Vanilla, cont'd

I have no idea what I'm doing! I'm so nervous.

Ian was fairly attractive, for what it's worth. Neat hair, clear skin, generous lips. I could see it, objectively, but I didn't fancy him.

"Shall we have a drink?" I burbled. "Jac! Make sure everyone has drinks, and put some music on!"

This was where he shone; the menial, "could you just" tasks. I could trust him with those.

While he was busy serving, I seized the opportunity to speak with Rita, and clutched it like a shield. If not Rita, then Ian, and Ian was already fairly drunk. Maybe he expected to, oh I don't know, dive straight into us baring our breasts, or having our buttocks grabbed.

It wasn't unreasonable to want to warm up to that a bit, was it? A drink or two, a bit of conversation? How did these evenings usually go?

I leaned close to speak softly, so that Ian couldn't hear. Asking if she was ok, tucking a stray blonde wisp behind her ear. She flinched away from my touch. I wanted to catch at her hand, pat it or squeeze it for reassurance, but her knuckles looked shinier and more cracked than ever. I rested a palm on her shoulder instead.

"Rita," I spoke as gently as I could manage. "Try to relax a little. You're quite safe." I gave her an encouraging smile and moved in to her husband, who was already quite a way down the measure of whiskey in his glass. Well done Jac.

I couldn't put it off any longer, and I moved to speak with her husband. Up close, I was eevn surer that I didn't fancy him. He leaned towards me, and those lips I'd thought looked soft, now looked wet and slimy. The smile I'd thought handsome was a leer.

"I do love a woman in red," he said. "Did she tell you?" His eyes barely grazed his wife, and lurched back to me.

"She wants to please you, you know," I said. "She wants you to be happy."

"Oh I'm pretty happy," his grin was cartoonishly lopsided now, and it made him look untrustworthy. He looked like he was about to say Well looky what we have here...

He took another swig of his drink, and I offered him a top up.

"Oh no, no need," he said, reaching down beside his seat. "I brought a bottle with me."

I realised my expression was fixed, wondered how long for, and tried to unfreeze it.

"Would you excuse me for just a moment," I said, reverting to that hostess chirp and manoeuvring out of his reach.

Looking around, I couldn't see Jac anywhere. Rita caught my eye.

"Kitchen," she mouthed.

I scurried away.

Jac looked as fretful as I'd ever seen him. His eye was twitching noticeably, and his face oscillated between expressionless and a worried frown. The former meant he was struggling to process something, and the latter meant he had processed it but it didn't make sense.

"Jac, Ian isn't drinking the Talisker we-"

"Nona," he said, "Fancy seeing you here! What shall we talk about today?"

Oh, Christ.

Helping Rita with her marriage was all very well, but if it made mine implode because Jac couldn't handle this...

"Jac, what are you doing?"

There was a pause while his face cycled through those expressions again.

"Our guests don't have any food," he said.

I almost started explaining to him that this was not that kind of party, and damn the bloody food, but I did a bit of swift processing of my own and realised a few things.

First: someone (ie, Ian) could walk in at any moment. Me lecturing my husband on the difference between a dinner party and an orgy would look strange. Second, Jac was right; some nibbles wouldn't go amiss. And third, I remembered a friend of mine, a nurse who worked with the elderly.

"I don't fight them," she told me when I asked her how she managed looking after so many with varying stages of dementia. "I meet them where they are. It's easier on them, and easier on me."

"Thank you, Jac," I said, with a beaming smile. "You think of everything! But don't go overboard. Just a bowl or two of crisps or something. We can't have you slaving away in here. You need to be hosting. Go and talk to Rita, make her feel welcome."

I turned to leave the kitchen, and stopped at the sight of the big glass bowl on the tray, next to a dish he was filling with pretzels.

"Jac... What's this?"

"Your fruit bowl, Nona."

"What's it for?"

"As I understand it, it's for keys."

"Ummm. How would that even... There's only four of us! Leave it in the kitchen. Got that?"

"Understood."

Watching him walk away, I stood there, mind racing. What was I going to do? About any of it? Slimy Ian, frightened Rita, confused Jac, and that special bottle sat unopened...

I picked it up, hoping I could find a way to switch them, or top him up from this one without him noticing. I picked up a Merlot as well, to cover my absence. I'd been away too long already. I had to get back in there. Jac might say anything at all if left to his own devices.

Ian was scowling and red in the face, probably because Jac had finally turned on the charm and was chatting cosily with Rita.

Ian, partnerless, could do nothing but watch. He took a big swallow of his drink, and then, a beat later, another one. It looked like he was having a drink to cover his discomfort, and then, having swallowed, discovered the discomfort was still there.

I made a decent attempt at sashaying into his view.

"I can't resist a drop of red," I said.

"Nor can I..." He was eyeing the front of my dress.

"You know," I purred, "I'm very disappointed in you." I did some leering of my own, and leaned closer.

"Why's that?"

"I got you something special. And you haven't touched it."

"I'll touch it now then," he said, his forefinger hooking on the front of my dress, which slid down over the curve of my breasts. I brought the bottle up between us.

"You haven't had a drop." I don't think I'm a good flirt, and I'm out of practise, having been with Jac for a while now. It never matters what I say, Jac responds encouragingly.

Ian seemed unperturbed by my pantomime pouting. Maybe this hammy flirting was how it was done at these kinds of things.

"So you're telling me," he said, tugging more insistently on my neckline, "That if I have a taste of this, you'll give me a taste of... something else?"

"Mmm. Could be." I transformed my pout into a wide innocent smile.

He held up his almost empty glass and I poured in a good slug.

*

He almost yanked my dress down, and when I managed to redirect him to my stockinged legs, his hands travelled up them far too quickly.

"Bet you're not wearing any..." He swayed a little, "Any knickers under there..."

Just a little more! Almost there!

"There's something I've always wanted to do," I said. "Drink up. I'll be ever so offended otherwise."

In the moment he paused to drink, I peeled away, and made a beeline for Rita and Jac. By contrast, they looked the picture of comfortable, sober consent. Rita was smiling, and looked more relaxed. Jac trailed a finger along her collarbone, murmuring in a sweet tone. Jealousy sidled in like a knife between my ribs. I tamped it down.

"Sit with Ian a while," I told him, and helped Rita to her feet.

"We're just dancing," I whispered, my arms on her shoulders.

"Go on, have a... Have a little kiss," Ian said. He sounded awful. Surely, any minute now...

+

Thank you for reading!

Edited to fix the appalling typos! I submitted in a hurry worrying the site would go down again, sorry about! I was also doing it from my phone, and it lost a lot of formatting, so I fixed that as well.

TBC!