by Laura Kemp
‘Letty?’ he said, his face becoming anxious. ‘Say something? Please?’
A huge guffaw, out of shock and disbelief, came from inside her. ‘You better come in then,’ she said, still reeling, opening the front door, through the hall, then her door, not daring to look in case he wasn’t following her.
But he was there and they both had wet eyes and then their mouths were on each other and they kissed their way to her bedroom, where the dam holding back her emotions broke.
Dreamlike, they were making love, as far from sex as possible.
Afterwards, spooning naked, feeling his breath on her neck, hearing him say he’d never been happier. That Helen had agreed it wasn’t working. How he loved Letty. And she finally confessed she felt the same.
In the twilight, she savoured the truth that they could remain together when they’d have parted before. But she held on tight, not wanting to take any chances, not wanting to break the spell.
Finally, it had happened, she thought, only just allowing herself to conceive it. She’d found him: her Mr Too Bloody Right.
Back At Frankie’s…
Frankie
Why hadn’t they thought of this before? It’s genius! Frankie mused as she tightened her ponytail and adjusted the waistband of her jeans to prepare for her first practical. She was excited rather than nervous; the same feeling she’d felt at the start of college when she sat in the lecture room with a new pen and pad, poised to take down everything the tutor said. That’s how she had to think of this, that’s all it was! But just in case, she’d shooed out Leonardo and shut the door.
Floyd cleared his throat to announce he was ready to begin. ‘Welcome students, er, student, to the School of Sex Education,’ he said in a deep posh voice.
She beamed to show she was paying attention.
‘Your time here is for your benefit,’ he said gravely, ‘so no pricking about, you at the back!’
She looked over her shoulder and tutted at an imaginary pupil – she was enjoying this game!
‘In this classroom you will learn a set of skills which will equip you to go out into the world… and win back your man.’
Frankie applauded and waited for his words of wisdom.
‘Now, let us begin!’ he boomed. Then he inhaled deeply and roared his exhale before huffing on his specs and giving them a wipe on his T-shirt. Popping them back on, he said: ‘So, assume we’ve done the foreplay bit, snog snog, grope grope, etcetera, what’s the first position on your list?’
‘Me on top, sat up,’ Frankie said, relishing the lack of pressure.
‘Okay, a nice easy one to start with,’ he said, lying down on his back on the bed. ‘You need to kneel with your legs either side of me and sit on my… er, here,’ he said as she manoeuvred herself square on his groin.
This is absolutely fine! Frankie remarked to herself, getting comfy with a wiggle. She could feel the buttons of his fly and a warmth from his body and maybe there was a tiny bulge but she put it down to excitement.
‘This feels like we’re about to play mercy!’ she said, having a great time, pleased as punch she was with Floyd who was so cool and funny. ‘You know, we hold hands and you try to throw me off and I try to get your arms back by your head!’
‘Yes!’ he hooted, before adding sternly, ‘If we were seven years old, that is.’
Oh, she thought, her bubble burst.
‘But full marks for enthusiasm,’ he said, seeing her face and trying to cushion the blow. ‘And we’ll cover the adult version of mercy later on in the course,’ he said, which made her worry. That’s not what she’d meant at all.
Sit up and think of England, she told herself trying to find her previous state of mind.
‘Now before we continue, remember this is about you being in control – not the man – you. So think about tempo and touch. You can go as fast or as slow as you like, and you’re in charge of where you want the man to put his hands.’
‘Right.’
So she reached for his hands, which were warm and relaxed, and put them on her hips, looking up to check this was okay by him.
‘Yes, good. So start off by rocking your hips backwards and forwards,’ he said.
Shy now she actually had to move, she began to gently to-and-fro. ‘Is this right?’ she asked.
‘Good rhythm, yes, but push deeper and I’ll move with you so it’s authentic… now don’t forget while you’re doing that, you can touch the man’s chest, perhaps position his hands to your upstairs kneecaps—’
‘My what?’ she said, stopping dead.
‘Sorry, technical term for boobs, you’ll pick up the jargon as we go along. Don’t stop,’ he said.
