The Goddess Workshop

by Margaret K Johnson

  Although Kate very definitely wanted to avoid any phallic interpretations of that particular dream, she was extremely hard pressed to come up with any interpretation beyond the blatantly obvious. But exactly why she was dreaming about Geoff and giant cocks in the same context, Kate had no idea. It was all very disturbing, especially since she was supposed to be meeting up with him at the pub that lunch time. Geoff would piss himself laughing if he found out she had been dreaming about him in any capacity, but this! If he ever got wind of her phallic Swiss roll, she would never hear the end of it. Which he wouldn’t, obviously, because there was no way she was going to tell him.

  It was all Geoff’s fault anyway, persuading her that the workshops were a good idea. There was no way she’d have been dreaming about giant Swiss rolls pre-Jade.

  She almost didn’t turn up at the pub. When she did, Geoff had nearly finished his first pint. ‘I thought we could go for a walk,’ he astounded her by saying.

  ‘A walk?’ she repeated, stunned. ‘Since when did you want to go for walks?’

  Geoff stuck his belly out and gave it a resounding slap. Kate did her best not to look. ‘Since I decided I need to lose some weight,’ he said, and then frowned at her. ‘What’s up with you? Your face is all red. You coming down with something?’

  ‘No! Nothing’s wrong,’ she said hastily. ‘Where d’you want to go for this walk then?’

  ‘I thought by the sea. It’s a lovely day.’

  Kate hadn’t even had the chance to buy herself a pint yet. He’d sprung the walk idea on her the minute she arrived. ‘Doesn’t usually inspire you to sample the great outdoors,’ she said, transferring her beer money from hand to hand.

  ‘No,’ Geoff agreed, downing the rest of his pint and hitching his trousers up. ‘But maybe it’s time to change. Come on.’

  So off they went, without Kate even getting a drink first, down to the seafront to join the couples and the families out taking the air. And Kate, who usually rattled away to Geoff sixteen to the dozen about anything and everything, suddenly couldn’t think of one thing to say.

  A tractor was pulling a fishing boat up onto the beach from the sea. Kate saw the name painted on the side of the boat. Sultry Sue. Sultry Sue! Any other time she’d have given Geoff a nudge and they’d be laughing. But today she couldn’t even find the resources to do that. It was like she was in a play. Or floating in the air somewhere, looking down on herself. Nothing seemed natural.

  ‘World record trifle soon,’ Geoff said after the silence had gone on forever.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘S’pose you do,’ he said. ‘All I’ve talked about at work lately, I expect.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Got the TV coming. And the radio.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Should raise quite a bit for charity, I reckon.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you don’t mind being in charge of fruit and jelly?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good.’

  And that appeared to be the end of the giant trifle as a topic of conversation. They walked in silence along the promenade, leaving the tractors and the lifeboat station behind them and on past the area of beach Kate guessed Estelle must be able to see from her window.

  ‘How are the girls from the course?’ Geoff tried again.

  ‘Fine.’ She was aware of him smiling, doing his best to get her to look at him, but she kept looking straight ahead to where a man and a child were flying a kite on the beach.

  ‘Good,’ Geoff said. ‘I never did meet that other one. What’s her name again?’

  ‘Janet.’

  ‘Yes, that’s it. Janet. She all right too?’

  ‘She’s getting there.’

  Suddenly Geoff stopped to look at her. ‘Are you all right, Katie? Only you seem a bit fed up.’

  And suddenly that was exactly how Kate felt. Fed up. No, more than fed up. Depressed. Ever since the split with Ian she’d been so angry; angry with an anger so red-hot it had soothed the edges of her pain. Anger had made her drink herself unconscious, lark about with Geoff and other friends, plot petty revenges on Ian and Jennifer and scream and shout at her layabout students. Anger had become her pastime, a satisfactory time-filler against the unspeakable alternative – an abyss of raw, unprocessed pain.

  By the side of a shelter long ago decorated by school children with paintings of dolphins, Kate came to an abrupt halt and looked at Geoff – her friend, her ally, her lifeline for the past ghastly twelve months. And he looked right back at her, frowning.

