Livia’s reply came thru with a nude image of herself heavily pregnant, her skin a delicious caramel, burnt sienna hair dripping over her swollen breasts, stray wisps of gold kissing her gilded neck, crooked grin, jagged teeth, enormous bulging belly, fat bum, at 04:06GMT, rousing tired Helen:
‘Sweet lover,
Sounds like you suffered a stroke, heart failure maybe? Were you cold, Helen? Did you dress up well? Now, this is nurse speaking. Go see the doctor, today. Your life depends on it, sweetest. Stay safe for me, baby. I’m well, off to the beach as usual, top up my golden tan for you before I dilate to ten centimetres! My cervix dilated to seven already? Imagine how I’ll look nude on the beach today! I’ll get Tom to take another happy of me, send it ya! Love ya, girl,’
Livia
xoxox
Helen got off the bed, put the kettle on, made a mug of tea, ate six chocolate hobnobs, then felt better. The notion that Livia, a stunning American model, needed her to live for her at all lifted her spirits. She stared at her euphoric face beaming back at her through the dark window. She washed the mug, turned up the heating, climbed onto the bed, fell asleep, and dreamed of Livia lying naked, ten centimetres dilated, as Tom coarsely fucked her fat arse on the beach in sunny Florida.
*****
Helen left her dibber inside the soil. Easily done on cold, wet, drab days. He was always leaving his tools, forgetting to take them home after hammering frames for mother-in-law. Nearly done this morning: three timber frames built, and three more to build tomorrow. He got up, stowed the claw hammer in its bright metallic blue toolbox and strolled over to the adjacent allotment. Helen’s dibber had a thin coating of what felt like thinnish glue on it. He nearly missed it: the liquor was so thin to his feel, transparent, odourless. He took the dibber, put it out on show on top of Helen’s manure compound where she could easily see it, and thought aloud.
‘Not a bad sort really, Helen, but acid, glum, gloomy, grumpy, never a kind word to say. Cute tho, demure, petite and very, very, sexy, far more sexually imaginative than Sara.’ He checked his watch: noon. ‘Sara’ll have lunch ready for me on the table when I get home: fresh lentil soup, dark sourdough, fat spread, chicken salad, satsuma, yoghurt, raisins, mint tea then it’s off to bed to fuck her and make her baby. Can’t wait!’
Aroused, he pictured Sara lying on the bed in her finest sheer black lingerie, lacy bra, soft panties: perfect attire, for sex, slowly peeling it off. The incredible notion of her writhing naked on all fours while he fucked her without a condom on their new king-sized bed gave him heart.
Finished for the day, he strolled as far as his bronze ecoboost waiting in the covered tarmac car park, climbed inside, sank into the driver’s seat, shut his eyes and dreamed of last night. Helen: squatting on his face, muffling him as he reached for her, tugging at her fluffy, flouncy, cayenne hair, smudging her cherry flesh lipstick with his thumb, smearing it over her puffy nipples, her teatlets, the soft, doughy squash of her pert breasts. She’d teased him, stretching out on the bed, slowly peeling down her lilac cotton pants for him, stretching him to their limit, her limit. Hard, fit to burst, unable to get the vanilla smell, her intimate odour, the pungent aroma of her, out of his moist nostrils, he pulled his jeans and soiled pants, as far as his knees, and masturbated.
His fear was her worrying he was late. She always worried: soup would go cold, she’d go cold…
*****
‘She’s such a lovely young woman, the writer, Helen, I think her name is, the woman who lives in the flat around the corner. I often follow her home, never dare stand outside or go inside her little flat to find her out. If truth be told, I admire her, worship the ground she walks on. Helen inspires me. One day, when she called into my shop to buy The Mail and my Balti mix, I shook her hand and told her so to her face. Her hand had wet on it. Not that I was that worried. I soon managed to wash it all off, well, nearly all: she left me with a horrible smear. I pray, I see her again soon. I’ve taken to her. Next time, I’ll climb the stairs, enter her funny little flat, find out who she really is, and see if she’d like sex with me: her willing, sultry, shagged-out, sex slave from Mumbai.
It was quiet in the corner shop after lunch before the lovely screaming children descended: flies to rotting meat after school. Indira busied herself arranging papers, magazines, stocking shelves with snacks, tins, topping up chilled displays with cans: minerals, litres of milk, cow’s, mainly.
Indira loved this job, the friendly clientele, Helen. She brushed all the fresh black facial hairs sprouting profusely out of her cheeks, nostrils, ears, chin, with a slight of her hand and waited.
*****
‘You back yet?’ Sara got tired. The doctor told her she suffered from chronic fatigue. Didn’t use to be like that. Sara used to be fit, really fit, before she married. Used to go to the gym and swim, aquafit with the girls, play tennis, jog, do yoga sprawled over her rubbery mat. Now, she spent her day in bed: crouching, straddling, squatting and writhing for him, having her beauty kip afterwards.
That morning she’d ventured downstairs, made herself instant porage, kissed him, said, ‘Fuck you later, babe,’ went to bed and slept until it was time for her to cook his soup, make his salad, set his table. The heating was on full: Sara set it to high continuously: fuck the gas, the electric, fuck the strikes, fuck the war. She kept herself safe from all that crap, fucking him after lunch, missed him when he wasn’t there tho’.
‘Wonder where he is? Not like him to be late, for me.’
Sara climbed out of bed, stood still, closed her eyes, stretched her limbs, opened her eyes, the curtains, and stared out the window. It was snowing hard enough to settle: the lawn was covered in dandruff. Snow made her shivery inside. She went to her toilet, peed, washed her mitts, brushed her teeth, ran herself a sudsy bath, lowered herself into it, shut her eyes and dreamed of making a baby with him, dreamed of making her bloody, dreary, boring, half-life, existence worth living.
