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of seriously hot sex.”
Audrey collapsed into a kitchen chair. She couldn’t look at Les. She was a woman on the edge. On the edge of regaining her health, on the edge of losing her job, on the edge of her first orgasm in too long to remember. Did she even remember how to do sex? She’d totally flaked out in the fairy palace. And it wasn’t going to be sex for comfort or thanksgiving, proximity or absence. If she went to Reece she wasn’t going as his boss or his pay cheque, his girlfriend or his mother. She was going because she’d started to touch herself in the shower wishing it was his big, warm hand on her thigh, his thick fingers stroking her open, because she couldn’t look at him without wanting him, because being near him made her body feel renewed after feeling so dreadful, and because he’d given her permission, and showed her he wanted her too.
But it could only be once. One night. One encounter to clear the air, straighten things out between them and then end it, before things went too deep.
She lifted her head. Les had reboiled the kettle and was making a new pot of tea. “I bet Polly would go for lingerie.”
Les scrunched her face.
“I’m thinking something silky and pretty.”
“You might be right.” Les’ eyes popped wide as she caught on. “I might not need to get so—”
“Naked.”
“Right.”
“Unless you wanted to.”
“Unless. Oh shit, Aud. I really want to get naked with Polly. That whole koala thing, I was talking about me.”
They laughed. They drank tea. They spoke in cartoon Spanish accents and didn’t regret the Portuguese tarts. Audrey took a nap when Les left, falling asleep easily, staying there willingly. She had a sex dream. Reece was in the shower with her. Everything was slippery and he left her in the water to bring a rubber mat so they wouldn’t fall and she laughed in the dream because that’s so what he would do.
She was out of her head over this man.
She woke when Mia and Reece came home and lay listening to them trying to be quiet. Reece bundled Mia onto the lounge for a story. He read Where the Wild Things Are, but he changed Max to Mia. He described Mia’s bedroom as a lush jungle. He built her an imaginary boat to sail away on from made-up furniture, and he crowned her Queen of the Wild Things. He quadrupled the length of the story, adding in all kinds of invented details, ridiculously daft monsters and Mia’s favourite foods, and every time he said Mia’s name she giggled, and every time that happened, Audrey fell more under his enchantment.
“Read it again,” Mia said when he’d stopped.
“No, my turn, you read me a story.”
Mia laughed. “I can’t read all the words yet, silly sausage.” Audrey pressed her hand over her mouth so not to laugh aloud. .
Reece did laugh. “I didn’t read that story, I made it up. You can make a story up for me.”
“What will I make up?”
“Hmm. How about funny monsters?”
“Okay, like this. One day Princess Mia,” Mia stopped and considered. “A different Princess Mia, not me.”
Reece said, “Not you,” and Audrey wished she could see how they were sitting together. Was Mia in his lap? She liked to do that when he read to her.
“One day Princess Mia went to bed, and in her room there were monsters.”
“What kind of monsters?”
“Stinky ones.”
“What did they do?”
“They took Princess Mia’s mum away.”
Audrey sat up. Mia was talking about her nightmare.
“What did Princess Mia do?”
“She was scared, because her nanna is mean and Mum was gone for a long time and when she came back she was sad.”
