Page 81 of The Missus
The woman shook her head at Keira and walked away. Keira thought that was a pretty good argument for the advice, ‘Don’t shit where you eat.’ Speaking of which, here came Kelly.
‘Hi, Sexy,’ Kelly said.
Keira’s eyes widened. ‘That’s no way for a taken woman to talk.’
‘I’m cohabiting, not dead,’ Kelly said, though she did do a quick check to see if her beloved was in earshot. Keira saw he was in the kitchen, tackling some washing up. In the middle of his party.
After a slightly awkward silence, Keira thought she should attempt some ‘friendly’ chat. ‘So, you seen any good movie’s lat—’
‘I’ve seen you, you know,’ Kelly interrupted.
Keira raised an eyebrow. ‘What?’
‘In that coffee shop. I’ve been working evenings, and my route takes me past that place every evening. And there you sit, alone. Every night.’
It was Keira’s turn to check quickly to see if Alanna was around. As far as she was concerned, Keira was on a nightly quest for naked fun times. But Alanna was on the other side of the room, having her ear bent by Jonty about something she didn’t seem too thrilled about. ‘Kelly…’ Keira began.
‘Look, I know what it’s all about. You and Alanna haven’t worked out and you’re staying out of her way.’
Keira was about to dispute that when she realised there was no point. It was the simplest thing for Kelly to believe. Alanna was leaving and didn’t care who knew they weren’t a couple anymore, so why argue? ‘You caught me. Yep. Everything you said, bang on.’
Kelly sighed and smiled. ‘I knew you couldn’t last.’
Keira looked at Alanna, listening with a strained smile to her mother’s new beau. ‘Of course we couldn’t,’ Keira said, turning back to Kelly. ‘Good for you, Nostradamus.’
‘Yeah, it was pretty obvious you weren’t right. What with all the cheating.’
Keira felt that Kelly had pissed on her and Alanna’s corpses enough and should really zip up her trousers now, but she didn’t want to give Kelly the satisfaction of knowing she was annoying her. ‘We can’t all be the dream couple.’
‘Me and Benjaminaresomething special.’ She paused. ‘Not perfect, of course.’
Keira wasn’t sure if she wanted to know, but she asked anyway. ‘What does that mean?’
‘Oh, nothing. Just a thing where he wants me to dress up like a Labrador for him, and I’m not really into that. Other than that, it’s pretty great.’
Keira was forced to swallow a metric ton of laughter. ‘Oh?’
‘Yeah, I mean, everyone’s got a kink. For instance, I love a good bottom spanking,’ she said with a glint in her eye. ‘But you remember that, don’t you?’
Keira scratched her temple. ‘I dimly recall, yes. Not really on a par with a dog fetish, though, is it? I mean, a bit of spanking is pretty vanilla these days.’
Kelly’s hackles went up. ‘It’s not a dog fetish. Furries like anthropomorphised animals, a distinctly human element to them. Not the same thing,’ she said defensively.
‘I didn’t mean to kink shame the dude, my apologies,’ Keira said quickly.
Kelly’s hackles slid back down. ‘Yes, well. It’s still not my cup of tea, so what the hell am I supposed to do?’
‘I guess that depends on whether you might be comfortable going along with it now and again,’ Keira suggested casually. She wasn’t sure how the hell she’d gotten into this conversation, but she wanted out.
‘I dunno. I don’t care about it either way. It’s just… Isn’t love supposed to be easy? Aren’t we just supposed to fit?’
That didn’t quite sound right to Keira, but she didn’t have the experience to say either way. ‘I don’t know, Kelly. I’m not the one to ask.’
‘Because you and Alanna don’t fit?’
Jesus, Kelly really couldn’t leave it alone, could she? ‘Sure, yeah.’
‘So, you wanna go over to yours for twenty minutes?’ Kelly asked with utter nonchalance. ‘We’ll just tell those two we went out for ice. Actually, do you have ice? Because it would be a lot easier to make that fly if we really came back with a bag.’
