The click clack, click clack of four stiletto heels over the marblesque floor. A door swinging open and mixed-up music and voices blaring in. Click clack, click clack away down the passage. The door swinging back. “Has everyone gone? Are we the only ones here?” “Yeh, I’m pretty sure.” “Jesus, those pop star girlfriend dickheads get right on my nerves.” “I know, shallow as Barbie’s swimming pool. No bloody lives of their own.” “No minds of their own. Have you got anything?” “Yeh, what do you fancy? I’ve got a frigging supermarket in my underwear.” The two young women huddled in the toilet cubicle were not the only ones left in the room but they were far too excited by the prospect of illicit drug use to go and check for sure. Hyped up and fed up at yet another legend’s big comeback ‘live’ concert, they were dying to do something more exciting than sit around schmoozing with stars and nearly stars and never-will-be-stars. As well as these two (one pop star, 24, one personal assistant, 26) there was one undercover journalist in the room (Jennie Peters, 28, sometimes known as Jen or Jennifer, sometimes something completely different). Wearing shoes that would never click or clack, Jennie Peters stood completely still, looking in the mirror, working out her tactics for the night. Her heart was beating loud and fast but no one else could hear it. She was very good at keeping very quiet for very long periods of time. Inside the cubicle the pop star (Jo 4 Eva of girl band 4 Eva) forgot tactics and everything she had ever been told by publicity people and lawyers and, of course, her mother. She knew drugs were bad for her in every sense. She knew it was silly to risk all her success for cheap and not-so-cheap highs. She knew but she didn’t give a damn. Not right now. Easy come, easy blow it. The personal assistant (Kerry) could hear her own heart beating like a drum machine on a gabba record. Jo 4 Eva was a big star, much, much better known than her current client. If she could work for Jo, or for any of the 4 girls, she could really start living the high life. So she had to be a bit of a drugs…supplier to get into these intimate positions. It was nothing. No big deal (ha ha). People had done far worse to get what they wanted and for now she wanted this - to be pressed up against pop stardom in a cramped backstage toilet. “Thanks Kerry, you’re a life saver, you know. It’s so hard to find anyone to trust – especially at things like this.” She knows my name, thought Kerry, smiling inside and out, finally she knows it. “No problem, Jo, no problem at all. It’s nice to get out of the back room anyway. The atmosphere’s really weird in there.” “Yeh, I feel like everyone’s watching me. And it’s too loud to talk. Stupid bloody VIP areas, they make me laugh.” You’d moan enough if they didn’t have one though, thought Jennie. You don’t really want the great dirty public rubbing you up close, you big fake. Smoothly she reached into her tiny bag and switched on her even tinier tape recorder. The click was as good as silent. Using this tool of the trade always made her feel a bit like James Bond or one of his catsuited co-stars. She was on a mission too. She wasn’t saving the nation or swapping state secrets but she did have to do a lot of sneaking about in quiet shoes. Jennie hated the fact that whilst spies and secret agents could be heroes, people in her line of work were always villains, scum, lower than scum. Thieves and murderers were more popular with the stupid masses than she was and it just didn’t seem fair. No one understood what a tricky job this could be. Getting caught could mean public crucifixion. Not getting the story could mean a slow and painful death back in the office. Only once had she failed to deliver a tape full of hard-won dirty secrets. Terry Padgett (49, face like a ploughed field) had shouted so loud he’d nearly smashed the bulletproof glass in his private office and she’d never done it again. She’d gone three nights on the trot without sleep but she’d never gone back empty-handed after that. Besides, she didn’t like failing. And why should these stupid coked up celebrities get away with all the hypocrisy? They weren’t saints any of them. They weren’t real heroes – people were daft to ever think they were. It was better that ordinary people knew them for what they were. God, listen to this one. All they ever do is moan. “Things are really hard for me right now,” from the juvenile millionaire, several times over. “It’s like, everyone thinks they know me, but no one really does.” “It must be awful”. “It is. I know it sounds pathetic. I know people think we have everything and can do what we like but it’s not like that. You’re always on show, always just 4 Eva, always so frigging cheerful about everything.” “Here have some more of this, I’ve got loads.” “OK, just to keep me awake.” I could do with some of that, thought Jennie, looking at her frozen reflection in the huge grubby mirror. She realized