‘Okay, I’ll try the… upstairs kneecaps bit.’
She placed his hands a few inches from her body and he outstretched his fingers to resemble two spiders before doing a comedy breast squeeze.
‘I don’t actually do this action when I’m having a fondle, just so you know,’ he clarified.
‘No, of course,’ she said, accidentally knocking into his palms as she rocked.
‘Sorry,’ they said in unison, both looking elsewhere in embarrassment.
‘Now if you want to get the man gagging for it, you could decelerate. Yep, like that. Really push down on him, go-od, put your weight on his arms so that your boobs are in his face but he can’t touch. Excellent, well done, and I like it when the woman lifts her chin so she looks like she’s really getting lost in it. It’s quite voyeuristic. Oh, yes, you’re doing very well,’ he said, closing his eyes, ‘very well indeed.’
This is brilliant, Frankie thought. She had a sweat on now too – this was quite a work-out! And, quite unexpectedly, she had started to feel a bit oo-er too. Back and forth, back and forth, she was really getting into the swing of it! She hadn’t done this with Jason because she’d been too worried that naked, her boobs would look droopy from this angle.
‘Right, I think you’ve mastered that. What’s next?’ Floyd said out of the blue. Frankie eagerly swivelled herself around so she was sitting on Floyd facing his feet. ‘Hmm, you could do that a bit more seductively. Think Sharon Stone, lift a leg over slowly then let the chap have a good eyeful of your doo-daa as you turn.’
‘Good point,’ Frankie said over her shoulder, committing it to memory and thinking what a good teacher he was. ‘And could I lean forwards, hold onto his thighs like this?’
‘Yes, excellent,’ he said, holding on to her hips.
Her confidence soared then, helped by no awkward eye contact. ‘And how about if I lift my arms and put my hands in my hair and arch my back like this? Does that work?’
‘Ye-es,’ said Floyd, his voice sounding different, more hoarse. ‘Eeee-xcellent.’
She felt a lump in his jeans, probably from his pants bunching, she thought. ‘Right, shall we do the next one?’ she said to his wriggling toes, which were covered by what could only be Secret Santa socks because they declared ‘I’m Too Sexy For My Socks’.
‘Uhhh,’ he replied.
‘Floyd?’
‘What? Yes. Good. Sorry. Go for it,’ he said in a strange voice. Perhaps she was hurting him? Oh no, she thought, perhaps she was too heavy. He wasn’t muscly like Jason was, he was leaner and longer. So she pushed herself off and got on all fours with her backside in his face.
‘I’m ready,’ she said.
‘Actually, I think we’ve covered enough for today,’ Floyd said quickly.
‘But we were meant to do three positions,’ Frankie said, confused. ‘We’ve only done two.’
‘Yes but thinking about it, the third one, doggy...er...style, is completely pointless for you as the man has to do the work so you wouldn’t learn anything. Nothing. Nada. Zilch,’ he said, with growing authority. Then he coughed. ‘As it happens, two positions were plenty. Well done, lovely to see you, keep in touch.’
Frankie hung her head then, mortified that she had made such a fool of herself. She was obviously rubbish. That’s what he mean
t, that’s why he wanted to stop. She got back onto her haunches then turned around, hugging her knees at the farthest end of the bed. It was all so disappointing, she seemed to be doing okay and then something changed.
She sneaked a peek at him and saw him fussing around with his trousers. He looked up then through steamed-up specs and briefly caught her eye before squeezing his nose with his thumb and forefinger.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, studying her nails, wondering specifically what she’d done to halt the proceedings. ‘Was I… did I hurt you?’ she asked, cautiously flicking her eyes to his face and back to her hand again.
‘Not quite,’ Floyd said, looking sheepish, his groin squirming.
Frankie should’ve known – he was trying to tell her she really was beyond hope. ‘It’s all right, you can say it. You’ve changed your mind, you don’t want to do this anymore,’ she said.
‘What? No! If it was a game of football, I’d say it started well, lost its shape in the middle, then we salvaged a point at the end. You can’t argue with that for the first game of the season.’
