Page 39 of Has Anyone Seen My Sex Life?
My expression says everything. I am brought back to the very beginning of this business when the thought of having a monster dildo in my foof scared the bejesus out of me. I can’t imagine a size nine stuck up my lady parts. Not least Danny’s with his fungal toenail issue.
‘But you guys still have sex, right? I am sure you have your things,’ she says. She gives me a look that tells meYou are free to do as you wish, I won’t judge, my husband sticks his feet up my fanny.
I nod. We used to have a go with sex toys though I wasn’t always keen on the element of surprise and the fact they often induced thrush. Maybe that was part of the problem, maybe Danny and I didn’t have athinganymore.
‘How often do you have sex?’ I ask.
‘Depends, doesn’t it? Once a week if we’re lucky.’
Oh. My face says it all. I think about all the things I do once a week: do a white wash, take out the bin, shave my armpits, sign a homework diary. All things that take priority over sex.
‘You seem a little worried, hun. You’re internalising again. This has nothing to do with your sex life.’
‘But…maybe this is him expressing some sort of sexual frustration?’ I open up a notebook to a picture of a group situation.
Ro laughs, a little too hysterically. ‘Trust me, the last person I’d imagine in this sort of situation is our Danny.’ We both cock our heads to one side to study the many limbs.
‘Lilac. Remember her? She was into all sorts, mostly the group thing.’
I’d met Lilac once back in the summer of Ro and Ru’s house raising. Danny had been trying to convince me to move here so brought me to the Lakes to show that we could have a life building houses and gambolling across the sun-drenched dales like Heathcliff and Kate frigging Bush. Lilac’s hair matched her name and she wasn’t keen on bras so caused quite the commotion when asked to mallet in some tent pegs.
‘She lives in Staveley with a fifty-year-old man called Colin but last I heard they were also experimenting with thruppling.’ I don’t know how to react to this given thruppling sounds like something to do with birdsong. She tilts her head to one side. ‘They go to sex clubs. The way she describes it, it just sounds like a gaggle of dicks flying about. You wouldn’t know who’s sticking what where.’
I giggle to hear this smidgeon of disapproval from someone normally so free-spirited and non-judgemental.
‘People think we’re a bunch of weird hippies, well Colin plays the chuffing didgeridoo.’
I smile. I hope that’s not a euphemism.
‘Are you worried about what people will think?’ she asks. I shake my head. I’ve never been one to bother with people’s opinion.
‘This is nothing. Behind closed doors, people get up to all sorts and far worse than what Danny’s doing. Just look at our school gate. I know at least one mum up there having an affair, one experimenting with lesbianism and a dad whose Prince Albert gave him gangrene.’
I sit there, slack jawed. One of the dads has his bellend pierced? ‘But you don’t even talk to anyone at the school gate.’
‘You’re right. Half of them are toxic but I talk to you, lovely. And my ears work perfectly well,’ she says, smiling. I think which dad it might be. My bet’s on the one with the funny running style from sports day.
‘Oh, and Sarah the childminder. Her Jez is a complete manwhore. Though I knew that from when we were at school together.’
‘Really?’ I reply disappointedly.
She nods. ‘It’s always shocked me that she’s stayed with a man like that, void of any sort of worth. Makes you wonder what’s going on behind that awful facade she puts on.’
I feel immediate twangs of sympathy for Sarah but also confusion that any woman would want to go near Jez. He looks like a potato with legs.
‘But it proves my point. Who knows what secrets lie behind any four walls, what sex people are having? It’s the last taboo really and it’s essentially the most natural thing in the world.’
I take in her wisdoms and stare out the window watching children emerge from the trees and head back towards the house.
‘At least we know that behind Captain Mintcake isn’t some cheating pervy twat,’ says Ro to prove a final point. ‘It’s our Danny. Boring old Danny.’
I’ll allow her to call him boring. We both smile. Maybe she’s right. The door to the living room swings open and Zenith stands there covered in mud to the tops of his knees and holding something feathered and bloody.
‘Mama, we killed a pigeon! Daddy said we can pluck out the feathers and try and cook it!’
This may be my cue to leave but soon Rufus enters with the other kids, followed by the other reason that I’m here. Stu. He comes in cradling Polly whose cheeks are flushed from the cold. When I first arrived, he spirited her away outside in some vain attempt to try and avoid me but now he’s back. I hop to a standing position and hobble over to Ru as he comes over to embrace me as Ru always does, sandwiching little River in his sling between us.
Don’t look at Ru’s feet. Don’t look at his feet.
