Bang: Memoirs of a Relationship Assassin Read Online Free PDF Page A

walked, the way I talked. All new.
    Nowadays, changing into somebody else is part of the job. The only way to get close to a target is to turn myself into someone they’re attracted to. And since everyone’s attracted to different types, I have to find out what that is and adjust my looks and behaviour to match. Simon Templar was nothing like me, but he was just the kind of smoothie that pushed Amanda’s buttons.
    He was a mask. I’ve worn dozens of them. All the men I’ve pretended to be, to get close to a target: funny men, cool men, aggressive men, impulsive men, intelligent men… professionals, students, businessmen, plumbers, police officers… salt of the earth workers, well-to-do middle class types, distant cousins of royalty… I’ve been them all. It’s second nature now, but back then it was a revelation, that I could just change myself so easily.
    So I turned into this new kid and started asking girls outright if they’d like to try having sex. They started saying, well… all right then.
    You might think that at fifteen I was playing hide-the-sausage every other day. A lot of my mates were. I’d never had the confidence to go for it the way some lads at school did, or the older boys from the sixth form college up the road (those guys were the real catch for any teenage girl). But now I realised it wasn’t about confidence as such. You just had to not give a shit. Like you could get it anywhere, so who cares if she says no? Take a drag on your cigarette and shrug. No big deal either way.
    Works a treat.
    I guess I have my mother to thank for this way of thinking. She calmed down a lot after a year or so, maybe having got it out of her system, and accepted that the woman in the mirror was her after all. My looks seemed to kick in about then too. At the time, I genuinely believed I was becoming better-looking purely because I was getting some! In 1996, I was just another scrawny, spotty kid. When I left school in 1997, you wouldn’t have recognised me. But you’d have noticed me.
    One difference. Mum had sex for fun. After the first few times, I usually did it for a reason. For me, it was even more fun if I got something out of it. There was always some small favour a girl could do. Letting me copy her coursework answers. Lending me that new album. Little things like that. Just knowing I was getting something out of it always gave me a real boost. It meant I could pretty much get it on with anyone, no matter what they looked like. That helped with a lot of girls – the fact that you didn’t need to be the prettiest popstar-wannabe in school to get a fit lad like me. Who had the time to go hang around the sixth form anyway? Not if you could find it closer to home.
    And you know what? You’d be surprised how popular you become in a comprehensive school, once the whispers go out across playground and classroom and assembly hall. That nobody would ever be turned away.
    Nobody at all.
    I always imagine the therapist seizing on this little story. Smiles around the room as the counselling session veers onto familiar territory. A silent nod on the other side of the confessional box, feeling I could now be blessed with forgiveness. With a childhood like that, no wonder he does what he does. Blame the parents!
    I really am their child, in many ways. Did you think I was a bastard?
    My name is Scott Rowley, and I am not in counselling. I’m not going for confession, either. I’m on my way to see my agent about a new mission. And I’m late.
    So keep up.

Chapter 3
     

Infidelity Ltd
     
    I stepped out of the stretch limo. Strolled through the glass mezzanine and took the express elevator to the penthouse office suite. At the top of Assassin Towers, with the whole of London sprawled out beneath me, I sat down behind my mahogany desk and voice-activated my phone.
    Get me the Munich office, I told my secretary. Then send the Asia-Pacific regional director our quarterly targets. Tell him if he doesn’t clinch that