Sunday 26 September 2010

All The Nudes That's Fit To Print

Devastated. That's the only word for it. My name all over the papers. Devastated. My life stretches before me like a black, empty void filled with tears, fear and nothingness.

The calls won't stop coming. Daybreak want me to do half an hour's flirting with Adrian Chiles. I get a grand for every “base” we can sneak past Ofcom – double, if Christine joins in.

I can't believe they gave my name. I mean, they didn't actually say I was the Oxford sex blogger, they left it unexplained. But obviously I was going to take the credit, which meant people knowing that I blogged about sex. I pre-emptively sent emails to my mother, a close circle of my friends, the Welsh-Mexican, and News International. I suppose you could say that by announcing my name, The Guardian really wrecked my anonymity.

It was my mother I was most worried about. She's a Catholic, but as it turns out, she's not one of those Catholics who believes in God or bans sex before marriage, and she will occasionally eat an KFC Zinger burger in a church on a Friday.

The conversation went a little like this:

“When you were having sex with all those men, were you wearing your rosary beads?”

“Of course I was, mother, I never take them off”. Though I occasionally use them for bondage.

“Oh, thank Christ. Will you be going on the One Show?”

“I don't know, they haven't called yet.”

She admitted to being a little disappointed.

My biggest fear was of all my exes reading my blog. Take it as read that certain names, locations and dates have been scrambled or fictionalised to protect the innocent. Equally, though, many names and events have been left exactly the same for the same reason. Sometimes the best place to hide is in plain sight – it's a form of “double-bluff”, you might say.

Sven was one. But again, he seemed supportive.

“You know, when we were discussing Robin Williams films as I came, it wasn't Good Morning Vietnam I said. It was A.I.: Artificial Intelligence.”

“Sven, like I said, I changed things, alright? To make them less embarrassing?”

“Saying Good Morning Vietnam is still pretty embarrassing.”

“But A.I. was a colossal wank of a film.”

“I suppose you always were right about these things”, he sighed down the phone. We agreed to meet up later and watch a film like the old days, though recently the 3D glasses have really blocked the back-row fellatio. And I'd paid an extra two quid to see Toy Story in 3D, so I was keeping them on.

“Are you going to be on the One Show?”, he asked.

“I don't know”, I said. “I'll ask my agent.”

I had an agent by this point. This all started when the journalists started crowding around my house. The first time took me by surprise. A pizza delivery boy came to the door. “Pizza for you”, he said, then took my picture. Also, the pizza was cold, and tasted stale. Also, I hadn't ordered a pizza. I'm lactose intolerant, so that's the sort of thing I'd remember.

The next day, they were swarming. At least ten of them were stood on the pavement, and their abandoned cars littered the street. Some of them had crashed a bus into a tree in their hurry to get there. Some people had even slept there overnight, marking out their territory with a chalk outline. Also a lot of things were on fire, but that's the tabloids, eh? Frankly, it confused me. I shut the door.

Halfway through the X Factor there was a knock. “We need to talk.”

He handed me his card.

Nigel Smith
The N. Smith Agents Agency
Agent

“Over 20 years of experience”

“Wow. How many of you are there?”

“Oh, it's just me. It doesn't say industry experience. I'm twenty-one though, so it's technically correct. I've definitely been experiencing stuff, so that's watertight.” He slicked his hair back. “My credentials are unparalleled. Not Quite Incest, they've just released their Number One single -”

“A number one single!”

“As in, their single number one. First. That's watertight, you can't say I didn't say that. Battle of the Bands runner-up, though. And the psychic octopus -”

“The psychic octopus!”

“... a psychic octopus. Not that one. 65% success rate – still unexplainable! Makes a shitload from lookalike PAs though. Touch the octopus for a fiver! Kids love it.”

“Can you get me on the One Show?”

“My fee is eighty percent. Because I like you. It's double for octopi.” He grinned. "But you're no octopus."

We shook hands. “If only there was some way I could repay you. Other than in all the money I'm giving you, I mean.”

“Oh, I'm sure we could think of something.”

“Do you mean sex?”

“Yeah.” So we did
.

---

Term starts again soon, so I'll be back in Oxford. Can you suggest anyone for me to sleep with? No beards or Australians. I'm not shy - send me some ideas! xo

Friday 17 September 2010

Cumming Is Free (But Fucks Are Sacred)

Greetings, fellow sex-fanatics (“sexnatics”)! A little bird told me to expect more traffic today than normal. If you're new, you might be interested in The Best Of Belle De Le Oxford. Here's a selection of posts which are better than the other ones, which are also great:

I often told him that Welsh-Mexican was a weird mix of cultures. "Welsh-Mexican is a really weird mix of cultures", I'd tell him. "It's a really weird mix of cultures, Sven."

- in which I lose my sex-virginity for the first time!

