by Holly Martin
Elliot followed her across the grass to where all the puppies were playing.
‘Oh god,’ Emily said.
‘Don’t be embarrassed. Nothing wrong with having sex and kudos to you for doing it when you’re pregnant. Sex shouldn’t stop just because you’re having a baby,’ Agatha said.
Emily stared at her in shock.
They were saved from any further talk on the subject by Tori chinking on a glass.
‘Finally!’ Agatha muttered.
‘We want to thank you all for coming today at such short notice,’ Tori said, slipping an arm round Aidan’s waist. ‘But we wanted you guys to be the first to know, although there are some here who have already guessed, but… we’re expecting a baby.’
There was a roar of approval and cheers from the small gathering as everyone rushed over to congratulate them.
After a while everyone sat back down and was just picking up their plates and talking between themselves about the happy news when Aidan cleared his throat.
‘We actually have more news.’ He smiled at Tori with a look of complete love. ‘Last night, I asked Tori to be my wife and, after many tears, she said yes.’
There were more cheers and even Agatha looked shocked at this piece of news. Evidently her spies weren’t everywhere.
As Melody and Jamie joined the queue of wellwishers to congratulate them again, Jamie whispered in her ear. ‘Do you think we should ever tell them we have the proposal on video? They might enjoy looking back on it.’
Melody laughed. ‘Maybe one day. But did you see how embarrassed Emily was at the thought of Marigold simply telling us she saw them have sex? Let’s not put Tori and Aidan through that. Let them enjoy tonight. For now, at least, I think we might have to keep that video under wraps.’
She hugged Tori and felt a surge of happiness for her best friend. This was real progress for her, someone who had never wanted a relationship, let alone a family.
She turned away and Agatha was waiting for them. ‘You two will be next, you mark my words. You’ll be married before the year is out.’
Melody laughed and then checked Jamie’s reaction to Agatha’s crazy predictions. To her surprise, he was laughing as well. That was progress for him too.
He put his arm round her and they walked back to their seats. ‘When I do propose, I’m going to damn well make sure I do it in private.’
There was a knock on her shop door at the end of the day, just as she was getting everything ready for her trial workshop with Jamie. Rocky leapt up from his basket, barking gleefully at having a visitor.
She turned to see Jamie smiling at her from the doorway and she went quickly to answer it. She threw her arms round his neck and kissed him before he’d even had a chance to speak. His large hands spanning her back as he held her tight against him was a wonderful feeling and, for a glorious few seconds, she allowed herself to think about what it would be like if he was holding her like this when they were both naked.
She pulled back before she could get too carried away.
He cleared his throat awkwardly. ‘I, um… I’m here for the jewellery-making workshop with Melody Rosewood.’
She giggled and tugged him inside.
‘I hope you’re not going to greet your real students like that,’ Jamie muttered as he followed her inside.
She laughed, knowing he was teasing her. ‘Why not, I’m sure I’d get great feedback if I do. OK, sit down here.’
‘Bossy too,’ Jamie said. He gave Rocky some fuss and seeing nothing exciting was happening and no food was involved, the puppy went back to his basket.
She shushed Jamie, flapping her hands at him. ‘The class is about to start.’
Jamie sat up straight and focussed all of his attention on her.
‘Welcome to my beginners’ jewellery class. Today we are just going to learn the basics of a few different techniques to give you a sample of the different courses I’m going to hold in the future. We will be learning how to use beads and pliers, and on future courses you will use these tools and materials to make earrings, pendants and bracelets. A very simple way to make jewellery, and one of my favourites, is to use silver clay. You can get some great results with this. Another thing I’m going to demonstrate for you today is sandcasting. We can create moulds in the sand and melt down old bits of silver with a blow torch and—’
‘Ooooh, blow torch?’ Jamie said, reverentially, sitting up in his chair.
She smiled. ‘You’d like to use that, would you?’
He nodded, keenly.
