The Bonk Squad (7 page)

Other people seemed able to invent the
strangest things to do to each other’s bodies. She’d read about the
girl who’d sewn herself huge woolly sheepskin trousers with a
strategic hole so desperate Kiwi farmers could have a shag without
being prosecuted for animal cruelty.

And the man who wanted his partners to
safety-pin a nappy on him—through his actual flesh—and sprinkle him
with baby talcum. Then all he needed was a nipple and he was
away.

And heaps of other perverse
and puzzling things Bobbie just found mind-boggling. For
instance—the rope-and-photo people. The hot-wire man and the pretty
underwear. The cream cheese. All that oil. And how could anyone
do
that
with a
filing cabinet and colored marker pens?

What she really needed was a man to
experiment with. It was all very well reading other people’s
descriptions, but she needed to do it herself. Often, and lots of
different ways. Because surely that would give her real
inspiration?

So who could she recruit? Men were
thin on the ground when you were a bookish lab technician, closeted
away at a Horticultural Research Institute behind forbidding high
hedges and security doors. Her dark brown eyes roved around the
writers.

Meg was a widow—no husband to
borrow.

Her son was a tall good looking boy,
but far too young.

Liz was divorced, and her ex-husband
sounded like No Fun At All and he had a mistress,
anyway.

There was mild mannered Ian, who was
at least available, but how much would he know about sex? Not much,
Bobbie felt. She needed a man of the world. Someone who knew
sensual little tricks she could incorporate into her writing.
Someone confident, and without morals or hang-ups.

Vi’s son could be suitable—but he
lived in Australia and was probably at least fifty.

Eloise had a husband. Johnno. He might
be bored enough with his drama queen wife to give Bobbie a whirl.
But she’d met his really nice daughter now. Mmmm...maybe
not.

Romy often mentioned her
lovely man. But they had
a lot
of children, so he was obviously far too fertile.
A baby was the last thing Bobbie needed, so he sounded like rather
a risk—not to mention fond of Romy.

There were several other women who
attended the Romance Writers’ meetings less frequently. She didn’t
know too much about their men-folk.

And that left Nurse Mandy, still
rabbiting on about the lonely nursing sister and the dreamboat
doctor. Mandy had married a commercial fisherman so he was almost
never available. But, Bobbie speculated, that might not be a
problem.

For one thing, Mandy didn’t sound
madly in love with him, so it wouldn’t really be stealing. Mandy
had admitted to having a lover of her own. Peter—who worked at the
hospital, doing scientific things with dead bodies.

And the husband might be desperate for
sex if he was away at sea a lot with Mandy otherwise occupied. Max
Nicholson, his name was. Bobbie wondered what he was
like.

Heading for forty, with rough fishy
hands.

She wrinkled her nose at the thought.
But that made him old enough to know a thing or two, young enough
to be fit and virile, and not always hanging about being a
nuisance. Things could be worse.

Slowly she invented him. A muscular
body because of all his hard work at sea. A thick strong neck she
could scrape with her fingernails. Dark brown hair just starting to
gray at the temples. Eyes as green as the ocean. (All right
then—rough fishy hands. But nice tanned arms, too.) A pirate’s
slashing smile.

They could dally on the foredeck of
his boat. There would be coils of ropes, and piles of net. He could
arrange the net into a makeshift bed, and the ropes might be handy
for bondage.

They would consummate their love in
the clean salty evening air, miles from shore where they couldn’t
be seen. She quite liked the idea of that. At least no-one would
catch them at it and make problems with Mandy.

“
Salmon sandwich?” Meg
asked, handing around plates. “Or does fish count as meat as far as
you’re concerned?” She proffered the sandwiches along with Vi’s
sinful pikelets.

Bobbie gulped and chose a salmon
sandwich by mistake.

He was used enough to his mother’s
friends to hover on the edges. Most times he listened from his
adjacent bedroom, keeping the door wide open in case they started
talking about something really juicy. Privately he called them The
Bonk Squad. However he looked at it, sex seemed to be the main
focus of their writing.

The historical novels drove him mad.
The language sounded weird, and everyone behaved so properly.
Except for Eloise’s people. He’d eavesdropped, enthralled, as the
stable boy fucked the Duchess, and she’d urged him on with a
whip.

Liz was his favorite. She wrote modern
stuff where husbands and wives split up, and the wife went looking
for new partners in bars and at parties.

And often went to bed with them to
make her ex-husband jealous, because she always told him about the
new boyfriend when he came to collect their kids at the
weekend.

Liz’s wives were vicious; they cut up
suits, stole girlfriends’ contraceptive pills, and spray-painted
rude messages on their ex-husbands’ expensive cars. Ben listened
with a mixture of respect and disbelief to some of the things they
did to get even.

But today he had a new distraction,
far cooler than Liz’s wives. A flesh-and-blood girl named Tigger.
With wicked dreads. And she’d read part of her novel from the
screen of a super-slim silver Mac. He’d give anything to possess
one the same.

So he’d strolled out of his room and
started the electric kettle boiling just a little earlier than Meg
would have. And pretended he wasn’t looking at either the girl or
her laptop. While inspecting them both minutely.

Tigger gave him a secret little grin
from her nearby chair and he nodded, blushing.

“
Awesome,” he whispered,
looking at the machine with undisguised longing.

“
Got it in London,” she
murmured, not wanting to interrupt Romy who was being helpful to
Meg.

Jeez—that makes it twice
as good.

“
Have you just, like,
bought it?”

She indicated he should crouch beside
her. He folded his tall body down, wishing he had better jeans on.
Tigger turned the computer on her lap so he could inspect it. He
ran an envious hand along its silver flank and hovered over the
keys.