He handed me a small plastic box, ‘How Babies Are Made: A Book On Tape’ (as read by Alan Carr, foreword by Boris Becker).

- in which I lose my abortion-virginity for the first time!

It’s a consent form”, he replied. “It proves legally that you’re willing to do this.” I smiled. It’s not often you see a man with such a commitment to feminism.

- In which a nice man takes me to the Randolph

My first novel: “License to Shag: Shag to Kill – Return to Murder Cove" (A "Choose Your Own Adventure" novel)

- If you are a literary agent, PLEASE read this and make me famous

He was hung like a donkey, and stacked like a gorilla. I cast my eagle eyes upon him, and he stared back doggedly at my pussy and great tits. I went hoarse.

- My first blogged sex!


And there's a Facebook page and a Twitter feed.

Belle
xo

* * *

“Oh Alan”, I purred. “You were so good.”

“I'm just sorry I kept passing out like that”, said Alan. “It can be such a chore having it two feet long like I do, you know, it's hard to find the blood to keep it up!” A silence fell, and he brushed his foppish black quiff across his face, out of the way of his glasses.

“You know”, he said. “That was some top-class content you delivered there, really in keeping with the spirit of the medium. I'm starting to think you should charge for it.”

“Ask for money?”

“Maybe a subscription model. Say, a fiver for a month's unlimited access.”

“But that's disgusting!”

“How else do you expect to maintain such a high quality of output?”

This worried me for a moment. “I never thought of that”.

“Well, I once had a friend”, said Alan. “She started charging for it, and within a month, sure, she was having sex with 99% fewer people, but she'd almost doubled her profits.”

“She doubled them? How was she making money before?”

“Oh, you know. Writing “Lexus” on her tits. “Burger King”. “Domestos”. Sometimes different ones for different body parts, you'd get a different demographic for each. Public sector job ads on her forehead, for the missionaries. Tequila and Pot Noodle on the buttocks for the ass men. There's a whole branch of the advertising industry devoted to this sort of thing.”

“And that didn't work?”, I said.

“It did, for a while. But then there was an advertising recession. When you're earning a pound for every thousand views, can you afford to take a pay cut?”

Of course not.

“I suppose the problem of generating revenue from content is going to become an increasing concern in this internet-savvy something-for-nothing generation.”

“That's pretty smart.” He gazed at me. He was a much older man, of course, but if one squinted, he looked just a little like Harry Potter. But it was me who had Accio'd his heart – though only after he'd Charmed me, and we'd both had a lot of Potions!

“Hey Alan”, I thought suddenly. “Couldn't all of that stuff we've just said also be applied to newspapers? You know, about making money through -”

“No”, said Alan. “Don't be fucking stupid.”

I sighed. If sometimes I seem bipolar, it's because I am. Not clinically, I mean. What I mean is that sometimes I have good moods, but if you check back later, I might be having a bad one. I have more than one emotion, I suppose is what I'm trying to say. I'm pretty sure that's what “bipolar” means.

“Don't worry”. Alan read my thoughts. “People will know who you are soon. Soon you'll be a household name, like Brooke Magnanti.”

“Who?”

“Belle du Jour”.

“Who?”

“Billie Piper!”

“Oh!”

“Don't worry, I've got a trick up my sleeve.”

Oh, by then I'd told him I was The Oxford Sex Blogger. I probably should've mentioned that.

* * *

I'd been stood next to King's Cross station, next to one of their two McDonald's. In my spare time, I collect Happy Meals. Not the toys, just the meal. I still have a classic 1998 cheeseburger, still in its original wrappings: I can only imagine what it's worth now! I love collecting – my mum always said to never throw anything away, as it “might be worth something”. I was also holding 50 Evening Standards, to drive up their value. People were getting annoyed at my not sharing.

A baying crowd gathered. Two of them begged me for the TV listings. Another one implored that I read the sex column (the irony!). As I jammed myself into a phonebox to avoid a riot, I couldn't help feeling awkward. “You are a strong, confident woman”, I told myself, as my McNuggets started to congeal atop my stack of freesheets.

Suddenly, one man surged through the crowd, clouting any obstacles with his iPad. It was Alan, by the way, so I'm not going to describe him again. He dragged his finger across the screen, and flames shot out; he used it to jet over the angry mob, landing just in front of me. A press and a drag later, a laser fired from the screen, blowing the hinges from the phonebox. As he threw me onto his back and flew us away from the torches, pitchforks and waiting police, the sexual tension was clear.

“That's quite some iPad”, I said as we crossed Holborn. It was gold-plated, and embossed with the letters 'AR'.

“Thanks”, he said, setting us down with a somersault. “It's a special model. Built in Swiss army knife, doubles as the hoverboard from Back to the Future 2. Fully operational Gaydar. Contains the full digitised personality of Stephen Fry.”

“Can it make phonecalls?”

