‘Okay, so she’s neither daughter nor mistress nor mum? She’s the love interest?’ I say around a bite of bread and cheesy goodness.
‘Heather,’ he says, drawing out my name for effect, ‘you should know better than to assume. She’s his mum,’ he annunciates clearly, despite the fry he’s just chucked into his mouth. ‘But only for roleplaying purposes, because she’s also the love of his life. Double denim is a kinky fuck. He’s probably wearing a onesie under those baggy jeans and she probably feeds him from her boob and wipes up his sh—’
‘Not while we’re eating!’ I shove another fry in his smiling mouth, watching that he doesn’t bite my fingers. It’s not so much the biting but the holding and licking them that’s the issue. It’s a little obscene but he delights in making me squirm.
Embarrassed. Turned on. A little unfulfilled until he says otherwise.
I stir the straw in my drink as a means of keeping my eyes from him. ‘I thought you’d have gone with the girl in the fake fur.’ My gaze then follows Archer’s to where a woman in leather pants slips a fake Leopard jacket from her shoulders.
‘Too easy. Cruella de Ville’s meaner, younger daughter. Took a job in a circus just to get her hands on the pelt.’
‘I think you’ll find that came from Primark,’ I say with a snigger. ‘My turn. Hmm.’ My mouth twists a little as I survey the room. ‘The man in the blue suit. I’m going to say he’s a secret cross dresser.’
‘Despite that bulbous nose?’
‘I didn’t say he made a pretty woman. Besides, it’s like that because he has a drink problem because he can’t live his life the way he’d like on account of having a wife who is a complete nightmare to live with. Their relationship is now based on jealousy over who wears the skirt in the relationship. ThinkWhatever Happened to Baby Jane.’
‘Which one is which?’
‘The wife is Blanche. The husband is Jane. And they have a son who is a chartered accountant.’
‘Deviant, I like it.’
‘He might feel like a deviant but in these enlightened times, he shouldn’t. The thing is, he feels he’s too old to benefit from the whole LBGT plus community.’
‘No, not the cross dresser. The chartered accountant. That’s positively perverse.’
‘You’re ridiculous,’ I say, pointing a fry at him as though conducting a symphony.
‘Ridiculously good looking. Ridiculously fun. Ridiculously in l—lust with a girl named Heather.’ From his position lounging in his chair, Archer straightens. ‘What’s his name, then? Because it wouldn’t be Jane.’
‘The accountant?’
‘Old bulbus nose.’
‘Bill when he’s in civvies. Billie with aniewhen he’s at home alone in his lipstick, knickers and frilly bits.’
‘Interesting.’ His expression takes on a devilish slant. ‘Bill, did you say?’
‘Yeah.’
‘So, William?’
‘What about him?’ From fun and stuffing my face, my heart is suddenly banging against my ribcage like a two-year-old with a toy xylophone.
‘Isn’t Barney’s real name William?’
Hell. Whenever Barney, I mean William’s, name comes up, Archer gets a little cranky. I feel like he might channel Elvis and treat me like his favourite lamppost.
‘Will is short for William, not Bill,’ I reply equally, refusing to be drawn.
‘Google it if you don’t believe me.’
‘I don’t want to.’
‘Because you know I’m right, and you know you’ve just emasculated your dearly beloved. You don’t need to be a psychologist to work out where that comes from.’
‘Armchair psychology is for idiots. And Barney isn’t my beloved anything. But all the same, making out as though I’m marrying him.’
