The Bonk Squad (3 page)

Not unlike Tigger herself was
doing.

Advertising in the local paper had
seemed a good place for her heroine to start. Tigger knew if she
had the girl advertising online, she might be contacted by men from
the other side of the world. And she needed them living locally for
the story to work.

She tucked her tongue into the corner
of her mouth, and her fingers raced over the keys.

Having placed the ad in
the wanted column, Sophie waited for the phone to ring. Naturally
she’d only put her cell-phone number—she didn’t want any of the men
to track her down at the apartment.

In truth she was a little
dismayed at how the ad looked.

Author seeks o-minded
sexually exp. man for erotic chat. No phys. contact req.

Surprising the difference
the abbreviations made to her careful wording. Might prospective
callers read it as ‘sexually explicit’ instead of ‘sexually
experienced’? God, she hoped not.

The first call came just
as she arrived home. He sounded Scottish, and was certainly
drunk.

“
Aye lassie, you need a
sexy man for dirrrty talk?” he slurred. “I’ll talk dirrrty. I’ll
talk the lacy wee panties right off your bonny backside.
I’ll—”

Sophie pressed the cancel
key.

The phone beeped again
just seconds later.

“
Cut off in ma prime,
girlie. And you should see the size of me. He’s a beauty tonight.
So thick that—”

OMG—she hadn’t expected
anything like this!

“
Excuse me sir,” she
snapped. “Someone has printed my cell-phone number by mistake. If
you ring again I’ll call the Police.” She jabbed at the cancel key,
praying she’d heard the last of him.

Her knees had turned to
jelly. Maybe this was a really stupid idea? She clutched her arms
around herself and rocked to and fro for a few moments before
walking across to the refrigerator. The tall green bottle of
Sauvignon Blanc waited patiently. Sophie opened it and poured a
glassful for courage.

“
Are you
still
in bed, Tigs?” her
mother asked, pushing the bedroom door open without knocking. “Are
you ever getting up? You can’t be that jet lagged,
surely?”

Tigger angled the screen away from
Eloise’s sharp eyes.

“
Just emailing London, Mom.
The band’ll be out working by now, so I can’t Skype him.” She sent
Eloise what she hoped was a love-struck look.

“
Hmmm,” was all she got in
return.

“
Only a few more minutes,”
she begged.

“
It’s nearly lunchtime.
Have you had any breakfast?”

“
I made toast.”

“
Well don’t be much longer.
It’s a lovely day out there.”

Tigger waited until Eloise swept
dramatically out again before re-reading what was on the
screen.

…
a glassful for courage…a
glassful for courage… She took a deep breath and started tapping
away again.

It was more than half an
hour before the next call, and by then Sophie had sipped her whole
glassful of Sauvignon, very slowly, while she sat on the patio in
the early evening sun.

“
Sweetie!” an enthusiastic
and sibilant voice exclaimed in her ear. “You’re a woman! Damn! I
was hoping for a man when your ad just said ‘author’.”

“
Sorry,” Sophie muttered,
picturing a flamboyantly dressed theatrical type.

“
Oh well, no probs. I’m
Gordon, by the way.”

“
Hi Gordon, I’m Amy,”
Sophie lied. “Thanks for ringing anyway.”

“
Satisfy my curiosity at
least, darling—why are you advertising for a man when you could
phone one of the sexy chat lines and get all the grubby talk you
want?”

“
Because I don’t want
grubby talk...exactly,” she said, warming to the unknown nosey
extrovert. “I enjoy writing, and there’s a huge market for erotica
these days. It’s all some of the publishers are asking
for.”

“
You want a man for erotic
chats to get you in the mood? Oh you
are
a naughty girl.”

“
Absolutely
not
. I can get myself in
a sexy mood very nicely, thank you. I just need a bit
more...information.” Heat spread up her neck and invaded her face.
Damn her easy blushes. Would she ever grow out of them?

“
You’re not a little
virgin are you?” gay Gordon teased.

