Twisted Agendas

by Damian McNicholl

  “I’m assuming that’s a yes?”

  Honey bunny, now

  “That was awesome.” He looked into her face for a few seconds before easing himself off her body. A trickle of sweat ran between her breasts. Propping his head up by his right arm, he looked at her lovingly. “Champagne, caviar and you.”

  “In that specific order?” she said, her mouth still dry from drinking the bottle of champagne Todd had smuggled out from the event.

  “Was it for you as well, honey bunny?”

  She wondered how many pet names were made post-coital. “It was good.”

  “Just good?” The Bambi stare transformed to one of concern. “What do I need to do to make it great next time?”

  “It was great.”

  He smiled like a goofy teenager, reached out his hand and began to stroke her cheek with the backs of his fingers.

  “I hadn’t put you down as Mr. Insecurity.”

  “This is just so unexpected. I’ve wanted this for weeks. And then you just decide it’s happening tonight. How come?”

  “Is that a complaint?”

  He moved to kiss her on the mouth. She offered the cheek.

  “I need to get some shuteye,” she said. “I’ve got to study. You, too.”

  “Let’s cuddle.”

  “It’s too hot.”

  “Aaw, come on honey bunny.”

  She relented. They lay in silence, the dusky orange light from the outside street lamp piercing the loose curtain weave. The adjacent yellow bookcase glowed and cast a sharp shadow over the bed.

  “I like you a lot, Piper,” he said, kissing the nape of her neck.

  She didn’t answer, just lay with her eyes wide open.

  “You awake?”

  “Against my will.” She gave him a mock nudge with her elbow. “Go to sleep.”

  He pressed his naked body closer and cupped his hot hand over her left breast. A moment later, he put her nipple between his fingers and squeezed.

  He cleared his throat. “I’m glad Danny’s gone.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “I admit now I was jealous of him. He could be here with you and I couldn’t.” He kissed her neck again. She felt his penis stir against her leg.

  Sliding her hand underneath the sheet, she pulled his hand away from her breast and moved to the other side of the bed.

  Surprises

  Two short cries emanated from Julia’s room as he came out of his bedroom. Danny stopped and listened. There was another cry. He walked along the landing to her door and gently knocked. She didn’t respond.

  As he opened the door, he said, “Julia, is everything… ”

  “Don’t come in!”

  The harshness in her tone caused Danny to freeze with the door still ajar. He stared at his hand on the brass door handle until his muscles caught up with his brain and permitted him to obey the command. Halfway along the landing, he heard Julia talk aloud. It dawned on him what he’d heard. His face burned with mortification.

  Ten minutes later, Julia came down dressed in her shabby robe. She was as unkempt as the house, tufts of her hair standing on end, waxy face and a love bite at the base of her neck.

  “Did you make tea?” She headed toward the kitchen.

  “Coffee.”

  “That’ll do.”

  He watched from the sofa as she lit a cigarette, eased back her head and blew smoke at the kitchen ceiling. Upstairs, a door creaked open. A moment later, the bathroom door closed and was immediately followed by the metallic gurgle of the water pipes inside the wall of the kitchen.

  “Sorry for bursting in on you,” he said.

  She peered over the top of the magazine. “No problemo.” She turned a page and reached out for her mug on the coffee table. As she did, the front of her robe parted and exposed her right breast. A chunky silver earring was attached to the nipple. She eased back and readjusted the robe.

  Danny’s eyes remained fixed on the spot where he imagined the ring.

  She looked over and caught him staring. “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You’ve seen a tit before, haven’t you?”

  “What’s on it?”

  Her lips curled into a sly smile. “It’s a nipple ring.” She laughed. “Clive got one and I liked it.”

  “Looks heavy. Isn’t it painful?”

  “It’s great for sex.” She arched one eyebrow rakishly. “You should get one. Lots of men get their nipples and dicks pierced these days.”

