‘No, nothing – I’m good. Thanks.’
‘Rampant sex?’
‘Tempting – on any other night. I have to work. Seriously.’
‘One of my very special blow-jobs?’
Zac looks at his screen. He has a very good head for figures. But if there’s one figure that gives very good head, it’s Pip. His eyes don’t leave his laptop, his finger hovers above the mouse-pad. ‘A special blow-job?’ Zac asks, as if it’s a deal-breaker. ‘Not just a standard one?’
‘Trust me,’ Pip winks.
‘Because,’ says Zac, ‘if it’s just run-of-the-mill sucky-sucky, I’ll pass. This audit is crucial.’
‘I’m not capable of run-of-the-mill sucky-sucky,’ Pip clarifies, hands on her hips, chin up.
‘I mean, I’m talking cosmic, Pip,’ Zac stipulates with a lasciviously raised eyebrow. ‘It needs to be mind-blowing.’
‘I assure you it’s not just your mind I’ll be blowing.’
Finally, Zac looks from his laptop to Pip, then back again. Contriving a sigh, as if he was doing her the favour, he logs off. ‘I’m sure the powers that be will understand,’ he says.
‘I’ll write your boss a note,’ says Pip. ‘I’ll tell him the dog ate your homework.’ She takes Zac by the hand and leads him to the bedroom. They undress silently and have rude sex as quietly as they can.
* * *
Matt had come back from work early, made sausages, mash and onion gravy. Perfect for a cold January night and essential for his girlfriend who’d told him she hadn’t had time to eat more than toast and Marmite during the day. He’d bought a DVD too, which Fen managed to stay awake through despite snuggling up against the cosiness of Matt’s chest. Now she’s reading in bed and Matt is nuzzling the fragrant softness of his girlfriend’s neck. His cock is surprisingly responsive. He’d only intended to kiss her goodnight. He didn’t know he had the energy to feel horny.
‘How did we make Cosima again?’ Matt whispers, running his hand the length of Fen’s thigh, spooning against her, the sensation of her buttocks against his erection causing his pelvis to rock automatically, his hands to travel up along her torso. He bypasses her breasts. They’re Cosima’s for the time being. He doesn’t really mind, it’s lucky he’s always been a legs and bum man. And his hands sweep down to Fen’s thighs again, and over them, and around. And he walks his fingers up through the fuzz of her sex then attempts to tiptoe them down in between.
Fen’s hand joins his. ‘I do want to,’ she announces, a tinge of apology, a ring of reluctance, which stills Matt’s hand immediately. ‘I’m just really really tired. Sorry.’
‘I bet I can have you in the mood; bet you I can have you hollering for mercy,’ he tells her. He always used to be able to. He leans across her and kisses her, pulls her to face him, holds her against him. He rocks his groin gently against her, takes her hand down to his perky cock and works his hands over her body. He is not sure whether he’s taken her breath away or whether she’s holding it to pull her stomach in. But he feels her stiffen, and a glance at her face, where anxiety is mixed with reluctance, causes him to turn away from her, to stare at the ceiling with a sigh.
‘Do I feel different to you?’ she asks. ‘I’m still so squidgy and unattractive.’ And then she mutters that she shouldn’t have had all that bangers and mash.
‘You look gorgeous,’ Matt says, ‘I keep telling you. God. Wasn’t my raging hard-on proof enough how much I fancy you?’
Fen shrugs and looks downcast. ‘I know you do,’ she says quietly, ‘but I have to fancy myself, too, to feel horny.’
‘Will you give yourself a break,’ Matt says. He switches off the bedside light and kisses her lightly on the shoulder. ‘Stop being silly.’
Fen lies in the dark, wide-eyed and confused and wishing they had a spare room she could withdraw to. She encourages a hot, oily tear to sting its way from the corner of her eye and slick down her cheek and onto the pillow. She knows it’s bizarre, but rather than being bolstered by Matt’s assurances that he loves and lusts for her however she feels she looks, she’s cross that he appears to trivialize her concerns, her loss of confidence, her fragile self-image.
He called me silly. For the second time today. Silly is a stupid, insensitive word to use. He just doesn’t understand.
God. It’s gone midnight. Cosima will wake in a couple of hours. I have to get some sleep.
Django McCabe and the Nit-Pickin’ Chicks
Though only three years separated the oldest and youngest of the McCabe sisters, Cat had always been very much the baby of the family. She was a little shorter than Pip and Fen, her features more petite. She lacked Pip’s aptitude for performing, to entertain, which gave her eldest sister her apparent sassy confidence. Nor did she have Fen’s self-containment, her ability to seem so quietly self-possessed, so attractively serene. While Pip and Fen had encountered the various dramas in their lives head-on and for the most part single-handedly and discretely, Cat had always simply stood there and cried loudly for help. It wasn’t that she was particularly feeble, nor was she excessively attention-seeking or spoilt; Cat was accustomed to being looked after because there was something about her that inspired others to care for her. Ben believed it was to do with the arrangement of her features; her large eyes set winsomely around the childlike upturn to her nose which led down to the natural pout to her lips. It compelled one to offer protection, even if it was not specifically needed or asked for. However, Cat’s strength was that she was never too proud to ask. She’d grown up knowing that what made her feel strong and able was the presence of her support network, her sisters in particular.
When Cat had gone to live in America with a relatively new boyfriend (as Ben was then) and brand new job, everyone anticipated floods of tears to wash her soon back again. But the anticipated plea to be rescued never came. Her letters and e-mails and phone calls attested to her happiness, and her occasional visits home confirmed this. Her apparent self-sufficiency was a source of joy and relief for her family and soon enough they were delighted for her that she’d gone. Not half so thrilled as they are now, four years later, that she has come back.
Being swept north by rail for their family reunion, the McCabe sisters were initially preoccupied with three-way inane grinning and quietly assessing physical details and changes.
‘So.’
‘So?’
‘So!’
‘You’re back.’
‘I am.’
‘For good?’
‘Indeed. For better, for worse.’
‘I do love your hair,’ Pip told Cat. ‘When you e-mailed to say you’d gone short and red, I had visions of a ginger buzz-cut.’
‘It’s very gamine,’ Fen said whilst hastily retying hers into a hopefully smoother pony-tail, ‘very Audrey Hepburn. God I feel a dowdy frump.’
‘You don’t think it’s too short?’ Cat asked them. ‘And you’re sure you like the colour? Yours is so much longer,’ she said to Fen, ‘and darker.’
‘That’s probably because it’s greasy,’ Fen said. She took a twist of her hair and scrutinized the ends. ‘I can’t remember the last time I went to the hairdresser.’
‘Go this weekend,’ Pip said. ‘Django will know somewhere.’
‘When did he last go to a barber?’ Cat interrupted. ‘You’re not telling me he’s chopped off his pony-tail? I expected things to change