Page 100 of Has Anyone Seen My Sex Life?
‘Almost and yes. It was around the time I was piecing it all together. He’d been keeping it all from me. Turns out he’d been purchasing toys and such for research. Not bad stuff like hurty things but…’
I’ve used the word ‘hurty’ which I normally save for five-year-olds when they’ve jammed their finger in a door. Stu and Tim widen their eyes. I think this may have piqued Tim’s interest but Stu looks a bit concerned about what I’m going to say next, as there are things a little brother doesn’t need to know. The appearance of a full English breaks the tension.
‘Legend,’ Stu winks again at the waitress, shoving a piece of toast in his mouth.
‘Aye. Enjoy, lovely. She’s a bonny one? Aren’t you petal?’ She engages with the baby and we then wait until she’s out of earshot, even though we say everything in front of Polly. Her first word better not be cock.
‘How many toys?’ asks Tim.
‘This doesn’t make the article, right? On the QT.’
Tim does a half-arsed Scout salute.
‘Lots of toys that he used for research. It’s been an education shall we say. I found out what a fleshlight was last week.’
Whilst Tim probably has no need for such contraptions, Stu bobs his head about to let us know he may have seen one in his lifetime. He shoves a whole sausage in his mouth. ‘I’ve got a story about one of them. My mate, Wenters, he had one but forgot that you need to wash these things out every time you use them. Anyways, went back to use it and all the old lube had crystallised and sure enough, was like putting his cock in sandpaper. Ripped it to shreds.’
Tim breaks into laughter, enough for the nosy childminder across the way to glance over at us. How Stu can shovel that breakfast down him telling that story is beyond me.
‘But an education in many other things too,’ I say.
Stu ploughs through what looks like a trough of baked beans but Tim reads the double meaning in my words.
‘As long as it’s brought you and Danny together as opposed to it being a secret that’s driven you apart. Does that make sense?’
Stu pauses for a moment. In one sentence, young Tim has dissected the situation beautifully. Because I guess I could have gone batshit crazy by the idea of a secret. With much indignation, I could have seen that secrecy as a betrayal. I could have raged even more with the content. But I didn’t. Maybe there were just worse things he could have done. Maybe at the heart of it, I slowly realised this wasn’t done to hurt me or because his feelings for me changed. When the fog cleared, I realised it was for him, I still loved the idiot and I’m here now protecting him and urging this to be a good thing for him.
‘Perfect sense. It’s just another part of him I guess. That’s the joy of long-term relationships, you think you know someone and then they bring out something that totally surprises you. Like a year into our relationship, Danny found out that I’d never seen aStar Warsfilm, ever.’
Stu rolls his eyes back at this admission. Tim stops for a moment.
‘How is that possible?’
‘Just never appealed. And then it got worse…I watched it with him and Stu. The original one…and I didn’t think it was very good.’
‘Oh.’
Tim is silent. This may be something that affects his judgement of me.
‘We nearly threw her out on street,’ claims Stu.
‘I thought it was too macho, not enough girls in it. There was Leia but I just didn’t like it. I seriously thought I was going to get dumped over that. I nearly dumped him: he called me a moron.’
Tim laughs. ‘So you didn’t know he was doing this?’
I shake my head.
‘Lois Lane didn’t know Clark Kent was Superman and that was pretty obvious bar the glasses,’ he replies.
I laugh. I love that, like myself, he uses theDaily Planetas a reference point to his career. And it’s all very true but then Lois did find out in the seventies movies. I can’t remember if that ended well for her. Or them. And maybe that’s what still makes me feel a little cautious; this continued sense of secrecy, entrusting only a few more people with the info.
When Danny, Stu and I plotted this, we had no idea if this would work. Did we know Tim well enough to let him in on this? It was huge and it could totally backfire. But there was one thing which gave me hope: McArthur. Tim knew who he was in the community and he never uttered a word. He understood there was a line. I stood on that line and kept that secret with him. He was also a new journalist and needed to preserve integrity and professionalism if he was to ever move forward in his career. I take a giant gulp of my tea to steady myself and possibly burn off six layers of tongue.
‘Shall I play this out like an interview or a feature piece?’
‘Interview, definitely. Easier, more accessible.’
He makes notes on his phone.