  ‘What’s up with your eyes, Katie?’ he asked. ‘They look all sore.’

  ‘Too much fresh air,’ she said abruptly, turning away before she burst into tears. ‘I’m calling it a day.’

  ‘Katie!’ he called after her, but she powered on, as fast as her bulky body would let her – back up the promenade, on past the amusement arcade, sharp left by the café and out of Geoff’s sight.

  * * * * *

  In Reenie and Ted’s bed, their lovemaking was proceeding along very familiar lines. After caressing her breasts for a while, Ted had gently removed her French knickers and moved on to caress her private parts. Private parts! Reenie chided herself. Her vulva, vagina and her clitoris. Mostly her clitoris. Which should be all right – after all, the clitoris was supposed to be her love bud, her key to untold, incomparable pleasure. So why did it just feel…well, uncomfortable when Ted got stuck in with it?

  Lying back with Ted caressing her, Reenie racked her brains to remember exactly what Jade had suggested to them about clitoral stimulation. It had been a few weeks back, the day they’d almost had that pervy old caretaker crashing in on them; the first time, in fact, that they’d taken their knickers off in front of each other. That was it – Jade had encouraged them to concentrate their caresses on everywhere but their clitorises at first. The odd teasing touch to it maybe, but no more than that, not until it was screaming for attention. Not that her clitoris had exactly screamed during the lesson, but it had spoken a bit, at least. Which was a lot more than it was doing now.

  Ted was getting ready to stop the caresses and climb on board – Reenie recognised the signs. If she didn’t speak now, it would be too late. ‘Love,’ she said gently, and Ted literally jumped, he was so unused to her speaking at all during sex.

  Caresses of all kinds instantly stopped altogether. ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she said, suddenly feeling as nervous as a teenager. ‘Just… well, d’you think you could touch some of my other places as well?’

  Ted pulled back to look at her. ‘What places?’

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘round and about. You know.’

  ‘Show me,’ Ted said.

  ‘Oh, well…’ Reenie lifted the duvet up and pointed into the darkness. ‘There and there…’

  Ted smiled. ‘No,’ he said, offering her his hand. ‘Show me.’

  ‘Oh.’ So, feeling like a fool and wishing she’d never said anything in the first place, Reenie attempted to guide Ted’s hand. And, once his hand was in place, Ted very obligingly caressed.

  ‘That better?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, much thanks,’ she said, even though it wasn’t at all. Or rather, it might have been, if she hadn’t felt so self-conscious, and if she wasn’t extremely aware of Ted’s erection deflating by the second.

  Time passed. Reenie was pretty sure Ted was no longer feeling aroused, and she certainly wasn’t herself. ‘It’s all right, love,’ she plucked up the courage to say at last. ‘Thanks.’

  Sighing, Ted rolled over onto his back. Reenie cuddled into his side in an attempt to be reassuring, looping one arm around his waist.

  ‘Never have been good at talking about sex, have we?’ he said at last. ‘Funny, really, when we’re so good at talking about everything else.’

  But Reenie thought with sudden pain about their son and how he had become almost a forbidden subject between the two of them. ‘Well, I don’t know if that’s strictly true,’ she
said. ‘I don’t really think we are good about talking about everything.’

  Ted turned to look at her. ‘What d’you mean?’ he asked, but Reenie’s eyes were full of tears, and when he saw them, Ted instantly stiffened.

  ‘We never speak about Craig,’ she persisted, but she saw the shutters immediately come down on his face.

  ‘What’s to speak about?’ he said. ‘The boy’s dead. End of subject.’ And with that, he swung his legs out of bed. ‘I’m off down the allotment,’ he said, grabbing some clothes and going to the bathroom to get dressed.

  * * * * *

  Estelle had gone into work finally, more for something to do than anything else. The thought of seeing RT was still unappealing, especially since he seemed so desperate to see her – he’d phoned at least five times in the past hour. So that meant golf was out. There was nobody she fancied seeing, except perhaps for Janet to gossip and chat about the previous evening, but it was Sunday and Janet would be busy with her family, undeserving of her as they may be. So, work it was.