  Danny’s scrotum crawled. He became aware of his shirt pressing against his nipples. Her overnight guest crossed the landing and started down the stairs. About to take a sip of coffee, Danny peered expectantly at the staircase. His coffee mug pinged hard against his front teeth as a woman, slender and petite, appeared at the doorway.

  “Julia, you don’t happen to have a spare toothbrush, do you?” She smiled at Danny.

  As Julia introduced them, Danny rose automatically, shook her hand and sat again. A lull in the conversation occurred before Katie and he spoke simultaneously.

  “You go first,” Katie said.

  “Would you like a coffee?”

  “Lovely.”

  When he returned Julia and Katie were entwined on the sofa. Julia nibbled the woman’s ear lobe. Their blatancy astonished him. He set the mug down quietly on the table and went to his room.

  Bunting, as in bunting

  Wide carrara marble steps, concaved in the higher trafficked areas by two centuries of visitors, swept up to the modern plate glass entrance doors of the Kant-Institut a three-storey former residence adjacent to a German art museum. Once inside, however, the sumptuous classical interior Danny expected had been sacrificed in favour of German practicality; a glittering chandelier in the foyer had been replaced with parallel rows of recessed lighting, the marble floor blanketed with tough industrial carpeting and the beautiful oak staircase was embellished with a garish fire red metal banister. A large sign in the middle of the foyer performed a triple function, greeting students, advising the whereabouts of the finance office and stating any course fee balances were to be paid on registration.

  A friendly German woman helped him complete the enrollment documentation and told him to proceed to Classroom three on the second floor. When he got there, fourteen people, including two Chinese gentlemen and a woman in her sixties who looked like Dame Edna, but dressed in a business suit, were already seated at flimsy desks arranged in a semi-circle around a chalkboard and slide projector. Some students had fat dictionaries and notepads on their desks.

  He spotted an empty desk next to a young woman on the other side of the room and started across. Her elbows were planted on the desk’s surface and, as she read, she supported her face by pressing her fists against the sides of her cheeks.

  “Is anyone… ”

  The woman jerked back abruptly. She lifted her hands with the palms facing out as if they were shields. Her right wrist was swathed in a bandage and she had a small cut in her forehead, just beneath the hairline.

  “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  She lowered her hands again and the terrified expression softened to one of neutrality. “It’s my fault. I never hear a thing when I’m reading.”

  A long slender neck ascended to an oval face housing a defined chin, straight perfect nose and intelligent eyes. Her hair was luxuriant and glossy, so glossy it sparkled in the overhead light as if dipped root to tip in a pot of varnish.

  “I’m Danny Connolly.”

  “Nice to meet you.” She began reading again.

  Danny thought he heard a faint whimpering but couldn’t tell where the sound came from.

  “Is anyone sitting here?” He nodded at the vacant desk when she looked up.

  “I… yes… no-one,”

  He heard another whimper.

  “Did you hear that?”

  “Hear what?” She leaned quickly over to the far side of her desk and thrust her hand into a large bag at he
r feet.

  “I didn’t get your name,” he said, when she sat up again.

  She extended her slender hand. “Finty Bunting.”

  The hand was freezing to the touch. “Did you say ‘bunting’?”

  “Bunting, as in bunting.”

  Her tone sounded jaded, as if she’d heard the question many times. “I wasn’t trying to be funny. It’s just, I’ve never come across the name.”

  She smiled. “You said you’re ‘Connolly’?”

  “Aha.”

  “That’s Irish Catholic?”

  He nodded.

  “I met another Irish chap called Connolly a few years ago. “He was an inmate at the jail I used to work at.”

  Her remark implied he should know the man. Danny wondered if this was what the English always thought when they met an Irish person; whether Irish people with the same surname were related, whether all Irish Catholic were in the IRA or just sympathisers, and whether they would do them harm.

  A tall man with a blonde-grey imperial moustache came into the room with a bundle of papers he set on top of the projector.

