Chapter 3

I'm not sure, but I believe that it must have been our own doctor who suggested to Aileen that she have breast augmentation surgery - implants to the likes of us mere mortals. I suppose he and the shrink discussed Aileen's case together, but if they did, I was left out of those discussions. Had Aileen and I been married at the time, I suspect that I would have been included.

However Aileen was delighted by the suggestion and couldn't wait to have the surgery done. Oh, on the NHS by the way, so it took a good few months to organise. We didn't have that kind of cash available at the time. I was saving to have a large extension built onto the cottage; well, we both loved the cottage and we'd need more room when it was time for Aileen to have children.

I can't say that I was overly enthusiastic about the operation at all. Especially baring in mind some of the comments the shrink had made to me on the subject. Looking back now, I only wish I'd been a little more ... er, forceful in expressing my views that the surgery was not really necessary. But that might be my selfish side coming to the fore, because ultimately I was to turn out to be the only loser in the whole escapade.

Aileen had the operation done in a London hospital. They kept her in for over two weeks because she developed an infection after the op, although the infection — an abscess under one of her wisdom teeth - took everyone somewhat by surprise and wasn't medically connected to the implants in anyway. Unless Aileen's anxiety about having the operation had set the thing off. Anyway once the infection had subsided and the tooth removed, Aileen was fine.

The problem was that I was very busy at work at the time and I couldn't get up to visit her as much as I'd like to have done.

Aileen was overjoyed about her new breasts and couldn't wait to show them off to everyone, within reason obviously, although I gathered that most of her girlfriends saw them in a little more detail than any other guys except me did. Low cut blouses and tight jumpers were added to her wardrobe remarkably quickly; Aileen had some cleavage to show off and she really seemed to enjoy the comments that were frequently made. I was soon to notice that her hemline rose more than a little as well.

It was about this time that someone - I can't remember who it was exactly - pointed out Aileen's uncommon similarity or likeness to Jennifer Love Hewitt. Not that I had any idea who the guy was talking about at the time, but some curious research on the Internet soon told me that she was an American actress and singer. And that she did hold a truly remarkable resemblance to my Aileen; who you think looks like whom depends on your perspective.

Whatever from looking at the pictures of Love Hewitt that I found on the net, she liked to display a fair bit of cleavage just as Aileen had begun to favour. Although in Aileen's case, I thought that she liked the reassurance of looking down at that cleavage to make sure that they were still there.

Just a few months after Aileen's op, all traces of her depression had disappeared completely. And I began to think that Aileen should have had the operation years before, because her whole personality had changed so much. She seemed to be permanently on a high and all of her funny moods had disappeared, even at that particular time of the month.

About this time, things had begun to change in my life as well. Some months before Aileen's op, I'd sent a manuscript of a novel I'd written to Rhoda Steel. She liked it and signed me up on an interim contract whilst she tried to sell it to a publisher. Eventually she'd sold it to some little known magazine for them to publish in serial form.

At first I was a little disappointed. But then just after the third instalment had been published, Stella had come back again to inform me that she'd sold an option on my second novel to a completely different publisher, on the strength of the synopsis and the drafts of the first two chapters that I'd sent her. They were also keen on buying options on my next two novels should the first prove successful. Mind they had only purchased an option on my second novel; they'd have to accept the finished version.

Aileen was on top of the world when I told her the news. It seemed that with the unexpected boost the option money was going to make to my bank account we could afford to get rolling on having the extension to the cottage built and start planning our wedding. We went out that evening for a pukka slap-up meal. I think everyone in both our families was pleased to hear that we'd finally set a date.

It was that second novel that was to be the root cause of me using a different name in my by-line. Stella and the new publisher suggested that it would be a good idea to distance myself as much as possible from the story published in the magazine for the time being at least.

It was Aileen who suggested that I use her brother's Christian name, Duncan, for my main character; we both thought it would be a nice tribute to him. King, his surname, was my mother's maiden name. Stella came up with the idea of using the same name in my by-line; the story was written in the first person anyway so, at the time, I thought it was a good idea. Little did I realise that Warren Price was going to vanish and be replaced by Duncan King.

It was several weeks later before what I consider to be step number two in the actual break-up of our relationship happened. I was away that weekend, actually doing some location research for my novel and Aileen had gone down to the shopping precinct in town that Saturday morning with a couple of her friends from work. They were approached by some woman who clamed that she was working for some photographic model agency and she invited the three of them to some kind of an audition.

One of her friends refused, but Aileen and her other friend attended the audition just for the kick. To both girls' utter consternation they were invited to go onto the company's books as models.

When I heard the news, I was pretty sceptical at first. I heard plenty of stories about these dodgy modelling agencies that invited gullible people onto their books and then charged them the earth to have a portfolio taken; then they never heard from the agency again. To my utter surprise this agency didn't charge the girls anything, though they did recoup the cost from the first few photo shoots both girls did.

What surprised me were both Aileen and her friend getting bookings so quickly. As it turned out the woman who'd approached them was quite respected in the business and had been in the process of setting up on her own after a fall out with the partnership she had been running for sometime. She'd apparently taken some of the partnerships pretty big clients along with her; although most of the models were tied to the partnership by their contracts. Aileen and her friend had apparently stepped into the lift on the ground floor.

Both girls got so much work that they soon had to throw up their full time jobs. The modelling work wasn't exactly constant, but it paid surprisingly well, although I was to learn that the models who were in most demand would be paid far more than some of the others. Aileen and her friend turned out to be very popular with the clients and photographers.

It wasn't all photographic or fashion show work that Aileen was booked for; actually most of it was mundane promotional work. One day early on for instance, Aileen had to stand by a racing car holding a lollipop sign with a racing driver's name on it. That was the first time that I saw Aileen on the television; she was in the background holding that sign whilst the TV presenter interviewed another driver. But I actually thought that the TV cameraman's attention was more on Aileen's cleavage and long legs than the driver being interviewed.