Male Review (13 page)

Michael moved the mug in front of her mother. “You change your mind and want some stress relief; you know where to find me.”

A plaintive wail drew all their attention to the stage before she had a chance to come up with a suitably cutting response. Maud struggled with her bindings.

“Where did you go? Did I nod off? Did I miss the show? I only agreed to this because you promised the full Monty. I bet getting me to agree to being tied up was a trick, wasn’t it? Probably better I missed it. I’ve seen more meat on a butcher’s pencil than on you, you Irish git. I’ve hung more impressive baubles on my Christmas tree, and at least they glow in the dark.”

Apparently the tirade was aimed at Michael. A man who appeared to have no intention of saving the hapless pensioner still chained to the torture device. Maybe it was revenge for her getting him to handcuff himself naked to a hotel bed before revealing she would be his first, and as it turned out, last client. Meg couldn’t keep the grin from her face as she remembered him begging her to save him from Maud.

No doubt fed up with the noise, and having no beef with Maud, Chad wandered toward the stage butt naked and Meg put her hands over her eyes, positive her mother would have a cow. Drunk or not, she’d bet her life naked people were well outside her mother’s comfort zone. When she dared to take a peek between her fingers she wished she hadn’t. Her mother’s mouth hung open as she gazed agog at Chad’s impressive appendage. Her mother drinking was a shock. Her mother staring at a man’s dick was too much.

Meg got to her feet and tugged at her mother’s arm. “Come on, Mum, time to go home. Maybe we can talk to Dad, and then come back later for Maud.”

Her mother shrugged her off. “No rush. Besides, I’ve got nothing to say to your dad now that he has another woman. Maybe I need another man just to show him I don’t need him.”

With a groan Meg got to her feet and crossed to the bar, turning her back on her mother ogling the floor show. Bad enough Aunt Maud was an old letch, but there was no way she wanted to even think about her mother having a sex drive, never mind a sex life. Michael put a glass on the timber top and added a generous slug of Whiskey. “Best be getting that down you before you fall over. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Meg tossed the drink back in one and slammed the empty glass down. “Is she still ogling Chad?”

He grinned. “Nope, she’s lurching toward the stage. I’m not sure if she wants to help rescue Maud or grope your man.”

“He’s not my man, he’s Laura’s.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot you’ve got the personal trainer to whip you into shape.” He winked and she averted her gaze. Her love life was no concern of Michael Monaghan’s. The lecherous man whore would screw anything, well anything except Maud apparently. She couldn’t keep the smile from her face when she remembered him whimpering to be saved from the overzealous old lady. Such a He man.

A loud fart rent the air and Meg could hear her mother giggling. She didn’t even want to contemplate where the noise had come from. No one dared so much as belch around her mother on any normal day, but today was turning out to be far from normal. On a normal day her mother was a sober upstanding member of society and she was fast coming to the conclusion she preferred her that way.

Laura laughed. “Who knew Vivienne could be so much fun?”

Meg didn’t like her mother being fun. Who would nag her about the way she dressed, or the fact she needed to find a man and settle down? Meg glared at Laura. “When you’ve sobered Mum up, you can take her and Maud home.

Laura followed her to the door. “Why? Where are you going? You need to lighten up, babe. Your mum’s much more fun when she’s drunk, and Chad can handle anything.”

Mums weren’t supposed to get drunk and they didn’t leer at naked men. As much as she hated the way her mother treated her, she wasn’t ready to trade her in for a younger model of Maud, wanting to discuss sex toys and bondage positions. Not trusting herself to stay calm if she continued the conversation, Meg climbed in her car and screeched out of the car park.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Meg drove around for half an hour trying to convince herself things were going to get better, and if she just ignored the situation, it would all go away. She even stopped outside Harding’s Travel and contemplated buying two tickets to Fiji and eloping, but she’d maxed out her credit card and the company had refused to lift her credit limit. When she finally pulled up outside her parents’ home, she let out a loud sigh. As much as she hated the idea of a conversation with her dad about his sex life with the neighbors, it appeared someone needed to give both her parents a stern talking to if things were ever going to get back to normal.