  “Good morning, my name is Alfred Fehler,” he said in a German accent, “I’m your teacher for this course.”

  His gaze moved from face to face, as if he were burning everyone’s features into his memory. When he was finished, he muttered, “Na schoen” and began to discuss the course content. Next, he distributed the stack of papers that turned out to be vocabulary lists. The remainder of the lesson was dedicated to introductions, each student stating their name and discuss the extent of their knowledge of Germany and its culture. The next lesson ran consecutively. Halfway through, Finty excused herself to the teacher, picked up her oversized bag and hurriedly left the room. She returned ten minutes later.

  “Would you like to go for coffee?” Danny asked, after the lesson had ended and they were making their way out to the street.

  Hilary, the Dame Edna look-alike, came down the steps toward them. She spoke with the same BBC accent as Julia, was a Magistrate and lived in West London.

  “I say, Herr Fehler covered a lot of ground this morning,” she said. “I think we’ll learn quickly if we apply ourselves.”

  “That’s the general idea,” Finty said.

  The older woman peered over the top of her black-framed glasses, as if trying to decide whether Finty was being acerbic or witty. She half-turned toward Danny. “I took a Portuguese course a year ago. Damned tricky language.” She brayed like a donkey. “Herr Fehler’s supposed to be a baron, you know?”

  Danny was skeptical.

  “Anyway, must dash,” she said.

  He watched her stride down the street, her head held high and the sun making her lilac-rinsed hair very vivid. He turned back to Finty but she was already walking away.

  When he arrived home late that afternoon Julia was stretched out on the sofa reading a romance novel, a genre he’d been surprised to discover she liked until he asked her about it and she explained she could polish them off in three to four hours. On the carpet between the sofa and coffee table was a hillock of newspapers and magazines.

  “Hello,” he said.

  She didn’t answer.

  “I’m going to really enjoy the course.”

  There was still no response. On two occasions since he’d moved in, she’d behaved this coldly. The first time he’d been hurt, his hurt turning gradually to worry that he’d perhaps unknowingly offended her as the silence stretched. When he asked her about the churlish behaviour after she’d returned to her usual good spirits the following morning, she informed him she was like this occasionally and to just ignore her when it happened. Though he was getting used to the moods, he didn’t like them because the atmosphere in the house was so thick and uncomfortable.

  The coffee maker was still switched on, its carafe stained brown because the coffee had evaporated. The kitchen side was littered with the trimmings of raw chicken amid puddles of pinkish water. Nor had she cleaned up her breakfast or lunch dishes.

  “I need to ask you something,” she said, as she walked toward the kitchen, a menacing tone in her voice he’d never heard before.

  “What?”

  “You seemed disgusted when I introduced Katie to you.”

  “I don’t know what you mean?”

  “Don’t insult me any further.”

  “I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “How’d you describe your attitude?”

  “I didn’t have an attitude.”

  “You looked disgusted.”

  It crossed his mind she’d been too busy nibbling on her girlfriend’s ear to have noticed his reaction. “You misread.”

  “Why’d you go to your room so quickly?”

  He hesitated. “Okay, I was confused.”

  “About?”

  Her absurd question rendered him momentarily speechless. “One day you urgently need the morning after pill, the next you’re with a woman. That’s confusing.”

  “I like men and women. What’s so confusing?”

  “Well, I don’t like men that way.”

  “It’s not contagious.”

  There was a flash of rust-red as a robin landed on the window ledge. It cocked its head and peered in with shiny, beady eyes.

  “I was also shocked. Now please don’t take offence… and I don’t think it’s a sin like I was brought up to believe as a Catholic. It’s just I don’t really understand homosexuality. I don’t understand why Clive is attracted to another man. And I don’t understand why a woman would like another woman. I never knew any gay people until you two.”

  “Gays don’t go around wearing signs, you know?”

  He looked at the sink full of dirty dishes. “Can I ask you something personal?” He took her silence for implied consent. “Are you a lesbian or bisexual?”

