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Chapter 6
“This is nice.” Judith sat bolt-upright on a stool in the corner of the Shamrock sipping elegantly at her prosecco. “I don’t normally do this on a Monday.”
Polly grinned, hooking her feet on the rungs of her own stool. “You don’t normally do this on any day of the week. You need to come out with the girls more often.”
Judith’s face fell. “Mark likes me home with him. He’s not mad on me socialising. Mind you, I have to say he doesn’t mind spending hours at his computer gaming and drinking with his mates when it suits.”
“That’s plain wrong.”
“I guess it’s been a gradual thing.”
“How long now?”
Judith frowned. “What do you mean?”
“How long have you been waiting around, cooking for him, cleaning up after him, living in hope that he’ll finally get around to popping the question?”
“Oh, I’m not. That comment in the toilet about him proposing was a joke. We’re absolutely fine just living together.”
Jude’s lie was so well-rehearsed her nose had given up growing.
“Nonsense!” Polly huffed indignantly. “You’re the marrying and baby kind. You knit baby clothes in your spare time, you crochet, you do macramé…”
“I’m an occupational therapist, that’s what everyone expects of us, so why disappoint?” Judith laughed, swiping a good-natured hand at Polly’s arm and missing. “Anyway, I knit them for my friends’ babies. It’s a nice thing to do.”
That was hardly surprising, considering Judith was officially in the top ten list of the world’s nicest people. Which was probably why she’d put up with Mark for so long. Polly didn’t get how you could lie down, spray paint the word “welcome”onto yourself, and let a man wipe his feet all over you. When she lay down for a man it was a completely different welcome on offer… and a very short-lived one at that.
Say g’day, play, and move right along.
And then the memory of Solo’s hands cupping her breasts and his warm lips coaxing her nipples into hungry peaks sent such a throb to her sex, she almost winced. Okay, so she’d had fun, but if ever there was a reason to move right along, it was the fact that she’d be working with the guy. Quickly, she reverted to Judith’s love life. “Remind me how long you two have been together?”
Judith hid behind the curtain of her long blonde hair. “Twelve years,” the answer came in a very small voice.
“So you were…?”
“Seventeen.”
“Right. That’s a hell of a long time. How often do you do it these days?”
Judith blushed to the roots of her hair. “God, do you—is that what I think you mean?” She cast Polly a horrified look. “Yes, you really do—honestly, Polly, I’ll never get used to how direct you are about these things.”
Polly popped her eyes. “What are ‘thesethings’? Ball-bearings, egg cups, garden gnomes? Just say it, Jude. Sex. S.E.X. It’s perfectly natural and normal.”
Judith gulped down a large mouthful of prosecco, her eyes watering as she lowered her glass. “For you, yes, Polly Fletcher, the sexologist. Not for me.”
Polly laughed. “What’s wrong with discussing your sex life with a friend?”
“It’s embarrassing.”
“Only if you let it be. Besides, I tell you stuff.” Apart from the last adventure; that particular little interlude she would take to her grave.
“That’s different.”
“Why?”
Judith giggled. “You actually have something worth telling. Besides, no-one ever mentioned the word ‘sex’ when I was growing up. If it ever got to a kissing scene in a movie, Dad would say, ‘Time for a cup of tea, Marg’, and Mum would fuss off to make one with a lot of harrumphing and Dad would stomp around and pick up his newspaper and rustle through it, and if you were hoping to immerse yourself in how lovely it was to see Brad Pitt making out with Angelina Jolie you’d feel so awkward you’d have to suddenly take a pee break instead. Not exactly the recipe for feeling comfortable around S.E.X, is it?”
“At least you’ve got insight.”
