Janice Gentle Gets Sexy by Mavis Cheek Read Free Book Online Page B

with a snap, but it is too late. She has begun to converse and he takes it up keenly.
    'Course, I remember when they used to put little wooden pips in the jam to make it seem like raspberries.'
    'Really?' she says, and sighs.
    'That's how the Co-op came into being, you know.' He rests his hands on the counter in waxsome mood. 'To improve the standards of food. Of course, nowadays . . .' He is off.
    Janice awaits patiently, putting her mind to more engaging things. She remembers, more cheerfully, that she has chosen her triumvirate of characters. She is here to buy tea for the ritual of beginning, and she wonders, as the history of modern social retailing unfolds before her, where her triumvirate will take her, and where she, in turn, will take them.
    *
    In the office of her Boss Masculine the secretary with blonde hair, pink lips and a daintily turned ankle stands. The man has dandruff on his dark lapel and two warts on his left hand. His face is tired. She hands him a cup of coffee and wishes he were like the boss in her magazine story, the one called Hugo. Hugo would look up abstractedly with his darkset eyes, and momentarily his guard would slip and she would see the real man behind the tough facade. Something would have begun between them, but she would not, yet, know what. But the Boss Masculine does not look up and behind him there is no mirror to reveal - perhaps - a broadset body with powerful shoulders, only a sales chart awash with blue pin flags. She takes a sheaf of papers from the side of his desk and departs. Only her scent remains in the room, vying with the stale tobacco smells. He lights his third tipped cigarette that morning and puts through a call to Birmingham. His wife is to have an hysterectomy next week and the unspoken hope between them both is that their long-dead sex life will be revived. Perhaps it will be a medical miracle, though he has little hope of this. The hospital has given him a book on how to cope with a woman whose womb has just been removed, and it has depressed him. Convalescence can, it seems, take months and requires patience and gentleness. He seems to have run out of both commodities over the years. He sighs as Birmingham comes through, picks up the telephone and lifts off into his dynamic businessman role. It is the one he is best at, the last saving grace of his life. He has failed pretty badly in the marital one.
    The Little Blonde Secretary beyond his door also sighs. In her magazine it discusses the all-engulfing multiple orgasm as a Woman's Right, which makes her feel anxious about herself. An unusual experience. There is also another article, as yet unread, on how to avoid the trap of boredom in your marriage: 'Yes, it can happen even after six months.' This makes her doubly anxious and doubly convinced that it is best left unread. She fingers the cover of her Janice Gentle, which also sits in her drawer. Here there is no such thing as a physical description of the all-engulfing multiple orgasm. Only at the end of the book, when the right couple are united, when good has won over bad (which will reliably happen, though with many a twist and turn on the way), only then will it b egin to express itself. The Littl e Blonde Secretary has her own concept of what it is like, this desirable state of paradise: it is like the sea breaking wave upon wave as a suntanned male face with even, white teeth and an expression of tenderness places his warm, moist lips upon her own. Then there will be three dots on the page which represent the fulfilment of the dream. The unfamiliarity of this experience is somewhat explained to the sighing secretary because Derek goes pink in the sun and has slightly buck teeth. When he kisses her, there are no dots at the end of the line to express what comes next. His hand reaches straight up her nightshirt and between her legs, and it is no use calling, 'Dot, dot, dot. . .' for he never reads, anyway. He is too busy mending the window sashes or cleaning out