  Julia pushed away from the wall and stepped down into the kitchen. She took a glass from an overhead cupboard, turned on the faucet and allowed the water to run for a moment before filling the glass. “I prefer women.”

  “So you’re lesbian?” Articulated, the word sounded harsh. It was not a pretty word.

  “It’s more complicated. I have urges to be with men sometimes.” She laughed. “As you’ve already found out.” She paused and her brow furrowed in thought. “I get more from a woman emotionally. With men, the sex is great, but overall it’s unsatisfying.” She shrugged. “Does that make me bisexual? Or a lesbian who fucks men? I’ve never really worried about labels.”

  “Do your family and friends know?”

  “Yes, and some of my work colleagues as well.”

  He admired her courage and would have hugged her to show his acceptance, but it didn’t feel appropriate. “I take it Katie’s your girlfriend?”

  “You could say that. She’s married with kids, which makes it bloody tricky.”

  Danny kept his smile to conceal the horror of her revelation.

  Julia set the glass down. “So I’ll assume you have no problem with my sexuality.”

  “Live and let live as the man says.”

  “Good to hear because this woman says this is my home.”

  As she looked at him, Danny understood how immigrants coming to live illegally in London felt when they had the bad luck of Julia scrutinising them on arrival.

  Smoking trains

  Pat and the woman sitting beside him whom Danny had never met before were already there when he arrived. So were Sonia Berg and her boyfriend. He’d moved out only three weeks ago and already Piper’s living room felt dowdy and cramped in comparison to Julia’s spacious open plan design, though he missed her fastidious tidiness. No matter how often he led by example, hoovering the carpets, mopping the kitchen floor, dusting and washing the dishes when Julia was around, she made no attempt to muck in. It seemed as if she was oblivious to the dust and domestic chaos around her. Countless times, he’d had to ask her to hang her jackets and not air dry her tights and knickers on the backs of the
dining room chairs. She never refused, even apologised sometimes, but after a few days she’d forget and the room would return to its depressingly cluttered state.

  “Hey, Danny,” Todd said. He rose off his chair and shook hands animatedly. “Great to see you again. Piper and I have been looking forward to having you over tonight.”

  His enthusiasm caught Danny off guard, though he concealed it by handing Piper the bottle of red wine he’d brought as a hostess gift.

  “How’s about ye’, young fella,” said Pat.

  Danny nodded.

  He placed his hand on the thigh of the woman seated beside him. “This is my girlfriend, Anne Marie.”

  “It is so good to see you again, Danny,” Sonia said. She pushed a pair of oversized turtle-shell spectacles up the bridge of her nose. “Last time we were all very influenced by the wine, I think.” She chuckled as if recalling the dinner at Julia’s when she’d done the crazy squat dance. “The German course goes good for you?”

  “Sehr gut, danke,” he said, and kissed her cheek. He turned to greet Jean-Pierre whose handshake was as tenuous as Todd’s had been confident.

  “Ah, you speak already German,” Sonia said. “This is good.”

  “We’ve got red and white wine and beer,” said Todd. “What’d you like?”

  “Red wine’d be lovely.”

  “Comin’ right up.”

  “I’ll get it, Todd.” Piper started toward the door.

  “No, honey bunny,” he said. “Todd’s got it under control. You stay here and chat to our guests.”

  She smiled and handed Todd the bottle of wine Danny had brought. “Todd’s a doll,” she said, after he left the room. “I had an exam today so he did all the cooking.”

  “You are now Todd’s honeyed rabbit,” said Sonia, her eyes glinting mischievously. She turned to Jean-Pierre. “Liebchen, I would like it if you would find something nice like this for me.”

  Jean-Pierre took a swig of beer.

  Sonia turned back to Piper. “You have progressed further in the relationship you are holding with Todd?”

  The doctor’s stiff sometimes comical way of expressing herself in English made Danny wonder if his German would also sound like that.