George goes it alone

George noticed his moustache had turned him overnight into a Freddy Mercury clone. He shaved it off before he went to bed. He felt invigorated, like a new man. Not that he was interested in men, new or old. In terms of hetero-ness he was in the top 1% beside Rocky and Congo apes. He’d campaigned for Page Three Girls to be given their proper place in the Sun. He was a tit man, in the way other men were bum men. Beyonce’s bum was not to be sniffed at. He’d take a bite out of that. The Kardishan’s bums were almost on par. Not their dad’s bum, of course, and not because it didn’t have enough bonce. If she was a he that was really none of his business and it was a business. The idea of all that transgender stuff, absurd, attraction was a mystery.

Take his wife Joy—well, George pondered the vicious, tongue-in-cheek rumours emanating  from Larry their neighbour camped next door—that  everybody did. Top heavy with tits and George knew what people said about girls with tiny feet and peroxide blonde hair suffering from foot and mind disease. She had a firm, womanly, trampoline bonce. Five-foot nothing, a hooked nose, hair straighter that a Nazi and the beady eyes of a King Edward penguin, George thought of her as a good catch. They couldn’t get enough rogering. George was often first in their double king-size ready to slip inside her every night and give her something she’d forget to thank him for in the morning, usually because she wasn’t there.

George’s button-down nose was the next part of his face to show gay propensities. He could no longer bear to splash on tons of manly Old Spice after shaving, his nose turned up against him. Neither could he shave off his nose the way he’d shaven off his moustache. His nose searched the air for more subtle fragrances. He picked up and put down Chanel No. 5, resisting the urge to spray a mist and walk through it. Instead, he stuffed his nostrils with cotton balls.

When the guys in the call centre mocked him, he said it was an adenoid problem. Nobody argued with adenoids. He was off the hook and able to man the phones. But some customers complained that his voice sounded funny, unusually camp and gay, asked if he was a fucking foreigner.

 ‘Just a word,’ Beryl said. His supervisor took him through to her cubicle.

Cunt was the word on the tip of George’s tongue. He could have said more. He’d never noticed before Beryl’s hair. It  was the kind of gannet washed up on a beach effect, poisoned deathly blue by chlorine, and wrapped around her no-neck. She squeezed behind her desk and peered at the laptop in front of her, and then looked at him

‘Is something wrong George?’ Beryl asked.

‘No nothing.’

They heard the wittering of voices talking into headphones and the clatter of keyboards as options for taking customers through  being annoyed, really annoyed, or slamming the phone down in a huff were estimated. Beryl consulted the manual for prompts.

‘You’re one of our top call-centre operatives George and I’m here to help.’ Beryl smiled and then replayed George’s latest sale spiel.

He spoke in a falsetto voice claiming to be an Indian princess that had a fortune stashed away but couldn’t access it, but was willing to do a fifty-fifty split and all he needed was the customer’s bank details.

‘That wasn’t my voice,’ said George. ‘You’ve recorded someone else Columbo.’

She leaned across the desk. ‘Who’s Columbo? And I don’t like to ask George, because it’s none of my business but why are you wearing an outside dress and got kohl around your eyelashes and something stuck up your nose?’

George’s arm floated into the air and he waved his wrist and hand about in front of her face. ‘That wasn’t me either. It’s like that film about pod-people and bodysnatchers.’

‘Didn’t see it.’ She snatched up the phone. ‘I’m calling security.’

George flounced back into his chair and took the opportunity to open his handbag, delved inside and applied a little lippy to his thin lips. ‘Call whoever you like, I’ve got rights, you know.’  

‘Look George, it doesn’t really matter how you dress for this job, or who you think you are. This isn’t a gameshow, but if in this day and age you think a worker has rights you’ve lost the plot entirely and are living on another planet.’

A guy in a uniform came in and stood at her back. He’d been running and was out of breath, his cap slightly askew on his head.

‘Oh, he’s a handsome one,’ said George. His fingernails painted pink with nail varnish waved at the fat security guard, as if he was far, far, away.