The Goddess Workshop

by Margaret K Johnson

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ she told Gwen flatly, wheeling her squeaking trolley away and quite missing her neighbour’s look of triumph.

  ‘You won’t regret it!’ Gwen said, ‘I promise you!’

  Janet didn’t look back.

  But later, lying next to her husband’s unyielding back, the tears slid silently down her face.

  Fourteen

  After trying to ring Janet unsuccessfully a couple of times, Estelle went to try to track her down at Carol De Ville Interiors on her way to a meeting on the Monday morning.

  ‘Estelle! How delightful to see you!’ Cruella greeted her unctuously.

  It seemed to Estelle that since she had met ‘the girls’, she had taken to re-examining her first impressions of people. True, Reenie was a bit common, and Kate was difficult as hell, but despite that, Estelle had come to…well, like them. Janet too, yes, definitely Janet. And what, apart from having bitches as mothers, had she got in common with timid, homely Janet? Somehow it didn’t seem to matter.

  So, if she could like such an ill-assorted, different bunch of women, then maybe, just maybe, she’d been too quick to judge people previously.

  Take Cruella, for instance. No, Carol. She’d barely spoken more than a few sentences to the woman at the Businesswomen’s Guild, and yet Estelle had her down as being avaricious, insincere, and incompetent in business. Now, why was that?

  She scanned Carol’s woman’s face, noting the heavy make-up that was just a little too orange, the thin lips that were just a little too crimson. It wasn’t fair to dislike someone because they were crap at choosing and applying make-up though, so she made an attempt to look beyond these superficial facts. Carol’s smile was faltering slightly now beneath the force of Estelle’s scrutiny, but had it been a real smile in the first place anyway? Or just an artificial stretch of those thin lips? The woman’s eyes were completely unreadable, and it wasn’t just because of the sixties-inspired heavy eyeliner and thick mascara.

  Carol cleared her throat. ‘Is everything all right, Estelle?’

  Estelle blinked. ‘I was looking for Janet,’ she said, and the pencilled-on eyebrows lifted.

  ‘Janet?’ she repeated, making it sound as if the name was totally new to her.

  ‘Your assistant?’ Estelle prompted.

  ‘Oh, Janet,’ Cruella said, and the dismissive tone of voice she used to speak her assistant’s name was quite enough to confirm her status as Cruella.

  ‘It’s her morning off,’ she went on, and now the unctuousness was back in her voice. ‘She’ll be in this afternoon. But if you’d like to tell me what she was helping you with?’

  Cruella stood there, smiling at her, waiting. Estelle believed in the smile about as much as she had ever believed in fairies at the bottom of the garden.

  ‘Umm…’ she said, thinking about Janet and their new friendship. ‘Being female, I think.’ She nodded, satisfied. ‘Yes, Janet was helping me with being female and being a friend.’

  Since Cruella was quite obviously lost for words after this, Estelle laughed and pulled a gift-wrapped package from her bag. ‘Could you make sure Janet gets this?’ she asked, holding the package out.

  Cruella took it in a daze.

  ‘And tell Janet the rest of us are meeting in the pub tonight, would you? The Rose. About eight o’clock. Thanks.’ And she made for the door.

  ‘You mean…’ said Cruella behind her, ‘you don’t want anything from the shop?’

  Estelle paused, allowing her gaze to roam dismissively around the displays. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t think so.’ And then she walked out, hearing with great satisfaction as she went, Cruella’s ‘humph’ of indignation.

  * * * * *

  ‘You think she’ll turn up?’ Reenie asked later in the Rose.

  ‘Not if that bitch of a boss of hers has got anything to do with it, she won’t,’ Estelle said. ‘She’s bound to have “forgotten” to give her the message.’

  The Rose was neither a wine bar nor the select bar of the golf club. In short, it was not the type of licensed premises Estelle frequented. It was, in fact, Kate’s local, complete with pool-playing youths and cribbage-playing old men.

  Meeting here tonight had been Kate’s suggestion, a suggestion that had taken both Estelle and Reenie by surprise. Estelle had agreed to come before she’d had a chance to think about it, and, walking into the pub at the appointed hour, she had paused, feeling suddenly panicked, asking herself whether she was going out of her mind. But then Reenie had spotted her.

