by Laura Kemp
‘He had a point,’ he said, slurping his.
‘What?’
‘Tea. It’s reassuring, dependable, healing. Relationships, well, some of them, can be quite the opposite.’
Hmm, he had a point, she conceded. Because seeing Jason at the weekend had been devastating and damaging, and her fury and disbelief hadn’t lifted. She stared off into space. ‘You know I’m beginning to think I’ve been wasting my time.’
‘About what?’ Floyd said, shuffling into crossed legs on the carpet. ‘Chuck us a cushion, would you?’
‘That I could get Jason back. I found out on Saturday that’s he’s slept with someone else.’
Her words brought her to and she studied his face, waiting for him to console her. Instead, he just nodded. Maybe he had misheard her, so she tried again this time more forcefully. ‘He’s had sex with someone who isn’t me. My husband.’
‘Yep,’ he said, impassively, as if they were discussing the weather.
‘Floyd!’ she almost shouted. ‘I’m heartbroken, I feel like the rug has been pulled from under my feet all over again, what hope I had has gone. I knew I should’ve cancelled. I should’ve asked Letty over instead. At least I would’ve got some sympathy.’
‘Sympathy? Why do you want sympathy?’
Frankie’s back straightened in outrage and Leo scarpered. ‘Because he’s been unfaithful. What don’t you understand about this?’
‘Sympathy is overrated,’ he said, maddening her even more.
‘Now look—’ she began.
‘And didn’t you think he was bound to have a go with someone else? To see if the grass was greener? That’s what this has all been about, him thinking there’s something better out there. He won’t find it because it doesn’t exist, but he hasn’t worked that out yet.’
‘Floyd!’ she shrieked. ‘You’re supposed to be helping me!’
‘Not to mention that you’ve been getting personal with me. Can I have that cushion?’
It was hardly the same! It was completely bloody different! She ripped one off the sofa and flung it at him so it bounced off his head. Leonardo cantered out of the room in fear.
Floyd laughed, presumably at her feeble throw.
Incensed – in fact, bloody tamping, as Letty would say – she tried harder to hurt him. ‘I bet Sasha’s sleeping around,’ she spat, slinging her accusation as if it was fact.
‘You reckon?’ he said, neutrally.
‘Didn’t you think she was bound to have a “go” – or “goes” – with someone else?’ she said, mimicking his words.
A vein stuck out on the left side of his temple. She’d pierced his skin and she hoped it hurt.
‘Now hang on a minute,’ he said, ‘this is about you not me. And don’t start on Sasha, you have no idea what she’s like.’
‘Oh, come on, Floyd, you think I’m stupid…’ she said, letting the words hang like bait. It was up to him if he bit.
‘I think I should go,’ he announced coldly, chucking his cushion back at her before getting up onto his feet.
Frankie felt something snap inside of her. The desolation she’d felt all week from Jase’s confession had curdled and she wanted to lash out. It was bubbling at her fingertips and before she knew what she was doing, she grabbed the cushion and walloped it against his thigh.
‘What was that supposed to be?’ he said, mockingly.
Furious, she unleashed a barrage of thwacks. ‘Take that! And that! And… THAT!’
‘‘What the hell— Ow!’ he said, recoiling, with genuine pain after whipping him on the funny bone with the zip.
‘Good,’ she raged, ‘GOOD. Because that’s how I feel, but a million times worse.’
‘Oh, is that right?’ he said, protecting his manhood with cupped hands. ‘It’s always about you, isn’t it. Well, I don’t feel so fucking great myself thanks.’
He glared at her for a while, then darted to the side of her and before she had time to react, he’d taken another cushion and swiped it into her thigh. The sting set her off with a new onslaught but this time he was matching her every attack.
Back and forth, they traded blows, grunting with effort until Frankie decided to play dirty.
‘What’s that?’ she suddenly asked, pointing out of the window. He stopped to look and she went for the backs of his knees, and shoved herself with it to make sure he toppled over. But because she’d used her entire body, she went over with him. He landed face down on the carpet and she fell onto him with an oomph, before rolling off. Floyd flipped over onto his back and made a grab for her leg, which she escaped by wriggling out of her joggers. Then she seized her chance, clambering on top of him to pin him down.
