skin.

'Sorry.' There, done. Hurriedly refastening the buttons, Ray murmured, 'Next time, carry a magic a marker.'

'I can take the pain.' Hiro grinned at him. 'You're worth it.'

The curtain was abruptly whisked aside. Ray sagged against the balcony railings.

'Oh, for heaven's sake, there you are.'

Bev sounded like a teacher berating a lost child on a school trip.

Adrian, peering suspiciously over her shoulder, said, 'What are you two doing out here?'

'Felt faint.' Sagging a little further, Ray waved an apologetic arm in the direction of the party. 'Sorry, it was too hot in that room. I had to get some air. Oooh,' he clutched his stomach, 'I still feel a bit sick.'

'He needs to get home,' Hiro told them. 'He's really not well.'

'If you throw up, you'll feel better in no time,' Adrian urged.'

Ray rolled his eyes.

'I don't think I will.'

'At least give it a try.' Adrian looked dismayed. 'Oh, come on, you can't go home now, it's only ten o'clock! I was going to take you to Stringfellows.'

'Good grief,' said Bev, astonished. 'Stringfellows! Why?'

'He's famous, isn't he?' Adrian gave Bev a 'God-you're-stupid' look. 'And he knows Peter Stringfellow.'

'Not in the biblical sense,' Ray put in hurriedly.

'Okay, but we won't have to pay to get in, will we?'

'No,' Bev muttered, 'you just have to pay to get out.'

Adrian thought it was a brilliant idea. He'd never been to Stringfellows. Furthermore, it was his lifetime ambition to be snapped by the paparazzi.

Generously he told Bev, You and Hiro can come too. I'm sure Peter won't mind.'

Oh dear, time to leave.'

'I really do feel ill,' gasped Ray.

'You pulled then,' said Bev in the cab on the way home.

'Mm. First prize in the Pillock of the Year contest.'

Having smeared baby lotion all over his face, Ray was now wiping it off with a tissue. It was the only way; he never felt like removing his make-up once he got home.

'Adrian really fancied you.'

'Fancied the fact that I was an actor, you mean.'

'He'll definitely phone you.'

'No he won't,' said Ray. 'I made that number up.'

Bev sighed.

'At least he asked for it.'

Oh help, more guilt.

And I shouldn't even feel guilty, Ray thought frustratedly. All Hiro had done was talk to Bev for half an hour. It wasn't as if he was her boyfriend, for heaven's sake.

'Hiro didn't ask for yours?' To cover his shame, he slapped on another handful of baby lotion and began vigorously scrubbing away with the already shredded tissue.

'No.' Bev fiddled for a moment with one of her bracelets. 'Well, I gave it to him.'

'Oh.'

'Just to be on the safe side.' Bev sounded defensive. He might have meant to ask, but forgotten. Or he could have been too shy.'

'Right.'

'The thing is, I really liked him.' Miserably, Bev began picking at a snag in one of her stockings. Within seconds the snag had become a hole. 'I know Adrian was a prize pillock, but Hiro was really nice.'

'Well, he might phone. You never know,' Ray said feebly. The harder he tried not to think about scribbling his own number across Hiro's naked chest, the more ashamed of himself he felt.

'He won't, he won't.' Bev shook her head, waving her hand in a 'give-me-a-tissue' kind of way. 'Who am I trying to kid? I've blown it, I'm never going to hear from him again.'

Over his shoulder, the taxi driver said, 'Come on, love, cheer up. Chances are he's not worth it anyway. He's probably married with five kids.'

Oh golly, thought Ray, I hope not.

'He isn't married.' Bev blew her nose with an unromantic trumpeting noise like a mating elephant. 'I checked.'

'You mean you frisked him for peck-marks?' The taxi driver chuckled at his own wit.

But Bev was no longer listening. Instead, she was gazing with revulsion at the tissue in her hands.

'When I asked you to pass me a tissue,' she said to Ray disgustedly, 'I meant a dry one.'

Gluey white baby lotion was sliding down both cheeks and dripping off her chin. The taxi driver, pulling up at the traffic lights, swivelled round and said, 'Blimey, I saw a Hammer Horror film once just like that.'

