by Jones,Lesley
We’d talked about kids while we were deciding what to do with each of the four bedrooms in the new house. I wanted to decorate at least one as a nursery straight off, Sarah insisted it wasn’t necessary just yet. Yeah, we’d see.
I put Sarah’s coffee down on the bedside table nearest her head. Now that we were sharing a bed every night, I’d discovered that Sarah didn’t have a side of the bed, she liked all of it. She slept like a star fish some nights, and for a little person, she took up a lot of fucking room. The first thing we would buy when we moved into the new house would be a bigger bed—the biggest we could find.
She was face down, her arms spread wide like she was on a crucifix, and one leg was hooked out of the doona, which was another one of her sleeping habits, one leg had to be out of the covers at all times.
Her back was completely uncovered, the doona barely covering her arse cheeks. I tugged on it gently, revealing a bit more, but I’d disturbed her sleep and she rolled over to face me. I crawled in next to her.
“Good morning, pretty girl.”
I got a grunt in return. Sarah was not a fan of mornings. That was the main reason I preferred to stay here. Sasha was the same as Sarah, there was barely a word said between them, other than ‘morning’ and ‘see ya’ over at their place before they each left for work...
Dealing with one non morning person was bad enough, having two to hide from was pushing it for me, especially as it was so unnecessary. I’d asked Sarah more than once to move in here with me but she didn’t want to. She was all for us moving into the house together when it was ready, but for now, she liked to have her bit of space. I could deal, if she didn’t come here, I simply went over there.
“Your coffee’s there,” I whispered against her mouth.
“I know, I can smell it.”
“You want something to eat?” She’d thrown one arm across her face to cover her eyes, but she raised it so she could look at me.
“How many mornings have we woken up together?”
“Not nearly enough for me to appreciate the level of happiness you greet each day with.”
“Obviously, else you’d be fully aware that I don’t eat as soon as I open my eyes.”
She closed her eyes again and re-covered them with her arm.
“What time you gotta be in?”
“Nine o’clock, same as every other morning when you ask me.”
I rolled over so that I was on top of her.
“I need to wee, if you lay on top of me, I’ll wet the bed.”
I kissed her nose and rolled back to the side and she slid out from underneath me. I watched her naked arse and hips sway as she walked towards the bathroom.
“You’re naked,” I called out.
“No shit, Sherlock. Ten marks for observation.”
She was so miserable this morning it was actually funny.
“I thought you got your period?”
She never slept naked when she had her period, she always wore the cutest short-like knickers to bed. Because she was extra miserable on the mornings leading up to and during her period, I’d bought her some knickers just to sleep in.
What made them extra special were the little quotes printed on the part of the fabric that covered that fine arse. There were seven in a pack, I’d bought her two packs. The quotes were perfect for her.
“Talk to me before coffee. You die.”
“Shut the fuck up.”
“You speak, I’ll stab.”
But my absolute favourite were the pair that said
“So, I’m a cunt in the morning, deal with it.”
She stopped in the open doorway that led to the en suit and looked over her shoulder at me. Her hair was a mess, her face make-up free. She was so fucking gorgeous that my heart and my dick both jumped to acknowledged that fact.
“I said I had a belly ache, because my period was due. Hence the reason you got a blowie. Another blowie I should say, you know, coz I’m so shit that I need the practice.”
She pointed her finger at me. “I’m on to you, Delaney, don’t think I don’t know what you’ve been up to these last few weeks.”
I widened my eyes and fluttered my lashes, giving her my best puppy-dog look.
She flipped me the middle finger and carried on heading into the bathroom.
“Music,” she called out. I rolled my eyes and reached toward the remote for the CD player we’d bought for the bedroom. I pressed play and “Freak Me” by Another Level blasted through the room.
“Thaaaaanks,” she called out.
Sarah, like most women, was a weirdo. When we first started spending nights together, she would always get up and use the bathroom along the hallway in the mornings. I constantly asked why, but never got a straight answer. Then one Wednesday after pub night, when she’d had waaaay too much wine for a school night, she’d confessed.
“Well, it’s coz in the mornings, all the gasses and stuff are going round.”
“Gases?” I’d enquired with raised eyebrows.
“Yeah, you know, in your belly. They go around all night and get all bubbly and stuff.”
I’d pulled off both of her Converse whilst she sat on the edge of the bed and spoke. I gently pushed her to lay back so that I could undo and pull off her jeans.
“Gasses go around in your belly at night, so when you get up and have a wee in the morning, you have to use the other bathroom?”
“Yes,” she said, as if that explained everything.
“I still don’t understand, bub. What difference do the gases make to which toilet you use?”
She threw both her arms back over her head and let out a dramatic sigh.
“Cheese and rice, Liam. You know. That problem you have when you get up for a wee in the morning. That problem all men have.”
I was on my knees in front of her by then, her drunk legs, hanging limp and bare off the end of the bed.
I kissed her over the top of her knickers right between the legs. She raised up her head and smiled at me. I gave her a wink. She winked back, or at least attempted to, and laid back down.
