Frisky Business

by Clodagh Murphy

  ‘Some music might help,’ Romy said. She wound up the little musical toy on the side of his cot and a plinky version of ‘The Teddy Bears’ Picnic’ began to play.

  Kit rolled his eyes. ‘He doesn’t like this muzak crap, does he?’

  ‘It’s what all the kids are listening to these days,’ Romy said, smiling.

  ‘Well, no wonder he’s cranky. If I had to listen to that—’

  ‘You can try singing to him instead, if you like,’ Romy said as she left the room. ‘He likes “Nellie the Elephant”,’ she called over her shoulder.

  Kit rocked Luke gently in his arms to the rhythm of the music, feeling his juddering sobs as he squirmed against his chest, and his hot, damp breath as he nuzzled into his neck. He hoped he could get him to sleep by the time Romy got back down. He was glad she had taken him up on his offer to babysit. She was so capable and energetic, but still, it couldn’t be easy being a single mum, and she didn’t get to go out much and just have fun. She had always been so ready to help him, and he really wanted to do something for her for a change.

  When the little wind-up toy ran down and the music stopped, Luke’s cries had settled to little shaky sighs, and Kit could tell he was almost asleep. He didn’t want to risk putting him in his cot just yet, so he kept up his rocking and started to hum, just to be on the safe side. He didn’t know ‘Nellie the Elephant’, or any other children’s songs – but Luke wouldn’t know the difference.

  He felt a strange sense of contentment wash over him as he paced the darkened room, feeling Luke go limp and heavy in his arms. There was something immensely comforting about the warm beanbag weight of him. Being here with Romy and Luke, he felt part of something – something real and solid. He felt connected and safe. He was beginning to think his mom was right and he had been lonely in New York. His friendships had been superficial, his relationships fleeting. He had always shied away from this kind of domestic life, but he was surprised how calm and grounded it made him feel. He was beginning to think maybe he could really do this. Maybe Romy had been lonely too. They could be good for each other. He could be a father to Luke, and they could be a family of sorts. He could learn ‘Nellie the Elephant’.

  As Romy put the finishing touches to her make-up, she noticed Luke’s crying had stopped. Maybe Kit had actually got him to sleep, she thought, smiling at herself in the mirror as she put on her lipstick. She didn’t know what had got into Kit, but he was being a very good boyfriend lately – even when there was no one watching. Ever since that morning when he had come home looking like the wreck of the Hesperus, he’d changed. He had stopped going out all the time, and he had been spending lots of time with her. He was being really sweet too, cooking delicious dinners and offering to babysit tonight so she could go out for a drink with Lesley. Romy had hesitated at first, but he had been really helpful with Luke recently, and was applying himself to learning how to look after him with such determination that she didn’t want to discourage him.

  When she was ready, she left her bedroom and tiptoed softly to the door of Luke’s room, which was slightly ajar. Kit had his back to her as she peered into the semi-darkness of the room, and she stood watching unobserved. What she saw made her heart melt. Luke was asleep, slumped over Kit’s shoulder, while Kit swayed gently and sang so quietly that it took her a while to make out the words of ‘At My Most Beautiful’. When he got to the bit about counting eyelashes, she felt like her heart would burst. She had to stop herself rushing in, throwing her arms around them both and telling Kit there and then that he was Luke’s father.

  Luckily, the doorbell rang. Kit emerged from the bedroom just as she was letting Lesley in.

  ‘We don’t have to go out, Kit,’ Romy said to him. ‘We can just have a drink here.’

  ‘He’s asleep now,’ Kit said, shutting the door quietly behind him. ‘We’ll be fine.’

  ‘Yeah, come on,’ Lesley said. ‘You haven’t been out on the razz in ages.’

  ‘Well, maybe we should just go to the local. I could be back here in five minutes if you need me.’

  ‘But you’re all dolled up now,’ Lesley protested. ‘And you look great. You don’t want to waste that on the local.’

  ‘Yeah, go on,’ Kit urged her.

  ‘Okay. Well … you have my mobile number. Call me if you have any problems – anything at all.’

  ‘Jeez, anyone would think you didn’t trust me.’

  ‘It’s not that, it’s just—’

  ‘I know. I’m kidding. Just go.’

