I treated myself to a long weekend in Biarritz last winter. I spent my days strolling along beautiful sandy beaches, watched surfers brave the freezing water to ride the waves, and basked in the French sun for a few days rather than shivering my way through cold, dark, miserable Scotland. I sat outside pavement cafés in outrageous Hawaiian shirts, watching the locals bustle past bundled up in heavy overcoats, making me realise just how much warmer the elegant, friendly city would be in the height of summer. I also bought myself a new friend.
She stood 3 inches tall and hung on the end of a key chain. Well, to be more accurate she knelt 3 inches tall. She's a plastic figurine, and she was hanging on a board outside one of the surf shops in the back streets of Biarritz. I was just ambling along the street, browsing the shop windows, and she immediately appealed to me. She's a nurse, but the sort of sexy fantasy nurse you see in saucy British films of the 1960s. (For anyone who knows what I'm talking about, think Barbara Windsor and Shirley Eaton.)
She has chin-length black hair, in which nestles a white cap, shaped more like a tiara really, with a red cross on it. Her skin is light brown, reminding me of caramel. Impossibly large blue eyes, with a twinkle painted into them, share her face with a pert nose and pouting red lips. Well-defined collar-bones point the way to a magnificent chest, threatening to bulge out of a tiny white dress, the first three buttons of which are open, displaying a Grand Canyon of cleavage. Because of the material from which she is made, her breasts reflect light, as if she'd been oiling her body just before coming on duty.
The uniform dress barely reaches her waist, revealing white stocking tops. She seems to have been caught in the act of falling - the end of her hair is slightly flared, as if she had just pitched forwards, her weight rests on her right knee, and her left hand is flat on the ground, to steady her. Her left leg, an amazingly long, slim, shapely leg, is splayed out to one side, her foot encased in a black high-heeled shoe most unsuitable for a nurse - no wonder she fell. Her right arm is crooked at the elbow, and in the hand, between fingers with red-painted nails, she holds a syringe about a third full of some white liquid.
Even at first glance she stood out among the other little figures hanging there. In amusement I tipped her upside down, and revealed grey suspenders and tiny white panties, fringed with grey lace, running between her legs and revealing the first curves of a very pert bottom. She was a few Euros more than the other key rings on display, and I was on a tight budget, so chuckling I put her back and moved on. Over the next couple of days, though, I found myself passing that shop a number of times (the centre of Biarritz is quite compact), and each time I lingered to look at my nurse again. It was silly, but she was growing on me.
Finally, on my last day, half an hour before I had to leave for the airport, I made a snap decision. I rushed down to the town centre, grasped my last remaining Euros and thrust them into the hands of the bored teenager behind the counter. I was in luck - there was just one of my nurse figurines left in the shop. Ramming her into my pocket, the pointed toe of her shoe digging into my hip, I dashed for a taxi to get my flight.
I named her Bébé - I don't know why, it just seemed to suit her. I knew if my girlfriend saw her in my flat she'd think I was daft wasting money on what was in essence just another thing to dust; so I unscrewed the chain from the top of her head, and my little French nurse found a home in front of my computer on my desk at work. She definitely had something: two of my mates noticed her on her first day, and admired her.
Each morning when I came into work my eyes alighted on Bébé, and I smiled - she seemed to have that effect on me. Her eyes twinkled back at me, with their hint of ooh la la naughtiness. Each evening before I left I gave her a last glance. The funny thing was, though, as the days and weeks went on, I found I was looking at her more and more. When I was drafting something on my computer, and paused for inspiration, my eyes inevitably swivelled down towards Bébé's impish face, and her oiled boobs. When I felt fed up - which happens about 75 times a day in my job - I found myself drawn to her, to cheer me up. When I drifted into a daydream, I began to find myself studying Bébé's perfectly formed collar-bones, her long fingers, that shapely leg, those oiled...
I really wasn't having sexual fantasies about a three-inch plastic doll, I told myself. But, I rationalised, plenty of men toss themselves off to pictures of nude women in magazines, which aren't much bigger - at least Bébé was a real, 3D image. No I just, er, thought she was a particularly skilfully crafted figure, a fairly realistic image of a sexy dream girl. That was all it was. Unfortunately, my girlfriend went quite cold on me when I casually suggested that she might like to try a bit of role play, dressing up as a nurse. And as for the idea that she dye her blonde hair jet black, and cut it shorter, well, the sound of the door slamming behind her will live long in my memory.
I normally take it quite hard when a woman dumps me -- I have plenty of experience! - but this time, for some reason, I wasn't that bothered. The next morning I sat at my desk, drinking my first coffee of the day, and said, "Oh well Bébé, looks like it's just you and me now." The woman who sits opposite me gave me a strange stare, and I quickly buried my head in my work.
That was a tough week - just like every other week in fact. One quiet lunchtime I'd just read a stinking e-mail from a guy in another team who I'm at war with, then seen a memo from my boss demanding three impossible things within a ridiculous timescale. Slumping back in my chair, I wondered yet again why there weren't any other employers out there recognising my innate genius and begging me to let them double my salary. I closed my eyes in frustration and world-weariness, and as I rubbed my hands down my face, I heard a soft voice, like liquid chocolate, intone, very close to my ear, "Oh ma pauvre m'sieur, you must be a beeg strong boy for me." (Yes, I do know French people don't really speak like a bad Maurice Chevalier impression, but that's what I heard.)
My eyes snapped open and I glanced around. There was only one other person in the office, and I asked, "Gerry, did you say that?"
He glanced up from the report he was studying. "Say what? I didn't hear anything."