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LIKE A SOLDIER PREPARING for battle, Janine got ready for the Friday evening party at Mulligan’s. She had invited Brian, who promised to pick her up at seven. She had thought he wouldn’t want to talk to her after his cool departure that frosty morning in her house. But he was as warm and as friendly as ever. Janine knew it wasn’t quite fair to use him as a pretend rival to Mick. But she didn’t want to arrive alone, and Brian was the perfect prop.
After a long, leisurely bath in warm, fragrant bubbles and much smoothing-on of body lotion, she rummaged through her wardrobe while humming softly to herself in French. Parlez-moi d’amour, she sang, flicking through the clothes on the hangers. All black. Hmm, no, black is not the right note tonight. And trousers...no, this one...perhaps. Then: Aha! The perfect dress appeared as if by magic. It was deep red, cut low and slashed at the sides, making the bodice appear as if it was made up of only two wide bands across the breasts. The only designer dress she had saved from her former life. She put it on, enjoying the cool silk sliding down her body. The short skirt clung to her hips and made her legs look even longer. It was a little tighter than before, as she had put on weight, but that only added to its allure, Janine discovered when she checked in the bedroom mirror. She raised her arms and lifted her hair off her neck, turning slowly, feeling as if she was seducing herself. And of course, she was. Getting ready this way always made her feel sexy.
Janine’s eyes glimmered dangerously as she slipped on a pendant with a single pearl. She dabbed just one drop of Opium into her cleavage, knowing the heat of her body would make the subtle scent rise when she moved. For the first time in over a year, she applied kohl and then mascara to give her eyes a smoky look and chose a deep-red lipstick to match the dress. Black stockings and stilettos completed the outfit, and the whole effect was a real show stopper. Perhaps not appropriate for dinner at a country pub but perfect for knocking Rita or any other woman with designs on Mick off her pedestal. Janine ruffled her hair to give it a sexy just-out-of-bed look. When the doorbell rang, she threw a kiss to herself in the mirror and ran to answer the door.
Just before opening the door, Janine put on her black wool coat and tied the belt tightly. There would be no pre-dinner show.
Brian beamed at her. “You look wonderful.” He pushed a bouquet of red roses at her. “I brought you these. Didn’t quite know what to do on a date, but I vaguely remember flowers were involved.”
Janine took the bouquet. “They’re beautiful. Thank you. I’ll put them in water and then I think we have to get going.”
“What time are we supposed to be there?”
“Seven.”
“But then we’re late already. We’ll be the last to arrive.”
Janine smiled. “I know.”
-o-
The pub was packed. The bar counter was lined with people watching a football match on the big screen, and every table in the dining room beyond was taken. Janine spotted their party at a long table by the window. She saw Megan looking lovely in a black silk shirt and matching trousers, and Beata, cute in blue. Rita had poured herself into a purple velvet dress that didn’t quite go with her red cheeks. Ah, well, she tried, Janine thought, glancing at Mick who was sipping a beer and looking morosely into space. Assumpta and Nelia were whispering to each other, both in black tops and jeans.
“I’ll take your coat,” Brian said beside her.
Janine shook her head. “In a moment.” She pushed through the crowd in the bar. When she reached the entrance to the dining room and was sure all eyes were on her, she dropped her coat.
Right on cue, someone scored a goal on the TV screen and there was a load roar. Then a voice: “Holy Mother of God.” Someone dropped a glass. A chair scraped as Mick shot up.
Janine smiled at him and slowly shimmied across the room to the table, Brian in her wake. “There you are!” she chortled. “Sorry we’re late, but—” she let out throaty laugh. “I don’t actually have an excuse.”
“We forgive you,” Paudie said, looking only slightly shell-shocked.
Boris nodded. “Yes. Me too. I would forgive any woman looking like you do. Did,” he added when Beata shoved him in the side with her elbow. “Ouch, Beata! What was wrong with what I said?”