  Romy chewed her lip, while Lesley looked at her pleadingly. ‘Okay,’ she said finally. She dashed off to the hall and grabbed her coat. ‘We won’t be late,’ she said to Kit as she pulled it on, slinging her bag across her shoulder. ‘Thanks for this.’

  ‘Yeah, thanks, Kit,’ Lesley said. ‘It’s nice to have my old pulling partner back.’

  ‘Oh!’ Kit frowned. ‘Are you on the pull?’

  ‘No, of course not,’ Romy said.

  ‘Good. Okay. So, about what time do you think you’ll be home?’

  ‘You’ll see her when you see her,’ Lesley said. ‘I mean it’s not like she has a curfew. Is it?’ she said, narrowing her eyes at Kit.

  ‘No! Of course not. Stay out as long as you want.’

  ‘Great! Well, wish us luck,’ Lesley said, grabbing Romy’s arm and heading for the door.

  ‘Have fun!’ Kit called after them.

  When they were gone, he flopped onto the sofa. He was almost regretting offering to babysit now. He didn’t like the idea of Romy out there meeting other men. When Lesley had put the idea in his head, he had felt a completely irrational stab of jealousy. Which was ridiculous. But it was there nonetheless and he had to remind himself that much as he loved this cosy domestic scene he was building with Romy, it wasn’t real. She wasn’t his girlfriend and Luke wasn’t his son, and all the cosy dinners and babysitting in the world weren’t going to change that.

  ‘Well, did you see that?’ Lesley said as they walked to the tram stop. There was an unmistakable note of triumph in her voice.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Kit. He didn’t seem a bit pleased about you going out on the pull.’

  ‘Well, you shouldn’t wind him up like that. You know I’m not going on the pull. We’re just having a girls’ night out.’

  ‘And he was just itching to give you a time to be home.’

  ‘No he wasn’t. He’s just a bit nervous, that’s all. It’s his first time babysitting.’

  ‘I think he wants to control you. Next thing you know he’ll be giving you a set of rules and a curfew. Maybe you won’t be allowed out at all.’

  ‘It was him that suggested I go out, remember? He’s been really sweet lately, actually,’ she said, smiling. ‘He’s been coming over most nights, cooking amazing dinners and really making an effort to help out with Luke.’

  ‘Really?’ Lesley’s eyes lit up. ‘Almost like he wants to serve you?’

  ‘You don’t give up, do you?’ Romy rolled her eyes.

  ‘I’m just saying. Maybe he’s used to pleasing a mistress.’

  Romy couldn’t help thinking of Kit’s comment about having more ‘discipline’ in his life in New York, but she pushed the thought aside.

  ‘Then again, maybe he’s just into you,’ Lesley said, ‘and he’s freaked out about you meeting someone else.’

  ‘Maybe …’ Romy had been wondering about things over the past few days. Kit didn’t seem to want to do anything other than hang out with her and Luke. ‘It would certainly be handy,’ she said.

  ‘Handy?’ Lesley shrieked. ‘Don’t get carried away with the romance of it all, will you?’

  Romy laughed uneasily. It was true that it would be convenient if Kit fell for her all over again and wanted to be with her, but she was starting to wonder how she felt. They got on well. She liked him a lot and she still loved him as a friend, but she didn’t feel the spark she used to. Still, maybe that would come in time – or maybe it had be
en just a teen thing, made up of dizzy hormones and the heady novelty of first love. He was Luke’s father, and they were good friends. Maybe that would be enough.

  ‘Pity he didn’t offer to babysit at the weekend,’ Lesley said, breaking into her thoughts. ‘Thursday isn’t exactly party night, and I’ve got work to do in the morning. But maybe that’s his plan. He wants you to enjoy yourself, but not too much.’

  ‘Ah, he couldn’t. He’s got Tank’s stag do at the weekend,’ Romy said. ‘Believe me, he’d much rather be babysitting while I shagged everyone in the town.’

  ‘Here we are, glass of wine for the condemned man,’ Romy said, plonking two large glasses of red on the coffee table and joining Kit on the sofa.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Have you packed the Swiss army knife I gave you?’ Romy asked him.

