Sex with the Ex

by Tyne O’Connell

  Dedicated to my two favorite exes in the world—

  my ex-husbands—

  S. P. Santospirito and Eric Hewitson.

  TYNE O’CONNELL

  was born in Australia holding a glass of champagne, wearing six-inch heels and reading Nancy Mitford. Educated by Catholic nuns in the arts of deportment, elocution, feminism and charm, she spent several years traveling the world as a professional gambler before trading in her dice for a laptop and settling in the U.K. She has previously written five novels for Headline Review, features for U.K. newspapers and magazines—including Elle, Vogue and Marie Claire—and she spent two years in L.A. as a sitcom writer. Tyne also writes young-adult fiction.

  Having misplaced two husbands, Tyne now prefers to live alone with her laptop, Nancy. When not having heated debates with Nancy in their cramped flat in Mayfair, the two divide their time between New York and Los Angeles.

  Also by the author and available from Red Dress Ink™

  The Sex Was Great But…

  Find out more about Tyne at:

  www.tyneoconnell.com

  Tyne O’Connell

  Sex with the Ex

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Air Kisses to London, the city that never stops talking,

  drinking and inspiring. It may piss with rain, the public

  transport system may be shambolic, it may cost a

  mortgage for an evening out, but it’s always worth it

  because nowhere else does idiosyncratic eccentricity

  flourish with such abandon. London; with your cobbled

  streets, your stately architecture and your impeccable

  ability to queue orderly and patiently in the rain

  for a bus that never comes—You Rock!

  And then, of course, there is Home House,

  my inspiration for Posh House—a private members’ club

  within a private members’ club where history and charm

  seep from every chandelier, floorboard,

  portrait, antique and member.

  Big Kiss to one specific Londoner, the embodiment of

  all that is the best of London, the Charm-Encrusted

  Niki de Metz. As a single girl in this city where there are

  far too many potential exes, I must pay homage to the

  following people who make sure I not only survive but

  thrive! People like Malcolm Young and Gaetano Speranza

  for being preternaturally bright, handsome and owning

  pugs and Robin Dutt, for being from another

  century where scandalous women like me

  were celebrated rather than chastised.

  Last, though far, far, far from least,

  low bows to the women who get me

  and get the best from me, to Laura Dail,

  an agent of genius. Margaret O’Neill Marbury,

  Keyren Gerlach and RDI—a publishing house so

  teeming with talent it humbles me to be on the list!

  And then there’s my lovely Nick at Eden PR for being

  implausibly handsome as well as brilliant.

  EX: Greek ex = out (of), as exodus, exorcism. Used as a freely productive prefix forming nouns from titles of office; status etc., with the sense “formally” as in ex-convict, ex-husband, ex-boyfriend.

  X: A diagonal cross, used to mark incorrectness, also used to mark on a map a location that is no longer there.

  Passion: noun. Old and modern French from Christian Latin pass = suffer, as in suffering of martyrs, a painful disorder or affliction, an overwhelming barely controllable emotion, a strong sexual feeling, an aim or object pursued with uncontrollable, frequently irrational enthusiasm.

  Posh: adj.; verb & adverb. Colloquial, origins unknown: smartly dressed, stylish, genteel; affecting to be socially superior. An upper-class manner of behavior; talking and dressing. Often used ironically.

  Contents

  Chapter one

  Chapter two

  Chapter three

  Chapter four

  Chapter five

  Chapter six

  Chapter seven

  Chapter eight

  Chapter nine

  Chapter ten

  Chapter eleven

  Chapter twelve

  Chapter thirteen

  Chapter fourteen

  Chapter fifteen

  Chapter sixteen

  Chapter seventeen

  Chapter eighteen

  Chapter nineteen

  Chapter twenty

  Chapter twenty-one

  Chapter twenty-two

  Chapter twenty-three

  Chapter twenty-four

  Chapter twenty-five

  one

  Posche House stood majestically at the very epicenter of late-eighteenth-century aristocratic London life.

  As a hostess, Lady Posche was unrivaled, the power she wielded is impossible to imagine by today’s standards.

  She was the hostess extraordinaire.

  It would be accurate to say that she set the standard. To be on her guest list was to be fashionable. To be excluded from a ball or an important event at Posche House was to be marked out as unfashionable.

  Like moths to a flame the aristocracy of fashionable London was drawn to these parties by the reputation of its notorious hostess, Lady Posche, as much as by the bohemian entertainments provided.

  It was not uncommon for ladies of a certain standing to lie about being left off the guest list of Posche House, declaring later to friends that they had been unable to attend due to illness. The idea that these ladies wouldn’t have dragged themselves from the jaws of death to appear at Posche House was ludicrous, and as a consequence, their lies only left them open to further ridicule and derision.

  Secret Passage to the Past:

  A Biography of Lady Henriette Posche

  By Michael Carpendum

  Date: The present.

  Place: Posh House, London

  Time: 23:45

  Epiphanies are funny things in that you never have any warning that one is on the way. I was standing in my sybaritic place of work; the grand, chandeliered, marble-pillared drawing room of London’s most desirably elitist private members’ club, observing London’s young partying aristopack when my epiphany came.

