The Love Shack (8 page)

Gemma doesn’t answer. ‘Sorry, I was just distracted by J-Lo’s hair. I never remember it being quite so . . . nineties.’

‘I wasn’t interested in her hair.’

‘Clearly.’

She sits next to me and slides her arms round my neck, kissing me on the lips. I experience a rush of what you’d politely call well-being. More kissing ensues, as we fall backwards on the bed in a tangle of hot limbs.

‘God, I fancy you tonight,’ she whispers. It’s not an especially poetic string of words but they have a positively magical effect on re-diverting my blood supply. With my face against her neck, I slip my hand between her legs and pull back to get a proper look at her. She’s breathtaking: all pink skin and soft breasts and parted mouth and . . .

She stops and glares at me. I lean in to kiss her, pretending not to notice, but she closes her legs on my hand like a trap door.

‘What’s the matter?’

She hesitates. ‘Nothing.’ I’ve learned over the years that the accurate interpretation of this is, in fact, ‘something’.

‘Go on, tell me,’ I insist. The idea that I’d rather Talk – with a capital T – than get down to any kind of conjugal business is of paramount importance in situations such as these.

‘Honestly, it’s nothing.’ I slide my hand across her skin, when she pauses again and says, ‘Now you mention it . . .’

I pull away. ‘What?’

‘It’s Kylie’s arse,’ she splutters. ‘How am I meant to do this with Kylie’s arse looking over us.’

‘It’s not looking over us. Arses can’t look.’

‘Well, whatever. I can’t.’

‘I’ll just tear Kylie down then,’ I decide, standing up. ‘If it’s Kylie or you, then you win, hands down. I never wanted her up there in the first place. Not since 1998 anyway.’

Gemma props herself up on her elbows and watches as I peel away one corner, before starting on the adjacent one.

‘You’re being very careful, considering you were going to “tear it down”,’ Gemma points out.

I shrug. ‘Oh, come on. This
is
Kylie we’re talking about.’

She kicks me in the leg and I chuck away the poster, before sinking into the warm, soft pleasure-zone that is my woman’s arms.

Only she seems distracted. ‘Don’t tell me,’ I sigh. ‘Reese Witherspoon’s cleavage?’

‘Course not,’ she lies, glancing resentfully across the wall. ‘I’ll just turn off the light.’

She flicks the switch and presses her lips against mine . . . then lets out a small gasp. I’m fairly sure it has little to do with any dexterity in my right hand.

‘What was that?’ she asks.

The wail of half a dozen drunken women reverberates through the house. ‘Oh God . . . it’s that lot downstairs,’ I groan.

‘They’re right below us,’ she hisses.

‘They must’ve moved into the living room. Why couldn’t they just stay in the kitchen?’

‘We can just do it quietly,’ she whispers.

I nod. ‘They’re too busy talking anyw—’ She has her lips on mine before I can finish my sentence and is manoeuvring into position underneath me.

But as blood thunders in my ears, I become aware of something. The bed has a squeak. Under normal circumstances, this would not be a big deal. But now, with the Golden Girls downstairs, it is catastrophic, comparable in volume to an eighty-piece orchestra of primary-school violinists.

Every movement I make on the mattress involves the entire frame shifting with me. I realise that I am holding my breath, which does nothing for a sensuous approach.

‘They’re making a lot of noise down there,’ Gemma breathes. ‘They won’t hear us.’ She grabs my behind and pulls me forwards; by the time I’m inside her, frankly, I wouldn’t give a toss if the Pope could hear.

That’s what I think at first anyway.

After a minute or so, it is very apparent that this is not the moment of tender intimacy that it should be, largely because each thrust sounds like I’m riding a rusty Penny Farthing across a defective bridge. Eventually, I slow down and can see the outline of Gemma’s expression. It is not a look of sexual rapture – rather the look you’d wear if you had one ear on a tumbler glass and were trying to hear what your neighbours were discussing through the door.

‘Why are they suddenly not making any noise?’ she says in my ear.

‘I have no idea,’ I mutter, determined to plough on.

But above their silence, the soundtrack to this seduction consists of one note: squeak, squeak, squeak.

‘Let’s do it on the floor,’ Gemma suggests, so we haul ourselves off the bed and onto the sanded floorboards, just under my
Fast and Furious
poster.

I offer to go underneath, wincing as several splinters harpoon my bum. ‘The chair would be better,’ I decide, as we scramble into the tub seat by the window and, as the laughter starts again, Gemma attempts to climb on top.

