An hour or two later, we were in bed, not fucking. Zac and Mel had asked if they could sleep in the lounge because they didn’t have children and therefore didn’t realise what it meant for me and Sarah to have a night alone … and, yes, of course they could, for fuck’s sake. Just make yourselves comfortable, kids, we’ll see you in the morning.
Still, Sarah and I could have sex quietly enough not to bother them or the possums in the roof. Stealth fucking.
‘Not with them sleeping through there,’ she whispered.
‘Are you serious?’ I said, rolling to my side of the bed, huffing, rolling back, stroking her arm.
‘I’ve had such a good night, Chrissy, and I’m so grateful for everything you’ve done. I’m just not firing on all fours.’
‘We can sleep after. In fact, you just lie there and –’
‘Chris, I’ve got to go get the kids in …’ She fumbled, found her phone. ‘Shit, I need to get them in three hours.’
‘I’ll get them. You can sleep.’
‘That’s what I want to do right now.’
‘You’re serious?’ I took my hand from her arm.
‘Yes, Chris, I’m serious. Stop pressuring me.’
I turned, sank my face in the pillow – breathe, don’t hyperventilate, slow, breathe, control that shit. I could punch my fist through the wall, or I could just clamber onto her, I could try – the options were less than optimal. We probably wouldn’t take drugs again until her fiftieth, and I couldn’t wait another decade for a disappointment of this magnitude. I had to live. To live!
I considered self-pleasuring, was too self-conscious. ‘At least help me out a little?’
She might have been asleep already, in dreamland. ‘Sorry. What do you want me to do?’
‘Um … Maybe you could tell me what you got up to at Valentino’s house.’
A huff. ‘Do I have to?’
I was annoying her. Poor fucking Sarah.
‘You don’t have to.’
Silence.
‘You don’t have to, Sarah.’
She turned in the darkness, huffed an inch from my ear, yawned. I held my penis in my hand, wished she’d get on with it.
‘OK … Look, I’m wasted, sorry. What do you want to know?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Maybe just everything that happened in the exact order it happened.’
I could smell her breath, wanted to grab her head, stick my tongue down her throat.
Her voice, a whisper. She’d knocked at Valentino’s front door, three knocks, and he’d opened it, two bollocks, buck naked, his hair askew, told her he’d just woken up. In she’d gone, through to his room, onto his bed, and –
She yawned again, apologised.
‘Anyway, yeah, I’d say we were probably going for it within five minutes of me getting there, and, um …’
‘Go on.’
They’d started missionary …