I’d had a few beers too many myself that night and was still trying to work out what kind of problem blokes had when they woke up in the morning. There was only one I could think of.
“A hard-on? The gases in your belly give you morning wood so you have to go and use the other toilet to hide it?”
“No, Liam,” she shrieked. I’d never heard her laugh so hard before. “Ohhhmmmgeeeohhhhgeeee.”
I watched with amusement as she curled on to her side and laughed, coughed, laughed some more, and eventually gave herself hiccups.
“No, no morning wood. I do not have a willy, so no wood. No. It’s that other thing, you know, that other thing that men do when they first get up for a wee in the morning.”
It clicked.
“You mean fart? The gases in your belly make you fart when you have a wee in the morning. So you use the other bathroom because you’re scared I’ll hear you?”
She covered her face with her hands and nodded. Now it was my turn to laugh.
“Sarah, I’ve had my tongue buried in your pussy and my fingers knuckle deep in your arsehole, do you actually think I care if I hear you fart.”
“I don’t care whether you don’t care or not. I care,” she said from where she was still hiding behind her hands.
I crawled up her body and pulled them away, revealing her crimson chest, neck, and cheeks.
“Look at me, bub.” She opened her eyes, closed them, and then opened them again. I had no idea if she could focus on me.
“I’ve heard you fart, more than once.” She opened her mouth to argue with me.
“You fart all the time in your sleep.”
“Ohhhemmmmgeeee. Nooo, you’re lying. Please tell me you’re lying. How embarrassing.”
She threw her head back and stared at the ceiling.
“Don’t be stupid. It’s only you and me here. Whatever goes on between us when we’re on our o
wn, stays between us.” I kissed her nose and each of her eyelids.
“Tell ya what, how about we get some music in here, then you can just play it when you think the gases might be about to escape.”
She sat up and threw her arms around my neck.
“You’d do that for me?”
“Anything for you, pretty girl. Anything at all.”
“Thanks, Liam. You’re the best boyfriend in the world.”
Five minutes later she was both snoring and farting as she slept.
I looked down at where the knickers I’d taken off her last night were laying on the floor. They were purple, I picked them up and read what it said across the arse.
“B is for Bitch & That’s Ms Bitch to you.”
I pulled off my jocks and pulled on her knickers, turning the music up loud, I stalked into the bathroom. She had her back to me as she stood at the sink washing her hands but spotted me in the mirror. I did the sexiest dance I could muster. Grinding all around and against her as she stood totally naked and watched me, laughing as she did. I bent at the waist and wiggled my Ms Bitch arse in front of her and she slapped it.
I turned back around and simply watched her laugh. She was naked and bare to me in every possible way, no clothes, no make-up, her hair a tangled mess and looking every bit the fresh faced twenty-two-year-old she was. It wasn’t the way I’d planned to do it, but the moment was just perfect, too perfect to waste.
I dropped to my knees and kissed her belly button. She gently ran her hands over my head and through my hair. When I tilted my face up to look at her, she was looking down at me, and for a few seconds, I was once again overwhelmed by how much I loved this girl.
“Sarah?”
Her eyes widened and she looked a little startled and maybe even scared by the seriousness of my tone.
“I never planned to do it this way. I was going to wait until . . .”
She tried to step away from me, but I tightened my grip on her hips.
“No, Liam . . .” Her hand came up to cover her mouth, and her eyes filled with tears. I had no clue what she was thinking, but I knew that I had to get my words out.
“I wanted to ask your grandad first, I wanted to talk to Luke. I wanted it to be so much more romantic than us standing in a bathroom, you naked and me wearing your knickers with Ms Bitch written across my arse, but I’ve never seen you look more beautiful than you do right now.”
She still had one hand in my hair, the tips of two fingers of the other covered her lips, her breaths short and frantic.
“I love you, Sarah Kathleen Carter. In five short months you’ve changed everything about my life. What started as a quick trip overseas has led to my wanting to make a permanent home here. A home with you. Even though you wake up miserable every morning and look at me like you wanna nail my balls to the floor and step on my dick for at least one week every month, I want you and all of your shitty attitude to be a permanent part of my life. I want you, me, us, and lots of little versions of us forever. I want to marry you, pretty girl, please would you be my wife?”
She let out a sob and when she nodded her head, I think I did too. Before I had a chance to stand up, she dropped to her knees in front of me and wrapped her arms around my neck.
I hadn’t realised until I slid my arms around her how badly I was shaking.
“Yes,” she said against my mouth. “Yes! Yes, a million times yes. I’ll be your wife.”
Liam had picked me up from work just after twelve, and we were an hour into our drive into Suffolk. The sun was shining and The Kaiser Chiefs ‘Ruby’ was blasting on the radio.
I watched Liam as he drove and sang along to the song.
“If we have a little girl and she has red hair, I think we should call her Ruby. What d’ya reckon?” he asked without taking his eyes off the road.
“I reckon we should wait until the house is finished, we’ve settled in, gotten married, and have spent a few years enjoying each other’s company before we start picking baby names. We’ve been together what, five months? Why the rush?”
Liam had raised the subject of starting a family a few times, and it scared the crap outta me.
