What the fuck? How did this happen? She was my bitch of an ex-wife, I didn't hate her but I didn't like her much either. OK, that wasn't quite true. But there is no denying that she had taken me to the fucking cleaners and wiped me from her life like a j-cloth of flash cleaner burnishing out a grimy tidemark on her enamel bath. What the fuck's going on here?
Before we knew what was going down, we were sucking each others tongues like a pair of demented intertwined cyclonic Dysons, tearing off our clothes like desperate teenagers with the folks gone up the shops for maybe ten minutes tops.
I swear I must've popped a couple of buttons off her lacy blouse. I hitched her dress up and she pulled down my dishevelled sweatpants, my erection sprang up like a steel girder. I yanked the gusset of her delicate lace knickers to one side and she climbed up on the sofa and plunged down on me until our pelvic bones mashed together like two HGVs crossing the dividing line and hitting head on, both of us explosively expelling the air from our lungs.
Piddles jumped off his end of the sofa in shock at such goings on and hid under the bed. Shirley and I fucked each other like frantic may bugs. We were all over the place, completely out of sync with one another, each urgently trying to catch up with the other and failing, but failing wonderfully.
I pushed up like a submerged mariner desperately fighting for air, she ground down on me like she needed to scratch an itch that she couldn't quite reach no matter how hard she tried. Our bodies steamed in that freezing flat like we were in a Swedish sauna, the sweat poured off us in streams like the flood running from my fucking library books. We came, not together like we used to when we were regular practised lovers, but untidily, spasming to our separate conclusions.
I guess she beat me by a short head.
"What the fuck just happened, Shirl?" I puffed, the blood rushing back to my brain and logical thought belatedly trying to re-establish authority over my automatic bodily actions.
"Love, honey, love," grinned Shirley, still panting, as she continued to slowly grind our pelvises together, making little squealing noises as she did so. I had started to soften after coming but, still embedded in her slick velvet heaven, my response appeared to be stiffening once more under her minuscule movements.
"What about ... Henry?" I hated even mentioning his fucking bastard name, but I remembered how much pain I had felt when some other greedy randy male organ had trespassed into pussy territory that I felt I had exclusive drilling rights on.
"He died," she said undramatically, without passion, her eyes closed as she continued rocking to and fro on my lap, sending scintillating tingles up my spine, while I involuntarily started little thrusting actions upwards again. She continued after some thought, "November ... 14 it was. Oh that's great honey, harder!"
"But ..." I said, stopping my movements in shock at the news of my old adversary's untimely demise, "What the fuck?"
Shirley stopped too, opened her eyes and said matter-of-factly, "He had a heart attack, Barry. He is no longer an issue between us. I fucked him, I lived with him, I never loved him. Now, where the fuck were we, darling?"
She started her familiar little gyrations again, then changed them slightly, into tight little heavenly figures of eight.
"So, are you single again ... or are you ...?" I stuttered, I never seemed to be able to string words together when I was with this woman.
"Single. You?"
"Very single," I muttered, "Not done this in ... years."
"Nor me," she said, eyes shut again.
"Wha'?"
"He was fucking his Secretary, ok? I suppose you find that funny? Just desserts, or something?"
"No," I lied, trying hard to stop smiling, thanking whoever was concerned that her eyes were still closed as I said it.
She opened her eyes and almost caught me smiling, I was trying to keep a poker face even though I was back poking her again. All right, I only held my straight face for a second and I couldn't help grinning again and then she grinned back at me too.
It's impossible to keep a straight face when you're nuts-deep in the woman you love.
Fuck it! I just thought the fucking L word. Good job I never said it out loud.
"I thought he had just slowed down his libido over the last couple of years and finally given up on sex altogether about eighteen months ago. He was seventy-three then after all, so I was resigned to take out my urges in the home-gym and ... you know, I used up a lot of batteries. Then he had a heart attack while he was fucking his twenty-eight-year-old fucking secretary and died almost instantly with them both stuck together on the office desk."
"It's a hell of a way to go," I suggested, seeing a vivid image in my head that looked perversely cartoon-like.
She giggled.
"Only sweet Miss Shorthand couldn't get my fat husband off her and she had to call for help from the paramedics."
"No shit?"
"No shit." She laughed, such a delightful sound, that this shitty flat hadn't heard since it was built, when the Queen before the current Queen ruled OK. Shirley continued, "The facts all came out in the inquest. She had to reach down to pull up his trousers in order to get at the phone in his pocket before she could ring for the emergency services. They had to wheel them through the office still joined together to the ambulance. Something about vacuum suction apparently, I didn't quite understand the medical terminology but it happens more frequently that would appear, apparently. I don't have much sympathy for either of them quite frankly. In fact, I hope she still has bloody nightmares about it. He was a massive 24 stone at the end, it was a wonder the poor girl could breath with the dead weight of that deadbeat fucker on and in her."
We continued making love, slowly, beautifully. That first time, only minutes ago, was just a fuck, thoughtless, uncomplicated and simple. Just two frustrated near-strangers getting off after a wilderness of pent-up sexual and life-sapping frustration. Now we were actually a couple of lovers making love. Not quite like old times, to be honest, probably better, if I'm being honest. Then, we were often too busy, working to pay for our shit, bringing up my two nearly grown-up boys and our baby daughter. We were too busy surviving life to appreciate actually living our lives.
Maybe we took each other for granted after eighteen years together, maybe I failed to live up to her expectations. I was probably crap in the bedroom, that had to be part of it.
But, what we were doing right now was nice, no it wasn't just nice, it was absolutely fucking fantastic.
Shirley still had her bra on. It was a flimsy, white lacie thing and her small but firm-looking breasts were jiggling up and down delightfully. I moved my hands from her hips up her back to find the clasp. She opened her eyes and smiled so sweetly at my fumbling efforts.