The Goddess Workshop

by Margaret K Johnson

  Stupid cow, thought Estelle. Wasn’t it obvious it was all a fix? Jade had obviously slipped him a few quid to come out and pose for them.

  ‘He comes out onto his balcony every morning around this time to greet the day,’ Jade told her. ‘I spotted him the first time I came to look round the hall and made it my business to meet him. He didn’t mind in the least when I asked him if he’d time his ritual more specifically today.’ And, lifting her hand, Jade gave the man a wave. Instantly, he smiled and waved back, flexing his muscles for their benefit.

  ‘I think he’s been watching too many adverts,’ Estelle said waspishly, almost resenting her admiration of him now. He was such a poser!

  ‘I like his taste in underpants,’ Reenie said. ‘Maybe I ought to get my Ted some like that.’

  ‘You’d think he’d feel a bit chilly,’ Janet said. ‘It is almost autumn, after all.’

  ‘Don’t think of such things,’ Jade said. ‘Give yourselves up simply to the pleasure of looking. The muscles gliding beneath his smooth, young skin, his sleep-tousled hair and his firm loins and tight buttocks…’

  For God’s sake!

  ‘Probably a male prostitute,’ Kate said from the back, causing Reenie to whirl round instantly and glare at her.

  ‘Surely not!’ said Janet timidly as Reenie tutted.

  ‘No,’ Jade said, ‘that’s all right, Kate. Imagine he is. Imagine that as a special gift to you a friend has arranged for him to pleasure you. He’s standing in front of you quite naked, and he’s bending to kiss the skin of your neck beneath your hair…’

  Jade’s hands were lifting her own hair as if to clear the way for imaginary lips, and Estelle wasn’t sure whether to groan out loud or collapse laughing. The woman was unbelievable! She could easily get a job as a pole dancer. Maybe she did it as a sideline.

  ‘He’s going in,’ Janet observed, and they all looked.

  Reenie sighed a regretful sigh. ‘That’s made me go all hot, that has,’ she said. ‘Thought I’d got over the hot flush stage an’ all.’

  ‘That’s your Inner Sex Goddess speaking to you, Reenie,’ Jade said as the French windows closed behind the man.

  Kate snorted, still looking cynically up at the window. ‘Well,’ she said sarcastically, ‘it didn’t speak to me. Kept on thinking of the diseases I’d be likely to catch if I let him go any further than neck kisses.’

  Jade was smiling at Kate. God, how did the wo-man have the patience?

  ‘Yes, Kate, I quite agree with you,’ she was saying. ‘Health issues are of the utmost importance and we’ll definitely be devoting some time to the subject at a later session. But just for now, we’ll be concentrating on the liberation of your senses.’ She smiled brightly at them, pleased by the effect of her treat. ‘And now, if you’d like to make your way back inside, we’ll make a start on doing just that.’

  The others started to walk back towards the hall entrance. At the front, Janet asked Jade something, Estelle didn’t hear what. Reenie hurried after them, listening in, while Kate dragged behind. Estelle, meanwhile, sauntered along in last place, finishing her cigarette. Her car was just there. If she wanted to make a getaway, now was the time.

  And yet… And yet…

  She thought again of the man on the balcony - of his perfect body. She’d had too many lovers to be able to fool herself anymore. Even if she managed to meet him somehow, even if she seduced him, she doubted whether she would have had an orgasm.

  And I want an orgasm, she thought. I own a lingerie business, for God’s sake! I’m expected to be a sexy, sexual woman!

  OK, so the chances of this charade being able to help her may be minuscule, but she’d paid her fee now. Didn’t she owe it to herself at least to give it a little bit longer? If nothing else, there were bound to be plenty more entertaining moments along the way.

  Sighing, Estelle threw down her cigarette butt and ground it out with the sole of her expensive shoe. Then she walked briskly to catch the others up. In front of her, Kate’s behind wobbled alarmingly in her jeans.

  Bloody hell! What if the entertainment included watching Kate bringing herself to orgasm? It didn’t bear thinking about.

  Four

  Heading quickly down the hill towards the town centre, Kate turned up a side street, barely registering the smell of crabmeat from the sandwich stall or the tinny jingle of the amusement arcade. Her destination was the Victorian pub at the end of the road, and her mission was to tell her friend Geoff that there was no way on earth she was going to go back to that workshop next week.

