Inconceivable by Ben Elton

nice,’ said George. ‘Like we give a fuck.’
    Trevor protested that he was only saying and George asked him not to.
    ‘Look, Trevor,’ he said, ‘you don’t drink any more, that’s great, not that you ever drank that much in the first place, but now you’re cured, isn’t it time you moved on?’
    ‘But that’s the point, George. You can never be cured. I’m an alcoholic. I’ll always be an alcoholic. I could have nothing to drink for fifty years and I’d still be an alcoholic’
    This is the bit George hates most.
    ‘Well you might as well have a fucking drink, then!’ he said loudly enough for people at other tables to turn their heads.
    At this point I thought I could bring up the subject of sperm to smooth things over a bit but George, having dealt with Trevor’s obsession, moved on to his own, producing some photos of little Cuthbert. I had thought that producing pictures of one’s baby in all-male company was against the law but like everything else that seems to have changed, we’re all carers and nurturers now.
    I blame those posters that were popular in the late eighties showing huge muscular male torsos tenderly holding tiny babies.
    Soppy, I call it, but then I suppose I’m not in touch with my feelings or something.
    As a matter of record, though, I must confess that young Cuthbert is beginning to shape up a bit. He’s definitely filling out and losing his scrotal appearance. He looked quite jolly in his togs from Baby Gap. George said that Cuthbert’s clothes cost more than his own do, which he thought was obscene. What is the point of giving babies and kids designer clothes? They puke on them, they roll in mud in them, they shit in them. Tonto, absolutely bloody tonto. George says that he’s going to give Melinda a serious talking to. Trevor, on the other hand (who is rather an elegant sort of bloke), thought we were both being Philistines and killjoys and that he wished his boyfriend had half the dress sense of young Cuthbert. To which George replied that it was all very well for him because being gay he would never have to face the appalling cost of bringing up a baby. Trevor said that George was not to be too sure about that; with a Labour government in who knew what might happen to the adoption laws?
    Oh, God. Trevor is going to get kids before I do and he’s a homosexual.

Dearest Penny,
    S orry I haven’t written for a couple of nights. I’ve been feeling a bit sad.
    You know I was telling you that Sam isn’t very tactile? Well, I’d been thinking that perhaps it was partly because our sex life has become so clinical. You know, it’s got so inextricably wound up in my quest for fertility that I thought perhaps I was turning him off. So I tried to broach the subject. I said to him that I was sorry that things have got a bit dreary for us in the lovemaking department of late and told him that it was only because of the baby thing taking my mind off it. I told him that I still found him desirable and once we got through all this I’d leap on him regularly and purely for the fun of it. Well, I have to say, he didn’t seem that bothered either way, which was rather dispiriting. He just pecked me on the nose and said I mustn’t worry and that he was fine. Quite frankly, this was not the reaction I was looking for.
    I know Sam loves me but he hardly ever holds me any more. I mean he only really holds me, properly (as opposed to perfunctorily), when we’re having it off and as I say our having it off is not what it was. I think we need a physical relationship that extends beyond sex. Sometimes I’d just like a bit of a kiss and a cuddle without it leading to anything, but he doesn’t understand that. He simply doesn’t see the point of snuggling unless it’s in preparation for sex.
    Except when he’s pissed, of course, then it’s the other way round, then it’s all cuddle and
    chance of a seeing to.
    ‘I love you I love you I love you,’ he dribbles. ‘I really really