‘I find your payment terms very favourable,’ he joked in hushed tones when she pulled away again, his hand lingering on her waist. His touch made the top of Penny’s thighs ache.
Sex-y.
Francesco set about with the last of the pans in the dishwash area as Penny sprayed and wiped down all the surfaces, and he’d been right: working together meant they got done in super quick time.
‘What are we listening to?’ he asked across the kitchen, after about ten minutes of companionable effort.
‘The High Low podcast,’ Penny replied.
‘They’re funny,’ he said, resuming his work.
Penny snuck glances of him from the other side of the workspace. She watched him crumple his face, concentrating on the two women coming from the speaker talking about the high maternal death rate in black mothers. He nodded slightly, as if agreeing with the point at hand, and Penny saw the way it made the muscle of his shoulders ripple under his t-shirt, how his neck moved.
‘It’s rude to stare,’ he said, not looking up from the sink. ‘You taught me that.’
‘Caught red-handed,’ Penny said.
He flashed her a smile, elbow deep in the bubbles from the washing up.
Francesco loaded the last few pieces into the dishwasher, pulled the plug on the sink, and then rinsed everything down with the shower head attached to the plug.
‘Let’s go outside for your smoke,’ he said, after Estelle and Stuart had come down to say goodbye for the day.
‘I’ll mop us out and we can share a San Pellegrino from my stash out there,’ Penny replied.
‘How illicit.’
‘Just go,’ she said, laughing and pointing to the exit.
He stood outside the open door, against the walk-in fridge. It was his turn to watch her now, and it had turned into an unspoken game: she’d watched him and not been bothered at being caught, so now he watched her without hiding it, refusing to shy from doing exactly the same.
‘Listen,’ Penny said, as she crouched down to the bottom step, her 4 p.m. ritual, passing him a can of her fizzy drink and preparing to roll a cigarette. ‘Can I be totally upfront with you?’
‘You can,’ Francesco encouraged, moving towards her. He stood in front of her and she forgot what she was going to say. She swore she could feel the heat radiating from his trousers, and her breath got shallow at his proximity.
‘I, um …’ she began, and then BOOM. Somehow the pair of them went from two separate entities to enmeshed together, mouth to mouth, breathlessly consuming each other. Penny stumbled so that her back was against the outside wall, and she could feel Francesco through his jeans. They moved up against one another, the friction getting more and more urgent, the kissing deeper and deeper. Penny melted into Francesco’s every movement, furious with passion. He moved to her jawline, her neck, he pulled at Penny’s apron, pawed at her chef’s whites to find his way to bare skin. Whatever she’d been about to say was forgotten.
‘Mmmm,’ she moaned, electrified by him. And then: ‘Wait – wait!’
Francesco pulled away. ‘Stop?’ he said.
‘No,’ Penny intoned. ‘Not stop. Upstairs.’
‘Upstairs,’ Francesco repeated. ‘Good.’
Penny pulled him by the wrist so that he was inside, locking the back door behind him. She led the way through the sparklingly clean kitchen and up to the café so they could get to the flat, Francesco pushed up against her back, kissing her neck and behind her ears, stopping every few steps so that she could turn around and have their mouths meet.
In her front room she said, ‘Can I shower? I don’t want our first time to be when I smell like a kitchen.’
‘I don’t care what you smell of,’ Francesco told her, coming in for another kiss, but she put a finger to his lips and insisted.
‘I do. Wait here.’ As she left, she said to her Amazon speaker: ‘Alexa, play some Frank Ocean. Thank you.’ She lit a sandalwood incense stick on the table.
‘You’re very polite to your voice-activated technology,’ Francesco said, loosening his belt.
‘When the A.I. revolution comes, it is I who shall be spared,’ Penny smirked, noting the way he was making himself more comfortable. She added: ‘Okay, hold on.’
Penny returned only after she’d taken the day off her, standing naked in front of him, hair damp and loose around her shoulders, her eyes wide and lips parted.
Francesco took in the sight of her.
‘Come here,’ he growled, standing and walking towards her, taking her hand. ‘This is going to be a lot of fun.’
