Chapter 102: Six Dresses II

It happened at about 20 past 2 and neither of them planned it.

She had stood up to stretch her back out and she had been sat on that floor for 5 hours, and she made a noise doing it, and he got up to take the mug out and she was in the way, and then she was not moving out of the way.

She had the tape measure still round her neck.

"You’ve been very good," she said.

"I’ve been sat down."

"You’ve been sat there 5 hours and you’ve not said one word about fabric." She had hold of the front of his jumper. "I did notice."

They got as far as the rug.

He had knelt on that rug before, in front of that machine, with a half-made dress above his head and her stood over him with pins in her mouth telling him not to look at it in daylight. Now the same dress was on a hanger on the back of the door and there were 4 more in pieces on the settee.

Neither of them got properly undressed.

He got her jeans off one leg and left them on the other. Her jumper came up and stayed round her middle, and he pulled the cups of her bra down under her tits rather than getting it off her, because she would not lift her arms and would not stop kissing him long enough to let him.

The cutting mat was 6 inches from his knee. There was a pincushion by her ear that she moved without looking.

"Upstairs are at work," she said. "I checked at 10."

"You checked at 10."

"I checked at 10 this morning and I’ve been thinking about it since about half 11, so don’t get clever."

He put his mouth on one nipple and his hand between her legs, and she was already soaking through her knickers before he’d got them off her, and she made a noise straight out into her own front room with no attempt whatsoever to catch it.

"Ah. God."

"There you go."

"I know. Don’t say anything about it, I’ll get self-conscious and I’ll go off." She had a fist in the back of his hair. "Get on with it. I’ve got 4 collars to do."

He got 2 fingers into her pussy and his thumb on her clit and she went up off that rug about an inch.

"Danny. Right. Yes. Now, do it now, I’m not doing 20 minutes."

He got into her in one and she put her heel in the back of his thigh and pulled.

And she was loud the whole way through it.

Not in stages, not getting there, not catching one and letting the next one go. Loud from about 30 seconds in, in a front room in Battersea at 20 past 2 on a Tuesday afternoon, with the machine sat 3 feet away with a sleeve still under the foot.

"Say it," he said.

"You know what I want."

"Say it out loud."

And she did, at full volume, without going red, and it was filthier than anything she had managed in that Travelodge, and she said it into his ear with her hand round the back of his neck.

He got a hand under her arse and pulled her up the rug about 6 inches and went in harder, and she came about a minute and a half later with her nails in his shoulder and her heel still in the back of his leg, and she said something into the side of his neck that he did not repeat to anybody.

Afterwards she lay on the floor with her jumper round her middle and her jeans round one ankle and her bra where he had left it, and looked at the ceiling.

"Right." She was still getting her breath. "That’s 20 minutes I’ve not got."

"Was it 20?"

"It was about 9." She was already getting up. "It’s the 11 minutes of lying about that I’ve not got."

She did her jeans up, put the tape measure back round her neck, and sat down at the machine with her hair a state and got the sleeve back under the foot.

Brrrrrp.

Danny lay on the rug on his own for a minute and looked at the underside of that machine.

The light started going at half 3 and she put the lamp on and swore at it because it was the wrong colour for green wool.

At 10 to 4 she had all 6 collars done and she stood them up on the table in a row like a small green committee, and she stood back and looked at them, and Danny looked at them too and could not tell you one thing about any of them.

"Are they good?"

"Four of them are good." She pointed with the scissors. "That one’s got a millimetre in it I can see and nobody else will, and that one’s wrong and I’m doing it again tomorrow."

"Which one’s wrong?"

"You can’t tell."

"No."

"That’s the whole job, that." She put the scissors down. "Right. I’m going to do the second one’s body while I’ve got the light, and then I’m doing us fish and chips and you can go and get them because I’ve got green fluff in my hair."

His phone went at 4:02.

It was face down on the arm of the settee where it had been all day and it had done nothing since Priyanka at 8 in the morning.

He turned it over.

[ Shift assigned. ]

[ Grade 4. ]

Danny sat very still on a settee in Battersea with a pile of dark green wool next to him.

Grade 4.

Ashcombe’s was a 2 and that was £140,000 for 2 hours.

It’s never said 4.

He looked over at her. She had her back to him and the machine going and a pin in her mouth.

Another one came up.

[ 19:30. ]

[ Kit has been delivered. ]