“Everything,” Beata snapped.
Janine turned to Brian, who was staring at her with awe. “I think you all know my friend Brian.”
“Hello, all,” Brain made a gesture with his hand. “Hi, Rita, nice to see you. And Assumpta.”
“Hi, Uncle Brian,” Assumpta squealed and rushed up to hug him. “That girl over there is my friend Nelia.”
“Hello, pretty girl.” Brian shook hands with Nelia, then with everyone else.
Paudie pulled out a chair. “Please, sit down. We’ve just ordered. The same for everyone to make it easier. Crab claws to start followed by sole on the bone, the chef’s special for tonight. Hope that’s okay.”
“Perfect,” Janine said and slid her hips onto the polished oak of the chair. “I love seafood. Especially of the kind you have to eat with your fingers. Crab claws can be a bit tricky, though. Perhaps you can help me?” she fixed her smoky eyes on Brian.
“Of course, my dear.” Brian sat down beside her. “I’ll crack open the shells for you.”
“Thank you, cher ami.” Janine could feel Mick’s eyes on her but she didn’t look at him. She shot a smile at Rita instead. “Hello there. I haven’t seen you since I came to your salon. How are things with you?”
“Fine, thank you,” Rita said stiffly. “Nice dress. But aren’t you a little—cold?”
Janine laughed. “Not at all. I’m wearing thermal underwear. Keeps me toasty warm at all times.”
Even though this wasn’t particularly funny, everyone laughed. “But you look very cosy in yours,” Janine added.
Rita’s eyes turned cool. “Thank you. If that was a compliment,” she added.
“Of course it was,” Brian boomed beside Janine. “Rita, you always look gorgeous. But tonight you look delicious.” He winked at her and she smiled back and threw him a kiss.
Janine tried to smile at Nelia, but all she got in return was a glowering look.
“You look awesome,” Assumpta said. But it didn’t sound like a compliment.
-o-
As the evening wore on, Janine began to feel things were not going quite as she had planned. After the initial shock of her startling entrance, everyone settled into their previous conversations. Boris went to the bar to watch the end of the soccer match. Megan discussed childbirth with Beata in such detailed terms that Paudie told them not everyone needed to know the intimate details of the female reproduction organs and how they changed during pregnancy. Nelia announced it was putting her off her dinner, and Assumpta said she would never have kids if it was that awful.
“Yeah, but I’ll never get that far,” Nelia announced loudly. “I mean you have to—you know to get pregnant and that’s so totally gross.” She shot a look at Megan, who squirmed on her chair.
“Well, there’s the other way,” Assumpta said. “You can go to a clinic, and they can shoot you up with—” She stopped as Rita’s glare interrupted her. “Sorry,” she muttered.
“Yes, girls, keep it clean, please,” Mick said. “There are adults present.” He looked straight at Janine. “Some of us are more adult than the rest.”
Janine gave him a cold stare and turned to Brian. “The sole was amazing. Was it caught locally?”
He nodded and dabbed his mouth with his napkin. “Yes, I think so. Mulligans normally get their seafood from the harbour each morning. Isn’t that so, Rita?”
“Yes,” she replied. “My brother’s a fisherman. He says they keep the best of the catch for here and send the rest to Dingle. Depends on the weather, though.”
“How is your brother these days?” Brian enquired. “We used to have great fun out surfing years ago.”
“He’s very well. Got married a couple of years ago. We thought he’d never settle down. But then he met Maura, you know? She’s a Quirke from Cloghane.”
“Really?” Brian leaned across the table, smiling at Rita. “I know them. Didn’t their dad play hurling for Kerry?”
“That’s the one,” Rita replied. She pulled out the chair Boris had vacated. “Come here and I’ll tell you more.”
“I’ll be right back,” Brian said to Janine and sat down beside Rita.
