Jane Bartram had been, since her retirement, a woman of habit. Each evening, after her supper, she would take the dog on its last evening walk and finish her small amount of washing up. Checking that the sink was wiped and the J-cloth neatly folded over the tap, she would change into her nightie and climb into her big double bed, relaxing into the pillows resolutely placed in the middle. Then she would carry on making her way through the latest Ian Rankin novel until she felt sleepy, or listen to late-night Radio 4.
Most nights, she was asleep before 'Sailing By'. Whatever the case, she always had to switch off before the National Anthem, which she abhorred. She would then drift happily into sleep, lulled perhaps by the thought of ships at sea – a state of mind obviously brought on by the shipping forecast.
One night, as she lay half asleep and half awake, it occurred to her that her left foot was sticking out of the bed into the cool air of the bedroom. Not only that, but there was a gentle, repetitive, somewhat sensual pressure on her big toe. Feeling slightly amused, she jerked her foot a little – as much as she loved her dog, there were limits. The licking continued, more persistently than before. It was really very wet. Irritably, she struggled to raise her head and saw, down the bottom of the bed, the top of a human head. With black hair that she recognised. Good heavens, surely not Nick? Then she felt the distinctive grazing of a tongue-stud on her toe. The licking gradually, and insistently, worked its way up her foot.
While still wondering what to think about Nick's presence at her feet, she became aware of a second personage on her left. Too sleepy to be alarmed, she realised from her supine position that she was looking at a very familiar pair of boxer shorts. They were rather like a pair of loose curtains with a drawstring at the top. Poking out just about at her eye-level was what could only be described as a tumescent male member. Really, it was near enough jab her in the eye. Men's parts really were very odd, she thought. Shiny at the tip, and with that little eye that looks at you. But she had not been at all disappointed when she had married its owner and met it for the first time. For this, unmistakeably, was George. As she looked up the shaft of the thing, she met the familiar protuberance of his belly. And then she heard his voice, which in a phrase often repeated during their long marriage, was asking her if she was interested in 'some of George's special sausage'. George's special sausage had been rather a hobby of hers, and she had often been very interested in it indeed – mainly because she could never work out how it was attached. He had been very tickled by her fascination with it. Early in their marriage, while she had been taking driving lessons, it had been a diverting pastime for her to practise changing gear with it. She would encourage him to reach the required state, and then work on her transitions, particularly those that missed a gear – from first to third, for example. He had rather liked reverse, which in his Saab 99 had required pulling the knob up. Even though, after his funeral, she had parted with the Saab and got herself a rather more reliable Polo, she still sometimes smiled a little smugly as she reversed into a parking space at Sainsbury's.
George's special sausage was now about as close as it could be without actually entering her ear canal. Meanwhile, Nick had exposed her entire nether regions to the chilly night air, and had managed (uncharacteristically for him, she recalled) to work his way up to her waist without clouting her with his knees. Now he was licking and nuzzling her from thigh to navel, rubbing his ears on her legs, even tickling her with his hair. Parts of this performance, she felt, were excellent. But he had always had those inconvenient piercings. The one through his tongue she had always felt she could cope with, provided it didn't get caught anywhere. The one she was now dreading was, he had explained at the time, called a Prince Albert. Over the year or so they had been together, he had often poked her rather painfully with it when he was trying to gain access. If Prince Albert had really had one, it certainly explained why Queen Victoria had not been amused. When Nick had disappeared in Bosnia, photographing the war, she had broken her heart over him. But after that, it was a small but significant relief to her that her most delicate parts need never come into contact with metal again, except once a year during the course of her routine smear test.
While Prince Albert was just reaching the very gates of the palace, she became conscious of another body in the bed next to her. Reaching out a hand, she felt a flat stomach, a muscular thigh, and…surely to God, not another one? But this one was really something. Thick, cigar-shaped, tapered intelligently at the end, and about a foot long. And surrounded by the softest, straightest (and, she remembered, the most ginger) pubic hair. Declan. Six foot three, Irish as they came, the product of a big Catholic family and apparently committed to creating another one, given his attitude to contraception. She had been very impressed when she first saw him come out of the bathroom in his polka-dot boxers with this thing protruding a full two inches below one of the legs.
In many ways, Declan was wonderful: not only well endowed, but strong, handsome, and athletic. Their sex life had been epic. In the Ben-Hur, Busby Berkeley sense. In fact, all had been bliss between them – as long as he didn't try to talk. He was so intelligent that he could barely string a sentence together (he was doing research in meta-level reasoning and computational logic) and he had never been happy unless she let him mention five Bulgarian mathematicians before breakfast. His facial expression had always reminded her of a ginger camel, particularly if anyone within earshot had expressed ignorance about either maths or modern art. Before he met his end at a difficult intersection in Amsterdam (he had probably had his head in some conference proceedings and never saw the tram), she must have walked around for several years looking like the cat that got the cream – because, usually, she had. If not that very morning, then the night before.
