Friday 12 November 2010

more from margy and the cake shop

I've been struggling with a little story, and the idea for this blog was always to put it all down on show - mainly for my own discipline to put it down on the page - but perhaps too, out of vanity and the hope that by exposing the process it might throw up some insight into how I will gain some level of mastery. Here then is some more of hte story, in draft and unworked through - clunky bits 'n all. In this bit we meet Vlad, the vampire baker (not his real name but he hasn't told me what it is yet...).
Vlad bought the little shop on a whim. He'd been travelling back across europe after a gathering of his people, on his way to see an old friend he had been forced to stop over in Bristol when his overnight flight had been severely delayed. The local group sent a courtesy driver to pick him up and he was billeted in the basement of a dingy strip club off the Gloucester Road.

That night, while out for a quick bite, Vlad noticed the boarded up premises and with nothing better to do he'd gone in for a poke around.

[An incredibly loud chap has arrived at the cafe and while his attention seeking barking is harmless it is interrupting my thought process and those of everyone else in the place. Burping and yelling, our boy has manipulated his quieter companion into buying his lunch and is now going on and on about Tae Kwando films he likes - his friend has large black tatoos all of stars. Jesus this boy is so loud that I can't think - annoyed. I'm annoyed. He wants to broker a deal on his spud and is being overly pally with the girls who will have to get used to him, because he's just moved in around the corner - oh joy. This is the 'quiet' time before the yummy mummys descend with squealing, wriggling kids- my coffee is a bit crap today too. GO GO GO! - miraculously he goes.]

Vlad opened the bakery to keep him occupied in what has turned out to be the dullest city for vampires in the whole of the western hemisphere. Despite it's reputation for being a party city, it was a place the undead came to retire. It turns out that there was only one club, the one he'd stayed in the night of his arrival blah blah blah I need to write about how Vlad comes to be in Bristol or do I? Mabye it's ok he's just here, the owner of the bakery a profession that suits him. The point is that he is the owner of THE bakery, marg's bakery and it's this coinkeedink that  leads him to spot marg, who he sees as beautiful, voluptuous and inexplicably sad and intriguing. The loveliest of all redheads who after weeks of passing by the door spending only moments gazing through the window has started to enter his shop every day.


Every day she takes her sweet, sexy time to select one perfect cake to have with her regular latte in the seat by the window. She positions herself so she can study the counter and all the wonderful confectionary and keep an eye on the street, watching passersby - scanning their faces for a snarl of dissapproval of the fat girl scoffing cake.

If he left the door of the bakery open a chink he could watch her unnoticed, as she carefully peeled back the silicon paper. Smoothing it open to one side of the plate. She proceeds to scrape her index finger nail down each groove, working methodically around the little concertina paper case. Pushing the tip of her finger into her mouth, pressing her first knuckle to her nose as she uses her teeth to winkle out the sweet crumbs before making her next few passes up and down the folds. She continues until she has scratched the paper case clean. He could use it again, she was that thorough.

Vlad is captivated by her focused devouring of his cakes, her ceremony is so precise it feels like marg was performing a sacred rite. After she has polished off the last cake paper crumb, she turns her attention to the cake, unable to resist, she dips her fingertip into the creamy icing for a little sneak preview.

She closes her eyes the better to experience the sugar-hit bliss. Vlad misunderstands her tiny grimace, clouding her features momentarily. It is not, as he thinks, a sign that he has misjudged the flavour of his icing - marg's stomach cramps up violently at the first suggestion of sustenance hitting her starved system. She hasn't eaten since 9.30pm. Yesterday.

Marg forces herself to eat slowly, she doesn't risk a bite - if she lifts the cake to her motuh to take a little nibble bad margy will cram the whole thing in and wolf it down before she's able to gain full control and stop her. So she uses a tiny cake fork to cut itsy bitsy doll like pieces of cake - which she scoops up and guides gently to her mouth, careful to catch every last speck that falls from her implement.

Nothing will be wasted, not a fleck, not a calorie - margy has earned every last taste sensation.

Vlad is delighted by this beautiful spectacle and the reverent appreciation that this vision shows his art. He is determined to make equisite cakes just for her. He decides to make it his nightly mission to design a cake that she will choose over all the others. He has discovered his reason for unbeing - his quest. He wastes no time yanking out ingredients to create the perfect cupcake for margy.

Every day Vlad lays awake dreaming of recipiesand imagining the contrast of her dark pink tongue against the cream pistachioed slick of icing as she darts it out for a little illicit taste.

Every night he ties on his apron in happy expectation that this will be the cake to captivate her.