But it didn’t feel like that to Frankie. ‘I’m probably being really thick but I don’t really understand.’
Floyd took a breath, held it then groaned. His body sank and he held out his palms. ‘Look, it’s nothing you did. Well, actually, it was everything you did. It’s me, not you.’
‘Right…’ she said, shaking her head because he was contradicting himself – she was even more puzzled.
He sighed and then used both forefingers to point at his nether regions.
‘I’m sorry, you’re going to have to spell it out because I…’ she said, as it dawned on her. That big lump in his trousers, it wasn’t from his pants at all! And she’d been the cause of it! Which meant she wasn’t as crap as she’d thought. A smile came to her lips, which she then tried to hide because she didn’t want him to think she was laughing at him.
‘Yes, yes, go on, mock me. I got a boner. A stonker. A stiffy,’ he said, blushing, ‘I am but a weak man. Have a good old LOL at my expense.’
Frankie composed herself hurriedly and thought of something sad like Leonardo in that plastic white collar he’d had to wear after he was done.
‘What can I say, Frankie?’ he said, shrugging. ‘It was purely biological. Just a physiological reaction arising from stimulation which leads to the relaxing of the corpora cavernosa and their arteries which bring blood into them to dilate and the veins leading out expanding. In layman’s terms, literally a rush of blood into the wotsit.’
‘Yes, of course,’ she agreed, nodding vigorously, chastising herself for even thinking there was anything more to it. ‘Equivalent to, say, a shiver when it’s cold.’
‘Exactly. Except it’s quite painful because it’s taking ages to go down. I’ve been thinking “dead puppies” for the last minute or so. Anyway, I suppose it’s one of the perils of the job,’ he said frowning. Then he rubbed his hands together and announced the lesson was over. Next week, he said, the sixty-nine might be a bit trickier. ‘You could do it on a banana while sitting on the washing machine while it’s spinning but that’s a bit It’s A Knockout. We might have to consider actually doing it. In the flesh.’ He looked right at her, his eyes unreadable.
‘Can’t we wear swimming costumes?’ Frankie said, desperate for a solution because the thought of topping and tailing gave her a serious case of the willies. Which was just what she didn’t want.
He laughed. ‘It’s a thought,’ he said, scratching his beard. ‘A stupid one, I’m afraid. I just can’t see a way round it.’
‘But you could get some Speedos?’ she pleaded, distressed by the thought of being starkers. After all, the reason it had worked today had been because they’d been clothed.
‘There are reasons why I can’t wear them. Personal reasons. I won’t go into it, but let’s just say I had a bad experience in them once.’
Frankie waved her arms – she didn’t want to know. She got up from the bed and asked if he wanted tea and biscuits. ‘We can talk Em’s baby, which is the unlikeliest but most deeply touching thing I think I’ve ever heard.’
‘You know, you could be right,’ he said, beaming, with his hands still over his crotch.
As she left the room, she looked back to see him jabbing his finger at his bulge.
‘You’ve let me down,’ he said to his crotch, ‘but worse, you’ve let yourself down.’
Saturday Morning
Em
‘Afternoon!’ Floyd said, winking at Em as she yawned her way into the kitchen.
‘You sound like Mum,’ she said, almost zombie-walking to the coffee maker then sitting down and helping herself to Floyd’s breakfast at the table where he was tapping away on his laptop. She was still feeling worn out from her collapse, which annoyed her, having never taken a day off sick in her life.
‘Except Mum would’ve made roasted flaxseed toast with wild bee shit honey,’ he said, pretending to slap her hand. ‘Not jam on white value-brand bread.’
‘You do know this is the first time I’ve ever slept in later than you in the twenty-seven point three weeks you’ve been living here?’ she said. ‘And I have got a good excuse.’
‘Indeed, woman with child, you have,’ he said, ‘and how are you feeling? Still yakking up every five minutes?’
She gave him a withering look.
He immediately backtracked. ‘Shit, yes, sorry, I forgot. Far too soon for jokes. I’m a complete bellend. Hey, by the way, I’ve been reading up on babies and apparently they can hear through the womb, so I thought I could play some guitar to it, you know, so it gets to know me. I can be his pretend dad if this Simon isn’t, you know, around.’ He was trying to make it up to her after his crass jokes. The sweetheart.