The kettle switched itself off with a
sharp click just as no-one was saying anything. Meg rose to attend
to tea and coffee, and there was general stretching and
relaxing.

While the others claimed drinks to go
with the food, Ben and Tigger slipped into his nearby bedroom.
Muscle-bound All Blacks and hard-hitting cricketers sneered at them
from big shiny posters on the walls.

And although it was obviously
necessary to sit side by side on the bed to put the Mac through its
paces, it was not compulsory for Tigger to press her breast against
his arm, or for Ben to lean so close her hair tickled his
ear.

He took a brave breath. “I liked your
story.”

“
Some writing’s real fun.
All you need is two names...?” She looked at him as though seeking
them.

“
Michael and Jess,” he
suggested, choosing school friends.

“
What’s
he
like?”

“
Red hair. Freckles. Plays
the trumpet.”

Tigger gave him a gruesome look. “Not
ideal hero material.” Her fingers danced.

Michael strode across the
stage of the darkened theatre. He pushed impatient fingers through
his luxuriant mane of auburn hair.

“
Damn the woman!” he
growled. Jess had promised to be at tonight’s concert. He’d
reserved a prime seat in the front row for her.

Ben grinned. “Cool.”

“
What does she look
like?”

“
Skinny. Really short black
hair. Pierced eyebrow.”

“
Hmmm. Okay—”

But every time he’d raked
his dark eyes across the audience, her seat remained empty. He
heaved a sigh. His naked sweat-sheened chest rose and
fell.

“
Naked?” Ben
squawked.

“
I’ve made him a rock star.
He gets his shirt off for the girls. Tanned skin. No freckles and
no trumpet—sorry.”

Jess watched him from the
shadows. What a glorious animal he was. Untamed and unashamed. How
could she hope to compete for a man like this? She ran a thin hand
through her spiky dark hair, and then over her slender hip. She’d
not dared to take her place in the audience tonight, although she’d
enjoyed his music from a secret spot backstage. All the other women
had yards of flowing blonde hair and bounteous breasts bursting
from their low-cut necklines. How could she compete?

“
Bounteous?”

“
Boob jobs,” Tigger
sneered. “Men like them big, don’t they?”

Ben held his breath and moved his arm
very slightly against Tigger’s small high breast. The corners of
her mouth curved up a little, but she kept her eyes averted and her
fingers on the keyboard.

“
You were wonderful,” Jess
called from the shadows.

Michael glanced around the
empty auditorium. “So you were here after all?”

Was his voice tinged with
relief? Had he really wanted her there? But why? His whole dazzling
future stretched before him—money, adoration,
popularity.

Jess knew she was talented
herself—a cutting-edge graphic artist. But his was a public
profession. And hers was a private pursuit. They were poles apart,
and his touring would rip them away from each other.

“
You’ve got to make it
really difficult for them to get together,” Tigger explained,
leaning a fraction closer. “Otherwise there’s really no story.” She
heaved a deep sigh, causing her breast to rise and fall against
Ben’s arm.

He swallowed. The heroes in Meg’s
writing always acted without thought for the consequences. He
should probably do the same. Did he dare? Suddenly he found he was
watching his right hand as it rose to touch Tigger’s perky left
nipple.

“
Oh!”

“
Sorry.” He snatched his
hand away, furious with himself.

“
No, it’s fine,” she said,
capturing it and replacing it. “I
was
trying to see if I could turn you
on.

“
Me?” he asked, in honest
confusion, hand against warm breast, cock at full
stretch.

“
Do you have a
girlfriend?”

“
Not really. Not
currently.”

Not often, never
properly.

“
That’s okay
then.”

No, it’s not—I really,
really want one
. “Why?”

“
I wouldn’t want to poach.
I got back from the UK last week. Just for a holiday to see Mom and
Dad. I’m at a bit of a loose end...” She let the suggestion settle
between them.

Ben’s eyes roved frantically around
his bedroom. No items of school uniform were on display, thank
God.

An Older Woman. Every boy’s dream.
Someone who would teach him what to do. But he was far too proud to
appear needy or unsophisticated.

“
Well, it’s Saturday
night,” he said, with as much nonchalance as he could manage.
“Movie?” (Would Meg let him have the Toyota. Oh,
puh-
leese
,
Mom.)

She watched him through half closed
eyes. What a mess. Was he salvageable? He might be an interesting
project.

She picked up the plates of muesli
slice and chocolate biscuits, and undulated across the room. Her
mother had seen the possibilities of her daughter’s tall slim build
and invested in deportment and grooming lessons in case a career on
the catwalk was possible.

Liz had never been interested—she’d
become a legal secretary, married an up-and-coming solicitor, and
produced Brett and Rosie with surprising speed. But the purposeful
walk always resurfaced when she was on the prowl.

“
Ian?” she asked,
proffering the plates. Predictably he chose the muesli
slice.

“
I’ve been looking at you
this afternoon, and you’re not making the most of yourself.” She
added a small smile to soften any possible pain.

He grinned back and pushed his hair
out of his eyes with a big hand.

“
No-one to make the effort
for,” he said with a self-effacing shrug.

“
But,” she persisted, “if
you made the effort, there might be. Someone to make the effort
for, if you see what I mean. Chicken and egg—which came first, and
all that?”

Liz widened her smile. She had no way
of knowing her pointed pixie face, exotically made-up eyes, and
welter of hair had just transported him back onto the heaving ship,
or that he was making a heroic attempt to squash his fantasy and
pay attention.