‘How do you like that!’ she said, panting, using all her weight to try to stop him moving. Her hands tightly squeezed his wrists and her groin pushed down onto his and she shouted ‘Yes!’ at her grand slam.
‘That. Is. Pathetic,’ he crowed, wrestling her off. ‘It’s your turn to suffer!’ And he used one hand to lock both her wrists as he used the other to fake a yawn. ‘Say mercy, go on!’ he challenged her. She went limp, deliberately, and felt his grip loosen.
Summoning up every ounce of strength, Frankie brought up her knee and jabbed him in the privates and he fell off into a heap. Again she mounted him and trembled with effort as she held him still with the length of her entire body. ‘I have you now!’ she said, triumphantly, as her chest heaved from the effort of sucking in air.
He flopped his head to the side, baring his neck in surrender as if he was her prey. Frankie dropped her chin to recover – her heart was thumping and she felt his pulsing in between her own beats.
She raised her head just as he turned his and their noses were inches away. She was so close she could see flecks of hazel in his eyes and the curve of his thick black eyelashes.
‘Finished?’ he said, with a trace of a smile on his lips – his lovely red lips, Frankie noted – and his eyes glinting.
‘Never!’ she whispered, defiantly, before poking out her tongue.
He slowly freed his right hand and raised an eyebrow. She knew then he was asking her if she was okay with what was about to happen. She shut her eyes in acquiescence and a soft pat landed on her backside. She had no idea why but she gasped.
‘Spanking,’ Floyd said, still catching his breath, ‘is the practice of consensual force for the sexual arousal of either or both parties. Pain in this context is an aphrodisiac, brought on both by the physiological reaction of blood rushing to the surface of the smack combined with psychological game play. For the giver, it’s about control and for the receiver, it’s submission.’
Her eyes burst open to study his – she abhorred violence, how could it be pleasurable? Although she had enjoyed their pillow fight. Oh my word, her longing was only growing at that thought.
Maintaining eye contact, he slapped her again, this time harder, making her bum smart.
‘Properly done,’ he said, quietly, ‘the impact of a spank in this position makes the bottom squirm downwards, making contact between the erogenous zones.’
An ache which she’d been ignoring in her knickers had turned into a throb and she could feel Floyd’s thing in the hollow of her inner hip. Another blow and she became aware that her panting hadn’t stopped; her shallow breathing wasn’t fear, she realized, but wholly unexpected excitement.
‘It’s said,’ his voice now catching in his throat, ‘women need to give themselves permission to let go and this is one way they can do it.’
Never had she thought she would enjoy this, but Floyd seemed to have a way of unlocking her reserve; when he explained things, it was as if he was speaking about her.
‘But this isn’t about anger or violence – it’s about trust. It’s a part of foreplay and should be mixed up with tenderness.’
He smacked her again and a groan came from inside her. His eyes were heavy with desire. Floyd swallowed slowly and waited. Frankie understood they had crossed a line.
She moved towards his face, pausing to see if he protested, but when none came she took his bottom lip in her mouth and bit into it, softly at first before she increased the pressure. A smack landed but this time his hand stayed in contact and he slipped his fingers underneath her knickers. The other hand stroked her hair and pushed down on her neck and she couldn’t resist the pressure.
Her scalp tingled, her toes pointed in ecstasy and her mouth pounded as their lips touched for the very first time.
Monday Night
Em
‘I’m thinking about changing the car,’ Floyd said as Em struggled to fold herself into his Ford Cortina Mark III.
‘Good,’ she said as the ancient brown two-door motor spluttered into life.
‘Bella has been a very loyal set of wheels, a bit of a head-turner too, you know, with the hipster chicks, but it’s time for something more—’
‘Stupid? Impulsive? Irresponsible?’ she huffed as he turned the ignition.
‘No, I want something a bit more reliable. To fit a baby seat, actually,’ he said, seriously, ‘to help you out. You’ll need to borrow the car, won’t you, when the little scamp arrives.’
