Lisa wriggled her toes inside her ugg boots. She squared her shoulders in front of the computer screen. It was about time Emily Brontë got down and dirty with Frederick the stablehand.
Writing about squelching, writhing bodies used to be pleasurable, if not—as some critics had pointed out—her forte. Lately, it had become a chore. She could barely remember the mechanics of it, let alone the out-of-body highs she used to experience when she was younger. Every time she tried to conjure up a sexy man he ended up wearing enormous work boots and a goofy smile. Readers had also become hardened, lately. Even literary writers were churning out porn to give their sales a boost. Depravities that were barely legal were now in demand. She’d heard throttling was in vogue.
The computer screen fixed her with its empty eye.
‘Anal?’ she typed tentatively.
‘Not disturbing you, are we?’ Ron said, peering over her shoulder.
He’d been startling her in all sorts of places since he’d bought a pair of trainers. She quickly typed a ‘C’ in front of the ‘A’.
‘We thought we’d start in here today,’ he said, lowering a paint tin onto the floor. ‘Are you sure you want Racing Green?’
Ken swung into the room and with matador flair flourished a paint-speckled dustsheet. Doug appeared with a stepladder. Next to it he placed a ghetto-blaster permanently tuned into a talkback station favoured by racist homophobes who believed in alien abductions.
‘What? Oh yes.’
‘The colour’s a bit dark, if you ask me,’ Ron grumbled. ‘Turn that thing down, Ken. She’s writing about boating in Europe.’
Lisa made her excuses and moved her laptop downstairs to the kitchen table. She usually needed chocolate for sex scenes. Protein bars didn’t cut it. Black and Green’s white chocolate was good for extra marital affairs; 80 per cent cocoa for enduring passion. Warm feet were also essential, hence the ugg boots. Happily, they doubled as insulation against the bluestone floor.
She opened her laptop and glanced over her shoulder.
Frederick thrust her against the hay bales . . .
Emily was about to get spikes of straw digging into her backside.
Lisa stood up and opened the back door. A shaft of sunlight stretched suggestively across the floor. She stirred two heaped teaspoons of instant coffee into a mug and waited for the caffeine kick.
Her knot of hair unravelled against the straw . . .
She scanned her abdomen for erotic sensation. The only identifiable pressure was from her bladder. Lisa wasn’t up to it. Glancing over her shoulder to ensure Ron was safely upstairs, she googled ‘How to Write a Sex Scene’. A tidal wave of advice poured onto her screen.
Never use the word ‘penis’. Lisa agreed it was an ugly noun. She ran through some alternatives—cock, dick, manhood, prick, schlong. Penis didn’t seem so bad in comparison.
She flicked to Portia’s Facebook page. There were three new photos—two of Portia laughing maniacally with two young men, the veins in her neck standing out. The third photo was of a meringue cake drowning in berries and cream. Portia had typed ‘Yum!’ for a caption. As if the child would allow that number of calories anywhere near her lips.
Sighing, Lisa returned to ‘How to Write a Sex Scene’. Attention to detail is essential. Let the reader know if buttons and/or zips are involved. Frederick probably had buttons.
Make sure the man removes his socks.
Good point.
Don’t forget contraception. Maybe Frederick could be expert at coitus interruptus.
A battalion of black ants marched in single file across the floor towards the pantry. Lisa gnawed her thumbnail and checked her emails. There were two new messages. One was from a reader in Germany who wanted to know her shoe size. He claimed the sensuality of the female foot, the toes in particular, was overlooked by the mass media. A woman’s foot was nothing to be ashamed of, especially when the toenails were painted bright red.
Frederick, a foot fetishist? It would solve the contraception problem.
The second email was from Vanessa, asking if the manuscript was on track for delivery the following month.
Lisa drew a breath and settled her mouth in a line. September had come around too fast. She flicked back to ‘How to Write a Sex Scene’.
Couples seldom climax simultaneously in real life. Decide who’s going to come first and why.
Frederick would be first over the finishing line because he was so masculine and physical. But that would leave Emily stranded. Lisa decided to make him a kind of tantric master. Sighing, she willed sentences to straggle across the screen. She could feel his throbbing member . . . How could she sink to such a creaky cliche? The folds of her brain pleated in on themselves as she hammered the delete button. There was no option but to raid her Liqueur Chocolate stash.
She went to the pantry and stood on tiptoe. As she ran her hand along the top shelf, she could hear her laptop making underwater noises—the unmistakable sound of a Skype request.
Jake’s face flickered into view.
‘Where are you?’ she asked, fingering a brandy cream.
‘Bangkok Airport.’
‘Has Belle finished the retreat?’
‘Tomorrow.’
Jake ran a hand through his blue-black hair. If Belle felt an ounce of kindness towards him she’d explain how older skin requires softer tones.
‘I’ve been thinking about Ted,’ he said, clearing his throat. ‘It can’t be easy for him.’
Lisa slid the brandy cream between her lips while pretending to wipe her mouth thoughtfully.
‘And you’re right about love. It’s not easy to find.’
Was this a coded message? She let the brandy cream slide to the back of her mouth. ‘How’s Belle?’ Why did she always ask that, when all she really wanted was for Belle to climb onto the roof of a Thai temple and impale herself on the spiky bit?
‘She wants to go to Provence as well as Tahiti next year to keep up her French.’
