Chapter 13
13
Sarah took a deep breath.
‘You’re being ridiculous,’ she said, chastising herself yet again. ‘Pull yourself together.’ It was ridiculous that she felt as nervous as she did. She was a grown woman. A grown, married woman, waiting for her husband to come home so she could surprise him. They had children for goodness’ sake. And another one on the way. Doing something like this should not have been as nerve-wracking as it was. Perhaps the issue was with it being light outside. Yes, perhaps that was the problem.
Nelly had been right about Drew’s parents.
‘Oh yes, of course, we can keep them.’ Amanda’s voice had sounded uncharacteristically flustered. ‘I mean, we’ll have to go to the shops and pick up some food. Not that it’s any trouble, of course. Had you told me earlier, we could have popped down to Waitrose and got something of a little better quality, but I’m sure the Tesco around the corner will have something suitable.’
‘They can have beans on toast. Or just toast. They’ll both be fine with that.’
‘I’m sure I can do better than that,’ her mother-in-law had replied.
So, with three extra child-free hours confirmed, all that was needed was for Sarah to find an outfit that could reflect Drew’s apparently changing tastes in the bedroom.
Dressing up just wasn’t something she and Drew did. Even on events like Halloween, or themed birthday parties, they were the couple searching through the back of the wardrobes, trying to find something that they could repurpose. The last 80s party Sarah went to, she had just worn one of her normal gym kits and crimped her hair; she’d been given so many comments on the authentic 80s trashiness that she’d considered giving the whole outfit to a charity shop.
That afternoon, crimped hair and legwarmers just weren’t going to cut it. She needed something great, something special, something that would make Drew stop in his tracks and wonder why he needed any of those novels when he had a wife like this waiting at home for him. Yet, after twenty minutes of turning her wardrobe inside out, she flopped onto the bed.
At twenty-nine years old, Sarah’s wardrobe contained nothing that even hinted at erotica. No leather whips or French maid’s outfit. Not even a pair of crotchless knickers or elasticated stockings. All the underwear she owned that could have been considered even remotely sexy was now either ripped or stained or just so small that pulling them on was likely to cut off the circulation to somewhere. Casting her mind back to the various titles she had seen on his screen, one in particular stood out. A tiny spark flickered. Naughty Nanny, Book 5: Officer Oversized . Perhaps there was something she had after all.
With what she considered an almost sexy outfit – black knickers and black bra with no obvious stains provided he didn’t look too closely – cobbled together, Sarah waited upstairs. She had been pacing the house for the previous fifteen minutes, wondering if there had been a delay on the lines. Any second now, he would be walking through the front door.
One of George’s plastic handcuffs pinched at her wrist, while the other end was clipped to the bed frame. She had gone for one of Drew’s ties around her neck, along with one of his white shirts which did up nicely over her belly, and George’s police helmet propped between her legs at an angle she thought might have been sexy. However, she was beginning to regret the decision to shave as the red raw bumps were getting worse by the minute. Glancing at the time on her phone, she was still deliberating whether to unclip herself and rub in a bit of Eva’s nappy rash cream when she heard the front door open.
‘Sah?’
The door slammed shut, and she heard the thud as Drew dropped his backpack at the bottom of the stairs. Two more short thuds indicated the removal of his shoes.
‘I’m up here.’
‘Where are the kids?’
‘Your mum’s still got them.’
‘She has? Why? Is everything all right?’
The itching and pinching were becoming more uncomfortable by the second. What was it with her husband’s ability to hold entire conversations on different floors?
‘Perhaps if you could just come up here for a minute?’ she called.
‘I just need?—’
‘Upstairs. Now! ’
Thirty minutes later and Sarah was lying stretched out on the bed while Drew fished around on the ground for his boxers. Her pulse was still high, and the back of her arm ached from the stretch of being handcuffed.
‘Not that I’m complaining,’ Drew said, slipping back onto the mattress beside her with his boxers now on. ‘But where did that come from?’
She grinned. ‘Did you enjoy it?’
‘Maybe a little bit.’
She couldn’t remember the last time they had sex like that. For the last couple of years, a quick fumble under the sheets before Eva started screaming and wanting to come into their bed was the best they could ever hope for. What they just did was definitely not a quick fumble.
‘So,’ Drew said, running his hand down the length of her neck. ‘Do you want to tell me?’
‘Tell you what?’
‘Where your inspiration came from?’
Sarah paused before leaning down the side of her bed and picking up Drew’s phone from the ground.
‘You,’ she said.
Drew’s face crinkled at the screen, clearly confused by the dots Sarah was drawing for him to join.
‘I don’t get it. What do you mean?’ His eyes glanced back down at the screen for just a second before widening to double their size.
‘A fan of the Naughty Nanny , are we?’ Sarah smirked as she spoke. ‘I’m going to be honest. She’s not what I’d have pegged as your type. But each to their own.’
Drew’s eyes remained bulging from their sockets while his skin had paled to the colour of watery breastmilk.
‘It’s not what you think.’
‘Of course not.’ Sarah smirked at him.
‘No,’ he insisted. ‘It’s really not.’
The laptop was balanced on Sarah’s knees, with Drew perched beside her on the edge of the sofa. He had been thinking about this moment for a while now: how he would tell Sarah what he had been doing. What her opinion would be when he finally did show her. He had looked forward to it, with just a mild sense of trepidation. But he’d expected to have more time. A few more edits. A thorough check through for any plot holes.
