by Foster, Zoe
Abby had tried to forgive her, to be at peace and accept who her mother was, and turn the boat around so they might be able to rescue at least a glimmer of a relationship before her mother went completely senile, but their current situation was far from a promising movie trailer for a glittering conclusion.
As Abby settled into bed, utterly disenchanted with her evening and with her personal life in general, she heard her phone chime from the lounge room where she’d left it. Adrenaline surged through her – could it be? No, he wouldn’t. It was after midnight, even for a booty call that was disgusting behaviour. It was probably Sean, his texts always came in at odd hours, being that he was on Brazilian time.
Unable to resist, Abby plodded out to retrieve her phone.
Garfield, darling, your website is killing us. Would a gorgeous housecat be awake and interested in a nightcap with a very tired-but-wired web designer? He’s going to be driving past your house in 10 minutes …
She clasped the phone to her chest and grinned like another famous tabby cat. He was working late! He’d been working like a dog all week and that was why he hadn’t been in touch. He wasn’t out sliming all over nineteen year olds, he was working on her website! Abby’s ego beamed with satisfaction and relief.
A housecat would. (Purr.)
Abby hit send on her very non-ice-queen text then tore into the bathroom for some invisible makeup – curled lashes, cheek stain and concealer on a pimple that was thankfully on its way out – plus some tuberose and gardenia scented body oil on her décolletage and arms. A boof-up of the hair, a touch of gloss and it was into the bedroom where her sexy City to Surf t-shirt and boy leg undies were replaced with a silky Calvin Klein nightie and lacy black French panties. She felt her heart racing, her lips stretch into an excited smile. It was ludicrous the way one text message from this boy could change her entire physiological and mental state. Moments ago she’d been cursing his name and placing juvenile hexes on his weekend; now she was pulling her cleavage up so that his eyes would be greeted with two jubilant, sexy bulbs when he arrived.
As that confusing clarification came through, so too did the ding of the doorbell. Fuck! He was here. She opened the door in that cute sexy way she always did when a guy came over – half-concealed behind the doorframe, head on an angle, cheeky smile.
‘Jesus. You’d give a jellyfish a hard-on in that outfit.’
Something flashed in Marcus’s eyes and he pushed the door open, pulling her out from behind it, taking her in his arms and kissing her passionately. She kissed him back, instantly feeling herself tingle with excitement of what was coming next. She felt his hands slide down to the hem of her nightie, and slide back up, with the nightie clasped in his hand so that he could feel the skin of her thighs. He created a soft gap in the kiss and pulled back to look at Abby.
‘Is it wrong to say I’ve been looking forward to that since Monday?’
Abby smiled wide, forgetting all of her ice-queen instructions.
‘No. It’s exactly the right thing to say.’
‘Do you feel like that nightcap …?’ Marcus kissed her neck as he spoke, making Abby’s spine quiver with pleasure.
‘Maybe in a little while,’ she said, pulling away from him, kicking the door closed and leading him to the bedroom.
‘So, the website is looking pretty amazing, I gave the mouse a glittery trail wherever it goes.’ Marcus said, as he held Abby in his arms in the darkness, pondering whether he could be bothered to shower.
‘Hang on, you left all the hot website talk till after sex?’ Abby said, in faux shock. She pulled back from her position against Marcus’s neck, where she had luxuriated in smelling his aftershave and sweat mixing together in a heady cocktail of sexual male scent. She was beginning to understand the appeal of young, modern men – they were just the perfect blend of metrosexual and masculine. It was dizzying.
‘Well, you seemed pretty primed; I didn’t think I needed to use such powerful foreplay.’
‘Don’t underestimate the effect a bit of HTML coding can have on a broad.’
He laughed. ‘You’re funny, aren’t you. I think that’s what initially attracted me to you. Your smartassy sass.’
‘Lies. You liked me because I was dragging you into a taxi for a good time within an hour of meeting you.’
‘That too. But we have more than just outstanding sexy times. I like your company.’
‘And I yours. Which is why I’m paying said company so much to make my website.’