  Geoff was at the bar when she went in. They both had Fridays off from their jobs as lecturers at the local further education college because they taught Saturday day schools. As Kate walked towards her friend, she strongly wished this were not the case. If she didn’t have Fridays off, then she could never have attended today’s workshop.

  As she got near, Geoff turned and saw her. Grinning, he whipped something out of his pocket and held it up. Taking a look, Kate saw that it was around ten rows of knitting in baby pink. Her sense of humour returned. ‘What’s that when it’s at home?’ she asked, noticing at least three dropped stitches. ‘A baby’s dishcloth?’

  ‘This,’ Geoff announced grandly, ‘is going to be a designer jumper.’

  ‘Peep holes the new fashion look, are they?’ enquired Kate, ordering herself a pint of bitter.

  ‘Well, I should think they would be on that course you’ve been doing!’ quipped Geoff. ‘How was it, by the way? Mine was great. I’ve learned so much. Did you know that Iris who works in Culver’s Chemists has got a fancy man? And blinds are definitely out for window coverings this season.’

  Kate laughed and downed half her pint in one. When Geoff had first come up with this hair-brained idea that they challenge each other to do a course, Knitting For Beginners had seemed to be the perfect choice for him. Bearded, hairy and huge, Kate imagined he must have been the complete opposite of all the other class members.

  And when Geoff had first come up with the idea, it had seemed like a laugh. Kate certainly hadn’t imagined there’d be anything like an orgasm workshop taking place in sleepy Shelthorpe-on-Sea. Now she had the distinct suspicion that Geoff had, in fact, been very well aware of this before he’d issued his challenge.

  ‘So?’ he asked now, his eager tone of voice seeming to confirm her suspicions. ‘What about yours? Tell all!’

  Kate sighed and led the way over to a table by the window where other people were less likely to overhear them. ‘Remind me once again why this stupid challenge seemed like a good idea?’ she said.

  ‘It’s what we do,’ Geoff said with a shrug, settling himself down in the window seat. ‘Dare each other.’

  ‘Yeah. But this is in a totally different league to daring each other to use the word ‘circumcised’ or ‘iguana’ in a meeting with the principal, isn’t it?’

  ‘You’re stalling, Katie,’ Geoff said. ‘Spill. Or I won’t tell you who Iris of Culver’s Chemists is seeing. Or what’s the must have pattern for curtain fabrics this season.’

  ‘And I couldn’t live without that crucial information, could I?’ Kate retorted. Then she sighed, bowing to the inevitable. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘It started off well enough. There was this giant painting on the wall of a couple shagging, and these two women who thought they’d signed up for a gardening course.’

  ‘What?’ Geoff practically choked on his beer as he attempted to laugh, speak and swallow at the same time.

  Kate didn’t give him time to recover. ‘But then it turns out that one of the other course members is Marcia Richardson’s mother.’

  Geoff instantly sobered. ‘Oh, shit, Katie. That must have been awkward.’

  ‘Just a bit,’ Kate agreed. ‘She nearly floored me.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Yes, ah. Holds me completely responsible for it all of course.’

  They were silent for a moment, thinking back to the incident that had taken place a month previousl
y. Geoff had been teaching in the class next door and had come running in to help when he’d heard the commotion.

  ‘I always thought there must be more to that business than we got to know about,’ he said thoughtfully now.

  Kate shrugged. ‘Wasn’t for a want of trying. Silly girl clammed up on me.’

  She drank some more of her beer, reluctantly allowing her thoughts to dwell on Marcia Richardson. In the days before her marriage break-up, when Kate had still really cared about her job, Marcia had been precisely the type of young person she’d enjoyed turning around. A pretty girl with a chip on her shoulder the size of a chip shop, she’d tried to hide her insecurities by causing trouble and giving her teachers grief. ‘A challenge,’ to use the PC jargon.

  ‘She was waiting for me at the end of the session,’ she told Geoff. ‘Her mother. Asked me what I meant by flushing her daughter’s chance for an education down the toilet.’

  ‘Doesn’t she know about the chip pan?’ Geoff asked.

  ‘She does now!’ Kate said. ‘I told her about it.’