some of the dirt was signatures, autographs from famous visitors to these private facilities, but she couldn’t be bothered to try and decipher them. She looked back to her own un-famous face. It was heavily made-up, pretty but forgettable, perfect for this line of work. Sometimes people thought they’d seen her before but they rarely remembered where. It was handy that all this lot lived such blurred, confused lives. They wouldn’t recognize Father Christmas after a couple of premiere parties and an album launch or two. Jennie pouted at herself. She could do one of those bloody 4 Eva photo spreads. Anyone could look like that with enough slap on and none of them could even sing. What was the big attraction? Mediocrity as art form? You’re thinking too much, she told herself, as the one-way counselling session continued in the cubicle (“I really loved him as a friend and he used me” “It must have been terrible”). Jennie chanted the inner mantra – ‘get on with the job, just get on with the job’ but her mind wandered wilfully over the weird recent past that had led to her being in places like this, at times like this. It had started when she had, completely innocently and honestly, got involved in the traditional sense with Harry Shepherd (25, midfielder and minor league pin-up). His career was taking off and she was getting nowhere and then he’d dumped her (thanks, Harry) for some model/singer/actress moron. Not one to take rejection lightly, Jennie had persuaded him that she was desperate for one final go at his huge manhood (ha!) and he’d believed that crap and she’d sold the story for many pieces of silver and a new line of work. She’d wanted to be a journalist since the sixth form. She’d just never thought it would be quite this branch of the tree. After that Terry had kept her on and she’d found she had quite a knack for lying and cheating and bending words and rules. It wasn’t interviewing for the Sunday arts sections but only so many journalists could get those cushy numbers and she knew she’d never had the right connections anyway (wrong school, wrong college, wrong wardrobe, wrong vocabulary). Jennie calmed herself with the knowledge that she wrote about the same subjects as grander figures on the scene. She just wrote about them in different ways and if anything the material she revealed was more truthful, she was sure. Those big name interviewers believed any old tosh the stars churned out but the real stories were 3am in powder rooms (well, 2.50, she admitted, looking down at her quiet watch). That’s when you found out who slept with who and why – not over Earl Grey in the Ritz tearooms at 4 o’clock in the sodding afternoon. So she wasn’t wasting her education and her achievements grubbing around in private lives, oh no. That degree in English (2:1, just) and all those A levels that had seemed so important at the time, she could use them to appreciate the irony of her current situation and to deconstruct the crap that celebrities came up with to explain away their baser instincts. And she got paid pretty well. Amazingly well at times. She could live with herself and look in the mirror without feeling ashamed. Look, she was doing it right now. Hello Jennie, what’s a bad girl like you doing in a lovely place like this? “I really want to make an album that means something, not just all this pop stuff. I’ve always had a lot I want to say. It’s just now I’m well-known I might get a chance to do stuff that’s… good, you know.” “That’s brilliant. I bet it’ll do really well.” “Do you think? It’s hard, ‘cos although I can seem confident I’m not. I’m really shy, I get embarrassed like anyone.” “Really? You’d never know.” “Yeh, like all the tabloid stuff, it’s embarrassing, whether it’s true or not. It makes it hard to relax with someone, like with Joseph, because you never know if he’s got a bloody video camera stashed somewhere taping my frigging orgasms...” “I suppose.” “If I had any of course…” Laughing, the click of a cigarette lighter, assorted rustling noises. “Wasn’t he…?” “It started OK but after a couple of times I just couldn’t get into it. He was really inhibited, you know, he wouldn’t try anything...” Great, thought Jennie, dirt on shiny Joseph “boy next door” Murphy. She wouldn’t have to talk to Jo herself at all at this rate (thank God, boring cow). This Kerry hanger-on person was managing just fine, although of course she’d never make it to the printed page. ‘As told to who’s-heard-of-you-person’ would become ‘as told to Jennie Peters’ and why not? It was all on tape, they’d never challenge it. And she had physically listened to all this drivel so it wasn’t a complete lie. Terry always said there was no such thing as a lie anyway. “I keep having dreams, you know, about women. I think maybe men aren’t enough for me, aren’t sensual enough, or something.” Inside the cubicle Kerry swiftly readjusted her expectations of the evening. Is she hitting on me, came the newsflash. Should I make