5
‘Okay, mmmm. Yeah,’ Penny lightly sighed.
‘Yeah?’ Francesco asked.
‘Yeah,’ Penny said. ‘Yeah. That feels good.’
‘Okay. Good. Could you just …’
‘Oh. Sure. Like this?’
‘Or maybe—’
‘Ouch! Watch my hair, it’s caught—’
‘Oh, shit, yeah. Sorry.’
‘It’s okay.’
Francesco and Penny had initiated incredibly bad sex.
He had kissed her – kissed her everywhere. Penny had let his tongue roam her body, her cheeks, her chin, her breasts, her thighs, between her legs. She had undressed him, and pushed him onto the sofa, rolling a condom onto him and straddling his lap. She’d braced herself for the feeling of being filled, of handing herself over to him, of their two bodies becoming one … but it wasn’t working.
‘What if I go on top?’ Francesco said.
‘Yeah, okay,’ Penny murmured, moving off him and lying back.
He loomed over her, and she grumbled, ‘I just – these cushions. I’ll just move these …’ She picked up a throw pillow and dropped it to the floor.
Silently, and with increasing half-heartedness, Francesco pumped away. His eyes were scrunched closed in intense concentration. Penny coughed a little. She’d been hugely turned on but now things felt significantly less … lubricated.
Francesco stopped for a second to wipe hair from his clammy brow.
They made eye contact and smiled, Francesco going to speak but seeing that Penny was about to, and Penny going to speak but seeing Francesco was about to, and so both nervously giggling and neither saying anything until Francesco uttered, gingerly: ‘Should we stop?’
Penny said, ‘Yeah. It’s okay. Let’s stop.’
The relief was palpable to them both.
6
Penny couldn’t believe it. Hadn’t she and Sharon joked about this exact outcome – that a man as handsome as Francesco would be rubbish in bed?
‘Clemmie!’ Penny said in a panicked Personal Podcast. ‘What the hell! I knew it was too good to be true!’ Clementine had replied telling her not to be so bloody precious.
‘Bad sex happens to good people,’ Clementine said in response. ‘Remember when you were sleeping with that anonymous sex blogger you refused to introduce anyone to, but he was the best sex you’d had since Mo? You know why he was the best sex you’d had, don’t you? Because it was the only time you felt close to him. It’s easy to have good sex without any emotions because in bed is the only time you truly connected. But if you and this handsome Italian are all, go! go! go! connection central! outside of the bedroom, maybe there’s a bit more riding on what happens when the lights go out. It’s not like you don’t fancy him, is it? You do fancy him. So I’m afraid the only thing to do is chill out and try again, sis. Also, can you book train tickets for Eric’s birthday weekend? And is your Italian stallion coming too?’
Penny had texted her back as soon as she’d listened to what Clementine had to say.
It’s irritating that you have such perspective on my life, Penny typed. I would say ‘screw you’, but obviously the person I’ve got to screw, again, is Francesco.
Clementine replied: That’s my girl! Let me know how it goes. And please acknowledge my request about the trains! xxx
Penny couldn’t help but feel embarrassed, though. She knew she fancied Franc
esco, but did having bad sex mean that actually he didn’t quite fancy her?
‘He fancies you!’ Sharon said, over a 6 p.m. after-work tea.
‘Come here, you,’ Penny said to Mia, scooping up Sharon’s daughter to make her squeal in delighted giggles.
‘Auntie Penny! Again!’ pleaded Mia, as Penny tried to put her down. Penny reached for her once more, blowing a raspberry on her tummy that meant before she’d even stopped, Mia was begging for ‘again!’ once more. It made Penny’s heart grow twelve sizes, having a pudgy hand wrapped around her own in glee and being the one who made that noise of joy happen. She loved kids, and she loved her friend’s kids.
‘Let Auntie Penny drink her tea,’ Sharon instructed. ‘Can you draw her a picture of a unicorn, or a queen?’
‘Yeah,’ shrieked Mia, padding to her tiny table and chair in the corner of the kitchen. ‘I can draw.’
‘Good girl,’ whispered Sharon, bending to kiss her daughter on the head.
