Chapter 20
The questions come thick and fast, and the girls grow increasingly despondent at my lack of sexual knowledge and prowess.
‘How can you seriously stand there and not be able to name strange places you’ve had sex? You could have just made it all up for the sake of the fucking quiz!’ Kassy is livid. ‘And why did you blurt out “up the bum” when you clearly fucking haven’t? It wasn’t even your fucking turn!’
It’s true. I panicked. But in all fairness, I clearly didn’t understand the question until they started shouting things like ‘up a tree’, ‘in the meat aisle’ and ‘on a bike’.
I have been the only contestant to be dunked every time. I am so wet, and the heat is so intense, I’m at the point of cooking to death. The steam is rising off me, causing my skin to become irritated. My hair is frizzing beyond all reasonable expectations.
‘Last question,’ calls Carlton. The men are winning by so many that it is mathematically pointless for us to continue.
The girls are now lying down on the bouncy padding.
They are picking their nails, sulking and refusing to look me in the eye.
‘Domestic science. Name food items that look like body parts.’
There’s a huge groan from the girls. I leap to my feet, my Year Three biology project of the human anatomy springing to mind. The boys are struggling once they have said ‘eggplant’ and ‘huge watermelons’. They are so far in the lead they don’t bother to name any more.
‘Broccoli for the hair, marrow for the torso, baby carrots for arms, cherry tomatoes for elbows, oranges for knees, cucumber legs, spaghetti for ligaments, pears for feet, slices of sweet potato for eyes, peas for pupils, aubergine for the stomach, edamame beans for toes…’
On and on I go.
‘Cabbage for intestines. Sweetcorn for teeth.’ The buzzer goes and we have clawed back lots of points. Suddenly we are back in the game.
The girls are giving me a strange look.
‘What can I say?’ I tell them. ‘It’s a gift.’
The final round is called ‘Kissing behind the Bike Shed’.
The aim is for the blindfolded boys to identify who has kissed them.
It looks very much like I might have to kiss one, if not all, of the boys.
The girls are very excited and have perked up.
Mimi nominates herself to go first. We watch as she slobbers over every single male contestant with gusto.
I have reached my limit with this game. A line must be drawn somewhere, and I feel this challenge is it. I drop to the ground in a heap.
‘Count me out. I’m done. I’m not snogging any of that lot.’
I wonder what Cam is making of all this when an alarm goes off, blaring loudly from speakers all around the grounds and the runners come running over to inform us that the fire alarm has gone off, it is not a drill, and we are all to make our way to the safety point.
Ironically, the safety point is the firepit.
There’s no way I’m going to make a fool of myself over the alarm again, so I resist the temptation to snap into teacher mode.
There’s mass confusion with Porscha bellowing, ‘Which of you fuckers has set off the alarm? Who? WHO?’
We huddle together at the firepit. Islanders, runners, camera operators, kitchen staff, producers, maintenance crew and the cleaning team.
There are a lot of us. They seem to be crawling out of the woodwork like ants.
I’m surprised at how many people are actually on-site during the filming: half the production village, it seems.
‘Somebody count heads, will you?’ Porscha barks. ‘And where is the bloody fire anyway?’
We all sniff the air and inhale the fresh scent of olive groves wafting in from the distance and the smell of fresh paint and plastic from the villa.
‘Can’t we just turn that godawful alarm off and carry on filming? Time is money, people.’
The distant blare of sirens would suggest otherwise.
I spot Cam on the far side from me. He looks like a man who is doing his best to ignore me.
Then across the chaos, he turns to search the crowd.
His gaze rests on mine with an almost tender expression, and we lock eyes. There’s something about him.
There’s a brightness to him.
There’s a tiny hint of a smile on his lips.
Then as the Islanders jostle about, I lose sight of him in the throng.
‘I’ll handle this,’ barks Porscha as the emergency services arrive to put out the imaginary fire. ‘Which one of you useless pricks can speak Spanish?’
From nowhere, Cam whispers one word in my ear and, without turning around, I slip quietly away.
* * *
He is already at the blind spot waiting when I arrive.
‘Were you listening to all of it?’ I cringe.
I’m still having visions of all the shocked faces when Carlton asked me, ‘Where’s the strangest place you’ve had sex?
’ and I answered with a question, ‘Up the bum?’ because I misheard and thought he’d said, ‘Where’s the strangest place TO have sex?