‘Ooh, very good. But I mean it, Abby. I like you.’
Abby’s ears clicked into the ‘high sensitivity’ range.
‘Are you trying to score an invite to stay the night, sir?’
‘Pfft. I know your policy. Plus, I’m sober and have my car so I don’t have to do my usual 3 a.m. taxi hunt. And double plus, I’m too exhausted to challenge you on your screwy rules tonight.’
Abby should’ve felt relief, but she didn’t. She suddenly didn’t want him to go. She wanted to sleep in his arms, and go get coffees for them in the morning and then fool around some more.
‘What … what if I granted the prince permission to stay in the queen’s chambers this evening?’
‘Well that would be creepy, because the prince would be the queen’s son, so that’s a bit off, and also because you think you’re the queen and I am just a lowly prince, when for all you know I could be a wizard or at the very least a powerful duke from a neighbouring province.’
Abby laughed. ‘All right, you’ve got me there. It came out wrong.’
‘Maybe if you ask me properly and don’t disguise it with a bad joke sitting under a thinly veiled power play, you’d get a better response. I know you like to call the shots, and feel in control, Garfield, and that’s fine. Just be honest about it.’
For the 629th time since meeting Marcus, he had thrown her. She did like to call the shots, she did love to be in control, and he’d picked it. She hadn’t even really been able to articulate it, and he had. Impressive. But a bit annoying. He was too big for his fancy vintage brogues, he really was. ‘You really want me to grovel? That’s the best way to make me not ask you, you know.’
‘Are you really doing this?’ he said, kissing her softly on the hand. ‘Just admit you want your handsome young stud to stay over, already.’
She exhaled dramatically. ‘Marcus. Would you do me the pleasure of staying over tonight?’
‘Oooh,’ he said, making that smacking noise in his mouth people make when they’re faking sincerity. ‘I’d love to, but I have to get up early to go fishing with Chris.’
‘Classic stuff. Do you want a glass of water?’ Abby stood up to walk to the kitchen, wrapping her cream throw around her as a cape.
‘You think I’m kidding?’ he said.
‘Are you ever not kidding?’ Abby said, as she walked down the hall.
When she returned to the bedroom, Marcus was fully dressed, and putting his shoes on.
‘What’s all this?’ Abby asked, stopping dead in the doorway.
‘Told you, I’m going fishing; Chris is picking me up at five …’
Abby’s face was twisted in confusion. ‘But it’s, like, 2 a.m. now … can’t you cancel or something?’
He walked over to Abby and took the glasses from her, placing them on her dressing table, and coming back and taking both her hands in his.
‘I’m not playing games, Abby. I am going fishing, and I need to go home. I don’t want to go, only a moron would, but I can’t let Chris down. It’s our thing, you know? Some dudes surf, some gamble and chase sliz, some whittle small animals on sunlit porches; we fish.’
‘I see,’ said Abby, seeing nothing but annoyance.
Marcus kissed her tenderly on the forehead and then tilted her head up to his so he could kiss her on the lips.
‘I’m secretly thrilled that you’re pissed, you know. Means you want me. And! You even asked me to sleep over! I’m breaking you down, aren’t I? Admit it.’
&
nbsp; ‘Well, you only get so many chances, you know.’ Abby hated what was coming out of her mouth, her defensive, arrogant clichés, but they were uttered before she could reel them back in. She hated that this implied that her feelings were hurt.
‘Ooh, is that a threat? I love them. Turn me on.’
‘You’re a goose. Get out of here then, and let a girl get some sleep, why don’t you.’ She tried to re-ignite some funny before his last impression of her was of a whiny, always-gets-her-own-way woman.
‘Fine. But I’m seeing you tonight. Maybe I’ll take you for a delicious cocktail at my favourite bar.’
‘Oh, but you’re fishing, remember? Or have you already forgotten your own exit lie?’
‘After fishing. We don’t sleep out there. I’ll call you.’ And he began walking down the hall, checking his pockets as he went.