Chairs and sex
can
be a nice combination. But not this chair. This is the kind that was meant for nursing babies or sewing tapestries. But FHM’s
Positions To Please a Woman
number 27, absolutely not.

It’s too small, too round, too squashed, and no matter how many attempts Gemma makes at wrapping her legs round me in various positions, the closest we get to success results in her big toe tickling my ear canal.

‘This is the least sexy sex position ever invented,’ Gemma sighs, clambering down. ‘And I am bloody determined to have a shag tonight. Determined.’

Under normal circumstances, these are not words I’d be unhappy to hear. But over the course of the next forty minutes we try the no-pants dance on top of a suitcase, a stack of pillows on the floor, a bin bag full of handbags (yes, a whole bin bag), before finally attempting it against the chest of drawers.

‘This is just no good,’ Gemma sobs, defeated. ‘There’s a knob between my legs and I don’t mean in a good way.’

I stop myself from laughing and kiss her as I note that it’s gone quiet again downstairs.

‘DON’T STOP ON OUR ACCOUNT!’ someone shrieks. Gemma’s mouth falls open in silent horror as she makes it clear from her expression that she is now too mortally ashamed to (a) have sex ever again (b) leave this room ever again or (c) make any form of human contact ever again.

We lie in bed, listening to what sounds like a cackle of hyenas pissed on Malibu Screwdrivers, and I ask, ‘Remind me how long you reckoned it’d be before we can put in an offer?’

‘Two months,’ Gemma replies grimly. ‘Assuming we stick to the budget.’

‘And the house remains on sale.’

She looks at me anxiously. ‘I’ll phone the estate agent first thing, shall I?’

Chapter 8

Gemma

I wake up feeling disorientated, unrested and vaguely turned-on, though the latter sensation disintegrates when I open my eyes and am surrounded by Supermodels and actresses of the early 2000s. Dan is stirring, snuggling into his duvet – a jet black and silver striped affair that belongs in an advert for an aftershave called ‘Bloke’.

His eyelashes flutter open. ‘Why are you smiling?’ he asks.

I shrug. ‘Nothing. I just love you, that’s all.’ And it’s true.

It’s hard to believe that there was a time when I was utterly convinced that I’d never find someone like Dan. I suppose that’s one of the downsides of discovering love too early.

I was fifteen when I lost my heart the first time, to a boy called Alex Monroe.

I barely think about him these days, but even now, more than a decade on, I’ll get an occasional pang of recollection, of the delirium of falling so hard for someone. Which makes me all the more thankful that I went on to find a man who lived up to it. A man who’s with me forever.

I’m about to lean in to kiss him when he frowns, as if he’s just remembered something.

‘Did you get up to go to the loo last night, then come back and . . .’

‘What?’

‘Start messing with the duvet?’

I frown. ‘What are you on about?’

He shakes his head. ‘Nothing, must’ve dreamed it.’

I wriggle over and lock my body into his, kissing his lips as the fact that it’s Sunday morning drifts to the front of my consciousness. There’s one thing we do before anything else on a Sunday morning – and it doesn’t involve a shave or fry-up.

There’s a sharp knock on the door.

He freezes and a low groan escapes from his lips.

‘I’ve got your brekkie on! It’ll be on the table in five minutes.’

Dan clears his throat. ‘It’s okay, Mum, we’re going to pass on the breakfast.’

There’s a silence. He rolls over and kisses me.

‘Well, I’ve made it now.’

‘Let’s just go. It’s fine,’ I whisper.

‘It seems a terrible waste to have to throw those eggs out,’ Belinda continues. ‘And the bacon’s on now.
Right now
. I can hear it sizzling, I’m going to have to go. Fine, if you’re not coming, then fine. Just fine. But—’

‘We’re on our way,’ Dan shouts, and covers his head with the Man Duvet.

We enter the kitchen to find a cooked breakfast that could fill the buffet area of a decent-sized B&B. Sadly, size and quality do not equate. There are scrambled eggs speckled with unidentifiable brown lumps, bits of bacon that have either been incinerated or are effectively raw. She’s even managed to burn the baked beans, which I’d thought was a chemical impossibility.

We sit down.

‘Dan – I got your favourite,’ she says, thrusting a pack of Cheerios at him. I’ve literally never, in the four years we’ve been together, seen him eat Cheerios. He grabs a bowl enthusiastically as my eyes dart around the cooked offerings, attempting to identify something edible.

‘I hope this isn’t all for me?’ I laugh nervously, eyeing up a bowl of goo.

‘It won’t do you any harm to fatten yourself up a bit,’ Belinda says. ‘Or you for that matter, Dan. When I tucked you in last night, I was thinking how skinny you’d become.’