’ Even though I tried to explain the misunderstanding many times afterwards, the damage had already been done.
I think the laughing must have gone on for a full ten minutes.
‘No. None of it,’ Cam says, trying very hard not to smile. ‘Not one word.’
I roll my eyes. He heard it all.
‘It was so embarrassing,’ I say, burying my head in his shoulder. ‘I don’t suppose we could cut any of it out of the show, could we?’ I look up, pleading with my big sad eyes.
He looks thoughtful for a moment as he blows out his cheeks. ‘I’ll do my best but what Porscha wants, Porscha gets. It was very funny though. We all knew you’d misheard.’
I groan inwardly.
‘I hate to say Porscha has a God complex, but she totally does, doesn’t she?’ I whisper to him. ‘What am I going to do? The whole world will laugh at me.’
‘She’s a complete narcissist all right.’ Cam is looking down at me.
He’s simply magnificent-looking. ‘It’ll be okay, I promise.
Ready to go back out there? I’ll see if I can get you all a break while we clear up the fire brigade situation.
Might take a while. With any luck they’ll scrap the end of the challenge. ’
‘It was fortunate, the alarm going off like that,’ I say. ‘Were you near the fire when it went off?’
Cam gives nothing away. ‘No, I was busy doing… a thing.’
I am dying to ask if the reason was because he doesn’t want to see me kissing any of the boys. I wait for him to elaborate but he doesn’t.
‘Well, thank goodness someone sounded the alarm because I was not looking forward to having to kiss any of those boys.’
Cam’s cheeks go a flattering pink colour.
‘There’s only one man that I’m interested in kissing,’ I say, hoping he is reading between the lines.
It’s the sexy schoolgirl costume. It’s giving me the power of a young Britney Spears.
I casually lean back against the wall, lifting one foot up to rest against it.
The move causes Cam to glance down at my stockings and short skirt.
I see his eyes travel up my body, taking in the skimpy skirt, the bare midriff and the ridiculously short shirt and tie that barely cover my boobs.
He blinks slowly. It all feels so wrong…
yet so right. I can see his internal battle.
I push off the wall towards him and in a second his mouth finds mine.
His lips feel hot against mine. His hands find my skirt and slip underneath to trace the outline of my suspenders, the tops of my stockings, the delicate lace of my knickers.
As our kiss deepens my hands tangle in his hair.
He lifts me up as though I weigh nothing, and I instinctively wrap my legs round his waist. He holds me tight against him as we lose ourselves in frenzied passion.
He can’t get enough.
I am driving him wild.
He thrusts his groin against me and almost crushes me against the wall.
‘Oh, God,’ he says, quietly breaking off. His breathing is all over the place, as is mine. He has that feverish look again. ‘What are you doing to me?’
He steps away from me. ‘You’d better get back on set.’ His voice is thick with reluctance.
I nod, mute with lust.
‘I’ll arrange a break. So that we can, erm, pull ourselves together.’
‘That would be good,’ I say. ‘I could do with a break.’ My entire body is on fire for this man.
‘Go to the Tree House. I don’t think any of them have discovered it yet. You might get some time alone.’
He’s so thoughtful.
He kisses me lightly on the cheek before disappearing through the kitchen back door and I wonder for the millionth time how on earth a relationship between us could work, outside of this bizarre scenario.
I am falling deeper and deeper for him with every interaction.
The thought echoes around my mind. After the show, what then?
I take a few deep breaths and make my way stealthily to the Beach Hut to clear up a few things on camera. Namely, the world thinking that I am a sexual deviant, just in case they choose not to cut the High School Drop Out Challenge from the show. I bump into Carlton on the way out.
‘Hi,’ he says. ‘I thought you might be coming here. I saw you slip away earlier. They couldn’t see you when they did a roll call, so I told them I saw you heading for the Beach Hut. Where have you been?’
‘Oh, nowhere. Just walking around the garden to get my thoughts together.’
That was close.
‘Ready to go in there?’ he says, pointing to the Beach Hut entrance.
I nod.
‘I just went in to say that I’d like to get to know you more,’ he says. ‘Especially after today. You were hilarious.’
How excruciating. My face is on fire. ‘Listen, those things I said…’
He holds his hands up, laughing. ‘It’s okay. We were just messing with you. But you might want to clear it up with the rest of the world.’
‘One hundred per cent,’ I say, shaking my head with embarrassment.