Em was stunned by his thoughtfulness – and by her own tears which were welling up willy-nilly these days.
Clearing the lump in her throat, she said: ‘Thanks, Floyd, I hadn’t even thought about getting around with the baby. That’ll be a real help. Oh, by the way, I’m going to tell Mum and Dad over dinner, now that I’ve got my head round it. I’m dreading Mum’s reaction though – she’ll be thrilled I’m going to be a single mum.’
‘I bet they’ll want to be called Sue and Albie rather than Nanny and Grandad,’ Floyd said, tutting.
The pair settled into a companionable silence on the forty-five minute drive to their house, which was a windswept smallholding deep in the sticks, where they kept chickens and ducks. They’d moved there when they’d retired from lecturing at university, where they’d both been sociology professors. Em and Floyd had been born in London where their parents were from. As the car wound its way up into the hills, Em remembered the dislocation she had felt when they’d arrived in Cardiff. People spoke in a funny way and said strange things like ‘by here’ or ‘by there’ when they were explaining the location of something, even if it wasn’t anywhere here nor there. Then there was the fear of starting secondary school knowing nobody. Floyd had settled straight in, proving a natural at rugby and football, which was all boys needed. The shift from England to Wales was a stepping stone for their parents, whose long-term dream was to live the good life in the rolling South Wales countryside. Having made it a couple of years ago, they had realized the ambition of growing their own, but had yet to work out how to generate their own power. On every visit, Floyd still liked to offer the contents of his bowels if they needed it. Actually, Em thought, Floyd usually mentioned it on the way. But so far, he’d said very little.
Something was up, which was odd considering how ‘high on life, man’ he’d been ever since he’d come home on Thursday night. ‘Everything all right?’ she ventured. There’d been a late phone call last night for Floyd but he hadn’t brought it up. Perhaps that was it? But it could be anything – he might be fed up with her housekeeping rules – she could see how hard it was for him to remember to flush the loo – or he might be stressed at work. It must be hard listening to people’s troubles all day, she thought.
‘Yeah,’ he said, absentmindedly, and that was that.
She tried to engage him with some chit-chat. Had he tried the new bar in Cardiff Bay? ‘Nope.’ Did he know Letty was loved up? ‘Nice.’ What about Frankie getting a sex teacher to win back Jason? He’d nearly crashed the car then – apparently just as Em had said that, a pheasant had run out into the roads.
He was the same over dinner too, which Mum took as a sign that his chakras were all out. Em noticed he didn’t even take the piss when she said that; it was all very strange.
‘This curry is lovely, Dad,’ Em said.
‘It’s a veggie saag,’ he said, then with triumph, ‘featuring our very own spinach no less! The aloo gobi is made from home-grown potatoes and cauliflower too.’
‘Amazing!’
Jingling with her arms of silver bracelets, Mum returned from the kitchen with warm naan bread. ‘And this is from… the supermarket!’ she laughed, holding it aloft like a trophy. ‘I haven’t quite got round to working the bread maker yet. Hey kids, listen, me and Dad have an announcement to make.’
Em looked at Floyd to see if he was going to chip in with something. This was the perfect moment for him to have a laugh: ‘Are you pregnant, Mum?’ ‘Are you a lesbian, Dad?’ But the only sign he’d heard Mum was he’d stopped mid-chew.
‘Go on, Alb,’ Mum said, looking mischievous, her ice-blue eyes dancing to a beat set by her hips which shook her hennaed shoulder-length waves and dangly ethnic earrings.
‘You say it, Sue,’ Dad said, his smile reaching up along his wrinkles to his still dark head of hair. ‘It was your idea.’
They were like a double act, playing off one another, still clearly very much in love. In a world of their own, actually, and what the heck were they going to drop now?
‘Right, well, here goes: we’re going to spend three months living in a commune in Spain!’
Em was not in the slightest bit shocked. She sighed with acceptance. This was typical of them.
Floyd though just asked a blunt: ‘Are you serious?’
‘Albie,’ Mum said, patting his arm as a sign to ignore Floyd.
