No-One Ever Has Sex on a Tuesday
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Authors: Tracy Bloom
NO-ONE EVER HAS SEX
IN THE
SUBURBS
BY
TRACY BLOOM
No-One Ever Has Sex in the Suburbs © Tracy Bloom 2015
All rights reserved in all media. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical (including but not limited to: the internet, photocopying, recoding or by any information storage and retrieval system), without prior permission in writing from the author and/or publisher.
The moral right of Tracy Bloom as the author of the work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely co-incidental.
For the people and parties of Loughborough Road. The absolute best of times . . . in the suburbs.
Table of Contents
PROLOGUE
September – Leeds General Maternity Ward
Ben took her hand and looked her straight in the eye. ‘I love you, I always have.’
‘I love you too, you know,’ Katy replied.
‘You don’t have to say that just because I did.’
‘No, I do, I really do, and I will marry you – if you meant it, that is.’
‘Of course I meant it. But I do have one condition.’
‘What’s that?’ asked Katy, fearing the worst.
‘That we never become one of those boring married couples. You know, like the ones who sit in pubs and don’t talk to each other and probably never have sex.’
‘I promise,’ said Katy, knowing that life with Ben could never be boring. ‘Tell you what. We’ll even have sex on a Tuesday.’
Chapter One
Six weeks later
‘You have to be kidding me?’ gasped Katy, overwhelmed by the audacity of the man.
‘No,’ he replied gravely. ‘We really need to discuss contraception.’
‘Contraception!’ she screeched.
He looked nervously at the door as though concerned that the people gathered outside might hear her outrage.
‘Contraception!’ she screeched again. ‘Are you out of your mind? How can you even mention it?’
‘I can assure you, it’s a very routine question.’
‘I–do–not–need–contraception,’ Katy stated.
‘I see, but—’
‘I am certain of that,’ she interrupted, ‘because I currently have cabbage leaves stuffed down my bra. Can you imagine a more effective passion killer than breasts that smell like a compost heap and are prone to leakage?’
The doctor turned back to his computer screen, showing little reaction to what Katy thought was a reasonable question. He started tapping something into his keyboard. ‘I can give you antibiotics if you are suffering from mastitis,’ he muttered, staring intently at the screen.
‘And,’ she continued, feeling the need to further justify her absolute rejection of the mention of contraception just six weeks after she had given birth. ‘And, I’ve had eighteen stitches in my vagina.’ She folded her arms and leaned back, feeling smug. Now see if he dared raise the subject of contraception again. My, she’d come a long way since she’d given birth a few weeks ago. She never would have would have used the V-word with anyone – including a doctor – before. Her dignity, however, had been left on the labour room floor and she no longer felt any compulsion to keep her vagina and its injuries to herself.
The doctor appeared unfazed by her declaration. ‘I need to make you aware,’ he said, ‘that just because you’ve recently had a baby, it doesn’t mean you can’t get pregnant if you have unprotected sex.’
‘And when exactly do you imagine this unprotected sex will be occurring?’ she asked. ‘Would that be at night when our daughter chooses to celebrate the dawning of a new day in the southern hemisphere by refusing to go to sleep, or would that be during the day when my fiancé is at work and I’m exhausting myself by trying to keep her awake to convince her that Greenwich Mean Time is the way to go?’
The doctor looked at her as he must have looked at a thousand first-time mums.
‘It will get better,’ he said calmly.
‘Or maybe,’ she continued, ‘I’ll be in the mood just at that point when I haven’t been near a shower in days, I’m reduced to using Sudacrem to style my hair and Millie has just projectile pooed all over me.’
The doctor held her accusing stare. ‘I understand,’ he said gently.
‘Do you?’ she cried. ‘The fact you have four kids would indicate to me that you do not understand in the slightest.’ She nodded at the framed photo of the doctor surrounded by his wife and tribe of sons, sitting behind him on the window ledge. ‘You’ve put some poor woman through this four times. You clearly have no idea.’
Katy leaned back in her chair and tried to control her rapid breathing. She was in no mood to have her love life interrogated. To be perfectly honest, sex was the last thing on her mind since the hand grenade of a new baby had landed in their lives. However, she had to admit it was bothering her that it also appeared to be the last thing on Ben’s mind. She was very aware that he’d made no move whatsoever to instigate lovemaking since their new arrival. Previously a post-pub snog would easily fall into a happy tumble on the sofa or under the sheets, and Ben had even been known to set his alarm in order to sneak in some early morning passion before work. But now they were a total sex-free zone. She hoped it was down to Ben being considerate and as overwhelmed by everything as she was, but what really chewed at her was that they actually hadn’t made love since Ben had discovered she’d had sex with Matthew. Maybe he hadn’t totally forgiven her after all for her stupid one-night stand with her childhood sweetheart. She certainly hadn’t forgiven herself, and she doubted she ever would. But he’d still asked her to marry
him, hadn’t he? Said he loved her when he’d returned, just in the nick of time, to the delivery room, not only to forgive, but also to propose.