Any other day she would knock on the door and let herself in with her key, but not today. What if her dad were at it on the dining table with Milly, or some other willing female from the neighborhood? She would suffer irreparable mental damage and probably go blind.

She rang the doorbell and waited. Just when she was about to give up the door swung open and she stared speechless at the vision of her dad apparently butt naked except for the towel wrapped around his waist. Had Milly come back? Or had he run out of clean clothes and was reduced to living like a naturist? Maybe she should offer to do some laundry for him. Or maybe it was time to make a hasty retreat. Best she not know the full situation. It wasn’t her problem. Her parents were adults and could sort out their relationship issues themselves.

“I’ll come back later if you’re busy.” She stepped off the porch, terrified she had walked into the middle of something she would rather not know about. If she didn’t go inside she could deny all knowledge. She didn’t want to be the one to tell her mother she was right and her beloved Robert had moved on. God, her mother might move on as well. She could end up with a stepfather younger than she was, if the way her mother was eyeing up Chad was any indication of where her desires lay. And what if her dad married Milly? Meg couldn’t compete with Sian, her always glamorous older sister, never mind having a stepmother who looked like she’d stepped off the front cover of
Playboy
.

“Meg? I just had a shower. I’d forgotten what hard work it was.”

She held up her hand. “I don’t need the sordid details and I’m not telling Mum. It’s none of my concern. You’re both adults and can sort this mess out yourselves.”

Her dad chuckled. “The only mess is the one I need to clean up out the back. I’m sure your mother couldn’t care less that I finally got around to cutting the Jasmine back and replacing the roof on the pergola, seeing as she doesn’t live here anymore. Why, what did you think I was talking about?”

“So you’re not … you weren’t…” Meg waved her arms and huffed, not sure she should have started either sentence.

“Having sex with Milly? Only in my dreams.”

Heat flooded Meg’s face and it only got worse when her dad laughed and pulled her into his arms for a hug before stepping back and letting her inside the house.

While he went to get dressed, she put the kettle on and made two cups of coffee. A ferret through the pantry revealed an almost empty packet of TimTams and not much else. Cooking and shopping had never been high on her dad’s agenda. The one time her mother went away for a weekend with her bowling ladies, her dad had fed her and Sian cheese and vegemite sandwiches for every meal. He had tossed them on the coffee table to save on the washing up. He’d sworn them both to secrecy and paid them off with ice cream. Her mother would have been horrified if she knew her children hadn’t been given three square meals a day and been made to sit up at the table like proper little ladies.

Grey hair still damp and tousled, her dad slid onto a stool at the kitchen counter, took a biscuit from the packet, and dunked it in his coffee before devouring it with much slurping and licking of fingers.

Meg rested an elbow on the counter and watched him enjoy his treat.

Apparently satisfied, he smiled at her, but it never reached his deep blue eyes. He looked tired. She reached out and rubbed his forearm. “How are you doing, Dad?”

“Not as well as you seemed to imagine. I’m guessing your mother told you about Milly?”

“I found her at the male strip joint Maud and Laura are opening on Friday. She was drinking and making no sense. You knew she knew?”

“I saw the cab pull away from the curb when I let Milly out. Vivienne is the only person I know who sits in the back of a cab, hat and all, like the Queen Mother with a chauffeur.”

Meg twirled the spoon in her cup. “What about Milly?”

“I think she’s got a red scooter so I doubt she has much use for a cab, a hat, or a chauffeur.”

“Dad?”

“Okay. I met her at the newsagents when I went to get my morning paper. She told me her hot water heater was out of service so I said she was welcome to shower here. I gave her the spare key and figured she’d be gone before I got back from my morning constitutional.”

“So, why was she wearing Mum’s robe?”

Her dad chuckled. “It’s kind of funny when you think about it.”

“What is?”

“When I got home and heard the water running I thought Vivienne was back. I completely forgot about Milly. In my excitement I burst into the bathroom. Milly screamed and dropped the showerhead as she desperately tried to cover herself. In a panic she grabbed her clothes that were slung over the top of the shower screen and everything she had got soaked. Seeing it was my fault the least I could do was offer her something to wear home. I figured the robe was the least likely to offend. Milly’s sense of style is a little different to your mother’s.”