‘I’m busy tonight, you know,’ called Abby down the hall, even though she absolutely was not busy.
‘You’re lying,’ Marcus called back, mimicking Abby’s intonation perfectly.
‘Oh, and Garfield?’ he called as Abby heard the front door open and his footsteps on her tiled porch. ‘Thank you. You’re REALLY TERRIFIC AT SEX.’ He finished bellowing and closed the door, leaving Abby giggling like a schoolgirl.
As she lay in bed minutes later, thinking about the night they’d had, and how worked up she’d been before he came over, then how much she felt she was ‘giving of herself’ to eat her pride and ask him to stay, then how shitty she’d been when he rebuffed her request, then how disappointed she’d been when she realised he wasn’t going to stay with her after all, and then how disgusted she’d been with her taking-my-ball-and-going-home attitude, and then relieved his reaction was to be even cuter and funnier, she realised the girls were right. She liked Marcus. That said; she knew nothing of him except for his name, job and what he looked like naked. After all, fishing? And where did he live? And who with? And what were his friends like? Why was he out fishing with Chris, his fifty-something boss? Abby was going to find out all of this tomorrow. When he called. And they hung out. And he was the first man to spend the whole night in Abby’s bed since she was with her ex.
20
Abby awoke – sans alarm – and luxuriated in her cotton cocoon for a good forty-five minutes, thinking about her delicious late-night caller, and her plan-free day ahead and her total lack of yoga and pilates. It was a gloriously sunny day; the kind that might enthuse one to head to the beach, if one didn’t hate sand so much. Abby wished there was a magical beach where the grass went right to the edge and there was no stuffing about with sand in your shoes, bag, swimmers, ears, hair, bum crack. One existed, of course, it was called ‘a pool’, but Abby simply chose not to swim instead.
As if reading her thoughts, a text from Chelsea flew in.
Beach day. We’ll go to Mackenzie park so u can’t whinge abt sand. Breakfast on deck. Mads is in x
She could feign sleep, but Chels was the type who would just show up at Abby’s door with her big fancy Ralph Lauren towels and bang on the door until Abby emerged.
Don’t you have a boyfriend who should be taking you to the beach? (In St Tropez?) Where is he today?
Brmmmt.
He works weekends. I’ve subtracted points for that dont worry. See u in an hour x
Abby reluctantly left her cosy nook and walked into the bathroom to study her hair, skin and body and see if any maintenance was required. Hair, yes: roots were now critical stage. Skin seemed okay, though a facial wouldn’t be the worst thing that could happen to it. She could see a constellation of blocked pores having the time of their lives on her nose; to take them away and prevent them from causing pimples seemed somehow mean. Body … Body was okay. Probably her smallest bikini would be required, going by the old adage of, ‘the smaller the bikini, the smaller the body looks’. Abby had possibly made up this adage, and it might even be completely untrue, but it seemed to work, in the Pamela Anderson sense of making everything look as though it’s meant to be busting out sexily, not because it’s spilling over due to too many days with cheese toasties with a side of pinot acting as a ‘nutritional’ full stop.
Pah, she had a hot, twenty-two-year-old lover, she remembered. She couldn’t be doing too badly. If someone that young, that gorgeous and with that many choices for sex had chosen her, then maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t as chopped liver-y as she sometimes felt. Maybe she was actually – gasp – hotter than she thought! Maybe he saw something she couldn’t, like that thing men in chick flick movies always saw in their average-looking best girlfriend. And maybe having Marcus around would inspire her to lose weight and tone up, she thought, gleefully. Maybe she should be going for a run right now, she thought, with less glee. Nahhh, not enough time. She had sunscreen to apply, hats to locate, and a dozen bikinis to be angry at.
As they lay on their towels in the sun, Chelsea’s tight, taut, gorgeous little body made Abby feel like a sloppy sea lion. Abby went through the usual mind lecture of how Chelsea was a sparrow who ate three nuts a day, and how she exercised twice as much as the amount of nuts she consumed each day, and how it was Abby’s own fault she had slipped up a dress size. Or two.
