Page 7

When the screening finishes, we receive a polite round of applause from the journalists, while everyone from the cast and crew is up on their feet, screaming and applauding.

The head of the network, this serious-looking old guy called Edmund, gives a little speech about how this is reality TV like it’s never been seen before.

“Real people, real lives, and getting absolutely mortal,” he says, in his super posh accent and I can’t help but laugh as the word ‘mortal’ should not be said in an accent that’s clearly more used to saying words like ‘caviar’.

But he is right. I’ve never watched anything like this before.

There’s obviously Animal Farm , that show where they shove all those people in a farmhouse and lock the doors, but we’ve got our freedom in this.

I think that’s why I applied. It wasn’t an experiment – it was our lives, but bigger and bolder and more banging than ever before.

We go out, get absolutely off our faces and bring people back to the house for raging parties.

Plus, we’re northern and I swear that means we’re just less uptight.

I certainly don’t care that people are going to see me at my drunkest, wildest, rawest. I’m grinning now, because I can already tell the show’s going to be massive.

Which makes my tummy feel funnier than Damon ever managed…

until I wonder how many people are going to notice the bump on my nose?

As soon as the screening is over, during the five-minute break they give us, I search for Leo.

I have to make sure that neither Edmund nor the producers, particularly Gerald, see me as we’re not meant to ‘fraternise’ with the crew.

That’s what they told us on the first day, and even though it’s not like any of us are rule-followers their tone was so strict we all took it on board.

So we’re friendly with the cameramen and producers, but they’re never allowed to hang out or party with us once the cameras stop rolling.

They don’t seem to mind us spending time with Madison – after all, she was their go-between and the whole show would have been lost without her running errands and generally keeping the show on the road.

But Leo’s different. He’s one of the quietest cameramen, and I couldn’t help but find myself drawn to him.

There’s something different about him. I mean he looks different than the other lads for a start.

In the middle of all the oiled and buffed guys, he’s sort of rumpled and unbothered.

He’s a few years older and he’s just, well, comfortable in his own skin.

His tan lines come from filming outside, not a spray booth, and the curls of hair that peek out of his plaid shirt are unusual in a sea of waxed pecs and t-shirts cut to show off gym-toned biceps.

It’s not like I’ve broken any rules, though.

He’s come to be a friend, a proper one. He was just…

there for me, in the house, and out on the town.

This one time, I was so trashed, I kept passing out in the club toilets.

Pretty standard practice for me, but Leo, once he learned some girls were trying to humiliate me by taking pictures, urged Madison to check on me before apparently shooing everyone away and carrying me out in a fireman’s lift, like a proper white knight, to the car.

But after watching episode one, I’m frustrated he captured so many side shots of me.

I find him leaning against the back wall of the screening room.

“You could have chosen more flattering angles,” I mutter at him, eyes darting to make sure no one spots us chatting, relieved it’s dark up here.

He does smell nice, he’s got a spicy, woody aroma that always smells like soap and leather and, for a very brief second, I feel a little spark fly between us.

This fleeting moment of connection makes me yearn for him to scoop me up in those arms again and carry me out (while I’m conscious, so I can savour it this time).

But then he starts saying all these nice things.

Which means I can’t possibly believe he’s sincere.

“Your nose is perfect, Angelica, stop stressing about that,” he proceeds to tell me that if I’d just paid more attention to the audience reception rather than analysing every out-of-place hair or side angle, I’d have noticed all the journalists in the room loved me.

“They laughed at everything you said, and they clearly thought you were the sweetest one,” he says.

“There’s just this directness to you, you know, it’s very endearing, an innocence somehow. ”

Now I know he’s taking the piss. Innocence?

Me? Most of the time on camera I’m going on about who’s shagging who, or what I want to do with Damon’s willy.

Something I think is going to come back and haunt me – my words I mean, not Damon’s tackle.

But only because it’s clearly boosted his ego, as when we enter the next room for the line-up of interviews, he’s there already seated, in his white tank-top, chest clearly freshly waxed, looking like he’s the King of England, his legs spread so far apart he almost needs two chairs.

I want to say, “hey, there are more interesting things about Damon than what’s in his pants,” except that’s not strictly true.

It sometimes used to feel like there were three of us in our relationship, if that’s what you could call it: me, Damon, and his dick.

He used to say it had a mind of his own but I think that was just another on of his excuses for getting it on with other women.

The interviews are exhausting. The journalists don’t ask me questions about what I want to do next, or even the stages of my coveted tanning regime.

Nope, instead they’re all focused on one thing.

The fact they all, just half an hour ago, watched me have sex on camera.

Except technically they didn’t, they just caught a glimpse of some vague out-of-focus movements under the sheets.

It’s hardly the sequel to Paris Hilton’s sex tape is it?

But still, it’s all they can ask about. “How do you think your parents will react to you shagging on TV? Do you think they’ll be proud?

” is a common one. My answer? They just switch over at those moments and besides, it’s all under the covers.

I’m a grown adult. I doubt my dad will even watch – all he ever tunes in for are science and programmes.

When I told him I was auditioning for North Stars he thought it was an astronomy show.

Oh, and the press are also obsessed with how drunk we get on the show.

As if most of them don’t reach the same levels of wasted every Saturday night, we’re just doing what everyone does but, if anything, we’re doing it better given it’s the VIP areas of the north’s best night-clubs.

These aren’t pound-a-pint nights, they’re classy places.

No, it’s just the same questions over and over again and while I’m happy to be here, I really am, I just wish they’d ask me something else.

Particularly as, when I get up to find the loos, I eavesdrop on some of Damon and Marc’s interviews.

And they’re not being asked about all their shagging!

Even though they copped off way more in the house than all the girls did.

One time, Marc shagged an actual old woman round the back of a supermarket.

Or there was the time Damon had the audacity to be banging some girl while I lay there in the same room, asleep.

Or, at least pretending to be. I was fake snoring so loudly, hoping it would turn the girl off and she’d climb off his dick and go home.

But sadly, my snores seemed to motivate her even more, as she moaned louder with every thrust. Not that it lasted long.

I’m fuming about the boys’ questions, but I do overhear something very juicy.

“So,” the journalist asks Damon. “You and Angelica were clearly the big romance of the house, with that cliffhanger ending leaving the door open for season two. Is there going to be a second series? And is all your talk of her being a backstop just bravado, when you’ve clearly developed feelings for her?

” Yes! Thank you, journalist! I like her.

She’s asking all the probing questions I’ve been dying to ask Damon myself, if I wasn’t trying so very hard to pretend I’m not bothered about him in the slightest. I didn’t think this would be a benefit of fame, journalists being nosy and forcing guys to confront the truth on my behalf.

Maybe I can plant some in his room, lying in wait under the bed and behind the wardrobe with notepads to hand, ready to quiz him with bombshells like “Damon, would you ever consider marrying Angelica?” Damon looks down, and up again, meeting her in the eye.

“Well, there’s obviously a lot of very beautiful women in this world, yourself included.

” Sleazebag! “But, Angelica cracks me up. I love the bones of that girl, I really do. So, I guess…watch this space.”

I scamper back to my seat, the biggest smile across my face. I can barely hide it. Maybe my fifteen minutes of fame is going to be fun after all.

* * *