I attempt to suppress any visible horror, but it’s extremely difficult. Fortunately, her attention is diverted to Dan, who echoes my thoughts entirely. ‘You
tucked me in
?’ he growls.

She bites her lip. ‘Oh, I couldn’t resist,’ she confesses with a grin. ‘I always tucked you in, when you were living here. You used to look so cute when you were asleep. Less so now, it has to be said.’ She scrunches up her nose.

‘Mum, I’m twenty-nine years old so hadn’t thought this needed saying – but just to be clear, I don’t need to be tucked in. Thanks.’

‘Oh, talk about Mr Grumpy!’ she exclaims. ‘Gemma, have some black pudding.’ I attempt to stick my fork in a piece but it’s as hard as the Kray Twins.

‘Mum, look,’ he adds, far more patiently than I’d be if my mum pulled something like this, ‘you know how grateful we are to be here. I’m just saying, we’d appreciate a bit of privacy. That’s all.’

She purses her lips. ‘If you’re referring to yesterday evening, it was Sabrina who shouted up to you while you were –you know,
at it.’
She winks pointedly and I study my plate, my neck flushing a similar colour to the streaky bacon. ‘I told her off immediately, then turned the volume up on Kool and The Gang so you could do whatever took your fancy.’

Dan puts his head in his hands. I tentatively reach out for the beans and try, with several hard thrusts, to spoon some on my plate. Then I add eggs and a blackened mass that I
think
are baked tomatoes.

Dan starts munching his Cheerios as I struggle with the burnt offerings. ‘Wouldn’t you prefer Cheerios, Gemma?’ he suggests diplomatically. ‘I know how much you love them. Gemma loves cereal,’ he adds.

I perk up. ‘Oh, that’d be lov—’

‘Of course she wouldn’t,’ Belinda interrupts, picking up the box, standing and putting it back into the cupboard.

‘Er, I’ll help you out,’ Dan says, and starts piling his plate up. He picks up a piece of under-cooked sausage on his fork and examines it. We make eye-contact but say nothing.

‘Everything okay?’ Belinda asks.

Dan swallows. ‘Lovely. Thanks for this, Mum.’ He takes a bite of some bacon and chews it slowly. It has the consistency of a mummified flip-flop.

‘So this book,’ he begins. ‘When are they publishing it?’

‘November,’ she says. ‘There’s still lots to do but the publishers are already thinking about covers and the publicity plan. I’m going to have an intensive schedule – interviews, photo shoots . . . ooh, you could be in one if you fancy it?
Hello!
would definitely go for it.’

‘Do you still actually believe all that stuff?’ he asks, putting down his fork.

She frowns. ‘Why do you talk about my work as if it’s some nonsense? It’s highly respected in some quarters. And it’s helped empower women all over the world.’

A few minutes later, when Dan stands up to clear away the dishes, Belinda looks at my plate and gasps, ‘Don’t tell me that’s all you’re eating!’

‘I’m absolutely stuffed,’ I lie. ‘But thanks, Belinda – it was lovely. You didn’t need to go to all that effort.’

‘Oh, we’ll do this every weekend,’ she promises. ‘Make it a new Sunday-morning tradition.’ Dan’s jaw twitches. I’m fairly convinced he’d have preferred to stick to the sex.

The grounds of Buddington Hall are like something out of a nineteenth-century romance, with swirling pathways, lush lawns, terraces, a strawberry patch behind the house and a small rose garden abundant with scent. But Dan’s favourite part is the small lake at the furthest point from the house, reached via ivy-clad steps and flanked by a curtain of greenery.

‘Fancy a dip?’ It’s a warm, sunny spring morning, but I’m still not tempted.

‘Not my cup of tea,’ I reply. ‘You, on the other hand, are very welcome to go in.’

‘You’ll do anything to see me naked,’ he smirks, peeling off his top.

I refuse to react to the sight of his torso as he strides to the lake’s edge, in the aussieBum undies I bought him for Christmas. He slips in and powers through the water to the willow tree that drapes along the opposite bank, before turning round and swimming to the middle.

‘You don’t know what you’re missing,’ he shouts, treading water.

‘I’d prefer to spectate than get plankton in my knickers, thanks.’

I lie back on the grass, resting my head in my hands as I look up at the sky, luxuriating in the feel of sunshine against my skin. My eyes dance in and out of focus onto a wisp of white clouds – until I realise that the sensation is making me feel queasy. I close my lids, but that only exacerbates the feeling. My stomach lurches and saliva gathers at the sides of my mouth.