I loved him, I’d agreed to marry him, I just wasn’t sure at what stage I wanted to have children. Everything had moved so quickly with us. I just wanted to move in together and draw a breath before we started planning a wedding. Children could come later, much later.
If I were being totally honest, the thought of being a mother was not something I found appealing.
Okay, the thought of me turning out to be a bad mother terrified me. I was coming around to the idea that, with the right support, which Liam had promised he’d give, I’d be great at it, but alongside the desire to give Liam a child was the almost crippling fear that I would be a failure. That I’d be just like my own mother, like both my parents in fact.
“You wanna wait a few years? C’mon, Sares, I’m thirty already. I don’t want you having to push me in a wheelchair at the same time as you push our baby in a pram. I’m not rushing, I just wanna be young enough to enjoy my kids.”
“You’re hardly old and infirm. You proved that in the bathroom this morning.”
After his sexy dance in my Ms Bitch boy legs and his beautiful marriage proposal, he’d lifted me up onto the edge of the sink and had me coming in seconds with his tongue and minutes later with his dick. I’d arrived at work late and with my cheeks still pinked with an after sex glow.
He grinned his crinkle-eyed grin, shrugged, and gave me his what-can-I-say look. I almost climbed into his lap and rode him all the rest of the way to Suffolk.
But that would be dangerous, so instead, I continued to state my case.
“Anyway, I’m only twenty-two, remember? I’ve got plenty of time.”
“So that’s not a no then?”
“I’ve never said no. I just don’t think I’m quite ready yet.”
I stared out at the passing countryside without actually seeing anything but a green blur. Having this conversation was making my stomach churn.
“You know I’d never do what he did, don’t ya? I’d never just up and leave.”
I could feel his eyes on me, but I didn’t turn to face him.
“I’ve never for a moment thought that you would.”
I turned and looked his way. He took his eyes back off the road to meet mine.
“You’re my future, Liam. You’re all that I want right now. But like I said, let’s concentrate on the renovations, get moved in, and plan our wedding. Then we can go from there.”
He turned his gaze back to the road and we drove in silence as The Fray told us how to save a life.
***
My grandparents’ place was a four-bedroomed, grade-two listed, detached farmhouse. It was set in over an acre of the beautiful British countryside, just outside of Newmarket and close to the Cambridgeshire border.
Their move out to the country was supposed to have been a downsize for them. Although the house was a little smaller than the one Luke and I had grown up in, it still had as many bedrooms. Nan worried about where we would all stay when we came to visit and insisted she still have four bedrooms at their ‘downsize’.
Most of the grounds were covered in grass, but there were a few large trees scattered here and there. There was a huge flower bed and a raised vegetable patch. An old barn stood to the side of the property which my grandad used as a potting shed, it also contained a beer fridge, an armchair, and a radio. He would disappear to “pot up some plants” for hours at a time some days. Whenever I’d go to fetch him in for his dinner, I’d find him asleep in his chair, horse racing on the radio, and a can of Guinness in his hand.
The car tyres crunched on the gravel drive as we pulled up. The front door was wide open and Winston, my grandad’s tan-and-white British Bulldog came out. Most dogs bounded, but Winston was old and fat, so he plodded on his short legs towards us.
I climbed out before Liam had even shut off the engine, and moved
to give Winston a rub, trying at the same time to avoid getting his slobber all over my jeans.
Liam walked around the car and bent down next to me to pat the dog’s head.
“Sorry if you feel like I’m pushing you, Bub. I love you and want you to be happy. We’ll go at your pace, I promise.”
I got teary instantly. I didn’t know why I was being such a bitch about things. This was a happy day. I was getting married. Liam was going to ask Grandad and my brother’s permissions first, then he was going to “propose” to me in private, and we would make the big announcement the following day. Obviously no one knew that Liam had already asked me, and I’d already accepted.
We both stood and I wrapped my arms around his neck.
“You’re not pushing me. My period’s due, I just need you to take off my bitch knickers so I can wear them.”
He slid his arms around my neck and tried to pull me closer, but Winston had wedged himself between us and was now sitting on my feet.
“Find a room, you two.”
I looked around Liam to see my brother coming towards us, Nan behind him. Liam couldn’t step away from me quick enough when he saw her.
Luke had driven up straight from work the night before and would also be staying the weekend. He loved it here, and although he’d never said as much, Nan had let slip that it was him that had paid for all the renovations that they’d had done to the place. He was also the one who paid a gardener to come in once a month and a cleaner to come once a week.
“Hey, Nan.” I ignored Luke’s comment and stepped around him to give Nan a cuddle. I swore she got shorter every time I saw her.
I breathed in the familiar sent of her Anais Anais perfume that she’d worn for as long as I could remember.
“Let’s take a look at ya, Sarah.”
She held me at arm’s length and inspected me as if I were something on sale that she wasn’t sure about buying.
She shook her head. “You get more gorgeous every time I look at ya. You lost some weight?”
“Don’t think so, Nan, but I’ll take it if you think I have.”
“So come on then. Introduce me to the Aussie fella I’ve heard so much about. Still curling your toes is he?”