The Lover's Children novel Chapter 94

GEORGIE

The shop-girl frowns. “No, the swing itself. We sell three different models. After the holiday break, he bought The Parisian about six months ago. He says it turned his life around.”

“You have it in stock?” says Borje. “Can we see it?”

“Of course, sir. We have a demo set up in the back.”

The contraption dangles from an A-stand, of the kind I’ve occasionally seen by swimming pools or on sunny lawns, supporting basket chairs. A pair of webbing straps support a sort of sponge rubber base, a seat. Another pair dangle free. If I’d not known what kind of store we were in, I’d have thought it was a piece of climbing equipment.

“Here, I’ll show you.” The girl seems entirely unembarrassed as she steps backward into the arrangement of straps, easing her butt onto the spongy seat. “It looks a bit intimidating when you first see it, but really, it’s very easy and comfortable. This is set up to my size for demonstration purposes, but it’s so simple to adjust.”

She grips the supporting straps. “You have to be sure that your arms are outside the straps like this…” She illustrates by tucking the straps under her elbows… “Then, once you lean back, you can’t fall out of the swing. You’re really safe, no matter what you do. Then…” She leans forward, hooking her feet, complete with high heels, into what look like stirrups on the end of another pair of straps… “You just hook your feet in here, lean back and you’re good to go.”

Sitting up in the contraption, she slides webbing through buckles… “If you lengthen the leg straps, you can lie back almost flat.” She demonstrates, then sits upright again… “But if you shorten them, like this…” She tightens the webbing, pulling up her knees… “You’ll find that it kinda of… “She waggles her eyebrows… “kinda opens you up, so you’re all ready for him…” She drops a wink to Borje, who grins in return.

She slips of the seat, gesturing to me. “Would you like to try it?”

“No. Definitely not.”

Her smiles fades, but Borje slips an arm around my waist. “A little advanced I think, but thank you. We’ll just keep looking around.”

The girl’s smile returns. “I’ll be at the counter. Sing out if I can help with anything else.”

“I will.” Borje hooks his arm into mine, steering me back into the main store. “I’d like to buy you something.”

“Buy me something?” I parrot his words like an audio file set to ‘Repeat’. “What would you buy me from here?”

He runs hands through his hair. “I don’t know. Something. A gift.” He looks this way and that. “Those stockings would suit you.”

“Stockings?”

“Yes, stockings. You have the legs for it. And the thighs. Some women don’t look right in in them, the way they can bite into fleshy thighs, but they’d look great on you.” He plucks a packet from the display. “They’ve got hold ups, but if you prefer the others, I’ll get you the belt as well…” He flashes brows… “And the rest of the lingerie set if you like.”

I cringe. “I don’t like stockings. They look cheap and nasty. And they make the women wearing them look cheap too.”

Borje face falls. Lips pressing flat, unspeaking, he slips the packet back in the rack. “Come on, let’s get something to eat.”

*****

With barely a word spoken, Borje marches us across the road. “Italian good enough for you?”

“Um… Yes… Fine.”

*****

The restaurant is lovely, sunshine spilling through the windows over our table. A bottle of excellent ‘House Red’ stands open beside the grinder and a small bowl of shredded Parmesan. But I’m uneasy.

Borje stirs the food round his plate.

I grind pepper over my ravioli, then spoon over a bit of cheese. “Don't you like it?”

He winds fettuccine around his fork, but doesn’t eat it, doesn’t reply.

“Are you angry with me?”

“No, not angry. A better word would be disappointed. I thought we had something.”

“We do have something, but… you dragged me into a sex-shop. You wanted to…”

He cuts me short. “Georgie, I think you badly need to chill out and to abandon some of your preconceptions. A couple who dress, behave and play to please each other, are not somehow immoral or debauched.”

My hackles rise. “They could be. You read about all sort of pervs and sickos…”

“So you do,” he snaps. “I see the results of some of it on my slab.”

He stops, swallows, then, “My apologies. I shouldn’t have said that. As I say, it’s been a bad morning.” Sitting upright, he takes a swallow from his glass, looks me face on. “So, give me an example, Georgie. What makes someone a perv or a sicko in your mind?”

My pasta sits uneasily. “Well… there’s that maniac who’s going round the streets right now, slaughtering women…” his eyes drop… “There’s people who abuse kids and animals…”

Borje holds for long seconds, his mouth working, before he responds. “And in your head, that kind of behaviour is the same as…” He aims a finger out and across the road to Wicked Whispers where, in the window, the assistant, speaking now to the older couple we saw go in earlier, is pulling aside a flap of lace from a skirt, illustrating how it opens up… “… a consenting couple who enjoy a bit of sexual tomfoolery with each other.”

“No, of course not. But it’s a slippery slope.”

“It is not a slippery slope,” he hisses. “There’s a very definite dividing line between sexual kink and perversion.”

“Oh? Is that right? And what is this dividing line? How do you decide where it lies?”

He leans close, enunciating the word. “Consent.”