  Although she hadn’t, not really. What she’d actually said, was, ‘Why don’t you ask Marcia what she did with that chip pan? I don’t suppose she’s bothered to mention that!’ And then she’d hurried off, with Reenie bellowing after her, ‘What chip pan? What bloody chip pan?’

  Kate shifted in her seat, not liking the feeling of guilt that was threatening to settle on her like cling film.

  ‘What’s the teacher like?’ Geoff asked, returning to the subject of the workshops.

  Kate thought about Jade, hearing her passionate voice in her head as she had urged them all to listen to their inner sex goddesses. ‘She’s like some sinister Christmas tree angel,’ she told Geoff. ‘All black lace and evangelistically spread arms.’ She put down her pint glass and spread her arms wide, attempting to replicate Jade’s zealous expression. ‘You must learn to hear your inner sex goddess,’ she said, making an attempt at an American accent. ‘At first her voice will seem like a whisper in an unfamiliar language. But as the weeks pass, you’ll begin to hear and understand her more clearly…’

  Geoff was rolling about. ‘More,’ he croaked. ‘Don’t stop. More!’

  Kate obliged. ‘At first I shall tell you what to say to her, but gradually you’ll begin to invent your own language; a language intended for you and your Sex Goddess alone!’ Kate picked up her pint. ‘It was all bollocks, Geoff; absolute bollocks. Know what she wants us to do for homework?’ Kate leant in towards Geoff and lowered her voice. ‘She wants us to stroke our body in a bubble bath or rub it with a piece of velvet. And go out somewhere without any knickers on!’

  That was too much for Geoff. He was laughing so much he was holding his stomach. A part of Kate knew she ought to feel offended or fed up with him, but his laughter was, as always, infectious, and soon she was joining in with him, the tensions of the morning slipping away.

  ‘You going to do it?’ Geoff asked when he could speak again. ‘The no knickers thing?’

  ‘Might do,’ said Kate, although she had absolutely no intention of doing so. ‘Maybe in the departmental meeting next Tuesday.’ She paused as Geoff began to laugh again, then went in for the kill. ‘But only if you leave off your Y-fronts.’ As his shoulders began to heave once more, Kate quickly held up her hand. ‘Just kidding! I have enough trouble concentrating in our departmental meetings as it is! Anyway, you haven’t told me. Who is Iris of Culver’s Chemists having it away with?’

  Geoff wiped his eyes. ‘That guy from the news-agent’s next to the museum.’

  ‘The bald one or the one with the lazy eye?’ Kate asked.

  ‘Baldy.’

  Kate shook her head. ‘Poor Stan Culver,’ she said. ‘Nice, he is. Always got a smile for everyone. Poor bugger! Won’t be smiling if he finds out.’

  Geoff’s expression grew more serious. ‘No.’ He looked at her carefully. ‘You heard anymore about your divorce from PC Plod?’

  Kate shrugged. She didn’t want to talk about it. Or think about it. ‘Nothing to hear. Wheels are turning, I suppose. All takes time.’ She reached out for his pint glass and stood up, avoiding his gaze. ‘Want another?’

  ‘Yes, ta,’ Geoff said. He stood up too. ‘Just visiting the little boy’s room.’

  The barman was serving somebody else. While she waited for him to be free, Kate leant back against the bar and looked out of the window. A familiar figure was passing, almost as if her conversation with Geoff had conjured him up: Ian, her lying, cheating, low-life ex-husband. Leaving the glasses on the bar, Kate went quickly over to the window to look out at him. There he was, checking car tax discs, a regulation green PVC jerkin over his uniform.

  As she watched him, she saw his face suddenly light up. Obviously he’d struck gold. Kate saw him take his pen out of his pocket and begin to write, his tongue protruding slightly. As he did so, a thousand memories flitted into her brain. Other times when she’d seen him concentrating just like that – making a birdhouse with tongue and groove joints in his shed at the bottom of the garden. Cooking a curry with freshly ground up spices. Wrapping a present with perfect corners.

  Geoff joined her by the window, stretching his neck to see what she was looking at. ‘Ah. PC Plod himself, is it?’ he said.

  Kate was still lost in her memories. ‘I wish there was somewhere you could go to get your memory wiped,’ she said.

