“Oh, fuck! I’m gonna come!” Pi yells.
“Me too!”
Something cracks. I can’t figure out which part of my body the sound came from. I felt it everywhere. In my back, in my arms, in my jaw. But it feels too good to stop. I’m too close.
“Was that snapping noise . . . from you . . . or me?” I ask between my panting breaths.
“Uh, I think it was . . . Oh, god.”
The crack happens again, only this time it’s louder. My teeth clash together. It’s the whiplike splintering of a branch falling from a tree, or the sound of wood fracturing—
Shit, it’s the bed.
I freeze. Don’t move. I know the second I do, the frame will topple, but I’m right on the edge of finishing, and I need. . . just a little more friction . . .
Oh god, it stings . . .
Just a tiny bit more . . .
Fuck it. I can’t hold back any longer.
I hold Pi still and hump him, as though I’m Gristle with a bare ankle. A gunshot blast reverberates throughout the room. The bed lurches, drops, like a failed hydraulic press, and lists to the side.
There’s a groaning noise, similar to the one used as a movie sound effect when a certain passenger ship sinks in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, and the bed’s righthand legs buckle. Pi and I are ragdoll-tossed across the mattress. I’m still whining through the tail end of my orgasm as the left legs also succumb to my formidable bulk.
“Well, at least we got them all,” Pi says, turning his head and looking up at me.
I climb off him, and glance around at the destruction.
Um . . . whoopsie, that was totally my fault.
“I feel as though I wasted an opportunity to yell ‘timber’ when I nutted. Did you finish?” I say.
“Is it shameful to say yes?” He rolls over to show me the wet patch on the sheets. “Where are we gonna sleep tonight?”
I scratch my head. “Um . . . maybe we can fix it . . .” I crouch down to assess the extent of the damage, to see if it’s in any way salvageable. “Yeah, no. That’s fucked, pard. We’ll have to go bed shopping tomorrow.”
Pi stands, rubs a hand down his chest. “That wasn’t an antique or anything?”
“Nah, it’s from Leoni’s mate in St Austell. Probably just some IKEA tat.”
He nods. “Okay, phew. Right, you fetch some clean sheets and make us a cup of tea, and I’ll get rid of all these bits of wood. We’ll sleep on the mattress on the floor tonight.”
“Yes, Captain,” I say, saluting him.
He smiles, then flips me off.
Also, tea after sex? I love how British he’s accidentally becoming.
“This one says same day delivery?” Pi says, plonking his butt on the end of a wooden queen-sized and bouncing up and down.
We’re in Bedland, a massive bed shop on the outskirts of Truro. Last night’s kip on the floor was less than ideal. It was at once too hot and too cold, and I never realised before how many kidney-poking springs there are in Leoni’s old mattress, but now I’m looking at a total overhaul of sleeping apparatus for that room.
“Fine by me. A bed’s a bed,” I say, sitting next to him. Ooh, it’s so soft.
“Hi, how’re you fellas doing today?” A sales assistant approaches. She’s white and in her early forties with a short brown bob haircut.
“We’re good, thank you,” I reply. “You?”