“
No way,” Sophie snapped.
At five foot nine, and almost too busty for her C-cups, she’d not
considered herself ‘little’ for years. The virgin bit was none of
his business. “But I’m writing male/female stories so you’re really
not who I need, are you?” she added. “Thanks anyway.”

“
I can give you lots of
info about good lubricant,” Gordon continued, taking no notice of
her polite dismissal. “Butter is
useless
. I know Marlon Brando was
into butter in ‘Last Tango’, but it’s not the answer, sweetie.
Lubricating jelly’s a bit too clinical for me—and if you’d ever had
your prostate probed you’d know all about that.”

Sophie snorted at that
unlikely eventuality.

“
There’s baby oil of
course, but the best I ever had was some stuff extracted from green
kiwi-fruit. Lovely and slippery.”

“
Thank-you,” she said.
“Bye. Thanks
so
much.” She cut him off before he could go into further
detail.

Once more Eloise flung the door open.
“Tigger! Lunch is on the table.”

Tigger sighed. “Getting up right now,
Mom.”

“
Muffins or pikelets,
Arnold?”

The old cat stared up, unblinking. The
fridge had been opened. Another meal might be possible.

Vi knew the younger people
rarely contributed proper
food
toward the writers’ afternoon tea. There would be
chocolate biscuits. Packets of fudge or caramels. There’d once been
a bowl of Easter eggs. And sometimes that expensive mild Brie
cheese she’d never quite seen the point of, and gritty
corn-chips.

Meg bought things from the local
bakery and cut them up. Ginger slice or anemic sponge roll. So Vi
always baked a proper batch of something, to keep the Standard from
Slipping. She was very keen on Standards not setting off down
Slippery Slopes.

Really—some of the stories the younger
people wrote… They might be entertaining, but they were hardly
proper. Swear-words (quite bad ones sometimes), and such a lot of
sex. Eloise hadn’t turned a hair at naming the stable lad’s private
parts at the last meeting. His penis. His pulsing purple penis. Vi
had never been quite certain what color her late husband’s was.
He’d been decent enough to keep it hidden and only produced it in
the dark. Even when they were first married. Because he knew Vi had
Standards.

Purple?! That had come as quite a
shock.

Why couldn’t Eloise just have said
‘his private parts’ or ‘his masculinity’ or even ‘his arousal’ if
she’d wanted to be a bit spicy? An arousal sounded quite nice. Soft
and cuddly like a toy or a small animal. ‘His arousal peeked
endearingly at her from around the tree trunk.’ The long, hard,
up-thrusting, smooth, warm...tree trunk.

She huffed and shook her head. She’d
never admit it to them of course, but perhaps it might be fun to
try a little of ‘that sort of thing.’ She’d do it under an assumed
name, naturally. Certainly not Violet Maybury. May Berryman
perhaps? Lettie Berryman? May Hartly? Tartly? Choosing the name
could be as much fun as writing the story. She mused on as she
lined up the canister of self-rising flour, the milk, the eggs, and
the caster sugar on her pale gray Formica counter top.

She decided on pikelets for their
afternoon tea treat. Warm, floppy, steaming pikelets. A bit like
the gentlemen who populated her safe stories for the genteel
ladies’ magazines. Warm hands, floppy hair, steaming looks held in
check by impeccable manners. Vi was quite good at setting up little
scenarios that let her readers know what was likely to happen
without anything really happening at all.

She peered out the window as she
started to beat the mixture. The wind buffeted her trees, making
them dip and sway and creak. They should have been trimmed back
several years ago, but with Brian gone, these tasks did seem to
slide. Now she’d have to find a proper arborist, who would no doubt
cost an arm and a leg. She imagined a suitably strong young man as
she splashed a few drops of water onto the hot fry-pan to test the
heat. Arnold scuttled away as it sizzled and steamed. She wiped the
buttery paper over the surface and started the first three
pikelets, letting the pale mixture run down off the spoon into
sticky little puddles.

Slowly they puffed
up…growing…expanding. She waited for the bubbles, then flipped them
over. The soft golden undersides were as smooth and hot as a man’s
skin. She stroked one with her forefinger. Lovely to
touch.

