In groups or clusters.

Help me – I need you – I don’t know how to love.

Her tongue is warm and fast.

I like it when her fingernails dig into my skin.

Thoughts do as they will. I see another woman step behind her. The recruiter – Violet. It’s a fantasy I shouldn’t have and so I have it all the time. In my mind’s eye she straps on an antique dildo and fucks my beautiful girlfriend from behind really slowly – stroking her thighs as she does it, kneading her arse. I feel Morag’s tongue quicken as if it were true. I am helpless in that moment – I would agree – to anything at all. I can feel the orgasm building and I try to catch the feeling. I imagine I am bound to a chair with my legs parted so wide I can’t close them – the recruiter sliding her hands down over my nipples from behind and kissing my neck and pulling on my hair. I imagine Morag kissing the recruiter with tongues. It makes me jealous and she knows it. So she buckles up and tells me to open my mouth and suck her pretty dick. She tells me to do it well, looking down on me the whole time…

– I’m going to cum, I’m going to…

Morag pulls me closer in.

I shudder all the way down my back – my legs are shaky.

Lean down to kiss her.

She is cat-like.

My girlfriend is beautiful and strange and sweet and innocent.

Like some underworld queen.

God has no problems with our love. He created it. The church holds issue. It’s why I don’t go there. Morag pulls over a pot of strong tea. It’s lukewarm. Pours it into the saucepan. Takes out her old make-up sponge. We always used to get ready like this. It’s how it started between us. Levi watched the first time she did this to me, before when we couldn’t get stockings – we will get ready like this tonight for old times’ sake!

Morag dips the sponge into the tea.

– What shade do you want?

– Light brown.

– Do you think women will do this in the future?

– Stain their skin? I don’t see why. They’ll have cheaper tights then.

– Is it the last time, Ivy?

– No!

I lie to her so easy it’s like my tongue was made for untruths. Morag leaves a lipstick ring on her cigarette. Smoke spirals up toward me. The radio plays quietly. ‘I’ll Be Seeing You’ by Bing Crosby.

Rain patters off the window.

– It’s the longest night of the year, Ivy!

– We should light all the turnips when we come home. I can’t believe you carved all of them for little me!

– Of course I did! Aye, let’s light all of them, definitely.