Chapter 10

My glorious radio debut had to wait of course. Partly because the world simply wasn’t ready for me, a billion years’ of evolution was insufficient for a species to develop the intellectual capacity and sheer sense of groove necessary to fully appreciate a Luke Wasser Radio Show. Arguably such a level of evolutionary achievement is simply impossible within a universe of finite age and size and I am forever doomed to be under-appreciated by a world consisting entirely of inferior beings.

 

On a more practical level however, the delay was due to my need to fulfil three compulsory hours of training in studio 2. As friend and flatmate to Carl (official) and one-time lover of Kelly (unofficial) they were both there to talk me through the various buttons and dials on the mixing desk, lecture me on house rules, show me round CD library and offer moral support as I shouted, swore and whooped my way through a trial show.

 

“Remember what I said about swearing on air,” Kelly would say every few minutes. “You need to keep an eye on the volume,” Carl would add, “some people can be rather precious about their eardrums.”

 

Despite their constant interruptions I put together a mind-warping collection of music, interwoven with expert interjections and tasteful good humour. Carl and Kelly did their best to make DJing sound vastly more difficult than it is (it’s playing a record and talking) with constant interjections about sound levels, dead air and playing the same record more than once, but I didn’t let them distract me.

 

“Not bad,” Carl grudgingly admitted at the end of my two hour stint. It’s an acquired taste but you clearly know your music.  You’ll get the hang of the technical stuff, eventually, don’t worry too much.” (I didn’t).

 

“You need to tone down your language,” Kelly said, “somebody might actually be listening to you, unlikely though it is. We try to keep the airwaves a fuck-free zone, the university authorities are very conservative, they’d love any excuse to close us down.”

 

It was, in fact, remarkably unlikely that my show, when I eventually went live, would have any listeners at all, let alone listeners so engaged with the show that they would think to complain about it. I had been promised a graveyard slot, after the café had closed, where our potential audience was limited to those living on campus and those watching on youtube. The DJs in these evening slots hardly had an audience, it was virtually unheard of for anyone to reach double figures, although I had plans to change that.  I set myself an ambitious but realistic goal: thirteen listeners by week three.

 

Little did I know that my actual audience would go on to reach hundreds of thousands of listeners around the world, although part of me always knew it would. It’s the Luke Wasser blood, there’s music just flowing through it, and who wouldn’t want to share part of that?

 

“I have to go,” Carl said at the end of my show. “I’ve got lectures for the rest of the afternoon, I’ll see you tonight.”

 

“You were going to help me make a jingle.” Though hoping to shake the very foundations of radio to their core, I realised that it would be handy to have a jingle I could play any time I couldn’t be bothered to talk, or anytime the compulsory playlisted record bored me so much I’d get the urge to fade my jingles all over it. Looking at the current playlist it seemed likely that I’d need as many jingles it’s possible to make as quickly as possible.

 

“I’ll help you,” Kelly said, “I’m lectured out for the day. It shouldn’t take long.”

 

Carl and Kelly melded their faces together before he left and I tried not to stare too contemptuously at them. This is what couples do after all.

 

After what seemed forever they finally broke off their face-meld and Carl left for his lecture.

 

This was the first time the two of us had been alone since, well since Exeter, since the Vaccines gig, since we had rollicking, original, free-fall sex together. There was a DJ in the main studio, but he was out of sight and out of mind, busy playing innocuous records to an audience of nobody.

 

There was a moment of awkwardness before Kelly spoke.

 

“Thanks for not saying anything,” she said. “It’s not that Carl’s the jealous type, I just don’t want to complicate things.”

 

“I’m quite happy to keep Carl in the dark. Duplicity is my middle name.”

 

She scowled at me (as I’d intended, she has a way-sexy scowl). “It’s not duplicitous, there’s nothing to hide, I was single and I had a throwaway fuck with a passing stranger I didn’t expect to see again. It’s not like I’m covering up an affair. I’m just trying to avoid Carl getting suspicious every time we’re alone together.”

 

“Like now.”

 

“Like now, or anytime I call round your flat and he’s not there. What with the radio station and his being your flatmate I imagine there’ll be thousands of occasions when we’ll be alone together. I just want a hassle-free existence. That’s not telling lies …”

 

I let her words echo round the studio. They sounding good, bouncing off the egg-cartoned walls with the confidence and authority of words that really sound convinced of themselves.

 

“Right, she said finally, “let’s get your jingle sorted.”

 

As she leaned over to show me the record button her top relaxed its way down her arm and a fleshy mound of breast revealed itself. Not fully, but enough to arouse memories. Memories, thoughts, dreams. My eyes attended fully on the breast to the extent that it took several attempts for her to explain the very simple process of pressing a record button to me. She was doubtless aware of my wayward eyes and her wayward top, but made no attempt to correct either.

 

Eventually, after much tittie-tease we had a couple of jingles in the can.

 

There was an awkward silence. My mind was still full of breast and the knowledge that we had agreed a conspiracy of silence about our previous rendezvous.  

 

“Right,” I said, “what happens now?”

 

“Nothing, that’s it, you’re free to go. Your radio duties are fulfilled for the day.”

 

“Do you fancy going somewhere?”

 

There was a silence that crackled with tension. What was I doing? Was this an innocent offer, two friends going for a coffee, me simply trying to get to know my flatmate’s girlfriend better? Or was there something more in my innocent suggestion, something alluding to our previous sexual encounter?

 

We would never find out. We were interrupted by the arrival of KJ, who burst into studio 2 without so much as checking we weren’t sneaking a crafty fuck.

 

“I want you,” she said, pointing at me. “You promised me a young man.”

 

“Sorry Kelly,” I said, following KJ out of the room, “I’m doing some private pimping for KJ.”

 

“I’d best be off too,” Kelly said, following us out of the room, “things to do at the library. I’ll catch you later.”