  ‘Estelle!’ she called over-loudly, attracting the attention of at least half the youths and all of the old men. ‘Over here!’

  And so, after a few seconds’ more hesitation, Estelle had attached a rather Cruella-style smile onto her mouth and walked over to join Reenie and Kate at a table by the window.

  That had been three gin and tonics ago. Now the cribbage-players were long gone, and the youths had lost their sense of menace due to familiarity. And although she still wasn’t entirely sure how she had ended up there, Estelle was… well, much to her surprise, enjoying herself.

  * * * * *

  ‘You see all these hunks on TV, don’t you?’ Reenie was saying. ‘All bristling muscles and jutting out jaws.’

  ‘Minuscule dicks though, probably,’ Kate said.

  At the beginning of the evening, Kate was pretty certain Estelle would have flinched at such common talk, but the G & Ts seemed to be smoothing out some of her stuck-up ways. Thank God. At first she’d been a bit like aristocracy at a jumble sale. ‘How good of me to stoop so low as to meet you two here,’ that tight-arsed smile of hers had said. Now she was saying: ‘Hey, don’t destroy the fantasy, Kate, please!’ as if the three of them were regular girly-girly mates or something.

  ‘And they don’t giggle when they have sex, do they?’ Reenie said.

  Estelle laughed. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘they don’t giggle on television, anyway, Reenie.’

  Reenie pulled a face. ‘Oh, ha ha, Estelle, very funny.’ she said. ‘I meant in real life. I bet they don’t giggle during sex in real life.’

  ‘No sense of humour, that’s why,’ Kate chipped in. ‘No brain, come to that!’

  Estelle laughed, but Reenie was determined to have her say. ‘They swagger in, all cleft chins and what d’you call it? Ambidextrous expressions, and get the girl swooning straight off.’

  Kate grinned. ‘Think you mean ambiguous, Reenie,’ she said.

  There was a fragment left of Reenie’s original resentment towards Kate in the way she glared at her. ‘Well, whatever,’ she said with dignity. ‘Ambidextrous or ambiguous, the effect’s still the same on the girl.’

  ‘Pussy as wet as a November weekend,’ Estelle said, and there was a second of surprise before they all burst into noisy, drink-spraying laughter.

  ‘Estelle!’ Reenie said at last.

  ‘Well, it’s true, isn’t it?’ Estelle asked.

  ‘You certainly don’t see the actresses lathering on the KY,’ Kate agreed.

  Reenie’s eyebrows rose towards the ceiling. ‘I’ve needed tubes and tubes of that bloody stuff since the change, I have,’ she told them.

  Kate shook her head. Too much information. Definitely too much information!

  ‘Maybe if there were more good-looking men about then none of us would have a problem,’ Estelle said. ‘I mean, take a look around here. Not one attractive man in sight.’

  She had a point, Kate had to admit, though she was pretty certain she and Estelle wouldn’t go for the same type anyway. No, Estelle wouldn’t notice a bloke like Ian unless he’d stopped her for speeding in that posh car of hers and she was buttering him up to try to get let off.

  ‘D’you think it’s all down to looks then, Estelle?’ Reenie was asking doubtfully.

  Estelle shrugged. ‘The brain’s the biggest erogenous zone, isn’t it? It must be a lot harder for it to kick in for a balding bloke with a beer belly and body odour.’

  Although she
joined in with their laughter, Reenie was looking sceptical. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I think there’s more to it than that. In his day, my Ted was really good-looking, but it’s like…’ She broke off unhappily. ‘It’s like we’re buddies, not lovers. We get all giggly when we try something new, and giggly’s not sexy, is it? And we’re terrible at talking about it too.’

  So, she wasn’t the only one who found it nigh on impossible to speak about sex then. Sighing, Kate swished the last inch of her pint around in her glass, unable to find much comfort from the fact. She hadn’t had a shag, been made love to, had sexual intercourse, whatever you wanted to call it – for a year, giggly or non-giggly. And she was beginning to wonder if she ever would. Or, for that matter, if she’d ever want to.

  Just then the pub door opened, and in walked Geoff. Geoff, who was the real reason she was here tonight in the first place. Not content with making her join the class, he now wanted to meet her classmates.

