Page 35 of Has Anyone Seen My Sex Life?
She shakes her head. I’d heard the rumours about Tinder but had always thought it was mostly for random sexual encounters. You don’t want to imagine your sensible siblings having sex but I always supposed what she liked was wholly vanilla and missionary, not random punters.
‘It’s been a curious exercise. Quite amusing really. When you haven’t dated since the nineties, it’s interesting to see what men want these days.’
‘And what would that be?’
‘Well, most of them want to ejaculate on my actual face.’
I laugh in horror to hear Emma talk about things so plainly, sat there sipping her tea in her well-fitting jeans and pinstripe shirt.
‘Have you had any hook-ups from it?’
‘I met one man for a drink – we were both embittered divorcees. All going well until he opened up his wallet and still had a photo of his wife in there.’
‘Oh.’
‘Then he cried and I sat there for an hour like his counsellor hearing about how she cheated on him with a dad from the school run who was a Zumba instructor.’
‘Did you do the deed?’
‘Hell, no. But Lucy bought me new lacy pants in case it went that far. Never let Lucy buy you pants. Completely see through and no gusset.’
I shift her a look to see if she may be lying but it’s Ems. It’s so matter-of-fact that it hurts. I imagine her inviting a random punter into her house and the first thing she’d do is tell him to take off his shoes then make him a cup of Earl Grey. Ems continues to scan through my phone, licking the icing off her iced bun in the same way she’s done since she was little.
‘They do much better buns up North, I tell you. There’s a lot of knobs here too. The big shiny one – is that him?’
I shrug. I mean how closely does anyone ever examine their partner’s penis? It’s of size and I reckon I’d recognise it in a line up but possibly by feel as opposed to pictures. That’s awful. Something that has come near me so intimately, that has made babies with me and I don’t think I could recognise it. Emma seems surprised.
‘You don’t know what your husband’s penis looks like?’
‘You’d have known Si’s?’
‘It was very straight, like a fleshy baguette. It got to the stage where I had to etch it into memory so I could catch him out.’
I retch a little. Emma chuckles to herself.
‘So, is this a problem? What’s the deal here? Man’s found himself a hobby. It’s just drawing. Could be worse.’
Emma seems a little narked that I seemed to be overthinking this. She gives me a look that tells me thatshewas the sister who has suffered with first-hand experiences of infidelity and lies. When it came to matters of the heart, she has truly bled, her heart’s contents spilled out in the worst possible way. A few pencil sketches do not spell the end of a marriage.
‘But he lied.’
Did she have some sliding scale of what a lie in a marriage really was?
‘I think we all lie in our marriages to some extent. We hold back, we’re not immediately open with our spouses. I can see why he kept this to himself…’
I’m less convinced.
‘Bottom line, I don’t think this is drastic. And not the end, most definitely not divorce. Divorce is good for some people, it was the best thing I ever did and I’d tell you if you needed to go down that route, I would take your hand and lead you up that path with me.’
There’s a creak on the stairs, Emma sits up. I shrug it off.
‘It’s the dog, he can smell the buns.’
‘So, you would look after me?’ I ask.
‘Always. We could live down South together and I’d buy us a big house like some sitcom family.’
She squeezes me tight. I needed this more than anything.