  Everything and everyone around me was unremarkable, from the ineffably trendy public-school boys and girls of the day with their loud, drunk, posh drawls, hyphenated surnames and titles, to the incestuous hubs of celebrities with their sense of entitlement and innate mistrust of People Not Like Us. Even the stray gay twentysomething millionaire with the diamond stud in his tooth who was now swaying recklessly into the private party was well within the realm of a normal evening at work.

  I spoke into my mouthpiece to alert security regarding our stray. He was a member of the club though not part of this private party, who after a few lines of coke could become obstreperous. But then into every social situation a little drama must fall. My job was to minimize its effect and more importantly ensure no one really important witnessed it.

  “Security to Tuscany Room, please.”

  Security, dressed in their trendy loose-fitting Armani suits and black T-shirts arrived almost immediately, although not in time to prevent our stray grabbing an It Girl’s famous D-cups and declaring loudly, “Fuck, these are real!”

  The girl concerned, Lady Tarmilla (who was rumored to have had a fling with both William and Harry), thankfully took the grope in good part and laughed as if the invasion of her personal space was a compliment she was delighted to have visited on her. Just the same I would have to write an incident report in the event that she changed her feelings, in the regrets of an alcohol-free morning, about having her D-cups groped and decided to make a c
omplaint. I also made a mental note to check just how many incident reports I’d had to write about our diamond-toothed wannabe pop star recently.

  Drugs were strictly forbidden at Posh House, but like any exclusive London club, it was impossible to hermetically seal ourselves from the winds from Colombia all the time. Our no-tolerance policy was strongly enforced. For a start there was a total lack of flat surfaces in the loo (everything sloped like an Alice in Wonderland set). We’d even recently installed a CCTV camera in the toilet to observe people going into the cubicles together in the event our lavatory attendant was on a break. But the occasional incident was to be expected in a club like Posh House where the members, by nature, felt entitled to misbehave. In fact, a sense of entitlement generally was pretty much a prerequisite for membership here.

  I observed the eligible men, and not-so-eligible men, as they laughed their easy rich-person’s laughs and sipped their expensive champagne. They were a good-looking crowd, but then they always were here. A few of the celebs I knew relatively well had approached me during the course of the evening; a few of the male celebs had flirted and I had politely flirted back. In my job, flirtation is as essential as organization. For the most part, though, these men were accompanied (in the loosest sense of the word) by the usual girls that go hand in hand with these sort of men and these sorts of events; girls with long blond hair, rake-thin bodies, posh drawls and haw-haw laughter.

  I wasn’t here for eligible men, though. The only thing I was thinking about was how much longer before I could knock off and join my girlfriends at the Met Bar for a cocktail. The truth is I’m not really looking for an eligible man to make mine because, you see, while boyfriends are nice and I’ve had my share—I was even married once—finding a man to share my life with is not my raison d’être. In fact, I’d even read an article that day defining a new sort of single girl— “the quirky single,” which sounded very me. I ticked all five of the qualifying boxes.

  * Fulfilling career—tick.

  * Strong rewarding friendships—numerous.

  * Varied social life! Well, I work in PR—how varied and social is that?

  * Financially independent—perfectly adequate thank you.

  * Sexually fulfilled serial monogamist—that’s me.

  Now, if I’d been one of those girls longing for Mr. Right or even Mr. Good Enough, I’d have been talent spotting at that moment. I’d have been flirting seriously. I’d have seen this or any gathering of attractive men as a potential chance to bag My Man. But I wasn’t doing anything as late twentieth century and tragic as that. No, no, no. Actually, I was perving on couples and trying to ascertain the depth of their love for one another.

  Okay, so I’m a different sort of pathetic.

  My mother—she insists I call her Kitty—thinks I’m tragic because I am happy in my career and even happier to just let my love life, or occasional lack of a love life, jog along. And for someone with the romantic soul of Kitty, this is tantamount to being soulless.

  I’m not just happy in my career—as in I don’t mind going into work—I actually love what I do. As PR for London’s achingly trendy private members’ club Posh House, I live a life other girls my age (just over thirty) lust after.

  I love the hours (dusk till dawn).

  I love the world (glamorous and exciting).

  The people (the aristo-pack, the rock/pop-ocracy, the media-ocracy, the literati, the glitterati, etc).

  I love the attitude (party till you drop…or flop).

  Most of all, I love the whole chaotic craziness of it all. It’s like being in the eye of the zeitgeist storm.

  To Kitty this is a heinous crime she’d like to see me hung for. She has a different sense of justice than the rest of the world. She thinks I’m even more tragic for referring to my job as a “career.” In fact, the very word career is liable to set her off on one.

  “You’re tragic, the way you bang on about this wretched job of yours as if it is an elixir.” When Kitty says the word job she manages to make it sound like something really sordid. “Lola! Where is your passion? Your lust for life? Sometimes I can’t believe you’re the fruit of my loins. Where is the fire in your heart?”