  ‘Just want to check them out, Katie,’ he’d said winningly. ‘So I can picture who you’re talking about when you give me all the juicy gossip.’

  But actually, Kate was starting to feel uneasy about doing that anyway. It was easy to promise to dish the dirt when people were strangers, but Reenie and Estelle weren’t strangers anymore. Besides, if they ever repeated anything she told them, she’d fucking kill them.

  Not that she had told them anything yet. To talk about her sex life with Ian would feel like breaking the Official Secrets Act. Worse still, she’d probably start howling.

  No way.

  Geoff was hesitating on the threshold. Kate knew full well he was waiting for her to look up and invite him over, so she shifted in her seat to give him a good view of her back.

  Reenie spotted him. ‘Now there’s a halfway attractive bloke,’ she said, nodding her head in Geoff’s direction.

  That made Kate look up. Geoff? Attractive?

  Geoff took the look as the invitation he’d been waiting for. Over he bowled, grinning from ear to bloody ear.

  ‘Hi Katie!’ He’d ironed his shirt, by the looks of it, which had to be a first. And he’d trimmed his beard and rediscovered his hairbrush.

  ‘Geoff.’

  It was all Kate was intending to say, but when he kept on standing there, grinning at Reenie and Estelle like a shaggy, expectant dog, there was nothing to do but introduce him. ‘This is Geoff, a friend of mine from work,’ she said grudgingly. ‘Geoff, this is Estelle and Reenie.’

  Geoff took first Estelle’s hand, then Reenie’s. Kate half expected him to kiss them, but was very relieved when he didn’t. ‘Delighted to meet you, ladies,’ he said.

  ‘You a teacher too then, Geoff?’ Reenie asked.

  Geoff nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘bakery.’

  Kate shot him a glare, and he smiled, finally taking the hint. ‘But I’ll leave you ladies to it.’ He winked at Reenie. ‘Remind me to tell you all about my French sticks another time.’

  Reenie giggled. ‘Kate, he’s gorgeous,’ she whispered after he’d gone to the bar.

  ‘He isn’t!’ she protested.

  ‘He fancies you,’ Estelle told her.

  ‘He doesn’t!’

  ‘She’s right,’ Reenie said. ‘He does.’

  Kate looked over at Geoff. He had a pint in his hand by now, and he raised it towards them in a toast. She looked quickly away, studying her own drink and feeling confused.

  ‘He does not fancy me,’ she said. ‘We’re just mates. And besides, I’m through with relationships.’

  ‘You’re far too young to say that,’ Reenie told her.

  ‘I am not,’ Kate said. ‘Anyway, what’s the point? Get involved with someone, and they want to change you. So you change, and it’s not enough, so you change something else. On and on until you’ve forgotten who you were in the first fucking place. And then they end up pissing on you anyway.’

  Whoops. She hadn’t intended to sound off like that. And now Estelle and Reenie were looking at her with silent sympathy.

  ‘What?’ she said defensively, and when Reenie reached across the table to pat her hand, she snatched it quickly out of reach. Fuck that! She didn’t want their pity!

  ‘Look, Kate,’ Reenie said. ‘What I said in class the other week – w ell, it wasn’t a nice thing to say, and I’m sorry. I haven’t got a clue why you and your husband split up, and it’s none of my business either. Just so long as you know you can always talk about it if you want to.’

  Kate knocked back some of her pint. ‘What is this?’ she said sarcastically. ‘Another workshop session?’

  Estelle looked her straight in the eyes. ‘I don’t know, Kate,’ she said. ‘What is this? Tell us. After all, meeting up tonight was all your idea.’

  Kate avoided Estelle’s gaze. She didn’t quite trust herself to speak. Her sarcastic, ‘fuck you all’ mask was threatening to slip again, and the seething quagmire lurking beneath it was still just too terrifying to contemplate.

  ‘Does it have to be anything?’ she asked quietly.

  ‘I thought it was just for us to get to know each other better,’ Reenie said.

  ‘Yes,’ Estelle said, ‘but why?’

  She was still looking at Kate, and Kate was still looking at her drink.

  ‘Well,’ said Reenie, ‘because of how Jade says. If we’re going to talk about stuff, then we’ve got to trust each other.’

  ‘If we’re going to talk about stuff,’ Estelle said.