‘Well, we love living off the land here so much that we wanted to see what it was like doing it with other people, sort of in a community. Only for an extended holiday. There are some interesting techniques I’d like to learn which I can bring back here.’ They’d bought a van, which they were picking up in the week and they’d booked their tickets. Mum beamed – it was really sweet the way she still had such an enthusiasm for things.
‘When do you go?’ Floyd said, with uncharacteristic sharpness.
‘February the first…’
Two weeks before her baby was due.
‘…So we’ve got ages. We’ll be here for Christmas and back in time for summer before it gets too roasting there.’
Floyd inhaled dramatically through his nostrils and looked at Em with purpose. She was trying to hold it together. After all these adult years of finding Mum a bit of a pain, the one time she was going to need her, really need her, she wouldn’t be here.
‘Come on, you two,’ Mum said, sensing the atmosphere. ‘You don’t need us like you used to, when you were small, you haven’t done for years.’
Em didn’t want to crush them with her sadness so she told them how happy she was and she’d help with whatever they needed to buy – sun cream and supplies – with her ten per cent discount at work.
Floyd suddenly stood up and his chair tipped back onto the floor. ‘This is a… bloody… fucking… folly!’ he said in a voice which strained with anger. The table went quiet because this wasn’t the Floyd they knew and loved. ‘You two need to grow up, you’re forever messing about and I just can’t believe you’re going when Em needs…’
Em shot Floyd a look of warning – don’t you dare spoil this for them, it said, and don’t even think about breaking my news.
Dad didn’t lose his temper very often. But when he did…
‘SIT. DOWN,’ he yelled at Floyd.
Floyd did as he was told, realizing he’d overstepped the mark. But his face remained like thunder.
‘We have never stopped you two from doing what you’ve wanted to do. Never,’ Dad spat. ‘We have always let you go your own way, encouraged you to do it, in fact. We’ve been deliberately hands-off to allow you to make your own choices. And we’d appreciate the same courtesy.’
Floyd pushed his plate away and put his heads in his hands.
‘And apologise to your mother.’
Floyd hesitated as Em prayed he would say sorry. She just
didn’t understand where his tantrum had come from. Why did he care so much? It was so unlike him. Dad was absolutely right that they’d given her and Floyd plenty of freedom. They believed strict parenting gave teenagers something to rebel against. Neither Floyd nor her had had any need to do anything extreme – mainly because Mum and Dad would have liked it. There was the time Floyd was caught smoking a spliff out of his bedroom window when he was seventeen, but Dad had only told him off for not sharing it. That had put both of them off the idea that drugs were ‘cool’. Their hands-off approach had taught Floyd and Em that only they themselves could do the hard work. And she never doubted her parents’ love; Mum and Dad’s worst crime was being a bit embarrassing in their sandals and hippy gear.
‘Sorry, Mum. Sorry, Dad,’ he said, getting up.
Em breathed a sigh of relief as Mum disappeared in a six-foot-something sandwich of a hug. His last comment, the bit where he almost said she would need Mum and Dad, had been forgotten. There was no rush to tell them; she’d do it in the week, when things had settled down. What would Mum miss in the first three months of her baby’s life? She’d be back for the good stuff like walking and talking.
That night though, she lay awake trying to calculate how she was going to work through Mum’s absence. Sure, Floyd was showing he wanted to be involved but he wouldn’t be off work, neither would he have the experience she needed to guide her through the long days and nights she’d been told to expect.
It meant she’d have to reconsider her options, throw herself into mum-and-baby groups, which frightened the life out of her. She didn’t mind being alone – she minded not having an instruction manual.
Round and round she went but, begrudgingly, Simon Brown’s offer of moving in when the baby was born seemed increasingly to be her only real practical prospect.
Tuesday
Letty
‘Attention, everyone!’ Ross called as he went to Letty’s desk, parking his backside next to her keyboard to make his announcement.
Her workspace was positioned at the top of the room, next to Ross’ office, and looked out onto the rest of the team. So she rolled her chair to one side to see his audience, who were twenty-strong.