“Did you get wet as well? Is that why you were only wearing a towel when Mum saw you?”

He shook his head. “It’s probably best we don’t go there.”

“You mean, you mean … you burst into the bathroom naked?”

He shrugged and cleared his throat. “What can I say? I was excited.”

Meg really didn’t want a picture of her dad excited in her head. If she had any more revelations about her parents’ private life Meg would take a vow of chastity and enter a convent, her libido dead forever. “And you think if Mum was back she would be delighted to see you naked?”

“I figured she must have taken what I told her on board and decided to lighten up some if she’d come home without me having to beg her.”

Meg sighed, “I think she might have lightened up, but not in the way you hoped.”

“How’s that?”

“I told you she was drinking. Well, it wasn’t sherry. She was three sheets to the wind and torn between calling you every name under the sun and sobbing. When I left she was lurching toward a naked male stripper. I didn’t stay to see what happened next. I came to talk to you so we can sort this mess out once and for all. You’re both behaving like children. She obviously still loves you in her own way or she wouldn’t care about Milly. Why can’t you just go and talk to her?”

Her dad grinned. “I think I just might, but not today. When did you say Laura was opening the bar?”

“Friday, why?”

“I’ve got a brilliant idea.”

“Am I going to like it?”

Her dad shrugged. “Probably best I keep it to myself.”

Meg buried her face in her hands. “Oh God, I wish I had enough money to run away to Fiji and never come back.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

Meg tried to keep her mind occupied with thoughts other than what her father might be planning to do at the bar on Friday to win back her mother. At one end of the scale was him getting down on his knees and begging her to come home in front of a room full of people. She didn’t even want to consider the possibilities at the other end of the scale. She’d been sworn to secrecy about the Milly incident, although how letting her mother think she was married to an adulterer helped his cause, she had no idea. He’d seemed particularly happy the bar was a male strip joint. Too happy for her liking.

She turned the key in the lock and shoved her flat door open. Her mother lay on the sofa holding a bag of frozen peas to her head. An empty pizza box sat on the coffee table along with an upturned tub of Chunky Monkey ice cream. The confection had gone soft and was currently spreading across the pine timber top and dripping onto the plush pile carpet.

Maud sat at the desk in the corner banging away on Sam’s netbook.

“What’s going on?”

“Shh, don’t shout.”

Don’t shout?
Don’t shout
. Her mother had a nerve. Getting drunk was one thing, wasting ice cream was another. With her credit card maxed out, no sign of a lottery win or any wages from Laura, and her bank account taking on a deathly pallor, Meg could no longer afford luxury items like Ben & Jerry’s, and that had been her last tub. She’d been saving the Chunky Monkey for an emergency and now her mother had spilt the whole lot.

“What the fuck happened to my ice cream?”

Her mother opened one eye and whispered, “Don’t swear. You’ll go to hell.”

“Hell couldn’t be any worse than this. I was saving it for an emergency. What am I going to do now if something bad happens?”

Eyes closed and swallowing loudly her mother whispered, “Something bad did happen.”

“No it didn’t. You got pissed and if you dare throw up on the sofa I’ll make you sleep with the hobos under the viaduct. I wonder how that would affect your precious reputation.”

“My reputation is in tatters already. Your father has made me a laughingstock. I’m going into religious seclusion and you’re coming with me. We don’t need men.”

Meg rolled her eyes. Her mother might not need a man, but Meg did and her man was getting more and more elusive. She wanted to scream, but if she started she would never stop.

Maud swiveled her chair around. “You got a newspaper?”

“No. Do I look like I have a paper? What am I, the local newsagent?”

“When you get back from buying one, I’ll borrow it.”

“I don’t want a paper.”

“You just said you were going to the newsagent. You must be losing your marbles. Your grandmother started that way. One minute she couldn’t remember what she had gone to the grocery store for and the next she woke up in Mr. Minola’s bed. Claimed she forgot where she lived. Funny, she often ended up at the Minola’s when she got lost, but only when his wife was away performing with St Luke’s choral society.”