Kate Davies - In at the Deep End

The Borough Press

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2019

Copyright © Kate Davies 2019

Cover design by Micaela Alcaino © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2019

Cover photograph © Ros Roberts/Getty images

Kate Davies asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to events or actual persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008311346

Ebook Edition © February 2019 ISBN: 9780008311360

Version: 2018-12-13

To my one true Spud

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

1. SEX NOISES

2. NO-MAN’S-LAND

3. THOSE AREN’T MY TITS

4. UNSEXY SEX

5. NEVER SAY NEVER

6. A SEXY, WORDLESS TONGUE CONVERSATION

7. LICKING THE SNAIL

8. WELCOME TO THE FAMILY

9. SCARY LESBIAN EYES

10. A SEX-CUPBOARD STAPLE

11. WHIPS ARE VERY TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

12. A SALTY RIM

13. AUBERGINE EMOJI

14. TEFLON-COATED BY HAPPINESS

15. EMERGENCY DOUGHNUTS

16. NO ONE STARTS WITH JUST ONE JUGGLING BALL

17. I CAN REALLY SEE THAT YOU ARE A MAMMAL

18. AN UNUSUAL LESBIAN SAINT

19. ALL YOUR EGGS IN ONE BASKET

20. MR LOVER LOVER

21. THE WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION

22. GIMP MASKS AND WAGON WHEELS

23. NOT THAT KIND OF MARRIED PERSON

24. I HOPE YOU’VE BROUGHT YOUR PYJAMAS

25. ALL OF THE BAD WORDS

26. SAM LOVES JULIA

27. THIS IS WHERE THE MAGIC HAPPENS

28. A VERY ATTRACTIVE CAR CRASH

29. BAISE-MOI!

30. CONDOMS ON THE PILLOWS

31. MÉNAGE À TROIS

32. POLYAMORY FOR BEGINNERS

33. SAVING CONTENTMENT FOR MY RETIREMENT

34. ELIMINATION DAY

35. VINDICTIVELY CALM

36. VERY SCOTTISH TINNITUS

37. SHUT IT, YA BAWBAG!

38. SHRIVELLED PEA

39. A TERRIBLE HUMBLEBRAG

40. LEMON DRIZZLE v BLUEBERRY TART

41. EL JEFE

42. NO WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL

43. A COUPLE OF PIROUETTES

44. LOVE, ACTUALLY?

45. SHAG PILE VIRGIN

46. A DYKEY FRENCH LIEUTENANT’S WOMAN

47. BACK

48. RESIDUE

49. WOW

50. CHRISTMAS SPECTACULAR

51. IT’LL PASS

Acknowledgements

About the Author

About the Publisher

One Saturday morning last January, Alice pointed out that I hadn’t had sex in three years. I knew I’d been going through a dry patch – I’d been getting through vibrator batteries incredibly fast, and a few days previously I’d Googled penis just to remind myself what one looked like – but the full force of how much time I’d wasted not having sex hadn’t hit me till then.

The last time I’d had sex was nothing to write home about either, let me tell you. He was a twenty-one-year-old editorial assistant from Alice’s office with an unusually large forehead, and it happened after a terrible house party that left our flat stinking of pastis. I tried to take him to my room, but a couple were already in there, dry-humping on top of the duvet, so we did it on the fake leather sofa in the living room. I kept getting stuck to the sofa, sweat pooling in the gap beneath my lower back. I don’t think he’d ever fucked anyone before, so it was a bit awkward and thrusty, and he cried and hugged me for too long afterwards. It comes back to me in flashes all the time – I could be boarding a bus, washing my hair, or sitting on a particularly squeaky sofa when suddenly I see his clenched red face or his sweaty pubic hair and flinch involuntarily. Enough to put anyone off sex for, say, three years.

To be honest, I’d always preferred the idea of sex to sex itself. In my imagination, I was experimental, confident, uninhibited, a biter of shoulders, a user of words like ‘pussy’. I could think about sex in the filthiest terms and speak frankly about it to friends – but when it came to actually doing it, or talking to someone I might do it with , I clammed up. I struggled to think of myself as sexy when I was with another person. I struggled to say sexy things with a straight face. It all felt performative to me, ridiculous, too far removed from the way I behaved in a non-sexy context, like I was playing a part in a porn film, and playing it badly. I couldn’t even flirt convincingly, certainly not when I was sober. Which might go some way towards explaining why it had been so long since I’d fucked anyone.

Alice and Dave, on the other hand, did have sex. A surprising amount of it, actually, considering they’d been going out for five years. The Friday night before that Saturday morning, I was alone in the living room, trying to ignore the sex noises coming from their bedroom. Our flat had incredibly thin walls, so it was almost as if I were there with them. How can something that is so much fun when you’re doing it (though not always – see previous note about sweaty sofa sex) be so repulsive when overheard? I didn’t mind living with a couple; having three people in the flat brought the rent down. Also, Dave had several Ottolenghi cookbooks and some very tasteful mid-century furniture, so we were better fed and more stylish than we would have been without him. But sex-noise-wise, I’d had enough.

The next morning, I heard Alice walk Dave to the door. They whispered to each other revoltingly and kissed wetly. I sat on my bed, picking the dry skin on my fingers, practising my speech in my head.

Alice walked into my room without knocking; people tend to do that when there’s no risk you’ll be shagging. She sat on my bed, her hair rumpled, a post-coital smile on her face. ‘Do you fancy brunch?’ she said. ‘I’m starving.’

‘I’m not surprised,’ I said, which wasn’t how I’d intended to broach the subject.

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Why aren’t you surprised? What do you mean?’

‘Well – you and Dave sounded like you had fun last night.’

‘You listened to us having sex?’

‘I didn’t listen. I heard . It wasn’t an active choice.’

‘We weren’t that loud,’ said Alice, as though asking for reassurance.

‘You asked him to—’

‘To what?’

I looked away. ‘You know what you asked him to do.’

‘How do I know if you won’t say?’

‘Fine. You asked him to stick a finger up your arse.’

‘Julia!’