Chapter 30
Maddy
He’s lonely.
Of course he is.
His marital bed is empty except when it’s infiltrated by little, grief-stricken girls. It’s the worst of both worlds.
It’s no wonder he’s lonely, and, given the amount of endorphins those orgasms flooded our bodies with the other night, it’s no wonder he felt—you know—affectionate. Or even a little wistful, maybe.
Obviously my own endorphin-bathing was responsible for my body’s inappropriately warm, fuzzy response to his non-proposition. That and evolution.
I mean, neanderthal me would have benefited greatly from having a big, hot man wrapped around me for, like, survival reasons. My homo sapiens hard-wiring explains why my ovaries twerked and my heart simped.
My mother’s voice breaks my musings in her flawless, Instagram-friendly white kitchen.
‘You definitely have a post-orgasmic glow about you,’ she muses. ‘Or is it retinol?’
‘Mum. I’m literally twenty-three. I don’t need retinol.’
Whoops. Looks like I inadvertently answered her question.
‘Your mid-twenties is the optimal time to start,’ she says.
‘Excellent.’ I roll my eyes. ‘You can buy me a prescription in two years.’
Behind me, Belle lets out a snort that’s unladylike and unsupportive in equal measure.
‘The whole point of you being here is to be on my side,’ I tell her.
‘No it’s not,’ Mum says. ‘It’s because I love seeing her.’
‘I love seeing you too, Verity,’ my not-so-best-friend says. Though I know why she adores my mum. It’s because Verity Hudson-Weir is the antithesis of Belle’s mum, Lauren. When it comes to sex stuff, at least.
I just wish my mum wasn’t quite so far in the other direction. She’s a poster-child for the liberated fifty-something who is embracing the menopause and ageing with vitality and shagging her way through her latter years, all happily for my stepdad, Justin.
She’s even admitted—completely unprompted by me—that they’ve tried tantric sex, which not only creeps me out but tells me some people simply have too much time on their hands.
Though it’s not fair to Mum to call her a lady of leisure.
She completed her personal revolution after leaving Dad for Justin (remember that musical-beds, hot-tub-hand-job family ski holiday I mentioned?) by training as a nutritionist, and now she has a thriving practice and a horrifyingly large Facebook Group, consisting overwhelmingly of menopausal women, called Vitality with Verity. Forty-five thousand members.
I can’t even.
She’s also expanded her practice to include other practitioners, from OTs to PTs and energy workers.
She’s hell-bent on giving women the ride of their lifetime as they ‘step into their own power’ (her words).
And she’s a passionate believer in woman recognising and harnessing their own power, whatever their age.
I’ve benefited from her healthy, sensible, and enthusiastic attitude to female sexuality, and Belle has too, I think, though it took her a long time to find the courage to lean into it.
When your parents impose their own (totally fucked-up) moral teachings on you day after day, year after year, it’s incredibly hard to accommodate even the most well-meaning voices if they contradict that message.
I’m just relieved Rafe came along and got Belle so hyped up with lust that her out-of-date moral compass got literally pussy-whipped and she threw her layers of religious baggage out of the window.
Anyway, the point is that Belle loves Mum and has always envied me my carefree, cool and sexually liberated mother.
I know she’s right and that I’m lucky. Belle and I go for dinner at Mum and Justin’s every couple of months.
Mum insists it ‘keeps her young’ to be around young people, especially women, and she genuinely finds it fascinating to hear our goings-on.
I think Mum’s pretty envious that we’ve come of age in this period in time, actually.
Being young now would have suited her down to the ground.
I know for a fact she wouldn’t have made an unhappy marriage and felt compelled to make a beeline for someone else’s husband’s dick under the bubbles of the hot tub in Megève (believe me, I know far too much detail on how it all went down).
I also suspect she’d have been an enthusiastic member of Alchemy.
The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, does it?
Sometimes, liberty is a burden. You’re so busy being congratulated on and fêted for being so wonderfully free that you kind of feel you have to act like that day after day. Which usually isn’t a problem.
It’s just that the kind of thoughts I’ve been having these past few days are of the slightly less liberated, and needier, variety.
‘So, the glow,’ Mum insists. The woman is like a dog with a bone. ‘Tell me about all the nice men you’ve been having fun with at Alchemy.’
Oh dear God. I’m grateful Mum doesn’t think sex is a sin like Belle’s parents do.
Honestly, I swear they only had sex twice, to conceive her and her brother Dex.
They probably fucked through a hole in the sheet.
But there’s a happy medium, and I’m pretty sure your mother enquiring about your Playroom playmates is not it.