a move or let her do it? Kerry was very open sexually. Anyone higher on the fashion/money/pop/career ladder was considered suitable and a decent amount of drugs and alcohol could make anything enjoyable. To a point. At the same moment Jennie’s eyes twinkled through the smears on the glass. Excellent, she thought. Maybe they’ll get on and do it right now? She grinned cheekily at herself. This bit was always amusing – shame there was no one to share it with. “Have you ever slept with a woman?” Kerry considered for a second, truth or lie, which way to go? “Just the once.” “And, what was it like? Was it better?” Kerry set to preparing another pair of lines to get through this bit. She could already taste nothing but coke in her mouth, in her nose, in her whole system. There followed a gulp from a bottle and some fiddling and rustling noises. “In some ways, yeh. You get so used to it being all about him and then all of a sudden there’s no him to worry about. It’s weird.” Jennie heard the distinctive sound of drugs going up a nasal passage. Kerry’s brain buzzed nicely for a minute. She was in a hot jacuzzi with the love of her life, who ever the hell that was. Then she wasn’t. “I don’t know that I could at the moment. It’d just be something else for them to write about, wouldn’t it? It’d be hard to really explore anything…like that.” “Oh Jo, no one cares about stuff like that anymore. And it wouldn’t do you any harm even if people did find out. Lesbian rumours can be a good thing…get you a bigger gay following!” More drugs went in and Jennie wished they’d just get on with it and rub up against each other for a bit. Quickly too before someone else comes in. For some reason she didn’t get embarrassed listening in on other people’s sex lives. She never found it shocking and never found it touching – she was unmoved in every sense. In some cases she was even part of the job (in there dangling the drugs or the breasts) but then she was even less bothered. A real love life or sex life were not things she’d experienced since starting this job. They just didn’t seem to fit. In that respect she was nothing at all like James Bond or any of his permanently satiated lady friends. “The thing is I wouldn’t know who I liked…who liked me. How can you tell?” Kerry’s mind was curiously alert and foggy - both at the same time. There was a long pause. Jennie wondered what treat to make herself for breakfast later in the day. Pancakes? Waffles? Sausages, tomatoes, maybe egg on toast? “Well, I like you.” Jo 4 Eva was lost for words for the first time all night. The first time for ages. “Sorry. Jo, have I upset you? Oh God, I’m sorry. Please just forget I said anything. Just forget it.” A little sniffle. Jennie made a gag to herself in the mirror. “Jo, Jo, it’s ok. Here, don’t worry. Just forget it…” The sniffle became a sob. Became the sound of fabric touching fabric. Became clumsy, smoky, sad embrace. “It’s alright, Jo. Honestly, it’s alright.” “I’m sorry, I’m just worn out, I think. I can’t keep it up – the brave face all the time. I just get drained and you seem so nice. I feel I can relax with you. You’re not just after something from me. You’re not, are you?” Jennie found this more embarrassing than sex. Please, not the meaningful relationship talk. “We could leave here, get a car, drive miles away, stay somewhere...” “That sounds nice, really nice. I’m so tired.” “Let’s get you out of here then.” Jennie wondered if they really were getting ready to move. Were they even going to drink and drive – that always made a good story. She couldn’t hear the telltale signs. No putting away of drug paraphernalia, no readjusting of clothing. Still, best get ready to exit just in case. She had plenty on tape to make a shock horror story - there was the dirt on Murphy, the lesbian intrigue, the fatigue, the ‘my drugs and drink hell’, another 4 Eva split possibility. That could all be strung out over a few weeks if need be – the rumours, the spin-off stories, the denials, the rehab, the fuss, the rest of the band’s reactions…oh, this could run for ages. Jennie, who sometimes forgot her own real name, looked at herself one last time in the grimy glass. Her smile of self-congratulation was small but significant. The soon-to-be lovers finally began to make leaving sounds. Jennie didn’t need to see their faces to know their expressions. She had no desire to look either of them in the eye and for work purposes it was much better that she didn’t. She clicked her machine off and walked quietly and delicately towards the door. There was nothing she could do to stop the blare of the music when she gently pushed it open but she just guided it shut again with her hand and then headed off back into the VIP crowd as quickly as she possibly could. Tear-stained, tired and thoughtful, the two young women leaving the cubicle didn’t notice any change. They didn’t hear any other sounds but their own.
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