‘Well we can come on to that shortly, we also use the blow torch for the silver clay. Let me show you a bit of wire work first. You’ll need three different pairs of pliers. We have the side-cutter.’ She held up the small pliers with a blue handle and Jamie found a matching pair laid out in front of him. ‘This is used for cutting wire.’
‘Does what it says on the tin,’ Jamie said.
‘Yeah exactly. These green ones are the round-nosed pliers. You will use these for making loops, which will be useful when making the ends of bracelets or earrings or the chain loops for the pendants. And this pink pair are the chain-nose pliers, which you use to bend, twist, straighten or crimp the wire, depending on your design. You have a few strips of practice wire in front of you so you can experiment with what you can do with the different pliers.’
‘Just have a play?’ Jamie asked, looking at the wire dubiously.
‘Yes, see what each one does.’
Jamie looked at the pliers. ‘I think you need to demonstrate this part, show us some examples of what you can achieve using these tools.’
‘OK,’ Melody said, doubtfully. ‘It’s quite close intricate work, I’d worry that the students wouldn’t be able to see what I was doing. I was going to wander around at this point and give little pointers to each of the students.’
‘You could rig up a projector and a camera so you could zoom in on what you were doing with your hands and it would be projected onto the wall. If you have say, fifteen students all at once, you couldn’t get around to them all in any decent timeframe and that means the students on the other side of the room from where you start would have a long wait before they could be shown how to use the pliers. When you introduce the pliers, give a little demo using the projector then, before you move onto the next set of pliers and then give them time to play once they have been shown what they can do.’
Melody thought about this. ‘That’s a good idea, though I’d have no idea on the technology side of things.’
‘I have some idea about that, but Klaus would be your best bet, he’d come round and set it all up for you.’
‘OK, thanks.’
‘And for now, you can come here and give me a personal demonstration.’
She grinned and walked around the table towards him. She stood next to him and picked up the pair of side-cutter pliers. Jamie looped his arm round her and pulled her onto his lap.
‘Hey! I don’t expect this kind of behaviour from my students,’ Melody protested. ‘It’s supposed to be a professional relationship.’
‘You said it was close, intimate work,’ Jamie said, placing a kiss on her neck.
‘Intricate, not intimate,’ she laughed.
‘Well, it doesn’t get much closer than this.’
Melody smirked but didn’t get off his lap. She loved this affectionate side of him.
She demonstrated how to use the different pliers and the different effects he could achieve with round-nosed and chain-nosed pliers especially. Though she wasn’t sure how much attention he was paying to her instructions as he kept kissing her and somehow her top had slid off her shoulder during her demonstrations and he was now kissing that too.
‘You need to behave; my boyfriend would not be happy if he saw me cavorting with one of my students like this.’
‘No he wouldn’t,’ Jamie said.
‘I’m going to let you have a play with the wire for a few minutes while I get the silver clay ready.
If you’re good, I’ll even let you use the blow torch.’
‘Now that is motivation.’
She climbed off his lap and gathered together the tools and materials for using the silver clay. She watched him playing with the pliers and the wire quite efficiently so he must have been paying some attention.
Deciding that close work was what was needed for the next part of the demonstration, she pulled up a chair next to him and laid out the silver clay, the blow torch, a damp tea towel, a bowl of water and the other tools, just as Jamie was finishing an intricate spiral that was part braided. She wondered if he’d ever done anything like this before in his sculpture work; he had a natural flair for it.
‘OK, this next bit should be right up your street, working with clay. This is just like working with any of your clay sculptures. It’s soft and malleable like clay, only this stuff dries out really quickly, so you need to have a good idea of what you’re going to make before we make it. Sometimes I practise with plasticine first.’
‘Maybe you should give your students a small lump of plasticine to work with so they can get used to modelling something and making the shapes they want. For some, this might be the first bit of clay they’ve touched since they were kids.’
