Ruby and the Stone Age Diet Read Online Free PDF Page B

flushed and annoyed.
    ‘Help me with my diaphragm,’ she says.
    ‘What sort of help do you need?’
    ‘I can’t fit it. I am going to see Domino tonight and I have this diaphragm from a doctor because I don’t want to take the pill anymore but I can’t get it fitted right.’
    Ruby brings out a tube of spermicide and squeezes some onto her finger, then rubs it all over the round piece of plastic.
    ‘I’ll have one last try.’
    She lifts up her dress and squats on the floor andsqueezes the diaphragm in halfway and tries to fit it but somehow she can’t. It keeps slipping out.
    ‘Stupid fucking thing,’ she rages.
    I try and help. Ruby lies on the floor and opens her legs wide and I insert it.
    ‘Make sure it is stationed securely behind the pubic bone.’
    Her vagina is slippery from spermicide but when I fit it, it stays inside.
    ‘There,’ I say, always pleased to do Ruby a favour.
    ‘It’s not right.’
    ‘How not?’
    ‘It’s not covering my cervix,’ says Ruby, glowering, feeling inside her with her fingers. ‘Do you have any cigarettes?’
    I light some cigarettes although this takes several tries as the matchbox also becomes slippery with spermicide.
    ‘Are you sure?’
    ‘Of course I’m sure. Don’t you think I know when my cervix is covered?’
    She takes my hand and puts my fingers up her vagina.
    ‘See?’
    ‘Not really.’
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘Well, I’m not really sure what a cervix is.’
    ‘You must know what a cervix is.’
    ‘Well I do, in general terms. Just not exactly.’
    Ruby frowns some more and removes the diaphragm, then she shows me exactly which bit is the cervix.
    ‘This little bit in here that sticks out.’
    Ruby tells me it moves around. I am fascinated.
    ‘Does it move around fast? I mean, do you have to wait till it stays still for a minute, then try and get the diaphragm over it quickly?’
    Apparently it doesn’t. I try again and this time I am successful.
    ‘Thank you,’ says Ruby, standing up and adjusting her dress.
    The room is covered in spermicide. Any sperm that comes in will have no chance of survival whatsoever.
    I tell Ruby that I like her new sunglasses and remind her that my band is looking for a new drummer, just in case she comes across one on her travels. She leaves to visit Domino.
    Cynthia, pursued by detectives, meets her true love
    After a few days sleeping rough Cynthia meets some punks who live with some hippies in a huge old vicarage near King’s Cross. She makes friends and moves in with them
.
    One night the hippies annoy her by banging drums when she is trying to sleep. Cynthia stares out of the window. A full moon stares back at her. She goes and eats the hippies
.
    My my, she thinks. That was a good meal. Something between brown rice and a lentil casserole
.
    Werewolf detectives surround the house. They are armed with machine-guns loaded with deadly silver bullets
.
    Cynthia is forced to flee. Tumbling down the stairs she meets Paris, a young newcomer to the commune. She falls in love with him on sight
.
    But she only has time to brush her lips against his before the detectives pound down the stairs after her, and she flies off into the night
.

     
     
     
    Sometimes I work for an industrial agency that gets me casual work in factories.
    Ruby phones them up for me because I am not very coherent on the phone. When she does this she tells them she is my wife.
    I get a job cleaning in a huge industrial garage in Gunnersbury. The floor is black with oil and I have to clean it till it is white. It takes me around a day to clean a space the size of a car, grinding away at years of grease and filth with a scrubbing brush and a mop and a bucket. Also I have to clean the toilets.
    The first day I make the mistake of cleaning the toilets too early and at the end of the shift all the workers come in and make everything dirty again. So after that I leave cleaning the toilets till last.
    The company tells the agency that I am a good worker