Page 21 of Such a Good Couple
Yes, it was, but with Clara gone and Maggie already drifting towards the stairs it seemed the decision was made for her. It’d have to be tomorrow. Nothing bad could happen in ten hours.
‘Night,’ Maggie called. ‘Sleep well, everyone.’
‘Anyone up for a nightcap out on the deck?’ Ollie looked from Conor to Annie.
‘No, thanks,’ Annie said firmly.
‘Eh …’ Conor paused, then shook his head and Annie resolved to ignore his slight hesitation. Starting something would derail the sex they were supposed to be having. If she’d ditched sex every time Conor pissed her off in the last year … well, it probably wouldn’t have made a difference, she thought grimly.They’d still be in the same baby-less boat they were in now.
Upstairs in the bedroom, she and Conor didn’t bother turning on the lamps. They undressed in the path of moonlight that stretched from the windows towards the foot of the bed.
For them, Annie realised sadly, sex wasn’t really about the other person anymore. Where once Conor had kissed every curve of her, now it had become so far removed from pleasure that they barely looked at each other. Sex had also become extremely quick. They could get it done in under ten minutes. Though they’d never vocalised it, it was clear that neither of them were remotely interested in prolonging it.
Annie lay back on the bed and Conor positioned himself between her legs and began the routine that had replaced their old passion. He propped himself up with one arm and with his other hand gripped his dick and began to jerk it to help him get hard. Annie looked over to the side table where her cornucopia of prenatal vitamins were assembled forlornly. A tear slipped from the corner of her eye and into the fine hair at her temple. Usually she could give some kind of perfunctory performance. She felt under particular pressure to, seeing as how it felt more and more like she was the one putting them through this. With a concerted effort she pulled herself back from the edge of crying.Crying is a boner killer, she thought as she reached up and drew Conor’s face down to her and kissed him, trying very hard to ignore how long it seemed to be taking him to get going tonight.
‘You ready?’ he whispered at last, and she nodded. She was about as turned on as if she’d been filling out a bank form, and it rubbed uncomfortably as he entered her and began the desultory thrusting that to date had gotten them exactly nowhere. He buried his face in the hair at her neck and she squeezed her eyes shut. This position was part of their dreary routine. That no one had to look at anyone was their unspoken agreement. She madesome murmurs of pleasure and so did he. This was also part of their routine so that no one had to face the reality that this situation had gotten bad. Really, really bad.
A few minutes passed and Conor’s movement became a bit more urgent.
‘You go ahead and come,’ Annie said quietly. ‘I don’t think I’ll be able to. The wine …’ She said this as if her not coming was some kind of anomaly and not, in fact, the same thing that happened – or didn’t, as the case may be – virtually every time these past few months.
‘Are you sure?’ Conor asked as per their script, and Annie nodded.
He continued to press into her, but then Annie detected his rhythm falter slightly. She reached down and pulled him by the hips to draw him deeper inside her but found, to her dismay, some resistance on his part.
‘What?’ she said as he propped himself back up to look down at her. In the dark of the bedroom she couldn’t quite see his eyes, but the grim line of his mouth didn’t look promising.
‘Annie …’ He pulled away from her and knelt on the bed between her knees, cupping his genitals. Feeling impossibly exposed, she pulled herself up to sitting and drew her legs together. God, it was all so undignified.
‘Why are you stopping?’ She asked the question even though she suspected she knew the answer.
His eyes remained down as he fiddled with a fold in the bedsheet.
‘Okay, I get it.’ Annie leaned toward him. ‘I know it’s really shitty doing it like this. It’s so much pressure. I hate it too, you know. Maybe it’s time to start thinking about the IVF. We could find a way to make the money work.’
He looked up at her and seemed on the verge of saying something but then just nodded and climbed off the bed. Heshut the door of the bathroom behind him and Annie heard the shower start; no doubt he wanted to wash away their latest failure.
She turned over and squeezed her eyes shut. A wasted window of fertility. The sense of defeat and disappointment landed like a stone in her chest and her eyes began to sting with tears.
CHAPTER 6
Finn is so excited to see everyone today!
Every time Maggie read Brody’s message she could feel the dial on her rage twisting upwards. He’d sent it at 6 a.m. and she’d read it first in bed amid the feverish sheets – she had not slept well. Her stomach had been acting up. Too much food and booze the night before. And all the wrong sort, she admonished herself. Cream and butter – everything fucking good in life. In LA not eating nice food was easier, as none of the nice food was within reach. The twins ate normal kids’ stuff but, for Fionn and Maggie, their chef cooked according to whatever strict regimen Fionn was on for a role. It was pretty much always steamed something with a side of steamed something else. When he was prepping to shoot the firstEndurancemovie, they’d gone plant-based and sugar-free. His diet had even limited fruit. Maggie never thought she’d be craving an apple so much. But holidays were for binning the diet so no wonder her tummy had been in bits at dinner. She’d been so uncomfortably full that she’d actually been unwell in the restaurant toilets. Mortifying. Luckily Clara and Annie hadn’t noticed; they would no doubt have read into it.
When she went to pee, Maggie read the message again.
Finn is so excited to see everyone today!
She switched over to her thread with Fionn, noting that her last text had been several weeks ago. It was a picture of the girls on their roller-skates at the boardwalk. He’d simply hearted the picture.
I hear you’re ‘so excited to see everyone’, she typed.
She flushed the loo and trudged back to the bed – it wasn’t even 7 a.m. yet, though getting back to sleep seemed to be an unlikely prospect; her thoughts were too stirred up.
Later today Fionn would be landing. Tonight he’d be in this bed with her. Not so long ago, this thought would have comforted her. She used to miss him when he was gone. On the nights of their reunions, they couldn’t get the girls to bed fast enough. The minute they were free they’d make their way to the bedroom, where she used to get on top of him and delight in his big hands gripping her waist.
In the last couple of years, however, Maggie had found a sudden yearning to take back the territory of her body, the territory that had been so occupied since her teens. Colonised by boys in school and then men in college, and then Fionn and, lastly, in new ways, by her daughters. At forty, Maggie’d unearthed an unexpected desire to retreat from them all. Especially Fionn. She turned the lights off when he sought her out in the night, she didn’t want to be looked at while they fucked, and she didn’t want to be held by him afterwards. His arms came down like shutters around her, stifling and claustrophobic. They hadn’t slept together in months and she sensed she should probably care a bit more about this but she couldn’t help it, she wanted her own room and her own body back.
