The Near Miss by Fran Cusworth Page A

at the very thought. The frightening possibility of getting caught, the discomfort of sex under trees, the added logistical difficulty of ensuring Romy reached orgasm in such an environment, while he would, conversely, ejaculate prematurely from sheer terror. No, his bedroom at home was by far his preferred venue. Although hopefully a marriage proposal would spark a shag. It had been a while now.
    Romy came out of the bathroom and went to rummage for an earring. Her buxom figure was clad in a black dress which showed off her olive skin; the tops of her breasts.
    â€˜God, you’re gorgeous.’
    â€˜Don’t mess up my hair.’
    â€˜I love these underpants!’
    â€˜Eddy!’ She wriggled her dress back down and kissed him maternally on the forehead. He fell back on the bed and smiled at the ceiling; velvet between his fingers. His future was in that body; that courageous spirit, the already-existing organism that was Eddy-and-Romy. His heart was so full he had to bite his tongue, hold back his ring-loaded hand. Just four hours and he would feel the bliss of depositing this impatient load.

    â€˜So how long have you and Van been together?’ Romy used her knife to nudge the last grains of rice onto her upturned fork, as she murmured the question to Melody. Van had sauntered outside to smoke. Melody hoped he was not rolling himself a joint. She really needed to make some friends for Skip, to start building a normal life.
    â€˜We’re not together.’ Melody paired her knife and fork and laid them across the plate. She had answered this question before, in other situations, and was unsure why it made her internally wince. It felt even more uncomfortable when asked in Van’s presence, although he only smiled at it. Was it simply the resistance to being put in an Married/Unmarried box, or the weird thought of being in a relationship with Van, or was it, worse, a flicker of guilt about this friendship, a sense that she should have cooled it a while back? ‘We’re just friends.’
    â€˜Really?’ Romy looked towards the door where Van had exited, through which he could be expected to return. She was an attractive woman who had played to the table throughout this dinner; charming Tom with flattering questions about his invention, beseeching Melody for every detail of Lotte’s rescue, crouching on the floor to talk to the children about their toys, although she quickly lost interest in that when the adults stopped watching. A woman who enjoyed attention, who had the enviable knack of being able to duck out of boring turns in conversations, who could steer the subject quickly back to herself. A lovely rich aura; maybe a deep, dark rose.
    â€˜He was my sister’s boyfriend.’ Melody shrugged. She thought of the cat with the forked tail that used to hang around their family home that Van and her sister had adored. Eddy gazed at his girlfriend; he was a planet to her sun. He was in love with her, and the woman was in love with being loved. Melody had seen it before.
    Grace and Tom’s house had a comfortably messy look about it, as though one day, long ago, there had been a theme, an effort made at Understated Style, but in the manner of many with a young child this had been superseded by the theme of Just Surviving. The glass of shells in the window sill was coated in dust, and a fly had died amongst the sand dollars and baby’s ears. Picture books were piled on a chair, in an attempt to clean up, she deduced, and in fact it was clear that someone with a propensity for grouping like objects rather than actually putting them awayhad been placed in charge of cleaning duties. CDs were stacked on the player; one full washing basket was placed at a lean on another and tucked under a table; hair pins and spare change and miscellaneous small objects sat in their respective piles on the mantelpiece.
    Melody surreptitiously checked her watch, and wondered whether she should