He tries crazy combinations, daring colourways and ludicrously expensive ingredients. Each time only making the smallest of batches of his beautiful little cakes and only sending them out to the shop when he saw her approach, timing them to arrive at the till just as the jingle of the shop bell and her sharp intake of breath announced her arrival. She would put her hand onto the counter to steady herself in the wake of the wonderful warm, sweet hug of the bakery's smell which sent her senses heaving as she became more lightheaded with every starving, passing day.

Every day for over a week now she had passed over his gifts of admiration and chosen one of the more mundane, standard cakes. Vlad was bemused, her delicacy and ritualised eating of the cakes suggested a fine palate and a keen appreciation for lovely cakes, yet she spurned his special muffins, his perfect angel cakes and his deeply felt brownies. He wailed to the patisserie chef who observed that 'Maybe the fat bird didn't think she was worth such a fancy, posh cake. Or perhaps she was on a tight budget and thought the gold leafed cupcakes and bejewelled fondant fancies were too much of an indulgence every day'.

Vlad decides to make his cakes look a little less ostentatious, plumping for hand-written delightfuly whimsical descriptions instead and making sure he carefully included the price on each little tag.

"Vlad's very lovely lime lushy £1.90. Made with persian limes and butter from his own cow's milk. *Daisy says this is some of her best work".

That evening Vlad was all excitement, margy chose his special cake and smiled at his hand written label as she sat down to enjoy her reward for starving herself all day.

Vlad noticed how pale she was and that she was loosing weight, her delightfully soft lines were gaining sharper definition and her rolling hips were definitely loosing their curvacious sweep. He worried about this a lot - he wouldn't want her to loose her perfect womanly shape. Not now he was so smitten.

Vlad was delighted that he had finally attracted margy to try his special cakes, he now spent as much time and effort thinking up silly labels as he did conceiving and making he dainty little morsels. By the end of the second week, Vlad was hopelessly in love with his customer, and increasingly distressed and concerned at her continuing diminishment. A woman with such an appetite for cake should not be loosing so much weight. Vlad determined that he must do something about it - something to help. He was not about to loose the sole object of his desire to skinny jeans.

In the meantime margy is rallying. After two weeks she has lost 4kgs, smashing through her early targets and the exercise is working on her tummy tone too. It's all going so well that marg has taken to day-dreaming about getting a snog from the best man at the wedding. Easy now marg, one step at a time lovey.

Marg has taken to rewarding herself with the baker's special little cakes, she has lost so much weight that she feeels she deserves a real extra extra treat, they cost a little bit more but they are the most delicious cakes she has ever EVER tasted. She is giddy with hunger most days but after two weeks of near starvation marg is getting used to the constant drag in the pit of her stomach and every time she feels it - she sneaks a look at herself side on in the nearest reflective surface - to strengthen her resolve. She is delighted at the flattening of her tummy - good margy is in control.

Bad margy is biding her time, she knows better than to attempt to undermine the weightloss this early on in a new campaign - marg's will power is strong and the early results will shore that up for a while. But bad margy knows that all she has to do is wait until the first dissappointing weigh in or a chance comment, overheard and misunderstood - better still wait until marg's teeny, tiny, engaged to be married sister calls to gloat over some detail of her impending wedding. Poor lonely, fatty will cave as she always does, with a little push from her friend. Until then bad margy contents herself with growling along with margy's tummy and feeling smug at every yawn margy has to suppress because she is tired, hungry, lonely and bored. 

It really is only a matter of time before an innocent fridge foray turns into a full on foodfest fuck up.

Margy has to make up daily lists of what she has eaten to saticfy the overzealous weightwatcher's rep. She is still going to weight watchers even though she has completely abandoned the process and is breaking every single sensible eating rule ever written. She loves to get weighed on the super accurate scales and receive the applause as each week she has lost momre weight than anyone else. She loves it so much she forks out subs for two more clubs and goes three times a week just to get her skinny props...

Next time... Vlad decides to pack his cakes with  hidden calories to make sure margy stops loosing weight - if he really gets cute he might even reverse the alarming loss of plumpciousness and help her to put weight back on.

1 comment:

  1. Well now, not sure there should be a next time - maybe with a bit of editing this might be the story in it's wholeness. There's definitely some issues with tenses, and pacing but that can be sorted with a stiff coffee and a brutal red pen sesh... All in all I am better pleased with this than I thought I would be. Once I get into the middle of the flow - it reads better. What do artists do that paint better 30 mins aftet they've started I wonder - you can't rub it out as easily.

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