I feel like someone’s dragged me out of a sexual coma. All the frustration I’ve been pretending doesn’t exist is now fizzing under my skin with nowhere to go.
“Have sex with hot Highland men” is absolutely staying at number one on the list, though I might have to add subcategories for stamina and girth requirements.
Riri would be so proud.
ELEVEN
Some girl from London
Georgie
I attack my lipswith soft pink lipstick, glaring at my reflection in the mirror.
It’s been sixty minutes since the Great Penis Awakening, and I’m still walking around like I’ve been hit by lightning.
Ugh. What is wrong with this guy? Just strutting around his garden completely naked, probably giving his poor housekeeper the shock of her life when she tries to bring him his morning coffee and gets an eyeful of that massive dick on full display.
Who does he think he is, some Highland sex god?
Normal men step into ice water and immediately experience the “turtle retreat.” Everything withdraws for warmth and safety. But not Patrick “Cryo-Cock” McLaren. Oh no.
I smooth down my navy skirt and white blouse with shaky hands, then attempt to wrestle my fringe into submission. My glasses need adjusting too—they’re sitting crooked, which always happens when I’m flustered. Riri used to say I had a heart-shaped face, that it made me look sweet. At the time, I thought it was a compliment. Now I wonder if “sweet” is just code for “will never be taken seriously as a sexual being.”
I’m certain that vision of Patrick McLaren’s majestic meat sword will stay burned into my retinas until the end of time.
I’ll be ninety, in my care home, and a sweet nurse named Sandra will be helping me shuffle into a lukewarm bath. Just as she lowers me into the water, I’ll go all misty-eyed. She’ll think I’m lost in a lovely memory of my grandchildren.
“It was majestic,” I’ll whisper.
And Sandra will lean in. “Sorry, what was majestic, love?”
I’ll grab her wrist with the strength of a woman who has seen things and hiss: “The dick, Sandra. The ice bath dick.”
I know I’m projecting. His sex-god theatrics are just throwing my three-year sexual drought into harsh focus.
Which is thewhole pointof the list, isn’t it?
Thirty minutes later, I walk through the entrance of Clachmòr House and even though I know what to expect, my jaw still drops.
It’sGame of Thronesmeets five-star hotel, with soaring stone halls and dramatic wooden beam ceilings.
The reception desk is a hulking slab of Highland oak carved from a single tree, parked exactly where the lord’s high table used to be.
Mary from reception offers to show me to the conference room where I’m to meet the senior kitchen staff. “You’ll get lost otherwise, dear. This place is a maze. We lose at least one guest a week. Usually find them in the whisky cellars, happy as clams.”
She’s not kidding. We go through a door hidden behind a tapestry.
“Original secret passages,” Mary explains cheerfully. “Imagine ordering room service and it appears through a bookshelf. Or finding a wee spiral staircase behind a painting that leads to our private library bar.”
I’m so busy gawking at the sheer grandeur of it all that I nearly walk face-first into a suit of armor standing guard in an alcove.
The conference room is empty. I’m early, obviously, so I sit there, checking my watch every thirty seconds as my nerves ratchet higher.
Twenty minutes pass. Twenty-five.
Finally, I give up and head back to Mary’s desk.
“Is the chef running late today?” I ask, carefully removing thewhat the hellfrom my tone.