‘I’m not sure there are that many guys at the moment,’ Belle teases. When I glare at her, she smirks.
‘Thanks,’ I tell her. ‘Thanks a lot.’
Mum sashays over to refill my wineglass.
I have to say, she has a killer figure. She’s definitely hashtag-ageing-like-Gwyneth.
Her skin is dewy, her hair is a lustrous (if chemically enhanced) chestnut, and her waist is the same size as mine.
Justin is a lucky guy. ‘Is there someone special?’ she asks with a coquettish lift of one perfectly sculpted brow.
She raises her eyebrows a lot. Like, a lot.
I’ve long suspected it’s to prove to everyone that she hasn’t had Botox.
‘I’m casually sleeping with one of my bosses,’ I say nonchalantly. ‘You know, at the club. We’ve been messing around a bit.’
‘He’s lovely,’ Belle emphasises.
Mum frowns. You know, because she can. Hashtag-Botox-free. ‘It’s not serious, is it?’
Every parent lives vicariously through their kids to some extent.
Truth. Whereas Belle’s parents always treated her like this beautiful, intelligent, living doll, a paragon of virtue through whom their own piety supposedly shone, Mum’s own upbringing and her first marriage to Dad have her wanting me to impale myself on every dick in sight, basically.
It feels like that sometimes, anyway.
‘No,’ I tell her between sips of wine. ‘Not serious. He’s a widower, for God’s sake. He’s got two little girls. If that doesn’t say emotionally unavailable, I don’t know what does.’
‘Oh.’ Mum looks positively tantalised. ‘That poor, poor man.’ She places a perfectly manicured hand on her heart or, as she would say, her heart centre.
‘No, it won’t do at all to get involved with a widower.
Even though they can be deeply beguiling.
You know, all that pathos. One can’t help but feel one’s saviour complex kicking in. ’
‘The only way I’m saving him is through really great sex, Mum,’ I say firmly.
Mum ignores me. ‘You just want to keep the boundaries clear, darling. You know? A nice, nubile young girl like you. He’ll snap you up and put a ring on your finger before you know it.’
Belle full-on laughs.
‘Mum!’ I protest. Fuck’s sake. She makes me sound like some lithesome servant girl.
‘Mark my words, darling, you don’t want to be the Maria to his Captain Von Trapp,’ she tells me. ‘He’ll go full you brought music back to my life on you.’
‘Except by music, he’ll be talking about sex,’ Belle interjects unhelpfully.
I give her my best side-eye. ‘I liked you far more when you were repressed and unhappy.’
She beams at me.
‘I’m not planning on marrying him,’ okay?’ I say grumpily. The words have the weirdest sound in my head when I say them out loud. ‘We’re just… scratching each other’s itches.’
‘How romantic,’ Belle says.
Mum pokes her head into the vat of bean chilli simmering on the hob. ‘Why don’t you tell me about him, Belle? Maddy’s energy feels a little off to me this evening.’
I roll my eyes.
‘He’s very handsome,’ Belle says approvingly. ‘Black hair, blue eyes. And he’s also very proper.’
The memory of Zach fucking me slow and deep over the Banquette in front of God knows how many people sears my brain with its heat. It’s all I can do to hold back my smirk.
‘Not your usual type then, darling?’ Mum teases.
‘Totally the opposite,’ I admit. ‘He couldn’t be less Euro playboy if he tried. He’s the FD for Alchemy, and I think for their hedge fund, Cerulean, too?’
‘He is,’ Belle confirms. ‘Rafe tells me he loves his spreadsheets.’
‘What’s that smile for?’ Mum asks.
‘Nothing.’ Just thinking about how Zach’s face must have looked when I told him my safe word was spreadsheet. I wonder if I’ll ever need to use it.
‘Here’s the thing, Verity,’ my very own Judas says. She’s polished off her first generous glass of wine super quickly, and I have a horrible feeling it’s loosened her up. She props her elbows on Mum’s Italian marble island.
I have to admit she looks even more knockout than usual today in her sleek winter white Valentino shift.
If I hadn’t seen how adoring, and how caveman-level protective Rafe was of her at her lowest point when it all went tits-up with her dad, I’d probably be sceptical that he wanted her as a trophy girlfriend who looked the part on his arm.
But I know he loves Belle’s beautiful heart and soul as much as he worships her looks.
Anyway.
Back to my Judas Iscariot moment.
‘I have a working theory that Maddy really likes Zach,’ she continues.
‘I think he’s got under her skin, precisely because he’s the opposite of her usual type.
Mads, you like to go for guys who have zero interest in commitment, just so you never have to feel suffocated or have awkward morning-after conversations. ’