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Previously…

After licking Abby’s pert nipples, making her moan with delight, my tongue traced its way down her lovely warm, silky body until it reached––

Modesty forbids my describing the rest of our lovemaking, but I can say without hesitation that it was wondrous, sensuous, moving and rather yummy!

I lay in her arms afterwards, our hot, damp bodies entwined in a lover’s embrace. For the first time in days, I felt more my normal self. What with my illness and everything else that had followed, I hadn’t seemed able to relax for such a long time. Slowly my thoughts returned to what Katie had told me about my sperm.

I traced a red painted fingernail over Abby’s still pert breast and nipple and she was doing the same to me. My breasts were definitely becoming more sensitive and I shuddered to some extent as Abby pleasured me gently. I peeped at her face; she was gazing at me and smiling benignly.

‘Abby,’ I breathed.

‘Mmm?’ she cooed distractedly.

‘Sh—shall we try using that leftover sperm to see if we can give Heather a little brother or sister?’

And now the story continues…

Abby’s finger stopped tracing circles around my nipple and I rather wished that I had kept my big mouth shut until a bit later perhaps.

‘W—what?’ she said.

I looked at her face. Had I made some sort of bloomer? Trust me to open my mouth and put my foot in it. I’m sure that’s a mixed metaphor but I’m too confused to work it out. ‘Erm, do you want to make a baby?’

‘What out of Lego?’

‘Look, don’t be facetious, you know what I mean and you aren’t deaf–’

‘So, what you want me to do is open my legs to some sort of test tube, Frankenstein freak and let them put a turkey baster thingy inside while he–and it would be a he, I bet–cackled evilly and then hope that we hit the jackpot?’

‘I—I wouldn’t put it like that, I––’

‘–Anyway, I’m not sure that I want to look all big and frumpy and have to wear a tent and go to the loo every five minutes, not forgetting the backache. All you did was look at some dirty magazines and do it in a cup; it’s me who will do all the hard work, carrying a ten ton belly around with me and lose my figure–and what’s all this about a pelvic floor? I don’t even know what it is and I’m worried about it.’

‘Abby–’

‘–then I would have to put cream on my tummy to stop stretch marks and, what about knitting some mittens and booties, don’t you have to do that? And–

‘Abby–’

‘–Then some officious bitch of a midwife who thinks that she’s God’s gift to pregnant women would suggest that I have the baby under water or use one of those stupid birthing balls and–’

‘Abby–’

‘–and–what?’ She stared at me, frowning rather severely and seemed somewhat breathless.

‘We–we won’t do it then.’

‘What?’

‘Have a baby.’

‘Who said that?’

‘You did?’

‘When?’

‘Going on about tents and stretch marks and stuff–’

She sat up and looked down at me.

‘You have such a lot to learn about being a woman, my sweet lotus blossom. I would adore to have your sperm wiggle up inside me.’

I smiled, still somewhat confused, but that’s nothing new. Didn’t I say that the people around here were weird? It must be something they put in the water; the trouble is, I seem to be getting weird too–and I didn’t know whether I should worry or just go with the flow. I just shrugged, let it all hang out, squealed a bit and gave her a huge hug and a tonsil numbing kiss.

After a session of bed gymnastics involving a double axel twist with knobs on–about ten on the Richter Scale–we lay back to got our breath back.

After a partial recovery and a gradual return to Earth, we talked quietly about our plans.

‘What if my sperm has gone off?’

‘Like a supermarket, past it’s sell by date doodah?’

‘Mmm.’

‘Well, I would still like to have your baby, but it’s a bit difficult, what with your willie being asleep all the time.’

‘It does twitch occasionally.’

‘Sadly, love, you need more than a twitch to ring the bell.’

‘I wonder. If I came off the pills for a while and then try to do something, it might work. Shall we ask Marcia.’

‘Okay. It might not be a problem but as you have a low sperm count you might not hit the jackpot again.’

‘So, if we can’t do it that way, would you consider adoption? I’d like to have more than one sprog, wouldn’t you?’

‘Yes, it’d be nice to have the set. Look let’s not worry about that for now. I want to continue your sex education, there’re certain areas on one’s body that make one go cross eyed and–’

That evening we went down to the Toad and Tart and for our tea, each had a humungous Cornish pasty–freshly caught off the Cornish coast and smuggled in at dead of night past the Customs and Excise cutters. We had just come from seeing our darling little Heather in hospital and I was still dewy eyed and emotional. I swear that she smiled at me. The moment was spoiled a bit when the nurse said that it was probably wind.