‘So, a rubbish shag.’ Sharon returned to the breakfast stools and Penny, who watched Mia bend over a blank sheet of A4 with her crayons. Sharon lowered her voice to say it, so Mia didn’t hear.
‘Yeah,’ sighed Penny. ‘I’m gutted.’
‘Can I ask you something?’
‘You can …’ said Penny.
‘Where are you at with having a family right now? Finding a surrogate? I thought all this was a bit of fun but you’re actually falling for him properly, aren’t you?’
Penny had spoken to Sharon at great length about her desire to become a mother, and how she wanted that almost more than anything in the world. She’d explained to Sharon almost right after they’d met that before the radiotherapy and ensuing hormone therapy, Penny’s eggs had been retrieved and then fertilized with German donor sperm, so that the resulting embryos could be checked for the BRCA mutation. That way, Penny could prevent passing on the risk of breast cancer to her children, and feel a bit more in control about her future. The embryos were currently in a storage unit for the princely sum of three hundred pounds a year, and on-and-off Penny talked about using them, via IVF and with a surrogate. She’d not had a boyfriend since Mo, so it had been about finding the courage to do it alone – she didn’t necessarily believe that first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in the baby carriage, especially when the baby already half-existed as an embryo. She went through increasingly determined phases of feeling incredibly empowered about using them and then finding love later – especially since up until last month it had seemed like love was going to elude her forever – and then getting cold feet and deciding to wait another six months, just in case.
‘Well,’ said Penny. ‘I just don’t know. It’s all been going so well with him, so to be honest I haven’t really been thinking about IVF or surrogacy or motherhood. Which is weird because I was definitely getting to “at least ninety per cent ready” territory. But then he walked into the café, and it’s just been lovely. I mean, it’s a bit different now, though, because …’
‘Crap sex.’
‘Crap. Sex. And so maybe he’ll run a mile embarrassed, or maybe I want to run a mile embarrassed. And I mean, it’s too early to tell him about the whole can’t-carry-kids-myself thing, or even that if in some crazy world where we end up together we actually couldn’t have his kids. I’d be stupid to bring that up two weeks in. But yeah. It feels different with him, worth pausing the constant shall-I-or-shan’t-I “do it now” question I keep asking myself. I’ve got nothing to lose by seeing where this goes …’
‘Have you heard from him today?’
‘He texted this morning to say he hoped I had a good day, but to be honest we’d normally have called one another as we prepped at work, so something is already different.’
‘Text him right now,’ Sharon instructed. ‘Don’t sit and wonder. If you think your ego is bruised then honestly, try being a man. A disappointing lay to you is upsetting, but to a man who needs his testosterone to validate his masculinity? Devastating.’
Penny shook her head. ‘Francesco isn’t like that,’ she contended, picking up her phone and unlocking it anyway. ‘He’s not a caveman.’
‘Darling,’ Sharon insisted, wandering over to check on her daughter. ‘When it comes to s-e-x, they’re all cavemen.’
Penny opened the text thread between her and Francesco right as a new message appeared on her screen from him. It said: So, last night was …
Penny smiled. Yeah, she replied, instantly, adding, (So weird! Just picked up my phone to message you as you messaged me!)
It makes no sense, Francesco texted back. We should be on fire! Like so, so hot. (Great minds think alike!)
‘Do you want to stay for dinner?’ Sharon asked. ‘It’s shepherd’s pie.’
‘Sure,’ said Penny. ‘Sorry to be rude – he’s texting me right now.’
‘Oh, what’s he saying?’
‘He’s a bit confused as well, I think.’
Penny typed: Maybe we’d put too much pressure on it?
His reply came: Well it’s not like we planned it to happen then, did we? I mean, you weren’t expecting me, and I was genuinely only stopping by for the food …
True. Penny responded. Although I’d definitely been thinking about it …
Oh really???
She smiled. She had thought about it. She kept a small vibrator in her bedside table and had used it more than once before bed as she thought about it. Penny had wanted him since they met. Since she’d watched him unload bread from the van. She replied provocatively with three dots.