Mads, with her tall, elegant frame and perfect, pale skin looked no different than when they were promo models, and just as she did back then, she covered up completely from the sun with a hat, shirt and a fresh layer of SPF 1000+ sunscreen every three minutes or so.
Once she’d finished reading her highbrow arts supplement in the newspaper, Mads turned her attention to her friends’ love and sex lives with a voracious need to know everything, or make up her own version and aggressively implement that instead. Thankfully, because Abby’s post-coital glow was being nicely camouflaged by the sunshine, Mads’s first target was Chelsea.
‘So, how come we haven’t met him yet?’
‘You have! Well, Abby has. I had to cancel my barbecue because he had something come up. But you’ll meet him.’
‘And has he invited you to his place yet?’ Mads’s tone was that of suspicion. A little bit of curiosity, but mostly suspicion. It was her preferred tone. After doubt and delight.
Chelsea squirmed and reached for more tanning oil from her bag. ‘No, but who cares? My place is the perfect love nest.’
‘And now for your real answer …?’
‘It’s fucking me off. Big time. It’s been over a month; what’s he hiding?’
Mads seized the chance for fantasy with both paws. ‘You don’t think he has a girlfriend hiding back there, do you? Oooh, or a WIFE!’ Her eyes were wide with delight at the thought of a big, fun pool of drama for her to muck about in.
‘Mads? Not helping. Pipe down. Chels, I’m sure he’s not hiding anything’.
‘What if he’s GAY and his handsome vet-nurse boyfriend, Dennis, lives there?’
‘MADS,’ Abby said firmly. ‘Put your imagination back on its leash.’
‘Sorry. I’m sure he’s lovely, hetero and the reason you’ve not been invited over is simply because you haven’t put out.’
Chelsea sighed dramatically and rolled her eyes. ‘Gee, thanks Oprah. What’s your giveaway today?’
‘Have you put out, Chels? That would be highly premature from Miss Padlocked Panties, no?’
Chels sighed and looked at Abby and Mads, both gawking at her like excited monkeys being handed a banana-shaped present.
‘Of course I haven’t. You have to be militant about this when the guy is a legitimately good catch, stupid. Otherwise you blend into every other ho he sleeps with on the first night.’
‘I sleep with guys on the first night,’ Abby piped up. ‘Does that make me a ho?’
‘Yes. It does.’
‘Awww, that’s sweet,’ Abby said, tousling Chelsea’s hair patronisingly. Chelsea was beyond being able to offend her on this topic anymore. ‘You’re the best friend a girl could ask for.’
‘When will you do it?’ Mads asked. ‘Are you waiting for rose petals up the hallway and p
atchouli massage oil?’ Mads and Abby snorted with laughter.
‘Fuck you both. You’re dull and childish, and I’ve heard better jokes from a three year old.’
‘Oooh, pretty kitty can scraaaaatch!’ said Mads, teasingly.
‘I know what I’m doing.’ There was an edge to Chelsea’s tone, but the girls didn’t care. She ran her mouth so often that she earned her teasing good and proper.
‘So what are we talking, another month?’
‘Two. It’s already been a month and he hasn’t complained, so that’s earned him some points. Anyway, what about you, Abby, how’s your infant? Ready to admit you like him yet?’ Classic Chelsea. If you can’t take the heat, aim the torch blower at someone else.
‘I knew this was coming,’ sighed Abby. She had resigned herself to the fact she had to run the gauntlet at some stage.
‘Okay, you know what? I’m just coming out with it: Yes, you were right, you’re the best, you’re awesome, you are all-knowing superhumans with incredible powers of prescience, because I think I DO like him, even though it’s preposterous, and I could very well just be in the post-sex glow and he’s entirely wrong for me.’
‘Why is he wrong for you?’ Mads asked loudly in order to compete with all of Chelsea’s laughter and knee-slapping and ‘I knew its’.
‘Because he is, Mads! He’s a kid! And also, I don’t know anything about him. He could be living with his mum and dad for all I know.’