I should have been sad, what with burying Olivia earlier in the day and probably I would be more than a bit emotional at some stage. However, I had lost Olivia months ago and though I had feelings for her and every time I looked at Heather I would be reminded of her, I had to move on. What really made me happy and wipe out the negative thoughts was that Abby had agreed to our having another child and I was holding on to that fact and rejoicing in it.

Marcia was in the pub, together with Jocasta, Millie and Katie, so it was, in effect, a girls’ night out. David was evidently in his bunker, trying hard to write a sermon which wouldn’t offend Dotty Fairbairn and was evidently pulling his hair out in handfuls, poor lamb.

I was told strongly by everyone that I mustn’t have anything stronger than ginger beer, but I stuck to tonic water with ice and a slice–a sort of gin-free G&T–because I knew for a fact that the ginger beer sold here could be used as a decidedly effective paint stripper.

We didn’t talk to the girls about our family planning ideas as we wanted to run it by Marcia in private. If we said anything here, it would be around the village in minutes and in the local paper the following day.

‘So,’ Jo asked, ‘how do you like being a mummy?’

‘Great,’ said Abby and I at the same time.

That set us all off giggling and then there was an intense discussion about if we could get David to be a sort of surrogate daddy–we needed someone to be nasty to the child when naughty and we cooked up this idea that we would threaten her with having to look at David’s train set and endure hours of his lecturing about the virtues of OO¹ gauge as opposed to N gauge and more boring stuff like that–although David insists that N gauge can be quite engaging–

Eventually, it was time to go home and we made our way to Abby’s place and after fussing about with the cats, we gratefully fell into bed.

The next day, Abby and I made our way down to the quay. We kissed each other goodbye as she went to potter in her pottery and I slipped into the gallery to see how Arthur Potts was progressing with the improvements.

It was nearly finished, and despite some reservations initially about letting him do the work, he had done a first class job. He was just finishing painting the ceiling when I arrived and he looked down from on high and sort of mumbled what I assumed to be ‘hello,’ but could have been anything.

Arthur was a man of few words and I really wondered how he managed to pluck up the courage to ask his pretty wife, Amanda, to marry him. She was as outgoing as anyone in the village and I suppose it was a case of opposites attract. Then again, I understood from the village grapevine, that they got engaged on a leap year so maybe, Arthur didn’t have to do much other than mumble ‘yes’–or would that have been ‘oh arrr’?

After about ten minutes of single–and mostly monosyllabic–word replies to my questions, I gave up and left him to it. However I managed to gather was that the gallery would be finished and ready for me in about three days. That left me wondering how I should advertise the fact that we were going ‘live’ as it were, probably about ten days later. I had enough works brought back from my old house to fill most of the walls, but I did want local artists and photographers to show their works too. I know that Jocasta was putting something in the Parish News and that it was due to be published in a few days, but I wanted to make an impact.

Then I remembered the local free sheet that had plopped through my letterbox every Friday evening. It was called The Penmarris Observer. I rushed back up to my cottage, rummaged around the bin, a nose-wrinkling experience that I didn’t want to repeat too often. I managed to find it easily enough and unstuck some bacon rind from it before taking it back inside and opening it up.

There were about twenty pages, full of juicy gossip about how the Women’s Institute had made fifty pounds from a bring-and-buy sale and the feud between the Scouts and the Girl Guides over who had storage rights in the village hall. There were several advertisements dotted through the paper from baby clothes to undertakers and all points between. However, an advert is not as good as an article from a reporter. I scanned the back page of the paper and in the small print I saw the address of their office. It was evidently in Smugglers Lane, near the wet fish shop.

I picked up my bag, checked my hair and makeup in the hall mirror and was soon on my way.

I passed several of the locals and exchanged greetings, I vaguely recognised some of them but they all knew me–a bit disquieting that! Anyway, I soon found the fish shop and next to that stood the offices of The Penmarris Observer. It was a shop front and had local photographs and some of the previous editions in the window.

I opened the door and a bell tinged. I was faced by a counter with a bored looking girl behind it painting her nails–or were they talons–in a rather violent red. How she could type with those things sticking out of the end of her fingers I would never know. She looked about sixteen, had black hair out of a bottle, eyebrows that had been removed and replaced by ones using a pencil – giving her face a constant surprised look – and her eyes had more black eyeliner than Alice Cooper ever used. This together with the thick white makeup made her look like someone just raised from the dead. She would not have looked out of place on the set of Thriller.

