Worst. Person. Ever(79)

Yours,

Raymond Gunt





We returned to Neal’s in time to catch Tabs, Elspeth and six shockingly hot lady friends headed out the front door, all of them doubtlessly harbouring lady-boners barely concealed by the skimpiest of thongs. One of them was carrying a rattan picnic hamper, which she dropped on the front stoop when we arrived, causing a miniature avalanche of dildos, bottles of different flavours of lube, a gimp’s hood, ten vials of poppers and a small portable stereo system. For one billionth of a second, but certainly no longer, I felt a fatherly twinge that Emma and Kyle should see such wicked things, but once that billionth of a second passed, I thought, Fuck it.

“Oops!” said the butterfingered fuckmuppet. “I’ll just gather all of this up.”

“I’ll help,” said Emma. “What is all this stuff, anyway?”

The fuckmuppet paused briefly, assessed Emma’s level of cluelessness and said, “Just some chew toys. You know—dogs will be dogs. Ha, ha, ha.”

“Lucky dogs to have such a wide and colourful selection of toys to choose from! But I hear it’s not good for dogs to be in the tropics—you know, heartworm and ringworm.”

Kyle seemed as clueless, dutifully filming the dildo spill for a possible segment on Arsefuck Island TV. He asked, “Can I meet your dogs tomorrow? I can mix them into my news segment using Final Cut. It’s all in the editing, you know.”

Fiona actually snickered at her son’s naïveté. Mother was too preoccupied lighting her next few cigarettes to notice anything. Billy was staring at his iPhone, doubtless trawling for fuckbuddies with some unholy gay app. Neal was already inside the house. And me? I was livid, watching my only chance to enjoy the full spectrum of Thong Kong vanish into the night in a slipstream of pheromones and coconut tanning oil.

Neal came back out, saw the rage in my eyes and said, “Ray, don’t worry. There’ll be other opportunities.”

I refused to be mollified.

“But I have to admit, I’ve never seen the girls so ready for it in all my time on the island. Fortunately for me, I still have a touch of pussy fatigue and am not as sorely tempted as I might normally be. But forget about pussy—let’s celebrate your new family!”

What a comedown.

“Look,” shouted Emma. “Your lady friends left one of their dog toys at the bar. I’ll run and take it to them.” She paused and studied the contraption in her hands. “Funny-looking thing, isn’t it? It’s like three bicycle handles welded together. You’d certainly only want to give this one to a big dog.” She ran away down the path to return the toy. I was proud of her willingness to help strangers, but stunned that a sixteen-year-old could be so naive.

Kyle was inside, shooting footage of Neal’s living room. He caught me looking at him and said, “This could be a possible lifestyle segment.” He’d obviously inherited the Gunt genius for camerawork, but considering everything he’d just seen, you’d think he’d go wank for an hour.

I pulled Fiona to one side. “What nunnery did these kids grow up in?”

“Kyle and Emma were raised in a small village in the North of England with no Internet connection, satellite dish or even basic telly. If you do anything to corrupt them, I will kill you. You know I’ll do it, so don’t even think of so much as offering them a beer or revealing to them anything that goes on inside your diseased mind.”

“Right.”

“Emma is an especially sweet girl. I want her to stay that way.”

“Okay. Where is this morality explosion coming from, if I may be so bold as to ask?”

Fiona sighed. “Raymond, these kids don’t even know what swearing is. They think it’s French.”

“Fuck me.”

“These kids can be better versions of you and me, versions who’ll never get fucked over by the universe.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about them?”

“Because that would have somehow ended up with them being fucked over by the universe. Your karma is dreadful, Raymond. It’s a fact.” Fi’s nose got sniffly. “It is sort of magic, though—you and me being parents and all. And we’ll never have to worry about organ donors ever again. We’ve always known that liver of yours won’t be long for this world.”

“It does get me a bit teary-eyed thinking about it. But tell me, does Kyle ever stop filming things?”

“He just discovered digital cameras and the Internet last week. Billy’s been teaching him.”

“Billy’s been what?”

“Raymond, relax.”

“One minute Billy’s teaching Kyle about email. The next minute Kyle’s got a fist up his arse.”