  ‘Yes,’ Kit said morosely. He was all packed up and waiting for Ethan to collect him for Tank’s stag weekend. He had spent a small fortune on outdoor gear and was all kitted out in brand-new hiking boots, a pair of trousers made out of some high-tech material designed to repel any weather, and an enormous down jacket that could house a small family. Romy had gone shopping with him, and fearing that his spending was eating into his budget for the house, had managed to talk him down from purchasing a very expensive rucksack and loaned him an old one of hers that she unearthed from the attic. Those trousers he was wearing alone would have paid a carpenter for a day, she thought ruefully. Despite all the money he had thrown at it, he still didn’t look the part, more resembling a model from an outdoor clothing catalogue than someone who would actually engage in rugged activities himself. She could see him now, all designer stubble and carefully windswept hair, one shiny new boot resting on a rock while he gazed manfully into the distance.

  ‘Want me to go through the attachments with you one more time?’ she asked.

  ‘No. I just need the knife so I can garrotte Wedgie if he comes near me, and I know where that is.’

  He had been in a permanent sulk since he had found out Wedgie’s plans for the stag, and his mood had got progressively worse the closer it came to the dreaded day. ‘Never mind,’ she said, ‘you’ll have Tank and Ethan. I’m sure they won’t let Wedgie get you.’

  Ethan was driving them in their mother’s car, and Kit had decided that he should tell Ethan to pick him up from Romy’s so it would appear as if he had spent the night with her. He had even arrived that morning with some of his belongings to strew around her apartment, leaving razors and shaving foam in the bathroom (‘in case Ethan goes to the loo’), tossing a pair of his socks on her bedroom floor, halfway under the bed, and draping one of his sweatshirts over an armchair. She had drawn the line at letting him throw a pair of boxers on top of her linen basket.

  ‘Kit, can I ask you something?’ She took a gulp of her wine.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Why do you need a fake girlfriend?’

  ‘Ah,’ he said, turning to smile at her, ‘I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.’

  ‘Oh.’ She frowned down at her glass, feeling frustrated.

  ‘Well, not kill you,’ he said. ‘Maybe just get you to sign a confidentiality agreement.’

  ‘Really?’ Her ears pricked up. May had had a confidentiality agreement with her ‘master’. ‘Did you have a confidentiality agreement with Lauren?’

  ‘Yes, I did, as a matter of fact. And with a couple of others before her.’

  ‘Why would you need to have a confidentiality agreement with your girlfriends?’

  ‘I had to tell them … certain things about myself that I want kept private.’

  ‘I wouldn’t tell anyone. If I signed a confidentiality agreement, would you tell me?’

  ‘It’s not that I don’t trust you, Romy. It’s different with you than it was with Lauren and the others.’

  ‘How is it different?’

  ‘My relationship with them was more … formal.’

  ‘You make it sound like you exchanged contracts or something.’ Blimey, maybe they had exchanged contracts – contracts with lists of hard limits and soft limits and clauses about punishments and waxing of pubes.

  ‘Well, money did come into it – as I told you.’

  Oh yes, the money. May’s words echoed in her head. “A dom is responsible for all the sub’s material needs.” Maybe Kit wasn’t able to have a sub now because he was broke and couldn’t provide for one. ‘Actually,’ she said, ‘I might have already guessed what your secret is.’

  ‘Really?’ Kit looked a little alarmed. ‘Is it that obvious?’

  ‘Oh, no.’ She hastened to reassure him. ‘It’s not obvious at all. I’m sure most people would never guess.’

  ‘I suppose you would be more alert to the signals than a lot of people,’ he said.

  What? Why on earth would he think that? Oh God, May’s books! He hadn’t seen them, had he? Romy thought she’d hidden them in time. Her panic attack was interrupted by the ringing of the bell.

  ‘That’ll be Ethan,’ Kit said, his body slumping and his expression becoming even more hangdog, if that was possible.

  ‘Your doom is upon you,’ Romy said, smiling at him over her shoulder as she went to answer the door.

  Wow, Romy thought as she let Ethan in, now he looked properly outdoorsy. His big stompy hiking boots had clearly seen plenty of action and his cargo pants looked lived in, their colour faded and their hems frayed. She could just picture him hacking his way through the Haitian wilderness to save cholera victims in a remote inaccessible village. It made this mock adventure weekend of Tank’s seem very frivolous and silly.

  ‘We’re just having a glass of wine. Would you like a cup of coffee or something before you set off?’ she asked him.