'Sorry,' said Ray, who had squirted a Mr Whippy-sized dollop out of the bottle, 'I thought you wanted to take your make-up off too.'

'Swampwpman,' cackled the driver, 'that's what you look like.'

Taxi driver without a tip, that's what you look like,' Bev muttered. Honestly, was there any men left on the planet who weren't complete pigs?

Ray knew as soon as the phone rang in his flat two days later that it was Hiro. He felt his heart do a quick tarantella at the sound of his voice on the other end of the line.

Which, at seven thirty in the morning, was no mean feat.

'The reason I didn't ring you yesterday,' Hiro announced, 'was because I was playing it cool.'

'Me too,' Ray said joyfully. 'So it's just as well you didn't, because I wouldn't have answered the phone.'

Hiro was smiling, he could tell.

'That's got that out of the way, then. We've done the being-cool bit. Now we're allowed to move on to stage two.' Hiro paused. 'So, how are you?'

'Great. How's your chest?'

'Still covered in your phone number.' He sounded rueful. 'That was indelible ink, you know. I had four showers yesterday.'

'What you need is a Brillo pad,' said Ray. 'That'll do the trick. Or you could use one of those sanding disks,' he added brightly. 'You just fit them on the end of your Black and Decker and off you go . . .'

Whoops, unintentional double-entendre. Ray held his breath, praying Hiro wouldn't let him down. If he said anything remotely building-sitey, he'd go off him in a flash.

Just because he'd ripped open Hiro's shirt and scribbled across his bare chest didn't mean he was allowed to be crude.

Ray almost jumped up and down and cheered when Hiro passed the unspoken test.

'I may have to do that.' He sounded amused. 'Adrian's already wondering why I've taken to wearing a dressing gown around the house.'

'Tell him you're a born-again virgin and that nudity is a sin,' said Ray. 'Has he tried ringing me yet?'

'Yesterday. He gat through to a Mrs Finkelstein.

'Was he okay about it?'

'Put it this way,' said Hiro, 'he was on the phone for twenty minutes, begging at first, then getting madder and madder. When she finally hung up on him he yelled, "Can you believe it? Ray's mother won't even let me speak to him, just because I'm not Jewish."'

Ray, who had plucked the number out of thin air, sent a mental apology to poor, shouted-at Mrs Finkelstein.

'Anyway,' Hiro went on, 'that's enough about Adrian. When can I see you?'

Double checking, Ray said, 'Have we definitely stopped playing it cool?'

'Definitely stopped.'

'Oh well, in that case,' Ray said happily, 'how about tonight?'

Crammed onto the tube forty minutes later, Ray was strap-hanging and swaying in unison with everyone else in the carriage when he saw a face he recognised.

He ducked his head and peered more closely at the copy of the Daily Mail being held up by the woman against whom he was currently squashed hip-to-hip. The paper was open at the Dempster page and the girl he had spotted in the main photograph was Daisy Schofield.

The woman to whom the paper belonged was reading the other page. Annoyingly, she was obscuring with her fingers the bit Ray most wanted to see. But Daisy Schofield was certainly looking happy enough, with her thin arms draped around the shoulders of some man or other – oh, come on, move your fingers – and although the accompanying text was partially hidden, Ray was clearly able to make out the words 'in fine form', 'sizzling romance' and 'Wednesday night'.

So much for being laid up with a virus, thought Ray. Elizabeth Turnbull had been right.

'Lying bitch,' he muttered under his breath.

When the woman flinched and glanced sideways in alarm, Ray realised the words hadn't been as far under his breath as he'd thought. Oh well, never mind, maybe f he apologised and explained, the woman would move her fingers and let him read the rest of the article.

But the owner of the news paper was too fast for Ray. Before he even had a chance to open his mouth, the train screeched to a halt at South Ken. The doors scissored open and the woman, still clutching her paper, jumped off.

Now I'll have to buy one myself, Ray thought indignantly, peering after her. Honestly, some people were so selfish.

Dolphin-san: Well I hope you enjoyed that. I know it was kind of short but my hand is starting to cramp up. Lolz. Anyway, until next time everyone. Ja Ne.