Sisteria by Sue Margolis Read Free Book Online Page B

the bleached head, and the hairy arms sticking out of his Cradle of Filth T-shirt, to her he still looked about three. What was more, he had changed emotional tack and was now looking up at her with huge pleading eyes.
    Even though she had no doubt he was swinging the lead because he hadn’t done his homework, she knew she would give in eventually - on the strict understanding that Benny spent the day catching up.
    ***
    While Beverley threw the second crispbread into the swing bin and began making a plate of Benny’s favourite peanut butter, chocolate spread and jam sandwiches, her son lay in bed and continued to gaze at the Year Eleven school photograph.
    Sixth row back, third from the left, there she sat. Lettice Allard, the love of Benny’s life, his wanking muse and the reason he had refused to go to school. He had been desperate to stay at home not because he had got behind with a school assignment, but because he was exhausted, having spent the entire night trying to work out whether he stood even a remote chance of pulling this exquisite blue-eyed goddess.
    Yesterday during lunch break, when a gang of them got together to smoke some weed at Lettice’s house, which was just over the road from the school, he’d felt pretty sure she’d given him reason to hope. But he couldn’t be certain. On the other hand there had been that long, sexy look she’d given him, not to mention the hair flick. Correction. Two hair flicks. These had to be sure signs of her unspoken desire. On the other hand, maybe he’d misread the signs and her desire was only unspoken because she didn’t desire him.
    Somehow, the conversation got round to circumcision. As usual, Lettice had been riding on her PC high horse. (She’d inherited her overbearing manner and politics from her mother, a Marxist aristo who had married beneath her.) She began by saying that in her opinion circumcision was the institutionalised mutilation of infants who couldn’t give their permission. A lad called Neil then accused her of being the knob police. She lost her temper. He then accused her of being ratty because she was menstruating. She gave a high-pitched screech of fury.
    â€˜For your information, Neil,’ she said, ‘women don’t menstruate, they fem struate.’ She took a deep breath and returned to the subject under discussion.
    â€˜Anyway, all I know is that when I finally decide to renounce my celibate state, there’s no way I’m doing it with a bloke who doesn’t own a foreskin. It’s just so unnatural.’
    She then turned to Benny, smiled and performed the first hair flick.
    â€˜By the way, Benny, you might be interested to know that while I was on the Web looking for stuff on female circumcision the other night, I found this group of circumcised men who are totally vexed about it, and call themselves circumcision survivors. They’ve even worked out ways to reclaim their foreskins.’
    She went over to the leather-topped desk standing in the bay window and picked up half a dozen print-outs. She handed them to Benny.
    â€˜I thought being Jewish and all that you might find it useful... I mean, you must be pretty angry with your parents for having you chopped without your permission.’
    Benny, hugely embarrassed by this public discussion of his penis, yet simultaneously flattered by the idea of Lettice having spent even a few seconds considering its existence, let alone its well-being, coloured up and said he’d never really thought about it.
    â€˜Well, maybe it’s time you did. I mean...’ she said, throwing him an unmistakably sexy look.
    She smiled at him for what must have been a full five seconds. This was followed by the second hair flick. Blushing, Benny folded up the papers and slipped them into his jacket pocket. Was she giving him the come-on? He just couldn’t be sure. But as he lay in his bed, he knew he had to do everything he could to