“No.”

“Why did you save me just then? Why now? Why me?”

“You cannot create scarcity without becoming isolated from this new networked world. Walking on might be the best decision in business terms, but it removes me from the way people the world over now connect with each other.”

I wondered what his cock looked like.

* * *

“Lentil?”, he offered.

“No thanks, I ate.”

He pounced on me again. In stature he was a Berliner, but where it mattered he was pure broadsheet. The liveblog of my heart updated. "10:51pm: Wow!"

I couldn't not tell him. The dam burst like a reservoir. “It was me, I did a sex blog and I called it Belle and nobody knows and -”

“It's alright! Stop. I know, I know.”

“How? How do you?”

“You think this golden iPad is just for flying, making kosher bacon and watching non-Flash videos?”

It was obvious. I could never have kept it hidden forever. As his brown eyes locked on mine, I let relief wash over me. A weight lifted. He was hard once more, and inside me in seconds. And so he beat on, balls against the current, borne back ceaselessly into my ass.

--

The Oxford Sex Blogger is nominated for Digital Journalist of the Year at the Guardian Student Media Awards

Friday 3 September 2010

Decent Exposure

There are forty-one types of people. I thought about it for like, an hour. Of those, there are twenty-seven types of men. Verdana had green eyes and liked the Beatles; that's one type. Traditional Arabic had a beard; that's another type. I'm not going to list them all.

There are also eight types of houses. I counted them all as Zoe drove me to a mysterious man's house. We had to tell him I was a sexblogger, but we had to make it sound subtle. Publicity was waning – the buzz from Polish Grazia was drying up, and Rupert Murdoch wasn't returning my calls. M&S were sceptical about my offers to model their new burka range. "I have to stay anonymous!", I said. They said they weren't looking for any sexbloggers to model their Islamic religiouswear for them right now, but if they were, they'd let me know.

As we pulled up to his house, I was sure it was a type five – the kind with a chimney, and a door at the the front. So: me. Her. There. Stood. Knocked. Waited. The door opened.

“Alroite. Oi'm Seamus”, shaking my hand with a tight, confident grip. I said my name back. He hugged Zoe close, and led us into the sitting room. Seamus got Zoe and me a Coke, and poured himself a Diet Coke “on account o' me diabetes”. In my opinion, there's two types of diabetes. One where you have too much insulin, and one where you don't have enough. He had the second one, the one I like to call “second-type-diabetes”.

“So what brings ye round moy neck o' the woods?”, he asked.

“Oh, we were just passing by”, said Zoe.

“Really? Doing what?”

“Oh, just experiencing the culture and the sights of... the surrounding area”. That was the trouble with satnav. You just followed it to god-knows-where. We had no idea what this place was called. Had we taken the ferry? We didn't know. It was all hazy now.

Anyway, we had a job to do.

“So what do you think of recent developments in the blogosphere?”, Zoe asked the PR man.

“Y'know, soitis oi don't much follow them no more. There was a few interestin' sex blogs a whoile back, but... soyouknow, I ain't much been followin' them since the divorce.”

“Which interesting blogs?”, I jumped in.

“There were one or two university ones, some crafty loosebits talkin' about their boxes, but I stopped reading them when they made me think of Linda's. God almoighty, I loved her. She took everything from me. Everything!”

“Ah”, I said. “Were they good blogs, though?”

“Sometimes I think about ending it all.”

“Well-written? Commercially viable?”

This was clearly going to be harder than we thought. We could steer the conversation towards me all we liked, but he selfishly kept pushing it away. A bolt of thought shot between me and Zoe. We'd have to abandon all subtlety, here. A quick drinking contest later, we were willing to strike.

“So”, said Zoe, “whatdya both say if you foundout someone you know's a secret blogger?”

“HOWDA FOOK d'you know!”, yelled Seamus, unexpectedly. “Oi'd kept moy being Twenty Major a secret for feckin' years, you fockin' shoitehawk!”

“Not you!”, she shouted.

“You mean about you being WanderingScroibe? Don't worry, we all worked that out years ago. All that child abuse shoite don't mean a thing to me, it's foine.”

“YOU BASTARD!”, she screamed. “WHO ELSE KNOWS!”

She aimed a fist at his nose; Seamus stepped back, picked up a harp and swang it at her face. She ripped the pipe from his mouth, jabbed him in the chest with it, and knocked him flat. The pair wrestled, arms and feet flying in both directions. Seamus swang a sack of potatoes violently, but was distracted by a passing car bomb.

“And I'm Belle des Oxford!”, I said. Zoe kicked Seamus in the crotch. “Did you hear? I'm...”

“Come on.” Zoe grabbed my hand. “We're going”.

There are three kinds of nights. Those that are good. Those that are really good. Those that are bad. And then there are those in between, which aren't quite either. I'm not sure which this was.