‘Good. OK. Well, say hi to those hunky firefighters for me, won’t you? Everyone wanted this job. Don’t say I never do anything for you.’
She winked and I smiled back.
If only the hunky firefighters had the power to lure my mind away from Joss and his absurd proposition.
With dull, mechanical attention I watched them go down their poles and wield their hoses, while in the forefront of my mind phrases like collared submissive and we were good together tormented me like an out-of-control earworm.
I filed my copy then I went home and Googled ‘dominance and submission’ until the sun went down and my eyelids needed propping up.
My dreams plaited themselves with my thoughts and I spent the night in a psychic shimmer of shiny black latex and gimp masks and riding crops. They became senselessly entwined, my waking thoughts continuing from my dreams and my dreams seeming more like waking thoughts until the early hours when Joss broke into them. He was with me, beside me, holding my hand, talking in gentle hypnotic tones about how it wouldn’t hurt when he whipped me, how it would feel more like a kiss. The kiss he gave me, so real, so warm, so much what I wanted and needed and couldn’t live without …
I woke up in a sweat and nearly sobbed out loud when I found that he wasn’t there.
Mum and Animal were sprawled on the living-room floor, last night’s full ashtrays and empty bottles all around them.
I stepped over them, went downstairs to the yard and called Joss.
‘Lulu,’ he said, sounding sleepy and warm and in bed.
‘I’ll do it,’ I told him. ‘But I have conditions.’
‘Of course,’ he said, totally alert now. ‘Just name them. Are you free later? We should meet.’
‘Lunch?’
‘Lunch. The Trout?’
‘You’re paying.’
He sighed. ‘All right.’
‘And I don’t necessarily mean for the meal.’
‘Woah,’ he said, and I hung up.
The Trout was a picturesque black-and-white pub on the river, with a mill wheel and a popular garden. Narrowboats and cruisers drifted by while I waited for Joss at one of the white-painted wrought-iron tables with a bottle of Vimto.
How many of those boating couples were happy? Any of them? All of them?
They had taken that chance, given their hearts, and now they cut through the waters of life with such ease, leaving only the smallest of ripples in their wake.
‘Am I late?’
He looked mouth-watering in a white linen shirt and trousers in a darker cream shade – perhaps a size bigger than they used to be, but a little extra weight suited him, gave him a more solid presence.
‘No, I was early,’ I said, sucking on my straw.
‘Oh, God, the ubiquitous Vimto,’ he said. ‘I’m going to get a beer – can I get you anything?’
‘No, you’re not,’ I said. ‘You can have a lemonade or a posh fizzy water or something. I won’t talk to you if you drink.’
He looked tight-lipped and furious for a moment, then he shrugged.
‘Whatever you say,’ he said, then he stomped off to the bar.
Oh, why did I have this awful backwash of emotion for a man who sulked and threw strops?
His little fit of pique was forgotten, though, by the time he came back with a tall glass of something transparent and carbonated, and two laminated menus.