The Wake - Table of contents

The Wake - afters (19)

It was more than all right: reader, it was wonderful. Frances grumbled at the start and threatened to go and sleep on the sofa but after some coaxing and cuddling from Aisling which I manfully tried to turn a blind eye to she accepted the arrangement on the understanding that Aisling lay between us.

It didn’t take me long to appreciate the advantages in this unique situation, being turned on greatly extra by making love right next to Frances kept wide awake and knocked nearly out of the bed three times at the very least on account of our exertions. I’m not going to try and tell you that I got permanently even after all the outrageous slings and arrows I’d taken from her but for those heavenly minutes at least it was as if they’d never happened and she looked like a beaten docket by the time Aisling and I settled.

But then possibly the best part of the night, next to unbelievable in fact. As I lay pretty much out for the count on my stomach bathed in a molten afterglow I felt this rush of icy air and seemed to dream that the bedclothes had been whipped off me. Before I could grasp the what the why and the wherefore I felt a fierce stinging pain on my backside repeated over and over and half turned to see the bold Frances standing on the bed swinging Kitty Birch for all she was worth and roaring out of her like a madwoman. She was stark naked now and a very different animal from the academic I’d briefly got to know and hate.

My sideways glimpse angled upwards revealed a woman with rictus leer and invisible eyes like some grotesque Greek statue come to life. Then for no reason I could understand at that particular time the pain eased giving way to titillating tingles, what amounted to a second wind in fact, the urge to start again in other words, and I heard Aisling whimpering beside me. I must confess that with all the turmoil happening I’d temporarily forgotten her. My mind to be honest was on Kitty who I realised had been withdrawn from my person though I knew from the vicious swish of her that she was still about and I ached to be flayed by her again. But quickly I began to understand that Aisling was the one presently getting it so I lay still, mind racing, waiting, hoping the beating would turn her on before I faded.

The strangest things happened then, outside and inside of my head in slow succession: fumblings, fondlings, footerings and the thought that maybe you didn’t have to like someone to enjoy their company in bed, the growing understanding that as long as you worked with your eyes closed you could loathe them yet not be loath to doing the business. Anyway, what with one thing and another I ended up between the two of them, Frances and Aisling, and between the two of them it ended up I could hardly lift my head. But somewhere in the middle of everything I had this notion that the bedroom wall was coming in and it took a while to grasp that it was only our next door neighbour above Mickey MacTamm’s barber's trying to make contact.

“Trollop! Bastard! Christ I don’t know which of the two of yous is worse. I’m phoning the police if yous don’t stop it right now, you hear?”

I actually thought he said priest and this put me in a bit of a temporary state brought on I have to admit by the Catholic rule of thumb which teaches that if ever you come across heaven here on earth then as surely as night follows day hell will shortly be coming up on the inside behind it and consequently during that minute or whatever it was I was picturing the parochial house across the road flooded with light at three in the morning give or take, and Bishop Farren and Father Hourigan and a whole collection of them summoned from neighbouring parishes shuffling over to Aisling’s flat in solemn procession with bell book and candle to pronounce excommunication.