‘That’s a good idea. I’m sure you’ll be OK if we miss that stage for now, seeing as you’re an expert in all things clay.’
Jamie nodded. ‘I’m sure I’ll cope.’
‘So, we can make whatever we want then we stick it in a kiln or use a blow torch and that removes all the clay elements and the binder so all you are left with is silver. For my demonstration I’m going to make a leaf, which is simple and easy. I’m sure you can create something suitably amazing.’
He grinned. ‘Show me the leaf.’
Leaving the plastic wrap over the clay so it didn’t dry out, she rolled out a section of clay about the size of a fifty-pence piece until it was really thin, using the spacers either side so that the clay was the same thickness throughout. She carefully peeled the plastic wrap away.
‘We should lubricate our hands when using the clay, so it doesn’t dry out too quickly. I use olive oil.’ She blobbed a few drops into her hands and rubbed them together, then offered the bottle to Jamie. He took it and did the same.
‘I’m going to use this leaf I picked from outside to imprint into the clay.’ She pressed the leaf into the soft clay, pressing down the edges and around the veins to get the pattern of the leaf. ‘Now we’re going to cut around the edge using this knife. So we’re just left with the leaf shape. Keep any clay you cut away and rewrap it. You can use it next time. You might want to leave the leaf in the clay until it dries to get more of an imprint.’
Using the round-nosed pliers, she made a loop of wire which she pressed into the back of the leaf so she could thread a chain through it and sell it as a necklace once it was finished.
‘And that’s it. Now we need to leave it to dry, normally for about ten minutes on the warming plate.’
‘And what should we do in the meantime?’ Jamie asked, leaning forward to kiss her.
She batted him away. ‘Fortunately, in true Blue Peter fashion, here’s one I made earlier.’ She showed him the clay leaf she had made the day before that was now solid but very brittle. ‘I’ll show you the next stage when you’ve had a go at moulding the clay.’
Jamie played with the wrapped clay in his hand for a moment as he clearly thought about what to make with such a small piece and then his fingers started moving, poking the clay through the plastic until he had a rough shape, then carefully removed the plastic and continued his sculpting. She watched him. He was obviously in his element, enjoying the feel of the clay against his fingers. She realised he was making a couple embracing in a hug, very similar to what she was making for the Sculptures in the Sand Festival. Although he hadn’t seen her design, it was possible he might have seen the template that Klaus cut out for her. She was surprised at how much detail his couple showed as the piece of clay he was using was so small. Finally, he placed the clay couple back down on the table.
‘It’s beautiful,’ Melody said.
‘I had inspiration,’ Jamie said.
She smiled. ‘Well, that will need time to dry on the warming plate before you use the blow torch on it, but you can have a go at using the blow torch on this sun that I made yesterday.’
She turned the blow torch on and moved it over her clay leaf, side to side to show him what to do.
‘It depends how thick your piece is, but normally you’re going to use the blow torch on it for around two minutes. Your couple might need around five minutes because it’s thicker, but you can tell when you need to stop because the clay will be a slightly different colour. You can use the wet tea towel to turn the piece over when you need to and then, when it’s finished, just pick it up using the towel and throw it into the bowl of water. That will immediately cool it down enough to touch without having to wait a long time.’
He nodded, taking it all in, and she turned the blow torch off and passed it over to him. She placed the sun on top of a block that was non-flammable and slid that in front of him too.
He rubbed his hands together with excitement
‘How do I turn this on?’ Jamie looked at the blow torch.
‘Just turn the knob and press the ignition button at the back.’
He turned the knob more than she would have but at least he would get a big flame, which he would probably enjoy. He pressed the ignition button and the huge flame shot out. But the next second the whole of the bottom of his shirt caught fire. He leapt back in shock, but she was already on him, instinctively grabbing the bowl of cold water and throwing that on him and then the wet tea towel and smothering the blaze, patting him to put the flames out. The fire were out in what felt like less than a few seconds so she grabbed his shirt and ripped it open away from his stomach, relieved to see that he was wearing a t-shirt underneath. Although the t-shirt was wet, it wasn’t burned in any way. She lifted the material carefully to make sure and revealed perfect unblemished skin underneath.
