Page 30 of To Hell With It

I picked up her shot and poured it into my hands and then rubbed them clean with the alcohol.

‘What are you doing?’ Una looked on, shocked.

I scowled at her but didn’t answer. Then I picked up mine and downed it in one just as Jack turned up beside me.

ChapterEighteen

You can call it Dutch courage if you like or just because Una had pissed me off, but when we got back to Anickuna Cottage, I decided I was going to have sex with Jack – woodlice or no woodlice – and nothing was going to stop me.

I had never seduced a man before. I know that sounds ridiculous, but I hadn’t, and I wasn’t quite sure how I would. Music? Sexy dancing? A smouldering glance over my shoulder? All of the above?

As I was weighing up my options, I hadn’t noticed Jack was behind me until his hands appeared around my waist. But before I could turn around to give him my best smouldering look and sexy dance to no music, I heard the clink of his belt, which made me freeze in excitement (not fear just to be clear).

Then I felt his hot breath tickle my neck and his lips so close to my ear it made my whole body tingle. He tugged at my jeans roughly, until they were down at my thighs, and a moment of panic shot through me when I realised I hadn’t shut the kitchen curtains and anyone could have walked along the lane right then and seen me there in my grandmother’s cottage with my jeans around my ankles. I whispered something about not wanting to be caught and Jack whispered back about unfinished business.

And all I could think about was my grandmother peeling mushrooms at the kitchen sink while Jack thrust into me from behind.

Una was right. Jack had a big cock. It was so big that I thought it might not be real, like a prosthetic penis, but it did things that only a real penis could do.

We did it twice: once in the kitchen and once upstairs, in my bed, thank God, because I couldn’t think about my grandmother there. We lay together afterwards, entwined in a sweaty heap. Jack had said I was great in bed and I had stared into the darkness with the biggest grin on my face because I’d never been told I was great at sex before. And I stayed there next to him, with my head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat, imagining what it would be like to have him in my bed every night next to me.

When I was sure Jack was asleep, I felt for my phone in the darkness of my bedroom, scrolled down to Una’s number and tapped out my message.

He has by the way.

He has what?

Got a big cock.

Then I went downstairs and started all my checks. They took all night, but I didn’t care. I was officially in lust.

* * *

By the morning, I had decided I would tell Jack about my OCD.

If there was going to be anything between us at all, even if it was from the other side of the world, over WhatsApp, then he needed to know what he was getting into, and I needed to know he liked me for me and not just for my great sex (he said it, remember).

I flapped around my kitchen looking for something to make my news seem more normal, grabbed a packet of my faithful Rich Teas, and wondered how the hell I was going to tell him something that made absolutely no sense out loud.

I'd never really explained my OCD to anyone, other than Una and Mairéad of course, and Mairéad didn't count because it was her job to understand me. I’d never had to tell people in the village, they just sort of knew about it without me having to say.

I was a bit like my dad – I kept things inside – and I was OK with that. No one needed to know about my inner turmoil; what good would that do, anyway? Una said that people who kept things in made themselves ill because their emotions rot them from the inside. She said that's why people get cancer but I'm not so sure I believe in all that because otherwise I'd be riddled with it.

People get cancer because they just get cancer. I know, because Sally (farmer’s wife Sally) had it once and she was the healthiest person in Drangan – she never ate processed foods, everything was either raw or fresh from the farm, and she didn’t drink alcohol (only mulled wine at Christmas). And she still got it.

Jack was coming out of my downstairs loo when I placed two mugs of tea on the kitchen table and the plate of Rich Tea biscuits between them. I took a few rescue breaths (I didn’t hold for eight because I didn’t want to be red and flustered) and sat down so he could see I wanted to talk. I thought about getting up again, packing away the biscuits and pretending that nothing was going on, but I knew I just had to do it. I just had to tell Jack.

He sat down opposite me (in Mairéad’s chair) and for a moment I wished it was her opposite me not Jack. He leant back like one of those poster boys I’d seen in the magazines at the shop, the black and white ones, where the guy was slumped on a chair looking all smouldering and sexy. And Jack really was that sexy. I’m not making it up.

‘I hope there’s a shot of whisky in this?’ He picked up his tea.

‘Afraid not,’ I said more seriously than I intended.

I took a sip of my tea. I couldn’t find my words, it was like I’d swallowed them down with it, so I decided the best way to tell him was to imagine he was Mr Dutson instead. You know, like when people say to imagine the audience naked? I took one quick rescue breath as discreetly as I could, held it for a few seconds and then slowly let it out.

‘I wanted to speak to you about something, about me,’ I blurted out.

‘Sure,’ Jack said casually, and I expected him to say something else likeyou can tell me anythingortake your time– but he didn’t say that, he just sat there looking at me in a way I couldn’t quite figure out.

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