Declan started snuggling into her right hand side, although his enthusiastic appendage reached her long before the rest of him. He became preoccupied with nuzzling her nightie around the breast area. Obligingly, she unbuttoned it.
During this not unpleasant interlude, she felt, rather than saw, another presence in her bedroom. It sat itself down in the armchair where she heaped her clothes and cleared its throat. She remembered that David (for it was he) had never been particularly interested in sex during their years together, although she had very much enjoyed his company. Fortunately, he seemed happy to sit this one out. Indeed, through the gloom, she could see that he had begun to leaf through a copy of 'Computer Weekly', which he appeared to have brought with him.
With George and Declan becoming more insistent on her left and right, she felt inclined to indulge them. She reached out a hand to each and grasped them both firmly in the way she knew they liked. Of course, two-handed, it wasn't going to be possible to do separate rhythms, which was like patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time. And the noises from Nick – as well as the physical sensation – suggested that he had successfully negotiated the port of entry, and was just settling himself inside her. This disposed of the Prince Albert problem. She could never feel it once it was in, despite what Nick had always believed.
Carrying on in this way, she really felt quite contented. How nice to be able to give everyone what they wanted, and really not very much trouble at all. Long before her arms were tired, the satisfied– and oddly various – grunts all round (even one from David, who had simultaneously become impressed by the huge RAM capacity of the latest PC) suggested that everyone had had enough, at least for now. Sticky and sated, they began to relax, all of them finding corners of the bed on which to collapse.
The first snore came from George. Then Declan joined in, and finally Nick, who, despite being the smallest, was the loudest snorer of all. Really, the racket. But how lovely to hear them all again.
Realising there was no chance of sleep amongst all the noise, she carefully extracted herself from the tangle of limbs. Quietly taking a clean nightie from the pile in her cupboard, she padded into the bathroom. She ran a shallow bath and set to work with a sponge. There really was quite a lot of stickiness, and in all sorts of unexpected places. Once dry and in her clean nightie, she went into the kitchen and made four teas, all with milk and no sugar. Then she took down a wine glass and poured out the remainder of her most recent bottle of Shiraz for Nick – since red wine was the only liquid she'd ever seen him consume, unless he accidentally swallowed some water while he was cleaning his teeth.
Before long, as if sensing he was no longer where the action was, George appeared, bumbling sleepily through the kitchen doorway in an enormous t-shirt that said KILL THATCHER on the front. His boxers now looked like a skirt. Underneath, she knew, he had mummified his genitalia in his customary post-climactic lavatory paper, somewhat like the Andrex puppy but not the same kind of surprise when you unwrapped it. Not long after him came Nick, who put out a practised hand for the glass of wine and walked into the sitting room. She glanced appreciatively at his retreating rear – bare, of course, given his naturist tendencies. David, who wandered in next, was wearing her own red towelling dressing gown. Declan, now back in his trademark polka-dot underpants, was last, gratefully selecting a mug of tea and following the others.
When she went into the sitting room herself, Nick was on the sofa, rolling the first of many cigarettes and showering the floor with tobacco. George already had the TV on, and seemed to be watching a documentary about stoats. David was heard asking if anyone fancied a game of Scrabble, and when nobody did, got into a conversation with Nick about wireless networking. Declan was sorting through her CD collection looking for European piano music. George was saying he could just go for a bacon sandwich with mayonnaise in it. Nick wanted some Polish sausage. She refrained from suggesting he try some of George's special variety, mainly because she had a suspicion (and this was not new) that he wouldn't have said no if it was on offer.
David, although he didn't like the fact that Nick was smoking, said he wouldn't mind joining him in some wine, or some malt whisky if there was any. Nick spilled his wine on the carpet. Nobody offered to take the dog out. David decided to make some popcorn, and Declan started working his way through her supply of oranges. Nick burnt a small hole in the sofa, and George began having a problem with wind, for which he was blaming the dog. David, who had moved to Los Angeles a few years before he died, was having it explained to him why, at this hour, they couldn't just all go out to the nearest café and have a latte. Declan started to listen to Alfred Brendel playing the B Flat Piano Sonata and thumbing through a book he had found that related Brunelleschi's dome in Florence to some fundamental principles of mathematics. All in all, everyone was very happy. And she was glad, because she loved all of them.
Jane Bartram decided it was time to close the door on the scene. Engrossed as they all were, nobody seemed to notice. Quietly, she stepped over the piles of garments discarded during the evening's activities and climbed back into bed.
Closing her eyes with a contented sigh, she settled back onto her pillows just in time to hear the last of the shipping forecast. Fair Isle. Faeroes. South East Iceland.
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