‘Magnifique,’ she said, swallowing the chocolate.
‘How are you?’ he asked.
‘Fine. Just fine.’
‘Still wearing those ugg boots?’
‘They weren’t mine. They were Maxine’s. I bought a new pair.’
‘Are you wearing them now?’
She glanced down at her feet.
‘Let me see.’
‘No, Jake.’
‘Go on.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Giggling, she lifted the laptop and pointed it at her boots.
‘They’re kind of sexy.’ Clearly Jake wanted to eat his cake and have yesterday’s bagel as well.
She placed the laptop firmly back on the table.
‘I miss you,’ he said.
He was toying with her. In truth she missed him, too. Not the cheating, lying Jake but the Jake who’d hire a horse and buggy in Central Park just for the hell of it, the Jake who tap-danced down Broadway after they’d been to a revival of Singin’ in the Rain.
Fall was her favourite time in New York. Central Park would be draped in curtains of red and gold right now. It wouldn’t be long till the Thanksgiving Parade and the first snowfall. A dull pain nestled in her rib cage. Did she belong nowhere?
‘Remember that time we took Ted to the movies and there was that terrible stink? We thought the kid next to us had farted. Then Ted turned to me, looking angelic, and said: ‘Dad, I just breathed through my bottom.’
‘What about the time we took Portia to the child psychologist because we were having trouble potty training her?’ Lisa said. ‘He asked her why she refused to give up nappies and she said because they were advertised on TV.’
They smiled fondly, not at each other but into the pool of memories they shared.
‘Twenty-five years is nothing to sneeze at, Lisa.’
But Lisa no longer trusted nostalgia and the way it wrapped the past up in gift boxes festooned with paper flowers. As she grappled for a reply, a shape appeared on the doorstep. It threw a monstrous shadow across the floor.
‘What’s the matter?’ asked Jake.
‘Oh nothing. Just a cat that’s been hanging around.’
‘New friend?’
‘More of a frenemy.’
Her visitor sailed lightly over the threshold. Crouching close to the ground, he glowered up at her, every muscle tensed to turn and run. He was waiting for her to shoo him out.
‘Are you hungry?’ she asked gently.
‘Nah, I had a good meal on the plane . . . but I could do with a snack,’ Jake said, warming to her maternal tone.
‘I was talking to the cat.’
‘Oh.’
The feline cruised the perimeter of the kitchen like a shark.
‘I’d better go,’ Lisa said.
‘So had I,’ Jake said, suddenly faking busyness. ‘I’ve got a meeting. See ya.’ Jake’s image melted into the screen.
The cat sniffed the cupboards. Their encounter over the carrot cake had been brief. He’d scurried away when she’d approached.
‘So you’ve come for another visit?’ Her voice echoed across the kitchen. The cat became rigid and flattened his ears. She needed to adjust her tendency to boom. ‘Don’t be shy,’ she crooned in an uberfeminine tone that didn’t sound like her. It was the first time he’d stayed still and close enough for her to have a good look at him.
His coat was flat and mostly ginger. Grubby cream chunks dangled from his throat. Dirty white socks rose over his feet. He was a mess of a cat.
She rubbed the scar on the back of her hand. Those claws were daggers, potential harbingers of disease. She searched for his good points. The nose was rose pink. There were tiger stripes on his forehead. But the tail was a disaster. A dishevelled duster, it was home to an assortment of twigs and leaves. As for the permanent wink, her heart turned to olive oil. Maybe he’d lost the eye in a fight. Back at the shelter she’d met felines who’d developed eye ulcers as a result of cat flu. A few unlucky ones ended up blind.
The animal was filthy. And yes, ugly. Yet there was something mesmerising about him. She itched to reach out and touch the matted fur. She leant forward.
The cat cowered.
‘It’s okay,’ she said, leaning back in a less aggressive pose. ‘Do you like Kitty Treats?’ She might as well have been speaking Vulcan. ‘See those cans on the windowsill?’
The lighthouse beam of his eye followed her sightline to the cat food. Maybe he’d had a home once.
She stood up slowly, trying not to make a noise scraping her chair.
The cat hurtled to the no-man’s land of the doorway.
She trod noiselessly across the room like an underwater diver.
The utensil drawer rattled when she reached for the can opener. The cat darted outside.
Damn. He could’ve trusted her a little. Still, she’d come this far . . . She latched the can opener onto the tin and felt it sink through the lid. As it chomped the tin with a satisfying rhythm, she sensed a presence in the doorway. The cat was back. She scraped the food onto a saucer and laid it at her feet.
The cat stared longingly at the food, then up at her.
She was too close. She stepped backwards and leant against the new stove.
The cat skittered towards the saucer and buried his face in Kitty Treats.
‘What shall I call you?’
Giving him a name was lining herself up for heartache. Still, what else was new?
‘Cyclops?’
He appeared to have no interest in the classics.
‘Marmaduke,’ she said, edging towards him.
He continued hoovering up the food.
‘Okay, how about something simple like Mojo?’
The cat stopped and gazed up at her. ‘Meow.’ His voice was quieter and more high-pitched than she’d expected.
‘Mojo?’
The cat winked.
‘Okay. Mojo it is.’ She bent and reached out to his shaggy coat.
As though her touch connected him to the electricity grid, Mojo jumped. Tail down, he turned and scurried out the back door.