  But when she pulled into the car park, another car was already parked there – Mark Turner’s. Frowning, Estelle let herself in and went through to his office.

  He looked up, surprised to see her. ‘Estelle! Hi!’

  ‘What are you doing in?’ she asked, not sounding over-friendly.

  But Mark just smiled. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not doing any out-of-hours embezzling,’ he said. ‘Just needed to get a few things ready for Paris.’

  The Paris sales conference. Of course. Estelle nodded. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Good.’

  She turned to go out again, but Mark stopped her. ‘What about you?’ he asked. ‘What brings you here on a fine day like this?’

  ‘I’m bored,’ she could have said. ‘I’m bored and lonely, and I’m trying to avoid my lover. Hell, I don’t even like my lover, so what sort of a person does that make me?’

  ‘Oh, just a bit of paperwork to do,’ she said instead.

  ‘Right,’ Mark said. He looked at her, a searching kind of look that gave her the impression there was something else he wanted to say. She raised an eyebrow, waiting, but then he seemed to bottle out. ‘Well,’ he said brightly, ‘I won’t be here long. I’m meeting someone at the Hampton for lunch at one.’

  His girlfriend, no doubt. The blonde she’d seen him with that night at the seafood restaurant. And suddenly it seemed to Estelle as if everyone in the entire world but her had someone they wanted to spend this sunny Sunday afternoon with.

  As if on cue, her mobile began to ring again. Taking it out of her bag she looked to see who was calling. RT again. She was almost tempted to answer it, to show Mark she had someone who wanted to spend some time with her as well, but the reality of meeting up with RT hit her just in time, so she switched her phone off again. She did not feel like an afternoon of unfulfilled shagging today. In fact, it was high time she finished her affair with RT, but she didn’t want to do that today either.

  Turning her back on Mark, she headed off towards her office. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘make sure you shut the outside door firmly behind you on your way out, won’t you?’

  ‘Of course,’ he said, but she had already gone into her office.

  * * * * *

  Janet had spent the majority of the day in bed – either there or in the bathroom anyway. She had staggered down to the kitchen at one point in a failed attempt to cook Sunday lunch, but it had proved completely beyond her. Debbie, thoroughly disgusted by the vomit in the slippers incident, had gone off somewhere, so Janet couldn’t ask her to do it. But in the end Ray didn’t come back for lunch anyway.

  In fact, the next time Janet saw him was when he came to bed later that night.

  ‘Ray?’ she said croakily into the darkness. ‘Is that you?’

  ‘Who else were you expecting?’ he said sarcastically, and even through her own hangover, Janet could tell he had been drinking.

  The bed sagged as he climbed in, and then she could smell his beery breath close up. Instinctively she turned away, afraid of feeling sick again, but Ray put a hand out to turn her roughly back again. ‘Getting it off with the church warden behind my back, are you?’ he said in a slightly slurred voice. ‘Faking a hangover so as to get me out of the way for a bit of righteous rumpy pumpy?’

  ‘Ray! Of course not! Don’t be silly!’ she said, but suddenly Ray’s mouth was clamped painfully to hers, shutting off any further words. It was a hideously brutal kiss of possession that was echoed in the rough way he divested her of her nightdress and clamped his hands onto her breasts.

  Sensing what was to come, Janet tried to shrink back, her body rigid with rejection, but Ray carried on regardless, entering her with a grunt, his greedy penis tearing at her unprepared flesh.

  Twenty-one

  The weather was bright and sunny that week, though for all Janet noticed, it might just as well have been snowing. She felt depressed and lethargic. Ray, on the other hand, seemed to be in a particularly good mood. There was chirpiness about the way he shook his newspaper out and bit into his toast at the breakfast table. Once or twice he even hummed tunelessly, something he never did unless he was pleased with himself. Evidently he thought he had taught Janet a lesson. He was talking to her again anyway, and didn’t seem to notice that she didn’t have very much to say in return.

  When Friday morning came round, Janet considered not going to the workshop. She knew she wouldn’t find it easy to hide how she was feeling from the girls – especially Reenie and Estelle. But in the end she did go, if only because it felt as if the unsuitably jaunty sunflower yellow walls of her kitchen were closing in on her.

