Dead Famous

DAY ONE. 4.30 p.m.

Kelly left the confession box and went back into the living area of the house. Layla gave her a sympathetic little smile and stroked her arm as she walked by. Kelly turned back, smiled and then they had a little hug together.

“Love you,” said Layla.

“Love you big time,” Kelly replied.

“You stay strong, OK?” said Layla.

Kelly assured Layla that she would certainly attempt to stay strong.

Kelly was so pleased that Layla was hugging her. Earlier in the day they had had a small tiff over Layla’s insistence on including walnut oil on the first group shopping list. Layla pointed out that since she ate mainly salad, dressings were very important to her and that walnut oil was an essential ingredient.

“Also it lubricates my chakras,” she’d said.

Kelly had suggested to Layla that with their limited food budget, walnut oil was surely rather an expensive luxury item.

“Well, I think that’s an entirely subjective observation, babes,” Layla replied, relishing her own eloquence, “and quite frankly depends on how much you value your chakras.”

David then weighed in, supporting Layla. He pointed out that as far as he was concerned the bacon that Kelly had suggested they order, because she cooked a wicked brekkie, was hardly an essential item… “except perhaps to the pig that donated it”, David observed piously from the unimpregnable fortress of his lotus position. “Personally I would far rather order walnut oil than corpse.”

All the other boys leapt in and supported Kelly, but David and Layla’s effortless occupation of the moral high ground had made Kelly feel rotten and for a minute she had thought she would cry. Instead she went into the confession box and told Peeping Tom how much she loved everybody.

Now she had re-emerged and Layla had rewarded her with a hug.

Kelly was wearing only a T-shirt and a tiny pair of shorts and Layla was dressed with similar minimalism in a little silk sarong and matching bikini top. Their tight little tummies touched and their breasts pushed against each other.

Across the room the hot-head camera clamped to the ceiling whizzed and whirred and zoomed towards them with unseemly haste.