Nip 'N' Tuck Read Online Free PDF Page B

much!’ Sven let his eyes slide down to focus on the teenager’s stupendous bosom. And it was more than a professional appraisal.
    ‘Yes. Who would have thought that beneath the chick-pea halitosis and hand-knitted bulky jumpers lurked a beautiful fifteen-year-old,’ Hugo teased.
    ‘
Thirteen
,’ my niece amended strictly, nodding towards her mum.
    My sister’s anti-gravity precautions include not only bribing the Passport Office to allow her an airbrushed photo but also making her daughter pretend to be thirteen for the last two years.
    ‘Anyway, beauty is superficial crap, it just makes you into a decorative object. A vase with tits.’
    ‘Your breasts remind me of Mount Rushmore … My face should be among them. I’m a president too, you see. Of your mother’s modelling agency.’ Sven winked at her. ‘You don’t mind a bit of tasteless humour, do you? I do so love to whip these liberals into a froth of indignation.’
    ‘I hate my boobs. They only attract one-track-minded creeps. Phallocrats. And penetration is oppressive.’
    ‘Marrakech,’ chided her mother. Victoria was holding herself very still, as if she were an overfull glass of wine that might spill at any moment. I winced for her. Despite our differences, there’s a fine silver umbilical wire uniting us. Something to do with all those childhood years of crawling to the bottom of the bed, shrieking with laughter about something ridiculous our mother had said, snorting, howling, muffling our hilarity with our nighties. Something to do with all those years whispering sad secrets beneath those covers, holding each other because nobody else would.
    But Sven looked far from displeased at Marrakech’s feisty outburst. He’d made a career out of bedding women – two thousand at the last count (his). Running the European division of Divine put him in prime position to play the Cuntmeister. And working with teenagers allowed him never to grow up. At fifty-six, the man was a senile delinquent. Peter Pan with the Lost Girls.
    ‘Phallocrats, eh?’ Sven repeated, lasciviously. He eyed my niece hungrily. Think fluffy pink bunny, I thought, think python.
    ‘I agree wholeheartedly,’ said Hugo. ‘I’m so glad I married you, Lizzie. Men who marry beautiful women are heading for an early grave. Men married to plain women live an average of twelve years longer. Looks
can
kill!’
    Victoria clucked her tongue in utter horror on my behalf. But I merely laughed.
    I punched my husband’s bicep good-naturedly. ‘Thanks very much, you sweet-talking bastard. And on my birthday, too.’
    ‘So it’s ya birthday? How old are ya, hon?’ Britney came out of her sulk to miaow at me.
    Victoria spluttered, unable to believe one female had asked another female that question in public. My sister maintained that the best way to tell a woman’s age was
not
to.
    ‘Thirty-nine,’ I stated, with matter-of-fact pride.
    Britney who was approaching thirty, but I’m not sure from which direction, recoiled. ‘Hon, your cake must be
collapsing
from the weight of candles. Hell, you’ll need
two
cakes!’
    Britney Amore obviously had some good points – if you like rottweilers. But before I could share this insight with her, the guest speaker from the women’s refuge, who were benefiting from the show, took to the podium. Terrified that any talk about women might make mention of cramps or secretions, the various well-fed corporate cowboys, so desperate to appear PC, could not disguise their drinking-straight-whisky expressions.
    Next to me, Sven absentmindedly rearranged his testicles in their too-tight pants and murmured to Marrakech. It might have looked to others as though he was scratching his dick but, considering where he kept his brains, it was clear to me that the man was just thinking. Edging closer, I overheard him offer her a modelling contract. ‘Modelling agencies are ruthless and cut-throat … especially the good ones,’ he bragged, marinating in his own