Chapter 14
CHAPTER 14
Beau was in his studio, gazing down through his loupe at the ring he was working on and wondering if the suggestion of a vulva he was incorporating into the design was a little too unsubtle. It wasn’t an idea he’d worked with before, but that part of human anatomy was rather at the forefront of his consciousness that morning and the shape had just kind of crept into the ring.
He looked at it again and smiled, feeling a familiar twinge, remembering the night before. That had been fun. As had the night before and the one before that. All very different, all great. He was three rings down as a result, so he needed to crack on with rebuilding his stock. Since the disturbing visit to his father’s studio, he’d been rather active in the ring-leaving area. He needed the distraction.
He sighed, frowning, as it all came rushing back again. What he knew – and what he didn’t know, which was somehow worse. The drink with Joe hadn’t turned up anything new, except that he’d have to go and look at the stuff stored at Goldsmiths. Great. Not.
He etched the labia into the ring in more detail, pausing to recall specifics of the previous few nights, which gave him that stirring feeling again.
He smiled to himself and turned up the music when he realised which track had just come on: Marvin Gaye, ‘Sexual Healing’. Good times.
He was singing along when he heard the front door of the studio open into the area where Sam worked.
‘Hey, Samski,’ he called out. ‘How’s it hanging? Come and tell me the news.’
He glanced up, smiling, looking forward to catching up with his chum, but it wasn’t Sam – it was Flora.
‘Flora!’ he said, dropping his tools and getting to his feet, realising how glad he was to see her. She’d never come to the studio before. ‘What a lovely surprise, come in, sit down. Would you like some tea?’
‘No, I would not like any tea,’ said Flora. She did not look happy. In fact, she looked absolutely furious.
Beau walked towards her. ‘Are you okay?’ he asked, putting out his arms in case she needed comforting. She really did look distressed.
‘Don’t you dare touch me,’ she hissed at him. ‘You’ve touched me quite enough and God knows how many other women you’ve used and then insulted with one of your vile rings.’
She threw something and it hit Beau hard on his eyebrow.
‘Ow,’ he said, putting his hand up. It came away with blood on it. He glanced over to where he’d heard something fall on the floor and saw one of his rings lying under a chair. Was it the one he’d left on her pillow? He couldn’t remember. There had been so many recently.
Oh.
‘Good,’ she said, ‘I hope it hurt. I hope it hurt as much as I did when I found that disgusting thing on my pillow, as some kind of vile payment. Who do you think you are, prowling round East London, doing that to women? Treating us like whores. I found out by chance that you’ve also done it to one of my friends and now we’ve found six more of your victims and we’re pissed off. We’ve started a Facebook group to see if we can find others.’
Beau was speechless. Victims? No one had been forced to take him home. The rings were a tribute, not an insult.
‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ he said. ‘As some kind of payment. That’s the last thing I meant. I want to show women how much I respect them—’
Flora snorted. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘are you a feminist? Did your mummy bring you up to respect women? What you are is a rancid seventies throwback... a pathetic, self-obsessed, woman-desecrating cock jockey. You’re disgusting . Someone told me they saw you last night in a bar in Shoreditch, on the prowl for your next little snack. Because that’s how you treat women, Mr Mojobo, like the greasy leftovers from a chicken shop dinner, last night’s pizza crusts and fag ends.’
Beau stared at her, feeling something horribly like tears forming in his eyes. He really hadn’t meant it like that. He had been brought up to respect women. He thought he did.
‘Well, pound shop Casanova,’ said Flora, ‘your little game is up. As we speak, these are being put up all over East London.’
She reached into her bag and unrolled a large piece of paper. It was a poster with a photograph of Beau’s face on it – taken from his Instagram feed, he noted – with several of his rings displayed along the bottom and emblazoned with the words:
UNWANTED
Women, beware this creep, currently on the booty prowl in Hackney and Bethnal Green, posing as a nice guy. He’s not. Look out for the rings.
‘We’re putting them up over all Shoreditch, Bethnal Green, London Fields and Clapton. It’s the twenty-first century, Mojobo, and there’s no place for men like you in it.’
‘I don’t understand,’ he said, genuinely bewildered. He knew lots of guys who just left in the night without a word, or gave women fake numbers, or blocked them as soon as they tried to call. He’d even known men who took pictures of women while they were sleeping, naked, and shared them with their friends.
Compared to people like that, he thought he’d been doing something right. That was his intention: a way to end mutually enjoyed casual encounters sweetly.
‘Please explain to me—’ he started to say, but Flora was already stalking out of the studio.
He slumped into his seat, feeling sick when he caught sight of the ring he’d been working on – and the music... He turned it off. Was he some kind of sex-addicted, #metoo monster, like she said?
But he’d never forced himself on anyone or put any kind of pressure on them to do things they weren’t comfortable with. He always let the woman take the lead. Even in the pick-up, he wasn’t the aggressor. If he stood in a bar on his own long enough, someone always hit on him. It didn’t usually take long.
He’d wanted to let the women be in charge, to make it a positive experience for both of them, but now it seemed he had been horribly wrong about the whole thing.
Beau picked up his blowtorch and scorched the top of the ring so the vulva shape melted away. He’d have to lay off all that for a while.
He was still sitting there, feeling stunned, blankly staring down at the metal, when his phone pinged. It was a message from a friend with a photograph of one of Flora’s posters.
I’ve just seen this in Homerton , it said. You’ve really pissed someone off, Mr Pantsman .
Beau put his hands over his face as Sam walked in, holding one of the posters.
‘Look what I found on our door,’ he said, ‘and they’re all along the street too... What’s going on, Beau boy? Are you some kind of costume jewellery Jack the Ripper?’
Beau spent the rest of the day tearing down all the posters he could find, while receiving non-stop forwards and messages from friends – so-called friends – who’d seen them and thought it was hilarious. There were also some from women friends who didn’t think it was so funny. And a couple from platonic girlfriends who were supportive. Just two of those.
Then, in what seemed like no time, the poster was all over Instagram and Twitter and it was when somebody called him from the Evening Standard , wanting to interview him for a piece about Hackney’s notorious ring-leaving lothario, that he decided a trip down to Hastings was needed.
Possibly a long one.