Okay, I’d thought about it too, Francesco texted. A lot. I’d even … you know … THOUGHT ABOUT IT.
Well, at least they’d both had good sex in their minds, Penny reasoned. She responded:
So we should try it again, he replied. Right?
‘He’s asking if we should try again,’ Penny called over to Sharon. ‘And that’s what I want, right? A second go-around?’
‘You tell me,’ said Sharon, fishing about in the freezer.
For sure! Yes! OMG yes. I would like that very much, Penny typed back. She wanted to sound enthusiastic in case what Sharon had said about the male ego thing was true, even for him.
‘Yes,’ Penny said out loud.
Okay, well, good talk, came the reply.
GREAT talk, said Penny.
I’ve got service now, but I’ll speak to you later?
Yes, said Penny. Speak to you later xxxxx
‘Do you know what?’ said Sharon, reappearing from her freezer. ‘I don’t actually fancy the pie. Shall I order pizza instead?’
‘You’ve got something wholesome and good for you right within reach, and you want what isn’t?’ Penny said.
Sharon shrugged, smiling.
‘Okay, pizza,’ said Penny.
Penny and Francesco took more afternoon walks around the reservoir, fitting them in after her service but before his, and kissing at what Penny thought of as ‘their’ gate. They talked on the phone. They texted when they woke up, and before they went to sleep. They made plans, starting sentences with ‘We should …’ or ‘We could …’ or ‘Shall we …’ Penny wasn’t used to being a ‘we’. It was seductive. The ‘us’ thing … well, ‘us’ felt okay with Francesco. She didn’t feel the usual fear and she didn’t feel like she had to hold him away from her, close enough to know him but far enough away so that he’d never truly know her. She liked him. And what was more, she was starting to trust him. Maybe I will tell him about the kids thing, she reflected. Sooner rather than later.
‘Wow,’ said Clementine, as they sat together on a bench in Clissold Park. ‘Big feelings are happening.’
‘Maybe?’ Penny replied. ‘I daren’t believe it, but I think … yes?’
‘Well you’ve got to figure out the bedroom thing then. Without a doubt.’
Francesco and Penny had tried again to find their sexual groove, but it still wasn’t right. It was like there was something else in the room
with them, some third entity that distracted them and made them too self-conscious to enjoy the moment. It was maddening. They’d started to laugh about it, which eased the mood, but they were yet to manage a ten-out-of-ten romp. They were stalling at about a three-and-a-half. A C-minus. Passable at a push.
‘Everything goes where it should, and the theory is all there,’ explained Penny. ‘But in practice it’s not exactly on fire, you know?’
‘Well,’ said Clementine, ‘that kind of fits in to what I wanted to talk to you about.’
‘Okay …’ said Penny, searching her sister’s face for clues but coming up short. Clementine wanted to talk about Penny’s lacklustre sex life?
‘I wanted to tell you that I’ve given this a lot of thought, and – just so you know, and in case you wanted me to – when you’re ready, I would absolutely love to be your surrogate.’
‘My surrogate?’ said Penny, stunned.
‘Your surrogate,’ repeated back Clementine, nodding. Smiling. She did a little ‘ta-da!’ motion with one hand, but Penny didn’t smile back.
‘You want to be my surrogate.’
‘I really, really do, Pen.’
They were clutching hot chocolates from the café in the middle of the park, where Clementine went every morning when she was in London to ensure she hit her daily 10,000 steps.
‘Can we sit down?’ Penny said. ‘Just for a minute. This is … a lot.’
‘We are sitting down,’ said Clementine, her voice quiet. ‘Are you okay? I figured you knew this was coming …’
‘Yes, I’m okay,’ Penny said. ‘No. I wasn’t expecting this.’
They sat overlooking the water feature. The second ‘fake spring’ of the season was doing a great job of acting like actual spring, with a cloudless sky and neither of them in coats. Uncle David had said on the family WhatsApp group this morning that they should both enjoy it, because snow was forecast at the weekend. He’d sent a gif of the two sisters from Frozen, for emphasis. He often joked that they looked like those sisters: Clementine with her long blonde hair and Penny the bright redhead.
The Love Square Page 7