‘I’ve been trying to edit as I go.’ He twiddled his thumbs as he spoke, needing to break up the silence of his wife’s reading. ‘Obviously, there are still a few bits that need tweaking.’ Sweat was slickening the back of his neck as he changed position and began drumming his fingers against his thighs.
‘That doesn’t make it any easier for me to read.’
‘Sorry,’ he said, stopping for less than a minute before starting up the drumming again.
‘Well?’ he said when he couldn’t longer wait any longer. ‘What do you think? You have to have read it by now. I know how fast you read.’
Sarah pressed her lips together and scanned her eyes down the page at an infuriatingly slow pace.
‘Come on,’ Drew pressed. ‘What do you think? Is it any good?’
‘I think…’ Sarah paused and nodded. ‘I think it’s not terrible .’
A small smile lifted the corner of her lips. Drew’s heart leapt.
‘Really?’
‘I’ve certainly read worse.’
‘I told you,’ he jumped off the sofa and turned to face her. ‘I mean, I wanted to tell you. See, I knew it wasn’t bad, is it? It’s really not that bad. I mean, if we could manage to sell?—’
‘Hold on.’ Sarah put the laptop down on the sofa. ‘Don’t get carried away. It’s not exactly Hemingway.’
‘I know, but it doesn’t have to be. It wouldn’t just be this book, obviously. There’d be a whole series of them. I was thinking about doing them in different countries, like Air Hostess Hits Hawaii. Air Hostess hits Hong ?—’
‘Okay, we need to back up a bit.’ Sarah’s eyes were back on the screen. Her lack of speech caused the sudden return of Drew’s nerves. ‘You’ve got a good base here. The story flows okay, but your editing is weak. Some of these sentences…’ She paused. Drew’s stomach tightened further as the pause changed into a grimace. ‘Like I said. Editing.’
Drew nodded his head repeatedly. ‘I was doing some editing as I went,’ he repeated, sitting back down next to her so he could get a better view of his toil. ‘The posts I’ve read on writing these things say it’s better to edit as you go.’
‘That may be the case, but you need to get better at the basics if you want it to be taken seriously. Take this bit, for instance.’ She used her mouse and highlighted part of a line. ‘I don’t like the way you’ve used boobs . “Her boobs jangled.” They’re not keys. Keys jangle. Not boobs. And you can’t use the word boobs, even in this type of book. Surely you can’t.’
‘I know,’ Drew agreed. ‘I didn’t think it sounded right either. But I already used breasts too many times in this paragraph, see?’ It was his turn to take over the touchpad and do some highlighting. ‘I didn’t want to use it again. Not so soon.’
Sarah nodded thoughtfully. ‘What about breastbone?’ she said, deleting the line entirely as she replaced the current phrasing with her own.
Drew shrugged. ‘It’s a bit similar. Don’t you think?’
‘Maybe. How about below her clavicle, then? He pressed his hand below her clavicle ?’
Drew ran the words through his own mind. ‘ He pressed his hand below her clavicle ,’ he repeated the words as Sarah typed. ‘That would work,’ he agreed. ‘I like that.’
‘And down here,’ Sarah continued, her finger already on the delete button. ‘Where you’ve talked about her heading to the shop in her six-inch heels.’
‘That’s when she meets the bartender. She needs to be dressed for the scene later.’
‘But why? She takes him back to her place, doesn’t she? Can’t she just get dressed up at home? Wouldn’t that be a bit more exciting too? You know, he goes back to her place, and she’s dressed in her jeans and trainers, and when they get there?—’
‘She suddenly switches into the stiletto-wearing dominatrix? Yeah. I like it. I think that could work.’
‘Okay,’ said Sarah standing up and moving the laptop over to the dining room table. ‘Let’s take a look at the next bit.’
A mug of hot chocolate and a dozen pages later, Drew was sent to go and pick up the kids. Sarah’s phone had rung twice, which they ignored both times. The third time, it sounded angry.
‘You need to go,’ Sarah said to Drew. ‘Your mum won’t get mad at you. Just say your train was delayed or something, and that the sink backed up again. Maybe if we whinge about stuff long enough, they’ll lend us the money we need.’
Drew pulled on his coat. He was in too good a mood to risk ruining it over an argument about money.
‘Maybe I can pull the penniless writer line on them?’ he said instead.
‘It would be true,’ she replied. ‘I’ll keep working on this if you don’t mind? See how much more I can get done.’
Hovering with his keys in his hand, Drew stared at the wonder that was his wife.
‘Thank you for this,’ he said.
‘For what?’
‘For your support. I’m pretty sure most wives would have had some kind of breakdown if they discovered their husband had started writing erotic fiction on his commute.’
‘Yeah,’ Sarah said, a coy smile glinting in her eyes. ‘Well, I’m not most wives, am I?’
Striding back to the table, he bent over and planted a kiss firmly on her lips before moving back to go.
‘Uh-um,’ Sarah cleared her throat. ‘Are you forgetting something?’
She nodded downwards to her belly. Drew grinned.
‘My bad.’ He crouched down by her chair and pressed his lips to her belly. ‘See you later, little one,’ he said. ‘Daddy and Mummy are going to have some exciting stories to tell you when you come along.’