Just like that poor young stable boy’s
back. The long golden back that had been rippling with lean muscles
once the Duchess had tugged the ivory shirt off it. How could you
take a horsewhip to something so beautiful? Time slid by as she
daydreamed.

She sniffed. Burnt! And tossed her
first effort into the garbage pail with an oath she’d learned from
Liz McKenzie.

Now
there
was a hussy, if ever there was
one. Liz was tall and slender. Always wore jeans that sat low on
her slinky hips. Vi had never seen her in a top that fitted
properly. There was a permanent band of bare skin on display, and
often a belly-button, too. And a glittery stud thing sitting just
above it. How could men be expected to keep their hands off
her?

Vi always noticed the dark tattoo in
the hollow of Liz’s back. What was the point of that? Liz certainly
couldn’t see it. Vi kept her eyes open for it every time Liz bent
or swayed and displayed a bit more skin. It looked like Batman, of
all things. Why would you want Batman on your back?

She could understand the anchor on her
late husband’s arm. A souvenir from the Korean War. Three young men
all a little tipsy together and egging each other on; it was only
to be expected.

She’d always presumed the anchor was a
bit of an oopsie, really—Brian had been in aircraft
maintenance.

She shook her head again as she slid
the spatula under the final three pikelets and flipped them over.
Maybe she could give her imaginary arborist a tattoo somewhere? And
invent a pretty young landscaper to admire it? She could call it
‘Branching Out’.

Leah Walls halted abruptly
in front of the mountain of fresh foliage. A huge piece of Magnolia
Campbellii had broken off in the gale, entirely blocking the stone
steps to number thirty-four.

She peered upward. A pale
gash showed where the tree had split. A patch of dark rot explained
why it had plummeted down.

How could she get past?
And how would Mrs. Banks get home after visiting her elderly
sister?

Leah needed some final
measurements for a previously discussed landscaping project—a
courtyard at the rear of the old house. She’d been assured Mr.
Banks was home to answer any questions, so that meant he was
trapped behind the tangle, poor old boy. She pulled out her phone
to let him know. It rang for ages before he answered it, and the
line crackled.

“
Mr. Banks? It’s Leah
Walls, the landscaper.”

“
Who? Another
landscaper?”

Damn—he sounded as though
he wasn’t expecting her.

“
I’ve just arrived,” she
continued firmly, “and there’s a big piece of tree blocking your
steps. I can’t get in, and that means you can’t get
out.”

“
I’ll be right
down.”

She consulted her notes
while she cooled her heels. Mrs. Banks had requested an enlarged
lily pond, a more attractive fountain, a long colorful easy-care
border, and some raised herb beds surrounded by recycled bricks.
Leah had some extra ideas she was keen to incorporate. Wind
protection for starters—a slatted timber screen would make it a
much more inviting place to sit and relax.

She soon heard descending
feet and a couple of surprised curses. The greenery
shook.

“
You’ll never move it,”
she called upward.

“
Watch me. Stand clear
down there.”

She bristled, sure she
could handle the job better than a grouchy geriatric.

The sound of sawing
followed, and a grunt. A branch whistled over. She ducked. More
sawing. Another branch. She was ready for this one and kept well
back. Through a thinner patch of leaves she now glimpsed a
red-handled pruning saw the same as hers. Wielded by a long tanned
muscular arm nothing remotely like hers. Did Mrs. Banks have a
toy-boy?

“
Horrible wind today,” she
tried. “Shame about the tree.”

“
Stupid place to plant
it.”

Well, wasn’t he in a good
mood!

Another piece hurtled
down. A very good leg appeared and braced itself on a large branch.
A leg with a muddy brown boot, a hairy gray sock neatly cuffed
above it, and a less hairy but quite spectacular calf and thigh
above that. A Celtic tattoo curled up the side of the calf. Leah’s
eyes widened as the sawing resumed. Mr. Banks had to be at least
seventy. That leg was much younger.