Kat wrinkled her nose. “Long enough …?”
“For my clit piercing to have healed.”
Kat choked on her coffee. “Jesus, Ri, what makes you think I’m an expert on clit piercings? Did the piercer say anything about swimming?”
I grunted in frustration. “Yes, she said don’t for six weeks. It’s only been three, but I’m goinginsane. I need to exercise. And to be fair, she also said to lay off the masturbation, and I lasted about three days on that one, and it seems totally fine. Like, it feels fully healed to me. I can flick the bean with no ill-effects.”
“I guess you know your body better than anyone else. At the end of the day, the risk is only yours, so, if you need to go swimming, go swimming.”
I nodded, collapsing onto the lounge beside her.
“Does it … is it more intense? With the piercing, I mean?” Kat asked over the top of her mug.
I grinned. “I can squeeze my legs together, wiggle about a bit andget myself halfway there. It’s … well, let’s just say that so far, I have zero regrets.”
Kat’s eyes bugged out. “Holy shit …” Her face split into a grin matching mine. “I can’t wait to hear what your first time is like with a partner …” She rolled her eyes playfully. “I bet men magically get over their issues with oral when there’s an extra toy to play with down there.”
“My love, if you find yourself with a man who has issues with oral, boot him out of your bedandyour life—immediately!” I waggled my eyebrows. “I bet Sir Daddy Dom is a cunnilingus connoisseur.”
“Oh my God, don’t!” Kat wailed, covering her face with her hands. “I seriously cannot even let my brain go there. My vibrator is about to die of overuse!”
“Ooh! That reminds me! I have a meeting later today with a woman who has a sex toy business. She wants me to promote her products on Tickle. I’ll getfreebies, Kat! Buzzing, pulsing, thrusting, flicking, sucking freebies! And you know I’m happy to share.”
“I love you, Ri, but I draw the line at your battery-operated sloppy seconds.”
I slapped her on the shoulder. “I meant I’ll give you one—still in the pack and everything, promise.”
“I could just go into Pink and Stink after work one day and see Juniper. That girl knows her stuff.” Kat sighed. “But now I know that … that Dom lives close by, the thought of him seeing me walking out of an adult shop, with my purchases in hand …”
I shrugged. “It might give him a nudge in the right direction … that direction being your dirty squirty bits.”
A giggle burst out of Kat, and she snatched a cushion off the lounge and smacked me on the head with it. “Ri … you promised those words would never come out of your mouth again!”
I cackled, leaping off the lounge and out of reach of the cushion. “I never promised. And I’m going swimming now.” I hurried off to my bedroom to change, while Kat muttered grouchily about crazy Romanians.
I’d barely made it half a block down the street when Rumi’s Maserati screeched to a halt beside me and she leapt out. My heart started a frantic rhythm in my chest, but I kept my head high and continued my purposeful walk to the bus stop.
“Are you ever going to answer my fucking texts?” she hissed.
“You know, Rumi,” I said coldly. “When someone doesn’t respond to your messages, that’s generally a sign that they don’t wish to engage with you, and not a sign to continue harassing them.”
“You’re making the biggest fucking mistake, Ri.” She grabbed my wrist. I wrenched my arm away from her.
“No, I’m not. I owe you nothing, Rumi.Lessthan nothing after all your abuse and threats and blackmail.”
She made a choking noise. “You areliterallya criminal, and you expect me—a lawyer of high standing in the community—to overlook your crimes? If you get caught, and they find out I knew all along, that could be very damaging to my reputation!”
I rounded on her then. “If you’re so fucking worried about your precious reputation, why are you sending me incriminating messages and trying to manipulate me into marrying you? Wouldn’t it be better to just say we broke up and that you have no idea what I did after that?”
Rumi’s face went purple. “Because I fucking love you, you stupid, ignorant bitch!”
I turned away from her, disgust burning at my throat. “I don’t think you know what love is, Rumi.”
“Well, good fucking luck when they do deport you back to your ‘uncle’. He’s had four years to plan what he’s going to do with you when he finally gets his hands on you again.”
I bit the inside of my cheek so hard I tasted blood.Do not engage. Don’t take the bait.
She thought she knew what she was talking about. And yes, I had told her a very abridged version of my life before Australia. With a number of omissions. But now was not the time to point out that what she thought she knew barely scratched the surface.