Paudie excused himself to join Boris and the end of the soccer match. Beata and Megan resumed their conversation in hushed tones, and Nelia and Assumpta played a game on Assumpta’s phone. Mick nursed his wine glass and looked at the girls with an indulgent little smile. “Nelia,” he warned. “I hope you’re not sending messages with that phone?”
Assumpta looked up. “No, we’re just looking at Facebook.” She suddenly picked up the phone and pointed it at Janine. “Smile,” she said. Before Janine had time to react, the flash went off. “Thanks,” Assumpta said. “It was just that you look so great in that dress, I wanted to take a picture. Hope you didn’t mind.”
“Not at all,” Janine said, although she had been shocked by the flash, which had brought back some unpleasant memories.
“Stop that, Assumpta,” Mick said. “Are you two not in enough trouble already? You caused all kinds of upsets between Rita and me.”
Rita looked up. “It’s okay, Mick. They apologised. But that last message was really from you and that was the best one.” She winked at Mick.
Mick smiled back at her. “Not that it was as hot as the one sent from a nearly thirteen-year-old, but at least it was genuine.”
“I know. It was lovely.” Rita resumed her conversation with Brian, picking up the thread about her second cousin’s misdemeanours in some foreign country. Mick picked up his phone and texted in a message.
Alone at her end of the table, Janine played with the cutlery. She declined an offer of dessert and looked around the room. Her dress was beginning to feel uncomfortable; the push-up bra chafed at the sides, and she could feel the silk get hot under her buttocks pressed into the hard chair. She shifted slightly, trying to get comfortable. She wanted to leave, but Brian and Rita were now so engrossed in their conversation, it looked as if they would be there for hours. She blew on a lock of hair and picked up her evening bag. She would go to the Ladies and touch up her makeup. Maybe she could prise Brian away from the fascinating Rita in her tea-cosy dress when she came back.
She started to get up and chanced a look at Mick. She could see his mouth quivering as their eyes met. He was laughing at her. She shot up and walked swiftly across the room, accompanied by wolf whistles from the more-than-slightly drunk men at the other tables. She had never felt so embarrassed nor so totally defeated. Walking past the cloakroom, she grabbed her coat and, after a quick visit to the ladies’ toilet, walked out into the cold starlit night.
-o-
Outside, it was freezing, and the full moon shone a cool, bright light on the still landscape. The cold air biting her legs, Janine wrapped her coat tightly around her and kept walking, through the car park, past Brian’s van and climbed over the low wall that separated the tarmac from the dunes. She took off her shoes and walked onto the beach. The hard packed sand was cold under her feet. There wasn’t a breath of wind, and the water lapped on the shore with a soft murmur. Like black velvet studded with diamonds, the sky stretched above her into infinity. She sat down on a rock for a moment, staring up at the Milky Way, feeling smaller than a speck of sand. What does it matter, she thought. We’re so tiny in this vast universe, less than dust. Life is so short. We live, we love, we cry and then it’s over...
“Life’s a beach, eh?” Mick’s voice rang out in the still air.
She didn’t reply. She didn’t know what to say.
He sat down on the sand beside her. Wrapped in some kind of coat, with a woolly hat pulled over his ears, he seemed warm and comfortable and possibly a little drunk. “Got bored, did you? The company not up to your usual mundane standard?”
She whipped her head around to stare at him through the gloom. “It’s the other way around. I don’t seem to fit in with them. Nobody wanted to talk to me. I would be very surprised if they even noticed I left.”
He stretched out on the sand. “Well, yeah, I suppose. But then, a woman who arrives looking drop-dead gorgeous and so sexy every man wanted to jump her bones then and there might not seem a very cosy person to discuss the weather with.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
He sat up again. “Really? I had no idea you were that dim.”
She scrambled to her feet. “I didn’t come here to be insulted.”
“Where do you normally go?”
Without answering, she started to walk away. But Mick grabbed her by the ankle, and she fell onto the hard sand, banging her hip. She gave a short grunt of pain.
