“I’m pretty sure that didn’t happen in the book.” Jake frowns at me.
“Must have been the porno version,” I shrug.
“Eat, Gay, Cum?” he suggests with a wicked smirk.
“Nice. But I think it wasEat, Peg, Lickthat I watched.”
“Ha!” He laughs with me.
“Anyway, the point is Idofeel mostly positive about my divorce. We both know it was the right thing. But that doesn’t negate the fact that a man who looks likethat, is not going to look at a woman likethis.”I point to my chest again.
“Jenna Louise Forester, as a gay man and your brother I am both sorely unqualified and much too biased to tell you that you are a smoking hot snack.”
I smile at him but quickly turn it into a smug pout. “Oh, I know. I have a shelf of an ass you could eat off, thighs that could keep any man’s ears warm in the coldest winter, and of course, there are these delectably plump fuck-me-lips...”
“Too much, dear sister, too much.” Jake covers his ears.
“However, I also know thatyoungmen don’t always appreciate such things. And it's probably a good thing. I mean, I’m old enough to be his...”
“Don't say it!” Jake quickly glances over his shoulder. “Not until we have at least verified his year of birth,orthat of his mother.”
Before I realise what’s happening, Jake is gone. He’s waltzing off to the young man, his hand outstretched and his smooth voice carrying over the hum of the music and the growing number of guests in the bar. “Good evening, I’m Jake Forester, the Resort Manager.”
Mouth hanging open, I watch as my brother walks straight for the man, who interestingly, does indeed have very long and curved thumbs.
Chapter One
Six Months (182 Sunsets) Ago
Jenna
Iknew it was coming. I knew the envelope would land on my doorstep one of these days, and I knew I would have to open it and flick to the last page to see our signatures side by side for the last time. I'd been thinking about it for weeks and envisioning it for much longer. In some ways, I think I've been preparing for it for years, possibly always, which is as depressing as it is strangely comforting.
Even so, as I bend to pick up the envelope along with a bank statement and a local estate agent's flyer, I do so with shaking hands and short, unsteady breaths.My fingers don’t stop trembling as I open it and flick through until I find one of Robert’s signatures. I stare at the great loop and kick of his R and behold the peaks and troughs of his surname that follows.
The name I never took.
At the time, it was something I did as a small and probably pointless act of feminism, but recently I have been questioning my motives; did I always know? On the rear of the last page, I trace the imprint his pen left with his final signature and marvel at how familiar the shape of it is, and yet how it is now so very foreign, so very other. A single tear lands on the paper.
“Jesus, Jenna, get a grip,” I say to myself because there's no-one else here. There's not been anyone else here for seven months, and I have become frighteningly comfortable talking to myself. Possibly because I’m still adjusting to both the silence of a single occupancy house and the noises that interrupt it. Noises I never noticed before like the foxes howling at night, the cranking of our - no,myboiler - when it switches on, and the howl of the wind through every crack in the Victorian brickwork and window frames.
I carry the papers and post into the kitchen and sit at the small table in the corner, pushing the divorce papers to one side and picking up the paint swabs I’d collected the day before. There’s a sunshine yellow I was thinking about using on the stairs, a pastel terracotta orange I would love in the guest bedroom, and a lush, earthy green that would make my bathroom look like a jungle, but they don’t distract me. If anything, they make me feel worse, because I really shouldn’t be spending any more money on decorating, not until I’ve figured out what I’m going to do about my job.
As a freelance sex and relationships columnist, I have never had a “proper job” as my father would say. Even aside from the topics I specialise in – intimacy, dating, sexuality, desire and pleasure – there are no set hours, no office for me to clock into, and I don’t even have real colleagues, as in the same set of people I check in with regularly. Sure, I’ve often worked with the same editors multiple times over the years. But to them, I am one of many, and to me, they are people I have to be on my best behaviour with so I can never be my potty-mouthed, innuendo-loving self. And it suits me fine. At least it used to.
Because I don’t think I can do this job anymore. How can I keep advising others on how to connect with their partners – physically, emotionally, sexually – when I lost all those connections with my husband? What kind of ‘sexpert’ am I when it’s been nearly two years since I last had sex? How can I claim to know what makes love last, when it didn’t for me?
A few of my friends who’ve recently become parents for the first time have told me how lost they felt at the beginning because there’s no manual for parenting, no guidebook or road map to follow, and I can finally relate. Where’s my map for this new journey? How do I navigate being single for the first time in over a decade?
With no guidebook and what feels like fast-disappearing hope, I do what I think any woman would do upon receiving their signed divorce papers. After briefly checking the time – 10:56 am - I stand up, move to the fridge and pour myself a large glass of wine. Then, I sneak my hands under my T-shirt and take offmy bra, followed by my earrings. I leave them all lying on the kitchen counter, as I take my wine back to the table. Finally, I pick up my phone and call my brother.
“Jenna, I was just going to call you-”
“Jakey,” I interrupt with a deep sigh.
“What’s happened?” he asks, panicked.
“It’s done. My divorce papers just landed.”
