V. McDermid - Hostage to Murder

Lindsay smiled. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Sophie suddenly look apprehensive. ‘Let’s hope he doesn’t decide when he’s thirteen that he’d rather live with the other half of his genetic make-up, then,’ she said.

‘Lindsay, do stop trying to frighten Fraser,’ Sophie said. Her voice was light, but the look she gave Lindsay would have melted the snows of Kilimanjaro. ‘Now, would anyone like any more fruit salad?’

Fraser and Peter exchanged a swift glance ‘Maybe we should just cut to the chase, Sophie,’ Fraser said.

‘I’ll show you to the spare room,’ Sophie said, ushering them out of the dining room and throwing a warning look over her shoulder at Lindsay. When she returned a few minutes later, she found Lindsay clattering the dirty plates into the dishwasher.

‘Are you deliberately trying to fuck this up for me? Or are you behaving inappropriately because you’re nervous?’ Sophie demanded.

‘Neither. I was simply trying to make sure we all knew what the ground rules were.’ Lindsay closed the machine forcefully.

‘But I told you that last night. You knew I’d already been through it all with Fraser.’

Lindsay tipped the remains of the fruit salad into a plastic container and headed for the fridge. ‘I wanted to hear it from the horse’s mouth.’ She leaned against the worktop, her arms folded across her chest. ‘I’m sorry, Sophie, but it’s hard for me to take your word for things when I know how desperately you want this. You’d tell me black was white if you thought it would prevent me standing in the way of you chasing this particular dream. So I don’t think it was out of order for me to ask Fraser what I did.’

Sophie’s grey eyes blazed anger. ‘I don’t suppose you stopped to think that it made us look like anything but the close and confiding couple?’

Lindsay shrugged. ‘Maybe Fraser will just figure that I’m cautious. Which is a sensible thing to be.’

Sophie ran her hands through her hair. ‘Jesus. I’m supposed to be in a relaxed and receptive state for insemination and look at me. Wound up like a fucking spring, thanks to you.’

Her partner’s anguish worked on Lindsay as no rational argument could have done. She put her arms round Sophie and murmured, ‘Oh Christ, I’m sorry. Come on, let’s get you sorted.’

Sophie led the way through to their bedroom. Somehow, she’d found the time to lay out a sterile plastic syringe by the side of the bed. ‘What’s the drill?’ Lindsay asked grimly.

‘Peter will bring the sperm through in a glass. It starts to thicken once it leaves the man’s body, so we have to keep it at blood heat for about ten to fifteen minutes so it’ll liquefy again.’

‘Too much information,’ Lindsay muttered.

‘The best way to do that is to put the glass between your breasts.’

‘ My breasts? What’s wrong with yours?’ Lindsay demanded.

‘I’ll be lying on my back with a pillow under my hips, Lindsay,’ Sophie said impatiently as she began to undress.

‘Great,’ Lindsay muttered. ‘Then what?’

‘You take it up into the syringe and inject it as far up my vagina as you can get.’

‘And that’s it?’

Sophie, by now stripped down to her underwear, had the grace to look embarrassed. ‘Not quite. There’s strong anecdotal evidence that an orgasm around the time the sperm is introduced increases the chances of success.’

Lindsay looked appalled. ‘You’re not suggesting we …?’ Then she suddenly saw the funny side and burst out laughing. The release of the tension that had them both clenched in its grip brought them together again like a stretched elastic band snapping back into shape. ‘I really don’t think I can do it,’ Lindsay spluttered.

Sophie finished undressing, slipping quickly beneath the duvet. ‘I don’t think I could keep a straight face now. Probably better if I do it myself.’

Lindsay closed her eyes and rubbed her eyelids with thumb and forefinger. ‘I think that might be best,’ she said, shaking her head incredulously, a final snigger escaping her lips.

Before she could say more, there was a tentative tap at the door. ‘All ready, girls,’ Peter sang out from the hall.

Lindsay opened up and stared down in disbelief at the glass being proffered to her. A large gob of off-white mucus clung to the bottom of the Edinburgh crystal, as viscous and slimy as phlegm. Wordlessly, she took it and closed the door. ‘You gave him one of my whisky tumblers,’ she said plaintively. ‘How can I ever drink out of them again?’

Sophie snorted with laughter. ‘That bloody dishwasher’s about as hot as an autoclave. Trust me, you’re not going to catch anything.’

‘It’s not a matter of hygiene, it’s a matter of taste. And I’m not talking flavour,’ Lindsay growled, thrusting the glass down the front of her shirt to nestle in her bra between still firm breasts. ‘Oh God, the smell,’ she moaned as the sharp tang of the sperm invaded her nostrils. ‘It’s like municipal swimming pools. Jesus, I really thought being a dyke meant I’d never have to deal with this gunge again. This is so disgusting, Sophie.’

‘You think I don’t know that? Listen, you’re not the one facing the prospect of having it inside you.’

Lindsay gave a savage grin. ‘It’s not too late to change your mind.’

‘Very funny. Come and give me a cuddle, please?’

Gingerly, careful of her cargo, Lindsay edged alongside Sophie. With her free hand, she stroked Sophie’s hair, letting her lips brush against the top of her head. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever felt less sexual,’ Sophie said, her voice wavering on the edge of tears as she struggled for arousal.

You and me both, Lindsay thought grimly. But she kept her thoughts to herself and dropped her head to Sophie’s breast, gently nuzzling her nipple. She licked it harder, sucking it into her mouth and tonguing it firmly. She was rewarded, as she knew she would be, with a soft moan and the arching of Sophie’s spine.

Then suddenly it was all action. Lindsay had to pull away to draw the sperm into the syringe. Placing her hand over Sophie’s, she slid the barrel into her lover’s vagina as far as it would go, then depressed the plunger. There was a desperation in Sophie’s cries as she came almost simultaneously. When Lindsay dared look up, she saw tears tracking down Sophie’s cheeks. She knew her own eyes were pricking almost to overflowing.

Their reasons, she knew, were dangerously different.

Lindsay leaned against Sophie’s bent legs, her cheek against Sophie’s knee. As soon as was decently possible, she pulled away. ‘I’m going to see if the guys need a drink,’ she said. Anything to get out of there and find a moment to get her face in order.

Now, two hours later, Lindsay was staring out of the living-room window to the moonlit playing fields across the road and the tawdry glitter of the city lights beyond. She had shared a large malt with Fraser and Peter then seen them out. She’d made a cup of herbal tea for Sophie, whose body had overnight become a temple worshipping very different gods from before. She’d climbed into bed as she suspected she was expected to do and had faked sleep. Once she’d been certain that Sophie’s deep and regular breathing wasn’t feigned, she’d slipped out of bed, poured herself another Caol Ila and sat on the window seat wondering how much of her future lay within these walls, and how much within the walls of the Café Virginia.

6

A few miles away, Rory McLaren was also pondering Lindsay’s future, though not in quite the same terms as the subject of her plotting. She swigged greedily from a bottle of water and let herself slide down the wall she was leaning against until she was hunkered down level with Sandra. Sweat streaked their faces and bodies as they grinned inanely at each other in the chilling-out space in the basement of E-scape, their favourite dance club, which occupied a former warehouse where Garnethill merged into Cowcaddens.