Their engagement had lasted for a whole four hours and twenty-three minutes before they became parents. Their relationship barely mended, healing time had taken a back seat to baby demands, and their promise of betrothal had got lost somewhere in a sea of tiredness and Pampers. Any desire to consummate Ben’s proposal was crushed by the need for a moment’s peace, or worse, as Katy feared, by unresolved resentment that she’d fucked everything up by shagging her ex. Either way, being interrogated by the doctor on this sensitive subject was not going down well.
‘I see you haven’t had a smear test for over three years.’ The doctor looked at her over his glasses. ‘You really need one soon.’
Katy stared back at him. Could he really be that insensitive?
‘I have two words for you,’ she said. ‘Eighteen. Stitches.’
‘I’ll make sure you’re sent a reminder in three months,’ he replied, typing again. ‘Now, let me ask, how are
you
feeling?’ he said, changing the expression on his face from slightly frustrated to a mock caring one.
‘Fine,’ she muttered, worried it was some kind of trick question.
‘Have you felt down at all since giving birth? Have there been any times when you’ve had a sense of hopelessness, like you couldn’t cope?’
‘Hourly,’ she replied deadpan, then laughed nervously. She thought of the chaos she’d left her designer flat in that morning. Before the baby she couldn’t bear to leave the place in a state, as she loved the calm feeling of arriving home to its tidy perfection. Now she woke up surrounded by chaos, lived in chaos, shut the door on chaos, arrived home to chaos. She thought of the hanging files in her old office at the advertising agency. An account director must always appear in control, and her alphabetical, colour-coded files were the bedrock of a system that allowed her to organise with a ruthless efficiency renowned throughout the agency. She had no system for the baby. She just couldn’t find the system, however hard she tried.
‘Are you often tearful, or emotional for no obvious reason?’ the doctor continued.
Katy thought about her reaction to having discovered there was no coffee in the house that morning. Mild hysterics. Her response to the
takeaway pizza arriving without extra mushrooms. Mass tantrum. News that Take That were going on tour again and all the tickets were sold out already. Literally floods of tears. She was constantly emotional and on the brink of falling apart. She wasn’t coping at all well with motherhood and she had no idea why. She was a smart, intelligent, successful woman who didn’t have a clue how to look after a baby. She felt like a failure, and that was something she just wasn’t used to.
‘I’m fine,’ she insisted,’ fighting the urge to burst into tears. ‘Everything is fine.’
‘Good, good,’ the doctor said, apparently satisfied with her answer. ‘And are you getting help from your partner with the baby?’
‘Oh yes,’ she nodded. He was outside now, looking after Millie in the waiting room. No doubt Millie would be gurgling at him happily as all the oldies told him how good he was with her. No-one ever told her that. Ben picked her up and she instantly calmed, mesmerised by his big blue eyes and shock of ginger hair. Katy picked her up and she looked disgusted at the imposition. Babies must be like dogs, she thought. They knew when you were scared. Millie had already worked out she was a rubbish mum, she just knew it. She could tell by the look on her face.
‘Her daddy is very good with her,’ she informed the doctor. ‘She really is a daddy’s girl.’ Her stomach clenched as she said the words. She still couldn’t bear to think about what she’d put Ben through regarding Millie’s parentage. The timing of her stupid one-night stand had proved potentially catastrophic when she’d realised it had coincided with when she’d conceived. Knowing there was even a tiny chance that Matthew could be the father of her child had led to months of anxiety until Millie appeared, sporting a shock of ginger hair identical to Ben’s as well as his cute, slightly turned-up nose, dispelling any doubt whatsoever that Ben was her father. He was in fact waiting outside with her now so they could all go to the registry office and get Millie’s birth registered. Katy had been avoiding it, dreading the awkwardness and recriminations might get raked over. But now she wished she’d got it over and done with straight away so they could have moved on weeks ago. Still, it would all be done today, and once they’d completed that task then she really
should get around to having sex with Ben. She realised that they needed to have sex. Soon. Perhaps when they were both less tired.
Chapter Two
Leeds Registry Office had the look of a building more suited to registering the misery of death than the joy of a new life, with its looming, grimy stone walls and double-height doors guarded by iron gates. Ben bounded up the endless steps at the entrance with all the ease of a twenty-nine-year-old who spent his days tearing around a school sports field with teenagers. Katy meanwhile took it more slowly, feeling every one of her extra eight years on Ben as well as her lack of gym attendance since pregnancy, which had given her the welcome excuse to end her membership. Ben waited at the top of the steps, swinging Millie in her car seat like it was a ride at the funfair until Katy reached him. He put Millie down and started punching the air.
‘What
are
you doing?’ asked Katy.
‘Pretending I’m Rocky,’ Ben grinned. ‘It’s impossible to come up a massive set of steps like that and not sing the theme tune to
Rocky
and then do this at the top.’
‘Even Millie is looking at you as though you are deranged,’ Katy pointed out.
‘The minute she’s old enough I’ll be sharing the joys of
Rocky
with the Millster
and
I will bring her to these very steps, and we shall sing and run and pretend-fight together, and she will understand that it is the right thing to do whenever you see a long set of stone steps.’
‘So glad you have her education close to your heart, Ben,’ Katy said dryly.
‘Important life lessons, Katy. What to do on seeing a large flight of stone steps and how to handle the utter depression of being a Leeds United fan. These things are all on my essential list of teachings for Millie.’