  ‘Well,’ said Reenie, ‘trust like that doesn’t come overnight,’ she said. ‘I’m sure we’ll all talk when we’re good and ready.’

  ‘The truth is,’ Estelle said, ‘we probably all of us need shrinks more than we need sex therapy.’

  Kate’s GP had offered her counselling after the split with Ian, but she’d told him where to shove it. The last thing she’d wanted to do was rake over the red-hot coals and bring the fire back to leaping light. No, she’d wanted the choking dust to settle on the embers, and that had been best achieved with a prescription for brain-numbing drugs.

  Except that even the very strongest dose hadn’t seemed able to wipe out the image of Ian suckling on fucking Jennifer’s nipple.

  ‘So, what’s your story then Estelle?’ Reenie was saying. ‘Why all the affairs?’

  Kate watched the same defensive expression she was wearing herself appear on Estelle’s face. ‘It’s obvious, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘I’m a commitment phobe with severe attachment difficulties. I have no intention of being owned, ever.’

  ‘My Ted doesn’t own me,’ Reenie said, sounding startled.

  ‘Doesn’t he?’ Estelle asked. ‘Are you sure about that? Whose idea was it for you to go to the workshops in the first place?’

  Hostility was suddenly bristling in the air. ‘Maybe we shouldn’t try playing at being amateur shrinks,’ Kate said.

  ‘Yeah,’ Reenie said, glaring at Estelle. ‘Maybe we shouldn’t at that. But for your information, it was my decision to go to the workshops. Ted had the idea, but there was no force involved. Ted’s never forced me to do anything.’

  Estelle sighed. ‘I didn’t mean to offend you, Reenie,’ she said.

  ‘Maybe you should ask him to use force,’ Kate said. ‘Might be just what you’re lacking. Some people swear by a spot of S and M, don’t they?’

  Reenie turned her glare in Kate’s direction for a moment, but when Estelle started to laugh, the tension suddenly lifted.

  ‘Hark at us lot,’ Reenie said. ‘More defensive than bloody Colditz.’

  ‘Well,’ said Estelle, reaching for her purse. ‘Maybe another drink will help us to escape. Same again?’

  ‘She needs bringing down a peg or two, that’s her trouble.’ Reenie said of Estelle as she went up to the bar. ‘But she’s all right really, I suppose.’ She looked at Kate. ‘And you.’

  ‘Yeah?’ said Kate sceptically. ‘Forgiven me, have you?’

  Reenie pulled a face. ‘Wouldn’t go that far,’ she said, but Kate recogni
sed it for the apology it was and smiled.

  Reenie smiled back. ‘So,’ she said, ‘it was that Geoff who challenged you to do the course, was it?’

  Kate nodded, glancing over at Geoff, who appeared to be in deep conversation with Estelle. ‘It was, actually, yes.’

  Reenie’s grin was wicked. ‘Wonder why he did that then, eh?’ she said.

  Kate didn’t reply. She had thought it was just Geoff, taking their dare games to another level. But had he really had a very different motive?

  Nah, that was a crazy thought.

  Wasn’t it?

  Fifteen

  Janet hadn’t got the message about going out for a drink with the others, and she was feeling thoroughly depressed. It was as if she had never experienced the excitement of workshops. Life was back to depressing normality, with Carol De Ville being her usual nagging and critical self, Debbie sulking about Nigel, and Ray still being cool towards her. Although one distinct advantage of this was that he didn’t want to have sex.

  Escaping to the toilet out the back of Carol De Ville Interiors for five minutes, Janet knew she oughtn’t to be thinking of avoiding sex as an advantage. She was hardly likely to become a sensual woman in tune with her inner sex goddess if she did.

  Because Janet had decided that, classes or not, she definitely did want to become such a woman. Not only so that she could experience the pleasure of sex, but also because she was pretty sure that the confidence and sense of well-being such pleasure would bring would spill over into all areas of her life.

  Surely?

  Jade said it would, anyway, and Jade certainly seemed to be very confident. Look at the way she had handled that caretaker. And Estelle, Kate and Reenie, come to that, because they were all very strong personalities. And they didn’t much like each other. Without Jade’s authority, the workshops would soon disintegrate into chaos with the girls squabbling with each other.