Apocalipstick by Sue Margolis Page A

at least six feet by four feet and which Rebecca had leaned against a wall, thinking this looked supremely arty, was of a chiseled angular woman wearing a hat made of equally angular fruit. She was lying on a bed, her hand draped between her legs. Mad, who wasn’t without pretension when it came to her work, called it
Plaisir et la Femme.
Jess called it
Woman Wanking.
     
    Rebecca took another sip of her shake and wondered if she should have a wank, too—not because she particularly fancied one, but because she thought it might help her lose weight. She’d read somewhere that a few minutes snogging used up sixty-four calories. An orgasm had to be worth a couple of hundred. Maybe more. She could usually manage three on the trot with this brilliant new vibrator she’d just bought.
    A few months ago, she and Jess had been out shopping for baby stuff and Jess had forced her into this trendy, upmarket sex shop in Covent Garden, where all the sex toys looked like they’d been made by Alessi.
    “So what do you fancy?” Jess had boomed across the packed store, sounding like a younger version of her mother. “A basic dildo, one with rubber spikes and an anal attachment or something battery operated with detachable heads?”
    Mortified, Rebecca shot over to where Jess was standing, next to a glass bowl of what looked like sequins.
    “Will you just shut up,” Rebecca hissed. “Now the whole bloody shop thinks we’re a pair of lesbians.”
    “No, they don’t. Stop being so sensitive. I bet nobody even heard.”
    Rebecca grunted, then began trailing her fingers through the sequins.
    “Clitoral bindis,” Jess giggled, digging Rebecca in the ribs. “They’re called ‘clindis.’”
    By now Jess was bending over another glass bowl, full of tiny ornamental rubber dinosaurs. “Oh, and talking of lesbians. These are meant to be lesbian dinosaurs.” She burst out laughing. “Look at the name underneath.”
    “Lickalotopus,” Rebecca said tonelessly. “Brilliant. Now please can we go?”
    But Jess refused to budge. She’d gone back to the vibrators and was busy reading the blurb on the Vibroclit—the stainless steel one with the detachable heads.
    “You just have to buy this. It guarantees you’ll come within five minutes. God, maybe I should get one too. I take so long with Ed, he gets repetitive stress injury in his tongue.”
    Realizing buying the thing was the only way she’d get Jess out of the shop, Rebecca took the Vibroclit from her and marched over to the counter. They were leaving the shop, Rebecca dragging Jess out by her coat sleeve, when they heard some bloke say to his mate: “You know, I’ve always wanted to watch lesbians do it. Haven’t you?”
    Rebecca didn’t forgive Jess until the following day—after she’d tried the Vibroclit and it had made her come in less than two minutes.
     
    She was just about to get in the bath, before having an early night with the Vibroclit, when the phone rang. She picked it up off the coffee table.
    “Hi, sweetie, it’s Dad. Listen, I hope my news didn’t come as too much of a shock today. I just wanted to check that you were OK.”
    “Well, I have to admit it was a bit of a surprise, but I’m fine with it now.”
    “Really?”
    “Honest.”
    “So how would you feel about meeting Bernadette? I thought after I’ve broken the news to your grandmother, maybe the four of us could go out for dinner.”
    She said that would be great.
    “Oh, and by the way,” Stan continued, “I forgot to tell you, Bernadette says she thinks she knows you. I had no idea, but the two of you were at the same school.”
    “Really? What’s her surname?”
    “O’Brien.”
    “O’Brien? You’re kidding, right?”
    “No. Why should I be kidding? So, you remember her, then?”
    Suddenly, everything became clear. Her father had always been a bit of a humorist, and now she realized the whole story of him getting married was just one of his jokes. Of course. It was just like the