She was chewing gum and popping it distractedly. She looked up as I walked in and raised her thin eyebrows. I took this to mean, ‘hello Miss, how can I help you on this fine day?’ but I might have been mistaken in that.

‘Hi, may I speak to someone about an article.’

She popped her bubblegum, yawned and then deigned to look at me.

‘Complaints in writin’.’

‘Oh…erm, well I’m not here to complain.’

She looked at me again, giving me a sort of MRI scan with her eyes that took in the top of my head to the patent leather sandals at the other extreme.

‘’e’s out in’e.’

‘Who?’

‘Editor.’

‘Can I make an appointment?’

‘This ain’t a dentist, love, ’e’ll be back la’er.’

‘When later?’

‘I dunno do I? ’e don’t tell me nothin’.’

‘That’s a double negative.’

‘Wot? This ain’t a photo shop, that’s down by the ’arbour.’

I gave up.

‘Please tell him that I called.’

She looked at me again, blew some more bubblegum and then said ‘awrigh’.’

‘Don’t you want to know my name.’

‘Know it, don’t I–Samantha Smart.’

‘Oh, have we met before?’

‘Nah.’

‘So how do you know me?’

‘Everyone knows you,’ she said taking out some lipstick and a mirror from her bag.

‘Riiight,’ I said, ‘well, erm, goodbye.’

‘If yer like,’ she said as she stared at her reflection intensely.

I left the shop thinking that I probably didn’t get the best out of that conversation. Across the road I noticed a small printers shop, so not wanting to waste the day, I went over–I had a few ideas.

As I entered, I was greeted by the deafening clatter of a printing press going berserk in the background. In front was a man looking over what I took to be some proofs. He hadn’t heard me walk in and there was no way I was going to be able to shout over that racket so I just touched his arm.

He shot into the air like a pheasant trying to avoid the shoot. His glasses fell off his nose and I was fearful that he was about to have some sort of seizure. He looked up and squinted at me. Then, leaning over, he pressed a big red button on the side of the press and after a moment all was quiet. With shaking hands he picked up his glasses and put them back on.

He looked at me and smiled. He was about fifty, bald, thin and wearing jeans and a t-shirt covered in printers’ ink.

Sorry,’ I said, ‘did I startle you?’

‘Yes, I was miles away there. How can I help you, Samantha, isn’t it?’

I looked at him. ‘Do I know you?’

‘Probably not, but everyone knows you.’

‘Oh right, okay, erm, I want some posters made up about–’

‘–opening your gallery?’

‘That’s right, I think I need to advertise.’

‘Why?’

‘Well to get people to know about the gallery.’

He looked at me and shook his head.

‘No point.’

‘Sorry?’

‘As I said, no point. Everyone already knows about the gallery and when you are opening.’

‘But I’ve only just spoken to Arthur–’

‘Yes, but he told Mavis Periwinkle and she told Mrs Appleyard and that’s it; the grapevine goes into overdrive and before you know it, the whole village knows.’

‘I’m surprised that no one knows my cup size–’

‘B,’ he replied promptly.

My mouth opened and closed like a halibut.

‘How, did you–’

‘Your face, what a picture–actually, I guessed,’ he laughed.

‘I suppose I’ll get used to this Devon humour, by the time I’m eighty.’

‘You should hear some Cornish humour, a bit coarse to say the least, and this coming from a Cornishman.’

‘So you emigrated then–from Cornwall?’

‘Yes, it was forty-eight years ago. I was abducted at the border in the dead of night and smuggled across.’

‘Is that more Devon humour?’

‘Yes, not very subtle is it?’

‘As subtle as a hammer.’

‘No, I’ve lived here ever since my mum and dad moved from Cornwall after they got hitched. They came from Bodmin, but don’t want to advertise the fact.’

‘What’s wrong with Bodmin?’

‘Don’t ask. Anyway back to the subject, I can run up a few posters for you. If you want to sketch something out, I’ll do a proof for you. They might bring some trade for you from the grockles.’ ²

‘Thanks, I’ll do that. Oh, can I have your name?’

‘Derek Potts.’

‘Ah, yes. It would be.’

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¹      OO Gauge: HO Gauge in USA and mainland Europe–we Brits have to be a wee bit different!

²      Grockles: Used in several parts of England, meaning visitors, tourists, etc.

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To Be Continued…

Please leave comments…thanks! ~Sue

My thanks go to the brilliant and lovely Gabi for editing, help with the plot-lines and pulling the story into shape.