  As she says these things, she’ll be draped across her chaise longue, her perfectly blond hair swept in a gravity-defying chignon, her makeup impeccable. She always looks as if she’s just stepped out from the pages of Vogue circa 1960.

  Unlike me, with my long dark brown tresses that take forever to make Jennifer-Aniston-straight, Kitty doesn’t have bad-hair days. Her hair obeys the way Kitty wishes the rest of us would. Kitty knows how to set a scene. She used to smoke cocktail cigarettes, but since being diagnosed with “lines” she’s given up. Now she uses a Nicorette cigarette holder, alternately sucking and waving it about as Chopin tinkers away in the background, and she opines, “You’re like a character from some ghastly Jane Austen novel.”

  And she doesn’t mean the main protagonist either; she means one of the spinsters who have no life apart from needlepoint. The women who have no love interests of their own and spend their time eagerly awaiting gossip about the Girls Who Matter. Girls Who Matter being the ones with a romantic soul—and a man.

  “I’m warning you, Lola, you’ll end up like your aunt Camilla!”

  Aunt Camilla, now ninetysomething, never married and as a result she’s always being wheeled out—literally, as she’s been confined to a wheelchair since her stroke last year—at family gatherings. Kitty points to her with a blood-red nail and declares in her more-elitist-than-thou made-for-the-West-End-stage tones, “This is how you’ll end up, Lola! Passionless! Shriveled! Empty! Unwanted and alone! Is that what you want? Is it?”

  I suppose it can’t be much fun for Aunt Camilla, given that she’s not deaf, but Kitty’s not the sort of person you engage in an argument. Aunt Camilla just gives me a wink and I give her one back—as if we are two heroic women fighting a common enemy…love.

  I despair of going down to see my parents because that’s all we ever talk about. My lack of romantic passion. That is to say, it’s all Kitty ever talks about, because I don’t get a word in edgeways and my father, Martin, is too busy fussing about with his antique French clock collection. He discovered this latest hobby after his fifth honeymoon with my mother. That’s right, they divorced and remarried one another four times, all before my eighteenth birthday. “Now, that’s passion,” as my mother delights in pointing out as she and Martin make goo-goo eyes at one another across the drawing room.

  My school counselor referred to their relationship as “dangerously dysfunctional, verging on the mentally deranged,” but we don’t go there. There are lots of places you don’t go with Kitty.

  Kitty usually has to have a sherry after she’s worked herself up into a lather of despair over my love of being an events manager and how it “breaks the very heart that once held me to her bosom.”

  Yes, she actually talks like that.

  I wear her out so.

  “Oh, Lola, you wear me out so,” she moans, her hand pressed against her weary brow as she summons my father from a chandelier-three-quarter piece so that he can fetch her a sherry. Being a man of great passion, my father lives to pour Kitty’s sherry.

  I always feel like screaming when I go to visit them in their vast house outside of Richmond, but I instantly soften at the sight of my father in his tatty cardigan, still dashingly handsome at sixty-eight as he rushes to fulfill each and every whim my mother has. He always pats me on the head affectionately and calls me his “lovely Lola.”

  I love his smile although it rarely rests on me, even when he says “My lovely Lola.” His eyes are always on Kitty. She’ll usually be wearing mouse-pink chiffon pajamas with marabou trim. Mouse pink is Kitty’s favorite color. Bless her.

  Martin truly does worship my mother and even though I know he loves me, I can see he frets when I visit and “wear her out so.”

  We have been in this stalemate since my divorce from Richard, every
time I visit; my mother despairing of me, and Martin trying to placate the love of his life with his constant to-ing and fro-ing as he brings in her thimbles of sherry. Having a proper sherry glass, while far more convenient, just wouldn’t suit Kitty. She prefers her sherry in a cut-glass crystal thimble.

  It seems that it’s just me who wears her out. Her heart knows no bounds when it comes to the rest of the world. Apart from parking inspectors—she loathes them. She was up before a magistrate once for setting upon one with a catapult from the attic window.

  I guess Kitty has her charms, because the magistrate found her antics the height of hilarity. So many people find Kitty amusing. Even my counselor at school fell victim to her charms when he finally decided we needed a family session. After all his declarations of my parents being “dangerous dysfunctionals” he practically drooled over her when she flounced in, all marabou, chiffon, diamonds and fur.

  All my life I have worn my mother out. When I was young I wore her out with tales of school. “Oh, Lola, how can you talk of spelling and sums when your mother’s heart has been torn apart? Simply torn apart!” Kitty had no hesitation in embroiling me in all her marital to-ings and fro-ings with my father. Even as a child I found her energy for affairs of the heart exhausting. For a woman who rarely leaves her chaise longue she’s incredibly energetic when it comes to love.

  Kitty thinks I substitute love (or as she refers to it, “passion”) for work. I remind her that loads of people envy my job, that magazines have done features on me and my job. Vogue declared me “The Queen Bee of London’s Party Scene” and I was even voted one of the top one hundred influential people in London by the Evening Standard. Okay, so I didn’t actually make the top one hundred personally, but my boss did, and I was mentioned. My mother would happily swap all my success for a torrid romance, though—preferably with a lot of high drama.