Since the hospital, it was like a switch had been flicked in Em. To think now she was embracing this unfamiliar turmoil in her life. It would’ve been so easy to walk into a clinic and then walk out, problem solved. Nobody would’ve known. Yet the scan had tapped into something even stronger inside; that of maternal instinct. And while she could blame someone or something else for this change in her life, ultimately she realized no one else – bar Simon Brown – was responsible; it had been of her own doing. If he wasn’t to be involved she simply had to do her best. Just as she had with work.
The only spoiler was that she was going to have to kick Floyd out because there’d be no room for him. She started thinking of ways to broach the matter. But Floyd hadn’t finished.
‘You’re awesome, you know. Like, obviously this isn’t what you’ve planned but you’re going with it, as if you’re at peace with it. I could do with some of that, to tell you the truth.’
‘How so?’ Em said, taking in Floyd’s drooped shoulders as he returned to his computer.
‘Sasha,’ he said, putting his arms up in front of him and crossing them to defend himself from her inevitable fury. ‘I know, I know, you don’t like her but.’
‘Like her?’ Em screeched. ‘I saw her as a sister! And then look how she treated us! You, I mean.’
‘I still love her, Em. I can’t just switch off my feelings for her like that,’ he said, clicking his fingers. ‘I’m not a robot. Like you.’
Actually, she wanted to say, some robots these days can express emotions through non-verbal cues such as posture and gestures. But that was probably what he wanted her to do – divert her, throw her off the scent. She went back to the subject of Sasha.
‘But she said no when you proposed to her!’
‘She needed to find herself. I’m cool with that. If you love someone, set them free. She’s worth it – beautiful, engaging, ethereal…’ he said, with his head in his hands, staring into space.
‘For someone who is an expert in reading human beings, you really are stupid.’
‘She’ll come back. Why else would she keep in touch? She misses me, it says here, see,’ he said, pointing to his computer, ‘and look, she’s sent a picture of my name written in th
e sand on Krabi beach an island in—’
‘Thailand. Not strictly an island. Part of the mainland but only accessible by boat. And home to dropouts who can’t handle real life.’
‘I see you haven’t forgiven her,’ Floyd said.
‘Forgiven her?’ Em squeaked, feeling a surge of protection for her brother. The memory of that summer evening this time last year was still fresh in her mind. He’d told everyone he was going to get down on one knee. He’d spent hours dressing up the balcony at his former flat, which overlooked the river, with fairy lights and candles. He’d cooked a five-course meal, he had champagne on ice and rather than prejudge the kind of ring she’d want, he’d bought her a flashy camera. It was so thoughtful the way he’d gone to all their favourite places and taken pictures of them with it, so she could scroll through. The last one was a beach in Wales they’d visited and he’d written ‘will you marry me?’ in the sand. Trust her then to keep him dangling with her own scrawl on a crappy Thai beach. ‘No, I haven’t forgiven her. And what is she doing in Thailand? I thought she was going to rescue street orphans in Bolivia?’
Flakey, that’s what she was. And disloyal, considering how close they’d been, her and Sasha. She was a perfect match for Floyd – and for me, Em thought. She shared many of her interests, such as world cinema and baking; things they’d do together without Floyd. Sasha had encouraged her to be herself – love your inner geek, she always said. It helped too that she was so beautiful to look at, although Em didn’t feel intimidated by her almond-shaped green eyes, her long swishy blonde hair, never-ending tanned legs and graceful posture. Quite the opposite, actually; in Sasha’s sunny company, Em felt vicariously special, honoured even to catch her rays. Which was why her departure had hurt her too.
‘We all loved her and look what she did to us.’
‘You make it sound as though you’re the one with the broken heart, Em. If I can deal with it, then you can,’ Floyd said.
‘Oh, Floyd, it’s just that you’re sitting around waiting for her to come back and even if she does, well, she’ll ruin your life again at some point. You need to find someone else.’