  ‘Like in that film? Eternal Sunshine, was it?’

  ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Yeah, just like that.’

  Ian was still busy writing. ‘My mind’s littered with so much bloody crap about that man,’ she said. ‘The way his face goes red the minute he drinks anything. How his hair clogs up the shower plughole. How he likes his shirts ironed.’

  ‘Should have done them himself,’ said Geoff, and Kate shifted her head ever so slightly to give him a smile. ‘You’re right there – he should. S’pose she does them for him now.’

  ‘Poor cow.’ Geoff put his hand on her shoulder. ‘Come on; leave him to his dirty work. Let’s get those pints in.’

  Reluctantly, Kate followed Geoff over to the bar. But as usual, a casual sighting of Ian had ruined her day. She didn’t feel remotely like laughing about the orgasm workshop, or, for that matter, about anything at all now. She didn’t only wish her memories of Ian could be wiped, but her feelings for the bastard too.

  And as Geoff changed the subject yet again, talking about some film a bit like Eternal Sunshine that was coming out soon, Kate switched off, her thoughts returning to the workshop. Jade had said that the course would help them to find the courage to tell others what to do to give them pleasure. Yeah, right. She and Ian had never had those kinds of conversations. The idea of it was completely impossible. They’d talked about work, about domestic stuff and things they saw on the telly. But about sex? No, never. And yet she had loved him so much. And she knew that if he were to turn up at her bedsit and beg her to take him back, she would, despite everything.

  ‘So d’you fancy going when it comes out?’ asked Geoff.

  ‘Yeah, why not?’ agreed Kate, not having a clue what she was agreeing to see, her mind busy wondering if her lack of ability at sex had played a part in her break-up with Ian. How would she know? She’d never been with anybody else. Would Ian still be with her if she had regular conversations with the inner sex goddess Jade had been banging on about? Was their split, in fact, her fault?

  Five

  It was six-thirty on Saturday morning, and Reenie was dreaming about the orgasm workshop. Jade had just handed out chip pans to them all and invited them to hit each other over the head with them. Reenie had been paired off with Kate, and now she was wielding her pan with great relish, enjoying the thump, thump, thump every time it collided with Kate’s skull.

  ‘Here we go again,’ groaned Reenie’s husband, Ted, waking Reenie up.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ asked Reenie, bleary eyed.

  ‘They’re at it again!’ said Ted, and
Reenie realised that the thumping sound was actually the sound of their new neighbours’ bed bashing against the wall.

  ‘Bring back Stan and Tracey,’ Reenie said, struggling to sit up and unavoidably listening to the escalating screams and groans from next door.

  ‘It’s like a porno movie,’ Ted said.

  Reenie gave her husband’s thigh a playful slap. ‘And how would you know that, Ted Richardson?’ she asked.

  A rumble of laughter started up in Ted’s chest, and then suddenly they were both helpless with it. As the groans and thumps from next door increased in volume and pace, Ted and Reenie writhed about laughing, hiding their faces against each other or beneath the covers. By the time a final screech indicated their neighbours’ mutual climax, Ted and Reenie were both exhausted.

  ‘Gawd,’ Reenie said, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes. ‘How am I going to look at her when I put the rubbish out?’

  ‘I’ll make us a cuppa,’ Ted said, swinging his legs out of the bed. ‘Won’t get back to sleep now anyway.’

  ‘Ta, love,’ Reenie said, plumping up the pillows for them both and settling down to wait for him to return.

  While she waited, she thought back to her dream, and smiled grimly to herself. She hadn’t had the chance to speak to her daughter about what Kate had said yet. Marcia had been out at a friend’s house when Reenie had got home yesterday and hadn’t got in until late. Though Reenie was one hundred percent certain that it would be something and nothing. Marcia had told her that Kate was a prize cow and a bully, and Reenie hadn’t seen anything at the workshop yesterday to make her think differently.

  Reenie hadn’t told Ted about what Kate had said; she wasn’t sure why. They normally told each other everything.

  She shifted uncomfortably in bed, wishing for the thousand and twenty-first time that she hadn’t given up smoking. Ted didn’t need to know anything until Reenie knew whether there was anything to know, did he? No point in getting him all riled up for nothing.