Mick got up on his knees. “Janine? Are you okay? I was only fooling around.”
“I banged my hip.”
He leaned over her. “Sorry. Is it bad?”
She lay still. “It’s throbbing a bit. But I don’t think it’s serious.”
“Will I get help? Gee, I’m sorry, Janine, I was just—”
“I know.” She turned her head away so he wouldn’t notice her tears.
He leaned closer and turned her head with his hand. They didn’t speak, but stared at each other in the dim light. He gave out an exasperated sigh. “Oh hell, woman, what are you doing to me?” Then he touched her lips with his, tentatively at first, as if he was expecting to be pushed away. He pulled back. “Sorry.”
“I forgive you,” she whispered. She grabbed the lapels of his coat and pulled him closer. “Do that again. It seems to help,” she murmured against his mouth.
He kissed her again. Long and hard, his tongue playing with hers, his hands now inside her coat.
“What about Rita?” she asked when she had to stop for air.
“Who?”
She giggled.
“What about Brian?”
“Who’s Brian?”
“And that man whose name you shouted the last time. Jake? What about him?”
Janine flinched at the sound of that name. “Gone. From my heart, my mind, my existence. I mean, it, Mick. I can’t explain it. You just have to believe me.”
“Okay. I do.” His hands inside her dress searched and found her breasts.
She pressed herself against him, feeling the bulge in his trousers. “Not here,” she protested. Someone might—”
“Too late. There’s no going back now,” he panted. “I know it’s cold but we’ll soon get warm.”
“I know.”
“That dress made me feel hot all evening.”
“That was the idea.” She giggled against his mouth.
“Do you ever think about anything else but sex?”
“What would you like me to think about?” She worked at his fly.
“How about the fix we’re in? The risk we might be discovered?”
She ignored his question.
He pulled back. “Maybe I’m not turned on enough.”
“Not turned on? I can fix that.” Janine gave him a lingering, deep-throat, urgent kiss. She sucked on his lower lip and pulled it out playfully, then worked on his neck, moaning softly. She ripped open his shirt. By the time her lips got to his navel, she knew he was aroused. She kept going as if on autopilot, undoing his trousers, making her mouth work on him, slowly and steadily. After a while he tried to fling her on her back and finish it in grand style, but she pinned him with her fingernails and kept going. Then she was on top, the way she liked it. She loved the control it gave her, the lack of control it left him with. But she could tell he liked it.
“You dominatrix,” he panted, holding her by the waist.
“You don’t like it?” she tightened her legs around him. “You don’t like a woman being in control?”
He laughed softly. “I don’t much give a damn about control. Why not give a woman some power now and then? They’re held down in life most of the time.”
“That’s very generous of you.”
“I’m a very generous guy.” He managed to cup her cool breasts while they maintained a steady rhythm with their hips. The Milky Way seemed to congeal and spread into one sheet of white lighting when his body surrendered. His eyes glittered with excitement, with need, with all the stars in the Milky Way as they came together, silently, beautifully and completely in tune.
Janine slumped on his chest. “Mon amour, tu es magnifique,” she murmured.
He stroked her hair. “Even I got that.”
“What do we do now?”
He gently lifted her off him. “We get dressed as best we can and try to get out of here with some decorum.”
“My dress is in shreds.” She wrapped her coat around her. “I’m out of decorum at this stage. Merde, what am I going to say to Brian? How are we going to face everybody?”
He lifted her to her feet. “We’re not. We’re going to tiptoe to my car. Then I’m going to call Paudie on my mobile and tell him you weren’t feeling well and I had to take you home and ask him to take Nelia in his car. I’m sure Megan will want to go home soon, anyway.”
“What about Brian? And Rita?”
Mick hugged her close. “Paudie will explain to everyone. Leave it to me, sweetie. I’ll take care of everything.”
She leaned against him. “That sounds wonderful.” She realised then that nobody had ever really taken care of her before.