She was vaguely aware that Rocky was whimpering and barking, obviously traumatised by the fire too.
Jamie stared at her in shock, his breath heavy, and then he looked down at his stomach, rubbing it and checking for injuries himself.
‘Are you OK?’ she asked, grabbing the blow torch and quickly turning it off.
He nodded. ‘I think so. Thanks to you.’ Satisfied he wasn’t injured, he turned his attention back to her. ‘What the hell was that?’
‘I don’t know, it’s never done anything like that before. The flame wasn’t anywhere near the shirt. I’m not sure…’ She could smell something that was beyond the smell of burnt fabric. Something chemical. ‘Did you have something on your shirt?’
He shook his head and then froze. ‘I was using a spray-on varnish on one of my pieces just before I came here.’
She groaned. ‘I’m guessing it’s very flammable.’
‘I imagine so yes, I’ve never tested it before.’
‘Well now you have.’
‘That’s not something I ever want to repeat,’ Jamie said, shakily.
‘Me neither,’ Melody said, feeling the tears smart her eyes now the adrenaline was leaving her body. ‘Are you sure you’re OK?’
He nodded. ‘Are you?’
‘I think so.’
‘You reacted so quick.’ Jamie took her hands and examined them for any injury, but they didn’t hurt.
‘It was just instinct.’
‘Instinct that saved my life.’ He kissed both of her palms and then pulled her in for a hug, wrapping his arms around her and holding her tightly.
After a while he pulled back slightly. ‘Let’s leave this lesson for tonight, let’s go home.’
She didn’t even ask whose home he meant. There was no chance she was leaving him tonight.
She nodded.
He let her go and she tidied up a few things before turning the lights off. S
he grabbed Rocky’s lead, took his hand and they left the shop.
Melody was lying on Jamie’s sofa, being kissed so intimately, so intensely, she’d barely had chance to draw breath since they’d walked back into his house.
Kissing Jamie was always so passionate, he was obviously going to be the same in bed too, which made her a little nervous. What if she really was crap in bed and he was some kind of sexual god? He wouldn’t get the same enjoyment out of it as she did. She’d had a little peek at the Kama Sutra that Agatha had given her and quite honestly that had made her feel worse.
So when they’d burst through his front door and he had kissed her hard, manoeuvred her to the sofa and started removing clothes, she’d stopped him while she still had her underwear on and he was still wearing his jeans. To his credit, he hadn’t seemed bothered at all and had spent the last few hours just kissing her, his hands stroking her arms and shoulders, or trailing through her hair, but she knew he must be secretly annoyed. She was annoyed with herself too; she had no idea why she was holding back. She had thought about what it would be like to make love to Jamie for many many months.
Her stomach gurgled loudly and he chuckled against her lips before pulling back slightly.
‘I really need to feed you.’
She reached up to stroke his face. They hadn’t spoken about her turning him down for sex. She’d simply stilled his hand as he started to tug down her knickers and he’d barely missed a beat as he continued to kiss her, keeping his hands above her waist from that moment on.
‘I’m sorry,’ Jamie said, just as she had been about to say the same thing.
She frowned. ‘What are you sorry for?’
‘For trying to take it too far.’
‘God, don’t apologise for that. Do you know how wonderful it is that you want me like that? I want you too, I’m just a little nervous about it.’
‘There’s no rush. I want to do this right too and grabbing you and mauling you on the sofa is not the right way to do it.’
‘I don’t know; it was pretty bloody hot.’
He grinned and sat up and looked around the room. Her dress was flung across the other side of the room, so he picked up his shirt and passed it to her. She slipped it on and did up the buttons as he got up and wandered into the kitchen.