Page 43 of Lovers in Lockdown

There’s something seriously wrong with me.

I’m not even interested in having babies anytime soon, let alone with a man who sees me as nothing more than a game to pass the time in lockdown. Maybe I can get surgery to remove the part of my brain responsible for this, the part that thinks having Noah’s babies is a spectacular idea. A lobotomy, maybe. Are they still a thing?

Our kids would be cute though, there’s no denying that. With his emerald eyes and my honey-blonde hair, they’d be the cutest little babies on the block.

‘You alright?’ Noah nudges me.

Clearly, I’ve been silently imagining the faces of our offspring for a little while.

I nod and fill up my glass with wine. Wine is what I need right now, it will stop all this silliness and make sure my brain doesn’t blindside me with any more disconcerting fantasies. That’s how alcohol works, right?

‘TV?’ Noah grabs the remote and flicks through the channels before settling on a show called ‘Naked Attraction’.

‘What’s this?’

‘You’ve seriously never seen this before?’ he asks, his mouth stretching into a disbelieving smile that simultaneously has my pussy pulsating and my stomach feeling uneasy. His enormous cheeky grin hints that this isn’t going to be any ordinary television show.

‘No.’ I blink at him. ‘I seriously haven’t seen it before. You gonna tell me what it is, or?’

‘A dating show with a twist,’ he flashes his teeth, barely containing his excitement. ‘Oh, baby, strap yourself in. You’re in for a treat.’

My heart jumps at the term of endearment and I scan his face, looking to see if he realised what he just called me. But his eyes are fixed to the screen, the green globes glinting mischievously, his smile so big and wide that it makes evenmycheeks ache.

I cross my legs and get comfortable on the couch. That is, as comfortable as one can get on a couch that is so lumpy and hard it feels like something out of a semi-legal detention centre. How Noah has slept every night on this for the past several weeks is beyond me.

The show starts and we’re introduced to a girl in her twenties who’s talking to the female presenter about what she’s looking for in an ideal partner. Her hair is dark and falls in choppy waves over a black lace top, the neckline cut so low her nipples are only just hidden. They’re stood in a dark studio, just the two of them. Behind them are six human-sized boxes in varying colours, with a silhouette of a person hidden behind each translucent door.

‘I need a guy with a big heart and a big dick,’ the girl declares, making me throw a hand over my mouth and cringe in shame on her behalf.

‘Jesus Christ, she’s not shy, is she?’

‘Just you wait,’ Noah laughs and motions for me to keep watching.

‘Right, let’s see the bottom half of the boys,’ the presenter announces and the doors to each box begin to rise, revealing six pairs of bare feet.

Six pairs of bare legs.

Six pairs of -

‘Holy mother of fuck!’

The doors grind to a halt just inches above six pairs of totally naked testicles and six totally naked flaccid wangs of all different shapes and sizes.What in the name of God are we watching?

‘Jesus, what’s with all the willies?’ I scream at Noah, who's convulsing in fits of laughter on the other side of the couch, and throw a cushion over my eyes to save me from the cacophony of cocks currently staring at me on the screen.

‘Oh my god,’ he wheezes. ‘You should see your face.’

I throw the pillow at his face to shut him up, but it doesn’t work. He only howls harder.

‘Noah, can you explain why we’re staring at the bottom half of six completely naked men right now?’

He calms down just enough to explain that the girl has to pick a date based on who she is most physically attracted to. The naked bodies are revealed in stages and each round she has to reject a contestant until there’s only one left.

It’s car crash TV at its finest.

And I am fully invested in watching the show to the very end.

The camera zooms in for a close-up on a pair of particularly ghastly testicles that look as if they’re being smothered to death by a mound of overgrown pubic hair. Vomit shoots up my throat and it takes everything in me to swallow it back down again.

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