appointment with the doctor to pick up the morning-after pill because neither of them had been planning this and neither had thought to pop into the chemist and buy condoms.
The morning-after pill may give her a headache and sore breasts and it may nauseate her; she’ll have to think of a good lie and practise it over and over again until she no longer thinks of it as untrue. That’s the only way to lie with any success to the man she married.
She’ll kiss Mark goodbye and because she knows now that their bodies fit, there’ll be no awkwardness between them. She likes his smell, the hint of fresh tobacco in his sweat; the few grey hairs on his chest, the scar on his upper arm.
She can feel it all, like the faint foreshadow of tomorrow’s hangover throbbing through the bright white glare of dancing drunk.
But all she feels right now is the satisfaction of being fascinated. And of being fascinating.
When, reluctantly, she gets out of bed and walks naked to the shower she doesn’t cry and she doesn’t laugh. She just washes herself and tries not to think.
Paula’s been on the game more than twelve years, during which time she’s sold pretty much all she has to sell. But she didn’t truly find her niche until she fell into the erotic lactation game. That was a few months after Alex was born.
Now she trades under the name Finesse. Compared to some of the crap she went through when she was younger, it’s easy money; she gets to spend her working hours in a clean little flat, and most of her lactophiliacs are long-term customers, middle-aged men who like to engage in what they call Adult Nursing Relationships. Sometimes they like to go the whole hog and assume the role of a breastfeeding infant, complete with nappies.
Some men like to have breast milk sprayed onto them as they masturbate. One or two like her to express into a manual pump as they watch and wank themselves off. They take the milk home to drink it or cook with it or do God knows what with it. Paula doesn’t really care; what harm can a little bit of milk do to anyone?
A very small minority of her clients are lesbian. She even has a lesbian couple. They like to latch on to a nipple each and nurse before doing their thing.
Paula doesn’t judge. She just gets on with it; takes her Domperidone, her Blessed Thistle, her red raspberry leaf, and counts her blessings.
So she’s surprised to see this sweet-looking young man standing in her doorway, telling her that Gary Braddon’s recommended her.
Braddon’s one of these tough-looking men, all tattoos and shaved heads, but he’s a gentle soul really, a softy. Loves his dogs, loves his milky boobs to kiss and nibble and suck.
Paula assesses the kid. He’s skinny, nervy. He smells not unpleasantly of fresh earth. She can see how he might be a friend of Gary’s. So she asks him in.
He looks at the prints she’s hung in the little hallway, faintly erotic Christian art showing the Lactation of St Bernard, in which the Saint receives milk from the breast of the Virgin Mary.
Paula paid her downstairs neighbour, who’s studying interior decorating, to do it for her at cost. He’s a nice straight boy, her Chris downstairs, so above the cost of materials she paid him in kind and everyone was happy.
Along with the subdued lighting, the prints add the right touch of reverence to the proceedings. Unlike most apartments providing related services, this is a place of nurture and worship.
Now this kid looks her up and down. His eyes can’t meet hers, but they never can at first. A lot of the younger ones never had a mum. The first time they look her in the eye is when they’re laid out on her lap, suckling away. Sometimes she strokes their hair and murmurs gentle words of encouragement. Sometimes they cry when they come, spunking all over her tummy.
Finesse doesn’t mind that. She’s pleased. It seems to help.
This kid digs into the pocket of his army surplus coat and brings out a wad of tenners. He tries to foist it on her — a fistful of greasy money in her lovely clean hands with their lovely manicure.
She says, ‘There’s no need to do that now, love.’
He blinks at her, embarrassed and confused.
She says, ‘Why don’t you come in for five minutes, take off your coat, sit down, have a little chat?’
But the kid won’t relax. He looks nervous, shifting his weight from foot to foot as if he needs the loo.
He follows her into the little front room. There’s a nice vibe in here, too, like a boutique hotel in earth tones and artificially aged wood. Paula does all right for herself, but that’s not the point of this display: the point is to suggest that she doesn’t need to do this — that she’s essentially an altruist, a therapist providing a service.
She invites the kid to sit.
He perches on the edge of a chair. Wipes his palms on his thighs. He jiggles his leg. He twists his hands in sweaty knots. He look at her, he looks away.
She crosses her legs, shows a bit of thigh, and leans forward. And there’s the cleavage. Boom. ‘Would you like some tea?’
He shakes his head once, looks away.
‘I’ve got some herbal blends,’ she says, in her smoky voice. She’s been doing it so long now, this voice, that she hardly thinks about it any more. She got training from an acting coach. He wasn’t a straight boy, so it was payment in cash. ‘Peppermint’s very relaxing,’ she tells the kid. ‘And chamomile.’
He shakes his head, looks like he wants to cry.
Paula sits and waits. Sometimes that’s the best thing.
Looking at the floor, the kid says, ‘It’s my dad.’
‘Oh, love,’ she says. ‘What about him?’
‘He sent me. He wants you to come round our place.’
‘Does he have a disability?’ Paula says. ‘Because that’s not a problem. The building’s got wheelchair access.’
‘It’s not that.’
She makes a concerned face, and the real emotions follow. This was taught to her by an acting coach too, and the funny thing is, it doesn’t make her feel like a fraud. It makes her feel like a better person. ‘Is he bedridden?’
‘No.’
She waits for more, begins to doubt it’s ever going to come. Fighting the urge to look at her watch she says, ‘Then what is it, love?’
He taps his foot, plucks at one of the sparse blondish hairs on his spindly forearm.
‘We’ve got a baby that needs feeding.’
There’s a silence. Paula hears cars go past, like the sound of blood in her ears.
As a girl, working the streets, the first sign that something was wrong was your hearing suddenly got very clear. It was your body, getting ready to react before your brain knew anything was amiss.
Hearing the traffic now, she knows she should have followed her first instinct and not invited this young man in. But he’d sounded gentle and personable on the phone, and she didn’t see the harm in starting an hour or two early; she could always take a nap afterwards.
None of this shows in her voice or in her body language. She just says, ‘I’m not sure what you mean.’
‘We’ve got a baby,’ he says. ‘It needs feeding.’
‘A little boy or a little girl?’
The kid hesitates, as if thinking about it. ‘Little girl. Emma.’
‘Can’t her mum feed her?’
‘Her mum’s dead.’
‘Oh, I’m so sorry, love.’
‘That’s all right. She wasn’t my mum or anything.’
The kid squeezes his eyes shut as if silently rebuking himself for something. He blushes.
Paula says, ‘How old is she? Little Emma?’
‘Very young. Just a baby.’
‘What do the doctors say?’
‘My dad doesn’t trust doctors. He says a baby needs proper milk. From a woman.’