  Because of her indecision, she was uncharacteristically late arriving at the hall, but, as she quietly pushed the door open, she soon discovered that her misery was unlikely to be detected after all. A full-scale row appeared to be taking place.

  ‘I’m sorry, Jade, but I’ve had a bellyful of the “importance of connecting with my inner sex goddesses”!’ Estelle was saying unpleasantly. ‘It’s just too wishy-washy! It’s week five, for God’s sake, and none of us is any closer to having an orgasm. Are we girls?’ Estelle looked round at Reenie and Kate for confirmation.

  ‘Think I’m further away from it than ever, actually,’ Reenie said miserably.

  Estelle nodded in an ‘I told you so’ kind of a way. ‘And you, Kate?’ she prompted.

  Kate shrugged. ‘Me? I’m just fucking losing it,’ she said, her voice unnaturally quiet and subdued.

  ‘There you are,’ Estelle said to Jade triumphantly, and Janet shrank instinctively into the shadows, not wanting to become the next focus for Estelle’s attention. ‘Even Kate’s dissatisfied with the way the course is going.’

  ‘It isn’t just what we’re learning,’ Kate said. ‘It’s all the constant bickering as well. You bossing everyone around. I’m sick of it.’

  ‘Oh, that’s right,’ Estelle said nastily. ‘Blame everyone else because things aren’t going right for you. You’ve been set on failure since Day One. And not just for yourself either – for all of us.’

  ‘You’re the one who’s carping on at Jade about the uselessness of these classes!’ Kate pointed out aggressively, and Janet hunched her shoulders, attempting to sidle out of the hall again while she still hadn’t been noticed.

  Except that somebody had noticed her. Jade. While Estelle and Kate continued to squabble, Jade silently got up and drifted over to Janet, putting a welcoming hand on her shoulder.

  ‘Hello, Janet,’ Jade said warmly and, to Janet’s surprise, she bent to kiss her on the cheek. ‘It’s good to see you. As you can see, we’re in the middle of a debate. Do come and join us.’

  Short of wrenching herself away and making a bolt for it, Janet had no choice but to be drawn towards the hostile trio. And as she didn’t have the energy for either wrenching or bolting, she sat down meekly, avoiding all eye contact, while Jade stood at the front to address them all.

  ‘Ladies,’ she said. ‘I can see
that you’re not happy, so let’s talk about it.’

  Estelle tore her glance away from Janet. ‘We’ve done quite enough talking!’ she said. ‘What we need are techniques!’

  But Jade seemed determined not to become ruffled. Instead she sat down, carefully arranging her skirts before looking up and smiling. ‘All the techniques in the world won’t help you if you aren’t truly prepared to take a risk,’ she told them calmly.

  It was like a red rag to a bull.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ Estelle retorted.

  ‘Excuse me, Jade,’ Reenie said, ‘but last weekend I did what you suggested – I tied Ted to the flippin’ bedstead and… stroked myself in front of him! If that isn’t risky, then I’d like to know what is!’

  Janet could sense Estelle’s gaze moving on to her, urging her to make a contribution to the argument, but she continued to hang her head. She had nothing to say.

  ‘You’re doing wonderfully,’ Jade told them, still in that same calm voice. ‘All of you. I am so proud of you, I really am. And I know you’ve all taken personal risks. Even coming to these classes in the first place was a risk. But…’ Jade paused, looking at them all in turn. ‘It isn’t enough.’

  Estelle coloured up. She looked angry enough to spit.

  Jade carried on swiftly. ‘Being orgasmic is about being free of all barriers and inhibitions.’ She held up her hand to forestall interruptions. ‘And yes, I know that what you did with your husband must have seemed uninhibited, Reenie, but tell me, did it really feel uninhibited? Or were you uneasy? Did you feel like someone on stage with an audience watching her every move?’

  Reenie’s gaze dropped. She began to fiddle with the hem of her dress.

  Jade gave them another sweeping glance. ‘You aren’t actresses,’ she said. ‘To be effective, sensuality must come naturally to you. And until you face your personal demons, I honestly don’t think that it will.’