Kiss Don’t Tell. Avril Tremayne

ridiculous.’

      ‘Erica agrees with her, and she knows all the background. Although she says calling it a complex is just a fancy way of saying Lane’s mother is an absolute cow—which happens to be an insult to cows if you ask me.’

      Adam’s head was in his hands—not an unusual position to find himself in whenever he spoke at length with his sister. ‘And yet I still have no idea what you’re talking about.’

      ‘Oh, well you can guess, can’t you? Just from the name of it! Lane is desperate to make her mother proud of her, to the point of being completely fixated on pleasing her, but her mother ignores her and focuses completely on Lane’s brother, Brad. The Brad obsession stems from him being a sickly kid. Leukaemia, so anyone could understand that. But I’m sorry to say that doting on him kind of stuck even after he was cured, and sadly—although I swear I can see glimmers of something good hidden in there—he’s basically turned into the biggest no-hoper you could ever meet. He’s lazy, idle, indolent, slothful, incompet—’

      ‘Spare me any more adjectives, for the love of God!’

      ‘Fine! He’s just abominable—there, one word. But the thing is, Lane keeps trying, and endlessly failing. Brad’s jealous as hell of her accomplishments and her mother therefore point blank refuses to be proud of her. It’s almost as though she makes a conscious choice to keep Lane at arm’s length.’ She looked at her glass again and gave the whisky a sad swirl. ‘You know, it’s hard to stand by and shut up when the three of them are together.’

      ‘Yes well that all sounds very sad and tortured and psychoanalysis-worthy, but it in no way explains the need for Lane to draw up a contract and pay someone for sex.’

      ‘Okay so think about this—it may help. She came dux of her school. She got into university a year before she should have and ended up with an Honours degree. She landed a job at a top consultancy straight out of university and within a month, nailed a promotion. When she moved on to the bank where she is now, she was placed in the exact area she wanted and her salary zoomed sky-high. All of this because she’s driven to succeed so her mother will say, “Well done, Lane.”

      ‘But instead, you know what her mother started saying to her three months ago? “Gee, Lane, how come you never go on any dates? I’m not getting any younger you know, and I’m going to want grandchildren one day.” Nice, huh? She can’t criticize Lane for anything she has achieved, so she’s starting on something she hasn’t. Thank you, Mommie dearest.’

      ‘Okay, I get it.’

      ‘So now, having had no time to even think about getting a boyfriend because she’s been working like a dog at school, then at university, taking extra classes on the side she thought would help her career, and nailing her career … Now she has to become some man magnet ASAP as well? Sheesh! And I promise you, we’re coming off a low base here when it comes to men. The night I first met her, at an orientation week event at uni, there was a guy trying to ask her out on a date and she had no idea! I remember thinking he’d need a flashing neon sign on his head before she realized it.’

      ‘So she’s not exactly desperate and dateless then. Or she wouldn’t be if she just loosened up and looked around. Any man would be up for a little experimentation.’

      Sarah raised an eyebrow at him. ‘Really? Because it seems to me you’re being dragged kicking and screaming in protest over your fate.’

      ‘I— That’s … different.’

      ‘Is it? Seems pretty similar to me. And just so you know, that guy didn’t ask her out in the end, he gave up. They always do, you know. They give up because they see what you saw tonight: the outer shell. The ice, not the fire.’

      ‘Yeah, well the fire’s got its work cut out for it—if it really is under that glacier-like coating of hers.’

      ‘You just wait and see. I know Lane. If she says she’s going to learn something, she’ll learn it. She’s never failed a course yet. She’s going to cram seven years of sexual experimentation into as short a time as she can get it done.’

      ‘I still say she could get laid seven nights out of seven by going to a bar and choosing a guy, any guy. She won’t even have to pay for a drink; she’ll be picked up before she even orders one.’

      ‘Ah, but she doesn’t look at her arrangement with you as paying for sex. What she’s really paying for is skills transference, and confidence in her abilities. It’s no different from when she signed up for private Mandarin lessons, you know. She decided to specialize in the Chinese economy and thought the lessons would help her. And they did, too. They clinched the job at the bank for her.’

      ‘So I’m the sexual equivalent of Mandarin classes?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Fucking fabulous.’

      ‘With you, she’ll get the lessons she needs, all private and confidential, using a timetable she’s set for herself, and it’s all under her control because she’s paying for it.’

      Adam gave a short, humourless laugh. ‘Ah, my secret fantasy—a control freak who doesn’t know what she’s doing.’

      ‘Yes, well if your initiation into sex had been as bad as hers and was broadcast to half your workplace besides, you might understand her need for control over subsequent experiences.’

      Adam paused in the act of pouring more Scotch. ‘Initiation? You mean the douchebag was her first?’

      ‘DeWayne Callaghan. First and only, and the miracle is she’s willing to try again after him. She went out with him the day after her mother dropped the first “give me grandchildren” hint.’

      Pause, as Sarah gave him a speculative look. ‘You know, I’d say I’m surprised she told you about him, because she really found the experience intensely humiliating … but oddly, I’m not surprised at all. She’s like that—she never hides from the truth. She’ll tell you whatever you need to know if it helps to get her where she needs to be.’ Another look. ‘Did she tell you that despite DeWayne only lasting two minutes and forty seconds, he had the nerve to score her performance?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘He gave her one point five out of ten. And obligingly posted it on Facebook for all their colleagues to see.’

      ‘Shit.’

      ‘I would have torn his heart out and fed it to the seagulls at Manly Beach along with a bag of hot chips, right after tweeting his premature ejaculatory effort to the world! But not Lane. She was so valiant in the face of what he did to her. Just took it on the chin and didn’t say a word. It was as though she thought she deserved it for not being good enough. So she just kept going to work, not rebuking DeWayne even when their paths crossed in the corridor, until she found a new job where she could start again with a clean slate.’

      Adam found that he was shaking with fury. DeWayne. Douchebag. Fucking, fucking bastard. He tossed back his drink, reached for the whisky and repoured, just in case things got worse.

      Sarah was looking intently at the liquid in her glass, still not drinking it. ‘I wanted to shake the calmness out of her, make her rage and curse and slap that mongrel down. But I knew deep down that that veneer of calmness was saving her, that it was only a veneer, that she wasn’t calm. She was mortified, devastated, and hiding it, the way she hides it when her mother and brother make her feel like she’s coming up short of their expectations. But never in a million years did I think she’d dream up the idea of a sex contract.’

      She looked up. ‘Can you imagine how terrified I was when she announced that plan, as though she were announcing she was going to start taking a new vitamin supplement? I had nightmares last night, imagining her swiping right on some psychopath and ending up and being cut into little pieces!’ She lifted the whisky at last and threw it down her throat, and then shuddered, gasped, wheezed.

      Adam