‘I don’t mean singing, you daft sod. You’ve helped me, now let me help you. You want to be a writer, so let me help you write your scene for next week. It’s easy once you get started.’
‘Are you going to write it for me? That’s the only way this could work.’
‘I won’t write it for you; you’re more than capable of doing that for yourself. But I’ll help you. Now, tell me, why is it so difficult? You can write about all your other life experiences, so why not sex? I mean, you have experienced it, haven’t you?’
He laughed. ‘Not for a long time, Lyd. Since Alice left I’ve been a born-again virgin.’
This was a surprising confession. I’d always assumed that Des was pretty active in that area. I don’t know why; we’d never really talked about it before, but he was an attractive bloke with a great sense of humour and he seemed to ooze self-confidence. In fact, throughout the time I’d known him, I’d often wondered why someone with such an amazing personality was friends with a boring old frump like me.
Anyway, to cut a long story short, I finally persuaded him to let me help with his writing demon. I left him with strict instructions to be at my place the following evening with the first draft of his sex scene.
‘That’s not possible, Lyd. I’m sorry, but you’re just making excuses now.’
I had the distinct impression that Trudi was cross with me. Well, probably disappointed would be a better word. I couldn’t respond, to tell you the truth, as I was more than a little disappointed myself. I knew it shouldn’t have happened, but it had; I couldn’t explain it to myself, let alone to anyone else. Perhaps I shouldn’t have told her, but I needed to … confess, I suppose; to rationalise it somehow. In an ideal world I would have talked it over with Des, but things were far from ideal and I couldn’t quite bring myself to call him. Besides, he hadn’t called me today, either.
‘I didn’t plan it or anything.’ That sounded lame even to my ears. ‘It was accidental.’
‘I’m dying to know how something like that could happen by accident!’ I could hear the laughter in her voice now. Confession wasn’t going to be so difficult after all. ‘You’d better start at the beginning; just give me time to get a drink.’ The phone went silent for a few minutes and I used the time to snuggle more comfortably on the sofa. ‘Go on, then – tell me everything.’
‘Well, you know it was writing group on Thursday …’ I began.
* * * * *
‘This is going to be embarrassing.’ Des inserted his memory stick into the USB port of my laptop. ‘You have to promise you won’t laugh, or I’m not going to show you.’
‘What are you like? I offered to help you, Des; I’m hardly going to make fun of your efforts, am I? Just load up the file and let’s see how you got on.’
I perched the laptop on the arm of the sofa and spent the next ten minutes reading Des’s story while he popped out to the off-licence to get some wine. It wasn’t as bad as I’d been led to expect – certainly nothing that couldn’t be ‘fixed’ with a bit of editing – but there was something I couldn’t quite put my finger on that made me feel uncomfortable, if that’s the right word. I could sense the difficulty he’d had with the piece.
He returned with the wine and plonked himself beside me.
‘Well? What’s the verdict? Total crap, or what?’
‘Not at all. I kinda liked it.’
‘Now I’m truly damned with faint praise.’ He raised his hand to his forehead in a gesture of theatrical distress. ‘I told you I was no good at this. Tell me where I’m going wrong.’
This was an improvement. Suddenly, he wanted to try to get it right, so we drank wine and worked on it together, changing a few words here and there, and reading aloud to test the sense of it. Finally we reached the stumbling point. I stopped reading.
‘This is where it doesn’t quite work for me,’ I said. ‘You’ve built up this great atmosphere of sexual tension, but when you get down to describing the act itself the mechanics don’t work.’
‘I don’t get it.’
‘No, and you wouldn’t “get it” in the position you’ve described.’ I felt a little warm and tipsy from the wine, and I couldn’t help giggling as I continued. ‘It’s impossible, unless you’re a contortionist.’
Confused and also slightly tipsy, Des reread the paragraph, murmuring, ‘Impossible? Are you sure about that? Seems OK to me.’ It was the first time all evening he’d disagreed with me and I was a bit put out.
‘Trust me, Desmond. It just wouldn’t work. If they made a blue movie with that scene, they’d have to call it Position Impossible.’
‘Position Impossible – I love it,’ Des chuckled. ‘But I still don’t believe you. I think it’s quite … erotic.’
‘More like erratic.’ I laughed and stood up to stretch my back. We’d been leaning over the laptop for an hour and a half. Des stood up too and flexed his shoulders.
‘I’m so stiff,’ he said, and we both giggled like teenagers at the unintended innuendo.
‘Do you want me to give you a massage?’ I offered, only vaguely aware that I was flirting with him … and then … somehow … he was kissing me. Don’t ask me how; I’ve no idea. His lips were firm and warm and his tongue gently teased the roof of my mouth. I found myself responding as he put his arms around my waist and pulled me closer.
How did this happen? What are we doing?
My brain asked the questions, but was too befuddled to wait for the answers. I was powerless to resist; who the heck am I kidding? I didn’t even try to resist. I just sort of melted and thought ‘Oh, this is nice …’ then threw my arms around his neck and caution to the wind as we sank back onto the sofa. His hands moved gently across my back as we kissed and my spine tingled with excitement. I had almost forgotten how it felt to have someone hold me this way. The need to breathe normally forced me to pull back a little and meet his gaze. He was flushed and smiling, but he didn’t release me from the embrace and I rested my head on his shoulder as he laid a trail of tiny kisses down the side of my face and neck. His hands were underneath my sweater now and I could feel their warmth spreading across my bare skin as he slid them up to my shoulders and eased my arms free of the loose-fitting sleeves. I raised my head and he pulled the garment all the way off. For a brief moment I wished I’d chosen a sexier bra, but Des didn’t seem bothered by my choice of underwear as his hands and mouth continued their exploration and the bra soon joined the sweater on the floor.
‘Oh my God,’ I gasped. ‘Where are we going with this?’
Des raised his head and looked at me, his green eyes sparkling. ‘The bedroom?’
I’m not going to go into detail about the rest of the evening, but amongst other things we put Des’s theory to the test and it turned out he was right. It wasn’t Position Impossible after all. Who’d have thought it?
At some point during the night, I woke up and realised he’d gone. I cried a little, convinced I’d just lost my best friend.
Despite my protests, Trudi insisted that I should go ahead with the karaoke plan, even though it was now four o’clock and Des still hadn’t been in touch. She came over and I practised