  He glanced at his watch. ‘Sure. Thanks.’ He sat in an armchair opposite Kit. ‘All set? ’ he asked him, nodding to his rucksack.

  ‘Ready as I’ll ever be,’ Kit said sourly.

  ‘You look very … smart,’ Ethan said, a smile playing about his lips as he took in Kit’s outfit. ‘Mr Manhattan goes camping.’

  Kit glowered at him. ‘Well, I didn’t have any of the kind of clothes they said we should bring. Anyway, some of the stuff is old. Romy gave me the rucksack. And the sleeping bag.’

  Romy had managed to intervene when Kit was allowing the sales assistant to persuade him that he should buy a spectacularly expensive sleeping bag.

  ‘She says it’ll take me all the way to Everest base camp,’ he had told Romy.

  ‘Really?’ She had flipped the sleeping bag over, examining it. ‘Does it have a plane built into it?’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘Yes, but you’re not going to Everest base camp, Kit. You’re going to Wicklow. I have plenty of sleeping bags at home. I’ll lend you one.’ It had taken some doing, but she had finally succeeding in convincing him that a normal four-seasons sleeping bag would be perfectly adequate for the Wicklow mountains.

  ‘When do you get back?’ she asked now as she handed Ethan a mug of coffee.

  ‘I’ll be back on Sunday, if I survive this weekend,’ Kit replied.

  ‘Don’t worry, you’ll be fine. You’ll look after him, won’t you?’ she said to Ethan as she sat down beside Kit.

  ‘Of course I will,’ Ethan said.

  ‘Hey, what makes you think Ethan will be more capable than me?’ Kit asked indignantly.

  ‘Well, obviously I’m a dab hand at all this survival stuff from my time in the jungle,’ Ethan said, smiling crookedly.

  ‘Oh yes, how could I forget about your time in the jungle?’

  ‘And we’ll have Tank with us too. He’s bound to come in handy.’

  ‘True. He could probably fell a tree with his bare hands.’

  ‘And I’ll make us all cocktails out of the bark,’ Ethan said. ‘It’ll be fun.’

  ‘If the worst comes to the worst and you don’t manage to build a shelter,’ Romy said, ‘everyone can just move into your jacket for the night.
’

  ‘Very funny,’ Kit said sulkily. ‘The smile will be on the other side of your face tomorrow when you’re zipping to your death on a wire.’

  ‘Oh, are you going to Hannah’s hen weekend then?’ Ethan asked her.

  ‘I’m just going down for the day. I’m not staying overnight. It’s too awkward with Luke.’

  To her surprise, Hannah had repeated her invitation for Romy to go to her hen do. After what she had heard Hannah and Ethan saying at Thanksgiving, she had assumed Hannah had only asked her out of politeness and wouldn’t really want her there. But she had pressed, and seemed to genuinely want Romy to go. It was all very confusing.

  ‘Come down for the day at least,’ Hannah had begged.

  ‘Then you can do some of the activities and have lunch with us, but you won’t have to worry about staying over with Luke. And do bring him.’

  It would have felt churlish to continue to refuse in the face of so much persuasion, so Romy had capitulated and agreed to go for the day. She was glad she wasn’t staying overnight, though, not just because of Luke but because she wanted to be able to cut it short if she felt any hostility from Hannah. It was weird because she never did feel any antagonism from either her or Ethan – it seemed to be the idea of her as Kit’s girlfriend that they didn’t like.

  ‘Well, I suppose we should be off,’ Ethan said, draining his mug and putting it on the table.

  ‘Okay. Bye, sweetie,’ Kit said, turning to Romy and surprising her by giving her a lingering kiss on the mouth. ‘Have fun tomorrow at Hannah’s do.’

  ‘I can’t believe you guys are together again,’ Ethan said, narrowing his eyes at them.

  ‘Well, it’s true!’ Romy said brightly, snuggling into Kit as he put his arm around her, playing her part as one half of a loved-up couple perfectly.

  Ethan frowned slightly, looking confused.

  ‘I’ll just go and say goodbye to … um … Luke!’ Kit said, getting up from the sofa. Romy thought that was overdoing things a bit, but at least he had remembered Luke’s name – though she was starting to warm to ‘Whatsisface’.